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AO dead or Dying?
ChaosU
Member Posts: 6
I just want to know if Anarchy is Dead, Dying or very active?
I just have been looking about about AO and some sites has been pulled down and others has not been updated since last year IE 2003 abotu a year ago...
Comments
I would say stable. I took a few weeks off to check out the new games (WoW and EQ 2), and returned this weekend and things pretty much were the same as when I left. Even though I am still having a lot of fun in the game, I don't think they have much chance of expanding with all the new stuff out there but seem to be holding their own quite well.
Also since Funcom runs some of the best forums for any MMORPG, 3rd part sites have always been a bit less popular than with other games. Also remember this is a small game, we are talking about a player base of around 50k, so less people to decide to make 3rd party sites.
I really liked AO....
I wish they had pushed out an AO2 around the same time as SWG. They really need to think about doing a sequel. Just upgrading the current game and releasing more expansions will not save this game from eventually being outdated and not viable anymore.
R.I.P "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott.
m/ You were the best of the best. m/
Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture.
Actually Funcom is working on a new MMORPG or two, but we have had no details as of yet.
http://www.funcom.com/funcom/news/press_release.2004-11-04.8951687744
"Funcom is now developing three MMOGs, one of them being the successful Anarchy Online which is the subject of ongoing development."
They are revamping a lot of things in the next year, hopefully it will rejeuvenate AO enough to stand with the new crowd. So far sequels in MMORPG's have not been better than the originals.
AC 2: enuff said
EQ 2: Time will tell, but it did not overwelm me and notice that SOE is NOT announcing any numbers which usually means they are bad.
to me the game is dead, i have no need to play this game again. though if i ever wanted to reactivate my account i could get into the swing of things wuick
To be honest a game is only really dead when the servers are taken offline for the last time - other than that its simply a matter of people opinion if a game is 'dead' or not.
If you supply your definition of a game being 'dead' then someone could tell you if AO currently fits the description.
I left AO before Shadowlands, gave Shadowlands a quick try but decided that the game had only got worse (in as much as there was more of the things I didnt like about AO) so I cant see me ever going back - for me that makes AO dead
I like Anarchy Online. I'd want it to be like it was when it started - a more bladerunner looking game. I would absolutely love to play a game with a bladerunner theme.
Mentat
Died for me when i found out i had worked mine and my org's butts off making cash and we could not even start to afford to even look at having a org house...
*lucky for me i never bought the alien expansion..phew!*
That would be sweet
- Fadeus Hawkwood
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
I dont normally post in 3rd party forums, but couldnt resist this. I have a top level (220) anarchy online toon, along with other mid to high levels, and I must say the game its self is not that bad. Ive played allot of MMOs but AO really only has a few weakness. First weakness is that its kind of a under dog in the industry, it only has 1.5% market share or less, second it is really vicious to its subscribers and last but not least the game play totally falls apart at the high levels.
Funcom has never had allot of the big name power backing it like square soft, ncsoft, or Sony. This means they have to make people WANT to play their game, not just push addictive game play and hope it sticks. They really have nothing to set them apart from games like Ever quest, Ever quest 2, WoW, Lineage 2 ect It does have elements from all of those games though, which is a very good asset but not good enough to make for any real star power. It has the Ever quest style character development, where you can constantly keep upgrading your toons appearance and mess around with a intricate skill charts. It has the siege and guild hall feel of Lineage 2, and so on and so fourth. Good game.
When I say vicious to its subscribers, I mean they are horrible. There are naughty word police every where, I dont know about you but when Im in a PVP battle I want to be able to blast off some obstinacies with out some GM going though my logs or some volunteer GM giving me warnings, yes, actual players can become volunteer GMs and get pretty much all the power of a normal GM, making for some REALLY bad tech support. Imagine having some n00b who you PKed and punked out that has GM powers, and he's banning you for jumping up and down on some one in a tavern. They also have volunteer forum moderators. These people are not carefully picked, basically any n00b level 50+ can sign up for this, meaning it requires almost no knowledge of the game, just a warm body.
Past the insanity that is their volunteer GM program, the devs general are ass holes. They have this test community which pretty much hates their live community, basically all they do is talk about how the live community is so horrible for pking every one and we should just be one happy fuzzy warm family. So, the devs hate their live players who are paying their salary. When you play a game that is made by an obscure company like Funcom, you generally expect the devs and company to be very sensitive to what you have to say and respond to your criticism and feed back, such as City of Heroes, World War 2 Online, and so on and so fourth. However, they are the antithesis of this, which means problems go on for ever, there are actually bugs that have been in the game sense the beta and they have no intention of fixing them. This creates horrible, horrible problems when they release expansions packs that are so buggy and imbalanced their not even playable. So, you have real disconnect with the live community and the developers.
Last but not least, their high level game play stinks. I understand this gets to be the problem in quite a few MMORPGs, where you end up spawn camping to level to the max level. However, this is pretty much the worst possible scenario of this that I could think of, they actually put in 20 new levels. Originally there were level 1 to 200, and they added 20 shadow levels, meaning these levels have to be gained by killing mobs in their new play field called the shadow lands. However, you end up going from 200 to 220 by killing the same mobs in the same spots, 12 hours a day for three to four months. This is inexcusable, and the reason this is like this, is because all the testers play with boosted characters. Meaning a GM warps in, makes them level 220 and gives them the phatest loot in the game, warps out, and says ok test. This means that NOTHING between 200 and 220 was tested, what kind of a MORON though this up? So, yeah, the high level game play is so totally broken its pitiful.
Anarchy Online might survive, they only have around 1.5% of the market, meaning about 30,000 players. To put that in perspective, another under dog, City of Heros, has around 163,000 and has been around about ¼ as long as AO, ao peaked at 60,000 subscribers. Can it survive? Its hard to say, surviving doesnt take a whole lot in the mmorpg realm it seems, and anarchy online doesnt have much, so it could keep going as long as there are enough idiots to play it.
Summary: Good game, Managed Horribly. Quit after 3 years.
Sense I quit, I am kind of looking for something new that isnt Everquest 2 or WoW, any tips or recommendation?
AO always hits a slow spot when a new MMORPG is released, happened with SWG and now with EQ2 and WoW. But eventually alot of the people is coming back, maybe because the lvl-grind in other games is worse than AO, or maybe just that AO do have the best support system in existance, in other words if it had not been for ARK we would have stayed in those other games...
My hope is that AO will get revamped so that it may look similarly stunning to the other games released now, and possibly also getting lag down... but basically AO got ALOT of ppl on each server...
To compare the amount of ppl on an AO server to another game, lets take WoW, in final stress test there was approx 600k registered players put over 80+ servers, meaning approx 7.5k ppl per server... Now some said AO had 150k players, AO got 3 servers, 2 FunCom servers and a Gamigo German server, giving approx 50k ppl each server actually alot more on Atlantean (also known as Dim1 for those old players out there), so perhaps as many as 75k on one server...
When other games get to that amount on a server then come complain about lag... but WoW would have crashed and burned with that many players on a server... it did crash and burned when the final stresstest was running...
So basically it is probably still the best game in existance...
Actually only GM's are GM's ARK can't do the same as the GM's... so if you met one with Game Master or GM in his/her name it was an FC employee
Actually you are wrong; there are certain levels of "ARK". At the higher levels of ark a ark has ALL the power of a GM with out being a FC employee with very few restrictions on how to use their power. Most of the time are lowbie RPers who have no idea how the game really works. The worst is when they are n00bs from the test server and hate you automatically because you are a live player. This is really crazy and the ARK program should be disbanded.
About AO hitting "slow spots", the game is one BIG slow spot. It sucks, nothing can compare to the heckler grind that the "challenged" game developers laid fourth, nothing can compare how BADLY the screwed up their Alien Invasion expansion. If you truly think that people are coming back, to AO, go take a look at its market share. Its a shit game that is supported by a small hard core community that the Funcom company treats like a really stinky pile of dog shit. Normally I would argue my point more, but I think mmog chart makes my point better then I ever could, hard numbers and facts that show how badly AO is hurting.
MMO Market Watch Group
http://www.mmogchart.com/
AO has been on life support sense launch because it is a stank-ass pile of crap. It always has been and always will be. The only reason it manages to keep its head around the 30,000 player line is because a large portion of people stick with the game so they can hang out with their friends.
In lieu of the new free accounts offer, it's obvious that Anarchy Online is dying, and Funcom tried to use a thinly veiled tactic to draw in new players. It's the same thing that Shattered Galaxy tried to do with little success, because those that play the game on a consistent basis are those who can't pay for a MMORPG, which basically means those people who don't have credit cards and are teenagers, possibly very immature.
As for Anarchy Online, it's no small known fact that they're fast losing subscribers, and probably won't be able to hold on for much longer, even with the free accounts. Although they may be able to continue running, their player base will always be that of dedicated fans who are just too hardcore to give up the game. Prime examples are Shattered Galaxy and WW2 Online. These games just refuse to die but they're not getting any worthwhile new subscribers, just the same old people who love the game to death and refuse to move on.
As a side note, I find it interesting to note that EVE Online subscribers tend to stick to the game for a long time, refusing to budge even when new games come out.
They are looseing thoes too. I was in their testing program sense release or so, the "main" problem is that there are major guilds moveing to WOW now. The underlying problem is they treat their loyal players like shit and pander to low level newbs, makeing it really hard for the old hard core user base to enjoy the game with as many bugs as it has.
Interesting idea, however, Anarchy Online is a fantasy adventure where the planet you start on is the center of all galactic conflicts. It had a very dune rip-off story line, there is a resource, notum, and its on a desert planet with a bunch of hidden secrets, ruba-ka. Just change out spice with notum and ruba-ka with doom, so it really wouldnt be compatible.
If I was funcom I would try and concentrate on making the game its self more enjoyable, they need to address bugs first and foremost, after that they need to balance out the SK and AIXP systems. Right now its WAY to hard to level, Im not a pussy, Ive leveled a toon to shadow level 220 and Alien Level 30, which isnt a walk in the park.
It needs to have some just common-sense game elements ironed out, however they have the mind set of this is out game we will do what WE think is best, which has gotten them nothing but a hard way to go.
The Alien Invasion expansion pack is messy to say the least, especially if you are new to the game becaue you think once you have left the shuttleport you'll see more aliens. You won't, unless you are in organisation willing to farm CRU's to go on an alien raid.
Hopefully with an updated graphics engine coming very very soon and new alien playfeilds it will make it more fun for those less hardcore.
they are redoing the graphics engine? If they do that I would seriously considering coming back yet again.
I played it the day of launch. Have my explorer backpack to prove it. I have alot of anquish with the game from that, but I did come back after that. I just couldnt get into the interface and the graphics though. I do need some eyecandy.
Is there somewhere I can read about the upcoming upgrades?
- Fadeus Hawkwood
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
They are updating a lot of the textures in game and in order to make that possible there is a big rendering update. More textures, more memory so they have to update it to make it work.
http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/news/newsletters/issue23
The textures I never thought were that bad, it was the player models that were painful.
- Fadeus Hawkwood
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
omg
the worst fanboy ever or funcom emploiee
btw on gamigo server all player knew each other (lvl 100 plus)
maybe 200 players at all if so many
and that was the worst game and dev team ..what i have seen in whole history of mmorpgs
In its original concept AO was and prolly still is the greatest game out there.
But to make anything out of that concept you:
1: Need to stick with it, as in not doing to much drugs and release a fantasy expansion for a sci-fi game.
2: Keep at least some of the players in its original setting, as in not making new fantasy setting insanely more profitable then the old "fun" setting, people will do hecklers wether they hate it or not, or leave.
3: Not turning the cape once again to the sci-fi, as in not releasing an expansion that try to force people back to its original setting with new and obscure content, making people even more perplex on what to actually do with their time.
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rumpeldilskiminskitjolahopp
(this is for SEARCH purposes only, until we get a better way, or any way, to keep track of our posts)
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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