All About Items: An Age of Conan Interview

[Cody Bye]

For massively multiplayer online gamers, often their biggest desire in their favorite game is to get amazing pieces of loot. Function, look, and rarity all have an impact on how players react to particular items, so it often becomes a fairly difficult task to create the perfect armors and weapons for the level of a character. It takes an army of people to create an MMOG, and a good chunk of those folks are interested in how these items will affect the game.

Therefore, when the Ten Ton Hammer staff was interested in the items in Age of Conan, we turned to a group of individuals who had their hands in making appropriate items for the game. Joel Bylos, Thorbjørn Olsen, Mats Tveita, and Thomas C.M. Lindseth all sat down with Cody “Micajah” Bye and Ben Avery to answer our questions about items.

We are using graphical assets to reflect that this is equipment intended to be used. We don’t have huge flaring shoulder pads, we don’t have pants that are burning in six places. We have equipment that serves a purpose, and it looks the part. That said, the amount of detail that is in our equipment is astounding. If you equip a full set of chainmail, for instance, you’ll be able to see every link in the armor. It has specular as well, so it reflects light, casts shadow, and so on.

Check out the full interview here!

What do you think about the items and the crafting system in Age of Conan? Do you think crafters will finally find their day in the sun? Let us know!

[chadrew]

That's cool. So there are raid (PvE) items you get from raiding, PvP items you get from PvP and crafted items you can customize. How exactly do you get an item from PvP though?

If you go into PvP, you will get loot that is good for you in PvP.

Uh oh, I hope it won't mean "grinding" honor points or something like that.

[Cody Bye]

I think that's from Blood Coins. All I know is that there will be PvP type loot.

[Acidbaron]

Thanks,

Good interview gives a good idea what to expect from the item department.

You forgot to highlight a question, just letting you know

"
So you’re partially going back to the idea of needing to hunt X monster to get Y weapon?"

[Vendrac]

It's sounding promising! I love that they are planning to put in some way to customize the look of your mounts, that could turn out pretty sweet.

I'm also glad to hear that it will technically be possible for them to put in some sort of dye system, though I don't see why they are so afraid about people dying their armor outrageous colors. The simple solution to that is to give the players a limited color palette to begin with.

I'm still hoping that they will, at some point, let the weaponsmiths and armorsmiths choose what national/racial style to make their items in.

[Cody Bye]

Originally Posted by Acidbaron

Thanks,

Good interview gives a good idea what to expect from the item department.

You forgot to highlight a question, just letting you know

"
So you’re partially going back to the idea of needing to hunt X monster to get Y weapon?"

Fixed.

[JoBildo]

I'm always open about the fact that I'm not a fan of raiding. Every game that I've been a part of has made me hate raiding more and more.

That said, AoC could change that. The combat, the pacing... it might actually be a game I like to raid in.

On topic now, I'm really just hoping they mean what they say about crafting. I want to be able to make some of the most useful items in the game for myself and not have to go raiding to do it. If they can deliver that, I'll be content.

MMOs aren't a gear-fest for me, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't care at all.