Major revisions in Age of Conan crafting revealed
Okay, Funcom, we get it. You're deadly serious about fixing Age of Conan. First the beginnings of the PvP patch went live, 'Patch 2', giving players PvP XP and gear. Then we got to see the reworked notoriety system on Testlive, along with shady camps and six pages of patchnotes. And now we get a lengthy document about coming changes to the crafting system on the Testlive server. Good heavens, anyone would think that Craig Morrison bloke actually knew what he was doing.
Age of Conan crafting had been lacklustre. The new changes, which are scheduled to go live as part of Update 3 - the very same update that will polish off the PvP changes - add much more depth and complexity to the tradeskills. Weapons and armor will now have recipes that drop for city, base and culture versions, depending on whether they require a guild city or not. The 'base' pieces can be worn, and also used up in crafting to produce new pieces.
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Culture armors in particular look like they will add a much-demanded level of diversity in appearance: 'Culture armors are high level lore-related armors, and we have given each class their own set. The recipes for culture armors do not require the top tier Armorsmithing feats, nor do they require a guild city. Each recipe can produce multiple pieces of the set, and each piece requires the appropriate base armor piece as a component. We intend for this to be the first step in supplying players with explicit visual variety in crafted armor.'
In addition, the variety of Alchemy resources in the world has been trimmed, skinners and weavers get new recipes to work from, woodcutters can make upgradeable staffs, and there's been an across-the-board change to tradeskill resource drops.
The date when Update 3 drops is looking more and more like an early Christmas (or Midwinter, or Kwanzaa, or other seasonal gift-giving festival of your choice) for Age of Conan players. Moreover, none of these changes so far have included any of the additional adventure content promised, such as Ymir's Pass, the House of Crom or the Tarantia Commons. Those are still to come.
[Thanks, Rinlahn!]
