I've always told this game is worth having a go. What I mean to say is a big frustration is waiting for you if you have high expectations. Anarchyart, I really like reading your posts and your mature approachs, I approve of the attitude you display towards most of games. However you ignored many issues posted in this thread. These issues are well known even by Funcom. I can believe you about lag, it was never a nightmare for me, but this game is laggy, just not prevent me from playing it. But don't tell me you never found a bug. I experienced some of them which have existed for a long time today while I was helping my friend. There are a great of many issues about this game needed to be sorted out and this game also needs a revolution in my opinion. I can't blame any people who posted reasonable messages in this thread. The issues discussed in here are mostly about today MMORPG's elements.
And whoever play this game will experience them sooner or later. You can either ignore them as I did when I was playing on free account or deal with them. Your choice, I respect
I'm not sure why there is so much hating on this game here. I played it for about two months a year or two ago. I thought is was pretty fun. Got good framerates in most places with an utterly craptakular PC (how on gods green earth are folks getting 5 FPS with this aywhere but a raid?). Never found any game wreaking bugs, personally. I also liked the instances quite a bit, still one of the better instance systems I've seen in a game (the ones you spwan from the missiom terminals). The only class I ever played was an Adventurer, but all of his abilities worked like they were supposed to. Every other profession could be completely broken (for all I know), but I doubt it.
I wasn't too impressed by all the guys in nighties offereing to "cyber" with me. I also thought it was pretty hinky that after a ceratin level all anyone ever seemed to do was hunt Hecklers. But overall i thought it was a good game. Nowhere near as bad as some of these posters are painting it. R makes it sound like if you install it someone will come to your house and smash you in the 'nads with a ballpeen hammer. It's not that bad The best free game going by far.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
Originally posted by IvanRashnu I've always told this game is worth having a go. What I mean to say is a big frustration is waiting for you if you have high expectations. Anarchyart, I really like reading your posts and your mature approachs, I approve of the attitude you display towards most of games. However you ignored many issues posted in this thread. These issues are well known even by Funcom. I can believe you about lag, it was never a nightmare for me, but this game is laggy, just not prevent me from playing it. But don't tell me you never found a bug. I experienced some of them which have existed for a long time today while I was helping my friend. There are a great of many issues about this game needed to be sorted out and this game also needs a revolution in my opinion. I can't blame any people who posted reasonable messages in this thread. The issues discussed in here are mostly about today MMORPG's elements. And whoever play this game will experience them sooner or later. You can either ignore them as I did when I was playing on free account or deal with them. Your choice, I respect Loves
I said I never found a bug, I didn't however say I only played for 2 months I really enjoyed the game though, was an amazing diversion from UO at the time.
In regards to graphics issues this is a copy paste from another one of my posts which should help.
This is a good game but one problem facing it is the old graphics engine it's still using. You see the bulk of the work is done on your CPU, not your graphics card so a top of the line graphics card doesn't do too much in AO right now (we're hoping for a new engine, maybe it'll be part of the graphics improvements of Lost Eden). So you'll need to tinker with the graphics settings available to you in the settings options of the log-in window. If you're a froob you should turn off player voices since you need one of the expansions for that. Then two in game settings that really help are the two distance ones. Press F10 in game, then select preferences > graphics > distance (or something like that) and move the two sliders there to the left as much as needed. Those control how far another player needs to be for you to see them (you'd still see their names floating there, just not them) and the radius of the more detailed ground textures. After some tweaking there you should be in good shape.
Then of course close as many apps as possible when running the game and you could try restarting the system before playing as well.
Aside from that you can get more RAM and make sure the RAM you have is working properly. Even if it shows the right amount and everything usually seems fine some small faults in your RAM can cause crashes and the like. Some utility programs have an option to check your RAM then if you search online for something related to "RAM memory check" or something like that you should be able to find some sites with those available. There are at least a couple decent free ones you could try, just don't have their addresses at hand. It's best to get your RAM from better suppliers like Crucial and all of the same exact type.
A fast hard drive, lots available space on your drives and a maintained/clean install of Windows helps too. Bigger drives are good for the space, but they are slower than the smaller ones so it's good to have two physical drives, one small high speed one to put your OS and programs on and another for all your various files. Also Windows can act funny if your drives are too full so make sure additional drives/partitions have at least 10% free and that your main one has as much free as possible for virtual RAM and temp files. There are various apps like the Norton Utility ones and SpeedUpMyPC which will help clean out the junk and fix up the registry or tweak things to avoid at least some errors you can run into.
SOE blows Funcom away, they are a professional, legitimate, capitalistic organization that realizes pleasing customers is in their best interest and are not given to going off on idealistic crusades against their customers. P.S. TAG has alwayse sucked sense it lost it's old prez. You might of changed your name back to MoK but you still don't earn up to the name.
This must be the first time i have ever read a positive coment regarding SEO
Personaly iam a new AO player, a bit over a month atm, but so far iam liking the game. I did have reservation even for trying the free game becouse i remember the launch of the game and from waht i heard was not something prety. Maby iam liking the game becouse i had low expectations but so far it beats SWG, the only other MMORPG i have played.
I just couldnt let go of that coment about the greatnes of SEO, man after 2 years of playing SWG i just find it as the most ignorant statment ever made. If you think the ARKs are bad, and they may be so if they are abusing their powers, you should see the ones that get payd to provide suport for SWG. Most of them have no clue of the game mechanics or are provided whit any information from the devs of waht is broken in game so they either do not act or symply each CSR makes up a rule on the spot.
For instance early in the SWG days one of the patches broke player bases, mind you that was after several months of fixes and then more fixes on top of the older fixes that broke somethng other. So we were attacking a plaer base and had it almost killed when a player using the broken game mechanic was able to stop us and we couldnt do much but look as he did that. So we contacted a CSR who watched that player use the exploit 3 more times before finaly he decided that this was exploit of the broken game mechanics. Its bad that the CSR needed all those times to confirm the exploit but its worst that later that week the oposing faction had the same problem and the CSR that went to "help" them stated that it was not an exploit and he couldnt do anything. Now the problem was not something subtle or hard to detect and yet the CSR becouse of the lack of konwledege and lack of information from the devs were not up to the task.
And if i start on the way patches/expansions are released buy SEO for SWG i could write 1k pages of how SEO has been dumping crap on its paying costumers :P
Maby iam just still looking at AO trough n00bster eyes but i was impresd when just minutes after starting my acount an ARK aperad infront of me and greated me. Iam sure that there are bugs and inbalances but after SWG it feels like the perfect game, maby i just have low expectations
PS and no lag isues on my end with all sethings maxed i only get a stuter when a larg number of chars are loading, i suspect thats more to individual PC setings than enything else. But at least if a large group of people causes a crash it dont bring down the whole server down for hours hehe
Originally posted by carnikar Originally posted by Ravenmgs
SOE blows Funcom away, they are a professional, legitimate, capitalistic organization that realizes pleasing customers is in their best interest and are not given to going off on idealistic crusades against their customers. P.S. TAG has alwayse sucked sense it lost it's old prez. You might of changed your name back to MoK but you still don't earn up to the name. This must be the first time i have ever read a positive coment regarding SEO Personaly iam a new AO player, a bit over a month atm, but so far iam liking the game. I did have reservation even for trying the free game becouse i remember the launch of the game and from waht i heard was not something prety. Maby iam liking the game becouse i had low expectations but so far it beats SWG, the only other MMORPG i have played. I just couldnt let go of that coment about the greatnes of SEO, man after 2 years of playing SWG i just find it as the most ignorant statment ever made. If you think the ARKs are bad, and they may be so if they are abusing their powers, you should see the ones that get payd to provide suport for SWG. Most of them have no clue of the game mechanics or are provided whit any information from the devs of waht is broken in game so they either do not act or symply each CSR makes up a rule on the spot. For instance early in the SWG days one of the patches broke player bases, mind you that was after several months of fixes and then more fixes on top of the older fixes that broke somethng other. So we were attacking a plaer base and had it almost killed when a player using the broken game mechanic was able to stop us and we couldnt do much but look as he did that. So we contacted a CSR who watched that player use the exploit 3 more times before finaly he decided that this was exploit of the broken game mechanics. Its bad that the CSR needed all those times to confirm the exploit but its worst that later that week the oposing faction had the same problem and the CSR that went to "help" them stated that it was not an exploit and he couldnt do anything. Now the problem was not something subtle or hard to detect and yet the CSR becouse of the lack of konwledege and lack of information from the devs were not up to the task. And if i start on the way patches/expansions are released buy SEO for SWG i could write 1k pages of how SEO has been dumping crap on its paying costumers :P Maby iam just still looking at AO trough n00bster eyes but i was impresd when just minutes after starting my acount an ARK aperad infront of me and greated me. Iam sure that there are bugs and inbalances but after SWG it feels like the perfect game, maby i just have low expectations
PS and no lag isues on my end with all sethings maxed i only get a stuter when a larg number of chars are loading, i suspect thats more to individual PC setings than enything else. But at least if a large group of people causes a crash it dont bring down the whole server down for hours hehe
Trying to compare your, how long, week or two, Of AO experience to 3+ years of hard core playing is really silly at best. I do recall reading some pretty nutty stuff about some of the things SOE did with SWG. However, EQ2, after playing a top level toon, in no way reflects the experience may people had with SWG. I believe this is because of market competition, before with SWG and EQ1, they really didn't have any competition in the western MMO arena. Now you have guild wars and wow, so now they have to turn it up a notch, they have, and it shows. AO is still run by lunatics, junkies and people of questionable mental capacity.
I play on RK2 myself and while i'm not that hardcore i played for a long time sure there are bad stuff in game, rubberbanding yepp, adonis sucks for that, or sl if you play a crat and use the sl roots, some lag sure, can't say i find game/zone crashing to be a big problem, believe i had it happen more often in everquest, that after 6 years still have some major problems.
As for ARK's they might missuse there powers or whatever but as far as i can tell it has never hurt me, the few times i needed assistance they have replied rather fast compared to other games(eq1 for instance), been very helpfull and polite as well, as for speaking badly about customers, well name a tech who doesen't at some point or another?
And i would not call it silly to compare 2 months experience Vs 3+ years, sure you are bound to have different experince but one can only look at where you are in the game and give your opinion if he likes the game after 2 months good for him, will he do so after 3 years? well time will tell for sure.
Never played swg, or wow myself, but i have eq2 and while it might look great and all i still find ao and eq1 more fun, give em credits for making freeport and qeynos feel so alive though. Wow i hear you can get to highest level rather quickly and then there is not much to do at all, personally i think people rush game play way to much and therefore growing bored fast, before the server merges in everquest it was semi impossible to find a group at low levels, the few lowbies around where getting powerleveld right past the mot fun parts of the game IMHO.
For anyone interested in trying ao, go ahead it won't cost anything and make up our own mind, worst that can happen is that you enjoy the game if you don't then remove it and all you lost is a bit of time.
Originally posted by kreken Raven, what server you played on? rk1? If yes, than it would explaing a lot of things.
Yep, Rk1.
As you know, two servers are very different in culture. On Rk2, we use(d) level restricted bots you had to join to fight Tara and mercs. So all omnis, regardless of org, who wanted tara and merc loot, had to join the bots. For each successful raid, you got points which later you used to bid on items you want. The bot for tara had a level restriction of 125 and for mercs, it was 130 or 140, don't recall right now.
Granted that at level 125, you had no chances against 220s in the box room but you still could accumulate points to bid for loot. You need a lot of points to get d-chest for example. Plus, when they had GS's for tara, every body counted either for opening a new GS or to fill up GS. (I heard, tara's timer got changed from 18 hours to 6 (?) and they removed GS's from there, but it was after I cancelled.)
Anyway, these bots, while had their weaknesses, gave a fair chances to all people on either side (clan used bots too) to get some phat loot without leaving their small org and joining uber ones. From what I read on the forums for rk1, this system wasn't very successful there and it was more of the one or more big corps working together to kill tara or mercs.
Originally posted by kreken Originally posted by RavenmgsOriginally posted by krekenRaven, what server you played on? rk1? If yes, than it would explaing a lot of things.Yep, Rk1. As you know, two servers are very different in culture. On Rk2, we use(d) level restricted bots you had to join to fight Tara and mercs. So all omnis, regardless of org, who wanted tara and merc loot, had to join the bots. For each successful raid, you got points which later you used to bid on items you want. The bot for tara had a level restriction of 125 and for mercs, it was 130 or 140, don't recall right now. Granted that at level 125, you had no chances against 220s in the box room but you still could accumulate points to bid for loot. You need a lot of points to get d-chest for example. Plus, when they had GS's for tara, every body counted either for opening a new GS or to fill up GS. (I heard, tara's timer got changed from 18 hours to 6 (?) and they removed GS's from there, but it was after I cancelled.) Anyway, these bots, while had their weaknesses, gave a fair chances to all people on either side (clan used bots too) to get some phat loot without leaving their small org and joining uber ones. From what I read on the forums for rk1, this system wasn't very successful there and it was more of the one or more big corps working together to kill tara or mercs.
This actually seems to be a simmilar situation to RK1 now, except much much higher level requirements. Allowing 125's and 140's on tara or merc raids is pointless. It was really not one or more big guilds working togeather, it was normally one of the small elite guilds who no one could really OD or kill in the box who would controle the spawns. I've actually thought about getting on RK2 and trying to disrupt the bot system from time to time just because it's so contradictory to competition.
Well i just had to register and mention a few things. i think alot of people here are totally obcessed with bashing AO. im not a fanboy either because i play quite alot of different MMO's but the fact that i see this sort of mis-information is extrememly annoying.
Originally posted by Ravenmgs How do you define good as in something that totally sucks? Perhaps you mean the game its self is not evil and is good. I can agree the game has no satanic or darkness about it, but the game play has to be one of the worst games in gaming history. At the higher levels you do nothing but smash hecklers for hours on end to level up. Many professions have primary skills that just dont work. Imagine if in EQ2 or WOW the mages just woke up one morning and the nukes were turned off because they were so buggy the zone crashed. This is something you will deal with on a regular if not perpetual basis on AO.
For one AO Is a good game no matter how you look at it. the gameplay is quite unique and unlike a big percentage of current MMO players you have to use your head to make your character descent. with the Skill system, implants and such theres no other game where you feel quite as rewarded like this. and about the hecklers that is your own fault if you wanted to fight hecklers all day, its not the only option. i dont know how long youve been out of the game but shadowlands has missions which is the current fastest way to level. but like the hecklers it isnt the only thing, go explore and kill mortiigs or hiathins or whatever.. you KNOW hecklers arent all there is. And yes certain classes had/have issues just like WoW or alot of other MMO's BUT AO i think reesponds a little better and i myself sort of like the way they change the characters around. to me it sounds like you played an NT and if so i could understand where this hatred comes from i suppose.. NT's where the biggest whiners in the game.. i had a lvl 213 NT and honestly i think he was alot of fun even when my calms didnt work for crap in sl or i died real easy and i would get agg like mad if i used any nukes which usually meant certain death but you just gotta know how to manage it all. it still was very fun because thats not all i did with my NT.
Originally posted by Ravenmgs
The 3D models and textures them selves, are quite well done, the graphics ENGINE is coded by monkeys. As I stated earlier, I can run EQ2 on full settings better then AO. Someone made a comment about them being able to run it fine on 56k and on a 1.6 ghz PC. I think this is hilarious, either you played on RK3 where there are no people, or you are simply lying your ass off. Go to anyone whos been to a large tower raid, panda raid or any other high person count raids and you will have people on DSL dropping from timing out. Also, even IF you dont drop do to time out, AO will oftentimes have server crashes, this is really great when you just spent 3 hours getting to a boss mob and the server drops you and you loose all the loot. Ok, so, heres your sign. AO will run like crap on any system, while EQ2 will perform nicely on higher end systems, AO hits a wall around 1ghz and just doesn't get any better do to the fact their graphics engine is morph mystery meat.
Again, im not a fanboy so im not inclined to lie at all here. im running a 900mhz athlon with 512mbs ram and a BFG 6600GT OC, the ONLY time ive lagged was when there were alot of people but it was only while i was loading the players in the area, after that it was smooth. although lately at the AI raids there have been 100+ people there at least when i was there and i didnt lag at all. yes i have rubberbanded but maybe less than a dozen times since the games release from which i started. rubberbanding is also easy to solve just sit and stand and its gone. the ONLY time where i seen a zone crash was when i was in ely leveling my baby doc and the whole game crashed. but this was NOT related to Funcom but rather SAVVIS Inc which is the company that manages AO's bandwidth and connections with users n such. thier main backbone went down. And btw i played on RK1.
Originally posted by Ravenmgs The storyline DOESNT EXIST, it existed (note the past tense on that word). The whole shadowlands thing starts out with some interesting ideas, quest, and an intriguing storyline. When you get into the game, the storyline litteraly disappears as you play it, the higher level zones feel like an unfinished afterthought. The great story line you talk about was never explained (why was the shadow lands falling apart? Who is the guardian at the source? Where is Camelot? What is Excaliburs End? Where the hell is Phillip Ross? Its a really sad game situation where everything feels like an early beta where the programmers are trying to make the story up as they go along and just kind of forget
Phillip Ross made an appearance not too long ago IN THE GAME, in Rome afaik, the zone was loaded with players and he gave a speech of some sorts, he was later shot and last i heard he was still in a coma and there was a new CEO on the way which from what it seems is leading into the storyline of the new expansion which is obviously working on PVP more and the hate between clan/omni sort of like the NW expansion but to a much much larger scale, lately the storyline and pvp has been very alive and fun. i dont remember much of SL's storyline but from what i do remember is SL is being torn apart by the forces of the guardian.. not physically but metaphysic of course since sl is a metaphysic world (hence the more powerful mp pets). from what i gathered from quests the guardian was using sl's energy to break itself apart or something of the like. to learn the storyline i found that alot of it was gathered from talking to redeemed or unredeemed "higher ups". theres also books that explain the storyline for the people who are unable to find out for themselves.
Originally posted by Ravenmgs
Lag issues, as in they had to refund everyones money for the first three months into their launch because the game was SO unstable it had more down time then up time, literally.
Thats true though, AO was down quite alot in the beginning, but same could be said about WoW by some.. i dunno though it never really bothered me alot, i knew it would have issues because funcom rushed the game out.
Anyway there are rumors of people abusing ark privelages but they are easily cought if they do. its even been rumored uprising has ark members who abuse thier ark accounts and help that org get better loot or whatever. i highly doubt this and its all just rumors.
almost everything that goes on in this game is detectable, i dont know if you know about some of the exploits in the game but whenever they are used they are usually immediatley detected. to name a few there was an exploit where one could trade nodrop items. one where you could overlap implants over and over to the point where a lvl 1 MA could beat the lvl 200 BY guard. there was an exploit )or maybe it was a bug) that made the advs leader of the pack line very strong, to the point where they could solo eel without worrys.
And to the idiot GM thing, all of the GM's ive met are very knowledgable and helpful.. maybe u were there but most likely not when guardian was killed for the first time and Yak apeared and congratulated veryone and made a little event of the defeat. i personally think AO is still one of the best games out, its one of the only games thats really satisfying to play on every level.
And really the fact that anyone would judge a game as bad or good because of "poor graphics" is reatrded, it shows that you think like Graphics> gameplay and any gamer that would have ANY respectable opinion wouldnt factor that in.
I also forgot to mention, about the character balances it makes alot of sense why they make the drastic changes that they do and if you think about it, its really a good thing, ill explain.
This game has been out for a very long time, by now if each character has stayed the same even a casual player could have made every class and had max level by now. but whith the item additions and such its shifted balance quite abit.. the CORE of each character is there.. enforcers still are the tanks, docs are still the main healers and ect ect but damage outoput/soloability has changed alot which i personally welcome. it keeps the game moving and alive, it keeps the economy strong (even though ingots screwed it up a bit)
i mean i had a high lvl enforcer when they were the gods with the EQB's then they nerfed it and introduced GA and fixers were the gods.. now advys are the "best" (but imo i think docs are) and some consider keepers to be the best..
Also sorry for the bad grammar n such, im almost off work and wanted to get this done as fast as i could before i left.
anyway i dont even play the game anymore because i dont have the time at the moment because of work, but in all honesty most of these MMO's are all too different to compare and bash one another. in a snese its like saying one planet is better than another but each of those planets enhabitants would strongly disagree because ITS THIERS. each MMO caters to a specific type of player... imo and with each MMO a person might just play it cus its the closest to what he likes.. if not he will sacrifice.
either way i had extreme fun with this game, and i never really had any bad experiences with it. maybe the worst was the ocasional trainer in ely or inf or something but thats about it...
Comments
I've always told this game is worth having a go. What I mean to say is a big frustration is waiting for you if you have high expectations. Anarchyart, I really like reading your posts and your mature approachs, I approve of the attitude you display towards most of games. However you ignored many issues posted in this thread. These issues are well known even by Funcom. I can believe you about lag, it was never a nightmare for me, but this game is laggy, just not prevent me from playing it. But don't tell me you never found a bug. I experienced some of them which have existed for a long time today while I was helping my friend. There are a great of many issues about this game needed to be sorted out and this game also needs a revolution in my opinion. I can't blame any people who posted reasonable messages in this thread. The issues discussed in here are mostly about today MMORPG's elements.
And whoever play this game will experience them sooner or later. You can either ignore them as I did when I was playing on free account or deal with them. Your choice, I respect
Loves
...
I'm not sure why there is so much hating on this game here. I played it for about two months a year or two ago. I thought is was pretty fun. Got good framerates in most places with an utterly craptakular PC (how on gods green earth are folks getting 5 FPS with this aywhere but a raid?). Never found any game wreaking bugs, personally. I also liked the instances quite a bit, still one of the better instance systems I've seen in a game (the ones you spwan from the missiom terminals). The only class I ever played was an Adventurer, but all of his abilities worked like they were supposed to. Every other profession could be completely broken (for all I know), but I doubt it.
I wasn't too impressed by all the guys in nighties offereing to "cyber" with me. I also thought it was pretty hinky that after a ceratin level all anyone ever seemed to do was hunt Hecklers. But overall i thought it was a good game. Nowhere near as bad as some of these posters are painting it. R makes it sound like if you install it someone will come to your house and smash you in the 'nads with a ballpeen hammer. It's not that bad
The best free game going by far.
I don't want to write this, and you don't want to read it. But now it's too late for both of us.
In regards to graphics issues this is a copy paste from another one of my posts which should help.
This is a good game but one problem facing it is the old graphics engine it's still using. You see the bulk of the work is done on your CPU, not your graphics card so a top of the line graphics card doesn't do too much in AO right now (we're hoping for a new engine, maybe it'll be part of the graphics improvements of Lost Eden). So you'll need to tinker with the graphics settings available to you in the settings options of the log-in window. If you're a froob you should turn off player voices since you need one of the expansions for that. Then two in game settings that really help are the two distance ones. Press F10 in game, then select preferences > graphics > distance (or something like that) and move the two sliders there to the left as much as needed. Those control how far another player needs to be for you to see them (you'd still see their names floating there, just not them) and the radius of the more detailed ground textures. After some tweaking there you should be in good shape.
Then of course close as many apps as possible when running the game and you could try restarting the system before playing as well.
Aside from that you can get more RAM and make sure the RAM you have is working properly. Even if it shows the right amount and everything usually seems fine some small faults in your RAM can cause crashes and the like. Some utility programs have an option to check your RAM then if you search online for something related to "RAM memory check" or something like that you should be able to find some sites with those available. There are at least a couple decent free ones you could try, just don't have their addresses at hand. It's best to get your RAM from better suppliers like Crucial and all of the same exact type.
A fast hard drive, lots available space on your drives and a maintained/clean install of Windows helps too. Bigger drives are good for the space, but they are slower than the smaller ones so it's good to have two physical drives, one small high speed one to put your OS and programs on and another for all your various files. Also Windows can act funny if your drives are too full so make sure additional drives/partitions have at least 10% free and that your main one has as much free as possible for virtual RAM and temp files. There are various apps like the Norton Utility ones and SpeedUpMyPC which will help clean out the junk and fix up the registry or tweak things to avoid at least some errors you can run into.
This must be the first time i have ever read a positive coment regarding SEO
Personaly iam a new AO player, a bit over a month atm, but so far iam liking the game. I did have reservation even for trying the free game becouse i remember the launch of the game and from waht i heard was not something prety. Maby iam liking the game becouse i had low expectations but so far it beats SWG, the only other MMORPG i have played.
I just couldnt let go of that coment about the greatnes of SEO, man after 2 years of playing SWG i just find it as the most ignorant statment ever made. If you think the ARKs are bad, and they may be so if they are abusing their powers, you should see the ones that get payd to provide suport for SWG. Most of them have no clue of the game mechanics or are provided whit any information from the devs of waht is broken in game so they either do not act or symply each CSR makes up a rule on the spot.
For instance early in the SWG days one of the patches broke player bases, mind you that was after several months of fixes and then more fixes on top of the older fixes that broke somethng other. So we were attacking a plaer base and had it almost killed when a player using the broken game mechanic was able to stop us and we couldnt do much but look as he did that. So we contacted a CSR who watched that player use the exploit 3 more times before finaly he decided that this was exploit of the broken game mechanics. Its bad that the CSR needed all those times to confirm the exploit but its worst that later that week the oposing faction had the same problem and the CSR that went to "help" them stated that it was not an exploit and he couldnt do anything. Now the problem was not something subtle or hard to detect and yet the CSR becouse of the lack of konwledege and lack of information from the devs were not up to the task.
And if i start on the way patches/expansions are released buy SEO for SWG i could write 1k pages of how SEO has been dumping crap on its paying costumers :P
Maby iam just still looking at AO trough n00bster eyes but i was impresd when just minutes after starting my acount an ARK aperad infront of me and greated me. Iam sure that there are bugs and inbalances but after SWG it feels like the perfect game, maby i just have low expectations
PS and no lag isues on my end with all sethings maxed i only get a stuter when a larg number of chars are loading, i suspect thats more to individual PC setings than enything else. But at least if a large group of people causes a crash it dont bring down the whole server down for hours hehe
Trying to compare your, how long, week or two, Of AO experience to 3+ years of hard core playing is really silly at best. I do recall reading some pretty nutty stuff about some of the things SOE did with SWG. However, EQ2, after playing a top level toon, in no way reflects the experience may people had with SWG. I believe this is because of market competition, before with SWG and EQ1, they really didn't have any competition in the western MMO arena. Now you have guild wars and wow, so now they have to turn it up a notch, they have, and it shows. AO is still run by lunatics, junkies and people of questionable mental capacity.
Yep, Rk1.
I play on RK2 myself and while i'm not that hardcore i played for a long time
sure there are bad stuff in game, rubberbanding yepp, adonis sucks for that, or sl
if you play a crat and use the sl roots, some lag sure, can't say i find game/zone crashing
to be a big problem, believe i had it happen more often in everquest, that after 6 years
still have some major problems.
As for ARK's they might missuse there powers or whatever but as far as i can tell
it has never hurt me, the few times i needed assistance they have replied rather fast
compared to other games(eq1 for instance), been very helpfull and polite as well,
as for speaking badly about customers, well name a tech who doesen't at some point or
another?
And i would not call it silly to compare 2 months experience Vs 3+ years, sure you are bound to
have different experince but one can only look at where you are in the game and give your opinion
if he likes the game after 2 months good for him, will he do so after 3 years? well time will
tell for sure.
Never played swg, or wow myself, but i have eq2 and while it might look great and all i still find
ao and eq1 more fun, give em credits for making freeport and qeynos feel so alive though.
Wow i hear you can get to highest level rather quickly and then there is not much to do at all,
personally i think people rush game play way to much and therefore growing bored fast, before
the server merges in everquest it was semi impossible to find a group at low levels, the few lowbies
around where getting powerleveld right past the mot fun parts of the game IMHO.
For anyone interested in trying ao, go ahead it won't cost anything and make up our own mind,
if you don't then remove it and all you lost
worst that can happen is that you enjoy the game
is a bit of time.
Rambling of time to work
Yep, Rk1.
As you know, two servers are very different in culture. On Rk2, we use(d) level restricted bots you had to join to fight Tara and mercs. So all omnis, regardless of org, who wanted tara and merc loot, had to join the bots. For each successful raid, you got points which later you used to bid on items you want. The bot for tara had a level restriction of 125 and for mercs, it was 130 or 140, don't recall right now.
Granted that at level 125, you had no chances against 220s in the box room but you still could accumulate points to bid for loot. You need a lot of points to get d-chest for example. Plus, when they had GS's for tara, every body counted either for opening a new GS or to fill up GS. (I heard, tara's timer got changed from 18 hours to 6 (?) and they removed GS's from there, but it was after I cancelled.)
Anyway, these bots, while had their weaknesses, gave a fair chances to all people on either side (clan used bots too) to get some phat loot without leaving their small org and joining uber ones. From what I read on the forums for rk1, this system wasn't very successful there and it was more of the one or more big corps working together to kill tara or mercs.
This actually seems to be a simmilar situation to RK1 now, except much much higher level requirements. Allowing 125's and 140's on tara or merc raids is pointless. It was really not one or more big guilds working togeather, it was normally one of the small elite guilds who no one could really OD or kill in the box who would controle the spawns. I've actually thought about getting on RK2 and trying to disrupt the bot system from time to time just because it's so contradictory to competition.
Well i just had to register and mention a few things. i think alot of people here are totally obcessed with bashing AO. im not a fanboy either because i play quite alot of different MMO's but the fact that i see this sort of mis-information is extrememly annoying.
I also forgot to mention, about the character balances it makes alot of sense why they make the drastic changes that they do and if you think about it, its really a good thing, ill explain.
This game has been out for a very long time, by now if each character has stayed the same even a casual player could have made every class and had max level by now. but whith the item additions and such its shifted balance quite abit.. the CORE of each character is there.. enforcers still are the tanks, docs are still the main healers and ect ect but damage outoput/soloability has changed alot which i personally welcome. it keeps the game moving and alive, it keeps the economy strong (even though ingots screwed it up a bit)
i mean i had a high lvl enforcer when they were the gods with the EQB's then they nerfed it and introduced GA and fixers were the gods.. now advys are the "best" (but imo i think docs are) and some consider keepers to be the best..
Also sorry for the bad grammar n such, im almost off work and wanted to get this done as fast as i could before i left.
anyway i dont even play the game anymore because i dont have the time at the moment because of work, but in all honesty most of these MMO's are all too different to compare and bash one another. in a snese its like saying one planet is better than another but each of those planets enhabitants would strongly disagree because ITS THIERS. each MMO caters to a specific type of player... imo and with each MMO a person might just play it cus its the closest to what he likes.. if not he will sacrifice.
either way i had extreme fun with this game, and i never really had any bad experiences with it. maybe the worst was the ocasional trainer in ely or inf or something but thats about it...