Is Anarchy Online Dieing?

[________Groundeffect]

Yeah, there's definitely two sides to "game death": game content and the bottom line. Each depends on the other.

I hope they come out with AO2 in a couple of years...

[______________Norton]

As long as

1.AO continues to be profitable (or has the prospect of being profitable in the future), and
2.AO is more profitable than other uses of the same resources (namely, the Funcom team)

then AO will continue to run. As others have noted, with Midgard's being placed on hold AO is Funcom's only product, so we need not worry about #2 above.

The question, then, is whether #1 is true (or will be true). I'm not aware of any figures to back up one theory over another. To the best of my knowledge Funcom has not released any numbers on subscribers, unlike most of their competitors (look here for some interesting numbers and comments). Any anecdotes of the form "all my friends are leaving" or "all the higher level players are leaving" should be taken with a grain of salt; we have no idea whether the total number of accounts is increasing or decreasing. Furthermore, we have no idea whether Funcom is making money or not.

We might say that the belt is tightening (if you believe the report here) and that the reorganization at the top (here) might have something to do with this, but frankly, this is all pure speculation.

Worst case, I expect AO will be around for at least another 6-9 months. Best case: the new games are either delayed or have problems upon release; Funcom manages to generate good patches quickly; following the leadership of the Greeks the US Congress outlaws all computer games (but Norwegian products escape through a loophole). Well, maybe two out of three. Best case is AO is still around for many years. I think (read: speculate) that a lot will depend on how the booster pack sales go (in grabbing new customers/accounts) these holidays.

[Blackwing]

game x will be the death of ao.

ao is lacking content yes. if anything, this will be its death.

but now you have the opportunity to freely test ac2 and find out how much it really sucks i doubt it is a challenge to ao ... you will have a second dark ages of camelot there.

people flock to it and return to their old games a month or three later because they are bored to tears.

and swg ... well i just am very much in doubt about that one. it will have raging fanboy flames up and down any kind of board and to many people who are to much into star wars for my idea of it (at least in the first half year ).
additionally lets not forget that it will cost an arm and a leg in subscription fees alone not counting your need to upgrade your machine.

again:

uo, ac1 and ao offer you the chance to tinker with your character. and character improvement is something the players who stick to these niche games so far like.

[__________Markarian2]

Come one people.. be a little positive here.
Next patch, coming next week, will have lots of high-lvl'ed mob-camps ... which will do lvl130+ hunting much more enjoyable... I hope.

Let's look forward to that one instead of complaining over a few errors..
Ao is the most beautiful MMORPG out there, it got lots of great players... and a story which are quite interesting. And did I hear events? Not so often, but though, we get some each month... Check out the calendar.

Have a nice weekend ppl!

[Darkbane]

Consider the next patch as a sampler, particularly with the new quests (mostly for lower levels) and the uber boss mobs (for the high levels). I think the booster could add a lot to the game and give guilds greater cohesion. And Shadowlands will no doubt have a lot of stuff for high levels.

Will all this be enough? Who knows. But the next 6 months look to be interesting...

[Streaz18]

I really dont think AO is lacking content. Its taken me around 38 days (912+ hours) to learn what a MMORPG is, pick a character, and lvl my one and only character to lvl 170. New stuff is added every patch. Granted, most of the new stuff to do can be done in under 24 hours, its still a decent amount of stuff. The problem people are having is that they play the same game for a long long time and EXPECT it to be as fresh, new, and interesting as it was when it was something BRAND NEW to them when they had started playing it. Now that it takes me 10-14 hours of straight xping to lvl, its less and less apealing to log on for the required 3 hours I need to get a team and do a mission, while postponing my real life. The big problem is not with the content in AO, but the players expecting something you've been playing for 1000+ hours to be as entertaining and new now as it was at 50 hours.

[________________Caol]

I don't know really. You will get tired of lvlin' at lvl150+ and as a even higher lvl, I have done everything there is to do. For those players, most leave, some stay and hope for new content.

Problem is, SWG is gonna own everything on the market now. It will come about the time the AO expansion pack comes. SWG got an insane SW fanbase to dig into. They will prolly have imense problems with flooding as they launch.

I know I will spend alot more time in SWG, whatever the AO expansion might bring.

[________________Caol]

Anyways, their recent cutoffs in the AO-team just some weeks ago + them moving to cheaper offices in Oslo should indicate that they -are- in a financial tightspot and need to save money everyway they can.

[___________Dr Rubika]

Originally posted by Wo "Caol" Ha
Anyways, their recent cutoffs in the AO-team just some weeks ago + them moving to cheaper offices in Oslo should indicate that they -are- in a financial tightspot and need to save money everyway they can.

Did not know there was any cheap offices or anything cheap at all in Oslo

[assassimon]

Believe it or not Fishing, Treasure Hunting, Baking, Poisoning, Woodworking. All these things kept people playing and interacting. A GM Carpenter could play the game for 5 years and set up a shop and get player interaction continuously.

*remembers his Glourious Xara Moonrunner, Grandmaster Chef from UO*


I don't think any game will ever be as good as UO was/is, I loved that game, the reason I quit was cuz Origin/EA suddenly one day decided to kick all counselors and other volunteers, didn't get a warning or anything, suddenly we just got derobed...after that I just couldn't log back and have fun...

Still love the game tho, even if I don't play it.

[Snuble]

I've never seen as many people around as I see now. Its a subjective observation, not based on a numerical analyzis of any kind

[Bionitrous]

I cancelled my DAoC account with a very high level character. No regrets. I envision the same for AO. I can't see having too much difficulty with a 200 in AO either. He has not a single thing in AO to call his own. Not even his apartment. It's just som record in a database. AO just ends.

UO never ended. My account is still active.

Almost everything that Raph put into the game with respect to the qualities that keep me in UO are he's holding dear for SW: G.

I have hopes but not pie in the sky expectations.

[_____________Krystka]

I agree with a lot said here.. every game does reach a point where.. it just isnt as fun as it was when we all first started it.

Both EQ and AO I have been playing a very long time. Both of them I had to take breaks from.. and every time I did that.. and came back.. everything was just as good as it was when I first started.

And yes.. people whine because they have done it "all" and crave more so much.. that they try to place blame on funcom for having a bad product. When in reality.. htey just spent Weeks if not months of real time.. glued to the game not wanting to log out.

Go figure.

I think there is something associated with overindulging.. isnt that a form of Gluttony?

[dasampla]

The best thing I done was take a 3 month break from AO as I was getting pretty bored of the game, for those 3 months I played DAoC and actually had some fun in it, but eventually I got bored of DAoC and came back to AO, I haven't looked back since.

I suspect that is what a lot of people have done and will do in the future, especially with the new MMORPG's coming out. They will flock in their droves at first (especially with SWG) but I suspect some will get bored and miss that last MMORPG they played and go back to that.

Like a few others my UO account is still opened after 4 years and I doubt I will ever close it, that game has so much going for it STILL.

[_______________Kwerk]

This thread has raised a good question and the responses have been very accurate.
The question remains: Is Anarchy Online Dieing?
Let's analyze AO itself.

Positives:
Concept: Excellent
Graphics: Very Good
Character Choice: Very Good
Character Diversity: Very Good

Negatives:
Content: Poor
Character Development:Poor
New Adventures: Poor
New Content: None
PVP:Failure
Bug Fixing: Failure
Customer Service: Complete Disaster

Whether or not AO continues to generate enough revenue to return a profit is what will determine whether or not it survives.

I don't like to make a negative post because it defeats the reason I play. I still enjoy AO mostly because of the people in my guild and the fun we have.

We, the players, can make or break this thing. We can kill it with negativity or we can have fun and hope that the people at FC can learn what it takes to survive and how to respond to us.

[_______________ccl28]

Nobody here can say for 100% if AO is dying.
We know a few facts:

1) they've fired a lot of staff over the past year
2) updates are taking longer to arrive
3) they're moving to less-expensive offices
4) they won't post subscription numbers

With that in mind, I believe that AO is suffering. I don't know how much of a budget they need to keep a float, but it might not be much.

With all the new MMORPGs comming out over the next 6 months, you'll probably see at least half the people leave. However, if you like the game then it doesn't matter what everyone else does. FC is really terrible with business decisions and customer support, but I doubt they would easily throw in the towel so soon. There's too much invested here.

[Andross]

UO was so much fun. I quit it after 3 years with no hard feelings, but nothing left to do and AO in Beta 4 and brand new. My UO account with some GM chars, but especially my GM Tamer on Europa got a new owner (for the exchange of some credits to my bank account) but i still love UO, since it is so much more than AO is and probably will ever be under the current management.