Anarchy Online: Alien Invasion Interview #1
Interviews

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MMOG Hell: Can players place towns anywhere they want, or does it have to be on a predetermined spot somewhere?

J°rgen: No, the players can not place towns anywhere they want. The world designers of AO have been working on preparing suitable spots for quite some time. It’s important that the town aspect becomes as fun and interesting as we possibly can make it, and therefore we are trying our best to design as much of the gameplay experience as we can.

MMOG Hell: Can you say anything more about the player made towns. I saw that the players had to defend against alien attacks. How will this work?

J°rgen: It’s true that the Aliens will attack the player made cities from time to time, and I think this will be a fantastic new feature in Anarchy Online. Lots of fun to be had, lots of action, sci-fi…Anarchy!

We will of course place a lot of requirements on these attacks in order to make it fun. If, say, the city is full of low level players the aliens will aggro on enemies according to their level. The amount of aliens spawned will also be corresponding to the players currently in any given city, in order to have a level playing ground.

I have seen that some roleplayers and purely social players have been fearing this aspect( I don’t want to be forced to fight etc.). I think they can rest assured that they do not have to fight if they don’t want to. On the other hand, the aliens won’t check if you are a pacifist or not. Hmm., maybe we should add that as a feature “tick of here if you do not want to fight”. Jokes aside, I think this aspect of the gameplay will be fun for everyone who likes combat, no matter what level.

I would like to mention that it’s not mandatory to fight aliens, but it WILL give you phat loot, more perks, new technology and weapons, as side from thrilling action bursts of course.

MMOG Hell: What about the new alien XP line? You have stated that there will be more perks and character advancement options. Can you tell some more about this?

J°rgen: Yes. Anarchy Online has always been known for its highly developed character advancement system. With Shadowlands we added some 800 perks into the mix, and upped the level range from 200 to 220.

With Alien Invasion we once again add lots of new and powerful perks and specials. By killing aliens you will get a special XP which will go into an “alien XP pool”. Based on how much you have in this pool, in addition to other requirements (like profession etc.), you will be able to acquire new and powerful means to further develop your character.

This will make each and every character even more unique, and this is one of the greatest aspects of Anarchy Online in my opinion. You can create a character (almost) any way you wish.

MMOG Hell: This expansion has previously been labeled as a social expansion, and in addition to player made towns and shops, you have also mentioned a lot of new social clothes. How many new social outfits can we expect?

J°rgen: There will be lots and lots of new social clothes. Revealing exact numbers is never smart in this industry, especially not with MMO’s. I.e. if we said around 50 new sets of clothes, we would be tied to that. But, it will be lots of clothes, and they will be cool looking.

MMOG Hell: How will the new tradeskill interface work?

J°rgen: Basically we have re-worked the GUI (graphic user interface) in order to make the entire process easier and more accessible for everyone. An example: If you highlight an item, you will get a complete list of items it “works” together with. This will make the compilation process easier. There will be additional aspects to the new tradeskill GUI, but the one I mentioned are among the most important ones.

MMOG Hell: There will be new flying vehicles as well (Yalmaha’s). What will they be like?

J°rgen: What can I say, they will be way cool…he he, but….I would say that no matter how they looked wouldn’t IJ Well, first of all the new Yalm’s should be a lot more accessible for “everyone”. Some of the Yalms introduced with “The Notum Wars” (i.e. the Stiletto) had some insane requirements to them. With the new ones we are looking into making it easier to get hold of a cool new Yalms for “all” levels of players.

As always, they will look good, and make transportation easier.

MMOG Hell: Is there anything else you wish to add?

J°rgen: Well, I would of course advise anyone who hasn’t tested Anarchy Online before to try our seven day free tryout (www.anarchy-online.com/tryout) . If you are a fan of RPG’s and online RPG’s you really owe it to yourself…with no strings attached.

Thanks alot for taking the time!
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