Live Age of Conan interview Comments by Robert Purchese

How can you be working on an expansion pack, when the core game is so broken?

Ask him that

Do people still play this game?

Need someone to write a CV?

Is "Why is WoW so much better than AoC" a valid question?

Why don't you ask him yourself that one, Benno? I have for you anyway (in a more diplomatic tone though).

Who do I speak to to get a refund?

I was waiting for iokthemonkey to show up....man AoC messed you up baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. You should have a fight with it.

Poor mod. It looks like nobody is asking any questions. Or nice questions, anyway...

I was waiting for iokthemonkey to show up....man AoC messed you up baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad. You should have a fight with it.

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Yeah, because reading the above posts, I'm obviously the only person who thinks AoC wasn't a good game... /eyes

This isn't at all painful to watch.

:( they ignore all anti aoc questions :(

I know...

What's even more interesting is that most of the people asking the questions have no previous forum posts or article comments...

Hmm...

morrison socks?

so far the answers mean (to me)

Dont play me yet i am still only half baked, i will be half baked into 2009 and i am not likely to be a complete game until nearly 2 years after my release date and we started taking your money.

A fail so large that even my usually unbias and open mind wants to individually slap all Funcom employees. A real shame too...i really want AoC to be good.

You should have a fight with it.

its sad they are only asking pro aoc questions :/

I thought my question was nicely posed, not rude and something many people would be interested in hearing the answer to...

"Can I have my money back?"

See, nicely posed, not rude and worthy of discussion.

Super Moderating Hero = Super Censoring Fluffy Everything's Great Morrison's Terms Were Positive Questions Answered Only Hero

iokthemonkey.

I think you and i should tag team it. you hold it down whilst i stick the boot in.

We'd immediately double the amount of players...

The original concept was sold almost as a mmo beat-em-up with real time fights relying on your ability to pull off special moves etc. This was watered down to the point of a combo system that for the most part is as boring as clicking your abilities in WoW only that in AoC you get to click the button then pull off the combo. It's like playing my 2 year old daughters leap-pad system. Fix it.

Was sadly not asked.

Fire Super Censoring Hero EG!

what did we learn from that little exercise?

Ziilch.

We already knew the answer to every single question asked. So what was the point?

Sorry guys, but if you ask them "Why does your game suck" I don't see why you'd expect an answer.

The original concept was sold almost as a mmo beat-em-up with real time fights relying on your ability to pull off special moves etc. This was watered down to the point of a combo system that for the most part is as boring as clicking your abilities in WoW only that in AoC you get to click the button then pull off the combo. It's like playing my 2 year old daughters leap-pad system. Fix it.

Was sadly not asked.

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Because it's a statement, not a question... ;)

You should have said "Do you plan to fix it?"

Sorry guys, but if you ask them "Why does your game suck" I don't see why you'd expect an answer.

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If Rob did receive so many questions of that ilk, then why weren't they compiled into a polite "your game received a lot of criticism. How would you answer those angry at the game's release state and the fact that a lot of content promised at launch still isn't present?"

I'd have asked that but I've no interest in hearing his excuses.

@Oerhort

Why?

Would make for a pleasent change of pace and i think the only thing capable of garnering support for FC at the minute would be a huge dollop of humble.

It certainly wouldnt hurt to face up to a little criticism.

"Game director Craig Morrison in hot-seat."

Hot seat????
You mean "Cushy la-z-boy paid marketing exercise recliner with foot rub", right?

bah /egquit

ha, my hats of the mod, my first question was garbled as i didnt know how much space i had!

@ion i have loads of posts

@ion i have loads of posts

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Yeah, I saw that, hence my "most" comments.

I'm not saying there's no audience for AoC or ridiculing anybody for playing it. My beef is not even with the game, particularly. No, my points are directed at whichever Funcom employees thought it was acceptable to release an unfinished game and pass it off as being ready, to the point of detailing features on the box that weren't even present, let alone in need of a polish.

We're not censoring! And now you'll just claim we are.

Apologies to the people who asked about changes to specific areas like stealth and instant hits and guild cape logos and things. We were running out of time and felt these were the sort of topics covered patch-to-patch rather than on a broad 'what we're doing this year' scale.

We're after constructive questions that can be answered, and certainly do not shy away from pertinent topics. We're neither for nor against Age of Conan, but interested in focusing on what Morrison plans to do about fixing the MMO and making things right. Not why it sucks, but how it can get better. Not why the features are not there, but when they will be there. I hope you can see and understand that.

Come on: not one question even to ask about how he thought it had improved and how he planned to address the existing issues that had turned-off early adopters?

Not one question about the server merge and how it had affected the subscriber base?

Nothing in this interview made my wanna go back to AoC. World of Warcraft is just so more superior in terms of what a mmorpg should be then Age of Conan.

Sorry Craig Morrison but Age of Conan do not contain what a good mmorpg game should have. Goals and meaning..+++

Thanks to ask him my question, EG. He didn't really answer, but I was expecting that. I believe he doesn't know either.

perfect game, If you can't find anything to do in an online world you've pretty much lost already tbh,

and if you want to use mmo's as digital crack lay off the heroin.


core game is fixed, not seen a bug in about 3 months and i've done content upto t2, even dt's win pvp fights these days.

for less money than your sick days monkey boy you can't really ask for it back, and tbh, i'd pay you £50 just to clear off...

at the risk of sounding like the guy having fun in the back of your mind, AoC was much better than the first year of wow and i saw bugs in wintergrasp not too long ago that resulted in the playfield coming down, there are websites where you can argue all day and night unfortunately AoC doesn't have those, Also the Polish and Russian versions of the game are getting launched soon so cyryllic is soon to be out of sight, at least unless you read every forum post going as they have their own boards :)


pvp on pve servers all day, raids every night, instances all day long, dogs and cats, living together, MASS enjoyment :)

lots of love,

happy customer

No point in asking questions of a negative nature, because all the answer would be is "we have numerous players who enjoy the experience...blah blah blah"

He is unlikely to admit flaws and say yeah its shit we know, but its gonna take fucking ages to fix.

for less money than your sick days monkey boy you can't really ask for it back, and tbh, i'd pay you £50 just to clear off...

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Could somebody translate? I'm afraid I don't speak Retard.

My questioned was doctored a bit by the supermoderating hero :(
It started out as :
AoC appears to have legions of disillusioned players across the internet. Do you still hold out hope of convincing them to return to the game? If so how do you propose to do this, with many of them claiming AoC is fundamentally broken?

Hardly positive, i guess thats why it got rejigged.

oikthemonkey is getting very tiring though

Wow, you guys really chickened out of asking him any proper questions like

"why did it ship is such a dire state"
"will you still be around in a years time?"
"how many active subscribers have you got?"

etc.

we didnt, those questions were asked but were conveniently lost. Complete bollocks and an exercise in absolute futility.

Wow, you guys really chickened out of asking him any proper questions like

"why did it ship is such a dire state"
"will you still be around in a years time?"
"how many active subscribers have you got?"

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The session was moderated and only "appropriate" questions got through.

I asked "Can I have my money back?" about 3 times...

I admire the guy for wanting to be different from WoW, but that is exactly the bloody problem with a lot of MMO's. They are trying so hard to not be WoW they fail to grasp that systems in WoW are successful because THEY BLOODY WORK! I'm sorry but reinventing the wheel just isn't working - it didn't work for Tabula Rasa, or Vanguard, or Hellgate and it sure as hell hasn't worked for Age of Conan. Being different can be done visually. It can be done plotwise, how you pace the storyline across the game. You van add regular events, you can focus on PvP or PVE.

The industry has always tended to follow what works. With the MMO market, they did the exact opposite and tried very hard to be excessivly different. Maybe it's time to accept that WoW got it right and begin the shameless copying...

Monkeyboy has managed to fill 14 out of 43 post in this thread spitting out his usuall AOC hate.

Thats close to 30% of all posts so far. Can he go to 50% ?

Considering how much you play the "internetz", i would have to say that buying AOC have given you plenty of bang for your buck entertainmentwise...... lol ;-)

Go kill an elf in LOTR....cause your starting to sound more and more like an ork......

Well, the AoC hate can be justified. I was there, a lovely beta followed by a launch that came nearly as close to being as bad as Vanguard.

But as I said, the main problem now is I hear so many people harp on about how they want to be different to WoW. That's wonderful, but in doing so MAKE SURE IT WORKS. AoC could have been forgiven a multitude of sins but what happened to the PvP servers is a sin many people will not forgive AoC for. It didn't work, and if they still do not have the consequences system in there now then I can only wish AoC a quick but painful demise. MMO's have died recently for far less serious offences.

WoW systems work. If you're going to be different, get it right from the off. None of this "we'll implement it later" bullshit that we've tolerated for three years or more as everyone chases Blizzard. If you can't get it right, then there's no shame in copying the models WoW uses. The industry has sorta counted on that for 20+ years or more, and at least we know that the models work.

But if you must be different, get it in there from the start or keep big exec mouths shut.

WoW system works because it is near to no diffirent from other MMO systems in the past. Blizzard just took in alot of ideas from other games (MMOs and others alike) and refined them into their own MMO.

As for AoC, I played it just after release. I liked it - well the first part of it, anyways. I might see myself going back to it sometime. The state of release is also a matter of perspective. No MMO has ever been released in a 'ready' state. WoW wasn't launched in the state you play it in now. Neither was DAoC, EQ, Eve Online, City of Heroes, LOtRO, etc. I always think it is strange how people like to compare a new MMO to WoW as it is today - something that you can't really compare. I also think it is strange how people feel the need to defend WoW and Blizzard. Yes, Blizzard brought us gems like Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo, but they have changed into one of those industry giants. There are 11 millions subscribers for WoW - the first MMO ever to get such a high number of subscriptions. This means that they get more than 500 million dollars from subscription fees alone over a whole year (I'm guessing subscription fees vary between regions). And what has that money given WoW-ers? Two expansions? That they still have to pay for?
To me Blizzard is only a few steps from becoming the new EA.

Why would they put up lots of negative questions? The guy has inherited a game in trouble and he's trying to turn it around. Sounds like he's doing all the right things. The live interview isn't a place for your moaning and whinging. He sounds like a guy who knows what to do. Give them a break.

And at iokthemonkey

What the fuck are you talking about you idiot? No one wants to release a bad game. And every single MMO ever released has a bit of trouble at launch. THe only ones that have been relatively smooth are WOW and WAR (Maybe LOTR) and yes, they are owned by enormous companies with billions of pounds and endless resources. Go figure.

"why did it ship is such a dire state"
"will you still be around in a years time?"
"how many active subscribers have you got?"

Shit questions. The first is obvious. They had to launch to try and recoup some of the enormous costs they had incurred in development. That's called a room full of suits saying 'release it now or else.'
The second is just stupid. What is the point in even asking. He can't say no because it's his job to make sure they are and if he says yes dick heads like you will just moan about it.
Only WOW talks about this because it has so many. As long as there is a server with an ok populatino new players know there will be other people around.

Here's my question: 'Why are you such a dick?'

I like Steak. But Funcom can't cook.

@jstar

People release bad games because they have a bad design process or because their initial tech choices were wrong. This would be the purview of the developers

I really dont buy the "its the suits fault" argument as the main reason for bad game releases, although it does of course happen.

If you look at Age of Conan they simply got their content production pipeline wrong. My guess was they out an awfull lot of love on the tortuga bit which was supposed to be a single player game initially, and which took a lot longer to "MMO" then they expected. It is a shame but the disaster they made of PVP/itemisation/crafting is all down to the developers.

And WoW at launch was still way ahead of pretty much anything around today if you like PvE.


Remember captain placeholder anyone?

And at iokthemonkey

What the fuck are you talking about you idiot? No one wants to release a bad game.

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*sigh*

The point you're ALL missing is this: AoC's box details features that aren't in the game.

What Funcom KNOWINGLY sold us didn't match-up with what they TOLD US was present.

Not in that "well, it's open to interpretation" or "well, maybe it doesn't quite work how you might think" kind of way.

No in that "this feature we told you was in the game actually isn't, but we didn't tell you that because we knew you wouldn't but it otherwise."

Got it?

It's not about the perceived quality of the features or the game lacking polish.

It's about Funcom releasing a game with MISSING content. Not "not quite working" content. MISSING content. Read that, repeat it over and over until you understand it and then maybe you'll get why a lot of people are pissed off about the whole AoC debacle.

To use an analogy you MIGHT understand: suppose you see a CD with 11 songs listed on it. You buy it, get it home and discover it only has 3 songs on the CD, despite promising 11 tracks. Is that a simple enough analogy for you to get?

And yes, all MMOs have their troubles. The difference is that they don't lie to the audience over the content.

But hey if you want to keep paying for content that should have been present on the CD you bought and live off all the promises they're shoveling you, you go right ahead. Me? I'd rather give my money to a developer that actually knows how to produce a good game, delivers updates that work, on-time and doesn't string me along like a tool.

Monkeychild, i remeber the post in which you wrote that you had been been working as a game developer for15 years to back up your "arguments" in AOC discussions , trying to look more credible.

You still behave like a teen who spent your accumulated alovance on a game and lost your life saveings doing so.

Perhaps the real reason why you hate AOC so much is that your MA found out about using her creditcard and cut you off the monthly fee.

Considering the maturity level of your arguing, i holeheartedly believe that is the case , i really do lol.

Seriously you bougth a game that will always change , a genre also known as a MMO. I take it you got more playtime out of AOC than most other games out there anyway before you quit.

What did you pay for it? 40£ and a coupple of montly subs? If that hurt you so bad i say get a frikkin' job.....