Age of Conan delay explained

By Robert Purchese Published 15 August, 2007

Game director wades in.

Funcom game director Gaute Godager has issued an open letter to the Age of Conan forum explaining exactly why the game was put back five months.

It's all down to the complexity of the combos, apparently, which beta testers were finding hard to come to terms with. So you'll now be able to have as many combos available as you want, and set them off using a clickable hotkey - although sequential moves will have to performed by certain manoeuvres.

Your hotbar will now also be one big affair, not separated like before. And used combos will have strike-through effects overlaid, so you know exactly what you're up to.

Class specialisation will be trimmed a little, too, because spell casters only need three paths rather than five - so they'll have two removed.

All of this has given Funcom the opportunity to speed up combat and enhance the action elements like positioning and directions, as less of us will be tripping over ourselves trying to get to grips with combat now.

"Why does this take five months? To make it we must go through every combo in the game, reassign keys, make icons, etc.," said Gaute Godager.

"To make it does not take five months. We should be done around Christmas. We wanted the five months to make sure we could make another iteration if feedback was as still less than stellar. We wanted a solid buffer."

For Funcom it is all part of what beta testing is about - listening to you lot. And don't panic, the changes are far from watering down the game to appeal to a more mass market.

"We are not changing the vision - it stays the same. [It's] not dumber, less deep, or less complex - just less convoluted," continued Godager. "Funcom's 'problem' has never been dumbed-down anything."

Head over to our first impressions of Age of Conan to see what we thought of it.

Age of Conan is due for release on PC on 25th March 2008, followed by an Xbox 360 version at a later date.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (6) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • TwistidChimp #1 5 years ago

    They should take as long as they need. They only get one chance at a launch with an mmo, so they should absolutley take the time to polish it as much as they can. Very much looking forward to it.

  • Drone #2 5 years ago

    Completely agree with chimp. I have high hopes for this breakling my WoW habit so when they launch it it needs to be as good as they can make it.

  • Orange #3 5 years ago

    Thirded :)

    I don't mind waiting for a stronger launch. It's remaining on my list and good that they've responded to feedback.

  • mrbandersnatch #4 5 years ago

    After seeing the train wreck that Vanguard became its no surprise to see companies taking a more considered route....and remember, Funcom is the company behind Anarchy Online, a game that had as much expectations behind it as AoC.

    The problem AoC is going to run into now is launching in a similar timeframe as WO and WoWs next expansion - thats going to be tough all around ;)

  • sneetch #5 5 years ago

    Good to see them willing to polish it and especially good to see them being open and informative about why. Most people are a lot more reasonable when they're not being treated like mushrooms.

    WO will be a big challenge for AoC, but I'd imagine (just a guesstimate mind you, I haven't seen any dates so far) that the next expansion for WoW is 12-18 months away. At least. I'd love to be proven wrong there though.

    Ah needz to getz mah level 80 on! ;)
    Edited by 1 at 16/08/07 @ 12:50

  • Antwandemarco #6 5 years ago

    The Conan world rocks, so i think the concept certainly has potential but as to whether funcom will handle it with poise is the real question. Still i get kinda irked by WOW's cutesy colour scheme.

    CRUSH YOUR ENEMIES, SEE THEM DRIVEN BEFORE YOU AND HEAR THE LAMENTATION OF DE WIMIN!!


    Btw the above coment is so un Conan who knows what the writers were thinking/smoking.