Letter From The Game Director 30 November 2007

[Qwayke]

I agree with Mekh, when someone is a leet, or wolf you 'know' you cant see what his gear is, while social tabs offer a more deceptive option where a play cannot know if what he sees you wearing is really whats equiped.

[darkpastor]

Sounds great!

Seems like, soon I'll have to return back to AO after a few years break.

[Healyhatman]

All this, and there are STILL people somehow CONVINCED sil's not doing anything and that he has no idea about the game!

Love director letters like this, now to get those smacktards to actually bother reading it before they go onto their next journey in the back seat of the waaahhmbulance.

[psyxor]

All this, and there are STILL people somehow CONVINCED sil's not doing anything and that he has no idea about the game!

Love director letters like this, now to get those smacktards to actually bother reading it before they go onto their next journey in the back seat of the waaahhmbulance.

If its not a stunt to get us to keep paying until aoc is out (at which point no1 in FC will care about ao) and if its not very poorly implemented, then its the best news i ve heard about this game in a very looong time and sil is pointing what few resources he has in the right direction.

[Neista]

Sil, your the best, period.

I havnt seen AO growing so much since i first started playing just after SL came out.

Keep it up and never stop!

[external]

new enginie? welcome 300 fps <3

[Luckyspawn]

If its not a stunt to get us to keep paying until aoc is out (at which point no1 in FC will care about ao) and if its not very poorly implemented, then its the best news i ve heard about this game in a very looong time and sil is pointing what few resources he has in the right direction.

Why is it so hard for ppl to believe in AO?
Why do some ppl think that AO means nothing to FC?

Just coz AO is old and new games is coming out, dosnt it mean that AO will be taken down or even losing its devs.
If AO ever goes down, its going to be the players who'll grow old and unable to operate a keyboard..

... Please stop being that negative about something that possitive



Hmmz.. Hawt stuff!
Good job and keep the heat up!

[Aeliona]

YAY for social mode being added!

All opposing, there were some good suggestions in the social mode thread in game suggestions as to how to keep it pvp friendly. One suggestion was to change the color of your name (or somehow flag a person as being in social mode) so that people dueling can tell when a person is gallivanting around in fake gear.

thread is here:
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=504763

...The tab also does have special rules regarding combat to ensure it can’t be abused to trick people in PVP, but we will go into more details on that closer to release of the update.

FC has obviously taken pvp into consideration here. We'll have to wait for the official 17.8 release notes to see how it all works for sure.

[Pharamond]

Which was the reason to ask why Community Manager posted a Letter form the Game Director

Very nice news anyway ):

I'm in charge of the forums and the website since Sil has started running the game. While he does make an appearance now and then (as you may have noticed), when he has a lot to do, he now has the luxury of waving his hand at me and saying "MAKE IT SO!"

[Omutb]

he now has the luxury of waving his hand at me and saying "MAKE IT SO!"

Is he starting to thin on top too?

[Doctorhyde]

Instead of forcing people to "turn off social" before fighting, just incorporate something like WoW's "inspect" function.

Maybe instead of showing everything about the item, "inspect" would instead show you how the player would look without social tab items in a small window. That would be the same as what you can do today.

Might even have it show the player without morphs. But if this is the case this needs to happen in a separate display so that you aren't negating the game value of the morphs.

Not sure if this should work while engaged in combat or at any time. If its in a separate display, I see no reason not to allow it pretty much at any time.

The idea being to retain the current pvp mechanism of seeing what they're wearing without making the social tab interfere in any way with play. If social tab creates additional layers to the steps needed to engage in the game, then it ends up being disregarded by a large portion of players.

[Krause]

Just make it so the persons name is a diff color when in Social mode, no need to do any of that other stuff. Maybe just make the Brackets of their name Blue or something.

Then if people fight like that you can tell their using the social tab, just as anyone could be using a leet morph or something like that.

[bungerman]

I'm in charge of the forums and the website since Sil has started running the game. While he does make an appearance now and then (as you may have noticed), when he has a lot to do, he now has the luxury of waving his hand at me and saying "MAKE IT SO!"

so he's like Picard and your #1? oh no star trek reference! well if someone didn't notice it in this game on these forums I would seriously be confused.

[Neista]

iThere will be options that allow you to tell the game client whether to render your equipment tab, your social tab, or a combination of the two (in effect having the social tab ‘overlay’ on top of your existing armor).

Hoping for a small clarification on this part, does that mean that if i have an (ugly-ass) OFAB special edition doc helm on my normal tab and a pair of Sunglasses on my social, and select the 'overlay' option will the sunglasses totally overwrite the helmet or will both textures be rendered, one atop the other?

[Silirrion]

Hoping for a small clarification on this part, does that mean that if i have an (ugly-ass) OFAB special edition doc helm on my normal tab and a pair of Sunglasses on my social, and select the 'overlay' option will the sunglasses totally overwrite the helmet or will both textures be rendered, one atop the other?

The social tab will overwrite the main equip tab when that option is enabled so only the item in your social tab will be displayed.

[Neista]

The social tab will overwrite the main equip tab when that option is enabled so only the item in your social tab will be displayed.

Awesome! thx Sil for the fast response.

Guess i have no excuse not to farm that helm now...

[Healyhatman]

The social tab will overwrite the main equip tab when that option is enabled so only the item in your social tab will be displayed.

How about this one sil..... I have an ofab helm on, and sunglasses in social.... But ONLY sunglasses, will using the overlay to overwrite the ofab helm also mean that since the other social slots are empty, it will show my topon wearing nothing but sunglasses? Or is a visual slot only overwritten when there's an item in that slot under social?

[Spart]

one question about this sil.

does the social tab apply to weapons? meaning you can drop a weapon in there and have that mesh rendered, while you are using your normal weapon underneath?

[shadowgod]

How about this one sil..... I have an ofab helm on, and sunglasses in social.... But ONLY sunglasses, will using the overlay to overwrite the ofab helm also mean that since the other social slots are empty, it will show my topon wearing nothing but sunglasses? Or is a visual slot only overwritten when there's an item in that slot under social?

if you're only wearing sunglasses, it'll render you nekkid, and cause an aoe blind effect to anyone within 40 meters.

[Silirrion]

one question about this sil.

does the social tab apply to weapons? meaning you can drop a weapon in there and have that mesh rendered, while you are using your normal weapon underneath?

Yes and no, you can equip a weapon in the social tab, but doing so places you in a non combat mode. There are some limitations here we have to work with, but at the very least it allows people to equip the food / drink or social items for parties if they don't want to show their weapon.