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HOw alive is AO
Czzarre
Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 3,742
I know a few posts below ask if people are still playing. IM sure a few are. My question is , is there enough for the game to still be enjoyable? Or is it just a few die hards hanging on to old memories?
Torrential
Comments
They just upgraded the servers and they will upgrade the graphics in the upcoming weeks. Do you think they'll do that if the game was dying ?
Nope,
Thanks for the input
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
They are using this little exercise(AO) to test out coders for AOC.. call it a little trial run before they give them something actually interesting to do.
Tastee, go back to trolling OOC and leave the forums here alone.
my first and still the best mmorpg
i think im gone play it as long it exist 
yeah my first mmo as well. i wonder if they ever made it to were you can pull a solo alien mission? I heard they gave the Mp a new mezz pet wich is pretty cool wtb another demon ^_^
Demoku: Anarchy Online (Rimor)
I don't play this game anymore - unfortunatly I cannot get any of my friends to check this one out after being spoiled by WoW. Too bad this game has some great charactor classes and interesting setup with the implants and stuff. I played an engineer for a long while - I wanted to play that sniper assassin looking guy but, it was too complex for me when I first started the game.
I hate to say this and it's not a dis to this cool ass game but, if they made a modern version of this, I would play it. Basically I think WoW sped up gameplay so much that it kind of changes my view and enjoyment on older mmo's.
The game is 'alive' from where I'm looking.
My Org is 600+ members, 100-150 actual players and their alts.
Any given day there are at least 408 players on and during the prime time 15-25+
There are always people from smaller guilds in Quest chat.
Level range is across the spectrum from low lvl beginers to the 220 crowd.
You need help there is always someone willing to log an Alt to accomodate.
Long time ago since i quit, AO is a hard game to learn but sure is worth the time.
The concept of the game is great. The thing thats lacking is its graphics, with new graphics and more people introduced to the mmo scene I think that AO will be able to attract new players
this was my first MMO also, it was great untill i got frozen.
I signd up for the 14 trail for expansions, while signing up to them it asks for what further payments you want for your account, you had to choose on and i chose 1 month, after noticing i had gone over the 14 day trial and had all the expansions i noticed i had the month after, they froze my account due to not paying for the month which sucks :P
i started a new account and played for a little while and there wasnt enough people playing, going to redownload it now and hope for more players.
The concept of the game is great. The thing thats lacking is its graphics, with new graphics and more people introduced to the mmo scene I think that AO will be able to attract new players
New graphic engine goes online mid-2008, artwork gets updated afterwards.
i also played WoW before this AO and i found that the feel of AO ingame felt kinda like you were trapped or something. In WoW u can jump around and were very manouverable, but in this game u kinda slow and stuff. i made a martial artist and the fighting looked really bad. i uninstalled it within 20 mins. i didnt even get past the starting area. I should have given the game more of a chance but when i went to reinstall, i found out the i deleted the setup.
i guess the reason why i found this game kinda boring from teh start was because of WoW. its raised my expectations of what an mmo should be
What you lack is patience.
Also felt a little spoiled by wow....so I couldn't get back into AO a year ago. It's a damn good game with a awesome comunity.I will deffo try the frebie version again some day.
All in all it's a great game, and the feeling of going slow dissipates once you get about level 100+ with a significantly higher run speed skill.
I have a level 176 agent, yet every time I've re-activated my account the one place I can level is Adonis (since I don't have my Peunumbra key and can't solo for it on an agent) and Adonis is pretty much dead, (the Adonis garden omni side has had maybe 3 people in it tops?)
All in all a great game, with a ton of end game content and a decent learning curve. It takes a long time to feel any real accomplishment, but once you get into the Teir 1 you feel sexy (agent is in T2 ATM) All in all, I'd be willing to try it again with a graphical update.
Played - EQ 1/2, WoW, SWG, SWTOR, GW 1/2 UO, STO, CO, DCUO, AO, Rift.
I made two movies last time I played. They are both from 2007. Nothing special, but it might show a little how it might be today.
Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5nlSgOjKjs
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9QDMHemLxI
The game was not empty, people have just moved around some. So if you are an old player you might get a little chock when you find your old spot empty. ^^
I will be back soon in AO.
Played:
From Earth & Beyond, Anarchy Online, Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, Tabula Rasa (Beta), EvE Online, City of Villians, Atlantica Online, Guild Wars, Lineage 2, Pirates of the Burning Sea, PlanetSide, RF Online, Second Life, Fallen Earth.
This was my first online game and it's the only game I keep going back to. I agree this game has outdated graphics but I will never judge a game by graphics alone. This is the only game i've tried that has EVERYTHING else apart from graphics. There's just soooo much to do if you actually take the time to research stuff in the game. A day doesn't go by where I don't learn something new and I've been playing for years. The twinking in this game is just unbelievable and cannot be matched anywhere else.
When I started I was unsure about the game but after leaving the starting zone and reading the forum a bit I was just blown away. There is just so much depth to this game. After 30 minutes of reading the forums I was making some good credits with the good old "concrete cushions"
. Running missions for people and huntings dyna bosses I had my beloved grid armor in no time. Those smurfs look so cool heh.
You just have so many options. You can do missions, dungeons with groups (Temple of the three winds is sooooo fun), Alien raids at cities, Tower battles pvp, Alien missions, Hunt dyna bosses, Quests, go to the Shadowlands which is massive like rubi ka, go on the battle station for team pvp, Tradeskills, Unique rare bosses, or take up a twink project and be proud of the end result.
I used to play this at the same time as Guild wars but I quit GW after 2 years as after winning the HOH many times I kinda got bored. GW does have great pvp though and it's my number one rated game for pvp. It just doesnt have much else to do but it's great while it lasts. I also tried WOW and after 2 months I quit because it was just too simple and straight forward for me. I don't like having things handed to me on a plate because there's no sense of achievement but that's just me. Also the pvp just wasn't as tactical and strategic as GWs pvp.
There are just so many items in this game that drop from the massive amount of bosses all around AO. Some are really cool too. With custom made implants as well this game has the greatest opportuniy for customization of a character. With just a little read of the forum and maybe going to look at the anarchy mainframe website you will be in the know and be on your way.
The community in this game is great mostly. I think the reason behind this is that most of the immature crowd tend to give up playing after an hour or so because the game is just too much for them. Heaven forbid having to read the forums for a game!!!!11111eleveneleven!!11 If you need help in this game don't be afraid to ask people. Hell I even got a new player into grid armor mk 1 on the first day cos he said mine looked cool. It gives us older players something else to do so just ask and im sure someone will help. Obviously don't run around shouting CREDZ PLZ!!!!111 though heh.
I have spent the past 3 weeks on this site trying all the games on here and now im going back to anarchy once again as its still the only game to this day that has the depth and variety to keep me from being bored. Sure I take a break now and then but I always go running back!
So if you try this game please try to see past the graphics and the starting zones. Get yourself in a good org and go have some fun. Maybe I'll see you in there soon. I'm Tradingfire on RK 1 server Omni side btw. I'm a trader so free wrangles for you lol.
It's hard to define "alive" or "dead" when it comes to an MMO. Is SWG dead or alive? Well.... people do still log into SWG... so.. the game does have a pulse.
The last I checked AO still had a decent population. I played this game for 3 years until the Eden expansion came out and I just lost interest. Seemed like the community was much more helpful and alive when I started playing 3 years ago. When the expansions for Shadowlands and Alien Invasion came out, the game seemed to hit an all-time high as far as population and quality of community. Once the free-playing basic game came out, I seemed to notice more immaturity sometimes and most of my old friends left the game when Eden came out.
I would say "yes" the game is alive and worth trying. With the graphics update coming, I think it's even more worth your time. What can you loose by trying a game for free? Why not give a try? I don't play anymore and 99% of my old friends have left the game, but I'll re-consider coming back after the graphics update.
The graphics update will be progressive in the next months not weeks. I know several die hards who have been playing for many years and still play, even they are finding the population a bit sparse at the moment. My personal belief is that after the tests with the froobs and now a micro payment system that AO will change its revenue model to completly free play with revenue coming from in game advertising and more an more items available for real life cash. I expect to see this happen in 2008.
This is pure speculation on my part, but I think the graphics upgrade fits in well.
From the Dec 2007 Directors letter:
"All of that and I haven’t even mentioned the great Christmas content for this year, but you’ll get to see more on that very shortly, or the progress that the team are making with the render engine changes. We hope to be able to start showing you some footage from the new engine very shortly. It’s all still on course for mid to late next year (since there is a lot to test with something like this), but its already starting to come together and our current alpha builds are shaping up nicely, I think we will be able to surprise some with the update it will provide to the game."
Coming from someone who's played on and off since 2004:
AO is the best hardcore MMO I've ever played. That's my opinion.
It's not the prettiest, or the flashiest, but it's tried and true. It hits a sweet spot on blending depth, complexity, and size. I've tried other MMO's, but this is the one I ALWAYS come back to.
The community is always active. Even for a game as old as this, it's still strong. The new players from the froob program outnumber the retiring oldbies without a doubt, and there's easily hundreds of players online at any given time, on both main servers, and the third German server.
The dev team refuses to let the game get out of date. The community is as strong as it's ever been, and this game will likely continue to grow until the release of AO2. (Trust me on this. Funcom would be daft if they didn't have it in mind some day.)
ao2 is never gonna happen... AOC is the AO2 .. hence there never will be a AO2
... funcom jewel is AOC.. they have no thought on working on a AO2.. get it?
In any case, AO isn't going away anytime soon. I do think things have gotten a lot more interesting since Silirrion became Game Director. Every new content patch has interesting goodies and signs of creativeness. The Christmas stuff, for example, includes hunting down and terminating loose robotic tosy in Newland City. The background storyline has started to move forward. Developers are starting to be seen with much more frequency posting in the official forums.
~\_/~\_O
AO is a very fun game when I played, about a year ago.. I played an engineer and the server had a decent amount of players on at any given time. The thing that pushed me to cancel was the absolute rudeness of the veteran community. I'm not sure if it was just Rubi Kai 2, but I had the misfortune of joining a hardcore all european guild and was mistreated and made to feel very dumb for asking questions or for help..
And from there it seemed to have spread across the whole server, or maybe I just didn't notice before. But it felt like everyday when I logged in I was dealing with a world of Simon Cowell's.. uggh..
But overall its the deepest mmo of them all.. Customization is absolutely stunning and if I cannot find any other mmo to play these days I can see myself giving AO another try..
There are several types of players and if you sign up to some (fairly common) 'elitist' group, they might behave that way. There are plenty of laid back guilds, though, they just aren't the ones aggressively recruiting.
~\_/~\_O
There's no logic to making an AO2, they've seen what happens when you split a player base between AC2 and EQ2, you basically lose out all the time. They'd rather make a current incarnation better than take a chance on a sequel while the game is still alive in respect to subscription numbers.