Product Director Speaks on Fileplanet Open Beta
Ever since their open beta was announced, Norwegian development company Funcom has come under fire from fans of their upcoming MMORPG, Age of Conan, and the criticism has had very little to do with the content of their game.
Funcom Product Director Jorgen Tharaldsen speaks to MMORPG.com Managing Editor Jon Wood about the Fileplanet Open Beta. In this interview, Tharaldsen addresses a number of the rumors that have circulated since the Open Beta announcement.
The complaints stem from a decision to partner with IGN’s Fileplanet for distribution of keys to their beta. In order for players to qualify for an AoC beta key, they have to be the proud owners of a premium membership at Fileplanet (which costs $5 per month for a year). While many has applauded a beta through Fileplanet, is has also led players to feel as though they are paying to participate in a beta and that Funcom has done this in an attempt to a) draw in extra funds for the game and b) to disguise some kind of failing in the game itself.
The Product Director went on to say that “running the Age of Conan beta is and will remain an expense, as it should be for us as developers. The focus for us when running a beta is to get invaluable feedback from as many testers as needed, helping us to get ready for launch, not to make money on it”. He also outlined more on this “It is correct that Fileplanet requires you to be a paying member to get hold of the Conan beta, as well as many other things, but as far as I know they have far more members than the 50.000 keys we make available. For them, I would think that things like the Conan beta is an important stimulation for their members.“To that I can only say we were one of the first gaming companies to start Torrent distribution a few years ago with Anarchy Online, and of course we know a lot about Torrents, but setting up this for such an event would have served to make us lose focus right before launch. It would not have helped any of us, and running Torrents are about a lot more than just letting the world do it themselves. It needs a lot of work to get it right, and ensure good speed and a smooth customer experience.
When asked whether the company could handle a 50.000 player beta by themselves, and whether not doing so is indicative of the company not being ready for launch, he stated ”we are of course ready for much bigger numbers, both on the servers and for distribution. We already have infrastructure in place for serving around 600.000 players on launch day.”
From there, I asked Tharaldsen if there was any financial incentive at all in distributing the beta through Fileplanet and while, as stated above, he told us that the Conan beta was a needed expense to get feedback on the game, he did outline the benefits to choosing Fileplanet beyond their reliable download speed and prior relationship:
While Tharaldsen tells us that the reason for the level 13 cap has nothing to do with the quality of the game beyond that point, the decision was indeed carefully planned beforehand. He told us though that it was a question of story rather than a question of quality that prompted the cap.
“We have made an MMO with a very different production approach than most of our competitors, including putting more money and time into story than you have seen before. Stories are about emotions and experiences, and we want as many as possible to have a great emotional journey when we launch.”
