We next caught a glimpse of Funcom's famed "Dreamworld" engine at work, and we got to see right in front of us just how powerful this tool was. At the time, a developer was doing some touch-ups on the Tortage areas, but he was able to raise and lower terrain with the press of a button, or add sand, create a channel for water, and even age terrain to give the impression that this land had been there for several million year; real Discovery Channel stuff, I guess. Erling explained to us at this point that one of the goals of Funcom for 'Age of Conan' was to create a very deep and immersive world, but in order to give the game this benchmark-setting detail, it meant they couldn't go with a "seamless" like you'd find in 'World of Warcraft' or 'Lord of the Rings Online'. This is a point of contention for many fans out there hoping to try the game soon, but as someone that has played games like 'City of Heroes/Villains', the design decision makes sense and works well. A seamless world might have made sense for 'Age of Conan' if every nation, city, and region had been included in the game at launch, but one gets the feeling that that would mean skimping on the details that make Hyboria as we see it in the game now, and quite likely reduce it something you might find stuck on with a magnet to a fridge: a very mundane, repetitive, bland, child's drawing rather than a deep, rich, and lush environment.
Quality Consultant, Trond Ivar Hansen, was our next stop, and he showed off a playfield containing the 1500 armour types that players will be able to see and wear in-game. We were told that armour sets were first divided into cultures (Aquilonian, Cimmerian, Stygian, Shemite, etc.) and then divided into armour types (cloth, medium armour, heavy armour, and full-plate armour). The completed sets on each of the NPCs in the playfield looked very impressive, but the part that impressed me the most was understanding that a player would be able to wear different pieces from different sets and generate for themself a very unique look. On top of that, social clothing can be worn on top of or underneath armour to further generate that sense of individuality that players tend to look for in a social gaming environment. We were assured that while you might find someone wearing one or two identical armour pieces to what you are wearing, the chance of them wearing exactly the same as you is quite low. But hopefully this sense of style and individuality will not remove from functionality, that is, looking good but sacrificing bonuses that a particular piece of armour might have to offer simply because it does not adhere to personal superficiality.
We met back with Morten Byom to learn about sieging. Now, the information that was most important to me any I guess anyone living outside of Europe and the United States, was lockout times, vulnerability windows and server time schedules. Coming into this community event, a major concern shared by said players and those playing on alternate play-schedules, were these three factors. Our fear was that during our peak play time Oceanic and other guilds playing on alternate play-schedules would be when these lockout times occur, forcing vulnerability windows to open when most of us would be either at work or studying. Thankfully, this was not the case as we were informed by Morten. Guilds will be able to set their own vulnerability window, but they need to be attacked/defend their keep regardless. A guild can hold a keep for two days before setting a vulnerability window (the two days is the lock-out time); this allows time to gather held resource nodes and so forth. The game client will recognise your own local time even if you are playing on an EU or US server, so it's my understanding that lock-out times and so forth will not be running on a US-based time schedule per se, but will completely depend on when other guilds set their vulnerability windows. In order for a defending guild to win, they need to fend off the challenging guild for 90 minutes. If the challenging guild has not taken the keep within that time, the defending keep retains the keep.
