Age of Conan - Interview @ RPG Vault

RPG Vault quizzes Gaute Godager about the status of Age of Conan.

Jonric: Why has development taken longer than initially expected? Why has it been difficult to predict your rate of progress despite Funcom's prior experience?

Gaute Godager: First of all, I would like to state that we already had the foundation for an awesome MMO when we announced the latest delay. Furthermore, to look at the bigger picture of the genre today, it is not "simply" a matter of delay, but of what level of quality you need to succeed in today's market. To me, it is also very clear that those conditions have changed quite radically since we started development in 2003.

To continue on this thread, there are naturally many, many additional reasons beyond these obvious facts. Now is not the time to write a really thorough postmortem on the game's development, but let me discuss a couple of things I deem to be vital. One is that we have learned the schedule is a tool to control cost. Quality is the tool to sell games. We simply decided to invest more in the quality of the game than we initially decided. This was not an easy decision, but it's definitely a problem where we are proud to have made the right decision.