Articles - Inside Anarchy Online #13

Hello again fellow gamers!

My name is Luis Odicio, mostly known as Windguaerd among the roleplaying community in the Atlantean Server. If you don't know who I am, then read my first editorial at AO Vault in which I introduced myself.

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In my previous article I wrote my "thank you" letter to Silirrion; in a way, after he left AO and became Game Director of Age of Conan. At that point in time my hopes for the new AO Game Director, well... were not high, but I had hope because Sil had vouched for him. My thought was "he has pretty big shoes to fill, hopefully he'll do a good job".

The following month everything changed, not just for me, but for the entire AO community. That is when "Friday with Means" started. It was refreshing, and very honest.Silirrion had been a good director, popular with the player base, addressing a lot of things that his predecessors could not achieve. After a few fridays, something just poped in my mind, "I think we just got an upgrade".

Sil if you're reading this, sorry man but what I thought would be a loss, became a gain.

Slowly but surely "Friday with Means" has become the weekly highlight for a lot of the community. We can't wait to read what he has to say to us. I'm not just talking about what's coming, but also what the dev team is working on at the time, screenshots, previews, etc.

Yesterday I read it and my jaw hit the floor. New art, besides the new avatar heads that is coming with the new engine. Last week when he showed the head art I said to myself "uhh... it's a process, it's just starting, it's going to take time to nail it down". This week I'm looking at the same head, of the same avatar comparing both the first version from last week to the one shown now; all I can say is...wow! that is a lot of progress for a week, it looks very good! I like it!

Besides that, I'm looking forward to the new orbital night club and apartment. I think that is going to be an awesome experience. A couple of years ago I mentioned a space expantion, so we could fight the aliens with spaceships. I liked the idea to be able to look down and see Rubi-Ka from orbit. Ok, so I got half my wish. The cool/fun factor is way up, from 1 to 10 I'd give it an 8.

It's not something that is needed, but we gamers not only look at phatz, you know, all the great armor, weapons, items to become uber for the PvP/PvM aspect of the game. Look at all the players who have those things, and still use the social tab to display social clothings like thongs, dresses, suits, costumes, swimwear even in raids and team missions. It's just fun to wear.

Get a couple of 'troxes dancing together in their underwear, no matter if you are a new or veteran AO gamer, it's going to make you at least grin, if not laugh your head off.

I've seen the orbital apartments concept art, and it's looks pretty sweet. They look very spacious and elegant. Means mentioned that only the very wealthy rubikans will be able to afford and I quote "for the uber rich in game for a silly amount of credits, if you are a credit billionaire you should live like one". He also wrote that it will also be available for paid points as it is a purely social content type item.

This will be a great money sink for players who already have the top of the line items in the game, but still have no idea what else to do with their billions. I know a lot of high level players who have a few billion saved over the years and all they can think of is to roll an alt and use it on the new character.

Who can resist the temptation to have their own living quarters in space? I doubt any sci-fi fan could, and hopefully lots of people will see the great fun they could have with friends and guildmates (as we had with the Jobe Luxury Apartment) with it.

I'm hoping that it may come with an butler or maid android, that would be a great addition to the package. Means if you're reading this, consider this a suggestion.

A few friends and I discussed it and we agreed that we expected some update on the 12-man Legacy of the Xan instance (which we did get), but we were hoping for some new technical info about the new graphic engine (now we know we won't get that anytime soon) and maybe some new environment screenshots or a 2-3 minute video. Something new to keep people interested and drawn to it.

I've been excited about it for a long time as many of you have. Former players that I've talked to in the past few months are interested in coming back if the new engine is good. They don't expect it to be to the level of a brand new MMO launching this year for example, that would be DirectX10 while what we will be getting if I'm not mistaken is a DirectX9 rendering engine. What they do expect is that the upgrade will bring up close enough to make it a more visually pleasing yet remain the same (also some latency and geography collisions fixes along with it).

Most of these players have most of the expansions, and would even be willing to purchase all the paid content they missed during their time away to catch up and enjoy the "new AO".

Now back on to the main topic. "Friday with Means" is encouraging a lot of the community to become more and move involved every week. There is always something either new, or about fixes or Means is looking for feedback from us, the player base.

The man has posted so many times, not just on "Fridays.." but on so many other threads answer questions, concerns, feedback and criticism, I sometime wonder how does he manage to keep track of it all while he is leading the dev team.

It's amazing. He also shares some of his personal life with us regularly, and we have found out that unfortunately his wife is not a gamer like him, I feel for him. That as an AO gamer, I have no words to explain how glad I and many others are that Means is the Anarchy Online Game Director.

7 months have gone by since we got a new GD, and so far I couldn't be happier with the new features and improvements of the game.

There is still a long way to go to bring AO to what the community hopes it can become, but then, there is something Means posted a while ago which has stuck in the minds of many players.

"When the stars burn out and I find I lack the strength to continue...one of YOU wil pick up the flag and carry it forward. This really isn't a corporate product anymore...it belongs to all of us. Where it goes it up to us."

Silirrion passed the torch to Means, and someday (hopefully in the far future) he in turn will pass it to another gamer like them to surpass his/her predecessors.

Our baby is in good hands, alive and kicking. We on the other hand, need some work to do as gamers, and that will be the topic for the next "Inside Anarchy Online".

And remember, don't drink and yalm peeps!

Last updated on 01.09.2012 by Khuri
Article written by Windguaerd
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