Interviews// Andreas Öjerfors - Age of Conan, Quest Co-ordinator

So, essentially one large guild could own all of the keeps?

Andreas Öjerfors: No, I think you can just have one keep per guild.


How do you see Age of Conan faring in Asia, where the Conan license isn’t quite so strong as here in Europe and North America?

Andreas Öjerfors: That’s a good question. I think the industry has learned not to try to make games that are aimed at both the Western and Asian markets. I don’t know what our plans for launching in Asia are, but I think the industry has learned a lesson not to do that, because there have been attempts and they haven’t really worked out. So, I think we’re a pretty Western game.


[b]So, it’ll be a case of launch it over there and see what happens, and if it works, bonus, and if not…[/b]

Andreas Öjerfors: Hopefully it’s a good enough game that they will like it even though it’s not Asian.


I heard mention that the game would be slightly customised in terms of its appearance and so on for Asia. Is that correct?

Andreas Öjerfors: I don’t know anything about that. I don’t think we’re that far along yet.


Were there any quests you wanted to put in the game but couldn’t?

Andreas Öjerfors: I think I got in all mine, but there were some that were… morally questionable.

There was one quest (where) you were gonna make a potion to make someone fall in love… and the publisher wasn’t too happy about that, because when you read the dialogue it was very much… sexually questionable, so to speak.

Only a few. We haven’t really had a problem getting things through.

We’ve got some mature content, both typical violent and sexual content but also mature topics about morality and religion and things like that. We’ve had a lot of freedom.


Does the gender of your character affect what you can do at all? Are there things you can’t do as a woman?

Andreas Öjerfors: No, we don’t wanna do that. Yes, there’s a lot of helpless women who need your help in the world of Hyborea, but you also have a lot of very strong women like Valeria.


So, basically everyone’s equal?

Andreas Öjerfors: Male and female? Yes. Very equal in our game. I think we kind of upgraded Howard’s vision a little bit, because if you look at Howard’s original work, which was written in (the 1930s) you see that it was very much coloured by the view of the woman and races.


So, is there a lot where you’ve upgraded it?

Andreas Öjerfors: We’ve stuck pretty close. If you look at the Picts for example, you could say that’s pretty racist – how you portray that race, because they’re still human, you know? But, we’ve tried to move a little bit away from that. Because it’s not tasteful in 2008, to go all the way that Howard did.


What characters from the book do you meet?

Andreas Öjerfors: We tried to have a lot of characters that Conan did not kill – to be honest with you there aren’t that many! We resurrected a few.


Do you think the game would be more interesting if your gender and race did affect the way you can play?

Andreas Öjerfors: If you wanna roleplay that way, you can do that. But I think that we really looked at the strong women, as well. I think that people who are playing female characters don’t wanna play the weak women that (Howard) sometimes described. I think they wanna play like Valeria.