Age of Conan Interview, part one

How has your experience with Anarchy Online affected the development of Age of Conan?

Erling Ellingsen: Making a MMO is like riding a bull when all you've ever done in your entire life is ride a horse. Having a game of this genre on our track record has had a tremendous impact on the quality of the production.

There are so many technical challenges that crop up, so knowing about those things already is valuable as we move towards release. We're able to do everything better than we did the last time.

What development challenges has incorporating a more twitch-style combat system into an MMORPG thrown up?

Erling Ellingsen: We wanted an MMO that had much more hands-on action than what has been done so far. You get to control every swing of your sword, you get to move around and use the terrain to your advantage and you have to actually aim at specific parts of your enemy's body.

It's the same with archery, where you'll have to string the bow and aim manually - as if you were playing a first-person shooter. The challenges were mostly technical. Issues with lag could kill such a system, but we're confident that we've designed it in a way that actually works.