What we all deserve.

[____________Shakkles]

What depresses me is how many of my friends have quit. How many are left. And the ones who are left 99% of them have degraded into an EQish existence. (Kill get xp repeat)

Everybody likes to shout **** like "I've been around since launch!" and "Oh the sky is falling!".

My prediction?

In truth, I have only the knowledge of what I've seen to tell me about the future.

The departments that ours has always been in contact with, and all the LTCs that had "big plans" for us and Rubi-Ka, just disappeared about the same time all this **** started hitting the fan.
No word.
Just gone.

And the continuing lame-ass letters from fc that they leave like feces on the login screen about "Everythings fine nothings wrong! Please give us accounts!" couldn't fool a 5 year old.

AO is like a politician. They made big promises to get people to accept them, we all bought in, and now that they can't make good on their promises, they're looking for copouts. Ways of weaseling out of the agreement and making people forget so they'll quit screaming for their head.

This is what's going to happen. As far as being on the Omni side of things, I know of roughly 4 remaining orgs that at one time were the kings of their time and had their hands in the story for a brief time, and now find themselves hanging by a thread. Those orgs are of course, Omni-Pol, Omni-AF, Red-Tape/Omni-Admin, and Division 9. Possibly Lucifer's Dawn if you want to make that 5. Boci has tried hard.

Alot of good departments havn't been able to survive the huge bombshell that devastated the planet when everybody initially figured out wtf was going on in reality.

These last remaining denizens of the RP world will stay they way they are hopefully and not collapse, kind of like statues from a fallen kingdom. But the heart of the game will eventually decay into a cold level-based existence.

The sad truth is that leaders aren't wanting to lie to their members, and members are refusing to buy into BS. People notice when the green names they work with disappear and don't make deadlines and dates.

I myself have moved past the stages where you smile through it, you deny it, you don't let others slander your interest, and then one day you decide that your relationship is a farce because the love that you have for this thing is totally unrequited.

The stage that I'm at is one of the need to hear FC be completely honest for once in the life of this game and say what the **** is going on.

I think that we're all entitled that.

I want to know as soon as possible before i waste one more payment if they're going to continue to scapegoat out of the fact that they're totally incompetant and that they do infact plan to just let the game decay into EQ.

Yes.

I think that we all deserve that.

When I say we, I mean those that worked their asses off in the past, and those that are doing it right now to keep a few pieces of the Titanic afloat.

I want a ****ing email in my box in two hours saying either "We're sorry, we realize that we're completely full of it and will no longer advertise on the box of our product that there is a story that players can interact with."
or
"Things have been rough but we're planning something nice. True we are idiots for keeping you all in the dark but here we are now."

That's what I want. Maybe hoping for a real place in a fake world was an unobtainable goal, but a letter of apology i believe is something to look forward to.

-Ted Shakkles Ganes.
President Omni-AF.

[__________Scrybanfir]

I don't think truer words have been spoken.

[XtroXtreme]

Sniff, that was touching.

It is just a pitty that I doubt that there ever will be any explanations. FC put the head in the sand and hopes the problem will dissapear, or at least that enough new subscriber will come to make up for those old friends of the longtime subscribers that are no longer among us in AO. (just for the record I hate those find a subscriber and gain X, it stinks of desperation)

[_________Crazynotion]

Well, if you hate the game and hate everything it stands for then you cannot bear to make another payment.

So don't.

If you don't like the product, you don't have to pay for it anymore. That's how capitalism works. You are the person with the credit card, and if you feel you're not getting your moneys worth then leave.

Here's what I see:

Players: We want story! We want story! Give us story FC!

FC: In recent news, Radiman is doing all sorts of story-related things. Things are afoot, and interesting times are a'comin'

Players: Who cares about Radiman and Ross and Omni-Tek and the Clans? We want story!

*big edit*

I had this as a big long angry nasty post with lots of flame bait. But it was a bit reactionary and I have had a bad day at work. So I trimmed it back to be less reactionary, but still a bit angry. Because I am an angry person right now. But that's still got a lot to do with work.

[____________Shakkles]

Don't think i'm on the same bandwagon as Methl*n and his other jughead hipocrites.

I'm not whining because there never was a story. When I first signed on a longass time ago there was hella story. I signed up just one month before amnesty broke and at that time was a neutral. So my hatred of the clanners stereotype posed some serious questions and wha-la. Ted Shakkles Ganes was born.

After a while things were going gravy, given FC personelle were always dickwads but at least there were "events". anybody remember that word?

Yeah it was easy holding a department together, especially when we finally got some decent notoriety and *official* orders started coming in from the quote unquote "story guys".

In those days it was easy to get by. You had friends, allies and enemies, like TBH (TBA) and later on SA, which was like a watered down version of TBH really.

We got a small reputation for doing stuff, they got their rep for doing evil crap, but in the end it worked for everybody.
People could actually join and be a part of something that made a difference and that's when I had a big rubbery one.

My groan is the fact that those days are over. Green names (ltc's) are rare sightings now and it's always Diamondcut and Insomniax, and they're both the same kind of diet-coke evil *******s as the general public. "I mmmmmight be doing stuff. I dunno... mmaybe. maha ha ha. dude we don't take **** from nobody *giggles*"
The one guy that was completely on the level, Terent, my good buddy. OUR good buddy... is gone now.

That was like, our link the mindset that everybody doesn't suck total balls.

And of course when our so called "Major Kiaela" and "General Telion" disappeared off the ****ing face of the planet, and i had abouta hundred members asking me what is up, imagine how you would feal?
We got totally **** on and lied to and excuse me if the fact I had to explain to everybody that the "huge earth changing" plans these wonders had set in motion were just farces. (that means bull**** for you kids and foreigners)

Now imagine all your friends in high places all getting fed up and quitting, leaving you the remaining climber on a mountain with little villagers shouting for "Uber l33t phat l3wt action!" from below. Imagine waking up everyday with the tip of that big mountain you tried so hard to climb once burried up to the colon in your ASS.

That's why i'm pissed.

That's my rant.

i need some coffee :/

-Shak

[_________Crazynotion]

This is going to sound strange, but TBA and (subsequenly) SA actually did a lot to encourage gameplay, no matter how much we like to hate Methlon.

Games need good villains. Methlon was a good villain. Everyone hated him. Their group did stuff (attacks on Omni-1 organised with big clan groups, etc.) that really got the locals up in arms. They rolled into places in NUMBERS and caused problems for people. And some of the time they did it in PvP areas so people could strike back at them.

Without anyone like TBA or SA we lose a lot of that 'anarchy.'

I remember getting all giddy about defending against TBA attacks on Omni-1. Fights in Omni-HQ and protecting the peace. The whole April 18th thing was pretty much the last story-related event we saw, and it was good.

While everyone else loves to, I'm not giving any credit to Diamondcut Dave. Because I've never met the guy, and never seen any sign of his passing aside from people mentioning 'hey - Diamondcut Dave - he's nasty.'

But I don't think it'll ever go back to the way it was.

As you said, the 'story folks' who were handing out orders and doing stuff don't seem to be around anymore. The task of handling the story seems to be in the hands of different people than before. I expect the story will kick off again and things will be cool again, but a different kind of cool - not the cool like it was. The world has changed. There are more people, more expectations and more opinions.

The hardest path is going to be treaded by the people who made the effort early on in the game. That includes yourself, Meister, Kithrak, Windguaerd, Redruum, Kirranna and all the other people who have been involved from so early on and remember the days when the players COULD shape things. The days when the old gods ruled the world and were petty and jealous, and man lived in fear.

Things are changing. The old ways won't come back. And for those of you who had that, and lost it, and had to deal with the aftermath - yeah, it sucks.

Rant recognised, but the initial post was purely a rant. An angry, nasty rant. You're not likely to get a personal e-mail apology, but you're certainly entitled to get yourself a coffee.

I think Meister has a coffee machine lying around somewhere... ?

[____________Shakkles]

oh and one more thing i forgot to mention.

when you made this comment...
-------------
Players: We want story! We want story! Give us story FC!

FC: In recent news, Radiman is doing all sorts of story-related things. Things are afoot, and interesting times are a'comin'

Players: Who cares about Radiman and Ross and Omni-Tek and the Clans? We want story!
-------------

Remeber dude that nobody wants to WATCH a story, if they did they'd turn on their TVs.

Nobody wants to read the articles in penthouse, they wanna be IN THE SHOTS!

People are disgruntled because they want to be a PART of it...
Everybody wants to be a big name in something as big as AO (was). Do you know how an ass like me is able to maintain something like Omni-AF?
Because those 100 or so people WANT to be a part of something, and in this case, the military. A soldier, marching around raping horses and riding the women home. They wanna get their asses busted down to private for forgetting to stand in a perfect echelon formation and rise through the ranks to one day command others.
Like Omni-Pol, with the policing of laws, and the chief politicians at Red Tape (er.. Omni-Admin hopefully)
And of course all the small orgs with pure intentions like the poor bastards trying to run mercenary angles.
Thank (insert your favorite deity here) for the entertainment companies like "Vixen", the waiters and waitersses ar Rompa!!!
RPers like these people should be getting their knobs polished by FC, not running into trouble.

People want to be significant yes.
And very importantly, they want to sip their java with whiskey in it at the beginning of their day, reading the Rubi-Ka times article on the stuff THEY did the night before.

THAT is what should make this game significant.

But they want those things and most importantly they want to be able to point to a name on a screen in an article written by someone else about them and say, "Yeah there... Ya see that? well that's me baby. Yup. I did that. Look at all those people talking about me *I'll bet chicks wanna score with me. yeah..*.

I'm not dissing that at all. Infact that is what is promised and that's what the paying customers deserve, however sad it may be.

Alright now it's seriously time to move up from coffee to liquer.

[_________Crazynotion]

Y'know, call me an eternal optimist but I suspect that's exactly where we're headed.

Radiman announces he's back. Ross says nothing at all and is noted for his silence. There's a general murmur by clan leaders that actually Radiman may not be fit for leadership after all and - from what I can see - there's a very real chance that the power in the CoT may change.

Now I may be being super-naive, but I believe that the changes that may be coming in the CoT are being player-driven. Ragnar posted in another post (one day I will figure out how to post links) that what they're doing right now is shouting 'clear' while charging the defib.

We're not going to see the story suddenly burst in through the door in full, player-driven swing with a hiss and a roar. We're going to see a slow build-up.

But yes, I agree with you. Folks should be able to read the Rubi-Ka times and see players in it. Screenshots and pictures of players doing player-things. There's the 'hey - that was me' and there's (just as valuable) the 'hey - that could have been me'

For the last four (three? five?) months things have been dead as a dodo dead relating to the story. But the guys are making an effort.

[______________Luxxan]

Originally posted by Shakkles
The stage that I'm at is one of the need to hear FC be completely honest for once in the life of this game and say what the **** is going on.

I think that we're all entitled that.

If you do a search for Ragnar's posts, you'll see that just within the last few days he's posted many times completely agreeing with players who voiced complaints about the lack of story. If you're looking for out-and-out honesty from Funcom, there it is.

It seems like they're making an honest effort to revive the story as of this week, lets just hope it sticks.

[Andross]

I got a coffee machine, as do many others now, that making them is possible. Want some coffee?? Thats all i can be used for nowadays. Our story days are over, because there is no story and instead of building up player-run stuff, players and Funcom rather want to demolish it. The days of loyal OT employees are over since it doesn't matter whether or not you are loyal. It doesn't make a difference if you aren't. I agree with many of your points - for a change - Shakkles.

[_____________Kirrana]

This pass week has been odd a few of the old people have dropped by first we had capt fallout in irc followed yesterday bu lorekeep.

In addition to this a few friends like baxie, moxy turned back up on planet side. All this happened for just one reason the story. The arrival of Radiman and Ross will bring people back to the game we cant go back to the old days.

We can move onto the new ones, create new heros, new criminals, but this time we need more support from FC for the roleplayers.

Groups like TBA, SA Omni-POL and many more added to the story on Rubi_KA funcom needs to make the most of these support them, also help out the other guys as well.

This need not be funcom people as such but give the events/arks team a greater role to support them. Open up new rooms for them to use, help them create plots or run night clubs.

Sure you cant do this for everyone but if you help Meister for example you reach all his guild because they feel a part of it. when you help the poeple in the club, the customers feel a part of it.

The story break has done a lot of damage to the roleplaying story groups, as meister said very few people care about the clan, Omni thing. FC need to fire the planet up so to speak, get the players engaged.

I am however rather worried that instead of using real people to play the parts on planet we are going to see npcs being used. While I wait to see how this works, I feel just npcs is not going to be enough.

We need throll, Dave Daimondcut, type people they change the world of rubi-ka give order to choas give people something todo.

What ever happens its clear the story is very important to FC in the long run it will make or break AO. I think maybe FC made a mistake in spending to much time re-doing the professions at the expense of the storyline.

The key to turning this around is using the players, make them the story.

[____________Chauntea]

Do not forget Garrisen the one guy who was around alot and did make it interesting in Omni-1 is gone now and when he left whether funcom will admit it or not there went a HUGE chunk of anything interesting that went on in Omni.I personally did not care much for him but he took the time and actually rped and he actually did do some things.New greenies I have seen I can round up in a few words.Sit in the bar and do nothing they say they do nothing and thats it hell I can sit in a bar and talk with my friends and get the same.As bad as I hate to say it funcom should bring Garrisen back settle there differences between them.


I miss him and I know alot of players do as well.I would like one more time to log in and walk into Rompa's and listen to him *****ing about something and threatening people LOL.