Funcom's Craig Morrison Comments by Rob Fahey

I'll definitely try the 2-weeks offer for old subscribers, I've heard nothing but good things recently, and I had always liked the game in the first place.

I only just played this for the first time last night, and it's quite good. I'm not sure how bad it was, but in it's current state it's worth a try at least. I do like the directional attack system, though I'd like to see how it fits in later.

It's have been wiser to spend more time on some issues before launch though, but they're getting there at least.

Eurogamer, please find a new MMO to give us daily updates on. After the last year I feel like I'm on speaking terms with half the Funcom staff.

Fawksie - have you left Tortage yet? Tortage is brilliant. The first three times you play it. But once you leave or have to do it again, the game becomes a massive pain. And despite these claims of "fixing" stuff, it's still played in horrible instanced little pokey grotholes of zones and it just doesn't feel like an MMO.

Good ol' Craig Morrison, still deaf as a post to the wishes of existing players, still ignoring their pleas. 'Mr. not a priority right now' is now gearing up to thrust his expansion pack into our bellies and run off with our purses.
I believe that he believes the new 'adventure' system is the best thing to happened to AoC since he came on the scene. It is not. The old system was, if nothing else, fair and more in keeping with Conan's Hyboria than this WoW pretence he has concocted.
Still, even Mr. Morrison and his team's dislike for the barbarian class will not take away the fun I have playing AoC, at least not for now.

The game has improved greatly since I last played (4 months back?). Ive already bought a few months time.

@Gaol We should be supporting European developers more so than the other American MMO developers!

@Gaol We should be supporting European developers more so than the other American MMO developers!

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Why? Because we like to play shit games?

iok - Not out of Tortage yet, but I'll still reserve judgement until I've played a few days. If it really is all about instances though, I'll just go back to the cheaper Guild Wars. If fact I'll probably go back to GW anyway.

I know that I can't see me hating the game though, I generally stick with an opinion after 10 minutes. I can see me just getting bored like I do with most MMOs, just depends how long it takes.

@DFawkes What server Fawkes?

From my experience, leaving Tortage and entering Aquilonia was awesome. Probably the most impressive city I've ever seen in an MMO. Very beautiful.

Ah, well be prepared for a drop-off in quality, despite what Vistrix says. Yes, it looks nice but the use of instances and zones is shocking. It makes GW look like a full open-world and it's horribly fragmented.

@iokthemonkey You're right about the instances / zones stuff, although its in all modern MMOs its done pretty badly with the zone layout.

Which is funny because Anarchy Online is the complete opposite, it feels huge with almost no instances.

although its in all modern MMOs

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LOTRO uses instances and some zones, yes, but you can ride from one side of the game world to the other without a load. In AoC you have that stupid "talk to NPC to travel to a zone then walk to another zone line and sit through another loading screen" every time you want to go anywhere. And the zones themselves are hideously constrained and boxed-in.

Sorry but a modern MMO should feel like a real world, not a bunch of badly inter-connected game levels.

@iokthemonkey LOTOR is still instanced everywhere. I had real troubles finding a mate until I learned how to change instance...

It does feel much larger and open though, than most other modern MMOs.

Zones / instances are something I would love to see atotally removed from all MMOs.

I'm on server... first one I saw. Possibly Battlefield or Battlescar or something like that.

I have to admit I prefer starterzones to be open. seeing a bunch of new characters like me running about as we all level up bit by bit is one of my favourite parts of MMOs, and you can make good friends for life. Not that I mind the AoC approach, but to me it's more of an alright game rather than an alright MMO.

DFawkes - You do actually get that, to a degree. Once you're in the town, when you talk to the barman, you can switch between Day and Night - during the day, you're in an MMOG zone, with everyone else running around levelling up around you. At night, it switches into single-player mode to do the story quests.

The singleplayer stuff is what disappears after level 20, once you strike out into the rest of the gameworld.

LOTOR is still instanced everywhere.

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Aside from the specific quest instances, LOTRO isn't instanced like AoC is, where you can be standing next to your mate but - because you're in different instances - you can't see each other.

Story Instancing is fine, as it means you can play your specific quest without worrying about some git stealing your quest mobs or disrupting the story. But AoC's instanced WORLD is just wrong and isn't a design decision at all: it's a technical bodge because the engine isn't up to scratch.

No accounting for personal preference, iok? While the way AoC does it could be massively improved upon, I prefer the idea of having bigger server populations and instanced world zones to having loads of smaller servers that are walled off from each other, like WoW and almost every other MMOG does. Neither is an ideal solution, but that's a technological constraint.

Then again, I guess if you're going to spend 12 months moaning bitterly about having a bad experience in a game, you probably aren't the type to account for personal preference :)

Some of the classes are quite novel. The class I am (monster morphing dude of some description) is different to anything I've in other MMOs, enough to keep me hooked for the trial at least.

But to be honest, when it gets to the end, and I have that subscription money in my account, I'm not going for AoC. I still prefer WAR, and it's open PvP areas.

But AoC doesn't have either - the zones themselves are hideously cramped, narrow little channels. The cities never feel populated anyway, due to the ridiculous use of instances and it simply doesn't feel like a real world. You can't walk from one place to the other without having to go through the rigmarole of talking to the transport NPC, clicking, "yes, I would like to travel, really, honestly, I would" and then sitting through a loading screen, arriving at a "city" and then having to go through ANOTHER hard-zone line and out into a very cramped "adventure zone."

It makes EQ look like an open-world game.

And back on the "moaning" thing, I've said it time and time again - if I bought a CD of 12 songs, got it home and found it only had 3 but the others would be available to buy "soon" for an additional fee, I'd be within my rights to return it for a full refund. So why is this different? I paid for a service/product that wasn't fit for purpose and so if I'm not able to get a refund, it's my right to complain and complain I will.

While we differ on the instancing, I do agree with you about the transport between zones - it's restrictive and makes the game feel much less open than its competitors. That said, I don't see it as a game-breaker - not compared to some of the genuine game-breakers that have been fixed in the past 12 months. Yes, I can't walk from zone to zone - but what actually happens in those zones is a hell of a lot more enjoyable, consistent and well-crafted than it was previously.

I'm not saying you should stop complaining - far from it! You and Gaol are the Statler and Waldorf of every AoC comment thread on the site - the sheer level of bitterness is pure gold! The threads wouldn't be the same without your double act :)

I'm not saying you should stop complaining - far from it! You and Gaol are the Statler and Waldorf of every AoC comment thread on the site - the sheer level of bitterness is pure gold! The threads wouldn't be the same without your double act :)

:D

Agree about he transport but then it really is there to keep the scale of things semi-believable. For me, this trade off is better than being able to run across an entire continent in < 30 minutes.

The instancing really isn't an issue for me. Every mini dungeon is my own with no-one spawn camping a boss, the larger zones are populated enough to make it feel busy without it being crowded and the capital cities are not instanced at all so they are always packed with folk going about their bunsiness.

Other games do it in a much better manner. AoC feels cramped and artificial, not like a real world at all. It's just too fragmented. But hey, if you like that, more power to you.

Personally I prefer good MMOs though.

I'm not bitter, I just think the continued positive press EG gives this lemon should be countered with some reality. The 8/10 launch review is still, in my mind, the most inaccurate EG review to date and people spent real money on this shit.

I got the 14 day thing the other day; which is a good gesture but the fact that the guy admits his classes are totally imbalanced doesn't fill me with confidence.

conanfanboyslol

People still play Conan? ^^

No but seriously this game runs like a three legged dog, once you get inside huge cities the game crawls almost to a halt. The engine is badly written and no number of tweaking is going to make things better.

I'm going to enjoy the heck out of this out of spite now. I'll subscribe and play it 24/7, until I get fired and/or go (more) mental from sleep deprivation. Take that haters!

I think the only thing that I really thing is wrong is it feels very much like a free-to-play MMO. I've tried lots of those in an effort to get away from subscriptions, but they always lack that spark that makes me itch to play again. It feels a bit cheeky to ask us for money to play such a heavily instanced game with seperate zones, without maiking the effort to try and hide this from you with load areas or some other techniques.

Even the likes of Archlord manage one persistant world, even if it's so generic it hurts my head to play it.

I followed AoC through beta and before, but as soon as it came out that there were zones in the style of Everquest (and perhaps worse since they weren't geographically connected) I never had any intention of playing it.

I know we all moan about WoW but after playing in a fully open world there's no way I can go back to EQ style zoning, I just can't. Someone said about realism - yes the WoW world is geographically small in that you can run across it in an hour or whatever, but despite this (and massive credit to Blizzard) it still feels massive.... to me anyway.

If you're taking the MMO technology backwards, rather than forwards, you need to be punished!
Just kidding.
But seriously, yeah.

I've got some chains in the back if you're into that sort of thing.

I still havn't upgraded my hardware to the point where I think I'll be able to run AoC to my satishfaction, but once I do I definitely intend on giving it anoter looksie. AO basicly went from one of the worst MMO releases ever, several times worse than AoC really, to become one of the better MMOs out, well in my opinion anyways, so I'd say that AoC definitely deserves another look by me. :)

But despite my rusty old pc I'm still going to download it and look into this 14 day business since they're talking about a free level 50 in the "come back to us" email and I'd sure hate myself for having passing up on that should I ever return.

@curtlikesmeat
Blizzard sure have some nice technology with their ability to send you to different instances without you ever noticing because there isn't a load screen. Makes up for some great possibilities like the Hodir quest line where the world actually changes as you progress. I sure hope more MMO companies pick it up.

That being said I remember entering old Azeroth for the first time and feeling pretty confined by the mountain regions which made it feel like every area was a new ride in a themepark, leaving little room for exploration. Not that it ever bothered me much, much like the zoning in eve-online, AO and AoC never bothered me either, but none of them ever made me feel like I was part of a real open world in the sense games like Asherons Call or Shadowbane would. That changed a bit in TBC and WOTLK though where flying mounts ment you wouldn't get cut off by mountains full of dancing trolls.

But to each their own. ;)

Seriously, if they wanted to grow the userbase quickly they should have converted it to a micropayments scheme. Relaunching a subscription product with a "please come back" note is an exercise in futility, they might get a small bump in numbers but that's about it.

''I don't blame anybody for feeling burnt. They invested money in a game, they buy it retail, they pay a subscription fee - and if they don't like it, or there are technical issues that stop them from playing... I think we shouldn't kid ourselves and say oh, well, they're just internet trolls.''

Still not allowed to acknowledge the fact that the game was released a full year too early, that they lied about game content and upcoming updates and stole peoples money.

I feel for Craig Morrison, tough job the man has.

Much love and big up da props to ma man morrisons. west side. innit.

Werd.

"I'm not bitter, I just think the continued positive press EG gives this lemon should be countered with some reality. The 8/10 launch review is still, in my mind, the most inaccurate EG review to date and people spent real money on this shit. "

This man speaks the truth. The only gold in this game is the stuff in Funcom's pockets that they gained from woefully inaccurate reviews. Once thousands of people could see for themselves what the beta testers had seen, but somehow the professional reviewer missed, then the bottom fell out of the game.

Why should people trust this company again?

I might give it another go, honestly though I'm more likely to just play through Tortage again, hit the brick wall of zero content at 21 and give up. From what I hear they didn't even touch this point, the 3 quests per seven levels was their target for "plenty of content" and they were working on getting the 40-50 ranges up to that lofty goal.

''I don't blame anybody for feeling burnt. They invested money in a game, they buy it retail, they pay a subscription fee - and if they don't like it, or there are technical issues that stop them from playing... I think we shouldn't kid ourselves and say oh, well, they're just internet trolls.''

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Funny then that he registered on another site just to post some rather curt "well, that's as may be, but..." replies to my comments there.

If he wants people to be happy with AoC, give us a full refund.

It's good that they've started to finally fix the game. I haven't played it that much but my friend bought a copy on launch and I followed his progress for a while -- I liked the mature and gritty tone, and the combat seem rather fun. Problem is, it was seriously lacking polish... it was like the game was being held together with bits of chewing gum and Sellotape.

It still kinda seems unpolished now, and that's off-putting for me. As much as I can hate it, WoW still wins in areas of gaming design that matter most.

"Zones / instances are something I would love to see atotally removed from all MMOs. "

Early MMOs were like this (AC for example had no instances and a fully streamed world) but it also has problems. Too many players "doing" the same dungeon and mob for example. Imagine the dungeons in WoW being non-instanced.... 1000 players would stream into Ulduar and kill every boss in 10 minutes. Maybe there should be some games like that... it certainly is more realistic (why would I attack a big dragon with 25 people when I can do it with an army?)

There's a difference between zones and instances though Dizzy. You can barely walk a mile in AoC before you're penned in to a funnel to a zone line. And not into a dungeon either.

I'm giving this a go again, I actually enjoyed the game at launch, despite it being broken - I remember how screwed up WoW was for the first year (though Conan was worse, tbf).

@iokthemonkey: I'd be interested - have you played the game since the latest fixes, or are you just moaning about stuff that happened to you a year ago? If not, the whining is slightly... disturbing - like you became traumatised after FunCom touched you in your bathing suit area rather than made a game you didn't like. I'd like to know what you honestly think of the 'fixed' version. Even some of my most bitterly disappointed mates have been giving it the thumbs up.

Oh yawn. No, Funcom didn't sexually abuse me.

They just lied to the people who bought this piece of shit and continue to do so to this day. But if you can't see that this "game" is a second-class, sub-standard piece of shit and that Funcom's statements and promises are horseshit, then bigger fool you.

I have a new PC now and it's untainted by shit like this, so no, I won't be taking them up on their offer, as I don't want to have to go through the pain of manually removing files they didn't bother coding their uninstaller to deal with.

Oh and the level of Fanboyism in the down-voting here is hilarious.

My boy monkey hates this game quite a bit.

To be fair though monkey you should have another look. I just spent a few hours on it and enjoyed myself very much. I cant vouch for all the changes, but the new player stats/equipment alterations are very nice. It appears (at least so far) that FC are finally making good on some their promises, even if it is a little late.

I have always thought that on a moment to moment basis AoC is by far the most fun of the current crop of MMO's it just lacked cohesion, which they seem to be well on theier way to fixing.

Certainly worth a look.

@iokthemonkey

I paid money for AOC and was underwhelmed by it and, just like you, really love LOTRO. That game really shows what polishing your game and lovingly crafting the world can do for it. That being said, I don't hate AOC for it. And I'll give it another try if I can get a key tomorrow. Is a game really worth hating with a passion? *shrug*

Wendelius

Nice article and big ups for Funcom which is trying to fix the game as much as it can... Thank you

I've fell out with this game already, and that 2 hours in. "Go to this gate!" "You need the key for this gate, go somewhere else!" "Now you're though one gate, get through another!" "No way with those shackles, get them off!" "Sure I'll help, get some bricks!"

No. No I won't get brick. In WoW, I could start a character and go wherever I like, straight off. Might be suicide, but I can do it. I'm not jumping through your hoops anymore :P

AoC is really good now. If you have any tech issues, fps issues, it's your rig. The game is rock solid these days. It has zero bugs and expliots. It has a few balance isues at least the PVP'ers will have you believe (as they tend to squeel in all mmo's).

AoC still has by far the best viseral combat system and GFX if your PC can handle it cranked to the top.

For me the only issue is the somewhat slow development rate.

I have to agree with bluefunk. My PC has'nt changed spec since the last time i played it and now i get a solid 50+ FPS (drops to 40+ in crowded areas) with the settings as high as they can be on xp.

Its all very stable and very busy, how it should have been a year ago. It could do with its chat channels being sorted out. Right now the chat window suffers from a constant stream of shit being spouted through its only global channel. It needs a Global Looking for group channel to help filter the twats out.

Right now that is my only quibble, a good sign i think.

I'm just ahead of the curve, basically. Trust me on this.

I wish I'd trusted you iok. I wish I had. Sorry for doubting.

I did get a good 20 minutes of enjoyment out of AoC before I came to the realisation I was only playing because I was too lazy to quit out and just play Guild Wars. It's not a bad game though, it's just not worth a subscription, based on how much it feels like a single-player game. If it was, I'd have bought it knowing I could pop in every now and then. But I'll pass.

It does have some nice classes, and I could see why people that play it enjoy it, but being forced to play certain missions early on was enough for me to be put off. It's not broken though, it's functional at least.

I actually liked the idea that you would be able to fight people of a higher level covered in glittering gear and stand a chance, I think they simply went about it the wrong way; they made a game that wasn't about itemisation yet copied all the systems and play mechanics of an itemisation game :/

e.g. Hiding away higher stat things in hard to reach places. Why would anyone bother if it doesn't make a difference?

If they wanted to have items people would go after but not 'overpower' them, they really should've focussed on adding new abilities or gameplay to the player with the items. Look at things like metroid or zelda for example; hookshots, boomerangs, grappling beams, morph balls and the like don't make you more powerful but they do give you more options and even some new unexpected tactical manouvers (e.g. in zelda there's creatures with metal masks that you normally have to get behind to hurt but once you get the hookshot you can use it to tear the mask off them and even beat them to death with their own mask :p ).

The problem with strengthening the difference between levels and equipment and all that is that you end up splitting the pool of PvP opponents. Look at WAR; if you're in one of the tiers that everyone else has moved from then you're gonna be awfully lonely. This is why games like CS, TF2 and Call of Duty do so well; you can come in and play at any level so there's always a pool of people to play with. Sure, some might not be up to snuff skill-wise but they help pad out the numbers so everyone's not twiddling their thumbs and not only can they get the occasional surprise attack on you but by playing with higher skill players they learn and pick up advanced tactics quicker.

I think I might be one of the very few who didn't like tortage either :o
I don't play MMOs to be locked away from others... there's plenty of single player games I own that do it a million times better. MMOs is about playing with other players to me :3

On that same note I've never understood the obsession with linking guilds to 'community'. I've played a good many online games and I'll quite happily point out that those that didn't have any guild mechanics had much stronger communities overall. Guilds are merely divisive and segregate the gaming population into little cliques. I'm also of the opinion that the majority of players don't play in guilds (I don't have any research to back this up but I can give you plenty anecdotes ;D ).
The mercenaries thing peaks my interest as I think that may be a better idea, if the Guilds bother to use it much.

Anyhoo that's my rant against some of the things I think about Age of Conan's new direction or direction in general :p

I wish I'd trusted you iok. I wish I had. Sorry for doubting.

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I forgive you. :)

The problem is AoC is very front-heavy and initially appears really good, excellent in fact. However, it very quickly becomes clear that the game is very, VERY shallow and there's a massive nose-dive in terms of the game's quality, interest and appeal very quickly.

As a single-player, offline action RPG it would probably (almost) work, but as an MMO - a genre people generally spend more time playing and progress in a slower fashion - it fails utterly.

"As a single-player, offline action RPG it would probably (almost) work, but as an MMO - a genre people generally spend more time playing and progress in a slower fashion - it fails utterly"

I agree with that entirely. it's not bad, it's just not very massively multiplayer. It is online though, so it's a good enough ORPG, not so much MM.

But by no means good enough to pay money to play.