MMORPG.com's Jon Wood asked some questions of Anarchy Online's Game Director Colin Cragg about the just-announced Legacy of Xan booster for the seven year old title.

MMORPG.com:

What is the difference between an expansion and a booster?

Colin Cragg:

This is of course subject to opinion...but mine would be that the difference between and expansion and a booster is a question of scale and scope. Expansions often offer new game mechanics, levels to achieve or enormous land mass to explore. In the case of Shadowlands, an area significantly larger than the original game was added along with twenty new levels and significant new player actions and mechanics. Legacy of the Xan, while containing large areas and rafts of new content, is not on this scale and is meant to be supplementary to the game as an alternate path through the Anarchy Online end game experience. This is an end game experience designed for our veteran players and as a booster it is priced as such. Long standing members of our community will find this priced down to as little as 9.99 /$ when supplemented with paid points awarded free with their subscriptions. We feel this is excellent value for the fun this adds to the game.

Read the Legacy of Xan Interview

Let me get this stright... So rather bring in the new engine there making another pointless exp :(

As I understand, 3 of those 11 members of the Development team are working on the Engine exclusively.  I rather suspect that adding more people to the project won't significantly speed up the process.

Well at least this is some good news for AO players, while Funcom has been dancing around with their AoC line, we see that they still are doing something with AO.

I loved the game when I played it and will definetly comeback, I just dont know when at this point. AO to me was my 1st Sci-Fi mmorpg before SWG and had some really good times in it during it days.

I started AO back in 2002, I can't believe its been this long already.

It seems that I already have the, " legacy of Xan" as a registered expantion pack with the pre order item as well,....WOOT!

Can't wait

Umm those screen shots actually look good.

Just a fair warning to all players that want to try AO.

This game looks like Ass. I don't know how they got those screenies to look so good but the rest of the game does not compare.

Wait until the graphic revamp if you never try the game.

Edit: Im not a Troll, Im actually a fan of the game. But i refuse to lie, AO is extremely dated and those screenies are basically false advertising.

Originally posted by metalhead980

 

Umm those screen shots actually look good.

Just a fair warning to all players that want to try AO.

This game looks like Ass. I don't know how they got those screenies to look so good but the rest of the game does not compare.

Wait until the graphic revamp if you never try the game.

 

Edit: Im not a Troll, Im actually a fan of the game. But i refuse to lie, AO is extremely dated and those screenies are basically false advertising.

They did the same with Notum Wars, Shadowlands, Alien invasion, and Lost Eden. Most of their "screens" for advertising are renders.

What I find funny is Colin using Shadowlands as an example of the difference between an expansion and a booster. SL is the only "expansion" that fits his definition. Perhaps he should be recommending some refunds for the people who bought the Lost eden "expansion", which by his own definition was a pissy little booster.

Originally posted by metalhead980

 

Umm those screen shots actually look good.

Just a fair warning to all players that want to try AO.

This game looks like Ass. I don't know how they got those screenies to look so good but the rest of the game does not compare.

Wait until the graphic revamp if you never try the game.

 

Edit: Im not a Troll, Im actually a fan of the game. But i refuse to lie, AO is extremely dated and those screenies are basically false advertising.

In its heyday AO looked awesome, but heh it was built at a time when a p3 600mhz and a geforce 2 could run it full tilt. By todays dx10 standards sure it looks dated, but hey its a dx7'sh game.

Game play and content is what people should be wondering about and this game has both in bulk. The skill based/level system, Implants, guns, nanos, land control, pvp, lore, rp...its a good game.

There is no reason new people should not try this game to see themselves because .......

ITS FREE !   Thats right its free for the basic game...just download it and try it out. No need to worry about expansions until later just go Froob Account to check it out, because all the original content is free.

Yes i agree 100%. Those screenshots are not real, there is no way. I have played AO on and off for about 5 years and the game looks like crap. It is a fun game however, thats what draws me into it. By the time we actually get the new engine the game will be dead, no offense funcom :P.

I recently made a new paid account just for old times sakes. I will not be buying the booster though... Seems more like a gimmick than anything. Funcom if you want to make us pay for some new content, at least give us something worthy enough to call an expansion... like shadowlands.

 I more or less started with Anarchy Online  ...  

I was acustomed to some practices, like groupin with some people for hours and hours, talking to these people and having fun. To me this was normal.    ...   Then... I played other MMO's and was shocking to me ... all other games are not that good.   More MMO's need to be like Anarchy Online.   ...  Sadly enough I can't play the game because I am spoiled by newer games graphics. ..   I totally recomend AO to these people that never played a good MMO.

gameplay wise AO is extremely depth both in content, and in how u customize your character. but ill admit myself i am indeed spoiled by new graphics so i like to have my cake and eat it too lol. lets hope this new fangdangled engine upgrade gives us some yummy eye porn . lol.

God has it been that long, I still remember beta testing this game before it went live in 2002 and many of the testers were pleading with the derv team not to bring it out as it was unfinished and they didn't listen and it flopped early on it had a terible release. I plodded on for about six months but lost patients and dropped the game totally.

I tried to return about a year or so later and when I tried to re-activate my account there had been a take over or some other issue and I was unable to get my details back so refused to buy the game again based on this, however I then played the free trail and due to the dead end graphics I never managed to get very far as it depressed me and I pulled the plug on the game for good.

The sad thing is after Funny.com brought out AoC again the derv teams didn't listen to beta testers and I again wrote my concerns and didn't even get a reply from the derv team in AoC at least I did from AO team and they said it was out of their hands. Sadly I have given both games a real chance to draw me into their games but due to the way they have allowed them selves to be maniplulated I will never return or buy another funcom game again unless six months down the line after reading peoples feed-back.

It's a shame too because they obviously have some tallented people working for them but they do not allow them selves enough time to complete any projects, I fully understand why this is but that's down to bad managment and they need to resolve this if they plan on trying to make any further MMO's.

If I am ever to return to Funcom it would have to be a really good game without the problems they have had in the past and I would not be fooled into buying any game from them until it had run at least six months if I even botherd then...

Bandit.

I have played this game non stop for the last 6 years.

Things have changed alot from the time it was released, those that quite cause of the problems at release, over the years the Dev team has fixed those issues and given us great content.

To those that say the screens for the new expansion is false advertising, maybe you should learn how to use the graphics controls in game to better the look of it on your Computer. My game play looks excactly like what that video showed.

Cant wait for the new engie to come out, and its nice to see some advertising for this game with release of the booster.  Hopefully it will bring some much needed new blood to the game.

Originally posted by QM2Dave

To those that say the screens for the new expansion is false advertising, maybe you should learn how to use the graphics controls in game to better the look of it on your Computer. My game play looks excactly like what that video showed. 

I would have to agree with this. They must not have something correct in their settings or are using drivers with an ATI card that are not rendering DX7 based stuff properly.  www.google.com/search

I'm on a 2.0ghz core 2 duo notebook with 2GB RAM & a 256MB Geforce 7900GS. My graphics in game look identical to those screenshots.

I thought AO was free.

The base game "Anarchy online" is free (incl Notum Wars booster). If you upgade to an expansion then it has either a $5 or $15 monthly fee.

I'll go back to AO when the new engine goes live. 

The backgrounds have looked great for a while -- the character models have the problems.

With the coming engine upgrade comes the hope and wish for better looking characters as well as a better charcter creation interface.

I'd consider coming back if they lowered their subscription prices, the game for EU customers is 14.95€ +VAT a month, that's 17,20€ ($21.30) for a 1 month subscription if you live in EU... that's almost 5€ more than any modern MMO which are 12.99€/month.

1) It's a lot cheaper than WoW, paid by the month.

2) You can lower the price even more by paying by the year ($95/yr).

3) You can play for free altogether or get the $5/mo Shadowlands subscription.