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I like the concept of Anarchy Online, the stoyline, the mood, the feel. However, the graphics in AO have got to be updated to at least a Starwars Galaxies level or I'm afraid a great game will slowly die.
Which brings my question...
Have any AO players here heard anything about a upcoming graphics upgrade that will give the game new life (giving AO graphics a unique, clean, respectable, and competitive chance against games such as WoW and SWG)
Comments
Yes a graphics engine update is coming. Possibly with the next expansion Lost Eden. Check the official forums and web site for more info.
Did they actually say "graphics engine" somewhere? I know there are new textures and that we're all hoping a new engine will also be in those updates but I didn't know they ever specifically said new engine anywhere. I also heard some rumours about using the new engine from another one of their games in AO, AO2 with new graphics and engine and various other rumours but nothing official. There are many different forums and sub forums there so how about narrowing down the list some?
I wouldn't hold my breath for a completely new graphics engine. They'll probably update the texture art and what not, which they've been doing gradually anyway.
I kinda wish they'd scale down the *huge* grass textures scattered throughout the Shadowlands.. it just looks so wrong.
But in any case.. .as for the game dying without a graphics upgrade. That is something you shouldn't worry about. The game has been around for 4 years and is actually seeing more players recently than I remember seeing some time ago. Granted, the whole FREE AO Classic thing is helping... but it's still better. More people is more people.
I said this in my review of AO here... You don't play AO for its graphics. If you care mostly about how a game looks, you're better off looking elsewhere. You play AO for its gameplay which is, in my opinion and my experience among the deepest, richest and most complex of any out there. A good RL friend of mine got about 3 or 4 characters up to 200 or so and played the game like crazy, with close to 4000 hours clocked into it... he will be the first to tell you that there are things in that game he'd never even *seen* in all those hours... much less experienced. Another in-game friend recently told me that even with a 220 level character.. they still feel like a newb. That's certainly a testament to the game's depth and longevity. I don't know a single person who plays that game who says they do for its graphics. It's all about the gameplay.
And really, when you get out and about in that game and start seeing the sights... it's not *that* ugly at all.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
It will probbaly be like the Luclin Xpac for EQ2
I would just like to get some points across from my AO experience, first for those playing the 1 year free thing, does constan mission grinding sound like good content? cuse there is no quest system of note, a few quests scatered here and there is nothing. And yes... missions are boring as hell after the 500th one, its all the same thing with some randomness of layouts thrown in.
Shadowlands.... and AO has the gawl to call itself a scifi game, yay lets do a fantasy expansion with swords, a paladin type class and an assasin type that uses daggers as the main weapons... oh the joy of scifi. Basicly Shadowlands suck, you will most likely end you grinding those horrible rock type creatures for hours on end.
PVP in AO? they did an expansion all about pvp... the notum wars... but almost no one plays it as such, no large battles... nothing.
Alien invasion... its the biggest joke of them all, anyone was there at launch? remmenber the constant grind for parts to fix your city after an alien attack? remmenber all those mobs that spawned all over the city numbering the hundreds producing massive lag, then they aliens attacked, ship comes down a few aliens come out, we kill them get a chance to go to the alien mothership and... it sucked inside. IT was prolly one of the worst expansion launches i have seen in a mmorpg, rushed and ridden with bugs.
Just my 2 cents about a game that should have died a long time ago, i still shudder when i think of the nightmare that was its launch those years ago... and i preordered it.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
Double post, sorry.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
Was just pointing out how the game is so messed up that there is not point to a gfx upgrade and too bad funcom cant get to grips with that.
Take a look at AC1 and their recent gfx upgrade, did it make the game a better game? nop, GFx upgrades are not the holy grail for sub par mmorpg´s to get back in to the race for subscribers, and the only reason people still hear the name AO these dayd its beacuse the core game is free, if it wa snot free... AO would have disapeared from everyones radar a very long time ago.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
While I have flamed AO into the ground here
I do feel this is not the right thread to do so. With that said, both kreken and Kemosabe have horrible misconceptions about the game. The funniest thing is Kreken suggesting that you can do a Tara Raid at 125, hm, ok, yeah, you can compete in damage at 125 with HOARDS of 220s? Never even mind not getting mowed down I the pvp box? Also, Mercs are 190+ not 140, even the min requirements on the equipment is level 175.
Kemosabe, when did you play? I quit playing about 6 months ago and SOOOO many people would come to the mass pvp events, the zone would literally crash! This is a bug I bitch and moan about in the post referred to above.
I do agree missions lack variety, but at the same time, compared to EQ1, its was really revolutionary at the time. There is a shell of a good game that was made by the original developers, and do to the fact those devs went on to other things, and they hired crack whores and idiots, they never expanded on some of the better features of the game like missions.
It would be better to continue this in this thread or make a new one.
I played AO for a week or so and simply couldnt get over how darned ugly it was. If they ever did an engine upgrade i would jump on this game so fast it'll make your head spin.
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
Yes I agree there's no need to discuss about AO's flaws in another thread. This game needs a complete revolution about every element of it. Discussing its flaws will be a repeat of Ravenmsg's long posts. So I left it here.
PS: There are countless issues needed to put before graphical advancement.
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