All expansions = Pandora's Box

Violette

(I want to share my experience and thoughts first... and then I hope others will share their thoughts, please.)

It's been a few days since I've had all the expansions.

Along with the new possibilities and the feeling of posh, I've found a sad truth:

Froobs (non-paying) and sloobs (all expansions), as much as they try to pretend that a divide between them does not exist (when it comes to orgs), they collide in org cities. What do I mean?:

I was really looking forward to exploring my org's city, inside out. I was blown away and was disappointed to learn that besides the player shops, the buildings are never used. The reason is because if we held events and meetings inside of them, it would leave froobs out.

I agree with that and understand, but it seems a bit unfair to those that are paying just for the privilege to use them.

Why not stop pretending? How about acknowledging that the divide between us exists, and then working around that, to create, for example, separate org events for froobs and sloobs? Or something like that?

Sure, we can blame Funcom all we want, but that will not do ANYTHING. Let's work with what we have.

Ideas? Thoughts? Highly appreciated!

Kaynos1972

Well with your own city you can organize your own AI raid without having to beg other org to let you in.  You get all kind of neat bonuses from the org city, you get to use buffing equipement (tradeskills).  I think it's well worth it.

crunchyblack

also sloob refers to only having shadowlands expansion

 also, as a froob for a month then upgrading on a new account to all expansions you really realize how enormous the divide between froob and p2p is

as a froob you will level at a snails pace, have limited variety on what you do, and tbh horrible equipment

with SL you will be able to level extremely fast..how fast?  the time it takes you as a froob to reach 50 youll be over 150 in SL mabey more if you know what your doing also you get perks with give you a huge stat advantage as well as skill advantage over froobs

with AI youll have a HUGE equipment advantage also more perks = more stat and special skills (not sure if reserch is under AI or LE but reserch is another HUGE stat advantage as well as speial skills)

LE lets you do alien mothership raids which is fun and gives the oppertunity to aquire good equipment also you get mechs and other vehicles in the battle stations and some maps (not sure what expansion allows you to do more than get spam killed in bs but a froob cannot cap controller in bs, basically are of no use in bs)

so as a froob you get limited playing options, limited equipment that is way worse than p2p, no perks, no reserch, no alien levels, alien perks, alien equipment and low xp kills on ruba ki

so there is no question that a froob account is either to transfer items or to give the game a try...or for some limited fun with absolutly no chance in any PVP

ArKane

Just to put this aside, sloob does, and always has, referrred to players with any expansions, not just SL; its only recently that certian expansion players have adopted the "oh that term only applies to other people, certainly not -us-" mentality. Considering that the original meaning of 'froob' was 'free noob' and mildly derogatory (and yet adopted by the paying community within hours of the free program beginning), the rejection of any similar terms applying to them is not without a certain amount of elitism and hubris.

To the OP: bringing free/paying players together is -exactly- how orgs 'work around' the gap. Organizing events/meetings in the city but outside the HQ isnt denying the gap exists, its trying not to make it any wider. If the purpose of the event/meeting is relevant to all org members in attendance free or paying, why exclude free players by holding it somewhere they can't access?

Same holds in general: why specifically exclude a section of players in your org unless theres a specific reason for doing so? There's already enough content in the game that scatters the player base to all corners of RK/SL (whether the reason for the separation is level or free/paying status); I don't think we should begrudge an org for wanting to bring all of its members together once in a while. Not to say they should do so to the exclusion of org-based paid content (Inf mishes, ship raids, etc), but considering the huge percentage of time sloobs spend doing paid-only content as they progress in level (most of which, if the org is a good one with decent population online, should be done in all- or mostly-org teams), that shouldn't be a problem.

amithist

I started playing AO in April 2002. I was their for the first bday and i am here for their 7th. There have been many many changes throughout this time that compared to the game I first started playing its like playing a brand new game. And there is no complaint in that. I have enjoyed watching AO grow and change.  When i first started playing there were the little "groups" as well only we were divided by the difference in dial up and cable/DSL. And Americans and the rest of the world.

The insults slung in OOC going in both directions was very intense at times. There was even an Org. that got banned because they were pimping the teen players for cybering. There were cliques in highschool. there are cliques in college and at work. No matter what is done to "even" out the playing field its just not going to happen. You can work your backside off to get as close as you can without anyone being cut off but life doesnt supply an even playing field and nether will a game.  It doesnt matter whether  your a froob or a sloob or an old lady like me. The point of games is to have fun and hopefully make friends and widen your experiences in life. 

I am sorry that you are sad about not using the city buildings. But at least there is a place to go now. We use to have to party everyone up and go into someones house or there was this one abandoned building in Tir that you could get into and there was nothing in there. Or we would just meet in a backyard somewhere and try to hold meetings above the other ppl playing.

Guess I will shut up now, I tend to be a bit long winded. The point i wanted to make is that there will never be an even playing field and there will always be cliques no matter where you are or what you do in your life.

burmese

The fr00b content only seems boring because you see some of what paying customers can do but the game was for some years just what fr00bs get now, and 10's of 1,000's played it then and payed to do missions and kill mobs in the wild.  Still more variety and complexity available for fr00bs than any other free MMO.