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Waiting for Dreamworld engine or give it a try now?
FromHell
Member Posts: 1,311
I read all three new GD letters, TSW; AoC, also the one on the AO forums from yesterday
http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=604018
Thinking about finally trying this out, should I wait for the Dreamworld Engine conversion? Will this happen soon?
Also going on Steam is mentioned, maybe it would be better to wait in case there are any items for new players included?
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. ! 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
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The Return of ELITE !
Comments
You might as well go ahead and try it. The "Graphics Upgrade" is not going to change anything about the gameplay.
Be aware that they have been talking about the upgrade since 2006.
I no longer play the game myself, but I would be interested in your opinion of the game.
They just did a server merge so you might find someone to team with.
Roll a nanomage
Not only are the difficult, complex, and great for kiting huge masses of mobs...
but theres this guy, and i honestly believe hes been doing this for at least a decade...who will hunt your ass down, and give you a bunch of credits and gear and advise...i remember ages ago this guy whos job in game seems to be helping other nanomages, well i logged in a few months ago to a free account and rolled one up, next day i had mail from him...offering advice and help....then i turned around and he was standing next to me...creepy in a good way
I would give it a try now, for two reasons....
1. The graphics engine update isn't going to change game mechanics as previously stated. It will still play the same.
2. I'm not sure how much longer the game has... so I would try it asap before the chance to experience it goes away.
Ive been playing AO on and off since 2002. It's an awesome game that has been mismanaged into obscurity. Funcoms apparent financial difficulties are only making things worse. They are merging all development and customer service into one entity. This entity also has to support The Secret World and Age of Conan. With Anarchy Online being a 12 yr old + game, guess who will get more attention. Couple this with a new Game Director who admittely knows nothing about the game. You do the math.
Recently they merged the two live servers into one and while populations have been up, making the game feel alive again, they have also had horrible server stability issues. As I write this the server has been offline for about 4 hours. This has happened almost daily.
I always laughed off the doomsayers about AO impending doom. And believe me the doomsayers have been crying since 2005. But this time I'm not so sure. I hope this bad feeling is just an after effect of the bad hamburger I had for dinner last night.
This sums it all up in a nice little one liner.
It would have been easier to just scap the whole idea of a new engine and apply dev to a more meaningful purpose rather than putting lipstick on a pig.
old game is old.
Fortunately theres some value left in the IP. It's a wonderously unique world that has both sci-fi and fantasy appeal. Not to mention it's longevity, size, and complexity has placed it among the all time greats list for many.
Personally I'm more than a lttle disappointed that Funcom never capitalized on this title with an AO2.
A fully redesigned game would be a godsend in this puddle of mire and muck that is todays MMO scene. Too bad that ship set sail for funcom a while ago. It look as if they're going to fall flat on their asses sooner than later.
*shrugs*
I agree AO once the horrid release was over got better as time went on. I have gone back to it twice and even resubbed both times and enjoyed it but the problem was finding others to group with for a lot of it.
One of the best games on the market to this day. Complex, heavilly detailed character development with immense freedom how you build and a big world with open PvP in areas and safe in others. And the music is wonderful. Graphics is of course the weak point and the incredibly steep learning curve. It will take months, if not years to understand all the things you can do to max your character. Which, for a mature audience, is flipping fantastic.
I would say, give it a try. If you want a challenge and is not intimidated by feeling lost and confused at first. It is a thinking mans MMO. Most people will not like it, of course... but it is truly an original concept, unique on the market today.
But ugly. Had they done that blasted graphics overhaul by now, they would probably have more players in AO than in both Conan and Secret World.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
..and then some. I've been playing off and on for over ten years now and I'm STILL discovering things about the game I never knew. There is always something to do.
The key to AO, like many MMO's, are guilds (or Orgs as they're called in AO). A good guild can make this game an amazing experience. Without them it's just a levelling, twinking treadmill that sooner or later gets old for just about everyone.
Since my last post, the server stability has come back though there are still horrible lag issues. These can be balanced by tweaking your graphics settings. Still, its unacceptabile for a ten year old game on DX7.
We have not heard a thing from the new Game Director since the merge. Granted, it's only been a couple weeks. But if he wanted to show his interest and enthusiasm for the game he would've been all over the forums addressing customer concerns. I'm guessing TSW and AOC are eating all his time, or maybe he's just not a very good GD. AO certainly has had its share of those. Time will tell.
Even tho I agree with you, I do however believe that it will improve the games economy. Mainly because the one left server is completely dead at the moment, in the froob department and the new engine will mean more advertising, and more frobs. A lot of people say that AO has a messed up economy. Why is this? Mainly because 90% of the loot that drops in game is useless and simply vendor trash.
I played AO from launch till 2005 and I recently came back to AO three weeks ago to check out the changes. One of the main problems about AO (some people might not think this is a problem, especially sandbox fans) is that to play successfully, you have to learn how to play via the internet. If you simply stuck an 8 year Warcraft player into the game with no help from the internet whatsoever, they would not have a clue how to make money. Making money and gear up in AO has to be done a specific way for froobs, well for any player for that matter (ie... finding and selling concrete cushions, asking for buffs off high level players to install implants and twink your character) but if you did not know what these buffs where (like Essence of Beh for example), how can you ask for it? When I played WoW for the first time comming from AO, I could not believe how easy it was to make money in an MMO, this was the bad impression that AO gave me about an economy in an MMO in the early 2000's.
After three weeks of returning to the game I have uninstalled it, and why? Mainly because of the bad low level population. I found it impossible to sell concrete cushions as a froob, Most of the low players playing atm are veterans who have Alien Invasion armour and weapons abd already have concrete cushions. I was leveling in the subway the other day and at 6pm GMT (peak time), i was the only one in there for about 45 mins, all on my own. Then a team of three other players came in and one said to me “ahh bless a froob, do you want some credits?” It made me feel stupid because even tho I had left the game, I had probably played longer than him in total lol. I shouted in trade chat WTS 2x lv 10 Concrete cushions PST and I just got a “lol” as a reply. People just buy concrete cushions off the market boards, and froobs cant use them so how is a froob supposed to make money???
This game relies on a strong low level player base and economy to survive, unfortunately at the moment, it does not have this. Maybe the new Engine will bring the player base back the game needs.
Froob being the fail here. Froob is a free preview and thats how fc has always seen it. Fc needs to make sl free and then more people will come back and even sub up. However expecting a free ride and everything for nothing is your problem. What if blizz gave away vanilla wow for free with no talent trees or skills? It would be shit to play. Hell you don't even have attack perks as a froob its pathetic, no wonder you hated it so much. The game doesn't live off of low level froobs the game starts at 220 everything else is waste of time which is another problem. However after you play the real game and not the joke a froob you will seee froob is a pathetic waste of time.
After the GMI was patched in I make a killing in sales. Part of the problem was the market being poorly made to begin with. Don't tell you you don't use auctioneer add ons etc in wow and it never made you wealthy....... I compare your selling of cushions to that of a hobo on wall street trying to sell junk out of a cart while stock day trader rush by as they conduct multi million dollar deals.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Every salesman starts somewhere in life, he/she could start by selling apples to an old granny in a Market and work his/her way up to selling multi million dollar coporations at Wall Street.
I'm still butthurt over what a shitfest Shadowlands was.
Don't waste your time. The nostalgia won't live up to the reality of the current state of the game and you will just leave disappointed.
Yeah,same with me. Last time I restarted and arrived on that noob island, the music immediately felt familiar and seeing the leet's comments in chat was so awesome. When I left it, I got bored real fast.
It actually lacks freedom. The linear part is in the items you get for your class or when you are new, the items you roll for on the terminals to make money.