Age of Conan "Pharamond" Interview

French AoC fansite, Jeux Online has a fifteen question interview with Shannon "Pharamond" Drake translated and posted on the official AoC forums.

1/ Lately Gaute mentioned the "dynamic camps" in his letter to the community. Does one have to assume that you had to change the behavior of the PvE cities managed by the AI , which were supposed to attack the players PvE towns, or that you have removed that feature ? If not, could you tell us exactly how will work the conflicts between the AI cities and the players cities ?

Since it says, "The dynamic camps are still there," I can't see how that'd imply they'd been removed.

We're currently looking at it based on the feedback we've gotten and where we want the game to go, so it's in a review phase and there's not much more I can say about it. Once we like where we're at enough to talk about it, we certainly will.

2/ The community would like to know as thoroughly as possible the differences between a PvE city and a PvP battlekeep. What bonuses and penalties do they offer ? Why should a guild desire to own his battlekeep (except for the glory !) or his city, and what are the advantages of a PvP battlekeep compared to a PvE city ?

Battlekeeps/cities are pretty much required if you want to get into high-end crafting and material gathering and also serve as the heart and soul of a guild. They help your crafters, they give you a ready social hub for everyone to hang out in, the buildings may grant certain bonuses if you've built them, and owning a city in a resource and building playfield will also help you get more and better resources, which, in turn, will lead to better stuff for everyone.

Penalty-wise, they're a good size resource sink and if you're playing in a PvP area, people will be trying to take it from you and will probably stab you to do so. If you're in a PvE area, you may face NPC attacks or patrols or whathaveyou, based upon what we decide from the process I described in question #1.

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