Friday with Means - September 11th, 2009 - Video Q&A, Sceenies and Info-Nuggets

[Sleincour]

Questions
In the Q&A you talked about fixing things that have been broken for a long time, that should have been fixed years ago. Is there any chance of having completely worthless skills(parry, ripsote, adventuring, etc) looked at as part of this initiative?

I was thinking the same thing. Old broken/useless skills that has been left like that for a long long time. Would be nice to see them fixed.

[Autohead]

I was thinking the same thing. Old broken/useless skills that has been left like that for a long long time. Would be nice to see them removed from game and all items with them as requirements be changed to something else.

/fixed

[scenenheard]

OK, usually I keep my nose out of these threads, but I have to ask. Means, are you wearing two watches? And if so...why?

time zones

[Flyingengi]

OK, usually I keep my nose out of these threads, but I have to ask. Means, are you wearing two watches? And if so...why?

1 of the Atlanta time, and 1 of them Norway time...duh

[Redbar]

The "single pony tail" and "short hair" opifex heads (the only two I ever use) are still the sexiest, so I'm happy

[Saetos]

I was thinking the same thing. Old broken/useless skills that has been left like that for a long long time. Would be nice to see them fixed.

In my opinion:

* Swimming: Delete, swim speed determined by half your runspeed plus a small portion of BodyDev or Stamina.
* Parry & Riposte: Delete, make the little parry shields require Dodge or Duck, MA attacks requiring Parry or Riposte require Evade Close, Type 880 and 992 have P/R requirements thrown out.
* Vehicle Water: Delete the skill and the vehicles from game. The vehicles as far as I'm aware aren't usable in Adonis, the only place where you'd probably find any semblance of use out of the original skill.
* Trap Disarm: Delete, bomb checks are made with the same tool but check Break&Entry.


All I can think of.

[Elleza]

ok i love the opifex heads!!!

[shadowgod]

now that i think of it... these new head pics should be made available as new avatars on the forums as they become available.

[Herkulease]

The heads are amazing. Keep up the good work. Ignore the elf lovers!


Question for Means.

Will we ever get larger backpacks? (Please!)

If so, will we all see those backpacks with stats (from shops) upgraded a little, possibly to include AC's, or different stats in addition to having more slots?

[rakhabit]

The heads are amazing. Keep up the good work. Ignore the elf lovers!

Ignore us elf lovers all you want, just don't ingore the fact that the Opifex are based on the elf archetype found in so many other games and literature. :P

[Genele]

http://www.anarchy-online.com/anarch...NT/130x285.gif

Anarchy Online - Light years beyond elves

Thanks for all the feedback regarding the heads, our goal is to make them as good looking as possible.

[Gastastic]

"Go left." (tm)

I liked that.

It's reassuring to see how concerned and savvy FC's head AO staff are.

What surprised me was to hear how much they wanted to change the startup area and introduce a curve to the learning cliff.

Whatever happened to helpbot? It seems like a 3rd party - if compensated reasonably - could toss together an interactive flash tutorial if FC's staff is too busy.

[Flyingengi]

I'm think about making a video tutorial for noob island...

[Ukblizzard]

With so many 3rd party tools and resources available to new and old players, I wish it was time that we could be approached regarding finding ways to implement them into the game. I understand that this has been talked about at length though.

Means mentioned the events terminal in the video, well thats something that bots already try to do by taking the information posted on the websites and allowing info windows to display the information. If that could be given enough player input as well as the ingoing information from ARK / GMs that could be a really great new concept for us to dig our teeth into.

Selecting a terminal and getting a holo vid.. that could be cool.

[aleah]

I can't get over how friendly that Q&A was.
Were shades barred from the building?

[spookiepants]

http://www.anarchy-online.com/anarch...NT/130x285.gif

Anarchy Online - Light years beyond elves

Now that you reminded me...

Back in the day Funcom had a referral program where people could put these banners on their pages, websites etc. They earned credit for the referrals.
That system is gone now. Why not bring that program, or something similar back?
At the very least, the AO team might want to consider making those banners/buttons/etc easily accessible and linkable.

[Zandibel]

new opifex heads are too squat and too wide, they don't even look as good as the originals, just more detailed.

[Lheann]

Warning: Lheann executes "Wall of Text" in your NCU.

Means,
Yet another end game instance? Totally dissapointed by this.

I am just sick of endgame everything (grind grind grind) but sadly I am just as sick of the low level content used for leveling. I mean I was on test when the subway was released and there for TOTW and was in the SL beta. To say the low level content has gotten old is huge understatement. I would think that most of the current player base feels the same way about low level content being boring. I mean when Newbie Island hit it was a big deal as it was new low level content. That is just sad. Had you said a new instance for some where in the 20 to 100 range I would sent you a cake for sure.

In game mail system.... Yummy..... Can I have two please.

I asked in the dragcon thread but will post here as well. Will the Daily Missions give SK rewards for players over 200? Will the reward be equal to a % of your xp needed to level so that X number of these gives you a level or will the values be arbitary and like all missions becomes less and less of a levels XP/SK as you get higher?

Something that did not get touched on that I saw. The AO Website could be a great place to host tools developed by FC or for FC that let players access the things like the item database, or helped figure out how implants need to be built. Yes I know we have third party tools and sites for this now. But FC having on the AO website would sure come off as a little more user friendly to new players. Maybe even some really good guides to starting game play. The games offical website is usually the first place people go to look for help after all.

With all this talk about terminals this and that. Please fix the mission terminal. Clicksaver is so handy and most players use it or mission buddy. Really is about time AO had a new mission interface. I mean really talk about Beta Period concept and design.

Over all it was nice info.

[Mereditche]

No more 220 endless item grinds please, ffs.

[Lupusceleri]

Okay awesomeness.

I had to laugh hard a few times throughout those videos, especially at the Voyvoy parody ("Anarchy Online is Death, Death!"), and damn "Run to the left!" is just epic.

Heads look good but the eyes still are a bit weird for my feeling, can't quite put my finger on what exactly is wrong with them though. I think they are too.. intense, it's as if they're STARING at you rather than just watching you.

As for QUESTION: When do you estimate the PvP rebalancing to be "done"? I understand it is a neverending spiral of slight adjustments and that perfect balance will most likely never be achieved, I also understand you can't give exact dates/patches or hard guarantees, but is there any news on the ETA for the biggest problems (IE keepers and fixers being underpowered)?

QUESTION: Will the PvP rebalancing be done only for TL7, or are you planning to give lower TLs of Notum Wars some attention as well (and then especially the chunk of overpowered that Traders are, because of their drains)?