Expansion Pack-Official Word

[_____________Nakomis]

From June 2002 issue, PC Gamer magazine (All rights reserved, no permission was gained for this transcription):

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More Online, Hold the Anarchy

It’s been a wild year for Funcom. First the Norwegian developer/publisher released Anarchy Online last June, and MMORPG that even they admit was so hideously broken that few players could successfully play it at launch. They fixed it, slowly regaining lost credibility and ultimately winning PC Gamer’s Best Massively Multiplayer Game of 2001 award. Now, Funcom is preparing AO’s first expansion pack.

Shooting for a Christmas 2002 release, Funcom says that the soon-to-be named add-on will embellish the existing conflict between the Omni Corporation and the Rebel Clans on the world of Rubi-Ka.

Says AO Online Services Director Henning Solberg: “The expansion will, among other things, uncover why the resurrection technology works only on Rubi-Ka and nowhere else in the universe. You’ll find out that something is happening to you in the white light floating from your corpse before you’re resurrected at the save point. You’ll also discover a new world – a shadow realm!”

Besides adding planes of existence to the game, the add-on will also introduce a major new city to explore – Jobe – plus new static dungeons and quests, new weapons and armor, modifications of the four existing character breeds, and new visual effects.

Though Funcom won’t institute new professions in the add-on, it will establish “profession specializations” for your in-game avatar. “At certain stages in their career, any profession may choose areas in which to specialize,” explains Solberg. “They’ll keep all existing abilities while branching off into a specialization. New titles will also be available for you.”

A special “perk” system will also be introduced. Earned through quests or by following special instructions, perks can augment your skills or provide special abilities, such as increasing your hit points or giving you the power to teleport back to your start city.

Solberg also told us that changes are afoot in Rubi-Ka whether you buy the expansion pack or not. During the next few months, you can expect patches to enhance Anarchy Online’s functionality and ease of use by implementing a new in-game tutorial and help system, a personal digital assistant, and changes to the character-creation process. Future patches will also see the introduction of multi-level dungeons, an innovation that AO supporters have been demanding for months.

We have a lot of cool features in the works,” Solberg told us. “We’ll definitely keep PCG readers informed as more features are added.”
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Boy I love having a subscription to PCG. Figures that they find out about it before we do. Oh well, looks like I'm gonna have to shell out some Christmas money this year!

Catch ya planetside.

[______________Raivan]

wow.

[_____________Anglais]

So.......Funcom is going to start charging us for patches now?

A.

[xyberviri]

Can some one from FUNCOM please confirm or Deny this.

[_____________Nakomis]

I don't know about you, but I would think that being published publicly in PC Gamer would be considered official confirmation. Of course, I do consider it crappy that they didn't tell us yet

[Chocomoogle]

Originally posted by Nakomis
Though Funcom won’t institute new professions in the add-on, it will establish “profession specializations” for your in-game avatar. “At certain stages in their career, any profession may choose areas in which to specialize,” explains Solberg. “They’ll keep all existing abilities while branching off into a specialization. New titles will also be available for you.”

Ooo, I like it. It's like the "Secondary Profession" idea I had... fun fun ^_^

[____________Meligant]

I read an interview with a dev that said that "No new zones will be added to the game unless an expansion was done."

That was in one of the game mags about 4 months ago or more.

If everyone gets up in a hissy i'll waste some time looking for which issue it was.

[__________NightShade]

I would believe "profession specializations" not to be add-on material...new zones, yes, but character ability?

I don't know, assuming that the information is correct, I believe that that is definitely not an expansion pack ordeal...of course, I'd have to see details first, but it seems a little discouraging to me that I'd have to pay extra money for that, especially considering that I already pay a monthly fee just to play the game in the first place.

Just a bit concerned, is all.

[______________Nietya]

Don't be too surprised, this is how MMO's work. *shrug*

[Railgunz]

You know, alot of these things like breed balance and JOBE were supposed to be implimented A LONG TIME AGO. SCREW that, why should I shell out money for something that was supposed to be part of the product I bought off the shelf? Not one of these new features (except the planes of existance, that is damn cool) would make me want to buy this...or re-active my subscription for that matter.

[______________Nietya]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to excuse the fact that it's basically BS to have people pay for an expansion to get what was supposed to be in a product from the outset...

BUT... this is the way all MMO companies have done it so far, and I'm sure this is how it'll keep going until one day some company comes out, is honest, is open and communicates, and takes over the market.

*shrug*

[___________Harlequin]

erm, ok.
i could care less about how other companies have handled this in the past, as this is my first MMORPG and i'll solely adress this as a paying customer of this game/company alone.

if i end up having to pay an extra fee a month for a part of a gameworld that has been dangled like a carrot in front of me since this game launched (and i've been here since day one and i'm still here in hopes of experiencing this story that was supposed to unfold in front of my eyes over a 4 year period) there is only one course of action availiable, and it's *not* paying more money a month for a leveling treadmill.

looks like it's time for funcom to readress their vision as far as this game is concerned.
if they intend to scrap the entire story-based game idea and simply opt for a cash-cow approach in the same vein as EQ etc, it would from a decency point of view be a good idea to tell the existing playerbase about it now.
i have no problems calling it quits and canceling my account if funcom finds out they simply can't fulfil the goals they set when they launched this game, as i have had fun so far even with a serious downturn as far as the storyline goes, as i can accept that things didn't turn out as expected and they need to refocus their efforts to stay alive as a company.
however, when the basic claims of a game experience haven't been fulfilled (mainly the story, wich has been halted completely for a good few months now, and don't even try to feed me any lines about the recent "events" being story-related)
the facts that "expansions" are in the pipeline hits a somewhat sore spot.
as others have said before me, i'll keep my mouth shut beyond this point and wait to see what's really going to happen, and once again as other have said before me, slightly worried is one way to put it, another would be that there's no chance in hell i'm going to start paying for patches.
i'm still here, still paying in hopes of funcom turning this game into something that'll stand out from the crowd, but this article, if true, is NOT a good thing.
(and playing as a neutral NT, having to pay extra to take a trip to jobe is pretty close to infuriating)

[Morphex]

It is very likely that FunCom is doing bad financially, so therefor they have to do this to stay alive... I can understand that, but still, they better fix the remaining bugs and missing features in the existing game before the expansion

[__________Merkaba715]

so everyone here at FC are liars? wasnt it on the boards a few weeks or months ago that there were never going to be an expansion pack? didnt Capt Fallout say so, and everyone, including FC reps say no? this is complete horse manure

[Highspade]

Now I know why I stay away from these boards most of the time.

You think the cash you shelled out to buy this game gives you ultimate rights to ***** and moan and you know what It does! to a degree.

But some of the shiit that gets spewed around here about every little decision, patch and anouncment. hell you all probly think Funcom needs to ask you, to use the farking washroom, you pay for the water to flush the toilet dont you? Its moronic.

Well I tell you what. I got more value for my money playing AO then I do any other game out there.

I just payed $69.00 for Jedi Knight 2 finished it in 3 days. hmmm

Give me an expansion pack once a year. I dont realy care whats in it, aslong as it EXPANDS on the game. Still good value for my dollars.

I dont for one second think that Funcom is out to rip me off. they are out to make money what company isnt?


have fun out there. cause if you arnt! ... pst Maby its time to leave.

Highspd

[hemsedal]

This is good news for all of us! The big retail stores dont put your game on the shelves unless you got a box to put it in. A lot of people can dl AO so Funcom needs to keep on putting boxed versions of AO out there.

I love the idea of a big expansion. Patches should be free but not expansions.

Now if they only could remove that Title cap....

[_______________Intra]

hey I'd rather pay the cash to buy the expansion than spend 3 weeks trying to download something that big on my 56k modem

I think they should balance the game (read: fix the fixers ) before they bring out any expansions.

and coould this planes of exsistence thing just be dimension switching from RK1 to RK2?

[_______TrentAlkaline]

Originally posted by Merkaba715
so everyone here at FC are liars? wasnt it on the boards a few weeks or months ago that there were never going to be an expansion pack? didnt Capt Fallout say so, and everyone, including FC reps say no? this is complete horse manure

as far as i know, captfallout has nothing to do with FC hes just a ranting gamer who doesnt even play ao anymore =P

[Destractor]

It would be interesting to see how they implement it.
They can't change anything in RK that would stop people who do not buy the exp pack, from playing the game.

This would mean that prof changes could not be applied easily.
Jobe would be harsh, not letting people into it who don't bye the pack.

Though the spit existance jobby sounds possible. (and cool)

I can imagine it becoming frustrating teaming up with people only to find that half of them can't go to the area you are hunting cos they havn't got the exp!

I can see the point in an exp pack, but what am I paying for? The servers can't cost that much, the dev and patches teams pay (but if they're working on an exp pack), and events (which I have seen 1 in 4 months)

p.s I would still buy the pack though, even if I was unhappy about it!

[Cosmik]

Originally posted by Xyberviri
Can some one from FUNCOM please confirm or Deny this.

I can confirm it. The PC Gamer article and the expansion are official.

Originally posted by Merkaba715
so everyone here at FC are liars? wasnt it on the boards a few weeks or months ago that there were never going to be an expansion pack? didnt Capt Fallout say so, and everyone, including FC reps say no? this is complete horse manure

Er, no. A few months ago we said there were no plans to create an expansion at that time. Plans do change and now we do have plans to make an expansion pack. We never ruled it out completely.