Anarchy Online

Anarchy Online
Developer(s)	Funcom
Publisher(s)	Funcom
Designer(s)	Gaute Godager
Writer(s)	Ragnar Tørnquist
Engine	Dreamworld Engine (Randy 3.1)
Version	18.3.1
Platform(s)	Windows
Release date(s)	June 27, 2001
Genre(s)	Sci-Fi MMORPG
Mode(s)	Multiplayer
Rating(s)	ESRB: T
Media	Download, CD
System requirements	Recommended Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista Pentium II 450 / 800 MHz min (Vista) 256 MB RAM / 520 MB min (Vista) DirectX 3D 32 MB video card DirectX-compatible sound device 2 GB free hard drive space Internet connection

Anarchy Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) published and developed by Funcom. Released in the summer of 2001, the game was first in the genre to include a science-fiction setting, dynamic quests, free trials, and in-game advertising. During its first month of release, many stability, registration, and billing issues hurt public perception of the game. This troubled launch, often echoed by modern reviewers, contrasts with the generally positive critical reception of the game and its expansions; not least was the Shadowlands expansion in 2003 that earned several Editor's Choice awards.

The game's ongoing story revolves around the fictional desert planet Rubi-Ka, the source of a valuable mineral known as "notum". Fighting for military and political power on Rubi-Ka are the Omni-Tek corporation (owners of the planet's thousand-year lease), the separatist Clans, terrorist groups, aliens, and ancient civilizations. The narrative was developed to be played out as a series of virtual role-play events over the course of four years, influenced by the actions of those playing the game. Players assume the roles of new colonists to Rubi-Ka, represented by a persistent 3D virtual world. With no specific objective to win the game, they improve their characters' skill and status over time. This free-form progression leads to social networking, cooperation, and conflict with other players.

After eight years, Anarchy Online has become one of the oldest games in its genre still online. Its "Free Play" program, started in 2004, allows new players indefinite access to the original game in return for viewing in-game advertisements. Vital to the game's continued operation, the program created 400,000 new subscriptions in its first ten months, and had generated US$1 million in advertising revenue by 2006. Funcom is currently in the process of upgrading the game's 3D rendering engine to a more modern version, the same engine used in their 2008 MMORPG Age of Conan.

Plot synopsis

Anarchy Online takes place on the fictional planet Rubi-Ka. According to the game's back story, "the Source" of all life deep inside the planet created the first beings, who called themselves the Xan. They began as a small, perfect, immortal civilization, living in peace and harmony. The Xans' eventual discovery and research of the Source's power lead them to create powerful technology. They built a great civilization, but this made them greedy and arrogant. Two factions formed within the Xan, calling themselves the Redeemed and the Unredeemed. These groups fought over how best to use the Source—now strained and unstable from their tampering. They tried in vain to fix the problem, but discovered it was too late; the Source would soon destroy the planet. Rubi-Ka was ripped apart in a cataclysm, leaving it a barren rock. The Source, and small fragments of the Xans' dead civilization, were thrown into another dimension known as the Shadowlands. The survivors left in search of other habitable planets, where they planted versions of their species; they hoped that one would prosper and eventually return to Rubi-Ka. Earth was one of their destinations.^[1]

In the year 28,708 AD, a mining survey ship from the megacorporation Omni-Tek rediscovered Rubi-Ka. The Interstellar Confederation of Corporations (ICC) granted Omni-Tek a thousand-year lease on the planet shortly after. It was a seemingly useless, arid landscape far from civilization, until the discovery of the mineral notum, unique to Rubi-Ka. Research of notum and its properties led to major leaps forward in nanotechnology, making possible the creation of powerful new technology, as well as the resurrection of the dead. After terraforming a portion of Rubi-Ka and constructing several cities, outposts, and transportation infrastructure, the company began importing colonists under contract as miners and other professions.^[1]

The first five hundred years of Omni-Tek's control of Rubi-Ka were marked with an exemplary worker treatment record, but as time passed, their policies degraded. Their scientists' tinkering with the mutating effects of notum on the colonists in a quest for efficiency lead to huge numbers of failed experiments. Survivors of these experiments became the game's four playable races, or Breeds, each designed by Omni-Tek to specialize in a type of work. Together with the original "Solitus" race, the genetically engineered Herculean "Atrox," the intelligent "Nanomages," and the nimble "Opifexes," they continued their labor in the midst of an increasingly hostile and totalitarian culture. This caused a significant number of workers to rebel, and begin trading stolen notum to a rival corporation. These rebel groups, collectively calling themselves the Clans, fought a series of wars with Omni-Tek over the next several centuries.^[1]

Anarchy Online's story, as experienced by the players, began in 29,475, after the most recent peace treaty had been signed between Omni-Tek and the Clans. ICC peacekeeping troops later moved into some cities to protect neutral observers of the war who had rejected their contractual obligations with Omni-Tek, but did not align themselves with the Clans. Omni-Tek, the Clans, and the neutral observers make up the game's three playable factions and control much of Rubi-Ka's terraformed surface. After scientists opened a portal to the Shadowlands, players found the Source, killing the guardian the Xan had left there to protect it. This prompted an alien race known as the Kyr'ozch to begin attacking Rubi-Ka. The story's current plots revolve around the fight by all sides for control of the planet.^[1][2]

Gameplay

A player fights a small computer-controlled creature near a city occupied by the Clan faction

Players assume the roles of new colonists to Rubi-Ka or the Shadowlands. There are three game servers: two for English-speaking players and one for German-speaking players, each holding an identical copy of the game's persistent 3D virtual world.^[3] The worlds are occupied by human players, and computer-controlled characters, both friendly and hostile. Players are not able to interact with one another across servers.

The game begins with the player creating a unique character, choosing its name, gender, height, weight, and facial features. Each character is also one of the four humanoid "breeds". The final choice is that of the character's profession, similar to the character classes of other role-playing games: Adventurer, Agent, Bureaucrat, Doctor, Enforcer, Engineer, Fixer, Keeper, Martial Artist, Meta-Physicist, Nano Technician, Shade, Soldier, or Trader. Each profession has access to a unique set of abilities, such as healing or slowing down enemies.^[4] If players chose not to remain members of the initial neutral faction, they are able to join either Omni-Tek or the Clans.^[5]

With no specific objective to win Anarchy Online, the player advances the game through the improvement of a character's skills over time. The game's multiplayer nature and "free-form" gameplay encourage creating social networks, and cooperating and fighting with other players.^[6][7] Players interact with Anarchy Online's interface via a keyboard and mouse. The game's heads-up display consists of a series of windows, menus and buttons located on the periphery of the screen. Players communicate with each other by typing text in chat windows, and occasionally through emotive character animations. Communication with computer-controlled characters is done via text windows, in which players chose from a menu of possible responses to the conversation being shown.^[8] Like most role playing games, Anarchy Online provides structure for role-playing events. Most major cities include night clubs and other venues specifically for this.^[7] Events are organized either by players, or officially by Funcom staff.^[9]

Groups of players, large or small, are often required to complete objectives. In addition to forming teams and informal chat groups, joining a player organization is encouraged. These are, like guilds in similar games, officially recognized groups bound together for technical and social benefits. Organizations are able to build their own cities across the game world, control areas of land, run player markets, and access other special content.^[10][11]

Skill system

Much of what characters can do, and how well they do it, is determined by the game's eighty-three distinct character skills. As players kill computer-controlled enemies, they gain experience points for their character; after gaining enough points, the character levels up. The current maximum level is 220. At each new level, the character is given some "skill points", which are used to increase any combination of the eighty-three skills that they choose.

The eighty-three skills are grouped into subsets, each benefiting the character in different ways. Ability skills (viz. Strength, Stamina, Intelligence, etc.), for instance, are tied to the character's breed and affect how high all other skills can be increased. Weapon skills (viz. Assault Rifle, Bow, Pistol, etc.) affect the amount of damage inflicted by those weapons. Utility skills (viz. Concealment, Trap Disarming, Hacking, etc.) improve how well the character can perform various special actions.^[12]

Any character can access and increase any skill. The character's profession, however, provides unique resources—"perks", "alien perks", "research", and "nano programs"—that increase specific skill further. This makes each profession more adept at elements of gameplay than others. Doctors, for instance, can increase skills related to healing much higher than a Soldier because of these additional resources. Perks are chosen from a menu when the character reaches certain levels. Alien perks are gained when the player kills enough of a specific type of alien enemy.^[13] Research is gained by diverting a percentage of earned experience points toward personal or faction-specific research projects, instead of new levels.^[14] Nano programs give temporary increases to certain skills.^[15]

Characters' equipment—armor, weapons, or other item used by the character—increase their skill further. Each character has fifty-eight slots corresponding to parts of the body in which certain types of equipment can be placed in. Using any one piece requires that some set of the character's eighty-three skills be at a certain minimum level. Because equipment both gives and requires various amounts of skill, players can leverage several pieces with low requirements in order to use a piece with much higher requirements.^[16] Equipment, and most other items in the game, are found on the bodies of killed enemies, made by combining several other items, or purchased from shops and other players. The rarity and amount of skill points given by some means considerable effort goes into the acquisition and trade of them.^[17]

Combat

Notum Wars retail box depicting, from left to right: Nanomage male, Solitus female, and Atrox neutral gender

After targeting another character and initiating combat, the player their opponent will damage each other automatically with their weapons; this continues until the player stops, or the target is dead. Each profession's unique nano programs, perks and research also provide combat abilities, used by the player during the fight. These can heal the owner, cause additional damage, lower the skills of the enemy, blind them, or otherwise hinder the enemy's ability to fight. Once the target is dead, the player is able to loot money and items from the enemy's body.^[18]

When a player's character dies it is resurrected at the "insurance terminal" where they last saved. These terminals, usually located in cities and outposts across the game world, save the experience points of the character; this essentially saves their progress. After death, the characters skills are reduced for several minutes, making them much less powerful in combat during that period.^[19]

Combat between two or more human players, colloquially known as "player vs player combat", is encouraged by both the reward of special equipment, and the social nature of the game.^[20] Killing other players also rewards characters with "pvp titles", permanently shown beside the player's name, which represent how many other human players they have killed. Player versus player combat is controlled by the amount of "suppression gas" in the area that dictates whether a player can start combat unprovoked with another player. Generally, this arbitrary percentage approaches 100% in major cities, providing safe havens, and decreases while moving to more remote areas.^[21][22][23] This type of fighting can take place in areas approaching 0% suppression gas, in arenas located in major cities, in any area by requesting a duel, or other places specifically designed for it.^[21]

"Land Control Areas", for example, are small sites of land found throughout the game world owned by player organizations. Here they can build towers which give skill bonuses to all members. The number of sites is limited encouraging groups to fight the incumbent owner for control, although it is not necessary to be a member of the attacking or defending organization to take part.^[24][25] Many organizations build alliances with others to raise their chances of success.^[6]

Another example are the "battle stations", a series of enclosed games that take place between the three factions. Each side fights to capture and hold points on a map, increasing their score, until the winning score is reached and winner rewarded.^[26] There are also several weaponized vehicles characters can pilot including mechs and anti-personnel turrets which are meant for use on land control areas and the battle stations. The vehicle's combat abilities are not affected by characters skills.^[14]

Dynamic missions

Among the most distinct gameplay elements of Anarchy Online are dynamic missions.^[27] These personalized encounters, given to individuals or teams, usually have goals related to the story and reward players with experience and money. Each mission is created at the player's request, once they choose its difficulty and other options. The game then generates an indoor area composed of a random network of hallways and rooms filled with computer-controlled enemies. Players are told to go to its location somewhere in the game world, and finish some task inside for their reward.^[28]

Each mission has a visual theme based on its location: the interiors of mission areas involving an alien mothership, for example, will all share the same theme.^[29] Dynamic missions, like many other encounters in Anarchy Online, are "instanced": each mission area is available only to the owners of the mission. Quests, or static missions, resemble their dynamic counterparts in purpose, but are not generated on demand and generally involve tasks in the outdoor game world.^[30]

History

Development

Preliminary development for Anarchy Online began in 1995 at Funcom's Oslo, Norway studios.^[31][32] Up to that point, the company had only developed offline video games for consoles, including the critically successful Speed Punks for the PlayStation.^[33][34] In a 2007 interview, former project lead Gaute Godager said Funcom's management wanted to put substantial resources into developing a new MMORPG; they believed the genre's user base would expand in the coming years. Unlike most other games in the genre, which had traditional role-playing fantasy themes, Anarchy Online featured a science-fiction theme.^[35] The game would also feature a relatively large playable area, and graphics that were, at the time, more advanced than existing MMORPGs.^[36] Godager said he and many other developers saw the idea as "crazy," describing the project as "very ambitious".^[37] The project's team grew steadily between 1995 and 2001 to include more than 70 developers.^[38]

Concept art of "quest shops" (top), replaced at release with mission terminals (bottom) offering dynamic missions

Writers Ragnar Tørnquist and Aaron de Orive developed the game's story, originally planned to take place between 2001 and 2005. Tørnquist is known for writing the stories for Funcom's The Longest Journey series of adventure games, while De Orive had been the lead content designer and writer for Electronic Arts' Ultima Online 2. Tørnquist published his short novel Prophet Without Honor (Anarchy Online Book 1) in January 2001 that serves as a historical primer to Anarchy Online's fictional universe.^[39]

The ongoing story, later extended beyond the 2005 conclusion, is designed to be played out as a series of virtual role-playing events in the game world.^[40] Participants—players and Funcom staff—assume the roles and personalities of their characters to act out the events. Beginning with some stated premise and a rough outline, they improvise based on the situation. The outcome is ultimately decided, or at least influenced, by their actions.^[6] With the marketing slogan "The Future In Your Hands", players were encouraged to participate in these events, and influence the overall story's direction.^[41][42]

Composers Morten Sørlie, Tor Linløkken, and Bjørn Arve Lagim created the soundtrack and music of Anarchy Online. Using a system known as "Sample-based Interactive Music", the game mixes numerous music samples to create dynamic music. By starting, stopping, fading, and layering samples based on where the player is, and what they are doing, the game creates a continuous stream of background music. Bjørn Arve Lagim stated the music in inspired by the "traditional sound" of a film score, using both orchestral and electronic instruments.^[43] Longer full-length versions of some songs were later released on compact disc with a special edition of the game in 2002.^[44]

Anarchy Online was officially announced at the 2000 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). GameSpot, and other online sites, published articles tracking the game's development over the next year.^[45] It made its second appearance at E3 in May 2001, one month before launch. Based on the beta version shown there, GameSpot stated they were "confident in the game's progress, given what we've seen".^[46][47] At the European Computer Trade Show in 2001 it was awarded Multiplayer Game of Show.^[48] A public beta test began two weeks before launch, during which 100,000 players downloaded and played pre-release versions of the game, helping the company find bugs and other technical problems with the software.^[49]

Release

Anarchy Online officially launched to the public on June 27, 2001, in the United States and Norway, and on September 28 in the rest of Europe.^[50] In addition to being distributed as a retail box from physical and online stores, Anarchy Online was one of the first MMORPGs available via online digital distribution.^[51][52] Five days after the game's release, public relations director Marit Lund announced that 35,000 accounts had been created.^[53][54]

The first month of the game's release was marked with many stability, registration, and billing issues. Customers were unable to register to play using the product keys included with their installation discs. Others were accidentally billed for the registration fee twice, although they were never charged for the second bill. The game software would crash repeatedly, according to reports from players. Significant portions of the game world were inaccessible, and the game's servers were routinely out of service. Funcom officially acknowledged the issues 6 days later in a statement posted on their website, announcing no customers would be billed for play time until problems were resolved.^[54][55] In an August 2001 interview, community manager Tor Wigmostad stated that "things did not go as well as we had planned," and that the problems "could have been avoided by an extended release date and better planning."^[56]

Negative press and public perception of Anarchy Online prompted Funcom to consider new ways of promoting the game to potential customers. Two months after its release in August 2001, Funcom began offering free trial subscriptions, now common practice for other games in the MMOG genre.^[51][57][58] New players were able to sign up for accounts that remained free for a limited number of days. This required them to supply some personal information, including a credit card number. After their trial period, players could either cancel their accounts, or keep them to continue playing the game at the cost of the monthly subscription fee. The total number of subscriptions created since launch rose to 150,000 by 2002.^[59]

The game's official story began with a role-playing event on Halloween night in 2001. Influence on events is evidenced in a New York Times article about player Rick Stenlund in 2003. Funcom had just proposed small changes to the Meta-Physicist profession. Objecting to the changes, he used the game's message boards to organize a virtual protest rally. Stenlund's popularity—his character was well-known among players at the time—helped him gather 100 others at the event they named "Black Sunday". Administrators responded by attending the rally with official characters, and incorporating it into the game's timeline.^[60]

Major expansions

Periodic free updates are released as content patches, on an average of three per month since the game's release. These fix bugs, and add relatively small amounts of new content. The patches are downloaded and installed automatically when players start the game software.^[61] Larger updates, called expansion packs and booster packs, are available for purchase to further extend the game, typically add new playable areas, creatures, equipment, and story progression. Expansions tend to introduce large amounts of new content; boosters are considered "too large" for a patch, but "not large enough" to warrant a full expansion.^[62]

Funcom continued to promote the game to a wider audience with the first three expansion and booster packs: Notum Wars, Shadowlands and Alien Invasion. Between 2002 and 2004, 550,000 new customer subscriptions were created.^[51][59] Sales of the game, its expansion and booster packs, and monthly subscriptions generated US$28 million dollars by 2005.^[63]

Free Play program

A billboard in a city controlled by Omni-Tek showing an advertisement for Stacker energy drinks; the revenue generated by Massive Incorporated's advertising aids in keeping the game free to play.^[67]

On December 15, 2004, Funcom replaced trial subscriptions with a business model supported by in-game advertising called the "Free Play" program.^[67] Under this program, new players are allowed indefinite access to the game without supplying a credit card number. The offer does not include access to content added with expansion or booster packs, with the exception of the first booster pack Notum Wars. Free subscribers are shown advertisements provided by Massive Incorporated, a company that supplies in-game advertising. The ads appear on virtual billboards placed in high traffic areas of the game world. Paying customers have the option to replace these ads with ones for fictitious products related to the game.^[68]

The Free Play program was originally set to last one year, but its length has been extended every year since its creation; the program's current scheduled end date is January 15, 2010.^[69] Over 400,000 new players signed up for the new free subscriptions in the program's first ten months, according to Funcom CEO Trond Arne Aas.^[70] By 2006, that number rose to 1 million free subscriptions.^[69] Former game director Craig "Silirrion" Morrison stated in a 2008 interview that the program has "been a vital part of the success of the game."^[71]

Free Play not only marked a change in the game's business model, but also a decreased public profile. The fourth expansion pack released in 2006, Lost Eden, did not receive the same amount of promotion or media coverage as its predecessors. Funcom was also in the process of developing and promoting their next MMORPG, Age of Conan, originally scheduled for release in 2006.^[72] The game's smaller profile did not affect revenue from the game, which remained "steady" and "stable" between 2005 and 2009.^{[63][73][74][75]} Advertising revenue alone contributed a total of $1,000,000 in profits by 2006 in the Free Play program's second year.^[63][73] Sales of Lost Eden were attributed to Funcom's "higher than expected" profits in 2006.^[73][76]

Funcom announced in January 2008 that they would be replacing the game's current 3D rendering engine with more modern software to "release the game fresh". The new engine is a modern version of the company's proprietary rendering software, originally developed for Age of Conan.^[77] Originally, the project utilized a modified version of the open source rendering engine OGRE.^[78] Funcom released a short video demonstrating an early version of its implementation, and stated it would be completed by the end of 2008.^[79][80] OGRE was dropped in May 2009 because it did not provide "the full featureset" they had anticipated. Current game director Colin Cragg stated Anarchy Online's "small development team" could not afford the "growing [cost] estimates" involved in making the necessary modifications to it.^[77][78] No new release date for the project has been announced.

Reception

Anarchy Online's launch problems had a strong negative effect with initial critics. GameSpy described it as being in a "nearly unplayable state", and chose not to publish a formal review until a month later when the problems were fixed. The troubled release is nearly always mentioned in the generally positive reviews of the game, and its later expansions, as a juxtaposition.^[64][83]

The original game averaged a 7.6 out of 10 from GameSpy, GameSpot, and IGN. Caryn Law of GameSpy called it "a promising game with some big technical flaws." She said of the game's soundtrack that is was "grand, cinematic, and very appropriate."^[27] IGN described it as "a brilliant, engaging, profound MMORPG," but added it came with "atrocious technical problems."^[17] PC Gamer magazine awarded it with Best Massively Multiplayer Game, and described it as "the next great MMORPG."^[84]

Anarchy Online's first three expansion and booster packs were reviewed favorably, although not without some criticisms. The Shadowlands expansion was the most critically acclaimed by far, winning several Editor's Choice Awards from IGN, CNet, GameSpot, GameSpy and others after its release in 2003.^[85] Critics applauded the size and scope of it, such as Andrew Park of GameSpot who called it "absolutely enormous."^[7][64] Tom Chick of GameSpy praised the "distinctive and exotic" art direction of the new areas. Critics of Shadowlands noted that the expansion's design was too "fantasy oriented", as compared to the original game.^[81] Alien Invasion, released in 2004, did not receive the same abundance of praise as its predecessor, although most scores were above 7 out of 10. The new content it introduced, in critics' eyes, was not designed for new players. G4 TV wrote that it would be a "tough sell to new players", but added it "offer[s] existing players a solid reason to keep playing."^[65]

Publications who had reviewed the game's previous additions did not review the Lost Eden expansion in 2006, or the Legacy of The Xan booster in 2009. Games Radar's Sarah Borger wrote of Lost Eden that the game's aging graphics and user interface "make the world hard to interact with," but she went on to acclaim the new player versus player content it added.^[23]

After eight years, Anarchy Online has become one of the longest-running MMORPGs in operation.^[86]

Notes and references

General

• "Getting Started on Rubi-Ka" (PDF). Game Guide. Funcom. http://www.anarchy-online.com/anarchy/frontend/files/CONTENT/gameguide.pdf. Retrieved 2008-08-17. 

Specific

External links

• Official Anarchy Online website
• Prophet Without Honor (Anarchy Online Book 1)