My first MMO, if you want to call it that, was Project Entropia. Looking back I was exactly the kind of mook they were looking for, and I literally bought into the whole deposit=profit myth. After my first year I was beyond disappointed, and saw that POS game for what it was-a online casino where the only successful ones were "in on it".
So I came to AO 5? years ago. It looks weird typing that, but yeah it's been that long. At the time it didn't seem like there was anything but AO for my SciFi fix, and I properly immersed myself in everything AO. I made PvP alts, did my best to master "twinking" (a term I still don't like :P ) and had a blast.
Then I crossed the 200 threshold. And then the politics (if you want to call it that), the raid leaders and dramallamas, a few back to back to back customer service issues with FC, combined with some real life situations requiring me to leave overseas, and I walked away from AO. After having such ridiculously lousy experiences, I didn't even think twice about it for almost 2 years.
That's one of the reasons why I'm absolutely amazed anyone could so blindly follow FC into AoC. But hey, I guess your mileage may indeed vary. Outside of my grievances with FC itself, I've found since my return a few months ago the only thing that has weighed in AO's favor to keep me to finally cross 220 is the people I missed. There really is a great bunch of people here
In the time I was gone I did find another SciFi game, and I must say there's not many I've read here who seem to like it, or have really played it. That other game was and is Eve Online. Sadly, once I reach the goal I left off those couple years ago, I will be returning to Eve and most likely will remain there. There's no comparision between the two games truth be told, and if FC took any queues from any other MMO I'd point them to Eve (and smack their hands until they got it right :P).
Why would someone go from a "safe" game like AO and choose to remain in Eve? Well, since I'm writing out my thoughts as it is, allow me to share my own insights. It may end up sounding like a wish list for AO, but I'll try to be objective.
#1 PvP. This might actually be best divided into different aspects to best encompass what PvP should be experienced as.
#1A) It used to, and still does now, grind my gears when NW and even Pande raids would grind to a halt and mass link-dead's would decimate the game. Some zones seem to suffer worse in AO than others, whereas a raid force in Milky Way hitting towers would lag to 1FPS when more than 25 people were too close together, but a Beast raid of 75 seems to flow along much better-and it's in SL! Even though Eve's glass ceiling is 750 people in one system, it blew my mind that (even though at those numbers Eve does bog down to 1FPS too) it was even possible after spending all those years playing games where PvP was just groups against groups. Which also leads to...
#1B) It's all-or-nothing in Eve. Sure, you can train offline. You can build your own ships, make your own guns, manufacture your own ammo. As a token of reality, you can even insure your ship (sadly in some cases at a rate of return not even a fraction of the build cost) before you fly it into combat. And there was the hook for me, almost 9 months into my career in Eve before I took a shot at someone and the risk of losing it all was something I had only very remotely experienced in AO (remember being able to loot bodies in PvP? Then only the Glyph of Arcana?). From day one in Eve, you are literally against the galaxy in a non-stop tug of war over who will give in first. There's no level locks. There's nowhere safe. It can wear you out (and it has from time to time) but I've never had a game experience to match it yet.
#1C) I chose the side. If I don't like how it works, I can make my own path elsewhere. Nothing boxes me into a role. I don't have to be one thing, or maybe two or three. Pirate? Sure. Miner? Why not. Scammer? Buyer beware. PvP is both militaristic and economic. I can be of one race, fly another's ships, and work for a third's factions. There is no storybook mode, just one, big mclargehuge galaxy with 20k+ people in it at any time. Something to this day I never knew in AO (just how many people are on?) which leads to...
#2 Transparency. Although Eve isn't entirely above fault (there has been scandals and some collusion between Developers and players, to wit CCP, the makers of Eve, have gone through great lengths to ensure doesn't happen again [at this time there is a general election of player representatives who will be flown to CCP's HQ in Iceland periodically to act as a de facto UN inspection team!]) it bothered and still bothers me that petitions, emails, questions, and just about any form of inquiry towards AO and/or FunCom is kept in silence. Who answers my petition? Some random ARK. A volunteer, not an employee. If I need to escalate it, I'm stonewalled and forced to sit online and wait. I once went 13 hours waiting for a reply to a petition. Thirteen. Thankfully it was a weekend, but it didn't matter. when I tried to have a orgmate "take over" the wait, it was deleted from the queue. Emails don't get answered. As a matter of fact at this moment makes 4 months and 6 days since I came back to AO, and 4 months and 5 days I've waited on an answer to what should have been a simple customer service request. In Eve the longest I had to wait for a response went almost 2 months waiting on a petition for reimbursement for a loss incurred during a node crash. So it's safe to say that yes, patience is a virtue when you're asking for details on things. The difference being here is that there is a record, that once created, remains visable to you, always. This sort of documentation of events and correspondance I only wish existed in AO. The best part? Going offline doesn't erase neither your place in line nor the simple fact that you are raising a question that needs addressing.
#3 The interface to the game. There's not many games that provide you with an inbox, as well as the option to not just save chatlogs, but datestamp them. Friend lists that are dynamic, a way to customize the information given to you, the option to export files. I have to and still do rely on many 3rd party programs to get the most out of my AO experience, gameplay, inventory, shop(s), you name it. Now while I am not saying that Eve is the end-all of gaming (please do not mistake this long-winded post as such) it has what AO doesn't: a interface with more than simple checkboxes to turn on and off options. Overall, it's worn me thin not just that we're using last-century graphics on a last-century engine, but not once-once! has our interaction with AO changed besides some small cosmetic rounding. It's as if the game has stagnated, we've all become used to it, and nobody felt it could be better. We shouldn't have to settle for what we have shoveled at us by FunCom. Just by virtue of me returning to the game shows that I believe there can and should be more. I'm not sitting here complaining and saying it sucks-no! But here I can at least share what I feel without worry of being deleted/moderated simply for illustrating and examining what I feel are some of the main reasons why I won't and can't stay much longer.
There are a thousand other, smaller, but still important issues that need to be addressed and corrected. Things from City Advantages disabled on zoning and random loss of said advantages, to line-of-sight errors, to even the latest o0 moment (y'all hear about Perception skill check has been, all these years, against our base/unbuffed stat?) where you cannot help but wonder just what on Earth has FunCom and the AO team really been doing all these years?
Sorry this really went high and to the right but I had to get it off my chest. Thanks for your time
Even those who have left still come to read the AO forum. Most agree that the backbone of the game is strong. We will just have to face the fact that once AO gets in your blood there is no cure, no quiting. Even if your not playing your still involved and still checking up on it. That tells me this game Rocks and that we all have good taste.
Me and my wife used to play AO back in 02, then 03, then 04, 05, 06, 07, 07 lol. We kept quitting and kept coming back. Started out in Coven of hunters, then went to Tribulations/Alpha Omega. then went omni, then clan, then omni lol. Long sorted history with the game. But SL basically killed it for us - killing hecks from 50-200+ just is not any fun and none of the other places give enough exp to be worth it.
We spent most of our time after SL came out looking for a game as fun as the old days of AO. Never really found any.
Currently we are playing WoW, and possibly L2 again once the new update comes out.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.
Comments
My first MMO, if you want to call it that, was Project Entropia. Looking back I was exactly the kind of mook they were looking for, and I literally bought into the whole deposit=profit myth. After my first year I was beyond disappointed, and saw that POS game for what it was-a online casino where the only successful ones were "in on it".
So I came to AO 5? years ago. It looks weird typing that, but yeah it's been that long. At the time it didn't seem like there was anything but AO for my SciFi fix, and I properly immersed myself in everything AO. I made PvP alts, did my best to master "twinking" (a term I still don't like :P ) and had a blast.
Then I crossed the 200 threshold. And then the politics (if you want to call it that), the raid leaders and dramallamas, a few back to back to back customer service issues with FC, combined with some real life situations requiring me to leave overseas, and I walked away from AO. After having such ridiculously lousy experiences, I didn't even think twice about it for almost 2 years.
That's one of the reasons why I'm absolutely amazed anyone could so blindly follow FC into AoC. But hey, I guess your mileage may indeed vary. Outside of my grievances with FC itself, I've found since my return a few months ago the only thing that has weighed in AO's favor to keep me to finally cross 220 is the people I missed. There really is a great bunch of people here
In the time I was gone I did find another SciFi game, and I must say there's not many I've read here who seem to like it, or have really played it. That other game was and is Eve Online. Sadly, once I reach the goal I left off those couple years ago, I will be returning to Eve and most likely will remain there. There's no comparision between the two games truth be told, and if FC took any queues from any other MMO I'd point them to Eve (and smack their hands until they got it right :P).
Why would someone go from a "safe" game like AO and choose to remain in Eve? Well, since I'm writing out my thoughts as it is, allow me to share my own insights. It may end up sounding like a wish list for AO, but I'll try to be objective.
#1 PvP. This might actually be best divided into different aspects to best encompass what PvP should be experienced as.
#1A) It used to, and still does now, grind my gears when NW and even Pande raids would grind to a halt and mass link-dead's would decimate the game. Some zones seem to suffer worse in AO than others, whereas a raid force in Milky Way hitting towers would lag to 1FPS when more than 25 people were too close together, but a Beast raid of 75 seems to flow along much better-and it's in SL! Even though Eve's glass ceiling is 750 people in one system, it blew my mind that (even though at those numbers Eve does bog down to 1FPS too) it was even possible after spending all those years playing games where PvP was just groups against groups. Which also leads to...
#1B) It's all-or-nothing in Eve. Sure, you can train offline. You can build your own ships, make your own guns, manufacture your own ammo. As a token of reality, you can even insure your ship (sadly in some cases at a rate of return not even a fraction of the build cost) before you fly it into combat. And there was the hook for me, almost 9 months into my career in Eve before I took a shot at someone and the risk of losing it all was something I had only very remotely experienced in AO (remember being able to loot bodies in PvP? Then only the Glyph of Arcana?). From day one in Eve, you are literally against the galaxy in a non-stop tug of war over who will give in first. There's no level locks. There's nowhere safe. It can wear you out (and it has from time to time) but I've never had a game experience to match it yet.
#1C) I chose the side. If I don't like how it works, I can make my own path elsewhere. Nothing boxes me into a role. I don't have to be one thing, or maybe two or three. Pirate? Sure. Miner? Why not. Scammer? Buyer beware. PvP is both militaristic and economic. I can be of one race, fly another's ships, and work for a third's factions. There is no storybook mode, just one, big mclargehuge galaxy with 20k+ people in it at any time. Something to this day I never knew in AO (just how many people are on?) which leads to...
#2 Transparency. Although Eve isn't entirely above fault (there has been scandals and some collusion between Developers and players, to wit CCP, the makers of Eve, have gone through great lengths to ensure doesn't happen again [at this time there is a general election of player representatives who will be flown to CCP's HQ in Iceland periodically to act as a de facto UN inspection team!]) it bothered and still bothers me that petitions, emails, questions, and just about any form of inquiry towards AO and/or FunCom is kept in silence. Who answers my petition? Some random ARK. A volunteer, not an employee. If I need to escalate it, I'm stonewalled and forced to sit online and wait. I once went 13 hours waiting for a reply to a petition. Thirteen. Thankfully it was a weekend, but it didn't matter. when I tried to have a orgmate "take over" the wait, it was deleted from the queue. Emails don't get answered. As a matter of fact at this moment makes 4 months and 6 days since I came back to AO, and 4 months and 5 days I've waited on an answer to what should have been a simple customer service request. In Eve the longest I had to wait for a response went almost 2 months waiting on a petition for reimbursement for a loss incurred during a node crash. So it's safe to say that yes, patience is a virtue when you're asking for details on things. The difference being here is that there is a record, that once created, remains visable to you, always. This sort of documentation of events and correspondance I only wish existed in AO. The best part? Going offline doesn't erase neither your place in line nor the simple fact that you are raising a question that needs addressing.
#3 The interface to the game. There's not many games that provide you with an inbox, as well as the option to not just save chatlogs, but datestamp them. Friend lists that are dynamic, a way to customize the information given to you, the option to export files. I have to and still do rely on many 3rd party programs to get the most out of my AO experience, gameplay, inventory, shop(s), you name it. Now while I am not saying that Eve is the end-all of gaming (please do not mistake this long-winded post as such) it has what AO doesn't: a interface with more than simple checkboxes to turn on and off options. Overall, it's worn me thin not just that we're using last-century graphics on a last-century engine, but not once-once! has our interaction with AO changed besides some small cosmetic rounding. It's as if the game has stagnated, we've all become used to it, and nobody felt it could be better. We shouldn't have to settle for what we have shoveled at us by FunCom. Just by virtue of me returning to the game shows that I believe there can and should be more. I'm not sitting here complaining and saying it sucks-no! But here I can at least share what I feel without worry of being deleted/moderated simply for illustrating and examining what I feel are some of the main reasons why I won't and can't stay much longer.
There are a thousand other, smaller, but still important issues that need to be addressed and corrected. Things from City Advantages disabled on zoning and random loss of said advantages, to line-of-sight errors, to even the latest o0 moment (y'all hear about Perception skill check has been, all these years, against our base/unbuffed stat?) where you cannot help but wonder just what on Earth has FunCom and the AO team really been doing all these years?
Sorry this really went high and to the right but I had to get it off my chest. Thanks for your time
WoW, Ragnarok Online, Planning to test AoC or LotrO, time to time i still log on EVE. Waiting graphic patch for AO.
Bind says hi to everyone o/ NEPA lives forever in our hearts!
One Love
Even those who have left still come to read the AO forum. Most agree that the backbone of the game is strong. We will just have to face the fact that once AO gets in your blood there is no cure, no quiting. Even if your not playing your still involved and still checking up on it. That tells me this game Rocks and that we all have good taste.
Me and my wife used to play AO back in 02, then 03, then 04, 05, 06, 07, 07 lol. We kept quitting and kept coming back. Started out in Coven of hunters, then went to Tribulations/Alpha Omega. then went omni, then clan, then omni lol. Long sorted history with the game. But SL basically killed it for us - killing hecks from 50-200+ just is not any fun and none of the other places give enough exp to be worth it.
We spent most of our time after SL came out looking for a game as fun as the old days of AO. Never really found any.
Currently we are playing WoW, and possibly L2 again once the new update comes out.
My god has horns.... nah, I don't think he is real either.