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Thread: On the nature of the AO setting

  1. #21

    Re: AAAAAAArrrrgh

    Originally posted by vista1
    Great stuff to see the team keeping un the more intangible parts of story development but i have 1 BIG complaint.

    I am reading Asimov's Foundation Series at the moment and NO i didn't know the whole thing was being controlled by a mind reading robot on the moon because I HAVENT GOT THAT FAR YET.

    Way to go spoiling the story for me. Please remove that little line just to stop someone else having their day spoilt : (
    Sorry, but... ROFLMAO!!!

    Sorry. Sorry!!

    Anyway, the article is great and I hope some of us will be curious enough to buy the expansion. I do believe though, reading "between the lines", that AO will stay in its current form until Shadowlands is released. This makes me sad.
    $
    ::. Anarchin, OT Fixer, Legion .::

    Quote Originally Posted by Lynyah
    The difference is that you dont need a brain to camp things

  2. #22
    It seems to me that a lot of people are missing a lot.

    Corporations are evil. They are centrally contolled, aka totalitarian organizations. They work for their own self interests at the expense of everything else, including the people that work for them. Iif that's not the definition of evil i don't know what is, other than simply those that are different from you. Corporations create monoculture. Sure you have choices but they are their choices and the choices are usually 2 versions of the same thing, like coke and pepsi. I prefer water, but now water is so polluted by corporations that i'm forced to drink water bottle by corporations.

    Anarchy is an organizational structure based around decentralization, diversity and equality. Good like biodiversity kind of good.

    The dust brigade is not necessearily evil, they are just extremists. They are not willing to compromise.

    Also:
    If so many people are dissatisfied with the lack of story, then create one.
    create an organization with a story and act it out.
    find a bar or an outpost and hang out there on a regular basis.
    arrange alliences with other organizations.
    pick an opposing org and battle them.
    I'm sure people can come up with some grand stories that others will be willing to participate in.

    productive critisism is good, but whinig only leads to frustration on both sides. in this case ours and funcoms.
    I certainly wouldn't want to read a forum where everyone was complaining about my efforts every day.
    I've been seeing lot of changes lately that tell me funcom is activily making and effort to make things better.
    I find this latest piece of news to be hopeful, productive and a bit exciting. i'm looking forward to the expansion.

  3. #23
    Okay....you might want to grab some coffee and a smoke, 'cause this is going to take a while.

    First, I want to say that, despite appearances, I don't want AO to fail. I just want you people to pull your heads out and make this game what it could be. However, in the last six months, you seem not only unable to do this, you seem hell bent for leather on doing the exact opposite of what your players want. So, with that in mind....

    This article will tell you something about the direction of the game, and how it will evolve through the setting and the story. First a bit of a disclaimer: I am by no means a literary or movie expert. There must be many of the players of Anarchy Online who know more than I do about literary genres and their definitions, or the trappings of Hollywood.
    You are correct.

    It is summer (at least here in the northern hemisphere , and a friendly – laid back – topic for communication is appropriate. (Not the hard, sometimes aggravating, balancing issues )
    hehe....perhaps not the best choice...

    First off, let's talk about the current setting. When AO launched, and prior to launch, it was heralded - and marketed - as the first science fiction massive-multiplayer online role-playing game on the market (a mouthful!). This is true, but lacking a little in nuance. MMORPGs vary, but at least their methods of game-play are somewhat similar. Science fiction - what is that really?
    Tread carefully....

    >------snip--------<

    I've cut this here to save us all from your little trip through sci-fi.

    Dune is what is known as science fantasy--an advanced society with technological advances (which are still central to the story), but are not explained; instead, these are left to the imagination.

    Star Wars falls into what is called "Space Opera": the good guys are clearly defined, the bad guys are clearly defined (You don't really think that the fact that Darth Vader wears black is accidental, do you?). This sub-genre typically lacks all moral ambiguity, and few wrestle over the whether a given action is "right" or "wrong."

    Neuromancer falls into the cyberpunk genre. This setting generally includes enormous, multi-national mega-corporations which operate outside the law; the "common" folk tend to live in squalor unless they have sold themselves to the company. Computers figure prominently into these stories, as do criminals (who are usually presented as outlaw heroes). This genre tends to do more to explain how the science works.

    If you really want to keep at this sci-fi thing, you really should look up a few books, including "Terminal Identity" by Scott Bukatman and "Trillion Year Spree" by Brian Aldiss. The Aldiss is out of print, but you can probably find one in a library.

    My point is this: Science fiction is a multitude of things. It's not only Star Trek. It is everything from Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" to the neo-flower-power anime "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within", by way of "hard" sci-fi like Star Trek. I get offended when people tell me, "Why do people use swords in AO? That's not sci-fi!".
    Funny--I get insulted when I see a world 30,000 years into the future and the best weapon someone can find is a stick. Fancy that.

    Well, the reason why is because it is cool!
    No, it isn't. It's stupid.

    Just like the light-sabres are cool in Star Wars, just like Frank Miller mixing ninjas and swords with science and superheroes is cool in "Ronin".
    There are huge differences here. First of all, you will notice that Luke Skywalker is not yielding a steel support beam--he is carrying a laser-blade, and is only able to wield it effectively against someone with a gun through the use of the mystical, pervasive "Force". You will note, throughout all the films, that Han Solo never once wields a light sabre. Why? Because he would get his butt fried.

    I don't have a problem with people carrying a mace as a weapon. But you will notice that even in our backwards century, we have long since stopped equipping our soldiers (in almost every nation) with sticks. The reason is that soldiers with guns tend to last much longer than soldiers with sticks. Even cyberpunk often includes melee weapons--for up close, out-of-ammo last-ditch fighting or sneak attacks. But not for primary combat. If you want to mix the two a la Star Wars, fine--but make some sense. As it stands, there is little difference between sword and gun wielding, when in any kind of quasi-reality, there are times when a stick just isn't going to cut it.

    And please don't drag out that "suspension of disbelief" nonsense. My disbelief is stretched to the limit.

    The contemporary label "science fiction" has progressed far from the old definition where the driving force had to be science, and includes many, many cross-over genres.

    I think that today, the future, and science, is more of a canvas on top of which you can paint any story. That is actually one of the coolest things with sci-fi, the fact that you can play with the rules and make a different culture/reality that can tell us something interesting about the world, and about us.
    The cardinal rule for sci-fi (or any writing/storytelling) is this: you can make up any rule you want--but you had better stick to it. If you change rules in the middle of the show, people will get upset.

    If, in fact, we can create nanobots, and they are ubiquitous and easy to build/use, why has that not had much of an effect on what people use to hunt/defend themselves with? Why are nanobots not used to build cities in minutes? To clean pollution? If you can put nano-bots on clothing to be sure that (somehow??) only people of a certain political bent can wear it, why has someone not been able to hack that? How long do most popular encryption methods last in public?


    I am telling you this to set the curtain for explaining where we are going with the AO setting, especially with the Shadowlands expansion pack.
    Okay...here we go....

    From being a "simple" story about the conflict between two sides (the clans vs. Omni-Tek), we're turning on the heat and expanding our scope.
    This is some kind of inside joke, right?

    "Simple" story about the "conflict" is an understatement. There is not conflict. At all. None. Zero. Zilch. Zippo. Nada. Nil. Clear enough?

    This supression gas thing is ridiculous. Who controls it? ICC? Then why is the planet not blanketed with it? Because ICC doesn't wants people to kill each other? Well, that seems unlikely. Because ICC doesn't control the planet? then why are they there at all? Why is there *any* gas other than in OT areas? Why is there supression gas in the first place? Since death is not permanent, how does it negatively impact you to die? Wouldn't "I got killed" be a common and reasonable excuse for missing work? At least as common and acceptable as "I was sick" is now?

    My point is simply what I said before--you can do anything you want. But once you have defined the rules, you have to play by them. As one instructor of mine once said, "If anything can happen, nothing that happens matters."

    With the Shadowlands, we're going to build on this platform - making AO a game with a setting where the battle will be for the future of humankind, body and soul.
    What battle? We're told there's a conflict, but we don't see any of it. PvP areas are in effect wilderness arenas--clearly defined borders where you can hurt each other. Big deal. That is not a war, or even a conflict. It is, at best, a sport.

    But instead of explaining away the mystical (like what George Lucas did with SW:TPM), we're going the other way. We'll add mysticism - spirituality and inexplicable phenomena. And while there will be explanations, they might not be scientific in nature. We'll rewrite the history of humankind, and most importantly, we'll escalate the conflict. (Remember - and here be spoilers! - Isaac Asimov did this as early as in his "Foundation" series. Didn't it give you goose-bumps when the story finally returned to Earth, and finding a mind-reading robot on the Moon - directing it all? It sure did it for me!)

    This, in essence, is the Shadowlands - a place where your character's true inner self will be revealed. It's not another planet you travel to, and hopefully you can recognise some of the old places you have been to before! It's a new shadow dimension, where all the rules change. Some technologies will not work, and others will change in the way they work. With future expansion packs, we'll be doing even more challenging changes to the rules. What is the point of rules if we can't break them a little?
    Okay, what I was saying about the "rules". Up to this point, we've been playing a hard science fiction game. Even the mystics in the this world, the Metaphysicists, are explained with science. Suddenly, we have a spiritual component. Where was this mystical stuff for the last year (or last 30,000 years?). I suppose some answer is, "That will be explained in the storyline." to which I would reply, "You've got to be joking."

    With Shadowlands, the two opposing sides will become clearer. There will be no more shades of grey. This has been a true goal from day one for the AO team (at least for me personally), to make a true conflict where you can play two true sides - one light and one dark.
    What shades of grey, exactly, are you referring to? Since every single aspect of this world is controlled by which side you choose, from the terminals you can use to the clothing that can somehow read your mind. Where is the ambiguity you hope to be dispelling with this expansion? I would argue that, by introducing a spiritual (and, apparently, a moral) component to a thus-far strictly science- and politics-defined world, you are in fact increasing the ambiguity and shades of grey.

    If you read some of my pre-release web stuff, this should be evident. I don't know how well we were able to portray this through the launch and the story episodes, but it has always been a goal.
    I find it utterly incredible that, after the last year of "We can't do this," you think anyone actually listens to the pre-release claptrap. We can't even believe the information that was on the box or the web site now! And you want us to call up the past promises of pre-release mania?

    We'll also be introducing more elements from the rest of the galaxy. Hopefully you'll see what's happening on Rubi-Ka as something anchored in intergalactic politics. (As a reminder; notum, the blue substance from the Rubi-Ka mines, is the only substance that allows nanobots to be virtually perpetual, and to function outside the confines of the human body. It's only found on this one planet in the whole galaxy, making Rubi-Ka a unique, and crucial, resource, more important to Omni-Tek than their own solar system and their headquarters on Omni Prime.)
    Great idea--but where, exactly, was this information? I may have missed it, but I have watched every animated episode and read all nine released chapters of the book (if you think I'm paying $20 for a novel to any game--especially this one!--you are sorely mistaken), and I don't remember that. The last chapter I read said something about the first nanobots being created, but that they could only live for a very short period of time. I will accept that the rest of this information is in the rest of the novel, but....)

    Now, as to why notum is only found on RK, this will be explained in connection with the Shadowlands! We'll also reveal where notum comes from, and why it has such "magical" properties.
    I assume that by putting the world magical in quotes you mean to imply that, although the properties seem magical, they in fact have some underpinning of science, however fictional. I'm interested in seeing explanations of this. Or are you going to invoke that "we are free to do anything we want" claim to avoid giving any sort of cogent reason for what you do?

    Having told you this, you should hopefully more easily understand that the AO universe is not a sci-fi universe in the "techno-babble", Star Trek sense of the word.
    This is quite humorous. Star Trek is anything but techno-babble. Inconsistent science and flawed logic do not sci-fi make (and see the above about this). Roddenberry himself discribed Star Trek as "a sort of western in space--spaceships instead of horses, zap guns instead of six shooters."

    (I know I am being a bit unfair here, but bear with me!). It's a free universe, not constrained by rules of narrow-minded labels.
    It is constrained, however, by the rules it creates for itself. There is a name for science fiction stories that ignore their own rules--it's called "bad."

    This freedom is very important, because it means that we can also hand more of the reigns of the setting to you, the players.
    This whole article could be an AO-centered comedy routine. You really believe that the controls of the AO setting are in the hands of the players? Funny, considering that community opinion and information are so steadily and constantly ignored by FC.

    Luckily, the label "science fiction" is so wide-ranging that we are able to contain the evolving AO universe within it - and we're still, at this point, the only big sci-fi MMORPG out there.
    Yes, we can do a great deal under the "science fiction" label; there is one limitation, however, so listen up: You can't do it all at once. Got it?

    Also, you are correct that AO is the only sci-fi MMORPG on the market (like you, I don't consider "Neocron" to be an RPG (and I don't think the makers do either). But this will change rapidly. There are many other games coming, and AO needs to shape up quick if they want to hang in there.


    ---contined below----
    Last edited by Rook; Jul 13th, 2002 at 08:29:17.

  4. #24
    ---continued----

    Sometimes I wish we could make the name of the game evolve together with the universe. For marketing purposes, that's completely unfeasible, but it would be nice to have a distinct title more indicative of the territory we're approaching - rather than describing the one we're leaving behind. Anarchy no more!
    Still wondering what anarchy you are referring to? Perhaps that in the coding department? Public relations? Different sides standing in line to talk to some guy in the middle of no where hardly seems like anarchy. In fact, the world of AO seems to resemble Orwell's fiction (and 1984 is not, by the way, science fiction, even though it happens in a dystopian future) more closely--every action, behavior, and appearance constrained by a greater power; that power is FC, not OT.

    I hope this makes you as excited as I am about the evolution of the AO world, and please use your voice to influence this evolution - through the official forum, the fan-sites, and e-mail.
    No--it makes me excited about Atrius, SWG, Charr (!!) and the multitude of other sci-fi MMORPGs on the horizon. Will they do any better? Maybe not. But odds are good that they can't do any worse.

    We're voicing our opinions...will you listen?

    Rook

  5. #25

    Talking Heheheeh.

    Good article.
    When on the subject about DB's...
    I saw a few the other day...in Omni Forest.
    *poof*

    beamed into a ship...gone..
    Scared the **** out of me. That's the most action I've had for 4 months.
    "I wont let my precious comrades die..."
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  6. #26
    "Up to this point, we've been playing a hard science fiction game."

    Faulty perception on your part. There have been fantastic elements, particularly in some of the back-story which you later admit to having not read completely, all along.

    "Even the mystics in the this world, the Metaphysicists, are explained with science."

    I think I missed the scientific explanation for summoning demons. I'll have to check that again. The "scientific explanation" behind what they do is almost always qualified.

    "Suddenly, we have a spiritual component."

    This is neither sudden nor new. It is becoming more visible in the mechanics, but that's as far as that goes.

    "What shades of grey, exactly, are you referring to?"

    Neutrals, and apparently an intent to make things more clear to those who neglected to notice that the AO "story" is a two-sided, Good vs Evil, Clans vs Omni conflict, with unfortunately a whole lot more going on than has so far been implemented via game mechanics. Neuts who refuse to pick a side are just refusing to play the game. Omni people who insist that they are on the good side and _mean it_ are refusing to play the game. (RPing misguided or misinformed people is one thing; genuinely believing that "I'm Just Doing My Job" makes you right, for various obvious reasons, does not fly.) Etc. There were very clear distinctions which players messed up a bit; a mess FC neglected to address unfortunately.
    Last edited by Therion; Jul 12th, 2002 at 17:34:05.
    ...you live, you learn
    ...you die, you learn faster

  7. #27
    I think the article was great. Very well-written, and illuminating.

    It has always bugged me that the only high level metaphysicist pet is a demon. It would be nice to have a choice between a pet that was vengeful, powerful and evil or righteous, powerful and good. While this doesn't have much to do with Shadowlands, (or maybe it does?), maybe you could add this capability? The good and evil pets could have different fighting styles and special attacks/nanos if you really wanted to get creative. They should be balanced and equally powerful in any case.

    I play an MP, but have the soul of a paladin. I find summoning a demon to fight for me distasteful. If my only option is to play another profession, I'll do it, but I like the MP playstyle.

  8. #28
    The Shrine of Broken Promises.

    Funcom will create a deep and evolving story where thousands of players participate in both the day-to-day happenings, and the big epic conflict between the mega-corporation Omni-Tek® and several rebel clans. The player decides who his or her character will support.
    You are represented in this world by a customizable avatar, chosen from a set of breeds - each with unique graphic features. You will be able to customize skin tone, clothes and more.
    Each character is defined by 6 abilities and 40 core skills, with a great range of specialized skills further defining them. This implies that when you have chosen the shooting rifle skill, you could specialize further in a specific choice of rifle. Or, you could focus on being very resistent to a certain type of poison.
    Last edited by Thaxll'ssillyia; Jul 12th, 2002 at 18:07:21.

  9. #29
    It is interesting to me that the reactions of this article so far have ranged from disgust (at worst) to a sort of wistful longing for what might have been (at best). Gaute, given this range of response, do you think that you have a satisfied customer base who are eager to invest more money into an expansion pack? Sitting on your heels and doing nothing with the story line until Shadowlands comes out seems to me to be a very good way to have all of the time and energy of your development team wasted, as unhappy customers will be unlikely to purchase the expansion pack in large numbers.

    If you have a marketing department at funcom, I suggest you do some surveys or focus groups and see what it will take for people to buy Shadowlands. Perhaps you will find that allocating manpower to improving the story in your current release will result in a greater return on your investment in the expansion.

    ---------
    Exekias - lvl 128 MP, RK1

  10. #30

    Unhappy No offence intended to fellow Players.

    Its true that FC have been lax in a number of areas, it is also true that there are some very good points raised in complaints here. However, I honestly don't understand why some players are so fustrated and disillusioned that they still pay the monthly fee and play AO?

    If FC have caused such stress, it is healthier to simply cancel your subscribtions. Yea it seems that FC are not listening to your opinions, and it seems they may not do so in future (for whatever their reasons may be). But what seems to stress me out is all the complaining, it puts me off some times from checking the forums.

    I will say this, FC have bitten off more than they can chew. But what is done is done, lets see if they can pick up the pieces. Having worked with developers in the past, there are several issues's which are effecting what the individuals wish to do, such as I daresay the board members etc. only concerned with profit (as with any corperation).

    Thats all I have to say really, on the matter. Those of us who work will understand the difficulties with working as a 'cog in the machine'.
    Last edited by SinisterCake; Jul 12th, 2002 at 18:45:01.
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  11. #31
    I kinda realized that the game's goal wasn't pure sci-fi after I saw that the Schyler bow was one of the best weapons in the game. It's fine with me if the scope expands to all kinds of other stuff because the story and style make the expierence imho, not the literal definition of the setting. All things considered, I just hope the developers remember that giant robots and grenade launchers are cool.

  12. #32

    Re: No offence intended to fellow Players.

    Originally posted by SinisterCake
    Its true that FC have been lax in a number of areas, it is also true that there are some very good points raised in complaints here. However, I honestly don't understand why some players are so fustrated and disillusioned that they still pay the monthly fee and play AO?

    If FC have caused such stress, it is healthier to simply cancel your subscribtions. Yea it seems that FC are not listening to your opinions, and it seems they may not do so in future (for whatever their reasons may be). But what seems to stress me out is all the complaining, it puts me off some times from checking the forums.
    I've seen this line of thinking before, and as far as it goes, it's correct. But it overlooks a common circumstance in the playerbase - those that have longer than one month subscriptions.

    My own six month subscription is approaching the expiration date. Obviously, I liked the game quite a bit when I subscribed, or I would not have taken out a long term contract, so to speak. The game has changed significantly during that time period, and I don't care for it as much. There is nothing I'd like better than to enjoy it again, and that's my purpose in reading the boards. I would like to know what they have planned, and base my judgement regarding the disposition of my subscription based on that.

    As for 'still playing', I log on for no more than an hour maybe twice a week. That's a far cry from not being able to wait to play every day. I am trying to get a sense of if I'll get the old feeling back or not.

  13. #33
    Originally posted by Paokara
    Gaute, given this range of response, do you think that you have a satisfied customer base who are eager to invest more money into an expansion pack?
    And if you do, may I point out the following poll:
    http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...threadid=25630

    Scorus

  14. #34

    Thumbs up

    Have a look at Isaac Isamov's books (the empire or something like that) they show a universe that is falling apart, and then the way until it's put back together again, VERY interesting reading...
    If you compare it to StarWars you actually can see similarities and that is very fun to discover...

    Another way that would be nice to also look into is the Discworld series, the way humour is put into the story is something I think AO should have more of...
    I've spoken to some of the NPC's out there and some of them actually can be quite funny for a little while, but we could use ALOT more...

    One thing I was thinking of was to have NPC's giving you hint's of places to see or people to see or talk to, and having them tell a bit about themselves +++
    Even guards, make it possible to have fun with talking to them instead of having everyone stand around killing them instead...
    And bartenders should have an really long list of items they could talk about, so you could sit down by a bar and spill your guts to him... (just like the real world)
    Don't make talking to NPC's be only for getting missions but also for social stuff...

    The thing to remember when making a SF game is that the game have to have alot more than a movie, because a movie last about 2 hours and the game have now lasted for a year...
    So the movie can be about one special event, but a game must have the everyday life too...

    I actually got bored of AO because I lvl'ed too much, and as a NT I don't lvl much ...
    I had a blast exploring Belial Forest, so many nice little creatures and specially the man out there that was thinking of building a whompa, but was thinking he would get too many visitors then
    Make more of that, u may actually also make NPC's like him be able to teach you how to make stuff (special stuff) like everything from a weapon to a toilet (I know there is many that would like a Toilet in their apartment)

    This start to get a bit long and I'm not too sure of how good all of it fit with the topic, but my thought is that if it's the hope to make a SF world we can't forget we probably will evolve into something else than barbarians, but then again we never will know before it is too late ref. Isaac Isamov's books...

  15. #35

    Re: No offence intended to fellow Players.

    Originally posted by SinisterCake
    However, I honestly don't understand why some players are so fustrated and disillusioned that they still pay the monthly fee and play AO?

    If FC have caused such stress, it is healthier to simply cancel your subscribtions.
    Thank you for your concern over our mental well-being. I, and I believe many others, play AO because it is currently the best game out there. I, and I believe many others, believe it could have been SO much better if they had given us the thing that was supposed to revolutionize the industry: an interactive storyline. I, and I believe many others, are eagerly awaiting the half dozen or so MMORPGs that are supposed to launch in the next year to see if they can do any better.

    Scorus

  16. #36

    Angry Evil? I'm Omni, not evil...

    I have really only two things to add to what had been said here and I'll start with a little quote...


    This, in essence, is the Shadowlands - a place where your character's true inner self will be revealed. It's not another planet you travel to, and hopefully you can recognise some of the old places you have been to before! It's a new shadow dimension, where all the rules change.
    How exactly will you be able to show our true inner selfs? I am Omni, am I therefore truly evil or is it merely guilt by association?
    None of my characters in AO are evil on the inside, quite the contrary. In order for you to show our "true inner selfs" you must have been keeping track of every single players actions and words since their character was created, that will be the only way you will ever be able to show if we are in truth good or evil.
    I strongly resent being pegged as an evil person, from an RP point of view it's a disaster if we are not able to customise our appearance by choice.
    The only thing you will be able to do is to pigeonhole us into what you feel we should be, it can only describe the most shallow part of us, our appearance, to show us to be good or evil. It will have nothing to do whatsoever with out "true inner self".
    If we do not get a choice on how we will look in Shadowlands you will effectively kill the last remnants of RP in AO, simple as that.

    You are also making a big mistake by starting to pave the way for the expansion like you are doing now. Putting level requirements on every single new NF in the game because Shadowlands will change the rules are plain wrong. Everything relating to Shadowlands should be kept out of AO, you can't punish players who do not wish to buy the expansion like that. Nothing that is added to the game at this time should have anything even remotely to do with Shadowlands, all of that should be kept for it's release and the inevetable patches. If you can't find another way of solving the problems Shadowlands will bring in terms of balance, I suggest you get some new designers. Because this is bad design...
    Dominata
    Member of THM

  17. #37

    How To Implement A Storyline

    It seems to me that the mechanisms are already in place for at least a sort of token storyline. Already if you go to some areas like the clan outpost on the sludge river in Newland desert, You can see it being regularly attacked by Omni Guards (Which laid waste to my poor little level 40 Agent costing me like 25,000 XP, but that was OK with me because at least I died defending against the omni scum) So I say step that up maybe create some villages that have really nice missions in them (lots of credits, high XP, Nice Items etc.), but that change hands every so often. This would give high level players something to do as they could go knock off opposing guards so that the newbies could sneak in and do missions. Meanwhile the side in control would want to protect that area so they could do the missions unpestered by the guards so they might want to hang out outside the city and try to stop the high levels from getting in (the outside of the city would be 25% gas). After a certain number of guards had been killed, the city could change sides and the mayhem would start all over again. Anyway, I’m no big PVP’er or anything like that so I don’t know how the details would play out, but this would give a little more content to the story, and it would be fun for agents b/c we would finally have a reason to sneak into a city in the first place. It would also give a little more purpose to the organizations because it would help bridge the gap between high level players and lower level players looking to take on an additional risk to get the good missions.

    Also I would really like it if every now and then one of the bigger cities like Athens or Rome were suddenly occupied by the opposing force. And maybe have certain whoompas shut down every so often due to Omni/Clan sabotage… or whatever. It would just little things like that would give a little more content to the game.

    One final thought. It would also be sort of neat to see the various monsters get involved in the storyline. Like “Clan Signs Treaty With Rhinomen” and suddenly there are rhinomen walking around in TIR. Or maybe Bio-Freaks Infiltrate Omni-Entertainment Sewers” and you guessed it there are monsters running around in the sewers.

    One last request… Can there please be one big impossible-to-kill super beast that wonders from zone to zone causing mayhem? And maybe rolls into a city on occation?

    Anyway, I’m not saying this is an adequate replacement for a storyline, simply that it doesn’t seem like it would be to difficult to implement until something else can be worked out. I’m not certain how the game works exactly, but changing the affiliation of the guards at certain locations shouldn’t be to hard. So at least have a city change hands every so often and that at least would be a start.

  18. #38

    Lightbulb Story... who said anything about a story?

    Everyone seems to be complainign about not having any story. My understanding is that FC is not aiming for a story, they just want an interesting setting, which they will be expanding with Shadowlands. This is why they say that you can shape the story because there is no real main story only setting with which the players can interact and therefore creat their own stories.

  19. #39
    i m not the one to defend FC in any way as a fanboy....but oh well here i go

    /fanboy 1

    you guys do realise that currently noones interested in the story or rp a bit right? i just see ppl go level like possessed and spend their time trying to equip that big bad flashpoint...

    but thats how m-m-o-leveling-games are

    if you dont want something you wont get it...

    sure there s little (if any) freedom/content/interactive story going on but one things for sure... the bigger part of the playerbase (not just AO, mmorpgs in general) think that getting experience and leveling up means roleplaying..and as long as the attitude of us customers wont change the companies wont provide that kind of content for us to "consume"

    /fanboy 0

    dont "up the heat" no no.... give us a story we can live in... we need an interactive world (not as much as shadowbane but to a degree) let our actions have an effect on our characters...

    right now we re killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing

    DING! gratz! grats! TY ppl!

    killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing killing .............................

    ----------------
    have a better day
    my rerolling squad (what s IPR? )
    Celebnor, Balbanes, Lacaan, Ignetos, Hadouken, Icehilda, Icementat and the late Seregnor

    if you ever met one.....well...nevermind

  20. #40

    Unhappy

    The thought of a "black and white" conflict where there is bad and good isn't all that appealing. How can you argue in role play terms why you are doing something if you are designated as the "baddies". It doesn't leave much scope for the political side of role play which is personally one of my favourite parts.

    It's not all bad though, work is being done on the storyline and that's the main thing. I'm looking forwards to the mystical side of things with the introduction of Shadowlands and I think a plot will do us players a lot of good after spending so much time concentrating on balance.

    Although if we look at the situation in role-play terms, you have to make the comparison to real-life in which there isn't a visible god that designates certain people "bad" and "good", there are no black and whites in real life.

    However, with Anarchy Online there is a god and it's called Funcom. If the storyline follows how they are describing it, then certain people will be designated "bad" and "good". I am just commenting on the fact that it will be hard if not impossible to justify actions for a reason when you have already been definitely labelled as "wrong" or "right"

    Omni-Tek person : "Can't you see that by controlling the planet we are actually making you Clanner's lives better?"

    Clan person : "No you're not, Funcom have said you are bad, how can anything you do ever be beneficial"

    Sad, but true.
    Last edited by Solarax; Jul 12th, 2002 at 21:58:01.
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