Recover AO's leveling experience!

[Esssch]

I just don't understand not being able to raid in AO. In an org, there are raiding opportunites out the wazoo

If you live in Europe

judging just by the last couple nights on Neutnet, it doesn't seem like there's a lack of PUG stuff going on.l

If you're a crat/doc/sold

[Traderjill]

I just don't understand not being able to raid in AO.

I can raid in AO, the issue isn't whether or not I can raid but how much of a time investment I have to put in just to get a raid going. I tend to play primetime USA and the game is rather dead during those hours. I've personally been running my own raids the past week or so but it can take a crapton of time just to get people gathered. My WoW comparison wasn't saying that you can't get groups going in AO.. it just takes a lot of time. Right now it's 9:40pm CST and there's 4 people on LFT in the TL 6/7 teaming range... none of which are high enough level to do anything endgame. So, hypothetically speaking, If I wanted to run a raid its going to mean another 30min of spamming neutnet/dnet LFM plus 15min for people to actually buff/gather/get there. 45min spent playing event organizer in a game... that's the concern I've had about AO for awhile now and why, when I compare it to WoW, I say that WoW beats it in the raiding department hands down.

The org I'm in on AO is great, but they're primarily Euro based. During Euro prime time there is anywhere from 15 to 20 skilled, raid ready players online. At this hour, there are 4. In other words, not only are there not enough people to raid but there isn't even enough to put together a leveling team unless I run myself through the mission.

In the first 2 months that I've been back, I was unable to locate a non-Euro based (i.e. active USA) Clan or Neutral org and the ship has long sailed on me going Omni (i.e. not willing to spend the money to do like 12 side changes). {Sidenote, since returning 2 months ago I've been in about 5 differen Clan/Neut/Omni orgs that had really awesome Euro time numbers that dropped to crap at USA time. I've also asked around.. If there are orgs with Euro-style activity during USA hours they've eluded my attempts to find them.}

According to this thread, you were having the same issue just a couple weeks ago so I can't imagine I need to go into a lot more detail for you to understand what I'm saying. I'm glad you found your ideal USA active org, but there are plenty of us that have been unable to find that. It took you at least a couple stabs at orgs to find something... that's more than I've ever needed in WoW. In fact, I came back from break on WoW and immediately found a guild that plays during the time I'm available and has a raiding schedule to meet my needs. It literally took me about 15min in game to find this guild and I was raiding with them the exact same day.

That being said, there's things that AO offer me that WoW never can like gear twinking, almost 10 years of history, knowledge, accumulated in-game wealth, a crapton of memories and the friends (that still play or periodically return) that I had those memories with. AO's the old bathrobe you don't throw away because its just comfortable even though its long past its usefulness timer and is worn out in places.

[patrick187]

As I said...org matters. I did the primarily Euro org thing as well, and yeah, I played solo a lot. In WoW, all I ever did was solo and do PUGs, so WoW felt less fun.

If the people around you aren't fun, then the game isn't fun. I respect that. And I am not bashing WoW necessaily, since I have every xpac and two decently purple geared 90s (DK, priest). I just play WoW like a single player game a lot because I just can't seem to get into it beyond that, and AO holds my attention better.

And maybe leveling a doc makes it feel that way. Who knows.

[Wisdomman]

I came back to Ao to find it boring because of the lack people and the poor quality of AO's current player base. And I llike AO so much that I think my time might better be suited in dedication to help out new players. I could make a couple of start toons and host some bots and find ways to get the word out. Get 20000 bags of carb armor, etc etc etc. I can see me doing it for a few weeks, who knows. I dont sign in much nowadays anyway.

I think the importance is more about educating the players so they stay. I quit AO twice before I relized how awsome it was. The grid was a big step lol. I remember running off in the middle of nowhere thinking I was the first to explore and level in that area. Saddly I never did quite well noob. Education is the key

[Pinknpinker]

First Id like to start out by saying that allot of players have done the levelling the team based way, and have helped out others hundreds and hundreds of times getting over the hard parts, team based. So they are sick to death of grinding as they have done it hundreds and hundreds of times over and over again. I don't begrudge these players power-levelling their new toons. The know their professions and how to play them blindfolded. As a rule, i do not power level ppl if they are noobs. They will soon find out that they don't know how to play their profession solo or team based and everyone will avoid them like the plague.

As for levelling, i recently felt challenged by an orgmate who cant stand power-levelling so i levelled a fixer solo to 120 quiet easily by doing dungeons, daily and Nancs and Ely quest. In the Ely dungeon quest I got 9 lvls solo.(tho i did cheat and use my Enfo to help out with that as i could not find a team at that time) Next I'm going to hit up Scheol key and Yutto's and Scientists quest and so on and so on. It wont take long to hit 160+ and then its Inf and other quests and the daily s ofc. So you don't really need a team to solo if your paid but if your Froob, team up and get at it! Lots of quests and missions to do. You can solo as a Froob to lvl 200 but its very very hard.

Finally, as a movement I suggest you keep ppl ready and willing to team up at all levels and get converts by doing rather than..........talking.

Good luck and keep your faith

PS: This is from someone who offered power-levelling in the past and will do so again. I don't do it for everyone, its counter productive to the community as a whole to power-level someone just because they have creds. I've powered levelled friends who didn't have a clue what they where doing, they ignored my advice and of course it didn't turn out fun for them in the end. Or me, as then they wanted to get their character straightened out and still didnt like what i had to say so they just moved on to another toon. Waste of time for all involved.