Hello everyone!
For anyone who I haven't had the pleasure of meeting, I am Michizure. With the support of Joel/Nusquam and the rest of the Funcom Live team, I will be assuming the role left behind by Genele, heading up the design aspects of Anarchy Online. Accepting this important role within a game that has been a part of my life for so long is as humbling as it is daunting, and not one I accept lightly. The challenges that lay ahead, however, will be be met with and overcome.
Earlier this month, Testlive was patched with an early version of the 18.7 patch, containing an updated New Player Experience, several profession rebalance changes, and many of QoL improvements. Along with this patch, we opened the floor for suggestions and feedback, which we received a healthy amount of; thank you for all of this. As a result of the strong feedback we received, we have decided to postpone the 18.7 patch in order to adjust and tweak a number of the changes, particularly those related to the profession rebalance, until we are happier with the results.
With 18.7 pushed back, focus will be placed on finishing the implementation of the new Inferno mission that was voted on by the community. I will provide more details on what can be expected from these missions in the September update, as they'll be well on their way at that point. Once these missions have reached Live, focus will then be fully devoted to addressing the feedback collected from the community and Professionals.
The new engine, which is now a part of 18.8, is still being examined by our Live team programmers. The new engine beta is still active, and the resulting feedback has been very helpful in identifying all the growing pains this process has presented. I look forward to having more tangible news to present in an upcoming developer update.
That's all I have for this month. It has been an interesting couple of weeks for myself and the team, which we believe will lead to some exciting future updates. Thank you all and have a great September!