Morrison claims, ”Our engine is a more fully featured and uses the latest graphics technology,” he told Eurogamer. We’re very proud of the fact we have the best-looking game in the MMO space. We’re quite proud of that. There are very few games that can compete with us graphically.”
”But it does come at a cost,” Morrison adds, ”Not as many machines can necessarily play the game on the settings players would like. They see the videos and would like to play it on the same. A player might not always be able to depending on the hardware they have.”
The MMO’s high graphic ceiling causes players to max out their settings and cause game crashes, Morrison says. ”Players don’t like starting a game on low graphics settings,” he explained, ”They want to see the cool stuff and they want to play the game on the settings we intend and beyond. Their machine is not necessarily capable of playing it.
“We do know that we have that challenge. Not as many machines can play our games as some of the older titles that are more casually focused to try and reach as many people as possible.”
Morrison also believes Age of Conan’s free-to-play transformation will make it an MMO to be reckoned with for years. ”MMOs are a long-term project. For the first few years of its existence Age of Conan was always going to be very high spec.
“But it won’t look as dated in five or six years’ time as a game that’s aiming broader right now will, which will hopefully give it the ability to stick around longer in the market and still be viable for many, many years to come.”