Welcome to the forums Jason.  I am really looking forward to this game, Funcom has been one of the few developers who are not afraid of innovating.  I think you will find an audience here who are really tired of Wow and it's clones.

1. Since the pvp areas are where the guild cities will be, what controls will you have to prevent the 3am raids used to circumvent when most of your guild is offline? 

2. Will there be some sort of mail system so that you can share resouces between characters on the same server?

3. Does fighting mounted give you a distinct advantage over those that are not mounted?

Thanks again.

Hello Jason,

Welcome to mmorpg.com.    But have a couple of questions regarding pvp.  Now I am a big crafter so how is ganking going to be handled?  Say I'm crafting at one of the tables will I be attackable?  This is one of the main reasons why I'm not a big pvp fan.  I played on vox server eq2 so not it's like I never tried pvp. 

Hate dealing with griefers,  those who just hound harvesters and crafters.  Would love to try out AOC's crafting system as well, but are there going to be safe area for crafters or a pve server?

Originally posted by LadyReno

Hello Jason,

Welcome to mmorpg.com.    But have a couple of questions regarding pvp.  Now I am a big crafter so how is ganking going to be handled?  Say I'm crafting at one of the tables will I be attackable?  This is one of the main reasons why I'm not a big pvp fan.  I played on vox server eq2 so not it's like I never tried pvp. 

Hate dealing with griefers,  those who just hound harvesters and crafters.  Would love to try out AOC's crafting system as well, but are there going to be safe area for crafters or a pve server?

Hehe, this one I might be able to answer, and save Mr. Jason the time.

What you seem to be describing, is a Free for All, or FFA type of server, where there is PvP anywhere, anytime. The "primary" type of server that AoC will have, is what they describe PvE. What this means, is that other than the mini-games, and bar brawling, wherever they occur, the only place that you'll be attackable is in the Border Kingdom zone. So while you are crafting, or adventuring in other areas, you will not be able to attack or be attacked by other players.

There will be other servers, Roleplaying, or RP, and PvP. The PvP server would imply that you could be attacked anywhere at anytime, although the part that I cant answer (hehe, because I dont know) is what other rules would be in place, for instance not attacking in a City or some such. If those are ironed out, I'll be Jason could tell ya.

Hopefully that answers it for ya for the most part.

Originally posted by Ciredric

Welcome to the forums Jason.  I am really looking forward to this game, Funcom has been one of the few developers who are not afraid of innovating.  I think you will find an audience here who are really tired of Wow and it's clones.

1. Since the pvp areas are where the guild cities will be, what controls will you have to prevent the 3am raids used to circumvent when most of your guild is offline? 

2. Will there be some sort of mail system so that you can share resouces between characters on the same server?

3. Does fighting mounted give you a distinct advantage over those that are not mounted?

Thanks again.

 

Okay, I'll do a poor job, but try to answer a bit, even if I'm not Jason.

1) The guild cities are not the PvP areas (at least on normal cities) I think you are meaning the Battlekeep/Tower area, which is known as The Border Kingdoms. There was a scrapped plan of a "tent" that a guild would set up in order to start the PvP, and it would have to be up for a certain amount of time. I havent seen what has replaced that though, although I believe it was Jason who had said he was not a fan of the earlier method.

 

3) Without having played, I think this one is a gimmie. Of course being mounted, attacking an unmounted person is going to give you an advantage. Of course I'd imagine someone who is using a long polearm would be able to at least close to negate the advantage of being on a horse. Hopefully we can get some more elaboration about it!

Hi Jason,

I think its great that your able to come here with an offical presence, it's a really welcomed sight!

One thing has been nagging me lately and information was a little thin on the ground in finding - That is, would you be able to confirm that Age of Conan supports Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors, by support I mean will the game take advantage of these extra processors in a proper multi threaded way?

I appreciate that you might not be able to answer this directly at this time, but if possible even a hint would be great.

I know that in The Acolytes we have a fair few members who will be upgrading and buying new computers just for this game, even a well place hint might save us all some money if only you could oblige!

Once again its really good to see you on these forums, I hope you don't get bogged down as per your blog =)

Regards,

Avery

Originally posted by Athelan

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Originally posted by Athelan 
I've been dealing with Sturmrabe for 2 years now and he is won over even :P

Ok, so my first question is this:  How big a pain in the arse is Sturmrabe?

Actually, you probably should give Sturm and Aelfinn beta slots if they don't have them already.  They have been your biggest defenders around here for a quite a while.

Ok, all bullshit aside let's see if you can give me a straight answer to a simple question.

1.  Does aquiring the very best items in the game require PvE raiding?

and a complimentary question...

2.  Can the very best items be aquired without the involvement of PvE raiding at any point in the process.  To clarify:  this means without PvE raiding for materials, gems, quest pieces, or anything else needed to get the final item.

These are basically the same question. First it would depend on how you define best, best for what? Best for PvE? probably. But I dont see a problem with that. And we define raiding as anything that requires you to organize more than one group. We want the challenging group encounters where guilds can form to tackle bosses but we want those things to be doable. Someone having to do something that not everyone can do and getting something unique is not a bad thing, the usual complaint is no way to ever get there. Look at Lost Dungeons of Norrath in EQ and how it let people token farm their way to raid level epics. It wasn't easy but there was a path to get there.

This is sort of similar to a heavily ask question about item balance and PvE vs PvP. A lot of people are very concerned about seeing
the standard from World of Warcraft which was max level end game raid geared character trouncing everyone in PvP because of gear. To address this we decided to have combat be a two layer system with PvP combat stats that are additive ontop of PvE stats. This means that PvP specific gear can rival or be even better than PvE gear for PvP without imbalancing the PvE aspect of the game.

That is the greatest news I have heard about this game so far.

Originally posted by Athelan

Originally posted by Neanderthal

1.  Does aquiring the very best items in the game require PvE raiding?

and a complimentary question...

2.  Can the very best items be aquired without the involvement of PvE raiding at any point in the process.  To clarify:  this means without PvE raiding for materials, gems, quest pieces, or anything else needed to get the final item.

These are basically the same question. First it would depend on how you define best, best for what? Best for PvE? probably. But I dont see a problem with that. And we define raiding as anything that requires you to organize more than one group. We want the challenging group encounters where guilds can form to tackle bosses but we want those things to be doable.

None of that answers my question.  Sorry, but I did tell you I like to pick apart dev statements.

 Someone having to do something that not everyone can do and getting something unique is not a bad thing,

Since I was asking about PvE raiding, to me this says, "PvE raiders deserve better stuff."

 the usual complaint is no way to ever get there. Look at Lost Dungeons of Norrath in EQ and how it let people token farm their way to raid level epics. It wasn't easy but there was a path to get there.

What does this have to do with AoC?

This is sort of similar to a heavily ask question about item balance and PvE vs PvP. A lot of people are very concerned about seeing
the standard from World of Warcraft which was max level end game raid geared character trouncing everyone in PvP because of gear. To address this we decided to have combat be a two layer system with PvP combat stats that are additive ontop of PvE stats. This means that PvP specific gear can rival or be even better than PvE gear for PvP without imbalancing the PvE aspect of the game.

Ok, but when you say "PvP specific gear" do you mean gear that can be aquired by DOING PvP?  Or do you mean gear that is meant to be used in PvP but is aquired outside of PvP.  How you get the gear is obviously my main concern.

So with your blood money system can players aquire a full compliment of PvP equipment (without ever setting foot in a PvE raid) which is at least equal to the best PvE aquired gear (for doing PvP at any rate)?

And to follow up on that:  When you talk about PvP stats does that include everything about equipment that enhances a character or are you just talking about basic weapon damage and armor AC.  Do those "PvP stats" include things like character stat bonuses, resist bonuses, magical effects on weapons, clickable spell effects on items,  skill enhancement bonuses and so on?

Ok enough for now.  I do have questions that don't relate to PvE raiding versus non-raiding but the whole "Raiders uber alles" thing is my biggest gripe about mmorpgs (obviously).

hello jason, welcome to the forums, it's nice to have a reliable source representative to so diligently answer to all (or some) of the questions concerning Age of Conan.

1. I just wanted to ask about respeccing especially in case of healing classes - how much less effective will they be while levelling if someone chooses to focus on healing, will they be group useless if not specced to heal? and will there be a penalty for respeccing and some kind of points pool to distribute?

thanx in advance for any feedback on that one

The Border Kingdoms is primarily a PvP area with lots of stuff going on in the region. Lots of PvP oriented stuff. I am not really a fan of throwing PvE "carebearing" into what is supposed to be a warzone. There should be enough other incentives to be there.

Player Cities are not in the Border Kingdoms, only the Battlekeeps are.

I really dont know enough about crafting but its not a random resource attribute system a la SWG if thats what you are asking.

There is a tradepost that will allow transferring items as well as access to things like an auction house.

Being mounted obviously gives some advantages depending on terrain but you can be forcefully dismounted and thrown off and your mount can be targeted by attacks.

Bloodmoney is in essence dirty coin because you aquired it through murder. It lets us control the BloodMoney seperately from normal gold/silver/tin/copper in any way we like.

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Originally posted by Athelan

Originally posted by Neanderthal

1.  Does aquiring the very best items in the game require PvE raiding?

and a complimentary question...

2.  Can the very best items be aquired without the involvement of PvE raiding at any point in the process.  To clarify:  this means without PvE raiding for materials, gems, quest pieces, or anything else needed to get the final item.

These are basically the same question. First it would depend on how you define best, best for what? Best for PvE? probably. But I dont see a problem with that. And we define raiding as anything that requires you to organize more than one group. We want the challenging group encounters where guilds can form to tackle bosses but we want those things to be doable.

None of that answers my question.  Sorry, but I did tell you I like to pick apart dev statements.

 Someone having to do something that not everyone can do and getting something unique is not a bad thing,

Since I was asking about PvE raiding, to me this says, "PvE raiders deserve better stuff."

 the usual complaint is no way to ever get there. Look at Lost Dungeons of Norrath in EQ and how it let people token farm their way to raid level epics. It wasn't easy but there was a path to get there.

What does this have to do with AoC?

This is sort of similar to a heavily ask question about item balance and PvE vs PvP. A lot of people are very concerned about seeing
the standard from World of Warcraft which was max level end game raid geared character trouncing everyone in PvP because of gear. To address this we decided to have combat be a two layer system with PvP combat stats that are additive ontop of PvE stats. This means that PvP specific gear can rival or be even better than PvE gear for PvP without imbalancing the PvE aspect of the game.

Ok, but when you say "PvP specific gear" do you mean gear that can be aquired by DOING PvP?  Or do you mean gear that is meant to be used in PvP but is aquired outside of PvP.  How you get the gear is obviously my main concern.

So with your blood money system can players aquire a full compliment of PvP equipment (without ever setting foot in a PvE raid) which is at least equal to the best PvE aquired gear (for doing PvP at any rate)?

And to follow up on that:  When you talk about PvP stats does that include everything about equipment that enhances a character or are you just talking about basic weapon damage and armor AC.  Do those "PvP stats" include things like character stat bonuses, resist bonuses, magical effects on weapons, clickable spell effects on items,  skill enhancement bonuses and so on?

Ok enough for now.  I do have questions that don't relate to PvE raiding versus non-raiding but the whole "Raiders uber alles" thing is my biggest gripe about mmorpgs (obviously).

If you want something that answers you better than I did then you need to ask better questions. No wonder you are such a skeptic if you cannot tell when someone really did answer you. The first part is important because it addresses what the real problem you want to know about it. You say your main crusade is "raider uber alles". I will try to better explain the answer that I gave you and see if that helps.

Like I had said previously defining best is pretty open for interpretation.

Rewarding people for their efforts is important, you can't just not give people rewards for putting in the effort to raid. Note very carefully that I said unique, I didnt say "zomg raiders need the best epixx lol"

Giving alternate paths to similar tiered gear that requires effort is also important, hence the very appropriate Lost Dungeons of Norrath reference. I cant personally say how things like this are being done because on a team of close to 200 people I don't actually get the chance to do everything.

The real problem most people have with "Raiders" is being forced to do something they don't like or don't have time for in order to consume content and achieve the same level of advancement as others. (as items are a further form of advancement) Generally speaking this is not a PvE issue as if you are a semi casual or non raid interested player you don't usually "need" even in a much more heavily item based environment than Conan to have better gear to perform. What I was trying to point out to you was your issue wasn't with raiding at all but was with if non raid players will also have ways of accessing top tier items.

The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous. We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney, it is not honor or token farming from WoW. You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats. For a game based so heavily on combat we have a LOT of combat stats. Attack, Defense, Magic ratings, invulnerability ratings, damage multipliers, evasion ratings, etc etc. All of these stats we use for the normal combat system have a PvP clone that is used additively in PvP. This is the same for bonus's from PvP levels.

So lets say two level 80s meet in PvP one we will call A is a semi casual, guild oriented player who hit max level has ok gear from doing some missions and such and has been enjoying PvP as he leveled in the different mini games and now spends a lot of time in the Border Kingdoms.

Now we have level 80 B. B is mister super hardcore. He has maxed out his spec and his gear by doing raids and spends multiple nights a week pursuing more. He has done some PvP and goes to the Borderkingdoms on "raid nights" off.

I am just going to make some arbitrary numbers here.

A might have 800 attack, 800 defense, in PvE
B might have 1000 attack, 1000 defense in PvE

in PvP however
A has 800 +200 in gear with pvp bonus's (pvp bonus can be stronger because they dont impact PvE balance), plus another 150 for his pvp levels. 1150 Attack, 1150 Defense

B has his 1000 +50 for his low PvP level and no PvP bonus gear, 1050 attack, 1050 Defense

So basically A will have an advantage over B in PvP unless B dedicates the same or more time to PvP himself, while B can have better PvE gear but if A is not a raid player it won't "hurt" him, the main issue left is access to the content and that is up to quest designers etc to put in some challenging methods of being able to aquire them in addition to raids.

Originally posted by AmazingAvery

Hi Jason,

I think its great that your able to come here with an offical presence, it's a really welcomed sight!

One thing has been nagging me lately and information was a little thin on the ground in finding - That is, would you be able to confirm that Age of Conan supports Core 2 Duo and Core 2 Quad processors, by support I mean will the game take advantage of these extra processors in a proper multi threaded way?

I appreciate that you might not be able to answer this directly at this time, but if possible even a hint would be great.

I know that in The Acolytes we have a fair few members who will be upgrading and buying new computers just for this game, even a well place hint might save us all some money if only you could oblige!

Once again its really good to see you on these forums, I hope you don't get bogged down as per your blog =)

Regards,

Avery

I'm not sure but I think so. I know we are using a lot of Core 2 Duo machines that run the game well.

Originally posted by LadyReno

Hello Jason,

Welcome to mmorpg.com.    But have a couple of questions regarding pvp.  Now I am a big crafter so how is ganking going to be handled?  Say I'm crafting at one of the tables will I be attackable?  This is one of the main reasons why I'm not a big pvp fan.  I played on vox server eq2 so not it's like I never tried pvp. 

Hate dealing with griefers,  those who just hound harvesters and crafters.  Would love to try out AOC's crafting system as well, but are there going to be safe area for crafters or a pve server?

You'd only be able to be ganked if you were playing on an open PvP server. And if you were there is a punishment system called the bounty prison system in the works that identifies grief behavior and can eventually result in the criminal character being put in prison to complete a series of hard labor quests before being released.

As a side note on a non PvP server you will still have access to Drunken Brawling, Mini game, and the Border Kingdoms for PvP

Originally posted by KinkyKelly
hello jason, welcome to the forums, it's nice to have a reliable source representative to so diligently answer to all (or some) of the questions concerning Age of Conan.

1. I just wanted to ask about respeccing especially in case of healing classes - how much less effective will they be while levelling if someone chooses to focus on healing, will they be group useless if not specced to heal? and will there be a penalty for respeccing and some kind of points pool to distribute?

thanx in advance for any feedback on that one

This should not be a problem really as we were very careful to make sure there were no optional feat lines for improving healing ability. We absolutely did not want priests to have to be heal spec and knew if it was possible then it would become mandated.

Originally posted by Athelan

If you want something that answers you better than I did then you need to ask better questions. No wonder you are such a skeptic if you cannot tell when someone really did answer you. The first part is important because it addresses what the real problem you want to know about it. You say your main crusade is "raider uber alles". I will try to better explain the answer that I gave you and see if that helps.

Like I had said previously defining best is pretty open for interpretation.

Rewarding people for their efforts is important, you can't just not give people rewards for putting in the effort to raid. Note very carefully that I said unique, I didnt say "zomg raiders need the best epixx lol"

Giving alternate paths to similar tiered gear that requires effort is also important, hence the very appropriate Lost Dungeons of Norrath reference. I cant personally say how things like this are being done because on a team of close to 200 people I don't actually get the chance to do everything.

The real problem most people have with "Raiders" is being forced to do something they don't like or don't have time for in order to consume content and achieve the same level of advancement as others. (as items are a further form of advancement) Generally speaking this is not a PvE issue as if you are a semi casual or non raid interested player you don't usually "need" even in a much more heavily item based environment than Conan to have better gear to perform. What I was trying to point out to you was your issue wasn't with raiding at all but was with if non raid players will also have ways of accessing top tier items.

The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous. We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney, it is not honor or token farming from WoW. You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats. For a game based so heavily on combat we have a LOT of combat stats. Attack, Defense, Magic ratings, invulnerability ratings, damage multipliers, evasion ratings, etc etc. All of these stats we use for the normal combat system have a PvP clone that is used additively in PvP. This is the same for bonus's from PvP levels.

So lets say two level 80s meet in PvP one we will call A is a semi casual, guild oriented player who hit max level has ok gear from doing some missions and such and has been enjoying PvP as he leveled in the different mini games and now spends a lot of time in the Border Kingdoms.

Now we have level 80 B. B is mister super hardcore. He has maxed out his spec and his gear by doing raids and spends multiple nights a week pursuing more. He has done some PvP and goes to the Borderkingdoms on "raid nights" off.

I am just going to make some arbitrary numbers here.

A might have 800 attack, 800 defense, in PvE
B might have 1000 attack, 1000 defense in PvE

in PvP however
A has 800 +200 in gear with pvp bonus's (pvp bonus can be stronger because they dont impact PvE balance), plus another 150 for his pvp levels. 1150 Attack, 1150 Defense

B has his 1000 +50 for his low PvP level and no PvP bonus gear, 1050 attack, 1050 Defense

So basically A will have an advantage over B in PvP unless B dedicates the same or more time to PvP himself, while B can have better PvE gear but if A is not a raid player it won't "hurt" him, the main issue left is access to the content and that is up to quest designers etc to put in some challenging methods of being able to aquire them in addition to raids.

So, in long winded way you're saying that PvP gear comes from PvE activities.  If anyone reading this thread thinks that I'm misinterpreting things I invite you to go through this quote line by line and after each sentence ask yourself, "Did he tell me how I get PvP gear?"

I'll pull out the more pertinent bits.

-----"The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous."------

No doubt.  But apparently the numerous ways of obtaining it are all through PvE.

-----"We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney"------

You MIGHT let us use bloodmoney to buy PvP gear.  Meaning you also might not let us.  And that isn't the purpose of bloodmoney so I'm going to go ahead and assume that "might not let us" is the most likely probability.

------"You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats."------

And where do those gems come from, pray tell?  More to the point...where do the most powerfull of those gems come from?

 

Ok, it sounds pretty clear to me.  PvP gear is obtained by doing PvE.  Raiding will be the most rewarding type of PvE content.  Therefore the best PvP gear will come from PvE raiding...either directly as item drops or indirectly as crafting material drops. 

Maybe I have a misconception here, I was under the impression that player cities were in the pvp areas.  Was that a wrong impression?

Just a note, whoever designs your website, needs to put more information up on the game.  It is silly to have to go to the forums there to get basic game information.

So lets say two level 80s meet in PvP one we will call A is a semi casual, guild oriented player who hit max level has ok gear from doing some missions and such and has been enjoying PvP as he leveled in the different mini games and now spends a lot of time in the Border Kingdoms.

I take this to mean that some of the gear has come from PvE simply by lvling or casually enjoying PvE content. In addition to that the player has some "ubah 1337 PvP gear" from focusing more on PvP than PvE. Basically it seems like player A will "pwn" player B in PvP and player B will get picked 1st when getting a group together hardcore raiding because of his leet sauce PvE gear. It sounds pretty simple to me and pretty awesome! The way I read it is the only thing he left out is the term "PvP gear". It kinda seems to me like you might be purposefully looking for things to gripe about /shrug.

Now we have level 80 B. B is mister super hardcore. He has maxed out his spec and his gear by doing raids and spends multiple nights a week pursuing more. He has done some PvP and goes to the Borderkingdoms on "raid nights" off.

I am just going to make some arbitrary numbers here.

A might have 800 attack, 800 defense, in PvE
B might have 1000 attack, 1000 defense in PvE

in PvP however
A has 800 +200 in gear with pvp bonus's (pvp bonus can be stronger because they dont impact PvE balance), plus another 150 for his pvp levels. 1150 Attack, 1150 Defense

B has his 1000 +50 for his low PvP level and no PvP bonus gear, 1050 attack, 1050 Defense

So basically A will have an advantage over B in PvP unless B dedicates the same or more time to PvP himself, while B can have better PvE gear but if A is not a raid player it won't "hurt" him, the main issue left is access to the content and that is up to quest designers etc to put in some challenging methods of being able to aquire them in addition to raids.

I haven't done a lot of reading on the official site yet. This has definately got me hyped about AoC. 1 question I have (sorry if it has already been answered or is public knowledge) is are there different factions or will we be fighting other player cities/servers in pvp? Another would be if there are different factions will people be able to switch sides. That is one thing I didn't like while I was playing swg but looking back that kind of stuff added player content in a way and was a huge factor in rivalries which imo is what keeps pvp interesting. I really hope this game has some awesome world/massive pvp. Thanks for spending time answering questions its definately a very welcome change and I think will help get even more people interested in the game. 

*edit* I guess what I'm really asking is when pvping will I be fighting for my guild/city, faction, or server? I'm really hoping that this game will have healthy pvp rivalries. To me WoW seems more about who's guild does better at pve or has the better honor grind group than supporting your faction.

Originally posted by Neanderthal

Originally posted by Athelan

If you want something that answers you better than I did then you need to ask better questions. No wonder you are such a skeptic if you cannot tell when someone really did answer you. The first part is important because it addresses what the real problem you want to know about it. You say your main crusade is "raider uber alles". I will try to better explain the answer that I gave you and see if that helps.

Like I had said previously defining best is pretty open for interpretation.

Rewarding people for their efforts is important, you can't just not give people rewards for putting in the effort to raid. Note very carefully that I said unique, I didnt say "zomg raiders need the best epixx lol"

Giving alternate paths to similar tiered gear that requires effort is also important, hence the very appropriate Lost Dungeons of Norrath reference. I cant personally say how things like this are being done because on a team of close to 200 people I don't actually get the chance to do everything.

The real problem most people have with "Raiders" is being forced to do something they don't like or don't have time for in order to consume content and achieve the same level of advancement as others. (as items are a further form of advancement) Generally speaking this is not a PvE issue as if you are a semi casual or non raid interested player you don't usually "need" even in a much more heavily item based environment than Conan to have better gear to perform. What I was trying to point out to you was your issue wasn't with raiding at all but was with if non raid players will also have ways of accessing top tier items.

The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous. We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney, it is not honor or token farming from WoW. You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats. For a game based so heavily on combat we have a LOT of combat stats. Attack, Defense, Magic ratings, invulnerability ratings, damage multipliers, evasion ratings, etc etc. All of these stats we use for the normal combat system have a PvP clone that is used additively in PvP. This is the same for bonus's from PvP levels.

So lets say two level 80s meet in PvP one we will call A is a semi casual, guild oriented player who hit max level has ok gear from doing some missions and such and has been enjoying PvP as he leveled in the different mini games and now spends a lot of time in the Border Kingdoms.

Now we have level 80 B. B is mister super hardcore. He has maxed out his spec and his gear by doing raids and spends multiple nights a week pursuing more. He has done some PvP and goes to the Borderkingdoms on "raid nights" off.

I am just going to make some arbitrary numbers here.

A might have 800 attack, 800 defense, in PvE
B might have 1000 attack, 1000 defense in PvE

in PvP however
A has 800 +200 in gear with pvp bonus's (pvp bonus can be stronger because they dont impact PvE balance), plus another 150 for his pvp levels. 1150 Attack, 1150 Defense

B has his 1000 +50 for his low PvP level and no PvP bonus gear, 1050 attack, 1050 Defense

So basically A will have an advantage over B in PvP unless B dedicates the same or more time to PvP himself, while B can have better PvE gear but if A is not a raid player it won't "hurt" him, the main issue left is access to the content and that is up to quest designers etc to put in some challenging methods of being able to aquire them in addition to raids.

So, in long winded way you're saying that PvP gear comes from PvE activities.  If anyone reading this thread thinks that I'm misinterpreting things I invite you to go through this quote line by line and after each sentence ask yourself, "Did he tell me how I get PvP gear?"

I'll pull out the more pertinent bits.

-----"The methods for obtaining PvP gear are numerous."------

No doubt.  But apparently the numerous ways of obtaining it are all through PvE.

-----"We might let you use Bloodmoney to buy it but thats not really the purpose for Bloodmoney"------

You MIGHT let us use bloodmoney to buy PvP gear.  Meaning you also might not let us.  And that isn't the purpose of bloodmoney so I'm going to go ahead and assume that "might not let us" is the most likely probability.

------"You can also craft PvP armor custom using gems with PvP stats."------

And where do those gems come from, pray tell?  More to the point...where do the most powerfull of those gems come from?

 

Ok, it sounds pretty clear to me.  PvP gear is obtained by doing PvE.  Raiding will be the most rewarding type of PvE content.  Therefore the best PvP gear will come from PvE raiding...either directly as item drops or indirectly as crafting material drops. 

I am saying we can give it out however we want. If a crafter wants to craft a PvP gem he is still going to need resources and those resources would be aquired the same as any other resources. Same thing for making a sword, a socketed crafted sword is just that a socketed sword until you decide what attributes to put on it.

No aquiring PvP gear is not meant to be done through being forced to PvE if thats now the new question you are most concerned about. The clarification regarding the Blood Money is one of people thinking it works like WoW Honor points which was not its intent.

The most powerful PvP items will be resultant from PvP quite simple. There is no reason for us to put them in the PvE areas for example since  we have the dual layer system.

So again clarify your questions into something more easy to understand what your point is.

Are you worried about raiders having access to stuff better than you? Why?

Are you worried about this because you dont want them to have an advantage over you in PvP?

Are you wanting to spend all your time playing PvP and be able to equip yourself, so you loathe any sort of PvE gameplay at all?

You aren't a skeptic you just don't seem to be happy about anything :P Other people reading this seem to be getting the answers I am giving you without thinking I am trying to dodge the point.

Originally posted by Ciredric

Maybe I have a misconception here, I was under the impression that player cities were in the pvp areas.  Was that a wrong impression?

Just a note, whoever designs your website, needs to put more information up on the game.  It is silly to have to go to the forums there to get basic game information.

The community.ageofconan.com site is better and I am working with the community team to do a huge update of the FAQ answering many questions like those that have shown up here. You can also use www.bymitra.com to search for posts on topics to help save you some digging on the forums.

Originally posted by Athelan

Originally posted by KinkyKelly
hello jason, welcome to the forums, it's nice to have a reliable source representative to so diligently answer to all (or some) of the questions concerning Age of Conan.

1. I just wanted to ask about respeccing especially in case of healing classes - how much less effective will they be while levelling if someone chooses to focus on healing, will they be group useless if not specced to heal? and will there be a penalty for respeccing and some kind of points pool to distribute?

thanx in advance for any feedback on that one

This should not be a problem really as we were very careful to make sure there were no optional feat lines for improving healing ability. We absolutely did not want priests to have to be heal spec and knew if it was possible then it would become mandated.

omg, that is awesome

Originally posted by Athelan

Originally posted by Sickpup
Let's start off with a hot topic.Will all the heals be over time or will there be standard heals and instas as well.can you throw us any info plz.

Almost all healing is heal over time as we do not want healers to be heal bots, they are intended to be a part of the action not spectators. You do have access to an area of effect instant heal but this can only land on the same person once per minute per class. This allows some stacking for emergencies and keeps multiple healers from being redudant without letting direct heal spams become the name of the game.

that's pretty cool, just want to make sure i understand this correctly for myself and my guild, healers should be assisting doing dmg and debuffing the mobs--while throwing up heal over times.

also that brings up another question, how many debuff slots are available on mobs? i know WOW started at like 4 or 8, went up to 16 and then finally up to 40, will there be sufficient slots for debuffs? that might have been answered before somewhere else, i hadn't thought of checking on it before.