Age of Conan Delays Release For Orken Army Time
By 
Hib in
Age of Conan, Funcom, features on
January 22nd, 2008
As you have probably heard by now, Funcom’s Age of Conan MMORPG has had its release pushed back to May 20, 2008. While I look forward to playing AoC, again I find myself applauding a developer for not releasing a game. Lead dev (and nice guy) Gaute Godager has given the reason for the delay:
Why do we delay again? It is simple and it is complex:
- The level of bugs.
Wait. Let me get this straight. An MMO developer has pushed a game back two months simply to fix bugs?!? Hasn’t Funcom read “The MMORPG Developer’s Handbook”? The traditional method of release for MMORPGs is this:
- Develop the game
- Beta test
- Realize there are more things to fix than there is money to continue development
- Release the game
- Perform maintenance on a daily basis
- Nerf a few classes to shut the forums up for a bit
- Release first expansion
- Start to fix launch bugs
In all seriousness, I heartily applaud this move, as do many. Sure, everyone would love to get their hands on AoC as soon as possible, but I think Gaute said it best himself:
Like me, you know that the last stretch of polish is what makes or breaks our MMO straight-after-launch-first-impression.
Dead-on, Gaute…dead-on. And while this is often talked about, it’s nice to see the industry starting to take action on this concept.
What’s interesting is that this now puts the release date for AoC around the release date for Warhammer Online, which is scheduled for the second quarter of the 2008 calendar year (sometime between April and June), which means we’re right back to “Which one will launch first?” territory.
Personally, I think the game that launches first will be at a disadvantage in the “head-to-head” battle…if it’s not top-quality. It’s starting to look like both games will be just as good as their developers can make them, though, so this is going to be interesting.
Interesting…and talked about waaaaay too much once they release.
Cue the “This game is vaporware…it’ll never launch, and even if it does it’ll suck!!!” crowd in 3…2…1…
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January 23rd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I’ve also been looking forward to AoC… A lot… Maybe more than is healthy.
Then again I played AO for many years and was actually a volunteer customer support rep for the game (Advisors of Rubi-Ka).
That all said, I am in full agreement with you. Too many games simply decide that “Pay for Beta” is an awesome concept. Like Vanguard, the game that launched at a state that looked a little bit like an alpha test. So I have a lot of respect for anyone who delays a game to make it better.
Even if that means staving off my addiction for another 8 weeks…
**Prays for beta access**