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Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Interview
by Chris Faylor Sep 14, 2007 11:00am CST
Recently delayed from its initial October 2007 release to March of 2008, Funcom's Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures highlights a different approach towards MMO combat. Instead of just one single attack button, the game uses multiple keys to control the direction and angle of a player's attack.
It may sound a little overwhelming, but once past the initial learning curve, I found myself far more entertained than I expected. With the keys arranged in a logical manner on the keyboard--WSAD users will have no problems adjusting--and a handy on-screen display indicating which angle and direction would be best to attack from, I was ripping enemies to shreds and gaining experience in no time.
After my enjoyable time with the game, I questioned content designer Jason Stone on a variety of subjects, including Funcom's approach to the traditional MMO grind, how the game distinguishes itself from World of Warcraft, nudity, and the upcoming Xbox 360 version.
Shack: How does a traditional quest in Age of Conan differ from, say, World of Warcraft?
Jason Stone: I think that the big difference in the quests in Age of Conan is not necessarily in the content. I mean, you're still going to result in having quests where you have to go get an item. The big difference is we have the global storyline, and then basically each region has its own storyline and each quest in a region generally builds on the region's storyline.
So you might be killing something, but you're killing something because this is the story of the area that you're in and that is related to the overall story of the world. As often as possible, all of those things are then tired directly to stories or characters or experiences come from the writings of Robert E. Howard.
Shack: How long will it take to level up?
Jason Stone: The general path for advancement is gonna take people around ten days of play. We really tried to build Conan so that we had the content necessary to keep the people who have a lot more time to play interested while making it approachable for people who don't have a lot of time to play, maybe four or five hours a week.
We anticipate for the more casual gamer, two and a half to three months to max out a single character.
Shack: What's the level cap?
Jason Stone: The level cap is 80. That's our max level.
Shack: For those that devote themselves endlessly to the game, what's to keep them playing after they hit that point?
Jason Stone: PvP is one of the things we think is extremely important to bringing the proper representation of Hyborian world to life, because Conan's world is a brutal world.
We're putting in raids, we're putting in dungeons, and we have in-game encounters, but my personal opinion is that the siege PvP is what's gonna keep me wanting to play this game for an extended period of time.
Shack: How do you plan to resolve the typical MMO grind?
We want to do Howard's world justice. That means blood, that means sex, that means some nudity.
Jason Stone: I think a big part of MMOs these days, after the transition from Everquest to World of Warcraft, is that now players want a lot more direction concerning hunting. They like those quests that guide them to different areas of the world.
In general, people don't like to just grind. They don't want to just sit there and kill things.
I think another big and important part of that, at least for me when it comes to MMOs, has been making the actual act of playing. For me, the best thing about Conan is, with the action combat system, when I'm killing guys, I'm actually having fun. I don't feel like I'm just like "la-di-da-di-da"--
Shack: Clicking the same button over and over again.
Jason Stone: Exactly. Because I feel more involved, I feel more engaged by the act of playing, I don't get bored as quickly.
Shack: What are your plans for new content?
Jason Stone: We have a release schedule. We already have plans for the next big expansion we'd like to do, new races, new whole countries, stuff like that. In addition to that, every month we plan on adding additional things to the base game.
Shack: As far as the expansion packs go, yearly releases?
Jason Stone: I don't know. I don't think we've put the expansions into a production schedule. We're waiting to see how the base game is received, we have only started designs and have ideas about what we'd like to make.
Shack: Switching gears, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the Xbox 360 version.
Jason Stone: For a long time now, we've had concurrent development in the sense that we do have a working Xbox 360 version. The big things that we're waiting to solve are with Microsoft. Are we having hybrid servers? Do people choose to go on these hybrid servers? Can you choose one or the other? Do we have voice chat on the PC version and the Xbox 360 version? Do we have the people on the Xbox use a keyboard?
There's all these decisions that have to be made with Microsoft that we don't have the answer to yet. It will follow the PC version, but the game has always been designed to be console friendly. Game pads are being used for combat testing, control testing.
Shack: You just wiped out about half of my questions. Has Microsoft been helpful? Approachable?
Jason Stone: I've been in the industry for quite a while, I started in 2000, so I've been in for almost eight years now. I've been at Funcom for the past three years.
I think Funcom's relationship with its partners--Nvidia, Eidos, Microsoft, and of course, Paradox and Conan Properties--have been some of the best relationships I've ever seen in the industry as far as interaction goes. It really feels to me--I'm just a designer, I don't work directly with the code of the Xbox 360 version and stuff like that--but the fact that they've trusted me to do things with this and talk with people, I've been really impressed by it.
Read on for more about the Xbox 360 version, including control and subscription details, word on the upcoming open beta, nudity, and the reasons behind the delay.
"Felicia and I saw the demoing at DragonCon, it looked like a lot of fun. The booth was packed whil..."7 Comments
« Previous 1 2 Next »
Advertisement
Game Information
Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
Platforms
Release Date:
Q1 2008
Genre:
RPG
Developer:
Funcom
Publisher:
Funcom
Multiplayer:
Yes LAN Online Same Screen
Screenshots
View all
Latest News
View All
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This week's summary of the latest in PC and console downloads includes news of the upcoming Team Fortress 2 beta, along with word that Rez and Ikaruga are heading to Xbox Live Arcade.
4
* Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Interview Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Interview
Funcom content designer Jason Stone discusses how the action MMO differs from the rest of the genre, approaches the typical MMO grind, and features nudity.
7
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Copyright 1996-2007 Shacknews LTD, All rights reserved. Shacknews logos, lols, rofls, lmaos, and possibly also wtfs are service marks or trade marks of Maarten. He will try to bathe with you. Watch out! User-posted content, unless source quoted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License.
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News Files Comments Games
Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Interview
by Chris Faylor Sep 14, 2007 11:00am CST
Recently delayed from its initial October 2007 release to March of 2008, Funcom's Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures highlights a different approach towards MMO combat. Instead of just one single attack button, the game uses multiple keys to control the direction and angle of a player's attack.
It may sound a little overwhelming, but once past the initial learning curve, I found myself far more entertained than I expected. With the keys arranged in a logical manner on the keyboard--WSAD users will have no problems adjusting--and a handy on-screen display indicating which angle and direction would be best to attack from, I was ripping enemies to shreds and gaining experience in no time.
After my enjoyable time with the game, I questioned content designer Jason Stone on a variety of subjects, including Funcom's approach to the traditional MMO grind, how the game distinguishes itself from World of Warcraft, nudity, and the upcoming Xbox 360 version.
Shack: How does a traditional quest in Age of Conan differ from, say, World of Warcraft?
Jason Stone: I think that the big difference in the quests in Age of Conan is not necessarily in the content. I mean, you're still going to result in having quests where you have to go get an item. The big difference is we have the global storyline, and then basically each region has its own storyline and each quest in a region generally builds on the region's storyline.
So you might be killing something, but you're killing something because this is the story of the area that you're in and that is related to the overall story of the world. As often as possible, all of those things are then tired directly to stories or characters or experiences come from the writings of Robert E. Howard.
Shack: How long will it take to level up?
Jason Stone: The general path for advancement is gonna take people around ten days of play. We really tried to build Conan so that we had the content necessary to keep the people who have a lot more time to play interested while making it approachable for people who don't have a lot of time to play, maybe four or five hours a week.
We anticipate for the more casual gamer, two and a half to three months to max out a single character.
Shack: What's the level cap?
Jason Stone: The level cap is 80. That's our max level.
Shack: For those that devote themselves endlessly to the game, what's to keep them playing after they hit that point?
Jason Stone: PvP is one of the things we think is extremely important to bringing the proper representation of Hyborian world to life, because Conan's world is a brutal world.
We're putting in raids, we're putting in dungeons, and we have in-game encounters, but my personal opinion is that the siege PvP is what's gonna keep me wanting to play this game for an extended period of time.
Shack: How do you plan to resolve the typical MMO grind?
We want to do Howard's world justice. That means blood, that means sex, that means some nudity.
Jason Stone: I think a big part of MMOs these days, after the transition from Everquest to World of Warcraft, is that now players want a lot more direction concerning hunting. They like those quests that guide them to different areas of the world.
In general, people don't like to just grind. They don't want to just sit there and kill things.
I think another big and important part of that, at least for me when it comes to MMOs, has been making the actual act of playing. For me, the best thing about Conan is, with the action combat system, when I'm killing guys, I'm actually having fun. I don't feel like I'm just like "la-di-da-di-da"--
Shack: Clicking the same button over and over again.
Jason Stone: Exactly. Because I feel more involved, I feel more engaged by the act of playing, I don't get bored as quickly.
Shack: What are your plans for new content?
Jason Stone: We have a release schedule. We already have plans for the next big expansion we'd like to do, new races, new whole countries, stuff like that. In addition to that, every month we plan on adding additional things to the base game.
Shack: As far as the expansion packs go, yearly releases?
Jason Stone: I don't know. I don't think we've put the expansions into a production schedule. We're waiting to see how the base game is received, we have only started designs and have ideas about what we'd like to make.
Shack: Switching gears, there are a lot of unanswered questions about the Xbox 360 version.
Jason Stone: For a long time now, we've had concurrent development in the sense that we do have a working Xbox 360 version. The big things that we're waiting to solve are with Microsoft. Are we having hybrid servers? Do people choose to go on these hybrid servers? Can you choose one or the other? Do we have voice chat on the PC version and the Xbox 360 version? Do we have the people on the Xbox use a keyboard?
There's all these decisions that have to be made with Microsoft that we don't have the answer to yet. It will follow the PC version, but the game has always been designed to be console friendly. Game pads are being used for combat testing, control testing.
Shack: You just wiped out about half of my questions. Has Microsoft been helpful? Approachable?
Jason Stone: I've been in the industry for quite a while, I started in 2000, so I've been in for almost eight years now. I've been at Funcom for the past three years.
I think Funcom's relationship with its partners--Nvidia, Eidos, Microsoft, and of course, Paradox and Conan Properties--have been some of the best relationships I've ever seen in the industry as far as interaction goes. It really feels to me--I'm just a designer, I don't work directly with the code of the Xbox 360 version and stuff like that--but the fact that they've trusted me to do things with this and talk with people, I've been really impressed by it.
Read on for more about the Xbox 360 version, including control and subscription details, word on the upcoming open beta, nudity, and the reasons behind the delay.
"Felicia and I saw the demoing at DragonCon, it looked like a lot of fun. The booth was packed whil..."7 Comments
« Previous 1 2 Next »
Advertisement
Game Information
Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures
Platforms
Release Date:
Q1 2008
Genre:
RPG
Developer:
Funcom
Publisher:
Funcom
Multiplayer:
Yes LAN Online Same Screen
Screenshots
View all
Latest News
View All
* Your Gaming Memories, Our Sweepstakes We would like to give everyone more of a reason to hang around so let us try something a bit differe... 293
17hrs 49mins ago
* Fils-Aime: 'Unprecedented' Number of Wii Consoles Available for Holidays Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said consumers can expect a huge number of Wii cons... 36
20hrs 4mins ago
* Mario Golf Devs Bringing Wii Golf Game Stateside Capcom confirmed today its previously announced We Love Golf! from Mario Golf and Hot Shots Golf dev... 8
21hrs 15mins ago
* Console Sales Bolster Year's Game Sales by 43% Industry watchers NPD gave Shacknews the North American game industry stats for August today, highli... 16
22hrs 42mins ago
* 360 Madden Outsells PS2 Version in August, BioShock Takes Third Spot NPD gave Shacknews the North American software sales numbers for the month of August today, with the... 65
23hrs 25mins ago
* Silicon Knights, Epic Continue Legal Sparring Silicon Knights has responded to Epic Games' rebuttal and motion to dismiss the Canadian developer's... 35
1day 0hrs ago
* Trailer Park Got another trailer park for you guys this week, allowing for easy streaming of the latest game vide... 3
1day 1hr ago
* MMO Developer Licenses CryENGINE 2 Seoul-based Reloaded Studios will use German developer Crytek's CryENGINE 2 in an upcoming action-st... 2
1day 1hr ago
Latest Features
View All
* Weekly Download Rundown Weekly Download Rundown
This week's summary of the latest in PC and console downloads includes news of the upcoming Team Fortress 2 beta, along with word that Rez and Ikaruga are heading to Xbox Live Arcade.
4
* Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Interview Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures Interview
Funcom content designer Jason Stone discusses how the action MMO differs from the rest of the genre, approaches the typical MMO grind, and features nudity.
7
* Crysis "Ice" Hands-On Impressions Crysis "Ice" Hands-On Impressions
We got to check out "Ice," a beautiful frozen environment from Crytek's upcoming FPS. Crysis: it's not just jungles!
49
* EVE Online: The Bears and the Rat EVE Online: The Bears and the Rat
We investigate the Russian Red Alliance, and reveal a culture of Cold War paranoia, regular revolution, and clan-meet bear hunting.
46
* Catching Up with Bungie's Frank O'Connor Catching Up with Bungie's Frank O'Connor
Bungie's content manager speaks on finishing Halo 3, downloadable content for Xbox Live, and what's next.
46
Fileshack
* Flyff: Fly For Fun - Client
Demo
* BioShock Demo
Demo
* StarCraft: Brood War Retail 1.15.1 Patch
Patch
* Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars 1.08 Patch - English
Patch
* Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines Unofficial 4.1 Patch
Patch
* Medieval II: Total War Retail 1.3 Patch - EU
Patch
* Medal of Honor: Airborne Demo
Demo
* StarCraft Retail 1.15.1 Patch
Patch
* Far Cry - Full Game
Demo
* Age of Empires 3 Retail 1.12 Patch - EN
Patch
* Medal of Honor Heroes 2 Trailer
Movie
* Mass Effect - Character Spotlight
Movie
* Spider-Man: Friend or Foe Demo
Demo
* Stranglehold Demo
Demo
* Clive Barker's Jericho Squad Movie #2
Movie
* Stronghold 2 Retail 1.4 Patch - US
Patch
* Sonic Rush Adventure Trailer #2
Movie
* Fortress Forever
Mod
* Loki Demo #2
Demo
* Smarty Pants Trailer
Movie
Hot Files New Files
ShackReviews
* PixelJunk Racers
Racing
* High Stakes on the Vegas Strip: Poker Edition
Other
* Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Platform
* NHL 08
Sports
* NHL 08
Sports
* SKATE
Sports
* SKATE
Sports
* Donkey Kong: Jungle Climber
Platform
* DK Jungle Climber
Action
* Fatal Fury Special
Fighting
* Burnout Revenge
e1ghtball
* Area 51
SixDemonBag
* Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
SixDemonBag
* Tales of the Abyss
Masem
* Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2
Fail_Safe
* Crackdown
cappycobra
* Super Paper Mario
Masem
* Enchanted Arms
Masem
* Lost Planet: Extreme Condition
SixDemonBag
* Crackdown
lookitzpancakes
New Games New Reviews
Shack Network
* Shacknews
* FileShack
Shacknews LTD
* About
* Shack Team!
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Copyright 1996-2007 Shacknews LTD, All rights reserved. Shacknews logos, lols, rofls, lmaos, and possibly also wtfs are service marks or trade marks of Maarten. He will try to bathe with you. Watch out! User-posted content, unless source quoted, is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License.