How about we stop proposing ideas to this forums for animation when we lack an animator. Maybe we should focus more on actually getting an animator, before just circumventing animation ideas. What would one propose to do to actually get one?

Hmmm. How much do you guys think an animator makes per year? It can't be that much, right?

With any luck our playerbase will increase thanks to the buddy keys and we'll be able to afford one.  The next trick is to bother the guy who's job is to bother SOE.  I might be wrong but I think it falls under Walrus' domain, does anyone know how to reach him?

I think the fact they dont have an animator shows clear neglect for mxo, how can they possible expect the game to last without bring out new stuff. Everything we are getting now is just old stuff with new colours or textures. I admit they are making steps forward with the corruptors and the data mining spawns but they cant keep recycling content forever, we definitely need an animator.

Data mining fix anyone?

Dracomet put a lot of work into that, and it shows.  I love the fact that the tree is useful now.  That's not to say we couldn't do with an animator, but let's not go saying our current devs are doing nothing - that doesn't help.

I was thinking among the lines of a SDK release, someone makes the animation, make them sign a release form, devs import into MxO proprietary format, the end.

1. When you buy an MMO you get the rights to play it, but that game isn't your property per say, the disks and everything on it is but it isn't your game because the game is played on their servers, that makes it a service. That is why they can terminate your account. Legally that would make it illegal for anybody outside of SOE to add to the game. For that reason SDKs are not released on MMO's
   
2. Animation software is expensive because of the subtle complexity of the actual game and would be pushing 5 figures to put it in a package that was for mass distribution.
3. The game mechanics are extremely difficult, when SOE devs took over 2 years ago around about they knew nothing, now 2 years on, they still know extremely little, and these guys have been adding/changing for 2 years it's their job so I don't know how people who don't know a peep about design are going to manage.