Age Of Conan's Iffy Future
I've been pleased to see some more MMO love here at GayGamer recently, most particularly TheDoctor's tremendous I Will Be Level 70 posts. I've been there, Doctor. Thrice!
Between preparing the upcoming WoW expansion and the vasty sprawling world of Warhammer Online, I've been burning the MMO candle at both ends, and have all but forgotten about Age of Conan, which is a shame because the game incorporates a lot of great features and has a lot to offer, in theory. But the single (and thus repetitive) starting experience, the lack of racial diversity (the fictional kind), as well as the continuing absence of DX10 support leaves AoC feeling like the odd man out in the current MMO crop.
MMORPG has a great interview with new AoC game director Craig Morrison, who seems like a good man to helm up Funcom's flagging MMO. He knows his stuff and loves his genre, which bodes well. Morrison's even got a solid answer to questions about doomsayer who prophecy AoC's demise:
There will always be the merchants of doom! I understand that some players didn't see in the game what they had dreamt it might be, and while some of that is unavoidable (the games we invent in our heads will always surpass those we are actually able to be produced, I know the 'dream' MMO in my head would probably be completely unfeasible for now at least. It's those dreams though that feed the inspiration for what we can achieve!), I also know that we can improve on many of the areas that some players felt weren't delivered well enough at launch. MMOs are a long term investment both from our end and for players.
There are those who will always want to presume the worst and predict all the necessary doom and gloom, it comes with the territory. What I focus on is proving them wrong and providing good solid fun entertainment for our players. Our players are our greatest asset, our advocates as it were, and I am quite confident that the game will be more than up to the task of being worth their time and energy. If we can continue to do that then I am sure we will be around for many years to come yet!
I like Morrison's attitude, and I think he might be right. Some of AoC's issues are built into its structure, which like fellow troubled MMO Tabula Rasa gives players a single-player style introduction to the game - an approach that works great in offline RPGs but fails to give the multiplicity of story and experience that gives games like WoW, Lord of the Rings Online and Warhammer such longevity. And then there's the endgame experience comparison... but that's a story for another day.
Age of Conan: Getting to Know the New Game Director [MMORPG]
tiny dancer
Posted to MMOs, Video Games on 7 October 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: age of conan, craig morrison, funcom, mmo, mmorpg
1) Post your active Subs.
2) Explain how some classes were and are still neglected.
3) Explain how that mount system passed QA.
These would be the 3 things I would need to hear from this guy before I would take any of that on face value. I wanted AOC to be better but I'm not fooling myself into thinking its better then what it is.
I really enjoyed it for a little bit... but I never even finished up the first town. The magic just wasn't there to keep me going.
Now Warhammer, on the other hand...