Mercenary Work

Akazuk1n

Do you guys think mercenary work will be possible? If this has already been talked about before I apologize as I had not seen it yet.. But do you think that guilds or just parties etc will be able to be "adventurers for hire" and will be able to hunt other people, or protect them for in game money?

Nova_terra

I absolutely think this will happen, and I imagine that some higher profile traders will have dossiers of players/groups that they will call on for a cut of the pie if they feel they need the extra protection outside of their pre-established group.

Their cargo is worth nothing to them if they don't make it to the destination. I'd gladly take a contract to protect a caravan for some gold if I know the trader is going to give me and the group a cut.

Enigmatic Sage

If the guild and/or players can make a name for themselves and promote it well enough I'm sure it would be a thing. Probably many considering it already

Raven016

I think the corrupted glint will measure how much players loot caravans and offer some progression. They might become enemy of the state and be hunted by nodes they harm a lot.

Akazuk1n

Yea, I think it would make it interesting to be able to take jobs to protect caravans from players, or ai trying to attack it.. Would be a good way to make money if you want to focus on pvp

Arya_Yeshe

Ahem (clears throat), well, I may have a couple ideas taken from genuine mercenary operations from other games. So, what would I put to test AoC?

• declare wars and maintain pressure on the designated targets, could be on behalf of others or just on my own behalf for extorting the targets
• Ransom nodes, deploy the green horde (green players), and dismantle their resources, harvesting all their fauna and flora
• Naval and land blockades: extortion or just economically strangling your targets
• Employ various methods to disrupt others' farming activities
• Killing bosses, prevent others from doing so
• Contest other people's running a dungeon, go there and kill all mobs and take all the loot, extort the other party and local populace
• Security personel, escort: sometimes this is needed
• road toll: taking your enemies gold and materials is the same as killing them, making them poor and making yourself rich is winning

Mercenary work can be confused with griefing in many cases, specially because the lack of ingame systems that support this

Too bad that AoC doesn't have a more mature vision on wars and pvp, AoC appears to be lacking appropriate tracking of pvp performance in wars and such. Then on top of it, AoC also lacks a simple system for contracts, for paying mercenaries, for paying bounty hunters, for using the node gold in wars and defense

The lack of proper tracking of PvP activity and contracts in AoC is a dark corner in the design

Songcaller

I roleplayed a mercenary guild in Age of Conan. Gold was quite ample but at the same time it was mostly an RP guild. I'm not sure there will be systems in place to promote mercenaries, it believe it will be more on the roleplay side of the spectrum. You'd come to agreements with others based on reputation etc.

Arya_Yeshe

@Akazuk1n @Song_Warden you both, who have interest in this kind of thing, check it out this idea, this would make AoC a true mercenary game and not just RP as mercenary