In an interview with MTV Multiplayer, Funcom's Jørgen Tharaldsen speaks surprisingly frank about the many criticisms Age of Conan has been dealt. Topics cover everything from the current state of the game to what Funcom is doing to bring back players with a "come back and play for free" invite sometime in 2009, according to Jørgen. The whole read is just generally very interesting and well worth your time if you've any interest in Age of Conan and where it's headed in the coming months.

At the end of the interview, the question of Warhammer Online and Wrath of the Lich King come up in relation to any possibly concerns for Funcom. Jørgen delivers one of his most lucid comments about AoC when he says, "I don't think anything is easy in the world of MMO's, and fighting to get new subscribers is a constant challenge. Now it's 'WAR' and 'Lich King' - going forward there will be many others." The list of other contenders is indeed longer than a Dream Theater solo and in a couple of weeks we may have to add yet another large contender to that laundry list.

With the recent news of Age of Conan's Gaute Godager departing Funcom so suddenly, many players want to know what happened exactly. As an original founder of the company and through 16 years of employment at Funcom, one can only wonder what this says about the company. So MTV Multiplayer was able to sit down to a short interview with Funcom's product manager Jorgen Tharaldsen concerning this sudden departure of Godager.

Tharaldsen is understandably positive about the new direction of the company under replacement game director Craig Morrison. He praises Morrison's work as a community manager at Funcom and as a game director for Anarchy Online. Yet he also touches on the legacy of Godager and what he has meant to the history of MMOs in general. Not much else is said about the reasoning behind Godager's departure (besides what Godager has already said himself), but Tharaldsen seems optimistic about the future of the company and Age of Conan.

Jon Wood from MMORPG.com recently interviewed Funcom's Product Director Jorgen Tharaldsen about some of the issues affecting gameplay in Age of Conan. The interview was primarily focused on customer service issues, and hopefully provides a good indicator as to how things are improving in AoC. Some of the key issues that Tharaldsen addressed include:

• Customer support frustrations expressed by players.

• Inability to log in to the game's official forums.

• Funcom's actions taken against exploiters.

• Poor game performance despite meeting required system specs.

• Server downtimes during peak hours.

• Limitations on number of players in certain instances.

• Increasing the number of GM's to handle the petition backlog.

Check out the interview over at MMORPG.com, where's there's quite a string of comments from the readers. Do you think Funcom is handling customer service issues properly (given that AoC had such a recent launch), or are they dropping the ball?

Gamesblog.it managed to score a video interview with Jorgen Tharaldsen, product director for Funcom and Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures , and just in case you weren't sure yet, he makes it clear -- this game is not for kids. The interviewer poses a few questions relating to how AoC will be different from other MMO's out there, in particular its more mature and violent approach.

The passionate Tharaldsen does not hold back -- much like the game itself -- with his responses. He places a lot of emphasis on Funcom wanting to be faithful to the Conan story and license, and not having to "dumb it down" or remove elements for a younger audience. Decapitations, prostitutes, and copious amounts of blood are some of the things mentioned that you may not find in your average MMO. Tharaldsen said that it was liberating to not have to worry about including aspects like this -- anything that they wanted to add, they did.

It remains to be seen how the proposed server-side ratings system will pan out, and whether there will be an uncut edition of the game available in every region, but it's nice to know that at least somewhere, the game will exist in a form that is exactly how the developers envisioned.