Many people consider MUDs to be the first true MMORPGs, while others still consider the first to be one of any number of games including Meridian 59 by Near Death Studios or The Realm by Sierra / Codemasters. Since then, we’ve seen numerous technological advancements in various areas, most notably in graphics. We have come a long way from text-based adventures and MUDs, to 2D games such as The Realm and Ultima Online, and finally the first 3D games like EverQuest. Looking at games such as SOE’s latest game, EverQuest II, really puts these things in perspective. But what else has really changed?

Despite their lack of resources, the team overhauled the game’s rendering engine for a significantly modernized appearance in August of last year. Brian showed me the difference in real time, and it was quite a change. Is Meridian 59 as pretty as other MMORPGs? Hardly, but it has the benefit of age, a mature community and all the content that comes with that age. One mistake Brian admitted is that they launched their refined graphical experience last year at precisely the same time as World of WarCraft hit shelves, obviously, a very hard time to garner any notice.

Major Game Updates:

Experience bonuses or penalties now use the highest rated member of the group instead of each group member's rating (to a maximum of 120). This means, among other things, if the highest rated member of the group gets no experience for a monster, nobody in the group will. Modified: Method that monsters choose a preferred target.

Characters will now have to pass the permission of the plot as well as the structure when attempting to access a storage structure (e.g. a house or silo) or trade with an NPC on a plot. For instance, if a plot's permission is set to Deny All, in addition to the "red barrier" around the plot, no characters besides the owner will be able to access structures on that plot, even if they are set to Allow All. Another example would be if the plot's permission were set to Friends only, those friends would be able to access structures that are set to Allow All or Guild Only (only for those friends also in the owner's guild), but not those set to Deny All.

Formulae now contain all previous tiers of their products. For instance, a Journeyman formula can now be used to make Beginner tiers of its item(s).

Road bonus is now more reliable but as a side effect the road bonus is removed immediately upon exiting the road.

Nathan Richardsson: The community number one, two and three. We’re not only making a game for ourselves to enjoy but also for the like-minded people out there that enjoy a “Strategic-PvP-space-universe-MMO-economic-player-run-game” (That’s the express description of EVE, good for Starbucks and bars)

We spend considerable time with the community, in focus groups, on test servers and in our large volunteer network so the feedback has so many avenues to flow that good ideas spread fast. This feedback cycle has a tremendous effect on what we add to EVE .

EVE doesn’t appeal to everyone and that can clearly be seen in the numbers, we didn’t expect it to either. Those that do like EVE, however seem to love it (like us!) and our steady increase of players since launch is a prove of that. There are still many that haven’t tried EVE and we’re kind of envious that they have such a huge universe left to discover :)

In any case, we’ll be happy bunnies when we hit 100.000 players. Remember, we’re from Iceland, everything so far has been a blast and an awesome journey that is still just in its infancy! (Not to mention the dynamics of 100.000 players interacting within a single shard universe!). We are closing in on our target, but today we have a little less that 60.000 subscribers.

Fan Fest Fixes!

• Altered Lightsaber special abilities animations (Fan Fest)
• Altered TKA special ability animations (Fan Fest)
• Fixed bug where Guild Elections were constantly recycling (Fan Fest)
• Ore mining units now come 5 to a crate, instead of 1 to a crate. (Fan Fest)

• What is the “Token Respec”? In order to offer players a final opportunity to adapt their character's profession template, we are offering one final chance to revise your character's template. We are calling this the “Token Respec” process. As part of this process we are putting an invisible marker on each character which allows the character skills to be reshuffled. After the character template is revised, meaning when you have confirmed your new template via the system, the token or marker is used and the option to revise/respec is no longer available.
• Once the new Token Respec option to revise the character template is live in the game, you will be offered a text window upon log in that asks if you are ready for your last “Respec”.

The new server type will be called “Alternative Rules” and has two main features: no access to Trials of Atlantis and “ranged buffs”. Here are the details:

Trials of Atlantis: ToA zones will not be available, nor will Artifacts or Master Levels. You will be able to play ToA races, however.

Ranged Buffs: All concentration buffs will have a range limit of 5000 units, and will be available only to the buffer and his groupmates. Anyone outside of the group cannot receive concentration buffs.

/level 20: This feature will not be available on this server type.

Our schedule is to launch two of these servers on or around July 14. We will “pre launch” the servers two days early for anyone who has an active account as of July 1st – it will give those players who already have active accounts a 2-day sneak preview of this new server type.

Thank you all for your feedback we have received on these issues, and we hope that this server type will provide an interesting alternative ruleset to Dark Age of Camelot. The work doesn't end here, however – please keep the feedback coming.

Three new elite creatures have been added for high-level players, each of which drops a signature trophy allowing victorious players to walk away with proof of their heroic accomplishment. On Dathomir, battle the fearsome Bane Backed Spider. Or test your mettle against the new Murra Blanca or Painted Spat on Talus.

Battling new creatures is the perfect way to pass time until one of the galaxy’s greatest holidays arrives – Empire Day! Coinciding with what Earthlings (more specifically, Americans) a long time from now will know as “the 4th of July,” Empire Day celebrates the anniversary of Emperor Palpatine’s formation of the first Galactic Empire. In the days leading to the event, Imperial loyalists have the opportunity to embark upon a series of quests that could possibly culminate in their meeting a certain Dark Lord of the Sith. Meanwhile, the Rebellion has its own plans – and its own scoundrel of a hero behind them. Whichever side players may serve, a great exclusive reward awaits their success.

Eric Slick: The “jump off the back of another player” combo we showed at E3 demonstrated how a team of players in HJ could achieve an attack that would have been impossible as a solo player. Furthermore, rather than randomly chaining abilities together, we demonstrated the necessity of actually working together as a team in order to execute a more complex combat maneuver.

We plan on combos that involve more than just two players, as well. Spell casters will also have multi-player combos they can pull off. When doing so, there is a bonus to your attacks and damage that is done. We are also toying with the idea that some creatures might require such attacks to hurt significantly; but we have to be careful to balance that with solo play requirements (which is part of our core design goals).

There are many technical challenges to doing these sorts of things, which may be why most MMORPG combat has avoided these features so far. But, we are very determined that technical challenges will not force us to take the path of least resistance here: we’re going to make HJ the place for interesting fantasy combat!

Some of the items are fun cosmetic items that we think our veteran players will appreciate and are in keeping with the sense of humour and style that Anarchy Online is renowned for.

Secondly there are items that make the veterans life easier on their alternate characters (or even their main character in some cases). These include the option to use veterans points to purchase a low requirement Yalmaha or even some tokens to boost your token board.

Morten Juul: The AI-system is superb in two ways. First, it gives the NPC's personality. Every NPC has goals, motivations, moods, duties, friends etc. and will be influences by what she is told and what she experiences. A NPC does not stand around waiting for players to talk to her, but moves about doing stuff and talking to players or other NPC's according to her personality.

Secondly, the AI allows for a limited free form dialogue between players and NPC's. It requires sentences to be constructed in a certain way but you are not limited to certain subjects. And again a NPC will react to your sayings according to its personality.