Major revisions in Age of Conan crafting revealed
by Adrian Bott 
Oct 2nd 2008 at 1:00PM
Filed under: Fantasy, Age of Conan, Patches, Crafting
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!]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
djpsotman1 said on 1:43PM 10-02-2008
Ahh this is a breath of fresh air. after the gem nerf and with the implimentation of pvp gear alot of people where worried that the crafting professions where done for and a waste of time. with the announced changes in patch 3 and beyond its going to give the economy a nice boost and some depth to a semi-marginal system. YIPEE!
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djpostman1 said on 1:45PM 10-02-2008
Oh yes and they said Ymirs pass may still come in patch 3, its just not on TL yet. its in the game, just not open, same with Taratia commons
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Celestial Lord said on 1:53PM 10-02-2008
This one major change has convinced me to renew my Age of Conan subscription.
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david said on 3:19PM 10-02-2008
Too late for me... got addicted to WAR and their amazing PVP... why would I go back to a game that has a publisher that lies to their customers and treats them like crap? :-\
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Merkur said on 4:51PM 10-02-2008
amazing that a new game director can pull of! seems Failcom had a very serious leadership issue there. Lets see if they manage to become Fun again...
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mockindignant said on 5:43PM 10-02-2008
I think this is great and all, but the damage is already done. I quit after one week and $50 because the game was so terrible. I know I am not alone on this, most of my gaming friends feel the same way. So how are they going to get people to come back?
That last part was rhetorical of course. Fool me once shame on you...etc.
As far as I am concerned AoC is a failure. Nothing they are going to do will win back the people they so casually and remorselessly fleeced by pawning off software that was not even beta quality in my mind. Funcom can go pound sand, their brand name is garbage to me now. Clown shoes.
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luck said on 7:52PM 10-02-2008
It is amazing how many people are trying bury Aoc.Aoc makes the positive changes that they where asking for when they playing the game.Slowly Aoc is becoming the game they wanted but people keep on saying aoc is dead.Basically they want aoc to be bad game because they had a bad exp..It will take some repair its image but second pvp patch and craft change moves conan in right direction.
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Jeromai said on 8:33PM 10-02-2008
I'm encouraged. In a year's time, Age of Conan might actually be decent enough to return back to. It's great if the new director can pull AoC out of the slump it was in. The graphics were stunning, the combat had a different feel to it. The incompetent and late attempts at patching were what finally drove me away. For the record, nerfing before fixing is not something to do to inspire confidence. It just suggested that there was no one who had a clue behind the helm.
AoC has been schizophrenic, though. It see-saws up and down. They look good one moment, and then they fubar something horrendous the next. If they manage to maintain this consistency over the months, then they've indeed pulled out of their slump. Subscription fee = consistency and confidence required.
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Jack said on 9:10PM 10-02-2008
great news I still feel burned with my hurry to get into the game but I still "own" it and look like I may get some more fun for that 60 bucks one day.
Funcom keep the updates and fixes going and I will be back! And please make sure that fired game director never can get a job anywhere again!!
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Daraujo said on 11:30PM 10-02-2008
There is never a single cause to any effect in real life.
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