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Good, Great, and the Ugly
Hypodermica
Member Posts: 154
I've played, on and off, AO since it's release (Didn't play beta).
Through the years, the game saw some high peaks, and many downfalls. Here is the history of this once great-game.
Release:
The game had a sandbox sort of an attitude. WoW hadn't been released and AO was one of a small handful of 3D MMO's. Ultima Online was the king for a while and while AO offered so many different things, it came from a small company in Europe and therefore it never had a marketing campaign to draw in the mainstream MMO'ers. Regardless of the bugs, the team mission terminals not working... this game offered some GREAT gameplay. It was not free. You had to buy the game and pay the subscription and it wasn't cheap. BUT, the community was packed with paying customers. Sure, we had kids playing.. but when you pay for a game.. you behave yourself because if your account is banned.. that money was wasted and you must start all over with money, and time. There were clans and corps who's only goal was to help new people. It was hard to learn all of the stuff in the begining so those clans/corps were very very helpful. The backyards were full, Tir was the Clan capital (Meet me at the tents!) and the game was doing great! It held many promises and things seemed like they could only go up.
Shadowlands:
Though Notum Wars was the first expansion (even though it was more of a PVP booster in my mind), Shadowlands offered a whole new game. The graphics in shadowlands were BETTER, the variety of things to do... the storyline was solid and it added such a strange mixture of futuristic sci-fi with a blend of alien-like fantasy. While many old schoolers thought that Shadowlands was a bad idea because the original game had soooo many bugs.. and so much room for more storyline, and soooo much room for improvement... most of us loved Shadowlands or were at least cool with it. It also added 20 new levels to the game!
Alien Invasion: Not much longer (1-2 years?) Alien Invasion came out. This, in my mind modernized MANY of the old AO features. Player run cities, raids, and shopping terminals to buy player sold goods was one of many features. You could now get a subset of alien levels and perks that added to your abilities and stats. Another great xpac. Though, in my mind AI was never a truly finished product. It needed more. But, it was great and still... AO was a big, full, active game.
Free-Play: The Downfall
Anarchy Online introduced free playing. The old schoolers hated it. Why? It brought every annoying, non-credit-card-owning cuz my mom said no 12-year old JERK into this game. The community that helped people was now having tomatoes and rotten eggs thrown at it. We all thought it was insane, to see all these kids begging us for credits. It became normal to now IGNORE level 1-30 people because most of the time they were non-paying kids who would treat you like dirt or not even say "thank you" when you spent 4 hours helping them get good stuff. Not only that, but the ones who were nice would quit because they couldn't afford to pay, couldn't get the permission from their parents to use the credit card. Funcom saw how miserable it was making it's paying customers and tried to fidn a new revenue of cash. In-game advertisements were going to bring in cash and kill the froobs . But, paying players got upset and didn't want to see Pepsi-Cola signs all over the place. We all took a deep breath and waited for this free offer to expire.... but then WoW exploded onto the scene. So many players left for WoW and Funcom extended the free-play indefinately to make up for it's losses. To calm the angry paying customers who didn't want to see advertisements.. only the froobs had to see the advertisements. The froobs who infested the paying community with their rude and childish, selfish ways.
Going Down
The community held on while the titanic began to sink. Many of us stayed on board for so long. Old players would sometimes come back for a short period of time and then left when WoW came out with it's 1st expansion. The cities began to look different.... not just because they removed our old 2 buildings on the hill and replaced that with... a tree.... but because the community was dying. The Free-areas were doing okay but things were going downhill in all the paying areas. Lost Eden was our last hope.
Lost Eden: Lost Hope
Lost Eden finally came out. All my old friends reactivated their accounts. We call called into work and bought Red Bull, nachos and other junk food. This was going to be it!! Luckily, most of those old schoolers who were playing WoW were now sick of the WoW expansion and ready to come back to AO. Old friends, telling stories in game or on Vent. We were all soo excited! The old group was back!! Better than ever!! Funcom never tells much about anything.... release dates aren't usually given until 90 days before the actual release. We didn't know a whole lot about Lost Eden. Just some crappy videos of mech-bot-thingies walking around and new alien raid areas. BOOM!! We all logged on day #1 for Lost Eden. With Red Bull in hand and geeky headsets on our heads we explored the new features. Laughter and happy old voices soon enough turned into frustration and anger. "$29.99 for this crappy booster!!??" Most of what Lost Eden offered was simply what was missing from Alien Raid. Like, better ALien playfields, Alien Missions, and Alien related gear. The PVPers got hit the hardest. They added a feature where players could 1-hit their protected territory with a super-laser.. that would fry everyone who was trying to take back a notum field from the other faction. Notum Fields used to be these fun, open areas with towers where you would pvp eachother for control... now they were wastelands that nobody wanted to touch because you knew... the moment you go to that field to fight... BOOM.. laser beam and you are either dead or very very close to being dead.. and in just 2-3 more minutes.. you would get whacked again, by the laser. PVP was nearly destroyed, but they added a big "pvp ship" that was orbitting the planet. It was full of bugs and issues and most players hated it because you couldn't have your friends hook you up with outside buffs and stuff. It removed the fun "sandbox" element of PVP in the game. Some friends demanded their money back while other's tried to be optomistic. But, in the end... that surge of old players went away.... never to come back.
AO: After, now, and in the future
Logging into AO is like logging into a shell of what you remember, but with nothing inside that shell. The places are stil there... the billboard by the whompa... the old Grid.... Reet's Retreat... but these places are all empty. I see old friends... moments of shere laughter and excitement... but they are only memories. Most of those people, I have lost touch with... AO even brought me a girlfriend lol.. I know... funny... but she was fantastic and we met in Real Life and she was smokin hot! lol Like the game, we broke up due to differences of opinion. Funcom was a new company, it had to learn... and knowing that AO was a dead fish.. it came out with Conan. They moved their resources over to Conan and when that game failed, they announced a graphics update for AO. Could AO be saved by a modern graphics engine? Will all of my old friends return to see this updated version of our old friend? Who knows. Funcom has no release date for the egine... they announced the engire over a year ago... and has said nothing since about it.. except the usual bullsh*t about... "were working on it". Let's hope... the once great AO will return!
Comments
I remember well the early days you speak of in AO.. Rubi-ka was a lively place, people everywhere and, yes many were quite helpful.
I miss the old backyards on RK. I really *hate* the new starting island and still consider the SL starting area to be a lot more interesting; it's at least integrated into the entire map, so there's a sense of continuity when starting in the Shadowlands. In all, I wish they'd bring back the old backyards... Though I know they're still "there"... they're sorta just random out-of-the-way areas now. It's weird going through them.
I've tried to come back several times, but it's always short-lived. The game's just not the same anymore. It seems like instead of building on and improving AO's strong-points, they ignored or changed them, making it feel like a very different game... at least to me.
I also really liked SL overall. I loved the setting, the environments were different, and the style of its design was such a radical change from old RK, that it made it feel very much like an alien world. It could have been a separate MMO unto itself with more development. Lots of great ideas there; though I know many hated SL for ways it changed the "balance" of the game.
Aside from that... I *think* there are a couple points in your post that were a little backwards...
1. I believe WoW came out before they went with the free-to-play setup... I *could* be wrong here, but my memory seems to have WoW being out before that.
2. AoC wasn't out yet when they announced the graphics overhaul for AO, so it couldn't have been because "that game (AoC) failed" that they decided to upgrade AO's engine.
Just a couple nit-picks, though
. Overall I do agree with your post.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
I'm not so sure that the free players killed the game....The game was dying pretty fast anyway......The free play introduced the game to alot of people that normally would not have tried AO......While you do get some jerks with free play alright you also get some mature people who are looking for a good game but dont want to drop 50 bucks for every game they want to try.......AO would have probably went under years ago if they hadnt allowed the free play to try out the game.
Thanks for a fantastic response WSIMike.
1. Ah okay. Actually, I think the point I was trying to make (and I probably failed lol) was that AO did the free-thing AFTER WoW came out and so many had left... so.. you saying WoW came out BEFORE froobs... is correct and adds to that point. Thanks for the correction.
2. I wasn't 100% sure on when AOC came out and when the graphics overhaul was announced. Now I know :P Thanks!
Otherwise.. YAY! Another old-schooler loves SL like me :P lol. I remember people saying exactly what you said; "It's like another game was added to this one". I also don't like the starting island and miss the old backyards. I do think, however... if you are someone who needs a lot of guidance to get you started.. the newb island isn't tooooooo bad.
Thanks again Mike!
You make a valid point. The free play DID indeed bring some GREAT players into the game. Maybe we could meet half way? :P I'd vote for a 1 month trial, or a 2 week trial.. or maybe a level cap of 60 (Newb Island, Subway, Missions, ToTw) and then that's it... you hit 60 and you can't go anymore? Something like that? Maybe that would have limited some things. God, I still remember doing team missions on RK with a level 200 froob Fixer. He just never wanted to pay, but he was a great guy to hang out with.
Sorry to disagree with you, but I've played AO since Aug of '02. All games need to grow and expand to stay alive.
Back when SL was re-leased I thought it was the worst expansion. At least with AI and LE they continued with the Sci-Fi theme. SL was a bad attempt to combine fantasy with sci-fi. Now fast forward to today. the Dev team has done a great job finally meshing the story line of the SLs with that of Rubi-ka, with the Dust brigade updates. I like the game now more than when I frst started. As a end LvL player ther are almost to many things to do in the game right now, and they are coming out with more end game content.
You may say I'm biased, maybe so. But sounds to me that you were just burnt out with the game and couldnt handle the changes. Fair enough, you have your reasons and I wont try to convince you your wrong. Im just going to be the voice that tells everyone, HEY COME GIVE US A TRY
I have to say tho, Ive played WoW, SWG, EVE, LoTR, Horizons. No game has come close to the amount of in depth play, character customisation, or thought out story line as AO. Graphics may not be up to date and we may have a small player base, but hey its better now than when it first came out in '02.
Another point:
Nothing about the game brought its downfall. What pulled its player base away were all the bright shiny new MMOs that came out around the time of AI. No game is going to keep increasing its memberships ts entire life cycle. Hell even WoW will start losing its player base. There will always be something out there that draws peoples eye away from the current game their playing. For me that time hasnt come yet, tho it may seeing whats being developed for release this year and next.
I would agree on free players taking it's toll on the community but many of the froobs have become subscribers and thereby helping ao to stay alive, it's been out a lot longer then anyone expected after that crappy launch, still one of my favorite mmo's todate.
I'm not much for fast leveling and my highest char is only 163, my first ever char made in 2001 just dinged 94
an agent, most likely the worst possible first char 
Game was released 2001 not 2002 as some people have stated, my agent was made august 18 2001.
LE didn't make AO loose people. It made them leave because the majority could not understand that games evolve and that AO was growing up.
Some of them left because they had competition in both pvm and pvp.
Some complained that LE made things easier and that's why they quit and then you hear they went to WoW.
Actually part from FC that works on AO is still a very close to the playerbase even if players do not actually get "OK... you get what you want" replies, but more along the lines "we hear you and we are taking your idea into consideration".
A lot of people that sampled WoW or WoW-like games came back to the game with the expectations they had some 2 years earlier without thinking that the game may have changed. Some even came back expecting it to be like the other games they tried. That's where a lot of resentment, drama and disappointment came from. I had a lot of friends that cam back from WoW/asian grind fests that could not play AO because they had actually to work for some of the stuff they needed to become viable and semi-decent instead of leveling for the their level locked armor and level locked attacks and so on.
I only tried WoW as I had some friends that kept coaxing me into trying. So I made a trial. Never went past lvl 10 :S I mean I tried different servers, classes, breeds you name it. I found the community a lot more stressing and annoying than AO. A lot more rude and ignorant than AO. And a lot more carebear-ish than AO. And the usual 12 yo kids jumping in front of my lvl 3 noob shouting "Dual me!!! Dual me!!".
It may have been my luck, it may have been the period in which I started playing AO. But I never met very rude people. Some were asses trying to KS or training - if it is done on purpose and mostly to annoy and piss you off, you can petition them as harassment and what do you know, Arks or GMs really take this kind of things seriously. In WoW i could not get rid of those kids as I would run into them everywhere.
Also, AO has the bigger concentration of helpful players then any other game (maybe because of the smaller playerbase which means fewer imbeciles). Also, has one of the most active forums where the trolling level is actually low.
And what I like about the community: despite their internal bickering and fights, they all care for AO as a whole, even the trolls.
For the people that say there is no helpful community, try the AO forum in the Newbie section. I still have to see questions going unasnwered. If you want malevolent community, maybe you should start playing Eve which is the real dog-eat-dog world. Where you will have questions with wrong answers on purpose and so on. Still, Eve is a fun place to be as well.
i agree partially with your story, i cant deny it that the LE release was awful. battlestations werent working.. there was almost no new content, my chosen armor i worked so hard for became completely useless so i left the game for 6 months.. my org buddies have never left the game and the org is the only reason im still playing, 95% of the teams im in are org teams...
still i dont agree on the dying community, well maybe you were playing on rk3, also rk1 lost a fair bit of its pop since LE, but yea ive said it many times that im on rk2 and that one is active enough
and yes i hate FC for shifting everyone of their staff to AoC, that it failed was just like ive known FC so i wasnt really suprised, i still hope they can survive this hard period. their mmo in the making "the secret world" looks interesting... and i enjoy ao still.. ;p
MMOs currently playing: -
About to play: Lord of the Rings Online
Played: Anarchy Online (alltime favorite) and lots of f2p titles (honorable mentions: 9Dragons, Martial Heroes, Dekaron, Atlantica Online)
I see plenty of people in ao, sure does not feel like it is dying, considering how long it has been around i doubt it will go away anytime soon, at least hope not
You know I think a lot of this is perception. Did you play this game on and off for 6 years? Were you there when Tir was SO crowded that they had to get people to move to Old Athens where the server could handle more? Do you remember when getting a buff from someone was as easy as walking over to the Whompas where you'd find 20+ people hanging out at the billboard? or groups of people handing out buffs to all the vets who were on there way through the grid because they were mounting a huge zerg force at one of the big player-controlled tower fields. When you got tired of PVE or PVP you could go hang with the roleplayers up at Reet's and they would be all dancing and partying... 20... 25 of them on the glass dance floor and a group of 5 in that room that looks like bloody giblets... You'd run into a bathroom to find two people making out. You would log in and 20 out of your 50 friends were logged in. Is that what the game is like no? Absolutely not.
What do you consider a healthy population? 5/10/15/20 people in OA? I remember when the shopping row of stores was a traffic alley. When the gardens always had groups forming. I remember seeing 30+ people at the entrance to ToTw until someone dragged the guard, or worse... a sandworm. So when you say "I see plenty of people in AO" what does that mean really? I logged into RK1 and RK2. RK3 is the german server right? Didn't go there. I went to Bor, ToTw, OA, newb island, the subway, and a few other hot spots at different times of the day on different days of the week and it's NOTHING like it used to be.. NOTHING even CLOSE.. at all... to what I would consider a healthy population. I think you have rogue populations of groups of clanmates but it's not what it used to be.
You know I think a lot of this is perception. Did you play this game on and off for 6 years? Were you there when Tir was SO crowded that they had to get people to move to Old Athens where the server could handle more? Do you remember when getting a buff from someone was as easy as walking over to the Whompas where you'd find 20+ people hanging out at the billboard? or groups of people handing out buffs to all the vets who were on there way through the grid because they were mounting a huge zerg force at one of the big player-controlled tower fields. When you got tired of PVE or PVP you could go hang with the roleplayers up at Reet's and they would be all dancing and partying... 20... 25 of them on the glass dance floor and a group of 5 in that room that looks like bloody giblets... You'd run into a bathroom to find two people making out. You would log in and 20 out of your 50 friends were logged in. Is that what the game is like no? Absolutely not.
AO was awesome when that was the case. That was before Shadowlands came out.
I remember Omni Trade Bronto Burger being The Spot to get groups, buffs & do trade. Every so often, someone from Clan would start a battle. Fun times.
Borealis used to be duel central. And a gankfest on unsuspecting flagged noobs.
Playing: EvE, Warhammer free unlimited trial, Allods Online
Played: Anarchy Online, WoW, Warhammer, AoC, Ryzom. Aion
Strongly Recommend: Ryzom, EvE, Allods Online
It's been another year and a half since I first posted this thread in these forums. My friend Steve is/was an AO fanatic. He just wouldn't give the game up... now he plays WoW and doesn't look back. He was anti-wow forever! He can't believe he played AO in it's dying days. He told me that RK1 and RK2 are now combined? wow.. interesting.
It's also been what? 2 1/2 years since the graphics update was announced? How's that working out? Any release date yet?
Now Funcom is making another MMO... what is wrong with those people? Don't they realize they have an old, huge fan base from AO? Why not just make Anarchy Online 2.0?? I don't get it.... why do they keep trying new ideas when AO is at least somewhat safe? At least you could save a little $$$ on marketing since so many of us would come back to check out AO 2.0
Whatever, time to forget AO I suppose...
Never really got into this game much but I'll never forget it because of a movie (I think it's the first one for now) that had a guy playing this game and showing screens of it.
Some may probably know of it for the rest it's name is "Benx", the movie is in german I think but you can find one with english subs if you search a bit and if it's still there the whole movie was on youtube but part part.
(Sorry if it was offtopic :P)
I too played from release until 05 or so.
Shadowlands really hurt the game, for me, at least.
While most did participate in it's content, alot of us did not like it.
Fantasy nonsense, in MY sci-fi game?
Eww.
I was in one of the first orgs (clan) created in game, for about a year then left...
Coming back later I joined another and was with them for 3 years or so, they all slowly disappeared.
The population dropped pretty sharply around SL release, then yet again with A.I's release.
Froobs didn't help.
Though the learning curve was steep, the sci-fi portion of the game was creative, the skill system was EXCELLENCE, as well as the item/inventory and mission systems. I loved AO dearly but it was severly mishandled.
I do wish they'd simply went with AO2 instead of AoC.
AO is on my list of great MMO's. =D
I was a subscriber for several years, starting just after release. I also returned as a froob for quite awhile and eventually bought the xpacks and sub'd for another 4-6 months.
I really find the best part to be the original though, tbh. The expansions and add-ons never really got me excited with the slight exception of Notum Wars, as I am a PvP lover.
AO is a cult success, one of the games that never got the recognition it deserved but was innovative, well designed and beautiful. Super fun to play back in the day!
http://www.anarchy-online.com/wsp/anarchy/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=2596&table=CONTENT
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
i started off as a froob on this game 2005 been reading about it for years . with in a week of playing i was subing bought the exspansions i loved it by 2007 i started to notice pop was going down in OA . even my die hard friends had started to play other games . only thing that stops me now is the price of monthly sub . just not worth it
^^ this
I quit about four months ago but recently re-subbed for Halloween. I was utterly amazed at how much worse things have gotten just over the few months that I was gone. It pains me to say this but AO is truly no longer worth the $14.95/month subscription fee unless you have endgame toons, plenty of credits, are in a decent org and are willing to spend time playing a game that has become more e-sport than RPG.
I used to play AO years ago and was tempted to come back on the $5 a month plan ( I can justify $5 for an old mmo)
Until I found out there would be no way to compete with other high level characters in PvP/PVE at 220 that have all expansions.
So I thought to myself ; whats the point in leveling a character to find out he's useless at end game?. Time spent better elsewhere I think.
Such a shame.
Edit; I think they would get a lot more revenue if they lowerd their prices for the full experiance. It would attract lots more people making the servers more populated for the current players. I'm sure lots of those froob players would pay $5 a month for "fair" play and would no longer be a drain on the servers with no financial retern.
Just some thoughts.
Rubi-Ka is my virtual homeplanet.
I still remember my first telnet connection to the university of my town and lynxed over, to whatever was connected there.
It must have been back in 1975 or something, as the first accusticmodems came up to chellange the Commodore16, holy Xmodem protocol, Zmodem was soo mutch better.
As co-author of the System-X Amiga BBS software, we tried it early already, the "Virtual Reality", until the Mosaik Browser came up and gave the internet pictures.
What we have today, is a incredible development, building the Cyberspace and flat connecting the whole world together.
A trip through the Virtual Reality from today is as enjoyable as a real trip, you just travel thru the planets in the internet universe.
Visit Sarneut, Sauron, Azaroth and all those worlds, visit their citizens and their sports, we live in amazing times today.
For me, there is nothing comparable to Anarchy Online. Once the new engine is running by end of the year, thats it.
The game of all games, the craziest content monster with the by far deepest utilization posibilities of your character and one of the best communities wordlwide. The game is progressing and the fact that our producer and our developers are sitting within the community, makes it warm anyhow.
Is there another game arround, where you can discuss with your game director/producer/developer in the forums ?
Anarchy Online is pretty unique and i had the hardest lol's and the most fun on Rubi-Ka.
I wish they can finish that crazy "we rewrite it while its running" engine job soon™.
They are really working like the dogs and Rubi-Ka deserves your presence.
For me, Anarchy Online is still the best of the best.
I'm still of the opinion that SL killed the game. It was a far departure from the original game in terms of style and substance. From sci fi to a fantasy good vs evil. From instanced missions to outdoor grinding. From a city-esque backdrop to wild outdoors. From many end game raids to virtually one or two. In one swoop it invalidated practically all of Rubi-Ka, the xp, loot, and raid rewards were much better in SL. And yet players only went to SL to do those things, and came back to RK when they were done. Because SL was just too alien.
SL did introduce a ton of content, and it was bottom heavy. However I'm sure you remember how most of the quests were nerfed as too hard. Remember the trouble of getting your breathing aparatus, and snow goggles? Later they were given for free. I've never seen an MMO expansion larger than SL. It truly doubled the game size. Now imagine if all that content had been applied to RK where it should have been....
Bit of trivia:
Shadowlands was actually salvaged from an mmo Funcom was working on at the time but then decided to scrap, named "Midgard". That was the main reason SL was more "fantasy" based, as Gaute ( remember folks, Guate was a co-founder of Funcom and made decisions for all games even when he wasn't specifically listed as "Game Director" ) saw it as a good way to make an expansion for AO while also salvaging man hours spent on the now canceled mmo "Midgard" which would have been a total loss had the assets not been used.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
pretty fast probably isn't the best choice of words here. if at all.
I didn't bother reading you post but I am replying anyway. Froobs gave new life to AO and you shouldn't be talking baddly about froob because alot of froobs, like me, became paying players. That thats FC plan from the start, if it wasn't for the free to play AO would die after WOW wa realeased.
"you are like the world revenge on sarcasm, you know that?"
One of those great lines from The Secret World