Originally posted by metalhead980 Hell AO has like 20-30k subs? that's not bad.
I think it's sad & pathetic. This game could be pushing 500k subs like EvE right now. It was one of the top MMOs back in the day.
In the current market, it can easily become a top dog as the niche for a deep quality innovative game has only gotten larger. There is also the sc-fi aspect, which is so lacking in other MMOs.
The really pathetic part is that even older vets like me won't play it again because it runs like sh*t on a PC that leagues above that it requires. That is just plain stupidity. It runs so bad it's unbearable.
I often just scratch my head at the idiocy of Funcom. They have a wonderful game just sitting here rotting. Revamped, it would be a success. Instead they dump another huge investment into Secret World so that they can have another winderful release like AoC.
500k? LOL! Yeah.... You forgetting what the majority of the mmo community is playing?
AO is way too complicated to have that many subs and way too old.
Even if Funcom kept on the game it would still have old combat mechanics and feel overly complicated to a new player.
Seriously the game is extremely top heavy. It has old mechanics and 95% of the 20-30k players are at level cap. even if Funcom put 100% support behind it, it wouldnt hit 300k like Eve.
I really like AO but i'm, not crazy enough to think it could hit those numbers.
The main problem, as it has been pointed out already here, is that the majority of the playerbase is old. Very old. And very few people join (or rather, join and stay for more than 20 levels). Mainly because it has become very difficult to find groups so you can tackle the group content, which, in turn, makes it harder again to find groups because fewer people stay... vicious cycle.
It's not that the newbie islands where you spend the first 10 or so levels of your existance were deserted. They're not overflowing with people, but there are a few. The problem is that these people are rarely staying. My guess would be that this again is mostly due to a lack of people to play with. Frankly, why play a MMO, especially one where grouping is so crucial, if I'm playing alone?
What Funcom could do, if they really cared about rejuvenating AO, is to promote it once or twice a year. Not more often, just that, in an attempt to "concentrate" new players to a more limited timespan. If 1000 new players spread out across half a year, it feels a lot more empty than 1000 players staring all in the same week.
500k? LOL! Yeah.... You forgetting what the majority of the mmo community is playing?
AO is way too complicated to have that many subs and way too old.
Even if Funcom kept on the game it would still have old combat mechanics and feel overly complicated to a new player.
Seriously the game is extremely top heavy. It has old mechanics and 95% of the 20-30k players are at level cap. even if Funcom put 100% support behind it, it wouldnt hit 300k like Eve.
I really like AO but i'm, not crazy enough to think it could hit those numbers.
Yes, 500k. You forget that this game was pushing 200k back before WoW. The niche MMO playerbase for MMOs like AO has grown significantly. Look at EvE players. Most play another MMO, likely hack'n slash avatar based. I play Aion for that change of pace & combat. I actually was originally planning to play AO, but that engine is too horrific.
The game has great depth in class design, combat, customization via implants, hardcore twinking, smart tradeskills system, fun & balanced PvP, politics, Open World PvP, Open World PvE, innovative grouping ocmbination that goes beyond the traditional standard tank & healer class requirement, and more. And we are talking about a game that launched 7 years ago. I think it is better than AoC in design and obviously leagues above WoW. In fact, I played WoW after Anarchy Online, which made it so obvious that WoW is a much more shallow game. However, the fact that Funcom dropped support for AO, moved away from the core sci-fi base toward pansy fantasy with Shadowlands and refused to update the game as well as bring key feautures such as a mail system and centralized marketplace is why I ended up playing WoW.
500k? LOL! Yeah.... You forgetting what the majority of the mmo community is playing?
AO is way too complicated to have that many subs and way too old.
Even if Funcom kept on the game it would still have old combat mechanics and feel overly complicated to a new player.
Seriously the game is extremely top heavy. It has old mechanics and 95% of the 20-30k players are at level cap. even if Funcom put 100% support behind it, it wouldnt hit 300k like Eve.
I really like AO but i'm, not crazy enough to think it could hit those numbers.
Yes, 500k. You forget that this game was pushing 200k back before WoW. The niche MMO playerbase for MMOs like AO has grown significantly. Look at EvE players. Most play another MMO, likely hack'n slash avatar based. I play Aion for that change of pace & combat. I actually was originally planning to play AO, but that engine is too horrific.
The game has great depth in class design, combat, customization via implants, hardcore twinking, smart tradeskills system, fun & balanced PvP, politics, Open World PvP, Open World PvE, innovative grouping ocmbination that goes beyond the traditional standard tank & healer class requirement, and more. And we are talking about a game that launched 7 years ago. I think it is better than AoC in design and obviously leagues above WoW. In fact, I played WoW after Anarchy Online, which made it so obvious that WoW is a much more shallow game. However, the fact that Funcom dropped support for AO, moved away from the core sci-fi base toward pansy fantasy with Shadowlands and refused to update the game as well as bring key feautures such as a mail system and centralized marketplace is why I ended up playing WoW.
The new mail system is now Live. The engine replacement which should tke care of the "my great computer doesn't run this game well" issue is progressing well. We are working through rebalancing gamplay systems at the moment..AO is complicated so this will take time...especially as we are doing it with significant input from the community in an open process.
It is a big relief to hear we are focusing on the right areas. Eventually we might even win you back Hydroblunt . From the sheer number of negative posts from you in the AO forums here it might be reallly difficult...but we'll keep trying. The day we make you "happy" we should be in good shape.
I also would like to add I love the team we have. I think it is the best team we have ever had and I would not trade it for 20 more people. I worked on the team when it had that number of people...we get more done now...agile, quick and effective.
Colin Cragg CPO - World of Horsecraft AB www.starstable.com
The new mail system is now Live. The engine replacement which should tke care of the "my great computer doesn't run this game well" issue is progressing well. We are working through rebalancing gamplay systems at the moment..AO is complicated so this will take time...especially as we are doing it with significant input from the community in an open process.
It is a big relief to hear we are focusing on the right areas. Eventually we might even win you back Hydroblunt . From the sheer number of negative posts from you in the AO forums here it might be reallly difficult...but we'll keep trying. The day we make you "happy" we should be in good shape.
I also would like to add I love the team we have. I think it is the best team we have ever had and I would not trade it for 20 more people. I worked on the team when it had that number of people...we get more done now...agile, quick and effective.
My negative posts are from disappointment. Had Funcom not taken the steps they did and instead did the right thing, I would have never left the game three times. It's great to hear about progress, but the core issues have to get dealt with. I think the engine is a critical one and has been for over 5 years. Hey, if the game ran ok on my computer, I would have been playing it again since June. Fix that and I will try the game again. Sounds simple, doesn't it?
Regarding open input from the community, as an old school player of AO, I would love to know why do you refuse to add in a centralized market system. I think the concept of player owned stores sounded great but when executed it was kind of a time sink where you traveled to clan bases in the middle of nowhere. Player owned stores make more sense in location that have some traffic. I think Aion's execution of player owned stores makes more sense as it works in combination with the central market.
Means while you are here. Here are a couple things wrong that need addressed before the entire game kicks the bucket.
Crat, Doc ,Enforcer, Soldier and throw in a shade or keeper once in a while the other classes are second hand garbage. Trying getting teamed as one lol you will die from old age. Ao was not meant to be as org centric as wow, ao is not wow stop trying to make it as guild centric as wow when it comes to teaming. Your devs better take this into consideration during game re-balance.
RMT and loot selling needs to stop!! You now have a elitist/peasant economy where people can't get teams and are reduced to being credit farmers for superior classes. Then you have people that resort to "I'll do the instance/raid if my loser second class alt can can roll for the loot". All classes should be wanted and have purpose in a team and you should not have to make a doc,crat,enforcer,soldier, to even be able to get the chance to get gear for the remaining classes. On top of that players repeating the same raids and instances that they completed years ago and stealing spots that should go to new players that need the items just so they can roll and sell on loot so they can sell the loot right and exchange the creds and get cold hard cash from virgame and egpal RMT dealers.
A few samples from rk2. Maybe players would stay and the game wouldn't bleed players if they were all wanted equally
Who: Borninhell
To: All
Channel: PvM
Time since spam: 00:06:52
Message: 12 man team lf crat and ready to go
Who: Borninhell
To: All
Channel: PvM
Time since spam: 00:09:18
Message: looking for doc.keeper.crat for 12 man pst
Who: Zarabeth
To: All
Channel: PvM
Time since spam: 00:13:05
Message: looking for keeper and dd for 12man. (until a keeper shows im not recruiting any1 else)
Who: Virtuosoship
To: All
Channel: PvM
Time since spam: 00:15:49
Message: IPande LF Tank,Crat and some Solds preferably
Who: Meatbal
To: All
Channel: NoDrop
Time since spam: 00:24:53
Message: WTS LR Maar's Blue Belt of Double Prudence PST with reasonable offer
p.s. Your forum mods needs to learn more about what professionalism entails.
Unfortunately the above poster is true. Unless i log my soldier or enfo i have close to 0 chances to do anything in endgame.
I will maybe get a team a day for an endgame raid - i am logged for about 7-8 hours every day and if i want things done i just log my enforcer announce that i roll for my alts and i have a team in less than 5 minutes. Outside these 4 cores profs the rest are fillers and are skipped as much as possible, why compete with more people for loot?
Problem is i want to play my alts as well, that is why i leveled them and a lot more people don't have a "good' prof alt to log in.
PS. I play AO for 3 1/2 years now. I have 2 accounts and i would probably leave the game the day the servers close down. I would like to post on the official forums more but the issues of flaming, trolling and derailing threads should be addressed. Mods are a lot more active than in the past but not enough.
Actually, AO is far from dead. This year marks 5 years for me, and I have seen what Rubi-ka can be like when no one comes out to play. It also depends on your time zone. I remember just a couple years ago there were so many more in the American time zone, but a lot of them have gone into hiding it seems. The best time to play, at least on RK1, is during the euro hours. Plus, with the merging of dnw, things have been picking up nicely. I've even teamed with what appears to be a lot of new players lately as well while leveling one of my lowbies. It reminds me of the old days when the idea of stomping hecks for hours on end sounded like fun and seeing the occasional 220 running around with a BoC left me in awe. *sigh* Those were the days... noobies sure are full of adorable.
Still, AO is alive and well, and I hope it continues on as such.
So yeah it's an old thread but I wasn't the one who bumped it ;P
Back on topic, AO is a shadow of it's former self. I've played the game off and on since just after launch. To give those of you an idea what it used to be like, there used to always be at least 100-200 in OA and at the Bronto Burger near the whompas in OMNI ent. RBB, WA, Omni Trade grid, outside the subways and other places would also always anywhere from 25-75 players at a time. SL was also extremely easy to find people and teams where filling up right and left. 30+ tower battles could happen on a weekday and weekend were non-stop tower dropping events. There was no where to hide back then.
Now there is 30 "AFK for 36 hours" toons in Bor and a trox in a thong spamming the med station. I really love this game, and I have no problem saying it was my favorite mmo ever, but it's gone from being a niche but populated mmo to a hobby for about 800 people. There is pretty much no way this game has anywhere near 30K subs, I would guess maybe 2-5k paying subs TOPS and maybe another 5k active froobs that are not alts.
AO is like an elderly person at a retirement home who has a plastic surgeon that has been promising them for the last few years that they'll make them look 19 again.
Means if you are reading this, I want that new graphics engine and a new server with no AI armor on it please.
I just came back to AO this week after two years, and it is indeed dead. I remember TOTW being croweded with people, but now only a few people hang out there, and it's very difficult to find a team there as oppose to two years ago as I remembered. Same with the Sub. Never thought I'd have any trouble finding a team at either of those places.
I am happy to see that Bor is still crawling with people though.
I downloaded AO for the first time this past weekend.
As first impressions go, I was appalled. Yep, I'm spoiled by WoW, DAO, Aion, fill-in-the-blank graphics that provide good visuals so I don't have to use my imagination to overwrite what my toon looks like. Fortunately, I didn't have to look at my toon and the smears that represent features.
For a brand new player without a user guide, the entry zones and UI were pretty challenging to navigate. Granted, there was a fair bit of lag so I missed some of the starter NPC quest and didn't realize I could scroll back to capture what I'd missed. But after deleting my first toon and rerolling, I was able to connect with things I'd missed the first time around and make better progess. I also met someone who was dual-boxing and he showed me where things were so I could complete quests.
I also met someone I imagine is a CM - Kromartie. S/he was helpful in terms of pointing me to the forums to get more info, but that's it. I guess there isn't much more a CM can do except try to make you feel welcome.
Anyway, I can't say I was impressed after only a couple hours of play. The other player was a huge help and it's beyond me at the moment to understand just how much - I imagine it's pretty huge. From other reading it sounds like a new graphics engine is in the works so hopefully that will provide new life to AO. In the meantime though, "She's dead, Jim."
AO has a greeter's program to welcome every new player to the game. The greeters are usually ARKs (anonymous players logged in accounts with special privileges to aide GMs in their tasks, dunno where the abbreviation comes from). During your first few levels one will usually pop up suddenly, welcome you to the game and ask if you have any questions. A nice touch imo, but no substitute for another player running around with you and showing you the ropes.
When you give AO another try, try getting into an active froob org (see aofroobs.com) as soon as possible. The low levels in AO can/will be desolate and having others around will certainly enhance your experience.
AO is dead.. I miss when Borealis always had hundreds of people in it, people dueling and ganking around bunker and West Athens, the trade chats filled with people buying/selling stuff, tons of people being outside subways/ToTW/Cyborgs and finding a team in seconds. It's fucking ridiculous that a mediocre game like WoW has 11.5 mil subs and a great in-depth game like AO which is 10 times better is dead.
Comments
I think it's sad & pathetic. This game could be pushing 500k subs like EvE right now. It was one of the top MMOs back in the day.
In the current market, it can easily become a top dog as the niche for a deep quality innovative game has only gotten larger. There is also the sc-fi aspect, which is so lacking in other MMOs.
The really pathetic part is that even older vets like me won't play it again because it runs like sh*t on a PC that leagues above that it requires. That is just plain stupidity. It runs so bad it's unbearable.
I often just scratch my head at the idiocy of Funcom. They have a wonderful game just sitting here rotting. Revamped, it would be a success. Instead they dump another huge investment into Secret World so that they can have another winderful release like AoC.
500k? LOL! Yeah.... You forgetting what the majority of the mmo community is playing?
AO is way too complicated to have that many subs and way too old.
Even if Funcom kept on the game it would still have old combat mechanics and feel overly complicated to a new player.
Seriously the game is extremely top heavy. It has old mechanics and 95% of the 20-30k players are at level cap. even if Funcom put 100% support behind it, it wouldnt hit 300k like Eve.
I really like AO but i'm, not crazy enough to think it could hit those numbers.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
The main problem, as it has been pointed out already here, is that the majority of the playerbase is old. Very old. And very few people join (or rather, join and stay for more than 20 levels). Mainly because it has become very difficult to find groups so you can tackle the group content, which, in turn, makes it harder again to find groups because fewer people stay... vicious cycle.
It's not that the newbie islands where you spend the first 10 or so levels of your existance were deserted. They're not overflowing with people, but there are a few. The problem is that these people are rarely staying. My guess would be that this again is mostly due to a lack of people to play with. Frankly, why play a MMO, especially one where grouping is so crucial, if I'm playing alone?
What Funcom could do, if they really cared about rejuvenating AO, is to promote it once or twice a year. Not more often, just that, in an attempt to "concentrate" new players to a more limited timespan. If 1000 new players spread out across half a year, it feels a lot more empty than 1000 players staring all in the same week.
500k? LOL! Yeah.... You forgetting what the majority of the mmo community is playing?
AO is way too complicated to have that many subs and way too old.
Even if Funcom kept on the game it would still have old combat mechanics and feel overly complicated to a new player.
Seriously the game is extremely top heavy. It has old mechanics and 95% of the 20-30k players are at level cap. even if Funcom put 100% support behind it, it wouldnt hit 300k like Eve.
I really like AO but i'm, not crazy enough to think it could hit those numbers.
Yes, 500k. You forget that this game was pushing 200k back before WoW. The niche MMO playerbase for MMOs like AO has grown significantly. Look at EvE players. Most play another MMO, likely hack'n slash avatar based. I play Aion for that change of pace & combat. I actually was originally planning to play AO, but that engine is too horrific.
The game has great depth in class design, combat, customization via implants, hardcore twinking, smart tradeskills system, fun & balanced PvP, politics, Open World PvP, Open World PvE, innovative grouping ocmbination that goes beyond the traditional standard tank & healer class requirement, and more. And we are talking about a game that launched 7 years ago. I think it is better than AoC in design and obviously leagues above WoW. In fact, I played WoW after Anarchy Online, which made it so obvious that WoW is a much more shallow game. However, the fact that Funcom dropped support for AO, moved away from the core sci-fi base toward pansy fantasy with Shadowlands and refused to update the game as well as bring key feautures such as a mail system and centralized marketplace is why I ended up playing WoW.
Playing: EvE, Warhammer free unlimited trial, Allods Online
Played: Anarchy Online, WoW, Warhammer, AoC, Ryzom. Aion
Strongly Recommend: Ryzom, EvE, Allods Online
500k? LOL! Yeah.... You forgetting what the majority of the mmo community is playing?
AO is way too complicated to have that many subs and way too old.
Even if Funcom kept on the game it would still have old combat mechanics and feel overly complicated to a new player.
Seriously the game is extremely top heavy. It has old mechanics and 95% of the 20-30k players are at level cap. even if Funcom put 100% support behind it, it wouldnt hit 300k like Eve.
I really like AO but i'm, not crazy enough to think it could hit those numbers.
Yes, 500k. You forget that this game was pushing 200k back before WoW. The niche MMO playerbase for MMOs like AO has grown significantly. Look at EvE players. Most play another MMO, likely hack'n slash avatar based. I play Aion for that change of pace & combat. I actually was originally planning to play AO, but that engine is too horrific.
The game has great depth in class design, combat, customization via implants, hardcore twinking, smart tradeskills system, fun & balanced PvP, politics, Open World PvP, Open World PvE, innovative grouping ocmbination that goes beyond the traditional standard tank & healer class requirement, and more. And we are talking about a game that launched 7 years ago. I think it is better than AoC in design and obviously leagues above WoW. In fact, I played WoW after Anarchy Online, which made it so obvious that WoW is a much more shallow game. However, the fact that Funcom dropped support for AO, moved away from the core sci-fi base toward pansy fantasy with Shadowlands and refused to update the game as well as bring key feautures such as a mail system and centralized marketplace is why I ended up playing WoW.
The new mail system is now Live. The engine replacement which should tke care of the "my great computer doesn't run this game well" issue is progressing well. We are working through rebalancing gamplay systems at the moment..AO is complicated so this will take time...especially as we are doing it with significant input from the community in an open process.
It is a big relief to hear we are focusing on the right areas. Eventually we might even win you back Hydroblunt
. From the sheer number of negative posts from you in the AO forums here it might be reallly difficult...but we'll keep trying. The day we make you "happy" we should be in good shape.
I also would like to add I love the team we have. I think it is the best team we have ever had and I would not trade it for 20 more people. I worked on the team when it had that number of people...we get more done now...agile, quick and effective.
Colin Cragg
CPO - World of Horsecraft AB
www.starstable.com
The new mail system is now Live. The engine replacement which should tke care of the "my great computer doesn't run this game well" issue is progressing well. We are working through rebalancing gamplay systems at the moment..AO is complicated so this will take time...especially as we are doing it with significant input from the community in an open process.
It is a big relief to hear we are focusing on the right areas. Eventually we might even win you back Hydroblunt
. From the sheer number of negative posts from you in the AO forums here it might be reallly difficult...but we'll keep trying. The day we make you "happy" we should be in good shape.
I also would like to add I love the team we have. I think it is the best team we have ever had and I would not trade it for 20 more people. I worked on the team when it had that number of people...we get more done now...agile, quick and effective.
My negative posts are from disappointment. Had Funcom not taken the steps they did and instead did the right thing, I would have never left the game three times. It's great to hear about progress, but the core issues have to get dealt with. I think the engine is a critical one and has been for over 5 years. Hey, if the game ran ok on my computer, I would have been playing it again since June. Fix that and I will try the game again. Sounds simple, doesn't it?
Regarding open input from the community, as an old school player of AO, I would love to know why do you refuse to add in a centralized market system. I think the concept of player owned stores sounded great but when executed it was kind of a time sink where you traveled to clan bases in the middle of nowhere. Player owned stores make more sense in location that have some traffic. I think Aion's execution of player owned stores makes more sense as it works in combination with the central market.
Playing: EvE, Warhammer free unlimited trial, Allods Online
Played: Anarchy Online, WoW, Warhammer, AoC, Ryzom. Aion
Strongly Recommend: Ryzom, EvE, Allods Online
i just visited Rubi-Ka and im 100% sure it wasn´t dead,not sure if it was alive either
Generation P
Means while you are here. Here are a couple things wrong that need addressed before the entire game kicks the bucket.
Crat, Doc ,Enforcer, Soldier and throw in a shade or keeper once in a while the other classes are second hand garbage. Trying getting teamed as one lol you will die from old age. Ao was not meant to be as org centric as wow, ao is not wow stop trying to make it as guild centric as wow when it comes to teaming. Your devs better take this into consideration during game re-balance.
RMT and loot selling needs to stop!! You now have a elitist/peasant economy where people can't get teams and are reduced to being credit farmers for superior classes. Then you have people that resort to "I'll do the instance/raid if my loser second class alt can can roll for the loot". All classes should be wanted and have purpose in a team and you should not have to make a doc,crat,enforcer,soldier, to even be able to get the chance to get gear for the remaining classes. On top of that players repeating the same raids and instances that they completed years ago and stealing spots that should go to new players that need the items just so they can roll and sell on loot so they can sell the loot right and exchange the creds and get cold hard cash from virgame and egpal RMT dealers.
A few samples from rk2. Maybe players would stay and the game wouldn't bleed players if they were all wanted equally
Who: Borninhell
To: All
Channel: PvM
Time since spam: 00:06:52
Message: 12 man team lf crat and ready to go
Who: Borninhell
To: All
Channel: PvM
Time since spam: 00:09:18
Message: looking for doc.keeper.crat for 12 man pst
Who: Zarabeth
To: All
Channel: PvM
Time since spam: 00:13:05
Message: looking for keeper and dd for 12man. (until a keeper shows im not recruiting any1 else)
Who: Virtuosoship
To: All
Channel: PvM
Time since spam: 00:15:49
Message: IPande LF Tank,Crat and some Solds preferably
Who: Meatbal
To: All
Channel: NoDrop
Time since spam: 00:24:53
Message: WTS LR Maar's Blue Belt of Double Prudence PST with reasonable offer
p.s. Your forum mods needs to learn more about what professionalism entails.
Unfortunately the above poster is true. Unless i log my soldier or enfo i have close to 0 chances to do anything in endgame.
I will maybe get a team a day for an endgame raid - i am logged for about 7-8 hours every day and if i want things done i just log my enforcer announce that i roll for my alts and i have a team in less than 5 minutes. Outside these 4 cores profs the rest are fillers and are skipped as much as possible, why compete with more people for loot?
Problem is i want to play my alts as well, that is why i leveled them and a lot more people don't have a "good' prof alt to log in.
PS. I play AO for 3 1/2 years now. I have 2 accounts and i would probably leave the game the day the servers close down. I would like to post on the official forums more but the issues of flaming, trolling and derailing threads should be addressed. Mods are a lot more active than in the past but not enough.
Actually, AO is far from dead. This year marks 5 years for me, and I have seen what Rubi-ka can be like when no one comes out to play. It also depends on your time zone. I remember just a couple years ago there were so many more in the American time zone, but a lot of them have gone into hiding it seems. The best time to play, at least on RK1, is during the euro hours. Plus, with the merging of dnw, things have been picking up nicely. I've even teamed with what appears to be a lot of new players lately as well while leveling one of my lowbies. It reminds me of the old days when the idea of stomping hecks for hours on end sounded like fun and seeing the occasional 220 running around with a BoC left me in awe. *sigh* Those were the days... noobies sure are full of adorable.
Still, AO is alive and well, and I hope it continues on as such.
So yeah it's an old thread but I wasn't the one who bumped it ;P
Back on topic, AO is a shadow of it's former self. I've played the game off and on since just after launch. To give those of you an idea what it used to be like, there used to always be at least 100-200 in OA and at the Bronto Burger near the whompas in OMNI ent. RBB, WA, Omni Trade grid, outside the subways and other places would also always anywhere from 25-75 players at a time. SL was also extremely easy to find people and teams where filling up right and left. 30+ tower battles could happen on a weekday and weekend were non-stop tower dropping events. There was no where to hide back then.
Now there is 30 "AFK for 36 hours" toons in Bor and a trox in a thong spamming the med station. I really love this game, and I have no problem saying it was my favorite mmo ever, but it's gone from being a niche but populated mmo to a hobby for about 800 people. There is pretty much no way this game has anywhere near 30K subs, I would guess maybe 2-5k paying subs TOPS and maybe another 5k active froobs that are not alts.
AO is like an elderly person at a retirement home who has a plastic surgeon that has been promising them for the last few years that they'll make them look 19 again.
Means if you are reading this, I want that new graphics engine and a new server with no AI armor on it please.
I just came back to AO this week after two years, and it is indeed dead. I remember TOTW being croweded with people, but now only a few people hang out there, and it's very difficult to find a team there as oppose to two years ago as I remembered. Same with the Sub. Never thought I'd have any trouble finding a team at either of those places.
I am happy to see that Bor is still crawling with people though.
I downloaded AO for the first time this past weekend.
As first impressions go, I was appalled. Yep, I'm spoiled by WoW, DAO, Aion, fill-in-the-blank graphics that provide good visuals so I don't have to use my imagination to overwrite what my toon looks like. Fortunately, I didn't have to look at my toon and the smears that represent features.
For a brand new player without a user guide, the entry zones and UI were pretty challenging to navigate. Granted, there was a fair bit of lag so I missed some of the starter NPC quest and didn't realize I could scroll back to capture what I'd missed. But after deleting my first toon and rerolling, I was able to connect with things I'd missed the first time around and make better progess. I also met someone who was dual-boxing and he showed me where things were so I could complete quests.
I also met someone I imagine is a CM - Kromartie. S/he was helpful in terms of pointing me to the forums to get more info, but that's it. I guess there isn't much more a CM can do except try to make you feel welcome.
Anyway, I can't say I was impressed after only a couple hours of play. The other player was a huge help and it's beyond me at the moment to understand just how much - I imagine it's pretty huge. From other reading it sounds like a new graphics engine is in the works so hopefully that will provide new life to AO. In the meantime though, "She's dead, Jim."
AO has a greeter's program to welcome every new player to the game. The greeters are usually ARKs (anonymous players logged in accounts with special privileges to aide GMs in their tasks, dunno where the abbreviation comes from). During your first few levels one will usually pop up suddenly, welcome you to the game and ask if you have any questions. A nice touch imo, but no substitute for another player running around with you and showing you the ropes.
When you give AO another try, try getting into an active froob org (see aofroobs.com) as soon as possible. The low levels in AO can/will be desolate and having others around will certainly enhance your experience.
ARK stands for Advisors of Rubi-Ka
~\_/~\_O
AO is dead.. I miss when Borealis always had hundreds of people in it, people dueling and ganking around bunker and West Athens, the trade chats filled with people buying/selling stuff, tons of people being outside subways/ToTW/Cyborgs and finding a team in seconds. It's fucking ridiculous that a mediocre game like WoW has 11.5 mil subs and a great in-depth game like AO which is 10 times better is dead.