Anarchy Online is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) published and developed by Funcom, released in the summer of 2001.
Sunday, 20 February 2011
Outline
The game's ongoing storyline 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 one thousand-year lease), the Separatist Clans, Terrorist groups, extraterrestrial life, 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 taking part in the game. Players assume the roles of new colonists to Rubi-Ka, represented by a 3D virtual world. With no specific objective to win the game, players improve their characters' skill and status over time. This free-form progression leads to social networking, cooperation, and conflict with other players.
Plot
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 forms of life, 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 mega-corporation Omni-Tek rediscovered Rubi-Ka. The Interstellar Confederation of Corporations (ICC) granted Omni-Tek a one 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. However, 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 large 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 to trade 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]
[edit] Player point-of-view
Anarchy Online's story, from the player's point of view, 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 plane
In the year 28,708 AD, a mining survey ship from the mega-corporation Omni-Tek rediscovered Rubi-Ka. The Interstellar Confederation of Corporations (ICC) granted Omni-Tek a one 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. However, 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 large 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 to trade 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]
[edit] Player point-of-view
Anarchy Online's story, from the player's point of view, 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 plane
Gameplay
Players assume the roles of new colonists to Rubi-Ka or the Shadowlands. There are two game servers for English-speaking players and one for German-speaking players, which is now offline. Each holds an identical copy of the game's 3D virtual world. The worlds are occupied by human players and computer-controlled characters, both friendly and hostile. Characters and players are not able to interact with one another across servers.[3]
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.
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.[4][5] 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 executed via text windows, in which players chose from a menu of possible responses to the conversation being shown.[6] 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.[5] Events are organized either by players, or officially by Funcom staff.[7]
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.[8][9]
Among the most distinct gameplay elements of Anarchy Online are dynamic missions.[10] Missions, or quests, are a traditional gameplay element in the role playing genre. The player or team is given a set of tasks—usually related to the story—to complete somewhere in the game world; in return, they are rewarded with experience points, items, and money.[11] Dynamic missions are similar to traditional missions in purpose, but are created at the player's request. Once they choose it's difficulty and other options, the game generates a new indoor area filled with computer-controlled enemies. The player or team are told to go to its location, and finish some task inside for their reward.[12] Dynamic missions, like many other encounters in Anarchy Online, are "instanced": each mission area is available only to the owners of the mission.[13]
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. A skill is a numerical representation of a character's proficiency in an area of skill, starting at zero. 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.[14]
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.[15] Research is gained by diverting a percentage of earned experience points toward personal or faction-specific research projects, instead of new levels.[16] Nano programs give temporary increases to certain skills
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.
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.[4][5] 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 executed via text windows, in which players chose from a menu of possible responses to the conversation being shown.[6] 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.[5] Events are organized either by players, or officially by Funcom staff.[7]
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.[8][9]
Among the most distinct gameplay elements of Anarchy Online are dynamic missions.[10] Missions, or quests, are a traditional gameplay element in the role playing genre. The player or team is given a set of tasks—usually related to the story—to complete somewhere in the game world; in return, they are rewarded with experience points, items, and money.[11] Dynamic missions are similar to traditional missions in purpose, but are created at the player's request. Once they choose it's difficulty and other options, the game generates a new indoor area filled with computer-controlled enemies. The player or team are told to go to its location, and finish some task inside for their reward.[12] Dynamic missions, like many other encounters in Anarchy Online, are "instanced": each mission area is available only to the owners of the mission.[13]
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. A skill is a numerical representation of a character's proficiency in an area of skill, starting at zero. 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.[14]
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.[15] Research is gained by diverting a percentage of earned experience points toward personal or faction-specific research projects, instead of new levels.[16] Nano programs give temporary increases to certain skills
Combat
After targeting another character and initiating combat, the player and 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] After death, the character's skills are reduced for several minutes, making them much less powerful in combat during that period.[19]
Characters grouped around one of several man-made metal towers in a desert. A heads-up display with buttons, boxes containing text, and other objects line the periphery of the image.
Players attack a tower at a land control area. These player vs. player encounters—introduced with the Notum Wars booster pack in 2002—require the cooperation of several players.
Combat between two or more human players, known as "player vs player", or "PvP" is encouraged by both the reward of special equipment, and the social nature of the game.[20] Killing other players also rewards characters with a "PvP ranking", permanently shown beside the player's name, which represent how many other human players they have killed.[21] Player versus player combat is controlled by the percentage of "suppression gas" in the area that dictates whether a player can start combat unprovoked with another player. Generally, this percentage approaches 100% in major cities, providing safe havens, and decreases while moving to more remote areas.
Characters grouped around one of several man-made metal towers in a desert. A heads-up display with buttons, boxes containing text, and other objects line the periphery of the image.
Players attack a tower at a land control area. These player vs. player encounters—introduced with the Notum Wars booster pack in 2002—require the cooperation of several players.
Combat between two or more human players, known as "player vs player", or "PvP" is encouraged by both the reward of special equipment, and the social nature of the game.[20] Killing other players also rewards characters with a "PvP ranking", permanently shown beside the player's name, which represent how many other human players they have killed.[21] Player versus player combat is controlled by the percentage of "suppression gas" in the area that dictates whether a player can start combat unprovoked with another player. Generally, this percentage approaches 100% in major cities, providing safe havens, and decreases while moving to more remote areas.
Development
Preliminary development for Anarchy Online began in 1995 at Funcom's Oslo, Norway studios.[24][25] Up until that point, the company had only developed offline video games for consoles, including the critically successful Speed Punks for the PlayStation.[26][27] In a 2007 interview, former project leader 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.[28] The game would also feature a relatively large playable area, and graphics that were, at the time, more advanced than existing MMORPGs.[29] Godager said he and many other developers saw the idea as "crazy," describing the project as "very ambitious".[30] The project's team grew steadily between 1995 and 2001 to include at least 70 developers.[31]
In a 2001 interview, gameworld designer Morten Byrom said that the process of creating Rubi-Ka's virtual world had "taken more time and effort than anyone imagined when we first started." The team took inspiration from a number of sources including science-fiction books, movies, architecture in Oslo, and other games in the genre. They stated one of the biggest challenges as finding ways to encourage players to use the entire game world as they play, not to "gather in one corner". Byrom said he wanted to give the world as much detail as possible to make the game "convincing" to the player.[32]
Composers Morten Sørlie, Tor Linløkken, and Bjørn Arve Lagim created the soundtrack and music of Anarchy Online. Using a system they call "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.[33] Longer full-length versions of some songs were later released on compact disc with a special edition of the game in 2002.[34]
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.[35] 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".[36][37] At the European Computer Trade Show in 2001 it was awarded Multiplayer Game of Show.[38] 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
In a 2001 interview, gameworld designer Morten Byrom said that the process of creating Rubi-Ka's virtual world had "taken more time and effort than anyone imagined when we first started." The team took inspiration from a number of sources including science-fiction books, movies, architecture in Oslo, and other games in the genre. They stated one of the biggest challenges as finding ways to encourage players to use the entire game world as they play, not to "gather in one corner". Byrom said he wanted to give the world as much detail as possible to make the game "convincing" to the player.[32]
Composers Morten Sørlie, Tor Linløkken, and Bjørn Arve Lagim created the soundtrack and music of Anarchy Online. Using a system they call "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.[33] Longer full-length versions of some songs were later released on compact disc with a special edition of the game in 2002.[34]
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.[35] 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".[36][37] At the European Computer Trade Show in 2001 it was awarded Multiplayer Game of Show.[38] 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
Release
Anarchy Online officially launched to the public on June 27, 2001 in the United States and Norway and on September 28 of the same year in the rest of Europe.[40] 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.[41][42]
Two months after its release in August 2001, Funcom began offering free trial subscriptions, now common practice for other games in the MMOG genre.[41][43][44] 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.
Two months after its release in August 2001, Funcom began offering free trial subscriptions, now common practice for other games in the MMOG genre.[41][43][44] 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.
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