AoC Gameplay Preview #10 - Blood Money and PVP

[Overgauss]

Linky
This week we take a look at the Player versus Player Blood Money system in Age of Conan. Blood Coins will be the currency of combat, find out how you will earn them!

The dark and dangerous lands of Hyboria that have seen Conan rise to the throne of Aquillonia make up a treacherous and deceitful world where even the most petty or trivial of disagreements will invariably be settled by the blade (not uncommonly from behind whilst the victim is unawares!) Something is always at stake when reputations are forged by force of steel or the ingenuity of will. In Age of Conan the player versus player combat will always have equally vicious consequences and a bloody purpose that will always ensure you have something worth fighting for.

When we came to think about PVP in Age of Conan we wanted to ensure that it reflected that dark and hostile environment. We want to make sure that there will always be something at stake when a player decides to make a name for themselves in the Border Kingdoms. Likewise though, PVP still has to be fun, and no one really likes losing their hard earned possessions, so we have a very special system of Blood Money that operates in the PVP areas.

Blood Coins are effectively the currency of combat in the Border Kingdoms, tokens taken from the dying corpses of your foes. These Blood Coins are a mark of victory amongst combatants that will serve as bragging rights, status symbols and also a very useful currency in itself.

When you travel to the dangerous and blood soaked Border Kingdoms your passage there must be paid for. When you first enter the Border Kingdoms the coin that would be used to pay for that passage is not taken away, but is converted into Blood Coin. Blood Coins is effectively a separate currency to your normal coin.

Defeating other players in PVP combat will result in you being able to loot some or all of the Blood Money that they earned from their previous fights. Everyone in the Border Kingdoms will have some Blood Money value.

In addition all PVP combat earns your character separate PVP exp that goes towards earning your twenty PVP levels and gaining access to special feats and abilities that are exclusive to PVP.

This means that everyone who enters the Border Kingdom has something to lose should they find themselves on the wrong end of an opponents assault. Blood Coin will also supply another way for players to know where they rank against their fellow players above and beyond a simple count of kills. The treasured Blood Coin torn from the body of a defeated renowned player killer will garner them more fame (or notoriety!) then just picking on easy targets.

Also your Blood Coins are even more then just a token of your stature with the bow, blade or mystical arts. Blood Coins will be used to purchase the PVP feats you earn access to from special vendors in the Border Kingdoms.

These special PVP abilities will only be purchasable with Blood Coin. You will have to fight to earn the Blood Coin to pay for these new skills that your combat with other players has earned you access to.

This means that only those who truly excel at dispatching other players to their bloody deaths will be able to gain an extra edge on players who gain their equipment only in the safer havens, away from the Border Kingdoms. Only by proving your worth against your fellow player will you be able to gain these PVP-centric feats.

Not all of your Blood Coins will be able to be traded away, stored, or otherwise hidden away from those that would see you as a trophy, or a fat payday if your skills in combat have earned you a reputation already!

We want to hopefully address the cowardly practise of hiding away your valuables when entering PVP as well, but also allow you to save something before being beheaded. Therefore some of your blood coin will always be available to your foes (we'll decide on the balance of this one as we proceed through beta).

The more battles you win and more scalps you collect, the greater the reward others will find in tracking you down and taking your blood money from your freshly slain corpse.

The vendors that accept Blood Coins will also offer various other black market goods, equipment and items that can only be purchased with Blood Coins.

The Bloody Conclusions on PVP

We feel that with this system the day-to-day PVP in the Border Kingdoms will also have a real and genuine purpose independent of the greater struggles that will come around the Keeps, Towers and resources. Reputations will be won and lost. Blood will be spilt and there will always be a reward for hunting down others, and of course the risk that comes with it. The more victories you secure and more foes you vanquish the more your Blood Coins will be eyed by envious souls intent on cutting your throat and your purse!

The Border Kingdoms will certainly not be for the faint of heart!

Also, as a final note for now on PVP we wanted to assure all the PVP fans out there that we will have at least some more 'free for all' style PVP servers once the game goes live. How many will depend on the popularity, but we have the systems being prepared that will let us allow PVP content outside of the Border Kingdoms as well.

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Sounds fun. I'm reading that the CCG plays differently than most others what with the scars mechanic. I can't wait to smash! And drive with lamentations and such.

[Tripamang]

Sounds good, kind of reminds me of eve with it's "Empire" area and "Lawless" regions. I wonder if the rewards in that region that aren't pvp related are worth the risk of heading out there. I guess only time will tell, sounds like a good pvp system none the less.

[Szlia]

That sounds interesting. The only problem I would see with it glancing through is since you seem to always gain blood money when killing someone, it seems you could team with a friend to kill him endlessly and generate blood money from void to buy abbilities and let him kill you ince you are done. But I guess it's pretty easy to prevent this type of exploitations.

[Zehn - Vhex]

I foresee ganking classes being the premier pvp class as always. Will be interesting to see no doubt though.

[Dildo Faggins]

I'd prefer games take the approach of punishing those who die, not rewarding those who kill. Killing people is easy, its surviving that is hard.

[Draz]

Yes because cliff jumping is the best thing that has ever happened in EQ2 pvp!

[Zehn - Vhex]

Rewarding is in almost every case better for a game then punishing someone. However, this creates a conflict in pvp because causing someone else greif by getting them punished is often the reward alot of people seek.

Besides, when you start punishing people, then you have to go the extra mile to make sure all the class/races are balanced. You can't take the WoW path of "Well, death only means 30 seconds tops of sitting on your ass so fucking deal with it."

Simply put, there's no fucking way I'd ever step foot onto a battlefield in WoW as my holy priest if getting ganked or assist train stomped meant I'd lose honor. I'd roll up a rogue and lollergank lowbies for fun and profit.

[Overgauss]

The decap (amongst other things) in the pre beta e3 2k6 video has me convinced that I MUST start on a full pvp server.

http://www.gametrailers.com/gamepage.php?id=1905

That Cthulhu like god is no slouch either.

[Lorrac]

Are those trailers real gameplay footage or otherwise enhanced?

[Cad]

Originally Posted by Lorrac

Are those trailers real gameplay footage or otherwise enhanced?

It does say right in the trailer "all footage captured in game, pre-beta" .. doesn't say whether it was massaged afterwards.

[Weritech]

That whole description/system sounds amateurish to me. Balance the gameplay properly and you won't need a novel system to make pvp rewarding.

[Lost Ranger]

Sounds real interesting too me. Looking forward to giving this one a test drive as well.

[Dildo Faggins]

Originally Posted by Zehn - Vhex

Simply put, there's no fucking way I'd ever step foot onto a battlefield in WoW as my holy priest if getting ganked or assist train stomped meant I'd lose honor. I'd roll up a rogue and lollergank lowbies for fun and profit.

That is my point. When you reward people for killing, and they put that award on risk for dying, they tend to only do cheese lame ass fights. This is gay, and not fun for pvp. If all you do is punish people who die (and im not saying rape their levels, just a minor lose of xp and maybe carried cash, so fairly minimal~), people will be just scared enough of dying to not be cockfaces, but not be rewarded for being ganking bastards that only fight easily own battles. I think a system like this encourages pk to be -more- honorable. I'm not gonna say pk will ever be honorable under any system, because pkers are in general retarded assmongers, but I much prefer that pk idiocy isnt rewarded.

To me pk isn't a ranking system or anything stupid like that or some E-penis contest, it is a way to resolve ingame conflicts and nothing more. If you try to make pk out to be more or be its own reward system, I find that it can really be gayed up. I like pvp as a tool for making my pve enjoyable. Some fag is in my camp? Well I fix that shit quickly.

[Overgauss]

Also trust amongst players has a different value if at anytime you can lose something of 'real' value. It could help to forge really strong alliances while at the same time making a betrayal sting even more. It also appears to be a pretty decent drama incubator. Again I'm probably missing something overly obvious so...
Edit:

Oh yeah. The system is noob friendly as noobs wouldn't have much coin to lose anyway. Ah but then, every bit counts even more...

[Dinthug]

looks badass to me, I've been hearing about vanguard for years and I'd say these graphics are much better and this is the first time I've ever even heard about this game.