Originally posted by Athelan

Originally posted by Baikal

All I can say is welcome!

It's nice to see that some of the threads which usually devolve into "loose fact" discussions can have some hard info injected. Thanks for taking the time to drop by and do that!

 

The two questions I'd have for ya, that I would never bother you with on the official forums are simple ones...

 

1) Auto racing fan...have you had the chance to take Forza Motorsport 2 out for a spin yet, and if so are you, enjoying it?

2) UO? What server?

 

Cheers

 

Im a huge racing fan. I track my SVT focus in real life and am addicted to Forza 2 right now. my gamertag is Jaynen.

 

Im even trying to make a Conan paintjob http://picasaweb.google.com/jaynen00/Forza/photo#5075643483761520690

 

Chesapeake was my main UO server, but I played Catskills with the roleplaying community of the Shadowclan Orcs

Well, depending on the time you were on Chessy, I may have actually crossed paths with ya...

FYI...the AoC/Funcom car looks fabulous, if ever you want to sell another one with the same design, I'd love to have one. Especially since my attempts to paint have been somewhere between awful and horrible.   Gamertag-Sundevil827

The "By Crom" LP is awesome!

I'll let ya get back to the AoC chatter again!

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.

Originally posted by Sramota

 

---

Originally posted by Athelan

---

Originally posted by Sramota

I'm curious, how do you go from GM to designer?
What does your job actually require from an educational point of view?

---

Years of hard work and experience. Get into the industry anyway you can, play games, study games, design games. Always look at whats good in a crappy game and whats bad in a good game and ask yourself why over and over.

---

So by that you don't actually need an education?
(I'm just curious, I couldn't care less for trying to get a job in the industry to be honest, but that's just because I'm having enough fun as it is.)
I mean, there's no programming involved or such that require actual programming knowledge?

Are you just talking to people on how to do it or using tools provided by others or are you sniffing in the codelines?

Edit: Oh, and in-game, where's the Madness? (See Oblivions Sheogorath for reference)
all games need a sprinkle of it!

Design is sort of an enigma and while some schools claim to teach it its really an overal practical knowledge and just repeated execution. So its very difficult to have a formal education in it. So in my opinion no you don't need to have one. I can think of some degrees I think I would find useful, mainly project management, process improvement, writing, and sociology of virtual communities.

first off let me say that this game looks awesome and i am at least tryin to wait for it patiently lol.

anyways i have a few questions

 i would like to know a little more about buildin your own town.  how do you acquire the land?  do you have to collect and gather resources from the land like lumber to build the buildings? do you hire npc's to watch over it and if you can control them or do they just wander around town?

i also want to know about this new combat system. if you swing your weapon at someone does it do calculation stuff to see if you hit them or if you see it touch the guy you hit them.  if you touch the guy and its a hit can you do dodging moves to avoid bein hit like rolls or somthin?

thank you for taken the time to answer questions on this site. 

Originally posted by ASmith84

first off let me say that this game looks awesome and i am at least tryin to wait for it patiently lol.

anyways i have a few questions

 i would like to know a little more about buildin your own town.  how do you acquire the land?  do you have to collect and gather resources from the land like lumber to build the buildings? do you hire npc's to watch over it and if you can control them or do they just wander around town?

i also want to know about this new combat system. if you swing your weapon at someone does it do calculation stuff to see if you hit them or if you see it touch the guy you hit them.  if you touch the guy and its a hit can you do dodging moves to avoid bein hit like rolls or somthin?

thank you for taken the time to answer questions on this site. 

There are predetermined locations in certain areas of the world where you can build a city.
You also gather the resources needed in these same areas for building of cities.
Most of the work is done yourself not by NPC's

Both things have to happen, if your weapon hits it will hit unless the target dodges or otherwise blocks it. If they move out of the way the attack can also miss. You would be more likely to hit them and fail to hurt them than simple see miss miss miss if you trying to hit someone and your sword was indeed on target.

Originally posted by Athelan

Originally posted by Neanderthal

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.

Hold on a moment, just what are you trying to say with the first paragraph? Lets say there is PvE weapon X, which is desirable because it has the highest base DPS in its weapon category, and is normally available after completing a certain raid. Do you mean to say that there is an alternative, if extremely difficult, method for a small group or soloer to still acquire item X and/or another item of at least near equal worth? Or perhaps you were just pointing out the example of how EQ approached the issue?

I've heard this hinted at before, but not confirmed. If you are able and willing to say yes, that one word would end more than half of the controversy around here about AoC.

But in any case, I really am glad to see you here. Neanderthal wasn't kidding when he mentioned me and Sturm being rather active in order to defend and inform about the game.

hey i was wondering if you could elaborate a little on some certain aspects of the game
1) how does the "apprentice" system work
2) what is this i hear about going to hell (or something similar) after a failed spellweaving expirience
3) how important is leveling? would someone 20 levels below someone else have a fair chance in a fight?

Originally posted by b0rderline99
hey i was wondering if you could elaborate a little on some certain aspects of the game
1) how does the "apprentice" system work
2) what is this i hear about going to hell (or something similar) after a failed spellweaving expirience
3) how important is leveling? would someone 20 levels below someone else have a fair chance in a fight?

The rest I don't have enough confirmed info on, but I can answer #2

There are a number of methods to acquire something called Soul Corruption, which is essentially a tainting from demonic sources. The primary way one gets it is through casting spells, the more powerfull, the greater the affect. Flubbing a large spellweave is liable to kill the flubber and/or give him a lot more SC than normal. Soul corruption has a number of effects, some positive, most negative. The primary concern for mages, since they are the ones that most often have to worry about Corruption, is that if the amount of acquired SC goes over a certain point and the mage dies, said character will have to fight to reclaim his stolen soul before ressurecting. Apparently, this happens in the form of a relatively brief quest inside of one of the many hells of Hyborian lore.

So, in short, yes, a failed spellweave can quite possibly send you to hell.

All BS on servers aside, FC has said that if there is enough demand there will be a FFA PvP server, so far has there been enough demand to have it implemented or very highly considered for having one at launch (I know I don't want to play, level someone high then have to switch to an FFA PvP server) I am a diehard Asheron's Call Darktide fan and I know theres so many people out there wanting one. Now that vanguard has tanked and the population on the FFA PvP server as well as the rest are at less then 400 people on im waiting for AoC to pull through!

thanks! Can't wait!

Originally posted by Aelfinn

Originally posted by Athelan

Originally posted by Neanderthal

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.

Hold on a moment, just what are you trying to say with the first paragraph? Lets say there is PvE weapon X, which is desirable because it has the highest base DPS in its weapon category, and is normally available after completing a certain raid. Do you mean to say that there is an alternative, if extremely difficult, method for a small group or soloer to still acquire item X and/or another item of at least near equal worth?

I've heard this hinted at before, but not confirmed. If you are able and willing to say yes, that would end more than half of the controversy around here about AoC.

Probably because it's not something you can promise, personally I do not like promising things I cannot guarantee. Much more of your characters base levels of abilities come from things besides your items. And there are many different stats items can modify that impact different elements of gameplay. Theres no way to prevent someone from determining something is the best and that if they cant have they complain, theres also no way you can promise that everyone will absolutely be able to access everything in the game.

PvE weapon X might have higher dps, PvE weapon Y might have a smaller more consistent damage range, PvE weapon Z might have an attack rating bonus that aids in hitting higher level or higher defense targets. What is best for you is going to be highly dependent on the situation and the class you are playing.

We are not going to intentionally lock away all hopes for aquiring "good" gear in encounters only few players will be able to achieve. Conan has always been designed with the ability to solo while encouraging the developement of the player communities. But this does not mean we are going to give everything away to everyone either. Something needs to be special to make the extra effort worth it.

As we are in Beta now this question would be unanswerable anyway because all encounters and even items are not finalized.

Originally posted by b0rderline99
hey i was wondering if you could elaborate a little on some certain aspects of the game
1) how does the "apprentice" system work
2) what is this i hear about going to hell (or something similar) after a failed spellweaving expirience
3) how important is leveling? would someone 20 levels below someone else have a fair chance in a fight?

It is similar to the system in games like City of Heroes and the system used to balance levels in PvP Mini Games based on your tier.

Leveling is still important, 20 levels is a lot of character developement. 5-10 levels probably possible  20, not so much. But PvP levels would help.

Originally posted by Derrico
All BS on servers aside, FC has said that if there is enough demand there will be a FFA PvP server, so far has there been enough demand to have it implemented or very highly considered for having one at launch (I know I don't want to play, level someone high then have to switch to an FFA PvP server) I am a diehard Asheron's Call Darktide fan and I know theres so many people out there wanting one. Now that vanguard has tanked and the population on the FFA PvP server as well as the rest are at less then 400 people on im waiting for AoC to pull through!

thanks! Can't wait!

We feel strongly that open PvP is a natural element of the Hyborian world and thats why even on all servers the Border Kingdoms is setup that way.

We want to do the open PvP servers right however and while we want to have them at release we are not going to promise that everything we want to see will be done. Ideally even if open PvP wasn't working I would want to flag the servers as such so people could get started and not have to switch. But thats me and I am not sure what will happen exactly. As we get closer to launch and more PvP testing is done we will see.

Thanks for the quick reply! Glad to hear its being tryed for release, understandably problems will arise. One more quicky

What exactly are the repercussions for dying? I believe its already been released that an XP loss is out of the question, which is great as I always thought that that was just an excuse for not being able to come up with a good idea for death. Could you tell more about the death system etc? Also will PvP deaths and PvE deaths have the same repercussions

EDIT

Also is the border kingdom's going to have content in it as well for quests etc, maybe PvP quests? I hate the idea of going into an area just to PvP (IE Battlegrounds in WoW) Will there be mobs?

i have a few questions about the pvp

how do these pvp levels work?  does only your pvp level matter in pvp fights or does your regular level matter to?  what is the max pvp level?

how does the blood money work?  how do you acquire them? are they used just for pvp stuff or can you buy other things to with them?

 

Greetings Jason;
 
Will crafters have the ability at some level to start crafting unique items based upon resource quality, or will crafters of the same level be making carbon copies of the same item?

Thanks for your time.     

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.