Friday with Means - June 17th, 2011 - Traditional Friday Panic

[Bombqueen]

I wonder how many of the nifty anniversary items will be available only in the item shop and not obtainable by in-game actions...

[Mako]

I'm reactivating, *only* to get my hands on those short-shorts. Much sex.

[Dreamcypher]

Great, and can you make sure the anniversary items don't have item decay when placed in your apparment? Thanks.

I don't find anything "fun" about having them in my apartment for 30 seconds, upon which then they magically disappear, and you have to spend 5 hours in /petition queue to get them back, upon which you stick them into your bank and never place them as an object ever again.

You also might wanna up-res the screenshots on that event page. (the raid pics)

Also: Rainbow afro is awesome.

[Aeliniyah]

I wonder how many of the nifty anniversary items will be available only in the item shop and not obtainable by in-game actions...

My guess would be the yalm, jetpak and most of the clothing. And only the posters and maybe the action figures and the completely useless crap will be lootable stuff. That would follow the greedy trend perfectly...

[haxi]

I think my point is proven.

All apologies, I was possibly drunk. I just now saw the "almost" in there. Anyway, I have an overwhelming love for Belgium brews, but an appreciation for many others. Except for...Canada and Austrailia, two countries that supposedly know how to brew! This is unacceptable!

This is the brew menu of my favorite watering hole and as you can see, the offerings from Canada and Australia are seriously lacking: http://www.preservationpub.com/brew.htm

I would appreciate suggestions that will force me to remove Canada and Australia from my "do not imbibe" list.

[Tazalanche]

If you guys want the anniversary content tested on TestLive before it hits the live servers, maybe it would be a good idea to get the quest NPC respawned & the nomads attackable?

[Tazalanche]

Broken Shores was where the nomads were not attackable about 10 minutes before I posted that. I was trying to be semi-vague to keep from posting specific locations.

[haxi]

Is there going to be a "Return to Rubi-Ka" type offer sent out for the 10th? I think even some old old timers might return for a 10 year anniversary.

[Igri00]

Is there going to be a "Return to Rubi-Ka" type offer sent out for the 10th? I think even some old old timers might return for a 10 year anniversary.

I wouldn't expect that if the new engine is coming out this year. If not, yea, they should do that.

Maybe™ is the new Soon™

Ha! Love that.

[Warhammer]

My guess would be the yalm, jetpak and most of the clothing. And only the posters and maybe the action figures and the completely useless crap will be lootable stuff. That would follow the greedy trend perfectly...

What do you mean by "greedy trend"? Somehow they gotta make up for the players rushing for the subscription cancel button.

I think it may have gone as far as this year could turn out to be the first anniversary without a free month for inactive accounts.

But hey, some time ago they offered us one free month if you re-subscribe again. I'd have to look, but that might expire before the anniversary too... sinister plan.

[Aeliniyah]

What do you mean by "greedy trend"? Somehow they gotta make up for the players rushing for the subscription cancel button.

I think it may have gone as far as this year could turn out to be the first anniversary without a free month for inactive accounts.

But hey, some time ago they offered us one free month if you re-subscribe again. I'd have to look, but that might expire before the anniversary too... sinister plan.

Well i think it is pure greed when a game has a subscription fee and on top of that there's the item shop that sells actual power (tokens, VP) and not just social stuff like it was supposed to be when they announced the shop.

Normally the F2P games don't have any kind of monthly fee. It's free, but you have to buy the best gear etc with cash. In AO (and now in AoC aswell), if you want to have all the best goodies you have to pay a monthly fee and then buy stuff from shop.

Ok, i'll admit that you're not actually forced to buy anything from the shop, but as long as the shop exists, people are not on the same line. The crowd who's willing and able to invest more RL cash are going to achieve things a lot faster than the ones who just want to play the game and achieve things the way it was originally meant to be.

Also most of the special stuff (x-mas, halloween, b-days) used to be free of charge and dropping from mobs or rewarded from some quests/missions. Now the last couple of years more and more of the stuff has been moved to the shop. First they started selling stuff from the phasefront vendors, which was ok, since that stuff was cheap and you could easily afford those with the paid points you got from paying your sub in a longer than one month period. But now you need to use cold, hard cash. Thats NOT ok. It would be ok if it was a F2P game, but IT's NOT!

[tigerengi]

Well i think it is pure greed when a game has a subscription fee and on top of that there's the item shop that sells actual power (tokens, VP) and not just social stuff like it was supposed to be when they announced the shop.

Normally the F2P games don't have any kind of monthly fee. It's free, but you have to buy the best gear etc with cash. In AO (and now in AoC aswell), if you want to have all the best goodies you have to pay a monthly fee and then buy stuff from shop.

Ok, i'll admit that you're not actually forced to buy anything from the shop, but as long as the shop exists, people are not on the same line. The crowd who's willing and able to invest more RL cash are going to achieve things a lot faster than the ones who just want to play the game and achieve things the way it was originally meant to be.

Also most of the special stuff (x-mas, halloween, b-days) used to be free of charge and dropping from mobs or rewarded from some quests/missions. Now the last couple of years more and more of the stuff has been moved to the shop. First they started selling stuff from the phasefront vendors, which was ok, since that stuff was cheap and you could easily afford those with the paid points you got from paying your sub in a longer than one month period. But now you need to use cold, hard cash. Thats NOT ok. It would be ok if it was a F2P game, but IT's NOT!

This ^^

The phasefront was OK tho, the flying vehicles did not require less skill than the lowest QL yalm and did not give more advantages, except for it being a nano program instead of an actual "equipable" item

[Warhammer]

Well i think it is pure greed when a game has a subscription fee and on top of that there's the item shop that sells actual power (tokens, VP) and not just social stuff like it was supposed to be when they announced the shop.

You're basicly right with what you say, I was trying to be sarcastic. However, it also seems that they have to rely on these alternative ways to keep the necessary cash rolling in considering the ever dwindling playerbase. Double, triple or quad accounts per player can only do so much to buck the trend...

Next condition: hopeless.

[Keex]

You're basicly right with what you say, I was trying to be sarcastic. However, it also seems that they have to rely on these alternative ways to keep the necessary cash rolling in considering the ever dwindling playerbase. Double, triple or quad accounts per player can only do so much to buck the trend...

Next condition: hopeless.

problem is, that is fighting fire with gasoline. with ao being the most expensive mmo out there (that i know of), the price might be the problem and not the economical solution

[Warhammer]

Thats of course correct, Keex. But the pricing problem has existed for a long time and they never realized where it leads.

It reminds me of a certain grocery store chain around here where some store managers answer to dwindling customer numbers is indeed raising prices to keep the revenue steady - needless to say it doesnt take much time for that particular store to close down for good after they started doing this...

All of us who keep paying despite better knowledge are guilty of supporting this system. I managed to stay "dry" for 5+ months now, the longest period for me ever. I hope something changes before I really stop caring.

And there isnt even a free month on the horizon, which means my efforts to gather inactive friends have been fruitless.

[Hanavald]

How can you be surprised they look for new ways of leeching money, if this company cant even make their billing system work. The account website is impossible to navigate, has had more bugs over the years then IE6, and foreign language translations are so bad they must have been done with Google Translator.

[raw_fox]

BUT... No shinning engine at 10th imaright?

It is fantastic that now that the final integration of the Conan engine is done

Maybe we could delay the Birthday a year so the engine would perfectly fit in then.
They could explain that like "The game was so many times in maintainance or patch and all the lost lag time is together about a year, so the real 10 year birthday is next year."

[lainbr]

Maybe we could delay the Birthday a year so the engine would perfectly fit in then.
They could explain that like "The game was so many times in maintainance or patch and all the lost lag time is together about a year, so the real 10 year birthday is next year."

lol xD

[Autohead]

WTB Friday w/ Means - 10th Anniversary Edition with decent information for once.

[Technogen]

It most likely wont be today I bet.