Friday with Means - December 12th, 2008

[Armus]

It certainly is not a good idea. A good idea would be to use the spare server resources that the loss of AoC players generated and place an AO server in Europe. Most European ao players have a ping around 150~ atm, and a server that's not in the US would help a lot for us europeans. .

If you think ping is a bigger problem than the server dying due to inactivity idk what to say.

Are you kidding or is your server on which you are playing so empty that you desperatly need toons from rk3? I'm playing on RK3 - it's not overcrowed yes, but it's in no way so empty like you try to make the forum audience believe..

I'm on rk1 whic has many times (about 4-5 times) higher poulation than rk3. "not overcrowded" . Jesus.. You only use a fraction of the playercity plots available to begin with. That says alot about the status of "your" dimension. Not even bot/money farmers are grabbing the cities because there is noone to sell money to!!

Last time I checked there were approx. min. 30+ ppl raiding pande. and that's clan only at at least 3 times a week.

Wauv!!! 30 ppl.. 3 times a week.. awesome!!

Dude I've taken tours on rk3 and talked to some ppl. OA is more desolate on a sunday afternoon than rk1 tuesday 9 am gmt! Out of the few ppl I actually ran into all said the state of the server was just depressing and that they'd give alot to transfer to an active server.

I guess you're just different. Perhaps you could convince FC to let you run AO in a lan with your buddies? Since you seem uninterested in actually interacting with more than a bunch of ppl anyway.

[SoldiTwo]

If you think ping is a bigger problem than the server dying due to inactivity idk what to say.

I'm on rk1 whic has many times (about 4-5 times) higher poulation than rk3. "not overcrowded" . Jesus.. You only use a fraction of the playercity plots available to begin with. That says alot about the status of "your" dimension. Not even bot/money farmers are grabbing the cities because there is noone to sell money to!!

These empty spots can be removed from FC if they disturbe any players. That's not a reason to remove the whole server, lol.

Wauv!!! 30 ppl.. 3 times a week.. awesome!!

Yeah Wauv, did you know that a week only has 7 days and there are still 2 other factions on Rubi-Ka that want to raid pande?

Dude I've taken tours on rk3 and talked to some ppl. OA is more desolate on a sunday afternoon than rk1 tuesday 9 am gmt! Out of the few ppl I actually ran into all said the state of the server was just depressing and that they'd give alot to transfer to an active server.

Yeah, the rest of what is left from RK3's population is standing in Athen etc and crying for help to get off of RK3 lol.

The most ppl that run around in the big player hubs like athen have generally not much to do, so if you ask these players then it's no wonder they don't like RK3 of feel alone on the server.

I guess you're just different. Perhaps you could convince FC to let you run AO in a lan with your buddies? Since you seem uninterested in actually interacting with more than a bunch of ppl anyway.

Any point in that?

[Praetos]

Yay it's Friday! ...but I have a feeling this week's edition will be rather dull...

[Maristya]

Closing rk3 first seems like a good idea. But you'd ofcourse have to give the "major" orgs a chance to get a city on rk1/rk2 as well. The only way to do that is to open one or two new zones. But that should be entirely doable and everyone would love some new zones.

Ofcourse some ppl on rk3 would be unhappy about this. But given how extremely desolate the place is (feel free to roll a toon and check if you want) I think the number that would like to transfer would be far greater than those who would be unhappy. At least I got that opinion when i visited some time ago. The few ppl I ran into desperately wanted to play their toons on rk1/rk2.

An alternative and cheaper/easier option is to simply give ppl on rk3 the option to move their toons when they feel like it. Some of them would have to pick new names but it's a small price to pay to get an active game again without rereolling/refarming.

This would likely drain rk3 even more. But that's the point.. There is no point in running a server if it has no ppl and this would make the decision to move even easier.

Yeah, but
a) how about taking some money into their hands and start to advertise - WoW ist running tv commercials on all the major networks. Even the most b/s'y crap of a game has ads in gaming magazins. AO? Nothing. There's not even a homepage anymore with a *.de-suffix... seems to me there's someone not exactly interested in drawing much interest towards the game for quite some time now.

b) solve our lagging and support troubles over there. Those two are the main reasons why ppl leave RK3, at least by what they tell me. Brampfine already pointed that out already.

c) sorry, RK3 is not "extremely desolate". Laugh all you like, but at least we've got a working community there, and show some consideration for each other. Never got such uncomplicated interaction started with ppl on RK1/2. And that surely wasn't a question of a language barrier. Yes, there were times when RK3 was a lot more populated, I know - I've known this game since those good old beta-test times, and nothing so far has ever managed to make me leave for good. And I'd be happy to see more ppl on our server. But on how to get them there and have them stay I kindly point to a) and b) a few lines above.

d) Some pp suggested that we'd just team up to form "two or three german orgs, just like the russians do" [no exact quote, sorry]. And - poof - there'd be no difference worth mentioning. Sorry, you're wrong there. Sure, AO never got localized on the content side, and it is surely doable to simply open up a german chat client, but my idea of a gaming community is not that it is separated into distinct language communities which happen to exist within the same dimension with their toons. And I am not even beginning to talk about issues like unwritten rules of conduct which do differ between the communities (at least by my observations)

e) I do appreciate that Funcom is not simply closing up DNW. That's not an easy decision to take, and shows a certain respect for the community of players there, which I am thankful for. But I'd also appreciate very much if funcom was willing to adress those troubles the community points out again and again and which do have a tendency to kill the fun of gaming.

I am not interested in moving my characters over. Not at all. And, frankly, I've never met anyone interested in moving his/her toons to RK1 or 2. So I'm wondering how you got that impression, but that's probably irrelevant. I am interested in getting some bang out of my buck, if I may be so direct, and in DNW with gamers in there. That's all. RK 1 or 2 is not an option for me, not because they are english language environments, but because I don't feel as at home there as I do on DNW. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

[Boinky]

Can we eat some of the RL Yutto Nativity scene?

[Shiekah]

In response to the server merging problem. I personally think it would be better to merge the 3 servers together even at the cost of losing orgs/tower fields/city spots. Those 3 things can always be gotten again in the future. The current population on each individual server is so low that its painful to play this game. Finding teams for leveling and completing quests like the DB questline is becoming increasingly more difficult and more frustrating. People play MMORPG's to have fun and enjoy themselves with other players unfortunatly this is difficult to accomplish given the current population.

BUMP for merging servers!

[lugoman]

2. Reworking of Orbital Strike Mechanics. (More boom and less gloom.)


Colin "Means" Cragg

I am glad because by changing the OS mechanic you are in a way admitting there is a problem with it as it is, but I am saddened that you think the way to fix it is in changing the OS mechanism. The problem is with SB+OS together. Not sure how changing OS by itself will change things.

Even if OS does some kind of iwin button thing, unless it also removes root things wont change much. If OS just flings everyone out of the blob and we are still under sb root clan would be very easy to pick off 1 by 1. Same result as current situation just a little slower.

[Klodovik]

I am glad because by changing the OS mechanic you are in a way admitting there is a problem with it as it is, but I am saddened that you think the way to fix it is in changing the OS mechanism. The problem is with SB+OS together. Not sure how changing OS by itself will change things.

Even if OS does some kind of iwin button thing, unless it also removes root things wont change much. If OS just flings everyone out of the blob and we are still under sb root clan would be very easy to pick off 1 by 1. Same result as current situation just a little slower.

I believe they are actually making it more boom, less gloom literally. I bet you gonna hate it even more after this.

[Lupusceleri]

Even if OS does some kind of iwin button thing, unless it also removes root things wont change much. If OS just flings everyone out of the blob and we are still under sb root clan would be very easy to pick off 1 by 1. Same result as current situation just a little slower.

Actually if you rooted yourself before doing the Iwin button thing, you could not be knockback'd.

So having omni root SB running when being aoe knockback'd, is actually a big advantage, since it will keep your side together while it will scatter omni.

[Chrys]

Actually if you rooted yourself before doing the Iwin button thing, you could not be knockback'd.

So having omni root SB running when being aoe knockback'd, is actually a big advantage, since it will keep your side together while it will scatter omni.

You mean until a couple NT point farmers run in spamming Kel's to wipe you all like they did in the old days. Everyone knows this "Means" nostalgia xD

[Nensta]

If we can put up with the French and their gibberish, we won't have any trouble getting along with people who speak a real language like German.

+1

Voll doll toll!