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Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures: MMORPGItalia Interview with Craig Morrison
Drew
Member Posts: 434
The team over at MMORPGItalia.com brings us this exclusive interview with Age of Conan Game Director, Craig Morrison.
MMORPGITALIA: With a big update like the new Dreamworld Engine on your back, Age of Conan is once again the reference MMO in terms graphics. Many players are still asking if (other than the DX10 optimization) all this work was really necessary. I mean: it has been expensive in terms of time and resources what can you say about that?
Craig Morrison: I think it brings different things to different people, and yes, we wouldn’t have committed to it unless we felt it was worth the time and effort. The game has always been aimed at the high end of performance, and much of our fan base falls into that category...
Read the whole interview here.
Comments
Ok, everyone chant with me:
"Free to play! Free to play!"
You know you want to!
The Dreamworld update was bad, made the game look worser, brought on more bugs and they failed to find a permanent fix to some of the more pestering bugs that affected gameplay. As a player, I was hoping this would do everything it said it would as it was the last straw for me with this game. This patch took a long time to come out and I'm not knocking them for taking their time and making sure they polished it up, it just comes down to investing in a game that doesn't get regular content updates and them still wanting the same amount of money when they were.
From the time Craig took over he has done his best to make AoC more mainstream and accessible to players while at the same time screwing over the pvp vets. With the release of the expansion last year, he finally screwed over the pve vets with a daunting grind that threw off progression in the game. A year Later and hes finally getting around to adjusting the grind while at the same time side stepping the issue with progression the expansion brought about.
If you haven't tried AoC before, I say try it for a few months. For the past two years it has been slowing turning into a F2P game. All it needs now is a F2P system.
Rise above hate.
Ignore fan boys.
Which is about as much as the game is worth. I played for about two months, not impressed. I will go back when it is free and I need to find something to do, maybe.
The Dreamworld update improved FPS tremendously for me and the 3 friends that I play the game with.
It was a good update.
Big thumbs up from me too, made everything run alot smoother
I just can't stand the simon says approach to combat. 5 or more clicks to get off a single attack, I mean really? I'd much rather have the feedom to press my attacks in any order I please and switch them up when I get bored with the same pattern after a while. I enjoy the graphics of the game. The class system is okay, but I'm not a big fan of the classes themselves. I also don't like the difficulty of the solo content. It'srather irritating and the rewards are so pathetic for the effort. I couldn't see myself ever going back unless they revamped or at least offered an alternative to the click fest combat and overly difficult solo content or at least really beef up the rewards to match the risk.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Really? I'm sorry but I keep wishing they would up the level of difficulty because it feels too dumbed down. I don't even bother buying armor because whatever I have on is sufficient for what I'm doing. I've ended up having toons hit level 80 and still wearing some gear that I picked up in Sanctum, a level 40 instance.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
Some of the Khitai stuff can be rather difficult depending on your gear level and class selection. There are several quests, such as the undead elephant, that my assassin just can't do alone. Also, if you aren't careful, you can be overwhelmed by enemies pretty quick in certain areas. It is more challenging, in my opinion, than games like WoW for soloing anyway. But this is from an assassin perspective.
The only two classes I had any interest in playing were the Tempest of Set and the Ranger. I had a lot of issues with adds and supposed soloable instances and quests that forced me to run through packs of mobs. It was bad enough that I didn't care for the whole combo thing, but it was intolerable to have to find groups all the time just to feel like I was progressing without having to grind mobs 2 levels below me. I'm quite sure this game is more than appealing to the more hardcore crowd, but I found the difficulty too irritating to tolerate.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
By the way, when I explained this on my cancelllation questionaire, their advice as to group up more as they admitted this was a game much more geared towards grouping than soloing. Which is fine, but I prefer a lot of soloable content in my games and I don't mean solo content in the form of fedex quests and mob or faction grinds.
Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.
Solo can be challenging? Awesome. I would start playing today if my computer wasn't garbage. It can run WoW, and that game feels like I'm a UFC fighter beating up kindergarteners. I haven't played a game since EQ that I felt like I may actually die in. I'm not saying I haven't died in WoW, but it's normally due to a bad healer. Hmm...EQ has a progression server, and I can run that....
Dreamworld improved Dx10 a ton for me.
I think it's their only hope to survive.
can you still swim upwards in waterfalls ?
This encourages me about the secret world as I am sure they will be using a refined version of this engine. And from what I've seen while playing (only been back a couple of days) it looks amazing. The level of detail even on background housing or something on a cliff is amazing. When things like that look that good I can only imagine the atmosphere that TSW will be capable of capturing.
As for the game I think it is too difficult for new people. Its not the traditional mmo combat system and because of that I agree the rewards don't equal the work put in. And it is far too easy to get ganked by monsters so far I have only managed to get to 62nd level without dying and its always a result of some mob walking through and catching agro or spawning where I'm already in a fight. Now for someone newer to the game this might happen sooner and suddenly you are getting killed in a fight you have no hope in hell of winning which isn't fun.
As for free to play I think they will work out a joint package with the secret world. Where a couple of extra bucks will get you access to both and this could see renewed interest. But talking about games that need to go free to play WAR and STO are far more in need of this threatment.
I'm sure they're not going to miss the 'quality' of the average F2P cheap ass gamer...
OH i hope so, it would be awesome to go back and see how things are now in the game. I did enjoy their combat system.
This interview was pretty much another example of why people are quitting conan. Meaningless unbalanced exploited PVP, little PVE content, excessive grind. The only thing going for it is gfx and original combat. And at the rate they develop they may fix the new bugs they introduced in 3 years.