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MMOGs rated in Australia. Warcraft a bit late, no sign of Conan, Warhammer
Back at the end of January, after we spent months investigating, talking to the Australian Classification Board, and both State and Federal Australian Attorneys General offices, it became clear that an apparent discrepancy in Australian games ratings was no discrepancy. MMOGs were being sold on store shelves in Australia without the mandatory classification required by law. The whole thing was a tangle of confusing and contradictory information and statements from publishers, developers, industry associations, retailers and government departments. The government departments involved ultimately passed the buck back and forth between State and Federal jurisdictions, until their press-offices simply refused to talk. Now, at last, the government seems to have gotten its message straight. In the wake of the coverage most MMOGs applied for and received a rating. Even Blizzard's World of Warcraft (a bit of a johnny-come-lately) has a proper rating this month and only Funcom's Age of Conan and Mythic's Warhammer Online seem to be holdouts, as far as we can tell.
An interview with Age of Conan's Andrew Griffin
Not too long ago Gamespot AU got the opportunity to sit down with Andrew Griffin, the senior systems designer for Age of Conan. They took the chance to pick his brain on a myriad of topics ranging from class archetypes to the ever-looming topic of the MMO grind. Of course, most of you know by now that Age of Conan's method of dealing with grind largely comes from its focus on story-driven quests and an active combat system. Our experiences have shown us that the real-time combat certainly helps alleviate grind-fatigue. Then there's the quests, which are actually pretty interesting in the first 20 levels. Whether or not the combat and quest experience changes beyond the early levels is the big question. Will it change for the better or for the worse? Age of Conan's servers are only about a week away from going live, so we'll all be finding out these answers soon enough.
