Crafting overhaul coming to Conan

By Oli Welsh Published 3 October, 2008

New director works through to-do list.

Funcom has revealed that it's including an overhaul of item crafting in the next major update to Age of Conan, along with the rest of its new player-versus-player system.

The news came in a post on the forum for the game's test server; Massively has the details, or you can read the original post copied and pasted onto the regular forum.

Recipes for armour and weapons will now come in base, city and culture versions. Base items are the simplest to make, city items require a guild city, and culture items - easier to make than city pieces - are "high-level lore-related" items for each class, aimed specifically at introducing some more visual variety to the game's avatars. Culture pieces are intended to provide a path to crafting high-level equipment without requiring you to be in an active guild.

Furthermore, alchemy resources are being streamlined, there will be new skinning and weaving recipes, woodcutters will be able to make upgradeable staffs, and all drops related to crafting professions and resources should be easier to come by in a wider level range.

Architects and gem-cutters will have to wait, as their crafting systems tie into massive PVP and item balance, two areas of the game that have more extensive overhauls in the pipeline - "a couple of patches down the line".

The proposed changes have been well-received by the Age of Conan community, which has been frustrated with the game's crafting to date. Hopefully, they won't delay the arrival of the much-needed second half of the PVP update, featuring the notoriety system and "shady camps", which is already on the test server.

Picture of Oli.

About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (8) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • anomagnus #1 3 years ago

    craigs good, if anyone can turn conan around, it'll be him

  • M83J01P97 #2 3 years ago

    Making it work for the vast majority of people who 'should' be able to run it should be a pretty big to do in my mind... but now that WAR is here... does anyone really care about AoC anymore?

  • Bleh #3 3 years ago

    All these news sounds to me like there change almost the entire game. To bad they haven't thought of this before release.

  • anomagnus #4 3 years ago

    M83J01P97

    true, level 28 swordmaster here, in since open beta

  • makeamazing #5 3 years ago

    Too little too late? Dont know but I think they would have been ok if WAR had been delayed further, would have given them more time, but I think timing may be against them

  • actionfitz #6 3 years ago

    do they honestly think i'll stop paying for WAR and Wotlk for even one month just to re-suscribe to this P.O.S?
    They may have gotten rid of Godager but tbh it will take a whole lot of positive word of mouth feedback from other players before I'll look near this again.

  • Orange #7 3 years ago

    I can see this becoming something really well loved by a niche of people over time. I did like some of the ideas and the potential of the game, it was just so poorly executed and unfinished. Just a shame they really missed an opportunity to make something that could have been more popular and a lot higher quality.

    Now WAR is here and is good, WotLK is coming and then there's all the non-fantasy mmos coming like KoTR, APB and Jumpgate. Too little and too late for Conan.

  • iokthemonkey #8 3 years ago

    "The proposed changes have been well-received by the Age of Conan community"

    Yes, I hear both players thought it was a good idea.