Shack: How does the combat adapt to the Xbox 360 controller?

Jason Stone: That's up in the air, we're on the eighth revision of combat now. I've been working on combat for three years and we just continue to iterate on it. We've locked down what we feel our tools are, what we want to provide to the player. We want tactical, strategic, and twitch elements. Easy to get into, hard to master.

The same thing with where our default control scheme is. We've talked extensively about trying to have multiple control schemes that people can hop through, like standard MMORPG, FPS, stuff like that.

For the Xbox controls, some people tended to prefer having a button that they press for attack and then press a directional button, other people liked using the analog sticks, similar to what you'd see in Fight Night. It really varies.

Shack: Will the PC and Xbox 360 editions have the same subscription fee?

Jason Stone: I do not think that we've determined the pricing model for the Xbox 360 version, but it will most likely have a subscription separate from Xbox Live.

Shack: Will you be able to share that subscription beteween the PC and 360 versions?

Jason Stone: I think that's something that really won't be answered until move closer to having both of them running, so to speak.

Shack: Obviously no release date for the Xbox 360 version yet.

Jason Stone: Yea, the only thing that we can say at this point in time is that, before the delay of the PC version at least, we anticipated a 2008 launch of the Xbox 360 version. It will be in 2008, it will follow the PC release.

Shack: Speaking of the delay, what prompted the decision to push the game back instead of just patching in features and content post-release, as some other games have done?

Jason Stone: Historically, the Anarchy Online launch, gamers with a long memory recall and still tout it as the worst MMO launch ever. Funcom has learned a lot, AO definitely recovered. It really was an impressive game, has held up over time and is still pretty successful.

The fact is, right now we're in a position where we're not being forced to push the game out the door. We could have launched a good game in October, but we feel we want to launch a great game in March.

Shack: With the violence, are you concerned about possible ESRB issues?

Jason Stone: From the very beginning, we decided an M rating would be what the game would end up [with]. We have not shied from that, we fully expect to get an M rating. We try not to make sure we don't put anything in the game that would give us an AO, but we want to do Howard's world justice. That means blood, that means sex, that means some nudity.

Shack: You're not at all concerned that the nudity and sex could get you an AO?

Jason Stone: The way that it is presented in Conan is very similar to the way it is presented in the books. Howard never wrote in graphic detail about what Conan was doing with the wenches, he basically wrote about the fact that, yea, he was getting busy and always getting the chicks.

We try to take the same way of doing things. I don't think we're going to have a problem with it.

Shack: You're in beta now, correct?

Jason Stone: Yea, we just finished our technical beta phase and now we've started our general beta phase. We don't have dates where we plan the transition, we have milestones. We're like, general beta part one, this is what we need to have accomplished beta part two, and this is where we need to be before general beta part three, and this is what we need to have before open beta.

Shack: Any expectations for when you'll hit open beta?

Jason Stone: We don't have a date. We have milestones we want to see accomplished before we do that.

Shack: How many milestones before open beta?

Jason Stone: I do not recall the exact number of phases we will have in general beta, but [player population] will be growing. It's still closed and under NDA, but we're adding people to the beta as time goes on.

Shack: Earlier you mentioned the in-studio motion capture work?

Jason Stone: One of the really cool things about having worked on this game is the fact that, on the first floor of our studio in Norway, we have a motion capture studio. All of the animations in Conan that possibly can be motion captured are motion captured. The walking, running, fighting, jumping, everything is motion captured.

We had an actual fighting arts expert, basically, who I've now hired as a designer and who I trained as an apprentice before I moved back from Norway. Now when we need an animation, we just go to his desk and say, "hey, go get your suit." We have all the swords and everything there in the office.

Shack: Anything else you want to say?

Jason Stone: I'd like to thank the fans for caring about the game. It's good to see people finally getting their hands on it now.

Age Of Conan: Hyborian Adventures arrives on PC in March 2008, with the Xbox 360 edition following later in the year.