Developer Panel Video Part 3

[B. de la Durantaye]

Part three of the Developer Panel Q & A video showcases our wacky devs telling us about even more Age of Conan goodness. In this video we learn about class merges and balancing; Tortage and low level content; the Collector's Edition; rough system specs; engine tweaking; combos; art choice and character customization and clothing.

• Be sure to watch it here

• The transcript is available here

• Are the classes going to feel complete, or crammed? How often will you be able to enjoy Tortage before it gets old? Will your system handle the game? Let us know your thoughts.

[Top]

The Official FAQ on the Official website still refers to choosing your Class at level 20 but I'm pretty sure the developers mentioned in these clips that they moved class sleection to an earlier level ( 5 I think).

If that is true do you now start with an archtype? Or choose it about level 3 or so?

-Top

[B. de la Durantaye]

They weren't too specific about it. They did say "earlier in the game" and Gaute also said something along the lines of "this allows us to give unique spells as early as level 1."

[B. de la Durantaye]

The transcript of this video is now available here.

[Johnny]

Thanks again Mach and Cody for this, I read the transcripts of both these videos, thanks guys.

As for your question top, this fairly lengthy quotes should answer it

Evan: I can also add something really quick. The reason that we originally allowed the skipping of 1-20 was that long, long ago you didn’t pick your class, you didn’t pick your specialized class until you became level 20. So you were just a mage, and when you got to level 20 you picked “I’m going to be a Demonologist,” but that’s been changed. So we’re choosing our class earlier in the game. That has allowed us to introduce new class abilities starting at level 5 instead of level 20.

Gaute: Even at level 1.

Evan: Yeah, even at level 1 you get a few startup things. Because we’re introducing that right away now, there’s really not the need to skip. The main reason we wanted to allow people to skip is to get into their class after they’ve played it once.

i.e. You pick you're class at the start, and start getting class unique abilities from level 1.

[SaTaN69]

I am so sad with this recent news of the loss of druid. I guess it had to come...there is no lore of druids in hyboria. I think it is ridiculous though that the druid has been mergered with not only Stormcaller, but also now Scion of Set. Does anyone know if a druid feat line still exists? Actually, how could it!? A classification of Tempest of Set assigns a diety to the character, where druids do not worship dieties...instead chosing to realize that God has many faces, and no one way of worship is correct. Also, with the main title of the character as tempest of set, does this mean that armor graphics and armor class will remain the same as the one that applied scion of set? Was the druid armor graphics just thrown away? It seems to me that this new merge has completly undermined the values and character development for a roleplaying druid character. While I am greatly sadneded by this, I hope somebody knows information which may answer my questions. Any help is greatly appreciated

[B. de la Durantaye]

Originally Posted by SaTaN69

Does anyone know if a druid feat line still exists? Actually, how could it!? A classification of Tempest of Set assigns a diety to the character, where druids do not worship dieties...instead chosing to realize that God has many faces, and no one way of worship is correct. Also, with the main title of the character as tempest of set, does this mean that armor graphics and armor class will remain the same as the one that applied scion of set? Was the druid armor graphics just thrown away? It seems to me that this new merge has completly undermined the values and character development for a roleplaying druid character. While I am greatly sadneded by this, I hope somebody knows information which may answer my questions. Any help is greatly appreciated

Well the abilities still exist. Evan said in the interview "The Tempest of Set, which used to be the Stormcaller, and Scion, has basically the abilities of both of them."

Good point about the deity though. But who knows how much of the abilities of the druid were themed off of not having a deity? Chances are that there weren't any. It would have been harder to re-theme, say, a Scion of Set into a Druid of the Storm, as the scion would have surely had "Set-themed" feats.

As far as the armor sets go, from my understanding, there isn't any "class-specific" armor. They went this way to avoid rottage during raids. It's explained in one of the other videos if I remember correctly.

[Johnny]

Originally Posted by Machail

Well the abilities still exist. Evan said in the interview "The Tempest of Set, which used to be the Stormcaller, and Scion, has basically the abilities of both of them."

Good point about the deity though. But who knows how much of the abilities of the druid were themed off of not having a deity? Chances are that there weren't any. It would have been harder to re-theme, say, a Scion of Set into a Druid of the Storm, as the scion would have surely had "Set-themed" feats.

As far as the armor sets go, from my understanding, there isn't any "class-specific" armor. They went this way to avoid rottage during raids. It's explained in one of the other videos if I remember correctly.

Quite right about the last part, I think it was one of the Dev Panel ones.

As for feats, I think/hope it was the electrical side of the druid/stormcaller that will be carried over to Tempest, along with the Scion's poison?

I'm not sure, but that seems logical to me, the biggest and coolest parts of each class. We'll see though. Really keen on playing that class myself. =]

[SaTaN69]

The Druid was already merged with the stormcaller am i right? So this new merge was between druid of the storm and scion of set...which i take to basically mean the eradication of the druid feat line. For instance, the merge of two healer classes (scion of set and druid) with a dps class (stormcaller), one of the healing classes will cease to exist in order to keep the same amount of feats available to all classes (which have only been a merge of two classes, if any). When the name of the class retains the previous tag tempest of set...the 'of set' means that the scion is retained as the healing branch and 'tempest' shows the incorporation of stormcaller.

The theme of druid was set actually, it was of a nature diety who leaned toward cures and heals from herbs and plants around them. "Their understanding of the world around them also means that they have an almost endless knowledge of natural healing remedies that can keep their allies standing in battle." - taken from nonupdated class and archetype list

And armor graphics are slightly different between classes, why would the renderings of characters in the art book appear different if they would all look the same? I wasn't speaking of class-specific, but each armor should look different on the different races or classes of people who wear it even though the armor is the same for all - leather breastplate for example.
--I hope I do not sound like i am flaming, I just feel it important to discuss this matter as thorough as possible as it is a major change that has occured. I understand the position of the Devs and their reason for this change, yet i still see it that this is not a merge but a possible removal of the Druid healing class.

[Johnny]

Originally Posted by SaTaN69

The Druid was already merged with the stormcaller am i right? So this new merge was between druid of the storm and scion of set...which i take to basically mean the eradication of the druid feat line.

The stormcaller was just another name for the Druid of the Storm, they were the same class. I'm pretty sure anyway, thats what it said on the wiki.

Again, as people have said, the best/most fun abilities of both classes have been pooled,which I basically take to mean there was no complete eradication of any feat line.

For instance, the merge of two healer classes (scion of set and druid) with a dps class (stormcaller), one of the healing classes will cease to exist in order to keep the same amount of feats available to all classes (which have only been a merge of two classes, if any).

Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Stormcaller/DotS are the same. Funcom basically went 'two of our preist archetype classes are about doing dps to heal better, they just do dps in different forms (poison v. electrical) they were too similar. That was in one of the Dev Panel videos, pretty sure Gaute said it.

When the name of the class retains the previous tag tempest of set...the 'of set' means that the scion is retained as the healing branch and 'tempest' shows the incorporation of stormcaller.

Agreed, Tempest is definitely the storm part, but I always took the 'of set' part to mean the poison/snake stuff, as in the lore Set is always referred to as a giant snake-god. I was led to beleive the kind of 'third' feat tree was common to all priests, and that this would most likely retain healing feats/buffs that are useful to all priests.

And armor graphics are slightly different between classes, why would the renderings of characters in the art book appear different if they would all look the same? I wasn't speaking of class-specific, but each armor should look different on the different races or classes of people who wear it even though the armor is the same for all - leather breastplate for example.

I think in regards to the art-book stuff, the armour will be graphically the same for each race, they are all humans after all, but the graphics of the characters themselves will vary greatly, something like 40 sliders in creation.

Gaute also said their would be layers, so you could wear the same armour as someone else, but it would be on a different layer, so you could mix and match appearance of sets, such that everyone may looik different, even if they all do equip a leather breastplate. In theory two Cimmerians, say, of different classes may look the same in regards to armour. I don't think it will look different based only on class. It might not even look different based on race. There won't be as much variation in size, like in WoW and such, so I think thats how they'll go.

--I hope I do not sound like i am flaming, I just feel it important to discuss this matter as thorough as possible as it is a major change that has occured. I understand the position of the Devs and their reason for this change, yet i still see it that this is not a merge but a possible removal of the Druid healing class.

I totally agree, open discussion is best, and I hope I also don't sound like I am flaming you, or anyone. I just have the opposite opinion, that it is indeed a merge, and not a total removal of any one class.

Anyway, as usual, take my posts with a grain of salt hey, pretty sure the information I cited was accurate, please feel free to disagree, it happens fairly reguarly =].

~Johnny.