Age of Conan Director Craig Morrison, Part Two: Gamers are Sociopaths, EQ Clones are Dead, and Why Nobody Reads Quest Text

By Steven Crews | May 16, 2009 | | Filed under: Features, Interviews | Tags: Age of Conan, Craig Morrison

The MMO Gamer: Well, some people are always just going to say that they copied the template incorrectly. If only they had listened to the fanboys on the boards…

Craig Morrison: I don’t think so. I think you look at the game like Lord of the Rings Online, that was a pretty solid, polished, well executed game.

The MMO Gamer: It was, until the later levels. The later levels at release ran into the same problem as every other MMO, the content ran out.

Craig Morrison: A little bit. I think it was a prime example of a good use of that template.

There was nothing really flawed with it, majorly, there was no major flaws with their implementation of that template. But it didn’t break out, with one of the biggest licenses in the world.

The MMO Gamer: Yeah, who doesn’t know what the Lord of the Rings is?

Craig Morrison: I think a lot of that is because people have done it now, and it was presumed that people would want to do it again. I don’t think that presumption is necessarily true. I think people will always want to have something fun and different.

The MMO Gamer: But then the problem with fun and different becomes-how do you even begin to explain something fun and different to an MMO player?

We’ve been playing these EverQuest template games for what, ten years now?

Craig Morrison: Yep, about that.

The MMO Gamer: If I were to sit down for an interview, and the guys start telling me about something that’s the complete polar opposite of the EverQuest template, I’d be sitting there thinking, “These guys are nuts! This is never going to work!”

Craig Morrison: [Laughs] Is that what you thought when you were talking to Ragnar?

The MMO Gamer: No, I didn’t really see enough of The Secret World to draw any conclusions one way or another.

Craig Morrison: It’s a different kind of template. No levels, an open skill system, that hasn’t been done in a while. I think it’s more…

The MMO Gamer: Well, the skill system versus the class system, one or two of the other has been pretty much the standard for thirty years. That goes back to Steve Jackson defining the skill-based RPG, and Gary Gygax defining the class-based RPG before I was even born.

Craig Morrison: Yes.

The MMO Gamer: If someone were to come out and say, “You play the game with your nose, and you have a special controller you have to use with your big toe.” That would be something unique.

Craig Morrison: Look at it this way: I think the difference is-look at the difference between Fallout 2 and Fallout 3.

Completely different games, with a grounding in their license and in the fundamental thing of when you actually break it down, when you say “Fallout 2, and Fallout 3″ people’s immediate reactions were that they’re completely different.

Are they? When you break it down, they’re not that different. They had very similar skill systems, they have a open world, they told a very similar story in a character-driven way, and in fact Fallout 3 possibly did it better than Fallout 2 in many ways.

The comparisons are actually fairly consistent, but they’re two very, very different gameplay experiences, and I think what you’ll see is the MMO will reach that point when it’s going from Fallout 2 to Fallout 3.

Maybe it’s not quite there yet. I don’t know which title it is that’s going to be able to bridge that gap.

It happened gradually with other titles, like Morrowind, leading to Oblivion, leading to Falout 3, but while still, quintessentially in that case, being Fallout.

I think you’ll see that and it will happen with MMOs, as well. I’d love to be able to know which because then I can buy stock in the company. [Laughs]

But which one will do it and who will do it first? I think it’s a challenge for designers.

The MMO Gamer: I do hope you’re right, because I’d hate to be sitting at GDC 2015 talking about EverQuest 3.

Anyway, I like in my interviews on the more philosophical note-although this interview was a bit unusual in that it was 95% philosophy, I wouldn’t exactly say we’re only ending on it .

So, why do you make games? Why do you get up every morning, go to work and do what it is you do?

Craig Morrison: It’s very simple. I make games and I moved into this industry because it’s one of the best payoffs in the world to see people having fun with something you made.

I can’t think of any better job satisfaction than that, especially in times that the world sees now. To know that people come home and enjoy playing the games that you make, and you entertain them.

I don’t think there’s a better payoff for any job than that. Seeing how much these games mean to people, and how much enjoyment they get from them.

It’s short of saving lives, and unfortunately I wasn’t smart enough to go to medical school, but aside from that I can’t imagine any other job, because of the satisfaction in seeing what it means to people.

The MMO Gamer: Alright, well thank you very much for joining us. We appreciate it, and we hope we can do it again some time.

Craig Morrison: Yes, for sure.

For those of you who still remember the introduction, you may have noticed I said “Before I sat down to do this interview, I had never played Conan…” I have the bad habit of everyone I meet at shows talking me into playing their game, so as a result I’ve been playing Conan for the past several weeks, now. The MMO Gamer will be publishing updated impressions shortly.

Has the interview whet your appetite? Got the urge to try out the game for yourself? You can sign up to play free for seven days, no credit card required, at www.ageofconan.com/trial