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Anarchy Online opens beta testing for new graphics engine
A new graphical engine can make an old game feel new again. Anarchy Online has had a new engine in the works for what feels like forever now, with one delay or another pushing back implementation repeatedly. But fans of the game can rejoice, as the end is in sight -- the new graphical engine is open for beta testing, with all of the same content as the existing game and a much prettier way to look at it. The team at Funcom is starting in closed beta, with players asked to create new characters rather than copy over existing ones to test out the included new player experience. Those interested in testing will need to sign up, with invitations coming in waves until the NDA is dropped and open testing is put into place. And there are some improvements to social items and the like, but what most players are going to be focusing on is the facelift. [Thanks to zendadaist for the tip!]
The Game Archaeologist: Classic MMOs in August
How few players do you need to have before operating an MMO becomes ridiculously unprofitable and in need of closing? In the case of The Matrix Online, we found out that the magic number was 500. I wouldn't have even guessed that so few people were in that game when its shutdown was announced, especially considering the vocal anguish that arose when SOE lowered the boom. I guess it goes to show that we're often quite clueless what goes on behind the curtain. There's always this balance between the number-crunchers (who need players and money to justify continued operations) and the passionate creators (who are often developers putting in the effort because they simply love the game and its community). If nothing else, it reinforced my belief that SOE does bend over backwards to keep these games running as long as possible, much longer than some other studios would in a similar situation. So what other news regarding classic MMOs happened this past month? It's time for another one of my patented roundups, complete with archaeological commentary!
Perfect Ten: My favorite classes
Forget raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens; a few of my favorite classes have nothing to do with such musical nonsense. Of course, now that I've started thinking about that song, my brain has to finish it before I can do anything else. Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens, yup. Brown paper packages tied up with strings, uh huh. These are a few of my favorite things. OK, can I move on now? Seriously, how boring was life in the 1940s that tied-up brown packages were worth singing about? I've played a lot of MMOs over the past decade or so, and in each of them I've agonized about which class I would make my main. Sometimes this resulted in me creating a wide selection of possible candidates, each vying for my affection while I cruelly sentenced the losers to permanent deletion. But in the end, here are 10 classes from 10 separate MMOs that tickled my fancy and totally kicked woolen mittens in the interest department.
The Daily Grind: What mistakes did you make when you first started in MMOs?
Looking back at my first steps in MMOs, it's breathtaking just how little I understood about how these games worked. I mean, a lot of that was on the developers because early MMOs didn't exactly go out of their way to teach me squat. It was a lot of trial, error, and often continued ignorance until someone laughed at me and told me how to actually play. I wasn't aware of guilds when I was puttering around in Anarchy Online in the early days. I think I played City of Heroes without slotting any enhancements for the longest time. And there were those initial World of Warcraft dungeon runs where I thought nothing was wrong with rushing into fights even though I was just DPS and the tank was over there beating his head on the wall due to my stupidity. But enough about me! Let's hear about you: What mistakes did you make when you first started in MMOs? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
The Game Archaeologist: Classic MMOs in July
It's been over a month since our last round-up of news, events, and community features covering the classic MMOs we know and love. You wouldn't think that a lazy summer month would contain a lot of new information regarding these older titles, but these past few weeks have been absolutely hopping. We've had several anniversaries, patches, player celebrations, mobile adaptations, and more. I'm constantly encouraged to see how players keep the memories of deceased games and the spirit of currently running ones alive throughout the blogging community as well, so we'll look into that today too.
Anarchy Online turns 12 on June 27, Funcom plans events and giveaways
Guess who's turning 12 on June 27th? If you said Anarchy Online, you're pretty smart. Or you read the title of this article, whichever. In any case, Funcom is celebrating the milestone by hosting in-game events and handing out free gifts including the Ganimedes jet pack. If you're an AO member, you'll also receive rare balloons and a celebratory social pet. As always, full details are available at the game's official website.
The Game Archaeologist: Anarchy Online turns 12
Most MMOs rolling into their 12th year (what few of them there are) live pretty quiet lives. Sure, there's the odd EverQuest expansion here and there, but for the most part the development has simmered down, the team trimmed to a handful of folks, and the best hope for the future is maintaining the status quo. Anarchy Online, however, is not angling to molder in some nursing home. As the 2001 sci-fi MMO turns 12 this month, it's looking back at a year full of exciting developments, scary moments, and hopeful visions. It might be the smallest arrow in Funcom's quiver right now, but I see it as a scrappy underdog that isn't willing to lie down and be ignored. So what happened this past year and what do Anarchy Online players have to look forward to? Glad you asked!
The Game Archaeologist: Checking in with classic MMOs
What's this, you say as you rub your eyes in disbelief. Is it... The Game Archaeologist, long since thought lost in his expedition to Atlantis (and the trials therein)? It is indeed, my friends. TGA has been a long-running passion of mine on Massively, but I needed a break for a while to recouperate and refocus. However, as of late I've felt the call of neglected classic MMOs and wanted to make sure that they were getting some column love here on the site. So going forward, expect to see The Game Archaeologist pop out of his hidey hole once or twice a month to talk about our old favorites and perhaps pontificate more on the history of MMO development. Sound good? Did you miss me at all? You totally didn't, did you. If you've been out of touch with classic MMOs, I've done the legwork this week to provide you with the 10 important and relevant news items that are sweeping through this aging yet still vibrant community. Read on, McDuff!
Funcom Q1 sales and restructuring keep studio moving forward
If it's not the best news ever, at least we've got some good news from Funcom today. The studio posted its first quarter financial report, showing that it had solid sales and "significant" operating expense savings because of the recent restructuring of its organization. Funcom made over $6.3 million of revenue in the first quarter, mostly thanks to sales and subscriptions of The Secret World and Age of Conan. The studio said that it saved almost $1.2 million of operating expenses in the same period thanks to the restructuring. Also, The Secret World made more money in Q1 2013 than Q4 2012 thanks to its new business model. In terms of game news, Funcom is pushing forward with its LEGO Minifigures MMO, the new Anarchy Online graphic engine, a summer release for Issue #7 of The Secret World, and development of several smaller titles. Both LEGO and Funcom will be working to "establish closer integration between the physical product and the game." Finally, thanks to recent decisions by the studio, both Anarchy Online and The Secret World are boasting larger numbers of players than in the previous quarter.
Jukebox Heroes: Battle music!
It's time once again to take a week off from looking at specific MMO soundtracks and open ourselves up to a theme instead. The topic? Battle music. Yeah, it can be some of the most obnoxious music in the game, especially after hearing it for the 3,000th time, but every once in a while I hear a piece that has some merit to it. These are the ones we want to examine today. What makes for a good battle music track? I think it has to get you excited without being annoying or grating and not so loud or incredibly noticeable that you can't help but get tired of it sooner rather than later. It was actually pretty tricky to pull together six such tracks for this column, but I managed to do with with the help of Colonel Bugle up there. He's got the best MP3 collection around.
The Perfect Ten: Cutest creatures
I vividly remember a conversation I had with my then-girlfriend's parents back in 1996 about the potential of this growing "internet" phenomenon. With my limited understanding, I made it sound downright noble, a Library of Congress available at the fingertips of the average Joe or Jane. What I really should have said that it would be a tool for the distribution of pornography, nerd rage, and cute animal pictures. I have no idea how big the cute animal picture industry is, but there have got to be millions of aspiring photographers daily who prod little baby critters with encouragement sticks in the hopes of eliciting a few "awws" out of strangers. Even when the serious business of MMOs came a-calling, cuteness infested fantasy lands near and far. Whenever I see something absurdly cute in an MMO, I always smile because I know that somewhere, some uber-elite, way-too-serious player is developing facial tics from being in the same game world as it. So twitch away, as here are 10 of the cutest critters as seen in-game!
One Shots: Views from a beta
It's hard not to turn into a total tourist when you're checking out a new beta. Out comes the fanny pack, the giddy delight of a new world, and most importantly, the camera. Reader Michelle kicks off this week's One Shots column with a screenshot of the first Neverwinter beta weekend. It's a shot of her character Nora overlooking the edge of aptly named Neverdeath Graveyard. We're guessing that the caretaker down there has his hands full. Would you go into such a place if you saw it in real life? I guess that's why we have our avatars to be bold where we would flee! Let's take a look at a few other places where angels fear to tread.
One Shots: Dancing with my homies
First of all, thank you guys so much for responding to our One Shots rallying cry and absolutely flooding us with screenshots! My cup overfloweth, and that's a delightful change of pace for this column. Even though we're quite literally set for months now, please keep sending in your favorite old or new screencaps! To kick us off this week is Jerry, who's showing off how Anarchy Online can party down with the best of them: "This is Yardsale, a level 220 Trader, dancing with his trader pets in Borealis." At first glance, I almost thought we were in the Matrix. But even with polygons so sharp that you can cut yourself on them, this title definitely has a style all its own. Hit the jump to see this and other wonders of the screenshotted world.
Funcom's Joel Bylos on the centralized TSW, AoC, and AO team
By now, most MMO gamers are pretty familiar with the fact that Funcom underwent restructuring. But what does that mean; what exactly did it entail? The term "restructuring" in itself signifies changes but does nothing to actually enlighten folks on what the changes are. Other than the fact that Joel Bylos was named creative director for all three of Funcom's titles -- Age of Conan, Anarchy Online, and The Secret World -- and that the team will be in one centralized in location, we know little of the details. How many developers survived the restructuring and relocated to remain on the team? Is this move foreshadowing one or more games slipping into maintenance mode? How will the coveted dev attention be divvied up? What does the future hold? Devoid of facts, players are left left wondering about how these changes will impact their favorite games. While chatting with Joel Bylos in an exclusive interview, I was able to ask some of these very questions.
The Daily Grind: Is 'maintenance mode' really a negative?
This week's news of Funcom naming Joel Bylos the creative director on all three of its MMORPGs was met with some predictable "maintenance mode!" and "yay, Funcom's failing" rhetoric in our comment section. While neither of these suppositions are based in reality, the former got me to thinking, and what I thought was that "maintenance mode" isn't an automatic negative to me like it appears to be to some folk. For one thing, I play a ton of MMOs, and for another, I'm not exactly a content locust since it usually takes me several months to max out an avatar (and several more after that to gear him up). I can see why the hurry-up-and-beat-the-endgame crowd would be cross with a title that doesn't add new content every other week, but for me that's not only OK, it's preferable since it means that I might actually see all of the content, finish all of the story arcs, and get some use out of my gear. Time between content updates also means time that I get to explore, socialize, roleplay, and do all the stuff that MMOs facilitate beyond the basic treadmill. What about you, Massively readers? Is "maintenance mode" a turnoff or does it give you time to catch your breath? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!?
Funcom's Bylos named creative director on AoC, AO, and TSW
Funcom has announced that The Secret World creative director Joel Bylos is now the creator director for all three of the firm's MMORPGs. This includes TSW, Age of Conan, and Anarchy Online. Bylos has penned letters from the game director for TSW and AoC, while AO's Dave "Ilaliya" Williams passes the torch via a forum post. Bylos' TSW letter talks additional content plans up to and including Issue #12 (the live game currently sits on Issue #5, with #6 scheduled for early March). Bylos has a special place in his heart for AoC stemming from his time as the lead designer on the Rise of the Godslayer expansion, and his initial game director letter reflects on both coming home and the opportunities for expanding Hyboria. He also talks a bit about the pros and cons of having a single production team working on three live titles. Finally, outgoing AoC producer Craig "Silirrion" Morrison recaps his four years at the helm and hints at a "new opportunity within the MMO world." [Thanks to David for the tip.]
Anarchy Online set to finally merge servers
How do you get together after 12 years of separation? That's a question the Anarchy Online community is going to have to answer tomorrow as the game undergoes a server merge, bringing together two communities that have been apart for more than a decade. PvP will be chaotic, the state of community relations will be chaotic, cats and dogs will be living next to one another... you get the idea, general mass hysteria. Both servers will be brought offline at 5:00 a.m. EST on February 26th. The maintenance required to merge the two servers is expected to run for 24 hours, with the usual caveat that it may run longer depending on any issues encountered during the process. Afterwards, players will be able to log in to the new combined server and start welcoming their new neighbors... or start shooting them in their faces for property rights. As we said, general mass hysteria. [Thanks to David for the tip!]
Funcom game directors talk relocation, effects on TSW, AoC, and AO development [Updated]
Funcom has published game director letters for all three of its MMOs this morning, and one of the topics on everyone's mind is of course the studio's reorganization. As it turns out, the dev teams for The Secret World, Age of Conan, and Anarchy Online will all be operating out of the company's Raleigh, North Carolina facility which was previously the sole domain of the Funcom customer service team. TSW's Joel Bylos notes that the move will cause some "development turbulence," and that the game's DLC and update schedule will slow down temporarily as a result. He has more details on both the game's Issue #6 update and veteran rewards in his letter. AoC's Craig Morrison says that the fantasy title isn't going anywhere, although he also acknowledges some staff turnover due to the relocation. He also notes that having the game's dev team and community team in the same building will be a huge benefit. Finally, Anarchy Online's update echoes the first two, but game director Dave "Ilaliya" Williams writes that the engine upgrade, server migration, and new player experience are all still on the table. [Update]: Funcom has also published an update on the restructuring process on its main website. [Thanks to David for the tip!]
Jukebox Heroes: Eleven MMO soundtracks you can get for free
Collecting MMO soundtracks is a scattered, scavenger-like experience. Releasing video game soundtracks isn't exactly high up on studio and publisher to-do lists (although we're seeing more love from digital stores), so whether or not a title will get a music release is really a crapshoot. What does get released is never in the same place twice: Some game soundtracks are released as special editions only, some only as CDs, some as full MP3 album releases, some directly from the composer, some are buried on websites, and so on. So I'm constantly looking everywhere trying to beef up my MMO soundtrack library, and as a result I've uncovered several scores that the studios are giving away for free. I'm all over free (legal) music, especially when it's in my area of interest! If you've been looking to start an MMO soundtrack collection or are looking to add to what you have, I've put together a list of 11 MMO scores that you can get today free of charge. Sound good? It does to me!
Funcom restructures Montreal branch, keeps games operational
Funcom is taking hedge trimmers to its Montreal offices today. Senior Game Designer Tanya Short posted the following this afternoon on her Twitter account: "When your branch shuts down, I guess it's less like being fired and more like honorable discharge. Thanks for going down with the ship! Bye!" Massively contacted Funcom for an official statement. Director of Communications Erling Ellingsen confirmed layoffs but assured us that Funcom's games will continue on: "We are currently in a restructuring process and the Montreal office is part of that process along with our other branches. This process unfortunately involves a reduction in staff, but the studio is not closing down. It will continue on, but in a different form and function than today. Anarchy Online, as well as The Secret World and Age of Conan, will definitely continue to operate and be an important part of the company's focus going forward." He said that the studio would provide more details when it had finished with the process. Funcom previously stated that it was restructuring the company to make it more profitable. The Montreal office was established in 2009 and employed 110 people.
