Welcome to FunOrb - The Best in Free Online Games

Z Ork: I have some questions about the fridge game ("great fun game involving a fridge" )
1) Is it still being develloped or did you stop the project?
2) What kind of game is it going to be? (arcade, sport, puzzle,...)
3) Will it be a multiplayer? ”

The “Fridge Game”, which I can now tell you will be called “Bachelor Fridge”, is very much still in development. It’s been an interesting project for us and has been re-designed at least once. I won’t give you too much detail, as I know you like surprises, but I will tell you that it’s multiplayer and has a lot of strategy elements to it.

Goblin Kin81: Are you done with pirate empires game and waiting to release it or are you still working on it?

Pirate Empires is a massive project for us. The development of this game has been ongoing since we first started talking about it almost a year ago; some significant technical barriers have had to be crossed in order to get the game to work as we envisaged it. We’ve recently had a core review of the game from a concept level upwards, and we made a few changes, but the core design is well on track. Basically, a lot of work has been done on the game, but we still have plenty to do.

Abyssal 9000: You announced many months ago about a single player campaign of Armies of Gielinor scheduled this summer, are you still in development or is the game coming out sometime next week or some time after?

This is still in development. The developer has done some sterling work on the AI and the game is capable of presenting you with a real challenge. The games will actually be broken down into three campaigns: Zamorak, Saradomin and Guthix. Each one can be played in turn. The campaigns will be map-based allowing you to complete them in any number of different ways, and the way you complete the map will change the nature of the units and abilities you have for the rest of that campaign. I’m personally really looking forward to this update. AoG is one of my favourite FunOrb games and I suspect the campaign will keep me busy for days (don’t worry, it will have a save feature).

Abyssal 9000: How is the development on many other games that you are soon to be releasing like Dungeon Assault 2 and Pirate Empires?

One thing I’ve learnt in my time in the games industry is that nothing goes completely as planned. The development of these games is progressing well, but as with many things, the more we get into it, the more we realise we have to do. So, the developments are progressing well, but there is still a lot of work ahead of us.

Abyssal 9000: You also announced that Hostile Spawn will be getting an expansion. Will this be the next expansion you hope to release?

Regrettably, I had to put work on this update on hold. It should resume soon though, but I won’t give you a time scale as yet, as this would be unfair to the developer who will be working on it.

Abyssal 9000: Are you working on creating a new level for Zombie Dawn, like France?

Not at present, although we have plans...

Abyssal 9000: Is their any possibility on making a multi-player Orb Defence game? I once saw a post saying you could make one, but when?

Hmm. A multiplayer tower defence game is a possibility for the future.

Abyssal 9000: Is there going to be a YouTube video showing some of the games you are currently making, like Bachelors Fridge and Steel Sentinels?

No plans for this at the moment.

Abyssal 9000: Will there be seasonal achievements for Halloween, Christmas, Easter and possibly FunOrbs birthday?

The new Achievement system enables this functionality, so we have the plans in place to do this. I’m interested to know just how popular these updates would be. I suspect very, but I’d like to know as it’s actually a lot of work to do a global update.

Abyssal 9000: Is there going to be any more word or racing games? You have never released them since Transmogrify and FunOrbs release.

Word games are unlikely I’m afraid, at least in the short to medium-term. I enjoy them personally, but they don’t appear to be wildly popular with the players (you fabulous people). Racing games, yes we have plans, in fact to let you into a little secret, Mod Thomas might be prototyping one right now. Maybe.

Abyssal 9000: How is Jagex? What do you like best about working there? I live quite close to Jagex HQ and would like a tour at some point.

Well I’m afraid that tours are not possible (unless you are the lucky winner of RuneScape’s machinima competition).
What is Jagex like to work at? Blimey. Okay, it’s fun first and foremost. The fact that I’m writing this sat on my sofa at home at 11:00 at night should indicate that it’s also a lot of hard work. It should also indicate how passionate the entire workforce is about making the best games we can and giving the best service we can. It’s challenging and interesting, and at times can be frustrating. The reality is that we want to do a huge amount and we always want to do it now. We never have the resources to be able to do everything we want though, and what we do actually do usually takes longer than we’d like.

What has always struck me about work at Jagex is the unfailing quality and dedication of the people here. If you can spare an old man (at least by your standards) a sentimental moment, it’s always a pleasure to come into work, to work alongside the people that make up Jagex.

Pelea8: Are you planning a starcannon upgrade late this year/early next year? have you started doing anything yet? what would you add to it?

No changes to StarCannon are planned or in progress at the moment. We would like to update it, but we have no plans as of yet.

Pelea8: starcannon multiplayer? (totaly pl0x?) will this ever happen?

(Pl0X? Honestly!) Multiplayer is a possibility for the update, but as I say above, no firm plans yet.

Pelea8: A deko-blocko upgrade with new themes? could you just make 1-2 more soon ?

We have no other updates planned for this game beyond its recent Achievement update.

Pelea8: do you still have nightmares in bed because i beat you in kickabout 1-0 LOL

No, I’m afraid not. I tend to lose lots of the games I play regularly. The nightmares I do have tend to be about missing release dates or the servers melting.

Pelea8: Are you planning on making another shooter game? working on 1?

Steel Sentinels fits the bill for what I would term a “shooter”, given that this is a very broad category.

Pelea8: Whats a typical day @ jagex like? What do you do all day? (other then drink tea <3)

Now this is an interesting question, principally because there are very few “typical” days in Jagex. My day starts at about 8:30 when I arrive at the office. I check emails and industry news reports, check on the team and make sure everyone is okay and knows what they’re doing. I suspect I will then have a number of meetings during the day from issues as mundane as discussing the decor in the office, to as exciting as games design planning meetings, to as important as sitting down with Mark (the CEO) or Andrew (the founder). I will maybe have to deal with scheduling problems caused by any number of issues from translation to server allocation, to delays in production. I’ll basically be busy from start to finish, which is usually around 6 to 6:30 pm. I may well take my work laptop home and do something there as well, once my kids are in bed.

Pelea8: Are you going to be releasing games more often again ;(

I don’t think volume or frequency of update is the critical factor we should be aiming for. It’s the quality of the releases that are key to making sure the service is all we can hope for. Now coupled with this is the need to present something new with enough frequency so the service doesn’t begin to feel stale. As I’ve said before in other posts, we need to get the quality right before the quantity can be something we work on. In short though, we are trying to increase the number of updates we are doing, although this might not translate as a new game.

Pelea8: Are you going to upgrade the forums soon >.< Make them more active hopefully.

We’ve been talking about an update for the forums for some time. The problem is that it’s a lot of work; the forums, while in need of an update, do still work and something more critical always seems to be coming up. I’ll investigate where we are with the forum update and do my best to let you know during the live questions.

Pelea8: Which mod do you like best at jagex (mwahahaha >;-])

All of them (but the ones that work on FunOrb are the best ).

Max2188: How's Haxxors coming along? It's been a while since we heard about it, and is there more information? Oh, and should we expect Steel Sentinels completed in August?

Okay, I’ve had a night’s sleep and I’m back in the office now. Haxxors is in the early prototype stage. One thing I’ve been doing recently is that, when a developer comes off a project, we get them to write two prototype games and then make a decision about which one to continue working on. That way we are able to get the better game out earlier, with fewer concerns about how the game play will work. Haxxors was the first prototype Mod Nerdgirl put together in this process. She’s also just finished the second in the process, and is now about to start production work on one of them.

Steel Sentinels will be released in August (quite soon in fact). It’s currently going through the translation and QA process now.

Tomcatgt: When will we see a Clan Chat function in Funorb?

FunOrb Central should allow this.

Tomm92h: Is there any new RuneScape based game planned for FunOrb?

No firm plans as of yet. We have some ideas, but nothing in production.

Tomcatgt: Will you ever reconsider the policy of not having the jagex games relate to each other? Lots of potential for growth if you can encourage an insignificant aesthetics award for putting in effort to TWO jagex games instead of ONE. (Hint hint: Funorb cape )

Indeed. We have, of course, considered this very thoroughly indeed. The problem we have is one of in-game economy and real world trading. Without getting into the detail, it is a difficult factor for us to balance to put this into place. It would be unfair if only FunOrb members could get the item in RuneScape; a RuneScape member might be aggrieved by that. It’s very tricky to get right and getting it wrong could cause major problems for both games.

Tomcatgt: Will you promise that the StarCannon Sequel will be much harder than the current version? I want to see a thick fog of purple bullets on the screen and plenty of environmental obstacles to dodge.

No I will not promise this. StarCannon is quite hard enough I think, especially in ‘Hard’ mode.

Shadiochao: I also want to ask about a Deko bloko expansion And my other question is, will you be giving some games more achievements every few updates, like you did with Brick and Arcanists?

We have plans to add Achievements to a number of games at the moment, so watch this space.

Goblin Kin81: will theer ever be system where we can control teams like what team we wann be on in rateds and unrateds for arcanist and aog. kickabout league doesn't have this issue as rated are always 1vs1 the way i like it and unrateds u can choose teems and for rateds teem thign i suggest you have go to rated lobby button so u can make rateds like u would unrated

FunOrb Central should provide this functionality, and please do not spam the forums, it is rather babyish behaviour.

19118219: Is Arcanists planning on a graphical update? I like the game but the graphics aren't very good... 2. When are more new achievements coming, now that you have an insane capability to have them? Which game will be the next to get >32 achievements?

Mod Artifice talked about some updates in his latest Dev Diary (I’d recommend you read that as well). These updates will allow FunOrb to use hardware acceleration for the games, giving a similar uplift in quality between RuneScape High Detail and Standard Detail, and will allow for multiple screen resolutions.
All this does mean that we need to re write a fair amount of the game code for most of the games. So are we planning on a graphical upgrade to Arcanists? Yes, but it’s actually more of a re-write. Early days yet, though.

Achievement updates will be rolled out to most of the games in time. It will depend on the game as to how many Achievements it gets though.

19118219: Any plans on a Torquing! update?

Not at the moment I’m afraid.

19118219: Could you guys please stop using the same flash animations on the home page?

We like the animations. We use the same one for each game when it’s updated, depending on the nature of the update.

19118219: Do you have a cat?"

Nope, I have 2 kids, which is far more work than a cat.

Goblin Kin81: will there ever be funorb games on game discs like zombie dawn on a disc for ps3 or 360? or even psp so we can play them off comp or opn the go???

Interesting question. On discs no, I doubt that, given the easy nature of digital distribution. But FunOrbian games on other platforms (consoles, mobile etc.)? Well that would be interesting, wouldn’t it...

Knight Rips: hey, i got some questions. did mod thomas want to look like super mario boss (Bowser) (in arcanist)?

Nope.

Knight Rips: did you activate activeX to solve lag issues ?

Nope, we solved lag issues by making the game code more efficient. Often what you see as lag isn’t lag at all. Sometimes it is, though, and in honesty there is virtually nothing we can do about it. If the server’s connection to you is poor, there is often a problem with the hardware between you and the server. We make sure our games are designed firstly to be able to cope with lag, and secondly so that any communication required with the server is as efficient as possible.

Knight Rips: will you be planning to make any classic word adventure games? (ZX81 type)

Not currently, there is frankly very little demand for these kinds of games any more.

Knight Rips: will there be anymore costumes fro arcanist that you buy with oprb coins? (like santa 1 i was hoping for easter bunny one but :'( )

Possibly, although Arcanists is rather full at the moment and impacting on the memory limit we have available.

Onka Z Mage: What is most important in multiplayer games? That you make a game with members extras or make a fair game betwen membes and free when they play each other (you can't choose both!)?

This is a great question. We are trying to build our multiplayer games under the premise that a new player has access to abilities that will allow him to compete effectively with a more experienced player. Arcanists does this very well indeed. The Fire spell book is quite powerful and effective. We want players to gain access to more variety n the game rather than more power. All players should have available to them items to unlock or collect, members should have more variety in terms of what they can access.

Onka Z Mage: Are you planing to do a Multiplayer shooter or race game?

Yes we are, Steel Sentinels is our up-and-coming multiplayer shooter, and we are prototyping a racing game now.

Onka Z Mage: Why did you only let member to try the bete? Shouden't you pick some members and some F2p? Becous then you see how the members befinde actually works on free (thinking on trinkets). But you only used members, so you coundn't see how it woude work aginst free befor the game was released.

We wanted to release the Kickabout League Beta to test the server protocols and connectivity first and foremost. We then wanted to get solid player feedback on the core mechanics of the game. The Beta wasn’t going to run for long enough to allow for testing of much more than that. Also, we wanted to give our members a simple but worthwhile benefit.

Onka Z Mage: You say that "We think that quality is far, far more important than quantity. We want to make sure our games are as awesome as we can make them before they get released.". Well, I don't think that Kickabout was this. You had league points and rating. And the only thing you got achievements for was league points. Shouldn’t you have seen that players should drop their rating? And the trinkets don't make the games so awesome when it is a game between f2p and members. Please, tell me how that sentence and Kickabout match each other?

We think Kickabout League is an awesome game to play. We think the game of football it represents is great fun simply to be involved in. Our opinions may differ on this, I suspect. What we see here as being the most important aspect of the games is that they are awesomely good fun to play, regardless of whether you get Achievements, highscores or increases in rating. The game play of the game must be fun, and personally I think that Kickabout League delivers that.

Now to take your criticisms one at a time.

Achievements for ratings: simply speaking, we are no longer using rating-based Achievements, as they tend to lead to rating transfers.
Kickabout League players who lose a rated game do drop their rating, so I’m not sure what point you’re making here. Please feel free to clarify for me though.

Kickabout League was designed to be a universally appealing game for members and free players alike. It’s a game that can quite literally be played by anyone whether they like football or not. We plan to use it as a key promotional game in the future, to do this the free player game needs to be fun and engaging. The trinket system was not designed to give members an “easy win” mechanism against free players. It was designed to allow them to customise their players and give them a small bonus. It’s more a mechanism for personalisation than anything else.

Onka Z Mage: Isn't 42 achievements a little low to get ability to write in the forum? I got 42 achievements on one day. I could easily make an account, get 42 achievements and just to spam in the forum.

We don’t think so. For a free player, they need to play more than one game and the only reason we have a limit at all is to ensure that the poster is serious about FunOrb and not intent on simply spamming the forum with adverts. Also of course, 42 is the answer.

Siganiv: Will more games get a multiplayer expansions, like Zombie Dawn? I really want to see a "Miner Disturbance Multiplayer"!

Perhaps, although “twitch” action games are difficult to do, as we have to process lots on the server and lag becomes an issue.

Siganiv: Are you planning a game which will involve ninjas?

Perhaps.

Siganiv: Are you planning to remake more old Jagex games, for example Fuel Critical, Cyber Wars or Outpost 31?

Not currently.

Siganiv: We have now Global Achievements, but what about Cross-game Achievements? Are you working on them?

Yes, we already have a few, ‘Master of Strategy’ being one. We will be adding to these over time.

Siganiv: Why you decided to make a separate website for Arcanists?

To allow us to promote the game by itself if required.

Siganiv: In interview with OrbMore you said that plants give you a game idea. Do you have more plans for this game?

Perhaps, but If I did it would be very early stages and I’d rather not discuss them I’m afraid.

Siganiv: Are you planning any additions to word games like Transmogrify or Lexicominos? What do you think about adding new languages (Polish, Dutch etc.) to these games, without translating the whole FunOrb?

Word games are not proving supremely popular with the player base at the moment, so it’s unlikely we will be pushing any more of these out for a while. Translating the games would be a part of translating the entire service though.

Siganiv: Which game is on the "Upcoming game wallpaper"? Is it Haxxors?

It’s Steel Sentinels. It’s some concept art we used to build the scenery in the game.

Siganiv: Are you going to add new sound effects, like these which we can hear while watching the film on Jagex youtube channel - "Arcanists '09". Arcanists themselves seem to have voices and the bombs seem to have a whistle when they come down.

We took some liberty with the sound effects in that movie. We are working on a major rework of Arcanists and this may well be part of that plan.

Myst King: At what point will we see games with over 32 achievements at completion as opposed to an expansion

Soon.

Myst King: What are the next games up for an achievements boost (Like what happened to B-a-B and Arcanists)

Dungeon Assault is the next game on our list.

Myst King: how is Shattered plans single-player progressing?

Very well indeed. We have a simplified rule set, a new look interface and the star field has been placed on a hexagonal grid. It all makes the game far more playable. We will, of course, keep the existing game rules as it is and will add these features as options within the game. I’m really pleased with Shattered Plans now. We do have to make sure we get the tutorial right though.

Erzmeister: (Regarding the achievement wall) Can you give the option to show in addition to the tiny icons we have now small, medium and large achievements icons. Currently you almost need magnifying glasses to identify any of the icons.

I’m sorry, but we aren’t planning any update to this version of the Wall. We may well be changing the functionality for FunOrb Central, but this hasn’t been finalised yet.

Erzmeister: Can we have counters for loyality achievements such as do X damage in Arcanists and destroy Y bricks in Brick a Brack? It is quite hard to keep track of these yourself.

Interesting idea. I’ll mention this to the developers and see what their thoughts are. Speaking honestly once again, we were surprised with the almost pathological passion with which some players regard the Achievements. In many ways the entire system is one of FunOrb’s greatest successes. It’s also a bit of a millstone around our necks. We have to bear in mind the impact that even the slightest change to a game will make to the Achievements it has.

We really thought the Achievement system would provide our players with an ongoing target to aim for. Often the fact that an Achievement is not immediately achievable seems to engender excessive levels of annoyance with the players. We are trying to design the games to provide players with an immediate level of gratification from some Achievements, but from others a real sense of long-term achievement.

Erzmeister: Can you do more to remove cheaters of the weekly highscores? While a lot of them get removed, some (too many) cheaters get the "glory" to stay the whole week on rank 1 of a highscore.

This is especially mean for people going for achievements like King of Kings.

Anyone we find who has cheated is removed from the table immediately. The problem is that the table you see does not update itself until the next time that player logs in. As far as the Achievement is concerned, if someone has received it through cheating it is removed from their account. Any player who has cheated, either through highscores or through Achievements, is permanently removed from the global tables. They will never appear on any global table for any game ever again.

Erzmeister: Will there be animated achievement icons for the toughest achievements such as Taking the Mick, Archmage, We are the Champions, Torquester, and Order of the golden torque?

Animated Achievement icons are something we are seriously considering. Bandwidth is a key factor, as that many images for a large player base soon add up to large bandwidth usage.

Mariobary A: When are you planning to release FunOrb in new language? Any hint, what language it'll be?

I’d like to say yes to this question, but I’m afraid I have to say “wait and see”.

Mariobary A: All three games released this year were multiplayers. Is it "multiplayer" year, or you will release some singleplayers in the end of 2009?

Our plan is to make multiplayer games with great single-player campaigns. Certainly multiplayer is the focus, as it adds more long term game play. Single-player games tend to be plot or level-driven and can therefore be completed. Multiplayer games are more open and can’t be.

Mariobary A: Which single splayer game are you going to expand next?

Well Hostile Spawn and Terra Phoenix are high on the list at the moment.

Mariobary A: Are you planning to make Halloween or Christmas event in FunOrb this year? Maybe except of special achievements, we will get any rewards like in RuneScape's events' (for example special levels, items etc. which could be unlocked and accesable for the whole time?).

The plan is to do these updates with Achievements rather than anything else. The cost in terms of development time for anything else is prohibitive I’m afraid.

Mariobary A: Are you planning to release some cooperative multiplayers? At the moment there is only co-op mode in Vertigo 2.

Steel Sentinels features a co-op mode.

Stompylomp: Can we use shortkeys in funorb (F1, F2, ...) when funorb central is released? (like rs)

Not sure what you mean, use them for what? If you can explain what you mean we may be able to put them in.

Stompylomp: How many games are scheduled to be released this year?

Interesting question, mainly as this is dependent on a number of factors not under FunOrb’s direct control. The work being done on our technical capabilities is the biggest single factor we have to deal with. This impacts on all the games currently in development in some form or other. As such I’d rather not give firm details on the release schedule.

Stompylomp: Are members getting there own lobby on arcanist for their spells? Or what are the plans for arcanist?

Members already have their own server for Arcanists. Not sure what more we can do than that, frankly.

Stompylomp: How buzy is it in the offices right now? Are there really so many (large) projects at the moment? Wich projects are (ready to test) in the Q&A?

FunOrb is always a busy place. It is deceptively quiet, simply because everyone is hard at work on the projects they are pushing forward.

Stompylomp: How/When was the idea of funorb created? Was it by the minigames on the jagex website? Or was that part of the plan?

FunOrb was really an idea that Andrew was thinking about probably as far back as the early days of RuneScape. It wasn’t called that then of course. He simply wanted to put together an online site of games smaller than RuneScape, and wrap them up together as a packaged service. I’ve been working here for 3 years now and I was brought in to make FunOrb a commercial reality. I guess therefore, in concept FunOrb is at least 7 years old, in practice just under 3.

Stompylomp: Will jagax add more dutch employees? Translate games in dutch?

This process has already started; hopefully we will soon have a Dutch version of Arcanists available to be played.

Stompylomp: Has jagex plans to expand? If there are plans, has jagex plans to expand outside England? Is mechscape an important part of the expantion of jagex (wich will need more employee for support and more developers/artists)?

Jagex is always on the look-out for talented, dedicated people who can add to the Jagex potential. It’s always a possibility that we may expand outside the UK, but at the moment there are no plans to do this.

Ninjakurtis1: you know aog i think the game play is a bit slow. do you think you can make it so there a choice so everyone can take there turns at the same time?

Simultaneous plotted turns is something we are working on for the multiplayer aspect of a certain fridge-based game that will be coming out later this year. I’m afraid we won’t be building this into AoG though.

Kylescorpion: Since Kickabout recently was given a league system I was thinking how about arcanists? You gain points by winning to move up the next "league" and for certain leagues you enter into you unlock a new spell book (prestige requirement as well to enter certain leagues) so if there were 6 leagues 3 leagues would unlock spellbooks when you got to them and stays unlocked (hence the prestige requirement) It'd solve the prestige "trap" I see alot of people complain about .

Yes, this is highly likely to be incorporated into a rework of Arcanists that we are planning.

Kylescorpion: Will there be a new Funorb status report once hostile spawn expansion and steel sentials have been released? as everything mentioned on the current report will have been released.

Yes.

Kylescorpion: Can you make a counter for how many gold/silver/bronze trophies we gather in each game? So if like I have gotten 1st in geoblox 5 times there would be the gold trophy image with the number 5 next to it.

Nice idea, we‘ll see what we can do to make something like this, but it’s likely to be incorporated into FunOrb Central.

Kylescorpion: I think funorb should have a theme song that plays when your on the main page (if you enable it to do so) does that sound cool? ;P

Hehehe. Don’t you think that might get a little annoying after a while?

Kylescorpion: Do you have plans to make the forums a bit more active and more appealing in terms of looks? as the most I see online at any given time is 50. I love the forums and do my best to help jagex the best I can. So it would be appricated. The community is great and so are forums but it could do with a upgrade!

I agree. The issue is that the forum back end system we use is common to both RuneScape and FunOrb. Thus any change must be done to both for anything other than the most basic colour changes, etc. There are plans to do this, but I’ve not got a timescale for them as of yet.

Kylescorpion: Will Cross game achievements make their way soon? as they were mentioned at the same time as global achievements but have yet to be seen

Some confusion here: we see Achievements like ‘Master of Strategy’ as a cross-game Achievement. We will be adding to these whenever development time allows.

Kylescorpion: Players have been asking for guides for each game which there are instructions for them already but I was thinking to increase player involvement allow players to make "player made guides" that we submit to you and you add the guides on the website (of course you have to approve of the contents and accuarcy of everything first).

Well you can do this in the forums now. I don’t think we could add them as official pages though.

Im For Guard: Are you planning to add a multiplayer option to some of the current single-player games?

In some circumstances, potentially yes. No firm plans at this stage though, with the exception of Terra Phoenix.

Chris Joyc3: Sometime this year the AOG single player expansion is coming out, will this see some kind of fix to the highscores? Also could you release any early information on what your planning to do, to make trinkets that little bit more popular?

I’d rather not give you details now on this expansion, at least no more than I’ve done earlier in the answers.

19118219: Why is there blue stuff on the borders of Kickabout League achievement images?

I have to admit to not seeing this when I’ve checked just now. Are you sure? If so can you file a bug report please, describing exactly what you’ve seen?

Wesley 10678: Do you have any idea when FunOrb Central will be coming out?

Yes I do.

Wesley 10678: Has Jagex been thinking of any campaign/co-op modes for the games other than AoG?

Yes we have. Take a look at steel Sentinels when it comes out.

Wesley 10678: YOU GUYS ROCK!!!! Right?

Well I think the team here does certainly. I guess the real answer to your question can only be given by you chaps, the players. So do you think we rock?

Lime028 : Why haven't you guys added FunOrb items to the Jagex store?

A very good question. There is concern that there simply won’t be enough demand to warrant the items being manufactured. I disagree with this, but there you go. It’s something I’m rather vocal about lobbying for, but please feel free to set up a forum post about this. Would you buy a FunOrb mug/T-shirt/poster?

Lime028 : What happened with the classic original games on your site? Could you put them back or add a new section to FunOrb displaying the original games? (But no achievements, just there for sheer enjoyment)

We’ve no plans to do this at the moment.

Lime028 : Runescape has a lot more nice things on their home page such as Polls, a link to the Jagex store, how many active users are on, even a link to FunOrb. Would you guys consider adding some more features to the homepage?

We have plans to revamp the entire FunOrb site and changes such as these additions are possible.

Lime028 : Out of all the servers you own, why do you have only one member's servers? Will you be adding more member servers for member's in the future?

Simply speaking, if there is a demand for a member’s server for a particular game we’ll add it. With FunOrb Central though, this shouldn’t be an issue

Thomas P G: Do you plan to eventually update all the single player games?

Hmm, perhaps not all of them. In truth it’s simply not worth the time to update some of them.

Thomas P G: Which games will be in the next batch of new achievements?

Dungeon Assault is next.

Crestopatrol: Is it possible to have a level creator on Brick-a-brac?
Thomas P G: Is it possible to create a game where players can make their own levels? If it is, will FunOrb be having one of these one day?

Yes and yes. Moderation of the levels is the critical issue with this though. The levels have to be vetted to ensure they are not obscene or insulting. Regrettably the anonymity of the internet coupled with some people’s foolishness can turn these sorts of things into very messy affairs. We have to make sure this is done correctly.

Thomas P G: Do you have any new platform games/updates planned, they are my favourite sort

Perhaps, but I can’t say more than that at the moment.

Crestopatrol: Will there be a new spellbook released on Arcanists?

None are planned currently, but as I’ve said above, Arcanists is getting a fairly major re-work in the future.

Crestopatrol: Will you fix the problem on Kickabout where the people that have lag get an avantage?

This has already been fixed.

Crestopatrol: Have you got any further with making a multiplayer Bouncedown?

Not as yet.

Master2k27: how many games are in development?

12 projects are on the go currently. This includes upgrades to existing games, but does not include minor tweaking and FunOrb Central.

Master2k27: how many games do you think there will be on the site at the end of 2009 or 2010?

End of 2009, I’d hope to hit 40.
End of 2010 I’d like to hit 50.

Master2k27: got any plans to improve the website, looks a bit bland atm?

Very true and yes we do. It all comes down to resources I’m afraid. I’d hope that we will get this possibly early next year.

Master2k27: when will TerraPhoenix 2 be out?

The developer currently working on Dungeon Assault II needs to finish that first, so I suspect you are looking at about 12 months.

Deon Dunn: when did you start pirate empires

Autumn (Fall) last year. Development really kicked off in October.

Deon Dunn: can you buy different ships in pirate empires?

Yes, that’s the plan

Chimeraman13: Are you planning any new worlds for zombie dawn?

Not at the moment, although it is highly likely for the future.

Mikturtle: When are you going to put female players on Kickabout League?

Not for some time I’m afraid.

Sigtinius: I have a question about the Mark of Fame achievement in Arcanists.

Many people are telling me that this achievement is unfair as Mod Thomas rarely goes online and when he is, the players that are high up on the orb-points table are not. Do you think it would be possible that this achievement could be made to defeat Arcanists or FunOrb Dev Mods instead of only Mod Thomas? As it would make it more attainable for players to get but just as challenging as other mods would have similar or the same abilitys as him.

This Achievement is designed to be difficult to get and frankly randomly available for anyone to have a chance at getting. We don’t think it’s unfair, we do, however, think it’s random. Again I’ll refer you to an answer earlier where I discussed the fact that not all the Achievements are designed to be available to earn immediately. Some frankly you might have to wait months to get.

Astroman129: Do we see an expansion in the future for any of our platform games? E.G. Torquing!, Tor Challenge, Wizard Run, etc.

Possibly yes. It’s also possible we might make another platform game. No firm plans exist yet at this stage though I’m afraid.

Astroman129: What do we believe will be the next release? Not just new games, but new things in general?

I know what the release will be, but I’m not telling you I’m afraid.

Astroman129: Other than Haxxors and Bachelor Fridge, are there any other things very early in development?

Yes, quite a lot of things actually.

Astroman129: How soon is the new forum update expected for?

I’ve no timescales to give you on this one I’m afraid.

Astroman129: Should we expect to see a new Word game in the future?

I wouldn’t hold your dictionary at the ready if I were you.

Astroman129: Can we get further info on Haxxors and Bachelor Fridge kinda soon? If not, when will we be able to?

For Haxxors the jury is still out as to when the game will go into production. For Bachelor Fridge, see an earlier answer for as much info as we are giving away.

Astroman129: Do you plan to release any more single-player only games?

Yes, but not for a while and not as a priority. What we do want to do is make sure that there is a good single-player mode for each of the multiplayer games we are making.

Astroman129: How popular do you think FunOrb will be in the future?

Well now, this is a difficult question to answer. I hope it will be very popular, I certainly think the games offer really fun game play and for me that’s key. If you don’t have fun games, you don’t have much of a service at all. I recognise that there is more to be done to improve the service. Ask me this question in a year’s time and we’ll see where we are then.

Bluemagic176: With the release of the new achievement upgrades, Arcanists was among the first game to get some new achievements with a hefty twenty plus. Other games certainly have the potential for this, so is this in the works or something that is not on the priority list?

It’s definitely in the works, but we don’t want to add Achievements simply for the sake of it. We want each Achievement to be worth while getting.

Reptile084: I have a question concerning the new site dedicated to Arcanists. Will Arcanists move to the new Arcanists site in the future, or will it stay here on FunOrb?

Both.

Eevee426: Do you ever plan on updating Arcanists?

Yes, see a number of answers above for more details.

Eevee426: What's your favorite game

Of all time? Frontier.

On FunOrb? Most of them actually, certainly Arcanists, AoG, Kickabout, Starcannon, Sol Knight, Lexicominos, Miner Disturbance,

Eevee426: (Last one) Do you plan on adding more content to Kickabout League. Perhaps making goalies a little smarter and less annoying.
Coldplay1708: Are there any plans to add new content to Kickabout League (Not tweaks or bug fixes)?

The goalie has already been improved in terms of his AI, and yes more content is planned.

Dr Korvett: How many employees are on the FunOrb team?

31.

Dr Korvett: Are you planning to advertise FunOrb more? (Not including ads and news posts on the RuneScape website.) If so, how? Do you still have plans for the Jagex Security Key? (I'm assuming the key would work on FunOrb too.)

Plans, yes. I can’t divulge any more than that at present.

Jettrider: Have you decided to move towards a new meta-rating system in place of the current system? Is it still in discussion? It seems to me that you keep tweaking Kickabout League without success. It is still quite possible to drop rating without losing league points. In addition, every update to the goalie seems to fall a bit short – the goalie still dives for slow shots, especially lobs, and now there are new “cheap” ways to score (ie a ranger lobbing the ball in with no power from outside the box, headers from outside the box that the goalie fails to react to, etc). Are you planning to do a cohesive update once and for all, or should we expect constant tweaks in months to come?

A lot of this is wrapped into FunOrb Central. The short answer is “yes”, the long answer is “it’s a very complex issue and there are lots of things we have to factor in to make it work properly”.

Where Kickabout League is concerned, the goalie is now pretty much how we want it. I find it slightly amazing that people are asking for the goalie to be improved when it is of course exactly the same AI routines that work both your’s and your opponent’s goal keeper.

Jettrider: What’s the latest stance on splitting new content between popular and unpopular games? On the single player side, you have games like Hold the Line and Monkey Puzzle 2 which could easily host their first expansion and become more popular. However, you also have three fantastic games in Miner Disturbance, Orb Defence, and Zombie Dawn that could use a second update.

Partly it’s down to demand, partly to the scope we have for updating the games. There’s not much we can do to say Monkey Puzzle II that wouldn’t be a simple level set, or wouldn’t involve re-writing the game from scratch. Thus we make decisions based on the commercial viability of the upgrade and the likely impact we think it will have.

Jettrider: When will a new game be released that has only a single-player mode? I know that you try to add single-player modes to the multiplayer games, but I think giving people a variety of games to choose from is important as well. It’d also be nice to have some achievements that are solely based on your skill/luck and not on what others can give you. The last new game that included a single-player mode was Vertigo 2 last November, and the last single-player game release was Orb Defence last August, nearly a year ago.

As I’ve said above, the plan is to focus on multiplayer and add single-player campaign modes where possible.

Jettrider: Do you have a general timescale on FunOrb Central? The diaries are rather vague. Can we expect to see it early next year, later in 2010, or is this a REALLY long-term project?

Yes I do, but that’s all I can say on the subject for the moment I’m afraid.

Jettrider: Speaking of FunOrb Central, how exactly is it supposed to breathe life into dead multiplayer games? It seems to me that some people will start searching for Pixellate or Shattered Plans games, but these are the people that are already familiar with the game. I think that neither FunOrb Central nor an update to each specific game is enough to put enough players back in the lobby for enough time to get these games back on their feet.

The idea is that you can flag yourself as interested in say a Pixelate game and then go off and do anything else you want to within FunOrb Central: play a single-player game, just chat, whatever. When someone else flags themselves as being interested in Pixelate the systems will match the two of you together. Because FunOrb Central takes this matching system from the whole FunOrb user base rather than just the Pixelate lobby, it means that there is a much larger population to match you against. This should fix the issue.

Jettrider: There’s been a lot of controversy about some of the recent achievements released. A lot of discussion has been going on in Orbful (20-21-594-31513) about achievements given for defeating specific Jagex mods, particularly the Mark of Fame achievement on Arcanists. Have you guys decided what the final verdict is on this type of achievement, or are you still discussing it?

It’s final, this Achievement is as it is. You can read some of the answers on Achievements generally earlier in the post to understand some of the reasons behind this.

Jettrider: Why have the Developer Diaries slowed down? Did we just have a big burst of them at the beginning or are they getting more infrequent? On a related note, could the developers possibly upload some videos of playtesting their work in progress to Jagex’s YouTube account?

Yes, we’ve been a little on the busy side with other stuff and the diaries fell by the way side a little. My fault. You’ll find they are picking up again now.

Jettrider: For the first time, we had orb downloads that had a practical use in a game (Kickabout League outfits and pitches, and the achievement for getting them all). Is this going to become a more regular occurrence? I fear that if you add too many expensive downloads, players who download the other content in the Orb Downloads section won’t be up to par with those who haven’t – and that’s not how it should be.

Of course it’s not, but the downloads a player purchases is always going to be a decision for the player in question. No player is actually at a disadvantage from not being able to purchase these Kickabout League items. The pitches can still be played on, they just have to play as the away team. The kits add nothing to the actual game play at all. Everyone will still have the same game play factors to contend with. If you mean some players won’t have access to the same Achievements that others have, this is true, but again it’s the player’s choice. Of course we are always adding new Achievements allowing the player to earn more coins. Frankly I fail to see the issue you’re trying to put across here.

Jettrider: Are you happy with the amount of games of each genre? Do you think each has enough representation on FunOrb? If not do you plan on adding more to certain genre's (Racing, Puzzle, Shooter etc...) or are you just developing on a whim?

Making sure that as many genres as possible can be covered is a key action for us strategically, but the commercial reality of the service has to be taken into account. Some genres of game simply aren’t either commercially viable or realistic for us to develop for. It can also be that we simply haven’t come up with a good enough concept in a particular genre.

Jettrider: For future real-time games, could you implement something so that all players have an equal chance of winning no matter what their connection speed is? Ie, if a player has 500ms of ping, the other player will have to wait at least half a second to see what happened. If the server didn't execute given commands to an amount equal to the ping - .5 seconds - then both players would always have the most updated state of the game available to them. Or will this not work technically for some reason?

Play Steel Sentinels and let us know what you think. You describe a system that we are trialling for this game, although the game has two modes. 0.25 seconds delay and 2 seconds delay. Simply though, the longer the delay we try to “build in” to accommodate lag, the more difficult to play the game feels.

Jettrider: Could you please, please, please, pretty please with Awesomo on top, add more co-op game modes? Playing co-op is very fun, and builds lots of friendships, but currently there is only 1 game and 1 achievement within that game related to co-op play. I know not every game lends itself to co-op play as easy as Vertigo, but you can always keep it in the back of your mind while creating new games.

Again play Steel Sentinels, I hope you won’t be disappointed.

Charmed Pop: Hehe, the child in me wants to ask this: will we be seeing any games with dinosaurs in them soonish?

Hehe, We don’t have any plans for a dinosaur game, or even a dinosaur character. This is probably a significant omission on our part though.

Mega Lamb: Will any more of the old Jagex games, such as Fuel Critical or Gold Mine, be reintroduced as FunOrb games in future?

No plans for this at the moment.

Mega Lamb: Will animated achievements be implemented in future?

As I said above we are planning this, but bandwidth is a limiting factor.

Mega Lamb: Will the "Master of Arms" achievement ever be fixed in Stellar Shard or is it doomed to only work for some people and not others forever?

Have you submitted a bug report? If not can you do so please? If you have, I’ll get the developer to look into it.

Mega Lamb: After challenging people, could Mod Thomas please respond to people regarding attempts at the "Mark of Fame" achievement and when he is going to log on please?

Hehe. He is a very busy chap, but I will ask him to do this.

Mega Lamb: Will FunOrb products be added to the Jagex store to buy at some point soon, or are they exclusively for winners of competitons? I know of posters, a T-Shirt and possibly mugs, so personally, I'd like to buy a FunOrb T-Shirt (dark purple would be great lol) as I wear my two RuneScape T-Shirts quite a lot.

Please take a look at the answer above.

Mega Lamb: Could the FunOrb Loadgame screen be transformed into a screensaver downloadable from the Orb Downloads section? (question courtesy of The Fish2 0 who posted the idea)

Nice idea. We’ll look into it.

Mega Lamb: Will every single current FunOrb game be getting expansions or will some be left as they are? If not, which ones will be left?

Some won’t get an expansion or upgrade, but I’m not at liberty to tell you which ones at this time.

Mega Lamb: Will there be more Beta testing in future? From what I could tell from Kicabout League, it seemed that it was very successful.

Yes there will be, and yes it was. What we don’t want to do, though, is make beta tests the norm for everything we do. A beta is usually there to test something new we are trying to push out.

Mega Lamb: Will there be more downloadable in-game content soon, and will there ever be entire new levels available to download?

I’m afraid I can’t give you any more information about that right now, sorry.

Mega Lamb: Will more Jagex Moderator Achievements be coming out in future? I'm hoping that if so, there will always be J Mods committed to playing the game in question, or the achievement is only worth 100 Orb Points. I hope you can understand why.

The idea of these Achievements is not to be immediately obtainable. They’re there so that firstly you chaps have to watch out for events like Mod Wars, etc. and also to give you something special to aim for.

Mega Lamb: I've heard talk of cross-game achievements - Were these just ones such as "Master of Strategies" or will there be ones where something you do in one game affects what you do in another?

It’s unlikely that we will have aspects of one game being affected by the action you take in another game. Cross-game Achievements are currently defined as Achievements where certain actions must be performed across multiple games. We may have some items unlocked if you have a certain Achievements in some games in the future, but we have nothing planned currently.

Spectermon: Is Jagex planning to make anymore changes to Zombie Dawn Multiplayer?Possibly put in a teams mode,or the appropriate music on the new levels?

Yes we have some plans for this game, but we are waiting for a developer to become free to implement them.

Spectermon: Are you planning to make the f2p all,with a members expansion update on more games?Maybe Pixelate?

Yes, but no timescales as yet.

Goviper: What will be that maximum servers they have how many players can fit in one?

I think you’re asking “how many players can there be on one server as a maximum?”. This varies by game quite substantially. On average, it’s from about 1000 to 2000 players per server.

Goviper: Shouldn't there be a way to find out Who are new employees that works for Jagex, if there going to be new in the community they should be known sooner

Not sure how to answer this. We tend to get new employees introduced when we can, when it’s relevant. Not all employees interact with the players.

Sworddrgn: what games do you feel needs the most work done to in terms of content, graphic s etc, and what do you plan to do with these games?

That’s a next-to-impossible question to answer I’m afraid, especially if you’re talking about games currently in production.

Swatfirex: will there ever be ftp achievments in arcanist?

We have no plans for them at the moment.

Occult Girl: Are you happy with the main page setup of FunOrb? Do you think it shows off all your games fully or do you think you could do some more to improve the looks/design and use of it?

I think we can radically improve the design of the front page. Hugely improve it.

Occult Girl: How does advertising work at JaGex? Do you actively advertise FunOrb and RuneScape on other sites? Based on statistics you may have do all the players you have on FunOrb tend to come from RuneScape? If so then do you have plans to draw in more non-RuneScapers to FunOrb and how?

We have plans for advertising FunOrb, but we have always taken a view that our player base is the best advocate for the service generally. We do need to promote the service though, and there are plans for this in the making.

Occult Girl: Finally, is Mod Zeph still around? If so what is he up too?

Yes he is; he’s still working his arcane magic with code generally.

Relientk999 : Is there a chance for an option for players to choose their own top 10 games. Put tabs on the front page for 'FunOrb Top 10' and 'Your Top 10'

Once again, FunOrb Central should come to the rescue here.

Scone On: Do you ever plan on changing the "theme" of FunOrb. By them I mean the purple/blue atmosphere and stuff like that.

Yes, this is likely to change when we update the website.

Scone On: Can you fix the thing on Arcanists where you can't start sentences with capital letters?

There is a back-end system change to the way chat is filtered and processed that will go live at the end of August across all of Jagex’s product (hopefully). This should rectify this problem.

Scone On: Do you guys think you'll ever come out with a game that surpasses Arcanists in popularity?

Now there’s a question. I certainly hope so and frankly I think Kickabout League can do that. A lot of popularity depends on the audience a product has been exposed to and frankly the audience we have at the moment is the RuneScape player base. It’s no surprise to me that a fantasy-based action/strategy game is more popular than a football game.

Naruto36969: can there be a game of checkers?

It’s a possibility for the future, although we have no plans to add it at the moment. Brutally speaking, checkers is widely available elsewhere on the internet and not many players are going to see it as a differentiating factor for FunOrb.

Galvatron345: What non-game content (other than funorb central) are you currently working on?

Not actually that much to be honest. There are other projects on the go certainly, but not many of them fall under the label of “content”.

Taro Sama2: Do you plan on making a first person game?

I can’t comment on that at the moment.

Klay King61: Do you plan on using *orbs in any other games? Orb defence is the most directly funorb themed game...they would make great mascots.

Yes we do, but beyond that I can’t give you details sorry.

We3pk3: why did you lower the maximum server load on arcanists?

It was to do with a chat filtering issue that has now been fixed. It impacted on another system that will be activated at that end of August across all of Jagex’s products.

Yo Daddy167: Will we ever see a tournament format in Arcanists? Say 16 people 2v2 matches and what not?

Once again, FunOrb central should be able to provide this for all games.

Riiku325: will you plan to make non-turn based multiplayer games? games that arent like kickabout or multiplayer zombie dawn? or non-arcade based games unlike deko bloko or brick a brack? why dont you make multiplayer games that are shooters?(multiplayer hostile spawn?)

Okay. Fundamentally the problem we have with making shooting games is that the faster things move in the game world, the worse the effect lag has on the game; and bullets move pretty darn fast. Hopefully, however, you’ll soon be able to play Steel Sentinels and see our first take on this sort of game.

Head Chef157: I and many of my friends are very excited about the Dungeon Assault II comeing out, but ever since its first Dev. Diary there hasn't been that much news about it. why is this so?

I’ve had to move the developer onto a couple of other minor projects; also we’ve had work to do on the system upgrade that I’ve mentioned earlier. Mod Vile is back on Dungeon Assault II full time now, so more diaries should be forthcoming soon.

Draggerzt: In Dungeon Assault 2, will there be a multiplayer lobby that you can chat in, unlike the first one?
-You said that there would be a forum update and we could use avatars, could we possibly be able to use the Icons on the Orb Downloads?

Okay, it’s the morning of the second day and I’ve had another good night’s sleep. There will not be a multiplayer lobby in Dungeon Assault II, as the entire premise of the game is similar to Dungeon Assault 1 where there is no need to be online to be part of the world. We may well have a simple messaging system, but that’s not confirmed yet. Of course the entire game will be playable within FunOrb Central, which means that a lobby and chat system will be available to you at all times anyway.

Draggerzt: If we complete some of the harder achievements could we unlock more Icons for our forum avatars?

We are going to be working on an avatar system at some point in the future. More news will follow this when we have thought about it a bit more.

Draggerzt: Would you ever consider on making Hold the Line, Multiplayer?

We’d certainly consider it; Hold the Line is a little bit of a disappointment for me. I really like the game, it’s fun and the demolition mode of the game is awesome. It simply hasn’t lived up to its potential though, principally I think because the game has a strong difficult curve. Adding multiplayer would be part of a revamp of the game to improve its popularity generally.

Draggerzt: Now that Kickabout is out, us Orbers have experienced quite a bit of lag. Earlier you talked about bouncedown hard to make multiplayer bc of the lag. Well, couldn't be much worst than Kickabout, right? I say give it a shot.

The problem is not the lag but the way the game has to work with it. Making Bouncedown multiplayer would be easy, provided nobody was allowed to collide with anyone else. Frankly it would be a doddle if we didn’t have to worry about collisions.

Unfortunately it’s the collisions between players that make the game amusing in multiplayer. It’s also these collisions that make lag a nightmare for us to deal with. Any game requiring split second reactions and microsecond level collision detection becomes very difficult to play with even a little bit of Lag. With Kickabout League we compensate for lag with some clever predictive algorithms and we’ve been able to get the game to work with anything up to a 250 millisecond connection time. With Bouncedown, I suspect your connection would have to be much faster than this. We are of course experimenting though.

Chas433: Although you are 'Java Gaming Experts', have you ever considered making your FunOrb games so that they are displayed to players in Adobe Flash Player? I've seen a big game using that kind of program for players to play their game in, and it seems to result in less complications, and freezing. Is it because you just don't employ people with that knowledge? (You're Java Gaming Experts, and you'll stay as Java Gaming Experts?) It seems that FunOrb games are perfect for use in Flash Player...

A good question that requires quite an in-depth answer. Firstly, it would be a lot of effort for us to start using Flash for actually very little gain. All our back-end systems, login function, etc. are all designed and programmed in Java. We know that when we start building our games from what we call the “game shell”, certain aspects of the service will simply work without us having to worry about it. Changing to Flash would mean re-writing a lot of these back-end systems to be able to work with Flash. Secondly, Java actually allows us to do more with a game. We can make our games more complex and more in-depth with Java than we can with Flash. Thirdly, one area where Flash does give a better result is in the graphics. We plan to at least close this gap, and with hardware acceleration, possibly overtake it. It will, however, take time. Anyway I hope that answered the question for you.

Delbardin: Arcanists and Kickabout are really good games but not many people know about them.(most of us know since we player rs). So in the future will these games be advertised so they can get more popular?

I certainly hope so . As a company our core strength is making great games. We are not that great at the marketing side of the equation (I like to think it’s because we’re too honest to be good at marketing ). We do need to improve in this area though, as the market place is getting ever more crowded and we are becoming difficult to find. So, in short, the answer to your question is yes, but we need to get a bit better at it before we really push the marketing boat out. Also there are a few aspects of the service I would like to see implemented before we really start marketing.

Delbardin: Will we see more sports games in the future as there are only a few at the moment such as: cricket,rugby,basketball etc?

Possibly, although perhaps not in a guise you would instantly recognise.

Delbardin: The biggest problem in KAL was lag. So does this put j-mods off when a new game will be affected by lag? Or does it give them a challenge to try and overcome?

Not sure I understand what you mean by this. We always try to minimise the effect that the internet (lag, bandwidth, etc.) can have on our games, while making sure that the games are available to the internet in general, as it were. JMods aren’t “put off” by this.

Dr Korvett: What determines how games are placed in the top 10?

Popularity, taking into account that the top 10 can be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Firey Knite: will you make a mem card for funorb like you did for rs?

Possibly in the future, yes. Certainly I’d like to see one.

Gcubemasta13: What type of games are hardet to make? (Shooter, Word, etc.) Are multiplayer games generally harder to develop then single-player games?

Rather than the type of game, it’s the technology involved that makes a game hard. Fast, 3D, real-time multiplayer action games are probably the hardest, to the point of us not being sure if they’re possible. Still we are trying. Also I’d say that the more complexity the game has, the harder it is to make.

Mypeeps: will you be making more word games?

As above, no plans at this time.

Mypeeps: will you be making more comics of the office?

Yes.

Knezovich0: will dungeon Assaualt 2 be seperate from the first? if not what will happen to existing profiles? If so how will it be different so that there will not be 2 games that are too similar?

It will be a completely separate game.

Skedaddling : Can we anticipate more Arcanist* items, such as new clothes for the new achievements, more spellbooks, with perhaps new ways of getting them, and/or more maps somewhere in the not-to-near future (like, somewhere within a year)? Also, can we anticipate an Arcanists Single-player/Story mode somewhere in the future? And can, for retired members, can we anticipate a hidden rating? As in, even if they have 1500 rating, once they become F2P, that will look like 1000, unless they become a mem again.

As above, unlikely for this build of Arcanists, but a rebuild of the game is on the cards.

Mx726: Are you currently working or planning on a new volcano/expansion for Miner Disturbance? I know we got a super volcano but this game is popular and I think it would be worth the time to add another expansion.

Not at the moment.

Mx726: Will there be more in-game DLC buyable with orb coins soon? (Maybe more single player stuff, like costumes)”

New games should have this sort of thing added as they release. Some won’t though.

Stinker276: Could you guys put songs from runescape into the orb downloads?

Hehe. No plans to do this at this time I’m afraid. Besides, RuneScape can get its own downloadable content service (the cheek!).

Funnylooser: Will Steel Senitles be topdown or will it be a platformer?

It will be side projection, platform-style.

Funnylooser: Do you think that you guys will ever have a player beta test again?

Yes, but only when there is something we really want to have tested.

Funnylooser: Do you plan on adding Seas and Cogs maps to Arcanists?

Not for this current build.

Tyger Wite20: Why is Kickabout League in the single-player game highscores?

A damn fine question to which I’ve been hard pressed to get an answer. I suspect the answer is “We’re only human and we made a mistake”, but I’m still investigating.

Unjustifier: For arcanist*, what are some of the criteria that you use to establish which updates get into the game and when? What are some things that those of us who suggest upgrades such as new spell books and maps can do to make our ideas more noticeable and more likely to make it into the game?

That’s almost a question about how do you decide what content to make. We have a design review meeting every Monday morning where we look at how each of the projects are coming along and any new projects that have been mentioned. These are discussed and analysed and a decision is then made on whether or not to progress the game to a prototype stage. Once this decision is made we review the prototype, then Andrew will also review it and give feedback and from there we commence with the actual production of the game.

Unjustifier: How much more updates do you plan to release into Arcanists? I know we've acquired 3 new books since the beginning, but we're all but insatiable when it comes to new updates? I would make some suggestions, but this is a Q+A thread only.

Lots of Arcanists questions. Can I ask you to look at the answers given above please, as my finger tips are beginning to bleed a little .

Xxxx745: Do you ever plan on adding member-only servers like you did on Arcanists?

If there is the demand for one, yes.

Xxxx745: Are you going to fix the ogre shamans ability description to fit what it actually does? (It says ranged attacks can't go in OR out of the smoke, but I've seen someone have their rangers attack from inside the smoke- which got me a bit confused. )

The description is correct, please bug report this and we’ll investigate.

Smokesta80: How come the Jagex team didn't think to put 4 or 8 player rated matches in Kickabout League?

We did of course think about this, but the complexity it adds to league points and the rating system made it unworkable.

Smokesta80: Can you list a few of the pirate crews in the new pirate game?

Crews? Not sure what you mean I’m afraid.

Sir Sral: What has surprised you the most so far about funorb?

Surprised? Blimey I’m actually hard-pressed to think of anything that has surprised me. I guess the thing I didn’t anticipate is the passion of the player base when it comes to ratings and Achievements.

To explain, we saw the rating system as a good way of matching players of a similar ability together. I never anticipated (perhaps a little stupidly on my part) that it would be, in some cases, abused in the way it has been. I guess we expected everyone to play fair, mostly because that’s how we play. Having to deal with a minority of players that don’t play fair has taken an awful lot of time and work. But hey ho! We learn by doing.

Sir Sral: Can you tell us about something that has disappointed you when it comes to Funorb?

Very little to be honest. I get disappointed when a game release doesn’t go quite according to plan and I can get a little down-hearted when I see a game that hasn’t been quite the success I thought it was going to be, or when a release is delayed. Generally I look at what we’ve achieved with the resources we’ve had to achieve it. Some companies would have spent tens of millions of dollars doing what we’ve done. We’ve done it with a fraction of that (although in my darker moments I do sit here and dream of what we could do with huge resources). I’m extremely proud of FunOrb, of the superb team we have and of what we’ve achieved thus far. I do of course realise just how much work remains ahead of us though, we’ve only just started with this project really.

Sir Sral: Is there an interesting story behind the Funorb logo/name?

Hehe, not really and if you root through some of the early posts on the forums you can find this out. I’ve a question for you chaps. What would you call it if you had named it?

Draggerzt: With the Hostile Spawn Expansion, will we see new types of gameplay, like we did in Escape Vector?

All to be decided, but I’m not sure we will. Mainly this is a graphical rework and a new level set that we’re adding.

Derrinor: Will you release seasonal achievements for chrismas and easter too?

Hopefully this year we will do this, yes.

Jakestar29: Will there be any Arcanists graphic updates, i think it would be a realy cool game to play in HD.

As above, for the answer to this and many other Arcanists questions from now on.

Max2188: Why does Arcanists have such an awkward control scheme? I'd expect to use the WASD or arrow keys, but we use the z and x keys.

Because this was the mechanism used by some of Arcanists predecessors and we wanted the game to be understandable by those who are familiar with them. Play Steel Sentinels and let us know what you think of those controls.

Xzibitf: How much time are you allowed to play games/run amock on the forums on your J-Mod accounts not including your breaks?

Not a lot personally. I try to book myself time in-game in order to interact with the community. Mod Wars is the only official time where we do this, but I like to get into the game and play as much as I can.

Kurinin742 : Which game on FunOrb had the longest development time? Which had the shortest?

Actually I’m not sure. Certainly Bouncedown had the shortest time and in total man hours I think the longest was Kickabout League. I could be wrong though.

Orwin4: Have you any plans to fix the AoG ratings board, which has had glitched ratings on it for nearly six months now? The silence on Jagex's part is only rewarding cheaters.

I’ll investigate and see what we can do.

Would you consider letting some of our advanced AoG players help QA test new maps? Since AoG is the game most dependant on fair maps, and we're good at finding the things you guys miss. At the worst, it'd be free QA

The problem is this is difficult to organise with what is a live game. Generally what I’d prefer is to have a crack at it ourselves, and then amend the game based on any reasonable feedback we get from the player base. With a new game it’s different and we might push a beta version out to generate this sort of response.

Orwin4: Any word on the much awaited Fixed Point battle mode?”

Not yet.

Dr Korvett: What does the job "Head of FunOrb" include? (I'm assuming that is your position?)

My goodness. Principally the position exists to ensure that FunOrb meets the strategic objectives of the company. In reality, anything to do with FunOrb is my responsibility and thus I have to make sure that the service runs smoothly. Anything with FunOrb that doesn’t go smoothly is my fault and I have to make sure that it gets fixed. I could write for days on what all of this actually involves but I’m afraid I simply don’t have the time. Sorry.

Dr Korvett: Do you ever program games, or do you just take care of the business side of FunOrb?

I’m not a coder, so I don’t program games. I do work on the design of the games though and I managed the coding team of course.

Dr Korvett: What do you expect or vision FunOrb to look like 5 years from now?

Very different, yet eerily familiar.

Dr Korvett: Have you ever considered making some games available to play on mobile devices?

Yes.

Smiffy125125 : What are you doing to stop lagg?

We can’t stop lag in the same way we can’t increase the speed of light. There are limits to our powers, even those of the code wizards of Castle Jagex.

What we can do is mitigate the effects of lag by clever game design and clever coding practices. We already do a lot of this that you chaps simply don’t see. A lot of what you have recently been experiencing on Arcanists is not actually “lag” but “load”. See the Developers Forum for a more complete explanation of this.

Fire B Ird: why have there been so few new games recently? Also, was the funorb orb design inspired by a solar eclipse?

The orb was designed around a plasma ball initially. As for the game updates, that’s been answered earlier in the post.

Knight Rips: are tanks (in KAL) based of wayne rooney (or ie i dont know which is which)?
can we buy funorb shares?

No they are not based on any known football player (at least not very much).

No you can’t buy FunOrb shares because they don’t exist. If they did you’d have to get in line and right now I can tell you it would be a long, long line.

Miniandrey: Since you made a runescape related game will there be one in the future related to mechscape?
Will anymore games recieve the prestige update?

Possibly and possibly. No firm plans one way or the other for this, but we do like to complement our sister products where we can. Prestige updates will be built into games where it’s appropriate. Steel Sentinels doesn’t have this for example, but it does have a different mechanism.

Nequillim: Who does the voices in the FunOrb games? (Torquing, Brick-À-Brac, Tor Challenge etc.)

Various members of staff have contributed to the voices. Mod Laura W did the Torquing voice, the chaps in the audio department did Brick-a-Brac, I did a lot of the voices in Dungeon Assault (would I lie to you?). It varies considerably by the effect the voice is trying to engender.

Toyboy51: Are you thinking about a snooker update, or a snooker mode for pool?

We are thinking about an update to Pool. No firm details yet though.

Firefriend32: at the minute I am placed around 300th (and rising) in Dungeon Assualt. when the new version comes out, am i going to have this massive achivement of mine destroyed??? I can understand this if the games are to different, like arcanists and pool. I would never ask to keep the same positon in the game when the latter of the two came out, though if it was DA and another version of DA I would be lead to believe that I deserved at least some extra rating or other means of compensation for the time now "wasted" in my cumulative hours of playing. Catch my drift?

I catch your drift, but DA and DAII will be totally different games. The setting will be the same, the overall meta mechanic will be the same, but that’s about it. They will be separate games.

Xodus Fire: Can white-screening be fixed? I'm scared of playing rated games for fear of loosing my rating.

Okay, first off we think white sceening is fixed. If it’s not please someone bug report it, as we haven’t seen any recently.

Why are you scared of losing rating? Without the fear of loss there is no thrill in victory. Play the game for the fun of the game play and if you win, so much the better. Never be scared of having fun, just because you might lose. You never know, you might win!

Grand Vic: is Shattered Plans going to get a better tutorial? is there an achievement that nobody has ever achieved yet (like hiddens)?

Yes Shattered Plans is getting a better tutorial, and yes there are some Achievements that nobody has.

Zozoken: What difficulty level do you normally aim for when creating games? Do you try to make them easy with difficult and rewarding achievements, or do you prefer to make the games insanely difficult and simply passing a level grants an achievement?

Difficulty and balancing are not easy things to get right in a game. For single-player games we try to make the game playable early on, but increase in difficulty as the game progresses. We also try to build in difficulty settings where possible, so a player can customise their game too their own ability. For multiplayer games the trick is to offer more variety to a long-term player rather than more power. Arcanists and AoG do this rather well.

Kickabout League less so, but it has a league mechanic to balance things more.

Zozoken: How often, honestly, are game suggestions actually taken? I'm sure as developers all of you have many ideas for games but some of the players also have outstanding ideas. Do you wait until those threads have a lot of demand on them?

Honestly, it varies. Sometimes we see great ideas on the forums, sometimes we are so busy working on a time-dependant project that we can miss these. It varies considerably. What we have recently done is to get a report from the Player Support team each week that highlights these suggestion comments, etc.

Zozoken: Do you feel the new Offense System has made FunOrb better?

I feel the new offence system has made all Jagex products fairer and more mature in their feel. This seems better to me.

Zozoken: On a poll in RuneScape, there was a question concerning what types of games should be made on FunOrb. One of the genres listed was rhythm-based games. Even though it scored the lowest on the polls, do you have any rhythm-based games that might one day make it out of the drawing board?

Well I think you might have answered your own question there. We had a prototype, but it never got any further than that. It may in the future, but no plans at the moment.

Zozoken: Will achievements be visible through FunOrb Central, or will they still be website-based?

They will be visible through FunOrb Central.

Zozoken: Are fighting games out of the question?

Nope.

Birdsmaster: What's with the wind in Kick-a-bout league? I've been deprived of shots a few times where i could have won and will there be other changes to the game as well?

Wind? There is no wind in Kickabout League. What you are probably referring to is a server/client communication catch up, where the client has to respond to a server data packet that means that the ball is actually in a different place to where the client thinks it is. This usually occurs because the ball is moving so fast and your connection speed is a little on the slow side. The ball appears to curl when in actual fact it’s rebounded.

Junje3: Will you guys be doing anything for the Prestiege Pit in Arcanists,
I mean, there is a warning but i'm 1250 rating with the 9th hat... it's like paying for f2p with cogs...

No plans at this time.

Ownagelolz12 : Do you play any funorb games? What is your favourite game?

I play a lot of games: Kickabout League, AoG and Arcanists, along with Lexicominos, StarCannon, Orb Defence, Miner Disturbance, Zombie Dawn, Sol Knight (hugely underrated in my opinion). Frankly I play most of the games. Off and on.