7 Days in AO (longish)
I just finished my free 7 days in AO and I've decided to keep paying and playing on a month to month probationary basis. Yeah, I like AO a lot. On the other hand, there's a lot I don't like. This post is a list of things that I think can be improved. Some of these have probably been suggested elsewhere. Some may already exist and I just haven't encountered them. If so, I apologize. As I said, I've only been playing 7 days.
CHARACTER STORYLINE
I like to role-play and I like to let myself get immersed in the world. AO could do a really great job of creating a personalized immersive world. Here's how:
- Mission choice affects storyline: If I keep choosing to do "bad" "chaos" missions, it should affect my characters reputation. Maybe the guards mutter something as a pass, like "We don't want any trouble in this town, Aamaa."
- Storyline Quests: It would be cool if how I played affected my personal storyline. If I consistently choose "bad" missions, harrass NPCs and shopkeepers, maybe a squad of agents should ambush me in town one day. This wouldn't have to be somethign that would leave me dead, just something to keep me on my toes. Maybe if I play "good", someone asks me to do a favor for them. There could even be NPC organizations that ask me to join up, or try to rub me out.
- Storyline Missions: Why not have rare missions that pop up on the terminal dependant on my class, level, places I've been and so on. Imagine missions that being like this: "You know your way around Athens Shire, and we need someone to do a job there", "You've built up quite a reputation, Fixer, and we've got a job that requires your special skills", “we know you don’t mind knocking off those OT chumps, so here’s a particularly difficult assassination for you”
MORE IMMERSIVE WORLD
- More Interesting Quests and Missions: If you’ve been giving the Clans a hard time, an NPC or Mission terminal offers you a mission that’s actually an ambush (you still get the mission reward if you manage to survive). If you’re neutral, an OMNI NPC offers you a dangerous mission in Clan territory. An NPC offers you a mission at gunpoint and if you turn it down, he tries to take you out (very cyber-punkish, IMHO).
- NPCs actually have a life. Rather than stand around, they do something repetitive or randomly. For example, an NPC miner who travels out to his secret ore stash. It would be hard to trail him, but if you pulled it off, you could look his mine, or an NPC who carries out an assassination unless you stop him.
- NPCs who are less predictable: This NPC has a quest; the problem is, he wanders all over Newland Dessert. Another NPC will hire you to do an assassination; problem is, the quest NPC and the target both disappear and reappear in new locations when the quest is done.
- More reasons to explore: monster camps and quest NPCs that don’t always appear in the same place. I love to explore the world on foot, and it would be cool if there was more stuff out there to find (and exploit for my own personal gain of course)
And one other thing – better support for Neutrals.
So that’s my two cents on AO. There are a lot of things that I really like in the game. The mission system is a vast improvement over other MMPOG I’ve played. The sci-fi setting is really cool with all the implants, nonbots and other cools stuff. I hope AO continues to expand and improve so I can keep enjoying it!
