Anarchy Online : A letter from the Game Director

With a new year comes a new perspective for developers when taking a look back, and a look toward the future for their games. Funcom is no different, and Anarchy Online's Game Director has written up a letter to AO fans to talk about some of the things coming for the game.

In his last letter he mentioned the 17.8 update, but now he has more details to share about some of the major changes -- the replacement of the PvP title system, and a new ranking system with separate ranks for solo and team PvP.

Funcom will also be introducing a true duel system to the game for players who want to challenge others to a friendly scrap, with special titles for duelers being included in the new ranking system as well.

The final available ladder of progression will be for the new duel mode. Players will now be able to duel another player by targeting them and typing /duel which will send a duel invitation to the other player. (There will be an F10 option to auto-refuse duels so as to prevent people spamming this window on you)

Once a duel is accepted the fight starts and a beacon is placed on the ground. Players will have to remain within a certain radius of the beacon or they will forfeit the duel (this is to prevent players hiding far way to prevent them from losing). Players who zone or otherwise ‘evac' will also count as having lost the duel.

Duels will be possible in any 75% or 100% zone, if you are in a 25% zone then the normal PVP system apply and duels are not possible (to avoid people being able to use duels to avoid the consequences of being in a PVP enabled area). You will be able to duel anyone regardless of their side.

There are a few other changes, like Diminishing Returns, modifications to Notum Wars, and AFK/Evac changes for Battlestations. To read everything, head over to the letter from the Game Director.