Each month, MMORPG.com brings you a profile of one of the developers working on Funcom's Age of Conan. This month, it's the head honcho himself, Game Director Gaute Godager.

MMORPG.com:

Tell us a little about your childhood. How did school and where you live influence your choice to join the video game community?

Gaute Godager:

I believe it was my brother who was my greatest inspiration to “fall in love” with computers. I guess that sounds a bit silly, but his boundless enthusiasm for the Commodore VIC 20 owned by some neighbors (the “Førde Brothers” (Fred and John) across the road) and his consequently purchase of a spanking new Commodore 64 (omg that was one powerful and wonderful piece of machinery for its days) that really brought me into gaming, demo making and dreaming about even better computers. (He is 1,5 years my elder and has another weird Norwegian name – Tjalve).

My brother and I are still at the same love for hardware, gadgets and tech as back then, now 25 years later. (Im 37). I’m the only one into gaming…

Read the whole thing here.

I was surprised he mentioned Mitch Albom (and like how his name is Wiki linked to that old game instead of maybe to something about him).  An amazing writer whether it is the books Gaute mentioned or covering sports, personalities, and social issues in Detroit or affecting our nation/world.  Great writer definitely worth checking out

Who even gives a crap? AOC failed miserably and I could care less where that guy came from. What ya gonna do guys? Make a 30 foot tall gold statue of him and sacrifice virgins?

Come on guys, cut him some slack. After all, he's just the director. Not like anything he says or does actually affects the game.

Besides, AoC is a beautiful game, filled with pretty bugs and gorgeous incomplete zones. Oh ya, what would we do with a fully implemented PvP system anyway? It's not like we can get to 80 in a week just from the enormous amount of PvE content.

Hmm - I wonder if MMORPG.COM is gonna be deleting this post cause of flaming

This is the first complete content this dev has done ever I guess.... Finish this interview....

Now he can go back to his lies and crappy PR and hope for more money for false promises.

I wonder if he's reading these forums right now...

thanks for the interview Jon!

reported to trollers and flamers here..

"A deep, flexible and massive world is better than anything"

It's a pity that Age of Conan is none of these.

Well, despite my feelings towards AoC, Gaute seems a decent guy. He probably works hard, its not his fault the shareholders got impatient, its not like hes going to personallyadmit how bad AoC really is.

I imagine if AoC released polished and with complete content the community here would be much more positive towards him.

But I cant help but feel annoyed how MMORPG.com failed to ask questions at the heart of the MMO community. He doesnt have to answer, but the questions should atleast be asked.

This game is not a complete product, there are major content defficiencys that start in the middle of the game and continue until the end. Funcom and its employees need to get practical about this problem, communication is key, ignoring the problem is in essence, ignoring your player base and they WILL go away. Indefinately.

Nice interview, but thats all it is, nice, another opportunity wasted though imo.

Having listened to Gaute for more than 5 years, and seeing the results he produces, the man has ZER0 credibility.

"There will be no camping in Shadowlands!" ~Gaute Godager.  i

Gaute needs to bury himself in the sand and let the water roll in. Washed up that is right. Ya he'll give you a vision he'll take your game and send it straight to hell.

People would have been willing to cut the guy a little slack if he knew how to be honest with gamers. Sadly hes not. He no different than Brad McQuaid in reality. He can talk and spin as well as hype people up for his games and when they dont deliver he wont own up nor apologise. Instead he just keeps the spin going.

Originally posted by fyerwall

 

People would have been willing to cut the guy a little slack if he knew how to be honest with gamers. Sadly hes not. He no different than Brad McQuaid in reality. He can talk and spin as well as hype people up for his games and when they dont deliver he wont own up nor apologise. Instead he just keeps the spin going.

Quoted for Truth.

A lot of the old AO players consider him the one that ruined the game with Shadowlands. They had somethign original and fun and decided they wanted to try to be a bad clone of EQ. Too bad, so sad.

Of course i'm happy with AOC.... lol yeah, i'm surprised here.   Ever heard a dev says the game he made sucks ?

I dont get what is so bad about AOC?  - I'm L40 now so maybe I cant talk as I've not see a lot of it, and also all the 'terrible stuff' people mention I have never witnessed myself in the game, all my friends who play like it to..maybe we are all just retarded or have very bad taste in games!?!?...I have purchased pretty much every fantasy MMO that has come out in the last 3-4 years and it's way better than all of those....maybe it's just that people had all these inflated expectations and so they enjoy picking things apart when they did'nt get exactly what they dreamed?

Originally posted by Aguitha

Of course i'm happy with AOC.... lol yeah, i'm surprised here.   Ever heard a dev says the game he made sucks ?

Yeah Harvey Smith (Deus EX) after they had shipped BlackSite, when he was speaking at a conference he pretty much said the game was shit. Midway then forced him to resign lol.

Is it just me or does any ones ear bleed when you hear the guy speak? No offence to the guy but his accent is like nails on a chalk board to me.

personally I like to see mmorpg NOT even speak with him anymore he has no credibility you folks ought to spend the time on the promises that FUNCOM has made even with AOC and AO over the years just to prove it.

Please no more interviews!!

The good thing about McQuaid was that he disappeared soon after the vanguard-desaster. I'm afraid Gaute will stick around for a while.

Any serious mmo-page should boycott this liar and his false propaganda. Neither the gaming industry nor the gamers do need guys like these.

Satisfied with his own game? Thats a big surprice.

How is this different than most of the MMO's released lately?  Hard to blame him for following in the footsteps of his peers.  Unfortunately the investors get anxious and insist on pushing an incomplete game out the door.  While it looks wonderful in the beginning once people get to play it for it bit most realize that the later levels are pretty much empty of content at the moment.   The only bad thing about this game was that they allowed people to level far too fast and discover it way before the first month was up.

Originally posted by Ozmodan

How is this different than most of the MMO's released lately?  Hard to blame him for following in the footsteps of his peers.  Unfortunately the investors get anxious and insist on pushing an incomplete game out the door.  While it looks wonderful in the beginning once people get to play it for it bit most realize that the later levels are pretty much empty of content at the moment.   The only bad thing about this game was that they allowed people to level far too fast and discover it way before the first month was up.

The ONLY BAD thing ?

What about the other 3 zillion ???

The man is probably smoking some heavy stuff now from OUR money. 69 Euro for a CE.x 110K  and 49 Euro x 500K, (well give a few % when you calculate dollars/euros).

Originally posted by Ozmodan

How is this different than most of the MMO's released lately?  Hard to blame him for following in the footsteps of his peers.  Unfortunately the investors get anxious and insist on pushing an incomplete game out the door.  While it looks wonderful in the beginning once people get to play it for it bit most realize that the later levels are pretty much empty of content at the moment.   The only bad thing about this game was that they allowed people to level far too fast and discover it way before the first month was up.

You do realize that Gaute was the idiot in charge of developing/launching Anarchy Online, right? Remember how that went? Anarchy Online didn't start to improve until Gaute went to make AoC and Craig Morrison became AOs' Game Director. Of course, Gaute took all the customer service people from AO for AoC now, so the improvements to AO are now a moot point, seeing as how people are having their billing screwed every way to Sunday, chat servers going down constantly, and NO customer service ( and when you do get a response from FC concerning your Anarchy Online account, the address will say support@ageofconan.com :P ).

The guy is a damn joke and is going to kill two games at once.

Originally posted by Rhoklaw

 Oh ya, what would we do with a fully implemented PvP system anyway?

I remember saying the exact same thing 3 weeks after DAoC came out.

Oh and love your post, especially when compared to the 40 hours you've put into AoC this week. :p I know bashing AoC is the 'fad' on these forums. But damn, if you don't want to look like a follower, don't link your Xfire details in your sig.

Originally posted by Zorvan

 

You do realize that Gaute was the idiot in charge of developing/launching Anarchy Online, right? Remember how that went? Anarchy Online didn't start to improve until Gaute went to make AoC and Craig Morrison became AOs' Game Director.

Actually Gaute was AO's game director for AO and continued to be for several years, even after Shadowlands. He was also behind the AI expansion, I know because I was discussing his ideas about it with him a good two years before it came out.

Cut the guy some slack people. His games certainly dont come out 'finished' or in pristine condition but they are always innovative and push the genre in some way and have a very different style and 'feel' then any other MMOG.

And as much as people bash this game right now, it's no different then any other MMOG at this point. Lacking high end content, myriad of small bugs, no real meaning to PvP. Join the club for just-released MMOGs.