The once promising news of Funcom's "Envisioned" is not as accurate as it was. Funcom, according to AnarchyOnline has decided some of the ideas that were once told to the players would be in the works have been nixed. Not that all this is bad mind you, this will probably make way for better and newer ones, so hang in there. During the development cycle of a massive multiplayer online game, sometimes sacrifices need to be made. Promises are made with the best of intentions, but reality often times dictates that those promises cannot be kept. That's not to say the promises were necessarily unrealistic, just a bit eager. What we've done, here at Funcom, was to go through every promise we've ever made in print, through fan sites, interviews, and dev chats, then sat down and discussed each and every single one of them; which ones we were able to meet, which ones were yet unrealised, those we'd be able to complete in a timely fashion, and finally those that were out of the current scope of things. As you've seen in the update to our Envisioned and In Progress sections before the holidays, we published the list of items from our discussions that were currently in development, and those that wed begin working on shortly. Some players voiced concerns regarding the additions to the In Progress and Envisioned sections as not necessarily being "new," and they were absolutely correct. These aren't new ideas; these are the promises we made to the players over the course of the development cycle that we intend to keep. Back to that ugly word: Reality. In addition to the updates to In Progress and Envisioned, below is a list of items entitled "No Longer Envisioned." This is a list of features that were promised at one point or another that we've taken a careful look at, and concluded that they are either not as important as they were when they were considered, or beyond our current tech. Fortunately, this list isn't very lengthy, and as part of our dedication to full disclosure and a quality relationship with our player base, we felt we owed it to you. Funcom is proud to have such a loyal and understanding group of subscribers, and we're confident that you will understand the reasons for the list. We're also confident that you will appreciate our honesty in the matter, and our dedication to not only add new features to the game, but to take the time and go back through every single promise ever made, and make a good faith effort at meeting as many of them as possible. Thank you all for your continued support, 2002 is going to be an amazing year for the citizens of Rubi-Ka. Buckle up and enjoy the ride! No Longer Envisioned: Things change during the course of a 5-year development cycle. Many features we initially planned for AO made it into the game at launch, or will be added in the coming months. However, some turned out to be unfeasible, unnecessary, or simply not all that desirable. This section is just to let our players know what's not coming - even though at one time we thought it was. Missions that don't require at least some degree of fighting - Often times, the good intent of the designers turns out to be much more difficult to implement than first imagined. In this case, being able to gain XP without the need to kill things was a sincere desire to allow players to take different roles within Anarchy Online. However, through the course of the development cycle, it turned out that reaching a fair balance between risk and reward was much more difficult than first thought. While the team will strive to find alternatives to advancing without the need to kill things, this promise might never become realised. The players have our deepest apology. War zones in the slums - The idea of slum war zones was replaced with Arenas. The penal system - This was a feature that was planned, and one we'd still like to do eventually, but it would require new tech, and we are currently working on a very long list of other duties. Stealing from other players. The subway system - This was replaced with the Grid. No Linux port - Not enough users to support the addition. Since some people still think the game will end in 4 years: The game will NOT end in 4 years - the current story arc will, but the game will continue on.