Article: Interview with Morten Byom & Craig Morrison on Anarchy Online: Lost Eden

 Anarchy Online has been the venerable stalwart in the Sci-Fi MMOG scene. Having been one of my original 3D MMORPG games it will always have that special slot in my MMO heart. Thus I went back to the land of Rubi-Ka to take a look at the latest expansion and discuss with the fine staff at Funcom the joys and tribulations that came with developing thier latest expansion: Lost Eden


Anarchy Online has overcome many obstacles to have a long and successful run in the MMO world. What do you believe Lost Eden will have to offer new users to the Anarchy Online Game?



Lost Eden makes several areas of the game much more accessible to players. Previously players really had to be a member of an established organisation (what we call guilds in AO) to be able to access alien content. Now they are able to join pick up teams and take the new alien mothership missions on their own schedule whenever they want.
Likewise with the addition of the new vehicles and PVP options even if players don’t have a ‘perfect’ build for PVP they can now choose to use a vehicle instead and really feel like they are contributing to a battle!



Lost Eden has definitely gone to more of a mechanized technology feel. How will this mesh with the rest of your story backdrop?



Anarchy Online has always been a great sci-fi world, and while we did introduce more fantasy elements with the first large expansion in Shadowlands, our previous expansion Alien Invasion added to the sci-fi feel and with Lost Eden we decided to take that a stage further and introduce a more military feel to the expansion visuals. This ties into the story background of an increasing conflict on the planet between Omni-Tek and the Clans.



I really like the fact Lost Eden will readdress your earlier expansion Notum Wars. With the way most expansions are released and then dropped what made the AO team want to revisit a earlier release?



Mainly because we saw some really cool angles to improve it! Also as time goes on player develop certain tactics after a while and the experience can be dulled a little once they have refined their art down to a science. We wanted to shake things up and make the players have to think of new tactics and give them some new and exciting options for trying to take an defend the Notum Wars areas.
In addition we wanted to make it more inclusive so that even if a player didn’t feel they had the most powerful PVP character, they could still contribute by jumping into one of the new vehicles.



What has been the biggest roadblock in the implementation of Lost Eden?


 
The Anarchy Online engine is almost seven years old at this point, so a technical barrier was defiantly getting some of the cool visuals to actually work in our game engine. It was complicated and a lot of work, but our artists and coders worked together and pulled it off. I was very pleased with what they managed to achieve in the end.



What been the most enjoyable part of developing Lost Eden?



Defiantly working with the AO team, there was really a lot of dedication and passion shown all the way through the process and its great to have people around you that care so much about improving the game and understand what you are trying to achieve as a Game Director.


 
Which changes and/or additions have garnered the most positive community feedback?


 
People are definitely enjoying the battlestations and really like the fact that PVP has opened up to be more inclusive. We have had pretty good feedback overall on almost all the features of the expansion, but I think the biggest ‘that’s so cool!’ comments have come when people first saw the mechs and the orbital laser strikes – there is nothing quite like blasting a huge crater into a tower field and causing havoc amongst your enemies!



What statement would you give PC users for why they should buy: Anarchy Online: Lost Eden?



Lost Eden provides a fantastic sci-fi experience that adds to the already massive amount of content we have in Anarchy Online. If you are looking for an MMO with a wonderful setting and deep involving gameplay you need look no further!


 
I'll end with the standard GM question: If you could change anything about Lost Eden what would it be?


 
The beauty of an MMO is that you get to make changes after launch, so quite a few things we have already gotten to tweak to improve the experience. I think in terms of things we just couldn’t do I would have loved to get maybe one more mech design in, because the artists did such a wonderful job on them.



For more information concerning Anarchy Online: Lost Eden

Please visit them at: Anarchy Online Website