Age of Conan declares rules for RP, four months after launch

by Adrian Bott Sep 14th 2008 at 10:00AM

Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Roleplaying

Better late than never? The graphically intense, atmospheric slashfest Age of Conan has had designated roleplaying servers since day one, but it doesn't seem to have occurred to Funcom to give that status any kind of binding definition, let alone a formal code of conduct. Now, though, the exhaustive rules for what you can and can't do on a roleplay server have been laid out.

They're pretty much what you would expect from AoC. All names except those that gel with the Hyborian background are prohibited, so there will be no more StoneColdKillah or DARTH CONAN types running around. Some channels are content restricted. There's also a general injunction: 'Do not break the RP of other players. That includes harassing them by jumping around constantly, disturbing RP events or sessions etc.'

We're not at all sure how exactly this is meant to be implemented on RP-PvP servers. Are you not allowed to hack the head off the Aquilonian dog who ambushed you yestereve, because he happens to be engaged in an intense in-character poetic recital? Would in-character weddings be immune to raiding parties intent on slaughtering the groom and carrying off the bride, as occasionally happened in history? Would Conan himself have to sit back and wait for the conspirators to finish roleplaying out their conspiracy to dethrone him before he could split their skulls to the teeth?

Fortunately, Age of Conan GMs have a reputation for being clued-up when it comes to roleplay.

Tags: age-of-conan, aoc, funcom, roleplaying, rp

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

george said on 10:45AM 9-14-2008

Pathetic huh? Funcom is the worst MMO company I have ever seen... 4 months and they still have not released a PVP patch that was suppose to already be in the game... Screw AOC and screw Funcom...

Worst company I have ever had to deal with... screw them...

crsh said on 3:50PM 9-14-2008

The PvP patch still hasn't gone live?! Wow.. that's pathetic.

recursive said on 11:50AM 9-14-2008

Seem pretty standard really, did they not have any announcement of this kind in place before? Weird.

That said, has anyone ever seen these being enforced in any MMO? Never seen much of that myself besides the occassional forced namechange, after a player reported another, doubt it'll be different here.

Some of those rules would do well on any type of server though, this world has enough DarthConanElfDKs.

RogueJedi86 said on 2:40PM 9-14-2008

"That said, has anyone ever seen these being enforced in any MMO? Never seen much of that myself besides the occassional forced namechange, after a player reported another, doubt it'll be different here."

Depends on the game's atmosphere. Some MMOs breed a more immersive world and mature community. I'm looking at Star Wars Galaxies and Lord of the Rings Online. RP ain't enforced there, but the very nature of the games and their player base makes RP natural. It's especially noticeable in SWG, since all the kids got bored and annoyed and quit years ago.

On the other hand, you get the MMOs with a lot of people, like WoW, where it's just too popular to attract a mostly mature community. That leads to RP attempts just being laughed at. And I do get the idea that the older players tend to tolerate and engage in roleplaying more than the younger crowd.

Gilthas said on 2:08PM 9-14-2008

Reading this, it is the first time I realised there are NO RP-PvE Age of Conan servers in the US, while Europe has got one of those for the English-speaking crowd.

Makes me wonder if RP is less popular in the US ... any comments on that ?

recursive said on 6:33PM 9-14-2008

@RJ:

Yeah I guess part of it is the setting and people.

I did have my share of fun events in WoW back in the day, but being on a RP-PVP server it eventually just got drowned out by the PvP crowd. I could see it work in LotRO due to the setting, although I've never had a chance to try out the main EU RP server (friends elsewhere and all), I should get around to that.

You can't really enforce these anyways I suppose, the best RP is probably where it doesn't have to be enforced. That said, I wish it could be more "encouraged" in some way, you know where you stand with PvE and PvP servers, but RP is more of a designation of what you might find if you go looking than anything else.

Like you say though, there's more to that than rules. But I guess these are decent enough (common sense) guidelines.

Ardwulf said on 7:36PM 9-14-2008

In fairness, AoC has had RP rules in place from day one. These are more extensive, and enforcement has been iffy, but to say that there was nothing in place until now is simply incorrect.