Story? What Story?

[_______________Terra]

>

[Arila]

once there was alittle rabbit, then we shot it, now its dinner

[crazyhorse]

Ya know the funny this is when the so called "story" started Funcom said that the story would run for 8 months then take 4 months off through the summer like tv shows... I wonder if this is summer in Oslo.

[Lumin]

considering we have had a somewhat cold and wet winter I can imagine they get the summer feeling these days when things get a bit warmer..

or perhaps the handyman forgot to turn off the heating system before he left sometime around halowen, and they got the seasons all mixed up... who knows..

[Bionitrous]

You know, I actually miss the days of the Pumpkin Men and the animated series. Haven't seen any story since then other than the Dust Brigade.

The Dust Brigade element is failing miserably because nobody has any clue what they are up to after about 4 months. That's just too long.

Everybody wants to know what is going on with Joshua and Elena and that weirdo that was talking to the digital thing.

Unfortunately, the storyline these days has degraded into swimsuit parties and parades. Oh, and name-calling between guilds on either side who think they know the particulars of the Tir Accord or have an inside track to Ross or Radiman.

I still can't get over them Omni's who decided to declare an 'Ultimatum' to the Council of Truth with no authorization from Ross himself or Omni-Pol or Omni-AF. Not to mention the 'ultimatum' was directed towards the CoT with respect to the Dust Brigade.

That's like telling Radiman you're gonna kill a clanner because some mutant in the sewers of Omni Entertainment ate your baby. Idiots. But, who can blame them for trying SOMETHING if FunCom gives us NOTHING.

[Myers]

Why are people so impatient?

[_____________Cloudeh]

We have said in our heads, ill give them a little longer,
on and on ove and over,...

Its too long.
Im not impateint i have been waiting like 7 months or more lol.

[________________Seid]

Well. Things ARE happening. Not all of them mass events...
But small scale events happen here and there. GM run events/missions involving no more than 10-20 people.

I too wish the events would happen more often, and preferably in CET friendly times. But they do happen. And not all of them crash servers

[______________Jeamus]

One of the biggest problems with the story right now is that they are no longer attempting to inform the player base on what is going on.

As Seid said there do seem to be events going on but Funcom is no longer bothering to report on them. I mean really, the last news article on the login page was about the Omnitech Ultimatum (sp?). Nothing was mentioned about the event that evidently happened this weekend in Ent. and Trade.

You can create the greatest story ever told but, if you don't tell anyone, than you might as well not create it in the first place.

[_________Lodrin-Omni]

Originally posted by Myers
Why are people so impatient?

Hi, unlike you who probably bought this game 2 weeks ago, a large amount of players for AO bought this game back in June of last year.

Don't you dare point your finger at me or anyone else and say we are impatient because only now they are 'flirting' with stories.

How about they do something that actually impacts players... like, perhaps BLAST THE CITY OF HOMES TO SMITHEREENS.

End that lag fiasco once and for all

[Thuggy]

Yes nuke Home!

[SLavinat0r]

ill get dubbya right on it..

[_____________Rowenna]

not impatient, as the expectations are low...

tho i play since last summer + all i saw of the story 'ingame' was one member of dust brigades just standing still in west athens on RK2

[Myers]

Originally posted by Lodrin-Omni


Hi, unlike you who probably bought this game 2 weeks ago, a large amount of players for AO bought this game back in June of last year.

Don't you dare point your finger at me or anyone else and say we are impatient because only now they are 'flirting' with stories.

How about they do something that actually impacts players... like, perhaps BLAST THE CITY OF HOMES TO SMITHEREENS.

End that lag fiasco once and for all

I've been playing since December. I think people need to stop expecting to get something the game can't give is us at this time. All the game events have been really interesting and excitieing even though I haven't been involved with most.

[crazyhorse]

Originally posted by Myers


I've been playing since December. I think people need to stop expecting to get something the game can't give is us at this time. All the game events have been really interesting and excitieing even though I haven't been involved with most.

Well Ive been playing since the first day and was promised a dynamic story thay the players would be able to shape as well as a story that kept changing from day to day and week to week... this "story" began ~halloween with the introduction of pumpkin heads and the first dungeon, and from there until about Janruary the story moved along (slowly but did move).

Since then what has happened? A few inter guild events set up by the players themselves and a few FC events that very few players even know about until they are over. Someone else suggested this and Im just stealing it, but we need events not onve a month or once a week or even once a day. There should be story type items going all the time. (make news over the news channel... make us believe something is happening) . The only thing I have heard over the news channel in the last 2 months is who just became and advisor. (grats but...)

Too many of us are well into our lvl 100s and late 100s... Leveling is a a bore, give us something to be excited about, something to roleplay and a reason to roleplay.

I have been one of the FC supporters for a long time but my patience is really waining. We get new dungeons and such but really where do these places fit in with any story? Does FC really expect us to stay excited about a game where a story was promised and no story is there for 4 years? Tell me to be patient... Ive been patient for 8 months and now in a couple months the "story" is going to stop for 4 months in the summer? Sadly this "story" is non-existant and soon any players that thought there would be a story are going to be non-existant as well.

[Lumin]

The funny thing is that people dont see that they are shaping a story, for evry action that is taken you change something. the guilds change the most for they are usualy in the spotlight tough.

one example TBA goes on riot killing omni-tek guards on sight, that will ofcourse be listed in the story line whenever the timeline gets updated.

Not evrything has to be done by GMs or other FunCom officals, sure they do things now and then but at the moment the players are shaping the story. if all the players or most of them wanted peace they would have made a new peace treaty making it so that guards dont attack the other side on sight.
but players wanted war so they made war for us. but they never made the real assault, we have to do that ourself.

its not very visible on a day to day scale but if you look at the past 2-3 months you'll see a story being shaped by the players.

I tought at first that FunCom would give us weekly events, they do tough but they dont announce it cause it would be like your knowing the prices will fall on a special type of hardware so you sell out the day before .. how many know that the price will fall ? usualy not many. also having a lot of contacts will help you get to an event if you realy want to attend .. so how do you get your contacts?, best thing i have found so far is to Role Play as you see your character is, usualy people tend to like the Role Players (ofcourse if you RP as a jerk you might not be liked though) and welcomes them to their friends list and actually tell them when things happend.

One thing tough .. I could hope that important things like a large Omni-Tek assualt on a clan outpost (ofcourse player driven, and this was only an example) or similar things perhaps got a brodcast telling all aviable Omni-tek combat personell to join up (but only if the initating guild or faction wants it so they petition for a broadcast or something similar).
but again this should realy be the respective guild leaders job to do (how bout giving the Generals the posebility to listen to the Guild Leader channel so if the leader is not on they do atleast get the message). but in the end we are the ones that shape history, in real life and in Anarchy Online.

So my advise is to do not expect history to come to you, you have to be the one making history of yourself.

[_____________Rowenna]

its allright if you consider that the story is a RP event that you play excusively with yourself, thinking yourself into this or that, but...

there are sooo many possibilities within already established 3D planet to make it more interesting that its a shame and pity not to have utilised it.

For example, both OT and Clan (and Neutrals?) could have political displays that state the progress of the tasks that determine the future of their political endeavours for them.

In cold war times, these could monitor and report spy activities like results of guild-wide or broader accumulations of mission results etc, that then topple an enemy base into your hands, even counting amounts of disabled missions/NPC members to that cause.

There could exist very complex spy/mission environemnts that allow you to position spying devise near some enemy HQ that then report its findings even direct to "voice of liberty" or whatnot.

Sky is the limit. (or budget?)
Where there is will, there is possibility.

[_____________Rowenna]

...easy to implement would be to ahve quests for general populace, where everyone can contribute in direction a) b) or c):

allow special items into missions, both as rewards and as findables in chests/on NPCs. Summing up all found items of a certain type makes the event trigger. Lets say one needs 100+ items of a type for it to happen, and all memebers of one political side can watch the progress on political tab screen:

a) JUGGERNAUT ROBOT
collecting 100 general and 15 activator pieces (like plans, brain, program, whatnot) makes a huge machine that goes rampart onto enemy, destroying for 3 days one of their cities (GODZILLA!?)
This has impact on story by further bla bla into that direction.

b) TAKE OVER THEIR LEADER
professor Hildebrandt found technology to collect soul fragments of specific person from the ether of never-neverland. 100 fragments are general, but 15 are ql200 missions (or higher?) items like mental transducer, loveflow of Radiman record, etc.
Collecting all of these allows an impostor to take place in leaders body once after he's assasinated and afterwards, for the period of 3 days, that leader makes decisions that impact the world in the direction of the party controlling him. After 3 days, the plot is discovered and leader assasinated again to be replaced with real soul (not older then 2 weeks)

c) PACIFICATION/ENRAGEMENT of an area
By collecting and placing gas dispersing or gas enhancing terchnopods, once 100 of these is installed (after being found in missions) into an area, it changes the gas content percentage and therefore PvP possibilitiy. Guilds could decide and hold channel campaigns for other guilds as to why/where to invest hard earned gas technopods...

KEY BEING: having player influence onto the game environment/story

[Lumin]

what I see that will promote Role Playing and story advancement most is the areas that you can capture and hold, cause then guilds/factions will begin working with and against each other to hold areas, hence hopefully enforcing them to roleplay (I doubt any enforcing of RP will be needed, but we should not forget those who perhaps would say "hey d00d I'll give you 10mill for that area, k?"). ofcourse if a joint faction/guild manages to hold a larger part of the aviable areas they will have an impact on the story but they will also make it possible for players to rebell against them hence they will make story aswell.

This is only one of many things that makes player interaction possible, some of the "tools" needed are here now, others will hopefully arrive as time fly by.

[Luciana]

How about they do something that actually impacts players... like, perhaps BLAST THE CITY OF HOMES TO SMITHEREENS.


hehe, thats what they did to Arwick when it got overpopulated, they dropped a comet on it. they call it "Charwick" now :P


Well i tihnk there have been alot of things going on in the story line, just only the people who happen on being there at the time they happen are a part of it.

I think that the storyline links on the log-in screen need to be updated almost hourly, and have announcment in-game for when things happen, that way everyone can participate.

its a simple matter of informing the public of whats going on. I would love to participate in the storyline, but so far from what i've noticed, its all about being in the right place at the right time.