Suggestion to up omni population

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Zerosignal
http://www.ymera.com/1/actfactprweek.html

http://www.ymera.com/2/actfactprweek.html

Okay people don't like being cast as the bad guys. That's only natural.

Me, I revel in being the bad guy. Flew tie fighters in XvT. Played Drow/Chaotic Evil if the option was availible to me. Always find out what the Evil Ending is for an RPG before I find out the Good Ending

Is Camelot drawing that many people to clan? I doubt it. Way too long before a player sees the inside of Camelot. I think it's a natural tendency in human nature to empathize with the Good Guys over the Bad Guys. Come Shadowlands, if FC trully is going to paint Omni employees as demonic avatars, I think the gulf will become more pronounced

Me? I hope they give us a way to make the demonic effect even more pronounced outside of level/side. If I've got to scalp 1000 clanners to have a flaming halo, cloven hooves, and a tail...let me find my skinning knife

[uburoi]

Bad Guys?

I read the original manual, and thought that the clanners were paramilitary militias similar to those Crazy survivalist/white supremacist groups in certain parts of the USA. The fact that they were called "Clanners" didn't help. I'm from the midwest before moving, so I know how real militias try to present themselves as freedom fighters, etc.

You know "Big Goverment is Trying to Mind control me through my toilet" types. SO they use Outhouses and shoot at random people.

The kind that will shoot you if they think you want to register their handgun or something.

I say we raise their insurance rates by a LOT, since they keep taking out our property, gotta recoup the losses somehow.

Plus, We brought plumbing to RubiKa...

<edit> this is my first game of this type, so i didn't really understand the whole black/white thing and how it tends to play out. I'm hoping they don't take the easy way out..

[Bionitrous]

If somebody starts a Clan, Omni, and Neutral character and levels them to about 20, odds are they will dump the Omni and Neutral characters unless they are serious roleplayers.

I got a friend with a 170'ish Omni NT and a 160'ish guy in our Neutral guild. Word is that it's just not fun to play Omni anymore. All you do is get your towers destroyed by the power-gamers. Sure, you might put 'em up again. But, then they get detroyed again and again and again. It gets so you don't play the game anymore and either give up on owning towers, deal with the Clans having better leveling speed, play your Clan characters, or just opt out of the game altogether.

Look at the sub-60 dungeon in GTC. I have all Omni characters on Test. I don't think I'm even going to go in that new dungeon anymore. Running 20 minutes from Newland City only to get killed by some Gargantula camping the entrance if you step out to refresh you health and nano isn't fun. It made me want to start a Clan character. Just the fact that I thought of making a Clan character because of this is indicative of the big picture. It's like Camelot all over again. The Clanners just run north from their outpost and they're in. Neutrals and Omni ought to just forget about this new dungeon and it should have a Clan-only requirement on the entrance.

It really does seem that FunCom is trying to get the war over with quickly so they can move to some other part of the storyline. They always said there would be a clear winner. Looks like we're almost there on RK2 and heading that way on RK-1. You can't take anything from the Clans on RK-1. I won't go into demographics, but it seems clear the makeup of a lot of the fodder in the Clan population. They're not necessarily out to enjoy the game or have fun. Seems they want to 'win' by any means necessary. Take a mental walk down your street and picture the boys at their computer who fit this mold and you'll see why Clan can never be defeated.

If I were one of them young boys who gets a woody by 'winning' these games and being 'the best', then I can 100% guarantee you, I'd go clan. Those who choose to go Omni or Neutral are to a greater degree 'thinkers'. There's a reason they play the bad guys or put the game on the hardest setting. Often they have a wife and/or kids in RL. Not easy to run off to a raid on someone's towers or stand guard duty when you have to feed the baby or promised the Withertons you'd be over for dinner Saturday night.

The right thing to do is to make Org Advantages and XP bonus weaken as your faction gets more and more towers. A qlvl 250 advantage that offers 40 in a skill if your faction has 50 towers would offfer only 20 if your faction has 100 towers. Resources spread too thinly and all that. Something needs to be done, and needs to be done NOW to prevent the landslide from completing on RK-2 and getting worse than it is on RK-1. That is, unless it's true that FunCom really wants the Clans to win and win quickly.

Remember, Omni peeps. The Omega still haven't shown their face. It could very well be that FunCom wants Omni-Tek driven almost into hiding before the Omega and their mysterious benefactors come out of the tunnels they've been monitoring you from for centuries. 'Omni-Tek strikes back' and all that jazz. If that is the case, I'd suggest that unless you like the current situation, that you just give up on Notum Wars and focus on killing the outdoor uniques and gettng levels. 'Cuz the way the game is set up now, you don't have a chance in hell. I find it hard to believe FunCom never anticipated the Landslide effect when they gave all the advantages to the huge orgs (Storm), winning faction (Clan), etc. and didn't offer perks to the other side, but they're all young kids over their and are still learning how to do this.

[_______________Hypos]

I understand and agree with most of the things being posted here. I will point out, however, that the new low level dungeon in clan territory will really only balance out the Steps of Madness dungeon in omni territory. As it is, level 50 clanners would have a very tough time getting there.

[Aqua]

Originally posted by Megabio
For those wondering, this is the breakdown of the level 150+ (including 150) player breakdown. This is from Ymera and (I assume) is up to date. I didn't take away people who didn't play, so that might have something to do with it, but, anyway, made a program that counted up the clan / omni from the ymera pages.

So, anyway.

Total 150+ players:
1240

Clan: 707
Omni: 521

edit --- omni numbers had included neutrals, fixed it (was originally 533 omni / neutrals combined)
~Chris

did you add the lv 200's in they wouldn't show up as active in ymera.

~aqua

[Canto]

Originally posted by Bionitrous
I won't go into demographics, but it seems clear the makeup of a lot of the fodder in the Clan population. They're not necessarily out to enjoy the game or have fun. Seems they want to 'win' by any means necessary. Take a mental walk down your street and picture the boys at their computer who fit this mold and you'll see why Clan can never be defeated.

hehe BINGO!

[Bionitrous]

Originally posted by Hypos
I understand and agree with most of the things being posted here. I will point out, however, that the new low level dungeon in clan territory will really only balance out the Steps of Madness dungeon in omni territory. As it is, level 50 clanners would have a very tough time getting there.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/sho...47#post1027647

See my post here for why it'll be just as easy for Omni to get to the new lowbie dungeon as it is for Clanners. Neutral probably have to do a bit of ducking and weaving to get to Home, but ought to be easier than the pain of saving in Newland and making a cross-country trek every time they die in there.

[ethernal3]

Originally posted by Aqua


did you add the lv 200's in they wouldn't show up as active in ymera.

~aqua

I pulled the info from the first 13 or so pages of:

http://www.ymera.com/2/people.html

~Chris

[Magellien]

I don't know how many people joined the game through their 7-day download offer, but I did. At a pal's LAN party. Why'd I join RK2 and be an Omni? Because they said so, and I had no idea what I was doing.

What are the standing from the 6 of us who joined that day? 4 left, one switched to clan, and poor me is still an Omni.

Yeah, it's a pain in the rear being an Omni now. Clans ONLY have a 200 person lead on Omni in 150+s? Boy, didn't know it was that good. Not only are half of the 200s inactive, but most are the alts of people who have lvl 200 clans they play all the time. High-level active deserters have dwindled our ranks to nearly nothing. Omnis are leaving AO every day. What do we do when the Clans go on a pilaging rampage? Smile, if we have the will to do even that. No items we can get, no advantages, nothing but grief. I get stressed out more over AO than I did a few weeks ago taking my Physics Mid-Term.

And why do I stay Omni, or in AO for that matter? Because, frankly, I enjoy the game more than the Clans do, even in my shallow surroundings. As an Omni, I'm not ORDERED to play a GAME by my superiors. I'm not REQUIRED to stop what I'm doing to aid the "Clan Effort." Since I have no items to camp or relish, I spend more time with my friends, yes, even wasting my time CHATTING.

It's sad to see my comrads fighting a losing war. It's sad to see my MA getting his face smashed into the ground while clanners laugh. It's sad to see that people value excelling in this game over, let's say, moving their bodies, seeing some sunlight, or maybe talking instead of typing.

It's truely sad when you need to be that way to 'win' in AO.

How many days until SWG?

[Bionitrous]

Originally posted by Magellien

How many days until SWG?

I wonder if you ask that because that's the one thing that may bring some semblance of fun back into this game. All the ADD-riddled power gamers and uber-guild hangers-on will more than likely go looking for the next game to 'win'. They might come back, they might not. Depends on how easy Mr. Koster makes it for huge throngs of people who band together to 'own' a server. If they find that you can have just as much fun with 20 as 200, the majority of them will find themselves unable to excel without riding the coat tails of the 20-hr a day addicts and return to AO where the only thing you need to 'win' is get a large number of varyingly talented bodies and find someone with enough spare time to tell them all what to do.

It sickens me that this game is all about which guild has the most members who can be online for the most cumulative hours and not about skill or originality. It sickens me even moreso how the game rewards you. It sickens me to see the type of behavior that is encouraged in order to help you 'win'.

SW: G may very well be the savior for AO, if not financially, then at least for the conscience of the game. Never was this game more fun than the first few weeks before these people banded together to 'beat' everybody else.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Bionitrous


I wonder if you ask that because that's the one thing that may bring some semblance of fun back into this game. All the ADD-riddled power gamers and uber-guild hangers-on will more than likely go looking for the next game to 'win'. They might come back, they might not. Depends on how easy Mr. Koster makes it for huge throngs of people who band together to 'own' a server. If they find that you can have just as much fun with 20 as 200, the majority of them will find themselves unable to excel without riding the coat tails of the 20-hr a day addicts and return to AO where the only thing you need to 'win' is get a large number of varyingly talented bodies and find someone with enough spare time to tell them all what to do.

It sickens me that this game is all about which guild has the most members who can be online for the most cumulative hours and not about skill or originality. It sickens me even moreso how the game rewards you. It sickens me to see the type of behavior that is encouraged in order to help you 'win'.

SW: G may very well be the savior for AO, if not financially, then at least for the conscience of the game. Never was this game more fun than the first few weeks before these people banded together to 'beat' everybody else.

Back when I was a MUD coder, occasionally a player would get notions of superiority because no other players in the game could beat them at something (the most memorable being a guy that became a rather successful pirate in the mud's space PvP system. Nobody could travel safely). It was rather discouraging for the players to go into a fight knowing they would lose or be forced to surrender (especially since ships were extremely expensive to buy and maintain). So what could an evil mud coder like me do?:

Get involved myself

That's right, I frackin cheated. Created an uber character, outfitted to the gills, and slowly stripped layer after layer off that guy's ego. I pounded him back mercilessly whenever I got the chance. When others saw him getting pushed back by someone else, they started pushing back more forcefully themselves. They rallied because they saw someone else fighting back (occasionally he'd beat me but it was rare...I helped write the code after all).

Maybe that's what needs to be done here. Maybe "Omni-Tek" () needs to re-establish itself as the dominant force on Rubi-Ka by blitzing the Clan forces back, keeping pressure on them constantly.

Funcom, nor any developer, can prevent group of players banding together and growing powerful by doing so. But they can use the game against such groups simply by choosing to do so.

[Shiftyr]

What you say makes since. But, it's hard to beat back us clanners when we have omni outnumbered 30-5 (prolly exxagerated but not so much really). I would like to see more omni tec employees. Hell I'd become one if it wasn't for this damn token board I cherish so much. Either more omni shows up, or Clans will soon turn on themselves. Even more so then what it is now. It's likely that soon you will see me as an Omni Tech employee. Maybe I can help bring omni back to what it was some time ago.

[Hibernation]

I want it to be like the movie screamers, Omni-Tek finally give up on the planet as the war costs more resources than they can ever gain. So they decide to discbomb the planet and sweep it clean of facilities, then they leave the planet and the clans to die in despair.

The End!

[Arinia]

You guys can go on and on and on about how we can fix it, or what exactly the problem is.

The problem is simple:
Omni really does not have any advantages worthwhile that will bring people over. And even if they were added, it would take far too long for them to trickle down into a OT population gain to make a difference on RK2. So I don't know what to tell you guys.... FC should have seen it coming and put in measures 6 mos ago.

[Kuro]

Originally posted by Arinia
You guys can go on and on and on about how we can fix it, or what exactly the problem is.

The problem is simple:
Omni really does not have any advantages worthwhile that will bring people over. And even if they were added, it would take far too long for them to trickle down into a OT population gain to make a difference on RK2. So I don't know what to tell you guys.... FC should have seen it coming and put in measures 6 mos ago.

I find "Less Pain" a worthwhile advantage

Problem with Clanners running Camelot? Sprinkle a few Omni-Pol Archaeological Expeditionary Forces in there (the Hellspinners and Omni-AF they'd have equipped is just in case they discovered a dangerous fossil )

Too many towers interfering with your view of the skyline? Just call Omni-Pol, at your service for clearing out those distasteful clan towers everywhere.

Like I said: cheat. I would. And if they found they couldn't assemble the numbers necessary to PvP all those towers? Code them. Shouldn't take more than 5-10 Goliath Class Juggernaughts plus 2-3 support personnel (mostly there to take pictures and laugh) to clear a base right quickly

[Scorse]

Just a little side note / cannon fodder here:

The number of Clan versus the number of Omni is apparently skewed, as we have all seen if you are reading this far into this post.

However, it is so skewed, that I am seeing that some Clan Guilds are against other Clan Guilds. So much so, that I get Clanners asking me to attack "XXX's" Clan Land and no other Clan guild will come to help them.

So not only are Omni-tek employees now, just play-toys for "This Allaince" , but other Clan guilds are becoming just that, pawns in an evil game of Chess.

Clanners need to watch your backs, not for Omni coming after you, but for your own stabbing you...

Someone else stated in here that Adrastus II was a group of "Care-Bears hugging BS", well I must ask how would you know this unless you were hugging BS as well to see them there. Adrastus II does have it share of members that want to level, however we band together to NPC hunt, we do this so much, that even Armaklaesy (Clanner of Velvet) himself contacted me asking if he could buy a "Kick Pistol" from me since we have obtained a few of these. (Which I will never sell to a Clanner, thes will rot in Omni bank vaults before I surrender them to a clanner.

So I will continue to play this little game. Get beaten down with 3 or 4 to 1 odds. Read Shouts that clanners make as I die of "LMAO Level 200 Trader Dead" or "Clan so Uber".

There are a few Clanner that I respect, and you all know who you are. We have had our fun in one-on-one battles. I have lost some of those and have won some of those, and I thank those clanners for making it for fun me.

But I do not consider the Clan to be at all Uber, I see it more of a matter of mechanics, the number of Clan to Omni ratio at most any out-pouring is far to sided to the Clan. Does this make you Uber? I say no, since 1/3 of those yelling as I die were by my side once as Omni-Tek employees.

So to the "Real" Clanners I admit we have something in common, we like to fight each other and try and beat each other down, but to the "Low-Life Scum Mucking Ex-Omni Clanners" you can yell out your lungs for all I care, and I will make sure to "Tab" you as my first Targets in battle.

/me steps down once again from my soapbox

-S

[ralguramo]

Bionitrus (or however ya spell it) says:

"If I were one of them young boys who gets a woody by 'winning' these games and being 'the best', then I can 100% guarantee you, I'd go clan. Those who choose to go Omni or Neutral are to a greater degree 'thinkers'. There's a reason they play the bad guys or put the game on the hardest setting. Often they have a wife and/or kids in RL. Not easy to run off to a raid on someone's towers or stand guard duty when you have to feed the baby or promised the Withertons you'd be over for dinner Saturday night."

How do you propose to know such detailed info about the real lives of every person who plays clan and omni to be able to classify omni as "thinkers", implying clanners are all little boys who get a thrill winning at any cost? Your generalizations are completely unfounded. I'm sure there are examples of what you say with ALL factions but don't go trying to say all of a faction is that way.

-----------------------------------------------------

I am rather surprised to hear that the clanners outnumber the omni's. I play the game to have fun and don't really keep up with all the political stuff, but from my limited tower defense time as a clanner on rk1, I've always found that OT attacked our base and we were the ones outnumbered at least 3 to 1. Every time we've tried to do a fair fight by using buffs in our level range without high levels to heal us at the site of the fight, we always lose to OT's with high level run buffs, hots and high levels healing them.

Of course, the bug that lets people attack you then go out of range where you can't heal or med while their hot heals them is fair right? If you are out of weapons range, I should lose aggro from you and be able to heal using the treatment kits. The bug they exploit to make it so you can't use specials is fair right? Someone within a few levels of me that can slowly beat me down with 6 or 7 of my friends trying to kill them with them being in the same level range is fair?

This crap goes on with all 3 factions. I do the pvp thing with towers as a diversion from the mission grind. It's a joke to even bother as a rule with all the exploits out there. The whole pvp thing is hosed from the programming code up. Leave people a way to exploit to win at any cost, and they will.

I can't stand the thought of playing an OT. It just isn't me. It's not my fault if a majority of people feel the same way. OT cities are dark and oppressive. I don't need that in a game.

I'll be amazed if any game company ever figures out a way to make it so that pvp is balanced. With human nature being what it is, it just won't happen.

edit: I know! Let's just remove the whole tower fighting thing and give each faction the same exp bonus. No need to spend hours defending your base. You can go grind levels and ***** about how boring the game is because there's no good pvp.

[p00finger]

Originally posted by Bionitrous
It really does seem that FunCom is trying to get the war over with quickly so they can move to some other part of the storyline. They always said there would be a clear winner. Looks like we're almost there on RK2 and heading that way on RK-1.

As Funcom plays God...Omni's salvation lay in the Shadowlands.

Just as the Clans take the final Notum rich territory, Omni-Tek will unleash a nightmare of technology and meta-physics upon Rubi-Ka. The Board of Directors on Omni-Prime are sick of dealing with the Clan scourge and have opted to adopt genocide as their primary battle plan. Omni-Tek will reveal new weaponry and armors far supperior to the best currently available anywhere on the planet. Omni-Tek employees will be provided with munitions which activate upon "link-up" with the personal data transmitters implanted into every Omni employee. Thereby, disallowing any Clanner or "Neutral" to wield either new weapon or new armor. Highly experimental Nanoprograms will mutate the Omni employee into an unstoppable killer free of fear and craving the taste of Clan flesh. Taste like chicken.

Bleh...prolly just be rolling Jobe missions to powerlevel to 300.

[Teufeldieb]

Here is an evil plot. You see Clan owns Tara on RK2. And what has this gotten the Clanners. Fighting each other and moaning to each other about Tara. Let Clan own all the Land. What will that get them. More of the same thing that is going on with Tara.

If you look at it in the RP since.... isn't Clan the ones trying to keep Omni from stripping the land of its resources... But who is it stripping the resources now? Clan!

Arma I am not going to give you the joy of tearing down our base to raise yours. You want it bad enough then you will have to spam plant your tower. But you got it back anyways. And I will be there to pop the shields on it whenever I can when it is 25%. I will be there with a gaggle of players to interrupt the everyday life your character goes thru and the characters of your guildmates go thru. After a month of this come back and tell me what fun it is to babysit your site for 5hours a day. Tell me what morale impact it has on your guild mates. Oh and do me a favor only bring players that are in PvP range of your towers, cause this is all that I will be coming with. And this time dont run from the fight, stay cause I don't want you taking the fun out of it for me.

Yes this is me holding a grudge. I am returning the favor that you did to my guild mates. And yes when I see a clan tower in 25% I think I just might pop the shields on it everytime as I pass by. Who knows I might actually have an attack force with me to knock down some towers while I am there. So stop what you are doing and come check when you get the message. Wouldn't want you to loose any towers. There will be some fun times for me to have at your expense. Payback is a ***** isn't it.

Bring your numbers with you. Wipe us out quick and babysit for the remaining time of gas. We might just be waiting at the closest grid point or we might just put our characters there and walk away from the computer for the remaining gas time.

[p00finger]

Originally posted by Teufeldieb
And yes when I see a clan tower in 25% I think I just might pop the shields on it everytime as I pass by. Who knows I might actually have an attack force with me to knock down some towers while I am there. So stop what you are doing and come check when you get the message. Wouldn't want you to loose any towers. There will be some fun times for me to have at your expense. Payback is a ***** isn't it.

WOOHOO!!! Guerilla-style baby!!!!

Now, that's what I'm talkin about!