Tag: Craig Morrison

Blizzard Head of HR Jesse Meschuk Is Gone


Meschuk’s department is accused of facilitating abuse.

Continue reading “Blizzard Head of HR Jesse Meschuk Is Gone”

Age of Conan: Loot PvP Server Coming!


Mortal Age of Darkfall Xsyon Online.

In the past, Everquest has been one of the few MMOs to dabble in, shall we say, unconventional alternate rule servers. Sure, most games you come across nowadays have some combination of PvE, PvP, and RP, and you can’t get much better than a PvP-RP server, when striking someone with your sword as you scream “you must construct additional pylons!” before your World of Warcraft guild gives you the final boot for “vagrant sarcasm.” But that was years ago when I was still interested in Starcraft. The problem with alternate rule servers is that updates have to be coded once for each ruleset, to balance and work out bugs. As Ultima found out, your bastard sword (their word, not mine) of Gargoyle slaying worked fine when gargoyles were NPCs, but when they become a player race, the weapon is suddenly very overpowered.

The Age of Conan team has desired to implement alternate rule servers, and up until now just haven’t had the utilities. In this month’s monthly development update, Craig Morrison talks about how some players just aren’t satisfied with the level of ass-whooping they can dish out in AoC, and want to take that limit further:

“However, as we have gone on we see that there is clearly a very dedicated, and very loyal, group of players who long for a more brutal and demanding PVP environment. It has become increasingly apparent that the desires of that section of our playerbase simply want something a little bit further away from the experience that the mainstream majority are comfortable with.”

Can you guess what that mechanic is? Trust me, if you just blindly dive into an article, the surprise isn’t ruined from the start. Funcom plans to implement two (one for US, one for EU) PvP servers for Age of Conan, featuring full loot. The following rules will apply:

  • One character limit, no transfers.
  • No NPC guards.
  • PvP re-enabled in Tortage areas that were previously removed.
  • Other PvP systems may be changed.

The specifics are not in on the Age of Conan loot system. Morrison was able to confirm that equipped gear will likely be off-limits from looting, and that the loot will likely be a combination of inventory items and generated loot (so Age of Conan is becoming like the 2008-early 2011 PvP in Runescape?). Expect more news before the server launches in early May.

We hope to have the new rule-set ready to roll out in early May, but we will hopefully deploy a version to the PVP test dimension prior to that for some public testing. Keep your eyes on the weekly community updates for more information as to when that will happen.

Craig Morrison: F2P Age of Conan A Possibility


Rise of the Cash-Shop Slayer

With Age of Conan entering the Korean markets came the announcement that the title would follow the normal Korean model: Free to play with cash shop, leading some to speculate as to whether or not Funcom would transition the model over to the Western hemisphere. Over on the Funcom forums, Producer Craig Morrison chimed in to tell players that the free to play model is not planned to come over to the west, but that Funcom is not saying no forever (I’ve heard this phrase too many times this month).

“That isn’t a ‘yes, it will happen’ or a ‘No, it will never happen’ it’s a ‘We will always keep our options open and be open minded to business models that will most benefit the project.’…being close minded one way or another is rarely a good thing.”

He is correct. The Korean market is vastly different from the American and European markets, and subscription based games die fast. Even World of Warcraft runs in China on a pay-per-hour system.

“That is why we have different versions of the game. They are different markets, work in different ways, with different traditions and expectations and we will always endeavour to try and ensure the right decisions are made for the game in each specific territory, and for those decisions to be different as appropriate.”

So, for the time being, there will be no free to play Age of Conan in the west. More on Age of Conan as it appears.