RPGWatch Forums - Age of Conan - Interview #2 @ CVG

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Age of Conan - Interview #2 @ CVG

CVG has posted their second part of their large interview with Funcom on Age of Conan. For RPGWatch readers, we've occasionally checked in on this project because the first part of the game was to be a SP experience but with this following clip, we'll be leaving it for MMOWatch from now on:

Quote:

What occurs in the single-player section of the game, and when that's completed is it a traditional MMORPG that we move into?

Erling Ellingsen: The single-player feature has changed much since we started designing Age of Conan, mostly due to feedback from the testers in the closed beta. Originally it was designed to be an entire single-player game before you stepped into the massive world, but we've scaled this down somewhat because people generally wanted to be able to interact with other players much sooner.
Still, when you first start out in Age of Conan, you'll spend the first limited part of the game where you are the only player. You learn the basics of the game as you progress through what resembles the story of a single-player game, and we're able to give players an introduction to the game which is much more heavily based on storytelling. When the players reach the village of Tortage, they will start seeing a limited amount of other players.

But at this stage during the game they are able to switch between day and night by sleeping at the local inn, and at night the player will always be in their own universe and will at that point be able to play through more single-player aspects of the game. After some hours when the player leaves the island of Tortage and set sail for the mainland, they will step into the more traditional MMO world with thousands of other players.

More information.

like i said somewhere else, so those of us who were potentially looking forward to the singleplayer part the game will be disappointed with the neutered part, and those that just wanted to start yapping online with others will still be ticked off that they have to go through even a short singleplayer part.

so who's happy now? nobody. good start on the game guys.

again, what would've it have been that difficult to give players options? let those of us who were looking forward to it play it how it was MEANT to be, and those that could care less just skip the whole section and let them start at whatever level and configure their points as they want…

Well, I WAS looking forward to this game for It's single player part only. Now, I'm not. Congrats Funcom.

I was also hoping that the singleplayer portion of the game would allow me to play it and enjoy the great world of Conan but alas another one bites the MMO dust :'(

It's obvious that Funcom's intentions are to 'win-over' potential single players and entice them ever-so-gently (arm-twisting) into the MMO world….innovative marketing tactics indeed!….but it didn't work on me…Yay! :p

Try actually reading what he said before you go nuts.

Well, he did say that after the very first pure single-player part (tutorial) that you will be able to sleep in the Inn to choose if you want to continue playing it as single player only for a while longer. At night it will be single player, in the day it will be a limited version of the MMO.

To me that sounds like they ARE giving you options. The way I read that is that for the first few levels it's pure single-player. Then at say lvl 5 you can choose (by using the Inn) if you want to continue playing it as only single-player OR to join an instanced version of the first parts of the game with a few other players. THEN at 20th level or so you must go out into the main MMO world.

So it sounds to me like you people are griping for NO reason. You will still be able to play just as much as before as a Single-Player ONLY game. Only now you have the OPTION of using the Inn and playing some of that with a few other players around as well. So, um, what's the problem again?

I mean I have great fears of Funcom screwing this game up just like the next guy. I bought Anarchy Online on release and it was still a pre-alpha 3 months later when I quit and swore to never buy another MMO on release. But THIS is not the reason to stop being interested in Age of Conan. THIS is just giving the people who want to get into the MMO side of the game more options…NOT taking away any Single-Player options from YOU.

Of course I could be wrong. :)

Well Majnun, you're not actually wrong……see if i can put it simpler,

The game will probably be so constructed by design, that the gameplay at a critical part (where the MMO world begins) will be very immersive, the single player may somehow feel a "great need" - a curiosity of wanting to know what they're missing and might try that alternative world when normally they would not, at this point the gamewriters/dev's motives will have succeeded. There's nothing really wrong, i think perhaps younger and casual xbox-360 oriented players will easily succumb to this tactic.

The question i ask is this, will the s/p game be in any way watered down by containing a m/p section than if a purely s/p game only was released?

It's a MMO first and foremost, with a short, introductory SP section added. I think that anyone who buys this only for the SP section will be disappointed.

It is a MMo but with a sp intro in to the game
It is not the point of the game to give a good sp game but a nice MMo game,
it is just the intro
the game is meant to be played as a MMo
the lvl20 is probably just to get used to everything and no noobs or misuse of low level players by high level players
besides this might be the first MMo game with a decent story

The SP part was originally meant to be a "full" game in its own right, so I think a few people would have been interested in it from that angle - I know I was, and obviously from the other posts so were others.

ow missed that part than, first time I heard of it, it was already described as a MMO

Well, it was always an MMO but the SP was described as being substantial enough to stand in its own right, with four different branching story arcs. I'm not suggesting I expected the best/most epic SP experience ever or that I thought the great majority of development didn't go into the greater MMO part, but as a (mostly) non-MMO player, this sounded like I'd get fair value out of the 20 hour SP campaign, whether I decided to continue on with the MMO bit or not.

I think it sounds great to have a SP beginners part. Anyone playing the first few days of WoW probably agrees with me - that was simply hopeless, with thousands of players trying to kill the same few creatures for the same quests. We're talking major lag, endless waiting per quest, and quite a few server crashes here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dhruin (Post 20307)

I use Guild Wars as a metric, and it initially felt (as referenced by Dhruin) that Age of Conan would deliver *more* than the SP element of Guild Wars. Now we know that it doesn't - I'm not majorly disappointed since I really didn't hold hope that SP would carry any priority in the cut-throat MMO world.