Storyline a hoax. Players at best are 'extras' - Account Cancelled!

[______MistressSheigh]

OOC: Santse, While you have some pretty big posts here I think you have failed to actually THINK about the situation. Funcom is in the MMORPG business because it wants to make money. Period. It does this by attracting paying customers and keeping them. Period.

Customers pay to play a game that is "Fun" to them, and stay because the game continues to remain "Fun" for them. Since this is your first MMORPG let me enlighten you with some knowledge.

** If you provide the playerbase with a clear-cut objective... They WILL accomplish it much faster than you planned for. (Even if you supposedly make the objective "impossible" until you are ready for it to happen.)**

RL Example: In the fantasy MMORPG Everquest a "High End" MoB was created with an associated story called "The Sleeper" (Can't remember the dragon's name off-hand. Something like Kerafrym, I think.) The MoB had WELL over TEN MILLION HP (Discoverd by players who file parse and log their battles then calculated damage delt to reduction in the MoBs health bar.) The Sleeper was protected by four "Watchers" who were also similarly tough to kill. (Besides ultra high HP, invulnarability to SEVERAL damage types, superfast health regeneration, quad hits for multiple hundreds in damage each hit, and HEAVY AoE damage dealing abilities the MoBs could also summon the player at the top of it's hate list and "Death Touch" them, repetedly. As well as having a ZONE WIDE AoE death touch on a thirty second timer.)

The awakening of the Sleeper was designed to be a MAJOR one-time game event giving unique items and effecting several other in-game storylines. The actual awakening of the sleeper was considered by EVERYONE (Including the Verant Dev team) to be impossible. The plan was to leave it impossible until the dev team was ready for it to happen then the HP would be lowered into the "Possible" range.

Well, things didn't quite work out. A major guild got it into it's head that THEY were going to be the FIRST to awaken the Sleeper. After several tries they actually managed to DO IT! Of course numerous bugs, exploits and "Rule bending" tactics were used. Nevertheless, the Sleeper was awakened WEEKS before the Dev team was ready and one of the biggest scandals in the history of EQ ensued. (IE the banning of an ENTIRE GUILD.)

Get the picture? .... No? Ok. I'll explain.

The AO storyline is not and has NEVER been player driven. Nor will it ever be. It is player interactive. If FC were to give "Control" of the story to the players how long would the game last? A month? Three? Maybe. With clearly defined goals and no in-game content to support it, the game would collapse within weeks of those goals' completion. IE: Either Omni-Tek factions wipe out the Clans, or vice versa. Sheesh, with dynamic zone control that could be done in a DAY! Game over. Everyone go home. FC is out the millions of $$ spent in developing the game and paying it's employees, and you are out your $50 or so you spent on a game that you thought would last four years, but only lasted six months.

On a similar note, I think you are wrong about player actions affecting the game itself. Allow me to direct your attention to "The Athens Accords". Whether you like it or not, there is NO denying that it affects the game SIGNIFICANTLY. This is an example of how a little imagination and a lot of hard work on a players' part CAN in fact affect the game and the story. While it hasn't been written into the storyline, the major chars of the storyline DO acknowledge it's existance, as well as the GMs and ARKs. This is something that the PLAYERS came up with and not FC. The guild leaders of BOTH the guilds responsible for it's creation have at one time or another been praised by a storyline Char in-game.

To finish, I disagree with you and hope you find true MMORPG nirvanna in whichever game you choose to leave AO for, I'll be staying. Good luck, and.... Can I have your stuff?? Hehehe.

**Edited by Sheigh** An EQ friend of mine emailed me and it seems I had the original "Sleeper" situation a little inaccurate. I have now fixed the inaccuracies.

Jena "Sheigh" Denick
Soldier/Recruiter
Clan Opposing Force
http://www.opfor.i8.com

[RandaZ]

The discussion here kinda reminds me of the first Heavy Gear game that had an online component. There were two factions, a North and a South (imagine that) and online, they had this big map that displayed the world. As each person completed a mission, this map changed. You could slowly but surely see the regions of influence shift as a result of player actions.

That was all good in theory though. But what actually happened with the game, like all others of its type is that a few select players deemed it 'roxxor' to find bugs in the game design (in addition to blatant cheating) in order to sway the war to their side. The good ol' standby was the slaughter-mule strategy... which we already see here in the AO arenas.

Sadly, that's the way the world works. Some people are so insecure with themselves that they use games as their sole outlet for their ego. We call them griefers, we call them uber-twinkers... whatever they are, in a game that 100% reflects what "players" want and do, their voices are always the loudest. The game will sway whichever way they want to, regardless of where the majority of people actually wish to go (loop-holes and bugs are a very powerful thing.. just ask any lobbiest).

So, is this what you want? Ever even heard of the Heavy Gear multiplayer game? It went down in far less than a year do to this "player-driven" world. No... I don't think I want that with AO. If the designers ever threw in that reset option like you said Mr. Bunny, I can assure you that the game will turn into a "hunt-the-NPC" type of game. There will be no story. There will be only Anarchy. I guess that's the true story of this game....


Tap

[RandaZ]

Just a followup... for those who say that good GM's are flexible when dealing with unforseen player actions and so forth... and then wonder why AO doesn't have this aspect... well, I ask you one question:

When was the last time in a D&D game you re-invited someone who constantly tried to hog the spotlight, kept killing the other players, and was defiant to the GM?

Until the day Funcom decides to make AO invitational-only, I highly doubt comparing AO with this aspect of a table-top game entirely fair.


Tap

[Slingback]

Sorry to be so blunt:

Comments about the storyline being a hoax asde, Funcom is telling a story. But, a story has one protagonist, or at most a small group of protagonists. (Multi-protagonist stories which are not group-protagonist stories are VERY rare.)

Remember that the story in question is, concidentially, open for in the region of 80.000 participants. Are all 80.000 of them protagonists? Of course we are not protagonists. We're the storm troopers and the x-wing pilots, the red-shirts and the new crew members.

Wake up people. Funcom is doing something that is incredibly difficult. Have some damn respect.

And if you don't want to pay for the product then cancel your subscription.

[______________Santse]

Well, Sheigh..and the rest of you storyline followers. If you would have READ my initial post..you would have noticed that I didn't cancel because of a lack of my involvement in whatever esoteric storyline you read in a book you buy from Funcom..or movies you download..or whatever fantasies you come up with with your chummy, happy, happy guild family - like I said: Sing "Kumbaya" and hold hands if that's where happiness is for you. I never cared about being 'part' of the story..that's not why I bought the game...I bought it because I thought it would allow players to form political and economical alliances (other than in their fantasy driven EQ heads) that would directly benefit that group. That never happened..was never true...was a true dissapointment when I realized that that never was going to happen.

My gripe is that there is no game content..no economic system that is player - and specifically group driven - there is no 'real estate' - So, unless you are happy in your "Kumbayamylord" role-playing fantasy..this game only offers you three things:

1) Levelling race
2) Equipping race
3) Beautiful graphics and landscape to explore (I had done that by level 60)

..and the role playing alone just won't do it for me.

..and btw, they are not getting my money anymore..hehehehe..and NO...you can't have my stuff....go role play for it..maybe a /disco will do it with some poor schmuck..ah yea..and don't forget to sing: "Kumbaya My Lord!"

[___________Chagidiel]

OOC:
Well, the political intrigues are there, so i reccon its the economics you feel are left out. Sure I can agree with that.

Unfortunally, I would say, you will have to be dissapointed quite a bunch of times, since I doubt there will be such things you seem to be waiting for. Sure SWG mayhep will have better economics, but even they state that the economics itself will effect rather little in the game.


Ohh, and just one last thing...Lemme see if I got you right:
You bought a online RPG, and now are dissapointed since you cant control the economics of the game?

So you leave this RPG, not because its lack of roleplaying, but its lack of economics? err...sounds to me as if you were looking for something else then a roleplaying game all along...

Ohh well, i reccon this discussion is over now, so i will go back and roleplay again, since thats what I for one bought this game for...The roleplaying, in the roleplaying game...

Kumbaja, my lord, kumbaja! Kumbaja...

[Slingback]

/cross
/me sings
Kumbaja, my lord, kumbaja

BTW, Santse, if you want economics, take a look at EVE. Online space trade sim, where, they claim, that the mechanics of supply and demand will drive the economies of virtual planets. That may be more up your street... (virtually speaking)

Did you have cool stuff, BTW?

[______________Shinji]

@Sheigh u are speakin soo TRUE.
Thx for this one =]

[_____________Cloudeh]

Actaully your wrong.......

The Hostile convoy attack.....I was not an extra, In fact I was one of the first , hell the first guy to get out of my yalmaha, (yes i got pics) And question them with /shout but they said, omni-tek business, I replid, I am omni-tek what is there you should know i should not.

They tried to atack us even in our yals, so......We did we we had to do.
Wipe them out to put it bluntly.
We could have all been wusses and stayed in our yalmahas, but no.we fought!

[___________LazyBlade]

Ah well, sad to see you go.

Bye Bye now.

[____________bluefoot]

I've also been playing since beta and i've noticed this game come along way in terms of what it should have been from the launch of the game.

In my view this game was released 1 year to early but I'm sure they were forced to launch early from external sources, pressure and or greed and not being able to handle such a big project.

But at the moment I'm getting more and more bored of AO everytime I play. Basicly I do the same old stuff everyday... its becoming very very routine and consistent... I want some fun, action, unpredictable things, events, story, quests and more.. everything that should have come with the game AT the time you launched it FC..!