Spotted this at AOBasher. It seems that Funcom is quite positive in their hopes for the future of Anarchy Online even with some lay-offs and the new release of Dark Ages of Camelot. Sion Interviews Funcom And Sells Out Before He Posts It Sion has released an interview that took place between himself and several Anarchy Online employees. The questions asked are based on many aspects of the game including how other popular MMORPGs are affecting AO's popularity and how the company is coping after the recent laying off of staff. Sion also confirms that a second bout of interviews should be on the way soon. Sion: The atmosphere over there in the Funcom offices must be really dark, you have recently laid off staff and the future is looking shady. Can you answer in all honesty, is Anarchy online going to still be around this time next year? (Answered by Thomas Howalt, Product Manager on AO) The atmosphere is serious, but *absolutely* not dark. Our staff (both those who are forced on leave and those who'll stay) understands that trimming the organisation happens in all businesses at all times. We deal with it in a professional way. Nothing has slowed down. We have plans for everyone in the next six to twelve months. Business as usual. Regarding the last question: it is hard to predict - especially about the future. But look at what we have: a fantastic product with lot of potential, which has improved steadily and regularly over the last two-three months. We have the will and the production-capacity to enhance it. We are actually walking the talk! Sion: Many people mocked your decision to offer a free month of play to cancelled accounts, some seen that as a sign of a sinking shop, laying off staff nearly immediately after has further enforced that over all view. What reassurances can you provide to your customers that they are not wasting their time building up their accounts and characters? (Answered by Marit Lund, Director of Public Relations) We have all the time pointed out that the staff we laid off was not directly involved in the core production of Anarchy Online. Our customer support department remains the same, and so do important functions such as operations that deals with databases, and server solutions. Our goal is of course to make the gaming experience as good as possible for all our customers. Part of this is to have even more people online at the same time so that the game becomes more dynamic and fun. We also felt it was time to offer former customers a chance to check out the game again since we did not live up to expectations at launch. Take it for what it is: this was a win-win situation. More customers means a better game and happier customers, and possible higher revenues for us in the future. Sion: Did the successful release of DAOC have a negative impact on your own subscriptions? (Answered by Marit Lund, Director of Public Relations) Yes, the successful release of DAOC affected us negatively. Mythic did an excellent job launching DAOC, while our launch was more dramatic than we ever were prepared for. However, this is all history now. Anarchy Online is alive and it is better than ever! We feel very confident with the competitive situation at the moment, and we feel that the only way we can go now is up. We hope that gamers will take the time to play both games, and make up an opinion of their own. Sion: When Funcom say they wish to focus on Anarchy online, what exactly do you mean? What is the current game plan for the next few months? What issues are at the top of the ‘to do’ list? (Answered by Thomas Howalt, Product Manager on AO) It means what it says: total focus on making Anarchy a fantastic experience! We are having an ongoing dialogue with the gamers which gives us information on what they want: static missions with interesting, funny and mind blowing stories and dungeons with unique loot and fantastic monsters, new game features and much more. In the next couple of months our players will see development on team-missions, guilds, and other social elements. We will also cater content specifically for our high-end players. And above all: we will continue our trend from this autumn: providing our players with new quality stuff on a regularly basis! Sion:The story line has been incredibly slow in developing, the main complaint is that people do not feel involved in any of the events or the actual story it self, arguably Anarchy online lacks depth, what are you doing to resolve these issues? (Answered by Thomas Howalt, Product Manager on AO) I *personally* see "the story" in Anarchy as one of MANY stories on Rubi-Ka. The videos are for me a kind of a point of identification. I get to understand the conflict between the Omnis and the Clans (and the poor Neutrals who gets squeezed in the middle :) ). Those two geezers, Radiman and Ross, are as close to me as George W. Bush and Tony Blair is. I can see them on TV, I understand they affect my world, but I can't interact with them - and honestly: I don't want to. I go on doing my stuff in my daily life in Norway as well as on Rubi-Ka. As the Project Manager on AO (and therefore this is the "official answer" to your question) I can say that the development-team are trying to balance the story-telling bit on a knifes-edge: we want to cater for the player's stories, but at the same time we have to tell our main story. It is an act of balance. Both 'stories' contains BIG surprises! In the future you will see the story tied up in: new kinds of ACG-dungeons, new static missions, new dungeons, new monsters, more events, more social stuff, and much more we can't reveal yet. The baseline is this: Anarchy Online is a LIVE product, which means that we have to develop new code, new functionality, new graphics etc to the game to cater for all the needs we understand our players have and will get. We are doing this and we will continue doing this, but we also have to make sure that we don't break anything. Remember: doing this kind of game is actually rocket-science! AO has about 10 times more lines of code than a single player game!