Anarchy Online Developer Journal: Questions and Comments

[ITNinja]

I'm jealous that you got to see a preview of the new gaming engine, although I suppose being an employee of FC gives you that perk

Quite a few people who join our Org here recently have been players who played AO in the beginning and are now coming back. When I mention to them that a new engine is in the works they show disbelief at first and then excitement. I'm sure everyone is looking forward to the day that the new engine is incorporated taking advantage of some of the hardware not available back when the game was in its infancy.

It was an interesting read. I enjoyed learning you joined up in ARK and progressed to where you are today. Very nice indeed.

[Masta]

How do you go abot figuring out item designs? There used to be a skillbudget you worked from, is that still how it works? If so, was that not increased? Now that people can put on QL300 symbiants and implants "easily" (making me cry because I can't), what people can do has escalated. Does this influence your future item design choices?

[Gelanin]

It is both alot of fun and very interresting to read your blogs Aythem. It nice to see one of the Devs take the time to answer some questions from the players. So, i'll fire off a few questions, some you can probably easily answer, and some you might have to coerce some of your coworkers for :P

- Which class in AO is your favourite class, and why ?

- Which breed in AO is your favourite, and why ?

- There have been alot of nice changes in AO lately, but the one thing i wish there was more of, is raids/instances/quests suitable for orgs, and with todays usual online numbers for orgs, i'd say 12-man or 18-man instances/raids would be perfect. Are there any plans for adding more content targetted at such a crowd ?

- With the fairly complicated inner workings of Skills, Max beneficial Skill, different skill dividers above 1000 skill for different professions, have there been any discussions/ideas about trying to simplyfy this somewhat ?. At the moment it can be fairly hard for the non-experienced people to look at 2 different weapons, and see which one would give the best results.

- Where do you find inspiration for some of the content you create ? Books, Movies, other games, table-top RPG group, or mostly just from your own imagination ?

- Can you tell us something about one of your "best/strongest" memories from AO ? As an example, one of my best memories from AO was back in 2001, around lvl 20-25, running around in Greater Omni Forrest, and then suddenly coming face to face with the giant spider "Old Gorgantula", and being chased all the way back to the zone border That was terrifying back then, and these days a very fond memory

- When it comes to item balance, do you (for AO) have dedicated people for looking at this, or is this more the quest/item designers job aswell to try and balance things ?

[Cody Bye]

The next segment in the ongoing Anarchy Online Developer Journal has been submitted by the lovely Nina Sund, and it's now available for viewing. Again, Nina has taken time to answer a selection of your questions and has given some in-depth responses to your inquiries. Check it out immediately!

From a story point of view, there are a few professions that I like more than others, strictly from a sci-fi and story point of view. The Nano-Technician is a profession ripe with content from AO’s story, an interesting mix of the classic mage and the futuristic technophile. The way they use their nanobots and their cyberdeck to script the most destructive actions is very interesting as part of a setting like AO’s.

Read the entire dev journal entry by clicking here!

If you have a question or a comment for Nina, make sure you post it here!

[Masta]

Are there any plans to use "slime" more in upcoming AO content? "Toxic Slime" used to play a rather big part in AO, lakes of it are found around Rubi-Ka, but in recent times with our journey into the Shadowlands and the Alien Invasion expansion being sadly lacking in the slime area Gothic castles and lava have pretty much taken over. Much like it did in the Quake 3 days

So, will slime make a triumphant return in AO? Perhaps some quests to tell us what these lakes of green goo actually are?

*crosses fingers*

[Applewhite]

Why do the ao devs hate engineers so much? Did one of you get burned by one on a tradeskill job? Why are they giving away all of their abilities to the meta physicist?

[Cody Bye]

Originally Posted by Applewhite

Why do the ao devs hate engineers so much? Did one of you get burned by one on a tradeskill job? Why are they giving away all of their abilities to the meta physicist?

I love these kind of questions - as the answers are usually fairly simple and straightforward. The numbers never lie.

[Applewhite]

What is funcom planning on doing about the Savvis hosting issues? The game is unplayable for many due to severe lag, disconnections and packet loss and subs are being canceled left and right.

//forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=469500

[Masta]

Originally Posted by Applewhite

Why do the ao devs hate engineers so much? Did one of you get burned by one on a tradeskill job? Why are they giving away all of their abilities to the meta physicist?

Hate engineers? I guess you never got round to figuring out that engineers are one of the most powerful professions in the game, high DD, extreme survivability, loads of utility and in general extremely useful. I guess you're just one of those gimps who need to learn how to play the game... so, get a clue and make up a question that makes sense

Originally Posted by Applewhite

What is funcom planning on doing about the Savvis hosting issues? The game is unplayable for many due to severe lag, disconnections and packet loss and subs are being canceled left and right.

//forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=469500

What has that got to do with dev journals? you can email customer support. Also, it is obviously a storm in a glass of water with a few people voicing their issue and most of them having no clue as to where the actual problem is..

[Applewhite]

Originally Posted by Masta

Hate engineers? I guess you never got round to figuring out that engineers are one of the most powerful professions in the game, high DD, extreme survivability, loads of utility and in general extremely useful. I guess you're just one of those gimps who need to learn how to play the game... so, get a clue and make up a question that makes sense

What has that got to do with dev journals? you can email customer support. Also, it is obviously a storm in a glass of water with a few people voicing their issue and most of them having no clue as to where the actual problem is..

You are speaking in the past tense engies were as of now they are not. This is a common problem everyone thinks since once engineers were powerful once upon a time they still are. If engineer were still viable they would not be the shame of the game at the moment maybe you should visit the ao forums or actually play the game sometime this decade. forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=517132 Engineers are players too. We are not buff totems. We are not MPs if the fc devs intend to delete/merge the engineer with the MP we have the right to know. I know the line given the engineer professional from the devs saying piss off we don't like the players comparing two classes. This pandora's box was opened as soon as MPs starting getting the engineer toolset.

Funcom doesn't care about the Savvis issue they have received emails hundreds of them. They have a 13 page thread in ao forums full of angry customers that can't play the froobs at aofroobs have a thread of angry players. Players spam ooc channels about Savvis and the problem is ignored. Players petition in game to ARKs about Savvis nothing happens. Funcom if you want to continue to ignore the problem and hope magic makes it go away fine by us we will as your paying customers will cancel our accounts as many have done so already.