New money and a continued future for AO!

HellCaster

I have been personally looking for the past several days for some good news reading Funcom's future before investing any money into Anarchy Online again and found this:

http://www.funcom.com/news/funcom_secures_future_development_through_multi_million_dollar_investment

Then another user pointed me to the general article they posted a few days back (thanks DMKano)

http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/39918/General-Funcom-Equity-Moves-to-Positive-Numbers-with-New-Investment.html

I'd like to help nurture a comeback for AO and I think it would help build some confidence for AO forum readers to know this information as well.

Now back to AO...

Dvora

Never liked AO and can't beleive it's still going :P 

QuarterStack

@Dvora AO is definitely an acquired taste, and can be pretty steep to get into - even now after they've simplified things a bit. Still, there's definitely a certain "something" about it that's kept me interested in it, enough to keep up on its progress/goings-on even when I wasn't playing it.

I've recently returned to it again, having finally thrown my hands up in frustration and boredom at what is the "modern MMORPG". It was kind of funny, too, because it's been a while since I last played AO, and in the meantime I've been playing FFXIV, WoW, and other titles in that vein. So, coming back to a MMO again that features the depth AO has was actually kind of daunting at first lol. I'd forgotten just how involved it could be. So, I decided to start off again with a fresh new Adventurer, and am having fun re-learning the game, and remembering a lot of the fun little quirks I'd forgotten about.

Also, Leets rule. They need to be real so I can have one as a pet.

Scorchien

One of the best MMORPGs ever made , and still the deepest character progression to date possibly ...   Good Luck to Funcom in its continued development ..

lahnmir

Scorchien said:

One of the best MMORPGs ever made , and still the deepest character progression to date possibly ...   Good Luck to Funcom in its continued development ..

DMKano said:

Scorchien said:

One of the best MMORPGs ever made , and still the deepest character progression to date possibly ...   Good Luck to Funcom in its continued development ..

My feelings exatcly. Despite the abysmal launch (yes I was there lol) - The game is in my top 5 best MMOS of all time.

Love AO

Same, AO was my first love. I want to revisit it so badly but I am scared I'll only be disappointed. Still, good news. Now give me my graphics update and a complete UI overhaul please. A man can dream right?

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

QuarterStack

DMKano said:

Scorchien said:

One of the best MMORPGs ever made , and still the deepest character progression to date possibly ...   Good Luck to Funcom in its continued development ..

My feelings exatcly. Despite the abysmal launch (yes I was there lol) - The game is in my top 5 best MMOS of all time.

Love AO

I wasn't there at launch, but I've heard plenty about it. Also read about it in a post-mortem FC provided for AO in a book I'd picked up about MMO development. They went through all the stuff they did wrong.

Funcom seems to have that kind of a knack though. They're weak on launch, but manage to turn things around. For example, AO would go on to win a number of awards, despite its rough launch.

Also, I've always loved their trailers; they capture the feel of the game well.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPqCTgyM1RE


Have you read the books based on AO, by chance? I'd like to pick those up.

QuarterStack

lahnmir said:

Scorchien said:

One of the best MMORPGs ever made , and still the deepest character progression to date possibly ...   Good Luck to Funcom in its continued development ..

DMKano said:

Scorchien said:

One of the best MMORPGs ever made , and still the deepest character progression to date possibly ...   Good Luck to Funcom in its continued development ..

My feelings exatcly. Despite the abysmal launch (yes I was there lol) - The game is in my top 5 best MMOS of all time.

Love AO

Same, AO was my first love. I want to revisit it so badly but I am scared I'll only be disappointed. Still, good news. Now give me my graphics update and a complete UI overhaul please. A man can dream right?

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

The graphics update is available - you can download the new graphics engine version of the game now. I'm playing on it, myself. They never did upgrade the character models, sadly, but the world is even more atmospheric now. I love how they kept that sense of atmosphere AO always had, and didn't sacrifice it at the altar of pixel shaders.

As for population, it's been pretty darn active since I'm back. Moreso than I'd seen it for a long time. Chat is pretty active, there's people everywhere I go - more or less depending on time of day, of course, and I'm still in the lowbie areas (Old Athen, Newland, etc). But it's definitely still hoppin'.

Also, and this might just be me not remembering correctly, but I don't recall ever seeing those long, thin freight ships when I was up in Jobe. Only when I was on the ground. But now, they're up in the air up in Jobe as well, only you're looking down at them, not up. So it creates this cool kind of continuity to the world; makes SL feel a bit less disconnected from Rubi-Ka itself.

lahnmir

MitovoGames said:

lahnmir said:

Scorchien said:

One of the best MMORPGs ever made , and still the deepest character progression to date possibly ...   Good Luck to Funcom in its continued development ..

DMKano said:

Scorchien said:

One of the best MMORPGs ever made , and still the deepest character progression to date possibly ...   Good Luck to Funcom in its continued development ..

My feelings exatcly. Despite the abysmal launch (yes I was there lol) - The game is in my top 5 best MMOS of all time.

Love AO

Same, AO was my first love. I want to revisit it so badly but I am scared I'll only be disappointed. Still, good news. Now give me my graphics update and a complete UI overhaul please. A man can dream right?

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

The graphics update is available - you can download the new graphics engine version of the game now. I'm playing on it, myself. They never did upgrade the character models, sadly, but the world is even more atmospheric now. I love how they kept that sense of atmosphere AO always had, and didn't sacrifice it at the altar of pixel shaders.

As for population, it's been pretty darn active since I'm back. Moreso than I'd seen it for a long time. Chat is pretty active, there's people everywhere I go - more or less depending on time of day, of course, and I'm still in the lowbie areas (Old Athen, Newland, etc). But it's definitely still hoppin'.

Also, and this might just be me not remembering correctly, but I don't recall ever seeing those long, thin freight ships when I was up in Jobe. Only when I was on the ground. But now, they're up in the air up in Jobe as well, only you're looking down at them, not up. So it creates this cool kind of continuity to the world; makes SL feel a bit less disconnected from Rubi-Ka itself.

Don't do this to me.....lol. Now I might have to reinstall and see for myself, damn you!

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Kopogero

Full wipe on server is a necessity for me to come back to it.

QuarterStack

lahnmir said:

Don't do this to me.....lol. Now I might have to reinstall and see for myself, damn you!

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Sorry (not sorry)! :pleased:

I'm having a lot of fun being back. Spent most of the day today in AO, even though I told myself I was going to use the day off to do other stuff. It just didn't work out that way. Joined a cool Org, made my way out to their city, ported into the Grid, took the wrong exit, ended up at one of their tower-controlled locations, miles from anywhere. Decided I'd have to foot it back to civilization, but ran the wrong way and ended up getting a free trip back to OA courtesy of a n OT guard. Got some nice screenshots along the way, though!

QuarterStack

Rhoklaw said:

You know what. I'm going to start a new AO account, just to give this new graphics engine a true first time experience. It's been a while since I've played AO, but I think I used to play either an Engineer or a Meta Physicist or was it both at the same time, hmmm.

My main is a MP, though only level 51. Still working on a newbie Adventurer for now, but I imagine I'll get back ot the MP once I feel "broken in" enough again.

aRtFuLThinG

AO is fun it you are into min/maxing. It is probably one of the top ones for the min/max mmo crowd.