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Age of Conan: Unchained Interviews: Post 1.5 Interview
MMORPG.com recently had the opportunity to sit down with Funcom's Craig Morrison to talk about the launch of the most recent update to their flagship game, Age of Conan.
By Jon Wood on July 03, 2009
| MMORPG.com: | How was 1.5 received by the game's community when it finally launched? |
| Craig Morrison: | I think it has gone very well all things considered. Most players seem to appreciate the new build of the items and that they can now easily see how the items tie into their character. Likewise I think the new content has been very well received ad people are really enjoying the experience in Tarantia Commons, and the guild changes have also been welcomed. ;) Of course there are some things that need to be addressed, as we knew there would be, and, as we knew it would be, it is in the class balance area that most of the feedback lies...and of course in that area the feedback is never anything short of vocal! We had always known, and been quite upfront with the community in advance, that there would be some things we had to address after the update was released to the live environment. With something on this scale we knew that there would be elements that would require additional tweaking and adjusting and were prepared for that. As we also expected the greatest challenge there is in the class balance. The follow-up to the update is very important so we can adjust the areas of the balance that weren't quite right 'out of the gate' as it were. That is what we are already working on now, I think with the new systems we didn't quite get the relative strength of the spell using classes against the melee damage in PVP. That's the main area where the feedback is very vocal, and rightly so, as that area is the part that does still need further adjustment. I think in PVE things have come together quite nicely by and large and there is less to tweak there, which is encouraging, we do know though that we have to make the adjustments for PVP promptly and properly so that we ensure the PVP game-play is also as fun. There are also a couple of the raids that are not quite there yet in terms of having the correct difficulty and we will need to tone them down a notch (although several guilds have already surprised even us and defeated those encounters with a dedicated effort even before we tone them down. They still need adjusting of course, but there were some mighty efforts by those involved in those kills!) |
| MMORPG.com: | There are comparisons between this most recent update and the Star Wars Galaxies NGE where the game was radically changed after launch. For them, it was disastrous, how is the case different with AoC? |
| Craig Morrison: | I almost have to laugh that one off as I think it's quite off base. Having played through that myself (as an SWG subscriber at that time) our current game update is (if you will pardon the unintentional pun) 'light years' away from what was done with the NGE in Star Wars Galaxies. That update completely and fundamentally tried to redesign the entire game-system for that title, and that is nothing like what is being attempted with the current update. The NGE was indeed a radical departure, this on the other hand does not really contain any radical changes to how the game is structured. The same classes are all still present and correct, their feat trees are just updated rather than being removed or replaced, so this update doesn't have any real similarities with the NGE at all. For real SWG followers and fans it maybe, just maybe, has some similarities to the CU, in that what are doing is adjusting and improving the existing system rather than adding a totally different one, but even then I would say that they are fairly loose similarities. I am sure there will be some who did genuinely prefer the 'old' way and that's fine, people are entitled to their opinions, but we wouldn't have moved forward with these changes unless we were confident it was the right direction for the game. In an MMO environment we unfortunately can't please everyone all of the time and we have to make the changes that we feel will have the most beneficial impact overall. In addition, the update was driven very, very firmly by the player feedback in the first place. |
| MMORPG.com: | For those who don't know, can you tell us what led to the decision to radically change the game's item system? |
| Craig Morrison: | Again, I'm not really sure that 'radical' is the word I would personally use to describe it, but I guess that is subjective! As I just mentioned in the previous question it was driven firmly from the feedback from players after the launch last year. While not a radical change, revamping the RPG system was certainly a major decision. I think though that it was an easier decision to make than you might think. The feedback regarding items and their relative worth was pretty consistent. People just didn't see the items and statistics in the game as meaning enough to their character. When we sat down and looked at it none of us really had any doubts that this was an area of the game that just wasn't delivering what players wanted and expected from an RPG system. That of course opened up quite a few risks as well. Changing something so fundamental to the game after launch always means you have to be careful and mindful about what players like about the game already. I think though that the feedback made it an easy decision, it was an area we really had to address in some way and we didn't want to apply a 'band aid', it was important to me to implement a sound and thorough solution. The systems revamp is about giving us a sound and solid foundation from which to build the game in the future. Now that we are not restricted as much by the very narrow power range of the original system it gives us more room to manoeuvre. |
| MMORPG.com: | Looking at the game as it stands today, in all honesty, what are its greatest strengths? |
| Craig Morrison: | We have a fantastically well realized game-world and system to build upon. I don't think there is anything out there that quite looks and feels like the world we have created for the game. We have a game-world and setting quite unlike anything out there. It is darker and more brutal, a truly mature setting and everything that comes with that. I think it also looks absolutely amazing and the team did a fantastic job realizing the world first described by Robert E Howard in the Conan stories. The content in the game I think really stands out both in setting and in the quests and storytelling. With each new addition the team is adding more dynamic elements and more interesting and engaging encounters and boss fights. Then you have the combat system that is much more involved and reactive in nature than many games out there. I think people really enjoy that part of the game and appreciate what it brings to the game-play. |
| MMORPG.com: | Using the same honesty, what are its greatest weaknesses? |
| Craig Morrison: | I think the most obvious weakness is everything that didn't go well at the games launch. We have now had to work through not only the actual issues and get them resolved but then be faced with the fact that we have to convince people the game is worthy of a second look. Game-play and content issues are relatively straight forward to address, working on improving the general perception of the game takes longer and means we have to ensure the updates are better and better so that players start to have a positive opinion and that the word of mouth about the game improves. Game-play wise I really want to improve on the guild functionality and those community elements that help keep people enjoying their game-experience. I think that is an area that we can definitely improve on and is where we will be focusing a lot of resources for the next update cycle. We really don't yet offer enough incentives and progression options for guilds and that is something I want to address. |
| MMORPG.com: | If you could directly address the players who left the game angry and disillusioned shortly after launch, what would you say to them? |
| Craig Morrison: | I would point to all the improvements, like those listed in this interview that have been made since the game launched. Then I would say that they shouldn't just take my word for it and to them come back and try it for themselves since I have a little bit of a biased opinion in that respect! Players can find a free trial available and there will soon be a reevaluation offer to previous players so they can come back and try it out for themselves. Anything I say really pales into insignificance compared to actually experiencing it for yourself! |
| MMORPG.com: | There are many who believe that it is unlikely that AoC will draw back a large number of players even with these changes. Can you tell us a little bit about how you plan to draw in old and new players? |
| Craig Morrison: | I think that in addition to the normal avenues, like trials and re-evaluation offers that the sales and marketing folks take care of the best thing we can do is to continue to improve the game and make sure the game-play experience is as good as it can be. After all, that is what matters most to players. |
| MMORPG.com: | So, all told, looking back from launch to today, what has been added to Age of Conan that makes it worth our subscription fees? |
| Craig Morrison: | Short answer - quite a lot! The long answer takes a bit more time! Earlier in the year we summarized it for the interviews I did at GDC in San Francisco, when we last met up in person for an interview with you guys, and I think that list is still relevant. I actually found it quite hard to distill it down to a single page, so the short answer is that a lot has been done, the longer answer breaks down into quite a few areas!
...and all of that is before we get down the content of the latest game update! So a lot has been achieved in the last year and I think Age of Conan is a far better offering than it was at its launch last year. So hopefully people are willing to give it another chance and come back and try for themselves to see what has improved and what we have added, and hopefully find that it is a game they can enjoy and have fun with enough to warrant subscribing to the game! |
Good read,
Craig is honest, though one of the biggest weakness of the game is the lack of semless world but guess he can't say that.
I wish the next step would be UI revamp and character look customization with dyes and social clothing.
SWG NGE comparisons?!
Why would anyone try to put that SOE millstone around the neck of AoC? I am currently playing it again and I must say that I am really enjoying the changes even though AoC has always had the best combat system of all time anyway.
Good job Funcom...I think you now have a winning product. Now, just tweak some other things as Deewe mentioned and all will be good.
I can see what he means about the combat upgrade because I played SWG from july 23, 2003 (launch) till November 15th(nge) and ya they screwed the playerbase with that one, I still hold out hope that one day they will give us a classic server. Anyways I also bought this game at launch and left after the first 2 months. It seems like lots of people are returning to this game. Last week i downloaded the trial after update 1.05 came out and 4 days later me and my buddy both resubscribed, so that tells me that things are lookin good and the waves of people r commin everyday There already planning update 1.06 and I read somewhere that they were gonna pubibly announce the new expansion next month. So if anyone wants to try it out again I would recommend it cause it got me hooked again.
Bah. Not even radical - it feels like totaly different game now.
PVP totaly changed, the only real thing in AOC is a mess now. They doubled HP for all classes while reduced DPS. Whatever fun it had as fast fighting player skill based action is gone now.
Everyone who still play aoc now calls it "age of casters". There's new single-use option to create lvl 50 character and if you go to any 50-60 lvl zone you see that 80% of ppl rolled new Demonologist (mage) or Hox.
Mages can now tank Melee classes and pack tons more DPS. Minigames are slow and boring - you need a few people to focus someone to take him down, sometimes you just can't (it takes 3-5 sec for him to get back from res point).
And a lot more "fun" stuff.
Playing for 1+ year i realized it's finaly time to go. I had all the real fun possible in this game thanks to it's great combat system which though never 100% balanced was fun at least.
Good changes, yet again. But I give them another several updates before they need to think about doing the whole marketing thing.
I played for a month around Christmas and I thought it was a pretty good game, but it had some problems. I'm not a hardcore power leveler so the lack of end game content that so many were complaining about never was a problem for me (I only reached lvl 40) However I wanted more customization to make you look unique, voice over for all quests not just some and some other things. Basicly more stuff, more options. Speaking of SWG I liked how you could own a house there and decorate it, I wish AoC had that.
1.5 is the big DX10 update isn't it? How does it look? I have a 8800GTS 512 so not sure if it's powerful enough. I played on high before and it mostly ran fine, but I guess DX10 mode is more demanding?
I have the same video card and I have no problems at all playing AoC. I even have most settings on high.
no video ? shame
I just finished a new 7day trial and have subbed for a month to hold me over (probablly until Aion). I got a brand new box for 5 quid off ebay. I am liking it, but to be honest I liked it before for the first monthat launch. (I am a bit of an MMO butterfly). I don't see an awful lot different it still feels the same. They have messed a bit with skills and feats, in PVE spell slingers feel fine maybe melee and healing needs a boost. The official forums are full of whine and best taken with a pinch of salt though it will inevitably take some months to get the new patch balanced. That's likely to piss of the vets I guess. Seems like in many cases they have made 'the other tree' viable at the expense of messing up the first one.
The whole shift towards a more item centric game dosen't bother me either way but if it means the 'endgme' is endless instance runs or mindless PVP grind for a new +33 item I personally want to participate. Mind you that is true of most MMO's nowadays (including the elephant in the room).
Unless they do a massive relaunch event, AoC will never ever have higher subscription numbers. People already looking into newer and more exciting games such as Aion, Fallen Earth, SWTOR. AoC is history, and will continue to be one with their current development/marketing scheme.
Well just wanted to put in my 2cp worth of thoughts on the 1.5 patch. I have an 80 Demo that I have been playing for 3 months. I tried a Barbarian, Conqurer, and Necro before I settled on the Demo. I think our class is very strong damage wise although were are still very squishy which is fine Im a cloth caster. I would say the biggest issue right now for a caster is resists and some type of change they made with stuns/knockbacks/silence. The resists are very high I mean a mob 5 plus levels below my character IMO should not ever resist my spell. But I would say all mobs no matter what level seem to resist 1 or 2 times per kill which I could live with on a lvl 79 thru 82 mob but not when Im farming a level 62 mob for a alchemy drop I need. Now as for the stun issue, before 1.5 if you got stunned/knockeddown/silenced you got immunity from that for say 30 seconds. Well now they have seperated those three things and I have actually been in a fight with 3 mobs where I got all 3 things done to me in one fight that ultimately ended in my dying because I was unable to do any type of damage for a good10 to 15 seconds. I feel as if they have made it possible to in some sense be stun locked my NPC's for far to long.
Now as for my free level 50 character I made a Prist of Mitra because our guild needs a few more healers at times. At level 50 my POM gets resisted so much that I spend most of my time dead or running. I realize its a new class for me but I believe they just went to far on the resists.
As for the comments on the raid stuff I would agree that they made them far harder than they were in the past. My guild used to do the Captain in Killickis with 12 people and we might wipe a few times but we could pull it off. Last night we did it with 20 people and we wiped 5 times before we barely managed to beat him.
big improvemnt for me been about year since played. runing 260geforce 896 x2 in sli running in dx9 with no shadows on high detail 1900x1200 its so slick its unreal from 39fps to 110fps .i go dx10 fps drop like rock under 30fps ,if have shadows oin in either mode distance flickers oddly.but that aside way i have it set up normaly is unreal improvment .
game play is bit slower on combos less twich which i like my self.left wow as my scond game to try this again main game is eq1 so its bit jaring going from aoc grfics to eq at times hehe.so far realy liikeing the changes i have seen.cant wait to try some of the new zones.aoc isnt for every one that can click a mouse ( ala wow) still takes skill in your build an way you want your attacks to go.combat reminds me of highlander the card game with the dirctional atacks..very good turn around imho.
I can understand people being upset over balance, casters are way too overpowered atm. But lets be honest, no rpg multiplayer games are perfectly balanced and balance is and allways will be an ongoing process in these games. The gamedirector has admitted that casters are OP and says they're looking into it.
The patch on the whole though was very much needed and a good addition to the game. Stats on gear are much easier to understand now and you can actually see and feel the difference when you get a decent upgrade. If they manage to tone the more extreme cases of unbalance over the next few weeks I'd dare say the game is where it should have been at launch. Im back and enjoying it right now, will see how long the game can hold me this time around with the foundations finally layed down.
I've played AoC since launch, or I guess I should say played. Since 1.05 i'm currently on hiatus, waiting for something to change... For a long time now AoC, has stood for Age of Casters, and frankly nothing has changed. I played AOC 70% for the pvp, 30% for pve and the other fun stuff. Demos and Necro's dominate even more now than before. And yes, I do have a Necro.
Factor in that the first 3 sieges that members of the guild I'm in, fought in crashed 15 minutes in to them and pvp is borked, unless you want to mini-game over and over. But with bugged BK buffs still hanging around that's not as fun as it sounds.
I honestly haven't delved into the PvE changes of 1.05, I didn't do the Tarantia Commons yet. Still, running solo pve content isn't that hard. I have 6 level 80's.
What AoC is missing is good melee to caster balance, decent pvp battlefields and objectives, pvp zones that don't crash and some fixes to long existing pvp bugs. Along with a lot of little things like a decent guild UI that allows you to assign abilities to ranks, rename ranks, social and customizable gear enhancements and all those things that make a game sparkle. Without a doubt it has the potential to get there. The thing is with so many other good to great MMO's coming out can FUNCOM pull it off before they hemmorage so many players that they have to close the doors?
DX10 still runs like crap
I have about as high end as you can get and the game still needs a lot of work engine wise
for high end memory people (12 gigs here) the loading screens still take too long
they messed up the shadowing system on SLI machines in 1.5, on a large number of systems you can't run with shadows enabled...
They need to get a 64 bit client running to take advantage of high end memory systems
their dx10 code is garbage, fps goes down far too much for in a code base that's better than dx9
SLI code is crap.. (three 285's and it doesn't run flawlessly?)
The view distance bar doesn't go far enough so you can't see everything, stuff in the far off distance that you should be able to render is greyed out.
For a game that is targeted to look the best, they certainly didn't do the necessary code work to take advantage of all that looks nice in terms of hardware optimization.
Did I mention it says dx10 on the box? and they just now put a test version of the code in?
I see a lot of promise in AoC, but the goods have not quite arrived yet. I hope it does not go the way of Vanguard, the bugs never being sorted out while new content (also buggy) keeps being added.
I dont get it. Its very strange to see how ppl in AoC see all things around 1.0.5. A lot of players likes it that i know. Im on Fury. I dont understand how someone can say AoC is history. Man ... every older MMO is history in a front of new MMOs in a way to be released, that have great potencial. Lotro is still great game and a lot of players left into Warhammer, Everquest 2 is still great game and a lot of players left into lotro at release. A lot of WoW palyers now are in AoC and Lotro. PPL are going through. If u have like MMOs u feel exigence to test them all :) ...
I like play a game that i love. Lotro was one of my most favorite MMOS ever. I have played it 1,5 of year. I still ike it, but i like a bit WoW too so after this 1,5 i played some months more wow. After these months i played now fifth month AoC and i like it. I dont think that MMOgameing is about camping in one game. For a lot of players its a 4 years long camp in WoW ... or another game. I play currently game if i have taste on it.
AoC isnt history .. a lot of new players still going into game. Only in our guild, we have 20+ new players in last 3 weeks. From it its around 10 old players reactivated and second half are new completly fresh players from WoW and Lotro the most.
All of us we have like 1.5 patch. I think its more complexity game now and its good. It not only about gank now. I like PVE much more now. We have good group of players from may be 5 different guilds and we are going through instances. Its fun for all of us. Its bitter much harder to play without fails and mobs are little bit thougher.
New itemization is good and player stats are on of the best and deepest ive ever see in MMOs. Only in may be Anarchy Online is more number around stats now :D ... and EQ2 and these more mature games ... finaly ..now it looks much like MMOrpg and not like some kind of GuildWars game ...
I have ranger alt and i must say hes much lesser on DPS than was before patch. But im sad for this? no. I like it .... fight is more about think what next skill i will use now. Not only assasination after assasination. Kill them all hided from behind. It was fun for a lot of these who now tolking about what the hell is going on nooow in PvP .....
Only thing i dont like is bad balance of some casters. But i hope its going to be better in next patches.
Great work Funcom ... game looks now much more palyable since release. Only please in the first steps, now work on balances in PvP and then will be great to work on highend individual content like more deeper crafting, player housing, activities like herbalism, fishing, etc.... things that are important to feel ingame some smell of virtual living. What is important for a lot of players. To feel ingame virtual life. You are on a good way.
The update has almost totally ruined raiding, which now has a difficulty spike as high as a high thing, and people are getting royally pissed off with it. To say it needs tweaking is a pretentious understatement. To say it needs re-adjusting is a brilliant observation, but why did FC not listen to the complaints from test server users? Why gayly go ahead and destroy the raiding experience when you were warned?
Fix your patch FC before you alienate the long-term players, the very people who have kept the game alive.
....And stop telling us how wonderful the update was....
This update killed Age of Conan for me.
The poorly thought out pvp consequences of what they did, made age of casters even worse.
Have played since first days for about two months, but not longer because of memory leaks, problems, lag, ..... etc etc. Then War come out, followed by Wotlk. But the worst was at that time dishonesty to players, we felt like dumb asses. Fortunately they fired right guys later and also right guys replaced them. A little late, but still in time.
Now AOC is really one hell of the game, no important bugs (at least imo), incredibly realistic, mechanics of movement are incomparable to any other game, combat system is fun, ..... Of course there are problems, but nothing compared to positives. I hope for some expansion pack in near future.
WoW is stil my No.1, but AoC is dangerousuly close. :-) I find many players that are AoC lovers are at same time WoW haters, but not me. I have no problem enjoying WoW and Aoc. They are both great. But I admint I have hard times to enjoy any other game after played this duo. :-)
No one likes reading long replies so i make this short. there is a reason why they call funcom; failcom.
I made 2 max level characters in 10 days when server 1st were lunched (bear shaman and tempest of set) lets just say nothing worked at this stage so i left after two months.
Now i read some reviews and i thought hmm maybe i should try it again; i log on to see the same problems with PvP, Raiding, items, combo system etc.
IMO this game has nothing going for it beside the graphics and even that is getting old now. beauty is only skin deep as they say'; now days to attract players and in order to keep them you need a lot more then that.
Side note: notice my join date to these forums and note that i never posted before; reason for that is that i never felt strongly about anything to have my say in the matter but with AoC i feel like people are being lied to again just like how they lied to us at lunch. i had to make a post to warn others take it from someone that gone back and activated account, this is still not a good game. so yah this is my 1st post on this site after 6 years :D.
Khm, sorry to contradict you, but when there will be any MMO or PC game with better graphics, better mechanics, .... we could speak about getting old. Especially after 1.05 patch graphics have recived great revamp, shadows from light sources (sun, moon, lights, ...) looks just incredible. Mechanics of movement of characters, fighitng sequences, ... amazing. Fatalities ... i never have enogh of them. :-)
But it is true, I can not speak from pvp or raid perspective, but I have not read many complaints.
So far, as I said, wow is stil my no1, but Aoc is every day closer.
This side note of yours need separate answer. Thank you for warning players to not spend fortune of i.e. 15$ to try again aoc, as they could broke because of this enormous expense. Better stay away. Sic ...
Just another troll message. Please, do not warn me or us not to subscribe to any game for any reason. Just write your experience, what you do not like .... we are completely capable im sure to make our mind about situation. We appreciate your honest will to help, but we do not need this.
Well yeah, some of us work our asses off and can only afford a one time 15EUR fee a month. I am trying to find a new mmo to play and checked out lotro, eq2 and others, but seeing as there's no trial for AOC, I wanted to try it badly, but I aint playing a month of sub only to perhaps find out it sucks. Closing the trial was NOT a good idea imo.