Age of Conan: Game Status

From the interview between IGN and the game Director Craig Morrison, we got know some game status of Age of Conan:

Jonric: Since we know Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures has had issues, how did you identify the key ones, and what are the main improvements, additions and fixes you've implemented since launch?

Craig Morrison: The first thing we approached was the players' feedback itself. The aspects they found unsatisfying were pretty well defined by their comments after launch. People had issues with four main areas - the game's performance, the gaps in quest content, the fact that the PvP lacked a focus, and finally, there was a general feeling that the items and statistics weren't deep enough. I don't think our internal analysis differed that much from what those who were playing told us, so the decision as to where we should focus was relatively easy.

Jonric: Since it seems pretty significant, what considerations prompted you to overhaul Age of Conan's RPG systems? What aspects are you concentrating on why?

Craig Morrison: Yes, it was definitely a significant decision, but I think a vital one. As soon as it was apparent last summer that customer retention wasn't what we would have liked, we set about analyzing all the feedback and getting to the root of the issues - above and beyond the obvious performance ones we were addressing or had already fixed. The player feedback helped us in that respect, and let us look at the system in detail to learn why it wasn't as appealing as we had hoped. The DirectX 10 version has been on our public test servers for a few months now, being put through its paces. I'm really looking forward to players getting to experience the visual improvements. Age of Conan was designed not to be item-centric. However, our analysis showed we probably went too far in this direction, relegating gear to a position where players didn't see it as a valid progression path, which I think is a fundamental weakness for an RPG system. So, we didn't quite get it right, and what we're doing now is trying to find the correct balance and improve it to provide better progression drivers and to allow our designers to make more challenging and varied gameplay.

In addition, the players felt the core attributes (Strength, Dexterity, etc.) didn't have enough weight in their characters' progression. Again, when we broke it down, we agreed with this feedback, and set out on the RPG system revamp to address this too, with the goal of making both equipment and attributes better and more useful without going too far down the "items mean everything" road. They will mean more after the changes for sure, but hopefully, we'll find the right balance...