RK1 and RK2 are about equal now.  Before the germans migrated RK2 had a larger population, and it still is the default sever that new downloads get pointed at.

Population has been holding steady for some years, should see a huge boost when the engine rolls out in a few months.  They've got the new engine now as a stand-alone client so they can allow beta testers outside their offices to test it on a wider range of hardware to help with tweaking it.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=576283

Friday with Means - June 4th, 2010 - IIBAWDKW

It Is Broken And We Don't Know Why

This is typical of a Thursday/Friday. The item used to instantly resolve "some" of the daily missions when they are deleted to get directly to the 18 hour timer is different from the version currently on the Live dimensions. Mondays and Tuesday are generally "We know why it is broken" days of the week where we do our best to fix it. This particular item has been great today as we have traced through the build process to try and find out "why" it is different (after figuring out why it doesn't work) and not finding any empirical evidence of any kind to justify the problem. This is what one of our legendary coders "Enno" used to refer to as "WTF". Thank the Redeemed that Macrosun is here to help us figure it out.

Needless to say:

"Some daily missions will still require you to return to the agency to start the timer."

We are going to attempt another build shortly and we are hoping for different results. Not very scientific...but here we are.

On a positive note:

Thanks to everyone who provided us with information to help us track down the "stuck in sneak" issue that is currently associated with SA and AS attacks from sneak. Astralsky on D1 finally helped me get a perfect test-case together for this issue last night and a fix for this is currently being deployed to TestLive. Again the hope is for this issue to be gone in the next version which is tentatively scheduled for next week.

Also in next week's theoretical version:

- Making those missions actually resolve themselves so you do not have to return to the agency.
- Increased drop rate on LE Alien Mission Biomaterial and decreased "level range" on Boss Drops. ie: a level 250 Boss should always drop Biomaterial close to level 250.
- Significant nerfstick treatment to LE Alien Mission nasty Aliens to make it easier to survive at all levels.
- Changes to longer version Composite Nanos to make them more accessible to everyone.
- More Daily mission tweaks.

Other news:

The Alien daily missions are coming along well and so is the "open" pvp area that will serve as a kind of "waiting room" for the Battlestations. Both soon I hope. We are also going to start making the Birthday Items for this year next week...a sneak preview of which will be on AOUniverse before they are released.

Sorry I don't have any new heads this week.

Have a great weekend and wish us luck!
__________________
Colin Cragg
This "Means" Cake
Game Director/Producer

Filmed in 70's "tall-vision"
 

That sort of calculating is -precisely- what sets AO apart from any other MMO and it is what draws in a particular crowd, and FC has indicated they aren't going to be changing that.  There is a video from a few years back, interviewing a number of the people involved in AO, and in one spot, Gaute Godager (former AO Game Director and now punted after his poor launching of AoC) talks about getting a letter from M.I.T. telling him they had to restrict internet bandwidth on their campus due to excessive use by students playing AO.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=575881

Friday with Means - May 28th, 2010- Concealment please

Good progress this week on:

New 150-200 Alien Dungeon.
Further Tweaking of Daily Missions.
Aimed Shot/Sneak Attack Concealment issues.
Painful export conversion of old playfields to "new" playfield types for the new engine.

The work on the Conceal/AS/SA work was especially interesting to dig into as there were "surprises" as to how it was actually functioning. Many players have mentioned since the changes to conceal have gone live that there is now a "wait" when concealing near a monster that was not there before. As this check is now performed on the server instead of the client there of course is the added network time to this check...but there was also a "sneaky" check being done to verify that the NPC was not "aware of your presence". The fix for this little wait is going to be to trigger the check on the AS/SA to perform the conceal/perception check rather than simply waiting for your name to drop off the monsters "vicinity list". The vicinity list was refreshing itself every 4-5 seconds..so at the worst of times this was adding a multi-second wait to being able to execute your attack on even very low level targets ie:220 Agent trying to AS a level 1 leet.

Current plan is to get this version to TestLive as soon as possible with the intention of seeing it hit the live servers next week. This version should see further tweaks to daily missions (rewards at multiple stages of multiple step missions, no longer having to return to the agency after deleting a mission), Conceal checks and more.

As for the "WTF" of the week that award goes to the missing loot items. Some items, most notably Burden, msyteriously vanished in the latest version. It doesn't make any sense...but nevertheless it is current reality. These missing items will be returning to drop tables in next week's version. Thank you to everyone who brought this to our attention.

Issue we would like help with:

We have had reports of players becoming "stuck" in sneak-mode and having to manually cancel this state to exit it. We have managed to reproduce this...but at a rate that is incredibly rare and not nearly predictable enough for us to be able to fix it. If this happens to you on a regular basis it would be great if you could try and let us know exactly what the circumstances are...as this would be incredibly helpful in our efforts to remove the issue.

Have a great weekend everyone!
__________________
Colin Cragg
This "Means" Cake
Game Director/Producer

Filmed in 70's "tall-vision"
 

Lol, trolls are funny.  I don't Killsteal, 'nough said.  If I'm killing dynas out in WW, for example, and I see someone has already engaged a dynaboss, I just move on to the next one (and, yes, I'll probably get the next 3 on the circuit while that small char is fighting that first dyna).  Done with subject.

Originally posted by Madimorga

I wouldn't trust Dagget if I were you.  His idea of fun is running around killstealing from newer players and in general being a jerk.

LOL!

Anyway, already been in contact with them.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=575439

Friday with Means - May 21st, 2010 - Instability in Greece caused by Macrosun!

As the title says Macrosun is on vacation in Greece this week. Everyone in the office is jealous. Work has continued on the engine and we are getting closer to getting a stand-alone client to work with. This involves exporting/converting every single playfield in AO...each one takes about 1-2 hours...a recipe for FUN FUN FUN! If the coder running the exports doesn't go crazy (each one has to be run individually...and it likes to "freeze" rather than crash.) we might be lucky enough to see a first version next week-ish.

Thanks to everyone who has spent time with me in-game speaking about the daily missions. While they are more or less "complete" we don't think of them as perfect and we have some changes based on good feedback that will be coming in the next update. Changes like "multi-step" missions will offer part of the reward at every step and will go beyond the reward offered by "easier" missions to better compensate players for "longer" missions. Players who are unable to complete difficult "final" missions will still have received significant rewards. Making it possible for anyone in any variety of gear to complete the mission would likely remove any possible challenge...so a partial reward seemed like the best route here.

PvP missions and AXP missions are also in progress and we hope to get them out soon. We are also discussing "elite" type missions for a larger level range. Work also began this week designing the "long awaited" open PvP areas that will offer a "wait free" alternative to the Battlestations. I'm not sure when this will be complete...but again we are trying to keep this as simple as possible.

HEADS: I might be mistaken but I think this is the first time we have posted images of the new heads using the "previewer" for the new engine. These three will look pretty much exactly as they do in-game as they do in this image....so again I couldn't be happier with the amazing work that is being done by the artists in the Beijing office.

Have a great weekend everyone!
Attached Images

heads.jpg

__________________
Colin Cragg
This "Means" Cake
Game Director/Producer

Filmed in 70's "tall-vision"
 

Yep, I'm based on Rimor

send a /tell to Dagget

Character models will be essentially the same but they are working them over to have more polygons and the heads are all being redone.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=575092

 Friday with Means - May 14th, 2010 - Multipatch

It has been a very busy couple weeks and I am slowly starting to recover my basic shreds of humanity. At least in these last couple weeks when the team has been here LATE at night working on issues we haven't been lacking for company from other projects . There have been more than a few issues recently...but for the sheer size of the last update we released that touched on many sensitive areas of the game and changed vitually every single RK playfield it has gone remarkably well. Thanks to everyone who helped us identify problem areas so we could adjust them as soon as possible. From an operational standpoint it was amazing that the support and operations team were able to help us deploy multiple updates as quickly as they did with as much as they currently had on the go with the Conan launch. I owe some people beers. The smart thing to do would have been to delay our update until the Conan launch was over but they told us to run with it and helped us despite being a trifle overworked at the time. Planning to have two products requiring this much attention at the same time was brave...but they certainly pulled it off.

Things people might be wondering about:

The Engine

Sergey the magical Russian coder came in on yesterday's vacation to do more work on the engine optimization. For the first time he managed to get the new client to run FASTER on old hardware than the old one. This is spectacularly good news. We had currently been planning on a "dual" client that would include everything for BOTH clients...if things continue to improve we might be able to do away with the old one entirely. We don't want to shut anyone out if we can at all help it...and this was a great day. It feels like it is really coming together. We will be working next week to try and build a "complete" client that will be NOT using any internal resources. Should be fun 100+ hours of exporting...fun for coders.

Strafe Running

Some of you may have noticed that strafe no longer offers a small speed benefit. This was playing havoc with positional sync...and it is important to mention here that it always has. This was not a new development at all. We will be rescaling runspeed in the coming months to make sure that the stat "matters" and that the network can handle the positional updates that are necessary to accurately depict where your opponents are. The current system is the system that came with the release of AO and runspeed numbers have climbed significantly since then. Some adjustments were going to be needed...this is a first important step.

Have a great weekend everyone. The whole team will be drinking at my house tonight
__________________
Colin Cragg
This "Means" Cake
Game Director/Producer

Filmed in 70's "tall-vision"
 

Originally posted by punkrock

whats the server that has the most pop?   is the pvp good?    and is it easy to solo for a new player?   and what class is good to solo with?     

 

anything will help. thanks for the info!   downloading the game right know

 

oh and edit*   do i have to have all the expansions? or do i have to pay for them if i go with the game

Servers are about equal in numbers. Rimor had more before the Germans recently moved from DNW to Atlantean and still is the 'default' server that a freshly downloaded game will point new players at.

Several types of PvP. battle stations, low gas zones, towers, duels.  None of which are forced on anyone.

Soloing as newbie is possible, but just plain hard.  People with lots of MMO background can do ok but the learning curve and cost of staying reasonably equipped is steep.

Good solo classes would be Adventurers, Fixers, and Martial Artists.  Some other classes, like Soldiers and Enforcers can do well solo at the lower levels.  If you are playing a free account, Fixers are generally the easiest as their best toolset items are tied to Rubi-Ka and reasonable weapons can be found at all levels.

Game can be played free with chars that can level to 200.

They announced work starting on the engine in mid 2007

In mid 2009 they switched from Ogre to using their own Dreamworld engine

The engine itself is done now for some months.  They are working on heads/bodies/textures and re-vegetating Rubi-Ka and getting some content in place to go with it, most notably a New User Experience.

I think it is far closer than 6 months away.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=574676

 Friday with(out) Means - May 7th, 2010: hbaaaaalllhggrrrrrraaaagghhhhh
So this has been a fun week. And by 'fun' I mean 'holy crap I'm glad it's the weekend'.

Means is feeling a little under the weather today, so about... oh... 45 minutes before this was posted he asked me to fill in and write something up. So let's see what we can cover, shall we?

Feedback on the latest update has certainly been enthusiastic to say the least. At the end of it, with the update we released on Weds., I think the Collector has just about hit the spot we were initially looking for in terms of risk vs. reward. The instance isn't designed to be a one-stop-shop for everyone to get everything they need from the game - Far from it. Instead it was designed as a difficult encounter requiring a unique, new train of thought from the players involved - It's not about tank 'n spank, it's about coordinating efforts and discovering tactics that fall outside the scope and realm of previous character roles. Is there a chance for phat lewt? Oh yeah, definitely - Gotta have something to get you guys up there. But getting the loot should be a bonus - An additional reward to the sense of satisfaction gained in actually managing to complete the encounter. Plus, hey, awesome new social armour for folks to grab; all good stuff all around.

Right now we're looking to create a small update for early next week (hopefully either Monday or Tuesday) that'll clear up a couple of small issues from the Daily Missions quests, as well as tweaking the wall spikes from the Collector instance - After this you'll only get hit by one spike at a time, giving you a small grace period before you can get hit again. This should hopefully prevent any 'instakill' occurrences in the instance where someone gets slammed across several of the spikes at a time. Additionally, the rest of the "QL1" item issues from the Collector should be resolved - Thanks to everyone who's posted for the help and vital feedback in getting stuff like this tracked down.

We'll also be 'opening' the playfields which contain the new city plots for our DNW-transferred players, filling in a long-closed gap in the AO map between Mort and Avalon. True to the oldskool game, these playfields will be named Three Craters (East and West) and will contain a large number of city plots (Edit: I should note: Just city plots, no gameplay content). Most of these have already been taken by the DNW players, but there may still be some plots still available when the areas open, so if you've been looking for a non-instanced city you might have a chance at snagging one in the very near future.

I also wanted to take a minute to thank everyone who posted in last week's FwM thread regarding desires from the playerbase. Everyone on the dev team has been very interested in reading over the feedback and we're all glad to see that the concerns you guys are raising mostly mirror our own: Attention paid to the startup experience, ensuring the rebalancing process goes smoothly, getting good press and attention paid to the incoming engine launch. It's good to know that our long-term plans meet the long-term expectations of the players, and really helps solidify our goals for the coming year. Lots of good stuff on the horizon, I promise. =D

Meanwhile, back in the office, we've got both of our artists working hard on the high-rez character models we're looking to include with the incoming graphics engine update - MstrBstrd's currently working on the Opifex Female model, while Flaptoot's taking care of the Atrox. I'm not entirely sure how it's going, but Flaptoot keeps muttering something about cabbages under his breath while looking like he's about to bludgeon something, so I figure it's in my own best interests to just stay away from his desk at the moment. Hopefully we'll have some shinies to show before long, though.

Speaking of shinies we've got two cool things to show off this week - First off, two new heads to show, this time of the Nanomage Male and Solitus Male varieties. Usual disclaimers on these - Screengrab from the Max viewport, work-in-progress, transparency doesn't display in the hair properly, ect. ect. Even with said disclaimers, though, I gotta admit that I really like these; lots of details on the faces, really cool structure, and just pretty awesome in general.

In addition to that we've also got screenshots of an incoming armour upgrade for the various ICC guards stationed around Rubi-Ka. You guys have noticed several updated armour textures sliding into the game over the last patch or so, the majority of which has been the work of Genele, who in addition to being a damn good designer also knows her way around Photoshop something fierce. The ICC armour she's made looks absolutely awesome and should also be hitting the game with the small update early next week - For you storyline guys out there, there's a bit of significance to this as well... but as to exactly what? We'll get you more info on that later.

And that's that. Sorry if it's a little shorter than usual today - It's been a long, long, looooooooooooong week and my rant juices are pretty depleted at the moment. But, hey, shinies! And stuff.

Enjoy your weekend, guys. Catch you later!

Attached Images

fwm-may7-nanomale.jpg
fwm-may7-gothsolimale.jpg
fwm-may7-ICC1.jpg
fwm-may7-ICC2.jpg

__________________
Brad L. McAtee/Kintaii
AO Designer/Jack of All Trades

There are more, but the bulk of the Sloobs (SL only) upgrade to All Expansions prior to hitting 200+

Yeah, they are borrowing an idea from Eve, which has had a lot of success with the concept.  Good idea, as long as it is kept to such a small contribution overall.  Really helps all the players who play a few hours 2-3 days a week, - keeps them moving forward and positive about the game.  Otherwise, you risk filling the game with the 12-hour-a-day-no-lifers and that neither pays the bills nor encourages a broad player base.

The engine itself is done since some time in March.  They still need to redo all the flora on the planet and are preparing a new 'new user experience'.  The Daily Missions content patch (along with a -lot- of other changes) is due within the next week or two.  The other thing they are working on is an overall 'rebalancing' of professions.

Originally posted by japo

Two weeks from launch and still no word on classes.

I've pre-ordered, but I won't resub until I find that out.  I got burned out on the game and don't want to play one of my older characters/classes if I'm going to restart the same class.

Basically...as soon as they release that info I'll come back and play something OTHER than what I'm going to play on 5-11. 

Why aren't they telling us this stuff?!?!?

What about classes?

They are not changing anything about them.  Added in the AA system (which goes to Live next week and is not a part of the expansion). Added an asian race you can roll at start and run thru Tortage.

As the Game Director pointed out a few weeks ago, Rimor had a larger population before the Germans moved.  Should be just about balanced now as Germans mostly moved to Atlantean and Rimor is the 'default' server for people who just downloaded the game.

Regular leveling and teaming happens all the time, mostly in orgs.  What you see and hear on OOC and such is the ppl who mostly won't get in an org (or get in an org for the city buffs) and just want to solo fast to 220 yelling for OST teams in SL.

Our org runs everyone thru a couple of spots where we do a bit of power leveling for about 10-15 levels so ppl see how that is (no OST or kites ever, we level on teams the proper range). Otherwise, we leveling mostly on RK missions to 200 and Sl thereafter.  My lvl 175 Enforcer has close to 2400 tokens and doesn't touch token guns, and the ppl he levels with have been there alongside for the whole time (almost two years so far) and having fun all the way.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=573776

 Friday with Means - April 23rd, 2010 - Incoming

I thought this week we would focus on what is done rather than what is not. This update has been a very significant undertaking and we hope to see this update hit the live servers inside the next two weeks. A new version will arrive on Test hopefully late this evening.

18.3.2 Preliminary Update Notes

New Content:

The Collector Instance:

A new, and very challenging, single-team instance has been added to the entrance of Pandemonium. Who will be first to tackle these three very difficult encounters? Who will be the first to steal from the ultimate collection of hidden treasures?

Bring your very best and try to survive the most difficult small-group experience we have ever released.

The Daily Mission System:

The new Daily Mission System is now available. The first Daily Missions in this first release are available for Rubi-Ka only and will offer players of all levels an alternative and effective way to progress with significant rewards including XP, Victory Points, and Tokens. Daily Missions are available from sided agencies in Old Athens, Rome Blue and daily PvP Mission in a hidden location in Borealis.

NPC Changes:

NPCs falling off the land in Shadowlands will now properly return to their spawn points.

Alien Pathing and landing sites for many, many cities have been modified and improved.

SAM Batteries are now subject to normal player damage and have reduced health values.

Unicorns near Borealis will no longer abandon their posts to harass low level players inside Borealis.

Euminedes has retreated deeper into the Abandoned Subway.

Subway bosses should now have faster respawn.

Item/Nano Changes:

Kyr'Ozch Bio-Material should no longer be NoDrop.

Stiletto Yalm orientation has been corrected for easier flying.

Grand Theft Humidity and Borrow Reflect have been significantly altered as a first step in the balancing process for the Trader Profession.

Clan players should now also receive two shoulderpads as a reward for start-up island quests.

The Rihwen MP pet no longer requires the Alien Invasion expansion to cast.

Durable Bandages LE Adventurer proc is now correctly instant.

Carlo Pinnetti's suit has been re-tailored.

Bring the Pain perk should no longer cause an extended death period if the user dies while this perk is in cooldown. (Also known as the "Forever death bug on the BS".)

NCU Hacker interface should now level to 220 (previously stopped at 200).

Other Changes:

All equipment tabs can be locked by selecting "Lock equipment tabs" in the GUI > Misc section of the F10 Menu.

Free players should now have access to all organization buildings to participate in organization activities. Items inside will remain usable by expansion players only (ie: orbital strike terminals).

Those summoned by a boss monster will be subjected to an associated 10 second root.

Coast of Peace and Coast of Tranquility playfields have now been hooked into the Grid.

Client to server sync has been tightened to more accurately display the correct location of player characters.

Hitting the "end" button in a blank chat window line should no longer "end" your client session.

Players should now correctly get the head they choose in character creation.

Concealment/Perception Mechanic changes:

- The shadow of concealed players should no longer display to others.

- All Concealment type messages (eg: "PlayerX tried to hide but failed") will no longer display in chat.

- Concealment/perception checks will now be properly checked on the server rather than client-side.
__________________
Colin Cragg
This "Means" Cake
Game Director/Producer

Filmed in 70's "tall-vision"
Means is offline Report Post       Reply With Quote