Where is the story??

[bryoni]

We hear of little things happening, imaginary incidents in text only, and the occasional news item when a guild gets creative and attacks an out post some where.

All i see in this game now is players doing the 'robot hunt' quest or playing team missions.

When i first played this game a year ago the was always lots of people hunting at bronto oasis, rhino **** pit, lush or borg in avalon. Any time of the day you could wonder out there and there would be more than one team, Now nothing (is this a reflection on the amount of players that still login?). The game has become all about obtianing new and rare items and selling them for as much as possiable. Also about dealing the most damage and getting lvl's. One whole year i have paid my fee's and waited for something to happen what have i got in return? There is no story line in my opinion, what is the point in haveing a 75% cities where the only thing that happens is a high lvl person killing grey guards? (usally one faction killing the same faction) or witnessing the death of some poor neutral because they ran into a factioned NPC in a city, thus both the NPC and guards attack them. Go to west athens you will find clan killing clan guards, go to newlands everyone kills neutral guards. I once had the oppertunity to do a GM mission for goldstar1, this was great but now nothing.

I am so bored with this game and just feel like canceling my subscription. I see no point in playing this game apart from lvling my characters and getting as much money as possiable. Yes there is PVP and RP within the guilds but thats surely not what the game is about? OK i know the occasional attack happens i'e omni raid at reets (err this was a neutral town.. WHY?) Come on lets have daily attacks on 75% factioned cities, lets have GM or who ever recruiting people to compleat quests etc. In short lets have a trully interactive game and not a glorified 3D forum, chat and community site. Please let see some progress in a visual form not just some written news item.
I suggest that 'special items become GM mission only and all the new and olds items become mob drop in any type of mission or hunt. This would top camping and have players activly teaming to obtian and item of thee choice, people who like to solo, hunt or team can do so and enjoy the occasional good loot. (not the worst thing about current team missions is people fighting over the one special item for boss drop. Imagine this a Gm setting a task for a clan squad to destroy a labitory some where, then going to omni and telling them that one of there labs are under attack. Set the whole thing in a 75% city and make one or 2 parts of the be 25%. The reward could relivant lvl nondrops, a choice of and can be recived as part of a reward if a certain percentge of GM quest was achived?

Now that would be news and true Rp story.

[Zarrot]

I'm hoping 14.4 signal the start...if you read between the lines in the patch notes it looks like it may be the start.

[Arila]

such missions wont be easyt, nor cana GM change anything within the game like the % of the gas, it ont happen, as it require alot of cooding and changing to the affected area.

Nor should special items be GM mission only, how many GMs are thre? way to few for these many layers if they all want the missions.

I like the idea, but i dont think its easy

[_______Nanitehandler]

Ive heard of incidents where the GMs have changed the suppression gas. Ive even seen GMs spawn special NPCs for parties and such.

The GMs have the power to make great story events, but they refuse to use that power often.

[______________Orchid]

It is odd, all the elementsa re already here for an amazing game..

but right now missions are very repititious, and that is boring to do the same type of thing over and over again , and that spells death to Anarchy Online.

They need to ****e up missions with the elements are already here they just need to use them better.

[_________YumYum Crow]

I have to agree.
I am still exceedingly new to the game, but I have been doing missions practically non-stop to advance my characters. I do this because at least with missions, there is a sense of accomplishment, of actually DOING something in the context of the game world that isn't just fulfilling a game mechanic.

That being said, missions are starting to become repetitive for me. After all, how many secret bases can conceivibly be built in or under the shacks and small hovels I am sent to explore? There is a limit to how many scientific and manhunt expeditions once can do before the appeal begins to ware thin.

This is a shame, I think, because I find the mission system to be a step up from the old level treadmill of hunting creatures for cheap loot and no apparent reason.

As to a solution the jury is still out. Perhaps some tweaking to the mission system now and then to make things different occasionally. Perhaps more events to encourage participation in the storyline... I don't know.

I just try to think like my characters and roleplay with those I meet. Hopefully this will encourage tohers to do the same, and we can make our world interactive and responsive. Even so, I think AO has more of a 'feel' to it than some other MMORPG's that I've played

Perhaps I am being idealistic...

[______________Orchid]

The game needs to be more then simply huting or missioning.

The game needs to be more then that plain and simple.

They need to add more elements, more interaction, and more storyline.

[_________Crazynotion]

To be honest I don't think the diversity of the mission system is what is at fault. If a whole bunch of new mission types were added in, we'd be kept entertained for a month (maybe) before they, too, would become 'oh - another one of them' missions.

GM-direct involvement in a storyline is the easiest solution, but is also very expensive. GMs cost money, and then you've got issues with keeping consistency - lots of GM get-togethers to make sure they're all singing from the same hymn sheet. So after a bit of analysis, GM- events are actually quite a bit of bother, especially if they're going to have any lasting impact on the story.

For me, I'd love to see changes to the way missions are handled. Here are a few of my ideas:

* Competitive/PvP missions. A single mission (on a strict timer) that has two 'aspects' - one posted in OT and the other posted Clan. Make them obviously PvP, but it'd add an interesting twist if two groups were racing to complete the same objective, or even if one group was defender and the other attacker.

* Mission 'persistence' - having the mission database be able to join a series of missions together in a coherent thread, with a larger reward for completion of the full set. Making some of the missions in a 'mission thread' require a group would certainly make things interesting, but the idea that a single 'mission story' can span multiple individual missions could help ****e them up and give hooks to roleplay off for those that want to. The simplest structure would be 'complete mission A to get the key to mission B'
Example mission set:
Start by observing someone. Once the mission is completed, you get a follow-up mission that mentions something about illegal biotech research, and asks you to go and analyse an item somewhere else. From there you get pointers to plant a bug somewhere, followed by an assassination mission to take out the doctor.
You'd need to define a range of valid 'mission chains'

* Split missions - a mission that requires the user to visit two seperate, small dungeons. Including the possibility of missions that have minimal/no enemies and lots of security countermeasures instead (fixer friendly!)

* Missions with 'outdoor objectives' - tracking down a spawn in an area of the great outdoors. There are enough areas of wilderness to support this without worrying *too* much about other players bumping off whatever you're looking for. Though obviously this couldn't be guaranteed like it can with indoor missions.

* 'Bring me a common item' missions - not even necessarily requiring a dungeon or unique spawn - having a mission that wants monster parts or blood plasma or something similar. Of the form 'combine this with some blood plasma and bring me the result' would work fine. Rewards would have to be dependent on the scarcity of the 'common item' and there would have to be a wide range of different item types to discourage too much hoarding.

All of these are, I think, fesable - but some will certainly require some MAJOR code rewrites - new data tables and the like - so I'm not holding my breath. But I think that making missions something people can talk about and look around for assistance with would make them a bit more interesting. Larger reward for more complex types, obviously. For any kind of mission persistence you'd need a longer timeframe to complete the missions in, which could lead to database bloat of lots of uncompleted missions...

Anyway, just a bit of brainstorming. Do with it what you will

[_________YumYum Crow]

Now if they put your suggestions into practice this game would be unbeatable for a while to come, I should think!

Good on ya!

[___________Firebird1]

*Bump*
Because these are accutally good ideas and they need to be seen!