Hail Eris! Queen of Discordia and Bringer of Anarchy!

[Mastura]

Ok I've got heaps to say about this but I've never been bothered to say it, and I still am not bothered I guess, though i am bothered that over the past month I've seen a number of great/old-timer players move to other less content-rich mmorpgs and it ticks me off! Let me say that all said herein is just IMHO and I love FC for giving me AO, and all the players I've met over the years, and the great community this is!

GENRE

i dont know much about Conan, but I think it's just like every other swords&sworcery mmorpg out there, and there are hundreds. There are about 15 science-fiction/cyberpunk mmorpgs, and of that, the best 3 are: Anarchy Online, Eve Online and Neocron. SWG was a joke. It is very hard to compete head-to-head same genre when some of these games in the fantasy/s&s genre have in the orders of millions of users paying $9.95/month, have huge corporate backing, and a bunch of other wins under their wing.

AO has a definite niche market, which is a growing market, and as we day-in day-out make science-fiction a reality through technological advances in RL, it gives a great opportunity to shape the fictional world based-on real-life events and mash it all up nice and anarchic like. Of course, other genres can tap into this, like horror or fantasy, but nowhere is it more flexible, dynamic and exemplified as the science-fiction genre where we write about flying to the moon, or underwater vessels and 50 years later, we are doing it!

I will never play fantasy games, and like the other millions of geeks growing up in the information era/online society/generation-X, prefer science-fiction over fantasy. I'm not speaking for everyone, I'm just reinstating what market dictates at this point in time. iTunes/p2p over cassette tapes. The reason for less players is not less interest, but less resources. Hundreds of fantasy settings vs. 3 usable science-fiction ones. Not surprising, even Blizzard wanted to have a go at this "world of starcraft" sci-fi mmorpg, and they probably will soon, it's just a matter of time...


GRAPHICS ENGINE
Personally, I do not mind the gfx eng behind RK AO. It does what I need it to. The lag is tolerable, even in my distant part of the world. I love the cities and the outdoor wilderness, and they were very enthralling when I first started 5+ years ago.

New players however have come to expect different. They have the beautiful elven gardens or dwarven halls in WoW, or the spiritual purity of the cosmic vastness in EO. I particularly didn't like the new SL environment settings as they got more and more fantasy and less sci-fi. Diverse outdoor/wilderness environments are a must, don't get me wrong, but it was feeling less cyberpunkish and more magical. I did appreciate the new gfx techniques like the translucency in spirits and unicorns, greater detail in mobs however, and I am quite used to it now. AI is impressive, but somewhat laggy for me. The bipodean aliens are my favourite looking, but the fish-looking ones not so much. The rooms are very imersive and breathtaking and IMO up there in quality as the rest of the games on the market right now.

I believe if the gfx for original RK (or new RK? :-)) were revamped, AO/FC would have a real opportunity at clocking a few hundred grand a month in new subscriptions and taking some real marketshare in the mmorpg market. It is particularly important, as it is the first thing people see when they join, and I appreciate that newbie island complete with aliumz was probably intended as that but ordinary RK is still RK.

EXPERIENCE

FC/AO has one of the richest and most diverse communities I have ever seen. They have been in the business for yonks, and know what changes will have what impact and where, better than anyone else I've seen. Sure, they make mistakes sometimes, but everyone does. WoW/EQ is one whole big mistake IMHO :-)

Having been around so many years has lead to a huge content base, priceless experience, and a very active community to support and enrich it. This is really worth so much if they only knew; just ask Mr. Murdoch and the myspace/web2.0 crowd! :-)


GAMEPLAY BALANCE
The game is very well balanced, and mediated from patch-to-patch. I think there are good and bad points to FC cracking down on out-of-game commercial transactions, but I cannot really comment because I don't know enough about it. What I do know is that WoW/EQ hasn't, and they have a player-base worthy of envy. I am not sure if a huge player-base is good or not (who wants more lag and bumbling newbs?) but it does mean that the FC guys can line their pockets and this is a Good Thing (tm). I am especially happy when the good guys get the money, and to further this example, M$ has never, ever produced a particularly good product but they sure do have the numbers! (for now! :-))

CONTENT

As mentioned previously, I can't say for certain, but I think AO probably has the richest and most diverse content in any mmorpg out there. Because they have so many years under their belt, because they have a great community and ARK model, storyline and role-play, and great ideas. Loads of items, Loads of NPC/mob types, Loads of weapon types and damage, Loads of twinking and character customisation possibilities.


COMMUNITY
This is covered under experience a bit, but I just need to reinstate it because it is important. Other MMORPG communities don't come close. It's like we have a secret AO handshake or inside joke, and the other mmorpg guys don't get it... :-)

These 5 things are what I rate MMORPGs on (there are other things too) but for argument's sake they are the key ones that complete the cycle dev->test, test->players, players->money, money-> dev and ultimately determine AO's great success.

[Mastura]

OK...

So what changes would I make? Assuming I wanted to keep existing users happy, but make some well earned $. And boy do they deserve it. FC are to me, pioneers without sufficient recognition, and all the other MMORPGs just cheap immitations. I mean other mmorpgs have stolen SO much from AO, and hardly *anyone* except a few old timers know or even remember...

GFX Engine

I would really revamp RK. It shouldn't take much code/work to diversify the dungeons a bit. A lot actually. Not just the actual map of them, but the visuals, i mean they all look alike! I still remember my excitement at the first cave dungeon. They are a lot smaller than outdoor zones, so you would think you could beef them up quite a bit! Make them a little bit more interactive perhaps. I still remember my heartache when I realised for the first time many years ago that I couldn't manipulate the really bright and colourful computer in some mission... Crates everywhere, geez, there must be like 3 crate models for the whole of RK.. and none of them open or I can interact with!

This would be key in gaining new players, and it will appeal to existing players too. In fact, it may appeal to existing players over say, new LE procs, or bosses. How many 200+ players have visited all places of interest? I was talking to a 215 player recently that hadn't even heard of Rhompa Bar! Point being there is more than enough content to last players 5+ years with multiple alts, and still not have done everything to be done, seen everything to be seen, killed everything to be killed, met everyone to be met, tskilled all items that can be tskilled or collected all items that are to be collected. AO wins this hands down, compared to cookiecut WoW toons. But they still get the new players because of their 'perdy graphics' and user-friendliness... We don't need new things, just some old things need updating! How to ensure you keep high levels players entertained for a new expansion pack without any new stuff? PvP (and it's the in thing lately.. :-P) and team pvp/capture the flag, etc (battlestations which seemed to be quite a hit except for some teething problems..)


Shortcut Bars

You should be allowed to pollute your screen with as many shortcut bars as you like! And move around those little attack reload bars! Why are they fixed anyways?


Items

We have enough items. As I understand though all tskilling is community-researched, which is AWESOME. BUT, we have *no* hints whatsoever, which makes it challenging, but I guess if only 15% of tskillable items have only been discovered, it wouldn't hurt to very subtly and still challengingly, maybe through RP/storyline/ARK event, release pockets of info to raise it to 30%? I mean I have no idea what the real stats are, but it's just an example.

Not only that, one of the easiest (codeable) changes I could see benefiting the game immensely would be to add 3-5 variants to colours of existing items (we have 5-coloured useless robes, only 1 albrecht heavy tank armor). It should be such an easy thing to accomplish, but result in an unheard of diversity compared to other MMORPGs! Everyone will look different, even if they are wearing/using essentially the same item. Is she really wearing albrecht, or something else? PVP madness! :-). Changing the models on existing items to create variants would also be good and not create balance issues, but would probably be more work, and create a bigger client download which just adding colour variants should not.


Toon Appearance

I guess this point is covered a bit in "Items" above, but more-so, depending on implementing difficulty, adding variations to faces/body height/weight would be invaluable in creating diversity. It's always funny when I'm asked for essence on my trox MP, but, what if I didn't look like an MP/trox at all? Let us not forget, Nanomages are downright ugly! :-)


Trade and Economy

Since we don't have official commercial out-of-game trade, the ingame one must be revamped! By having an ingame NPC-controlled trade system, FC can control and adjust the ingame economy a lot better. Then we won't have multi-billion dollar cities, whilst the cost of a medsuit still costs what it did 5 years ago essentially. This exchange can be between orgs, factions and even npcs like "Omni" or "Clan Council", etc. AI shops and playerbooths was a great addition and received heartily, so I would say that is a good indication on how necessary it is. Besides, nearly all other sci-fi genre material (games, movies, book) involves trade (international/intergalactic) in a big way, especially Eve, which has mining, which would also be a fantastic addition. Bonuses for Neuts!


Player Missions

Just like playerbooths and find team, a player can post missions up that come up in the mission booths for a reward. World economy-wise, this makes more sense than FC constantly injecting new money into the system by NPCs randomly, making the rich richer and the poor poorer


RTS/resource management

Sort of touched upon in the Trade & Economy item above, when are we going to get conquest! We can build our own cities, and conduct war on the same landmass, when will be the day we can colonise our own little chunk of heaven somewhere across space on another planet, clear out the nasty aliumz, then defend it against evil omnis/clanners and start building it up? It would be ideal if the city taxes/etc actually contributed to availability/rewards of NPC mission generation on that planet/playfield as well. You would probably also get closer community between same-aligned factions, (ie- whole bunch of clanner orgs shacking up together to defend a certain bit of space rock). The graphics don't need to be straight out of a steven speilberg movie either with cosmic dogfights or anything, just another map interface and a few new commands would do it, enriching the conquest/trade/resources aspect and creating 'self-expanding content' as a result.


Well I got that out of my system! I don't want to lose even 1 more player to some crummy mmorpg that rode off the back of AO. Lets focus on new players, us old timers aren't going anywhere, and when they do it usually is because FC didn't fix this or that bug, NOT because there were not enough procs or weapons or items. I am not really interested in another LE-like expansion which adds more weapons/attacks/levels to 200+ toons, i really believe going back to basics and expanding on what we already have and made it the great game it is today (Rubi-Ka science fiction/cyberpunk space saga), especially before Blizzard wakes up to the fact that AO already has a GREAT sci-fi base, experience and community and hopefully make some money for those dedicated Funcom staff!

And remember kids, Say NO to Dragons, say YES! to Cyborgs!!!

[Honorbound]

Couldn't have written it better myself, so I just add some random thoughts to go along with the OP.

Although I'm not really familiar with many other MMOs out there, nor do I know how many SF themed ones are available at the moment, but I have the feeling that not many. That's why I was somewhat surprised when FC announced that they're gonna roll out yet another fantasy MMO instead of sticking to SF, be it either AO2 or anything else.
The reasoning that fantasy MMO is "mainstream" and SF is just a small segment of the market works both ways in my opinion: since the fantasy MMO market is saturated, it's probably harder for a new one to get a large playerbase by "highjacking" players from other games, just as SF themed games can have only a smaller playerbase because of limited interest in the first place.

I've seen the title Tabula Rasa circling around the boards for some time now, people saying how they're going to switch when it comes out, leaving AO for good. From what I've seen about that one, it'll be more of something that's called MMOFPS these days, instead of a real RPG; less of that than Huxley (an another upcoming SF themed MMO), but still offering a fundamentally different gameplay than a classic MMORPG environment like AO has.
The same is true for another popular SF MMO that's been around for almost as long as AO, EVE Online. It also has a totally different game mechanism than the classic RPGs, and while it can be appealing and interesting for a while, I became somewhat bored with it after 6-8 months and came back to AO eventually, and lately I have been considering cancelling my EVE subscription alltogether.

I believe AO still has a lot of potential; it provides a good framework to build new things on, and still gives a fairly enjoyable experience. It also appears that now that the dev team got the LE development out of the way, they're working on fixing/balancing/upgrading a great deal of things that needed some attention for a long time now; more significant changes/improvements were done in the last few patches than during the whole time since LE was announced.

The most problematic part with the game for me is the graphics engine. Not because of the looks, I think it still does a decent job (especially for its age) and can produce some really nice vistas here and there. It's the performance, and all those odd incompatibility problems arising from still using the Dx7 interface. I really wish the devs would find a way to port/rewrite the engine to at least Dx8, not because of added features, but better stability and performance.

Another moot point appears to be PvP and it's balance, for those who care about PvP, that is. In my opinion, PvP in any classic MMORPG combat system is just a wasted effort; it's not meant to do that in the first place. It doesn't require player skills, basically it's just about matching character setup/equipment and alpha damage potential. That's where the only skills are required: to be able to find the most optimal setup and then twink it on your char.
If you look at all the discussions about it, they come down to two basic complaints: chars are too hard to kill (or unkillable), or chars get killed too easily by alphaganking. Those are the exact opposits of one another, and there's no way to address both issues at the same time. MMORPG PvP is either a gankfest where a combat lasts for at most a few seconds (like what it actually is in most MMORPGs) or a prolonged encounter where the opponents try to wear down the HP of the enemy simply by keep cycling through their attacks and heals. None of the two seems all that much challenge or fun to me, but I don't see any other way to do it with this kind of combat system, unless you turn to more of an FPS approach, like the aforementioned to new MMOs are going to try apparently.

Another gameplay issue is the camp-athon that's going on between high level campers and players who are actually in the intended level range for the given encounter. I think this is partly caused by the economical situation, where, especially at higher levels one needs huge amounts of money to get certain items. Another reason is the lack of (lower level) teams, thus those who have a high level main, usually find it easier to just camp things to get items for their lower level alts instead of trying to get a team of proper level together.

To sum it up, all things considered, I still like AO, and I do hope that it's not going to go out of business anytime soon. But to be able to keep current players, or even try to get new ones to keep the game being profitable for FC, changes and improvements just have to be done, some as soon as possible.
Recent changes show that the dev team still cares and tries to do their jobs to their best but I'm worried a bit about that it actually might be the "endgame" for AO itself; implement as many new ideas as possible for what little life-time of the game left so that the remaining players can have some fun in whatever little time there still is before they have to say goodbye to Rubi-Ka for good.

[Mastura]

Honorbound,

Thanks for the constructive feedback, comments and great information. It seems I am not alone in my sentiments and there are other AO fans with similar thoughts. I do have to say that your comments hit the nail on the head, so to speak. I feel the same way about PvP and it doesn't really interest me personally only having PvPed a few times over the years, and yes I do suck at it also :-)


But, you don't want to remove it altogether, as it limits potential flexibility and market share. There are tonnes of other-mmorpgians that look specifically for a robust PvP system, and although I've read many forum posts along the lines of 'nerf this prof' or 'fix this nano', largely I think it is balanced, there is enough there that players will always find new, innovative ways to get the most out of their profession kits. I would hate to see FC staff spend all their time trying to balance this pvp prof only to unbalance that other prof, and patch-by-patch, vis-a-vis, it all really balances out in the end...

I also share your views on camping. Fortunately, I would think it is one of the easier problems to fix: increase drop locations. Have more mobs, zones drop that particular item, on different parts of the world, and then analyse existing statistics as to whether to increase or decrease drop rates. You don't want to spoil rare items, but by the same token, if there are more locations that drop useful/camped items even, it would be dropping twice as regularly, so it may very well need a teeny bit of a decrease in drop rate. It obviously depends on the items aswell, some stuff is already rare enough! Tskillable items also balances this by introducing complexity,cost and knowledge to make rarer-than-normal shop items.

Observing stats would also prove fruitful in determining a suitable player-to-encounter ratio. I don't know whether FC have looked at it, I would assume so, but it seems that if there are too many players for too few locations, the "over"-camping ensues. In RK at least, camped locations (usually) indoors, have level caps, which enforces some sort of balance and prevents high level camping and KSing.

You are absolutely right in mentioning that this has to do with the economy. If players have very expensive cities, and the easiest option for a high-level, non-etiquette player is to camp item xyz, then they will do that, because they can. If however there was a suitable market/trade NPC system in game, then FC can adjust the economy on the fly to suit. Or what about the inverse of playerbooths (ie playermissions) where the price is set by player need/want, instead of hundreds of item xyz sitting in playerbooths for ages due to low price or high-availability, or a single item abc sitting in playerbooths for ages due to its ridiculous pricing. It then becomes a competitive market and makes a player less inclined to camp and sell at ridiculous price when there are 15 playermissions requesting item abc at a certain cost.

Like real life real-estate, small overpopulated cities are very expensive. Expanding and lower cost real-estate is not only natural, it's a fact of life and economy. Maybe Rubi-Ka has been the same chunk of RK-territories way too long, and its time we add more (cheaper) land and let the exploration begin! I agree EO is boring after some time, but some of the elements (trading, conquest, resource management) would be perfectly suited to complementing an already awesome AO, and would in the worse case, provide solutions to some of the vocalised issues expressed by players.

The only thing that I would have to marginally disagree with you is that science-fiction is less mainstream than fantasy. IMDB's list at http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross quickly reveals that 9 of the top 20 (spiderman while not cyberpunk, it is sci-fi in the broader sense. And before i get flamed, his special abilities are attributed to science rather than magic...) most profitable movies of all time were in this genre. Only 5 are fantasy settings. Same goes for TV-Series (From Buck Rogers to Star Trek, from Babylon 5 to Stargate, from Battlestar Gallactica to Firefly...). Award winning and some still airing and releasing new episodes today, more than 30 years later!

I really do believe that the reason why there are less players is due to lack of sci-fi mmorpgs not less mainstream. Fortunately, AO has an enormous content, just needs to made a bit more 'newbie friendly' so we can snatch those cookie-cut-lovin' low-IQ WoW and EQ players from their simplistic cradles and rock their world showing them what a real mmorpg universe looks like

Thanks again for your comments, and for the heads up on Huxley and Tabula Rasa. I really do hope AO never dies, it was one of the first, and is still one of the best and most superbly designed gameworlds ever devised.

The Anarchy Online is dead, Long live Anarchy Online!

And remember kids, Say NO to Dragons, Say YES! to Cyborgs!!!

[Mekh]

Those posts are the best I have read in a looooong time...

[Docnamdkeeper]

Holy Essays Batman!

[Ayria]

Holy Essays Batman!

yes; but they are quite true. AO isn't dead yet, but it will be in time unless someone starts to really care and really start to fix some of the major issues instead of adding new content all the time

[Burp]

I so agree with a lot of the sentiments in Ozzy's posts.

I love AO for the depth of stuff around, although I do wish it was possible to find out more i.e. I'd love to have more hints about tradeskilling stuff or even know what half the junk in SL could be used for (e.g. Jets, immortal fungus, etc).

I love being able to twink rather than just lvling to get abilities or new gear.

I don't mind graphics .. RK to SK to AI to LE has got a huge range. But ofc I wish I could do more in a mish like smash boxes, etc.

With regards to game ecomony, I still can't figure out how LE armour is better than chosen and free compared to t2 and chosen which is extremely rare, you can't share it with alts, or costs 100 million for a few pieces. But don't get me started on economy!!

I could go on, but I won't repeat the essay. Some great reflections here. Thanks oldskool_ozzy!

[tweeky]

jesus thats like some big posts

[Ayria]

I so agree with a lot of the sentiments in Ozzy's posts.

I love AO for the depth of stuff around, although I do wish it was possible to find out more i.e. I'd love to have more hints about tradeskilling stuff or even know what half the junk in SL could be used for (e.g. Jets, immortal fungus, etc).

Jet is used in a tradeskill process whos method and results can be seen here Courtasy of AO Universe's Guides

Other then that, your on your own :P

[Burp]

OK .. so I know about 16% of possible tradeskills stuff (if this figure is at all correct). Still means there is a lot of stuff out there which would expand this game beyond anything else on RK4 if we just knew where to look!

[Xaun]

Huge bump for well thought and well presented ideas and arguments for this wonderful yet aging game we all love so much. I really do wish this would fall on fertile soil..

PS: Bump for using RP as a means if nothing else as to releasing little tidbits relating to tradeskilling things.. please? Pretty please with a cherry on top? The RPers are the ones who will sit and discuss what notum really is as seen >>HERE<<

[Mastura]

Thanks again for the awesome feedback folks! <3

I really do think we stumbled onto something here!

Budder, WOW! I wasn't too far off the mark! Can I ask where you got that info? Hmm maybe we should ask the auno/aomainframe guys to add a tskilling section to their website where users can flag combinations that have been tried and what resulted, that way we can methodically go through them etc.. hmmm

Xaun, awesome post, thank you very much for that - it was a great read. P.S. i am a big fan of your artwork! <3 I have alien invasion as my desktop wallpaper When are we getting the new prof armor pics?

[Mastura]

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but BAM - another suggestion from the player community springs to life no thanks to me! GG Funcom

*Sits back and watches the economy to stabilise and hoardes of froobs become reactivated/real accounts meaning more $$ for Funcom and more players!*

GRACE (PLEX) suggested http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=607805 originally here and other theads I can't find off-hand.

Just want to take the opportunity to remind people that in financial analysis of economies, to REDUCE the costs of items in a market, you create MORE supply and availability (increasing droprates/yesdrop - which will in turn destroy LR selling, etc) NOT the other way around and the demand drops and as such prices do also.

Increasing count of NODROP, and players will monetise it, increase LR selling costs, etc. NODROPS have less to do with moneysink since the buyer gets his or her item, and the seller gets his creds, it is NOT AN EFFECTIVE MONEY SINK - consider secondary or tertiary currencies and appropriate exchange rates with taxation.

Read the in-depth explanation on the threads of how it can potentially stabilise a the economy by way of a 'closed-loop' resource ecosystem whilst generating revenue for FC which means more players and better fixes for us

Top Heavy Economy Fixes

[Traderjill]

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...d.php?t=604465

Sure it had been suggested before but I think the above thread is the one that lit the fire and resulted in its implementation.

[Mastura]

100% TJ
Onwards and upwards, Funcom and Anarchy Online!