Friday with Means - April 30th, 2010 - About the Future

[Regidoc]

hehe, too bad they can't change the warp location for the starting area to Tir instead of West Athen for the Clan warp. People would then learn the horrors of navigating through there

[Xyphos]

Good suggestions (that we are already looking into) include:

New open PvP content + new BS maps.
Alien playfields at levels below and above Sector 10.
New start-up experience.
Revamping old encounters + loot to today's standards. ie: Hollow Island
etc etc.

1) dynamic mission system + battlestation = dynamic battlestation maps

2) definitly more alien content. noob isle aliens dropping AI phatz (again) was a good step in the right direction, but once you step off noob isle, you're S.O.L. for alien content unless you join an org that will allow you to raid their city (IF they have a city)

3) noob isle is a good place to start your adventure, I think it should remain in the game, but it definitly could use a few minor tweaks;
to prevent new players from "Running to the left" you should add another remote island off-shore of the real island and prevent players from leaving that remote island until they complete a minor tutorial quest.

this means moving brendon thorn to that new remote island as an instructor with a big sign over his head stating how to interact with NPCs.

Brendon Thorn will teach new players how to equip weapons, cast nanos, etc. once the tutorial quest is completed, speaking to brendon thorn will allow brendon to ferry the new player over to the real noob isle, and they can run to the left as much as they want.

Hollow Island definitly needs some attention. it's been ignored for like forever.
my biggest issue with that raid, is once the weed is killed, the mobs keep spawning preventing you from looting what you worked so hard for, unless you perform a border-line exploit.
this really needs fixing. other then that, HI raids are wonderful.

Thankyou for your time.

[Hunni]

A good PvM alternative for gaining Victory Points is the only thing I can think of that you don't already have on the list.

Amen! I know, this is where the "LE mish" and "BS" bone gets thrown out. (I don't gnaw. :P ) But, the LE mish grind at lower levels is horrendous for the VP's gained. If you don't have gear for BS, you pretty much just get farmed for someone elses e-peen title. Other alternatives for Victory Points would be greatly appreciated for all title levels.

And, thanks for the all the hard work put into AO! All of y'all deserve cookies! With extrodinarily large chocolate chips!

[Deaconfrost]

1. Let us be able to pay to transfer characters to new accounts as well as rename and breed change option

2. Finish the "original" RK zones that are on the map but not in game to give us new fun stuff to do on RK!

3. Make new/improve old dyna camps as well as RK Uniques to todays standard

4. Try to make all new content available on demand the first time, instead if having to wait 2 years for inf mishes, then 2 years for aliumz mishes, etc. For example, Ado needs an instanced heck grinding field

I hate PvP (hehe) but even I don't get having to "wait" for BS content. No more barriers (except obvious ones like levels allowed in) on instanced content plz.

5. A New SL zone would be nice, as would an actual Alien looking playfield

6. Speaking of which... maybe revamp LE mishes so they arent such a straight hack of reg mishes? Make them a "dungeon" thats actually fun and cool to visit instead of a soul-destroying grind

7. MAKE MARTIAL ARTISTS SEXY AGAIN! And make my keeper able to tank AO if we don't have an enf. That is all.

[SoapTarder]

The List: (in no particular order)


- engine. really looking forward to it.

- rebalance. really looking forward to it.

- newbie Isle improved. hopefully new players can leave bewbie isle well enough equiped (implants, better weapons, armor) and with enough credits--which they've earned of course--that they don't zone into bor and beg for credz to buy stuff from shops that useless anyhow (yes, it still happens).

- remove or improve garbage items. (including upgraded rk -000 weapons) as an older player, I could care less about all the junk in the database (except when I need to roll a mission for an item >.<). when i was a noobie though, it was absolutely confusing and made no sense to me that a shop could be full of useless garbage that cost more than i could afford at the time. its what makes ao unique i guess. there's being different though, and then there's being so different, that you become obscure.

- add afk status to people on lft window. simple and it works. if you're on lft and you go afk (automatically or manually) your name greys out, or you have (afk) beside your name, or your name changes color. i dunno, whatever works for the devs.

- add more capes to game that are visible. or modify old capes so that they are visible. the first time i got a veil of the revoked, i was so upset that it wasn't visible on my back. (veil, cape, similar things really).

- better pvm victory points alternative. honestly, battlestation is failing because people think its a fun place to hang out for their twinks. it sucks when one side logs their twinked agents because their gimp toons aren't getting enough vp every round and they have bruised ego's about losing two rounds in a row. either its a place for levelling players to get vp, or a place for twinks. having both doesn't work. give us a better alternative for vp so that when QQ's log their twinks, it won't ruin everyone elses vp grind for the day.

thanks for reading.

[Deaconfrost]

Ah silly me jumping right to posting and not reading the whole thread

ok in the preferred format...

1. Finish Engine Update!!!

2a Revamp Old Encounters and Zones to Todays Standards is what I want!!

2b Update Startup experience is prolly best for the game tho if we get influx of new people from advertising done for new engine which I'm sure you guys have planned right?

3. New PvM content created for and by the new engine for maximum sexy timeness

4. Prof Bug fixes

5. PvP stuff for People who PvP which isnt Me

[Junttius]

F*** all. i'm drunk. i love ao team

[Kintaii]

F*** all. i'm drunk. i love ao team

I'm sadly not drunk, but we love you too man.

[Pomidor]

Starting Experience should be the main priority, some revisiting old content (including missions! though the texture updates are nice ), and a scattering of bug fixing. Thread in the ongoing balance work and the engine update work, and that should keep you busy for a while.

Dark, FC seams to be missing one thing. BackYards! its a good startup area, which is abondoned. Actually there are plenty of such areas

[Autohead]

I don't care what you do next, I just want to know when we're getting that paid name change option you mentioned a few weeks ago.

Bump

[Mavritanic]

AO need new blood — i think first love must be for newbies. New engine can do it very effective.
Second - many new players want PvP at start, but cant or don't know how. I think, need PvP-area in startup area. Small zone for PvP-players. May be mini TW, for education.
Storyline is very important and not need big time investment.
Sounds like "New Prof Balance" was forgotten...

[Theft]

Dark, FC seams to be missing one thing. BackYards! its a good startup area, which is abondoned. Actually there are plenty of such areas

I miss the old back yards myself but I think one of the benefits to the way it is now is that it groups more people together since everyone starts off now as neutral.

[Kuegen]

revamp of xp rewards in ado and pen would be nice (so level 160-200s think of something more than ado hecks and inf mish)

not sure if scheol missions exist, but if they were put in, made rather easy to access and gave decent xp, nice switch from the heck grind from 100-150

Would like to see alapaa more doable by player in the penumbra level range, as well as some nice xp like dark ruins

Xan civilization quests (think thats what they are called, ado brain etc) I would like to see these become soloable. Ive never seen a group of level 132s (when brain,tier 2 etc can be used) actually go through the quest as a team, its always a 220 leading the way. just make it soloable so its something to do on our downtime from not getting a team. Dark ruins is pretty hard to solo as a 150 whos not decked out in the best gear, but it is possible. Make the SL quests like that. (Ok, maybe if only the last mob needs a team)

[Neosh1]

1)
2) New engine.
We understand that a lot of textures may still look lame at launch and that Devs will be updating them on an ongoing basis. Just get the bugger in! Just getting it on a testserver with public/semi-public access and in a playable state will do wonders for moral and word-of-mouth (and people will undoubtedly make amazing videos out of it, saving FC staff the time and trouble).

THIS..............is what would i like to see, even if its not 100% finished just put it for ppl to test it out, we are waiting for that damn engine <insert years here> and would like to see some results (at least something like ''grass'' video) beside new heads that don't mean anything (to me) without body.

[If6was9]

AO need new blood — i think first love must be for newbies. New engine can do it very effective.
Second - many new players want PvP at start, but cant or don't know how. I think, need PvP-area in startup area. Small zone for PvP-players. May be mini TW, for education.
Storyline is very important and not need big time investment.

Agreed, basically. Especially the PVP area for newbs (level locked, otherwise sociotards(tm) will just camp it at twice the level of everyone else).

Newb area could use context-based, voice assisted explanation - with a big check mark to turn it off for vets.

I'm not much of a PVP'er either but I prefer getting loot that way rather than questing. So modifying BS so it doesn't require 2 teams of six to launch - and so that it has some kind of storyline tie-in - would be good. Maybe AI opponents if real people don't show up (be a good way to show the intended use of bots and turrets too), could warp teams to battle zones (explosions, blood flying, big industrial schiz moving through, variable as an RK mission).

Global: We need more people and that means we need the graphics update and then we need to advertize. After that more musical accompaniment would be good. Distribute tools to us that will allow us to contribute to the game - vetted by FC staff of course; graphics mostly, but sound effects too... and a dance generation tool.

Tiddlywinks: a) an MA staff that charges with specials when you heal, b) loot updates across the board, c) renew AI raids on cities, let them take over some cities, (screw the whiners on this one, toons must die or it didn't happen), d) mobs need a graphics update more than people do, e) make this game more pg13 (or nc17) and bring back {some of} the cyberpunk raunch (strip clubs, sexy graphics, explicit violence) that this game had on launch and we still see little signs of, f) new dances, whoever did the original dances with 2001 tech was a genius, it's time they were updated.

[Kraized]

IMO, what this game needs more than anything is more players so:

New Startup Revamp
New Graphics Engine

[Castaras]

Give a new startup experience.

Go through the old items and encounters and liven them up.

[Thwarn]

1. More RK zones. As said beofer finish the ones that were made before the release of the game.

2. How about giving us an Alien Zone. Basically a section of RK that as been terrafromed by the aliens. Divide it up into 3 areas for low, med and hi lvl content.

3. More content that involves the use of Mechs. Nice toys but hugely under utilised IMO. How about altering the Mechs so we have Omni and Clan versions. Make them easer to tell apart. Maybe give special abilities to them depending on their side.

[Tazalanche]

The future of AO is something that I have been thinking about for a while. I am very grateful to see Funcom asking us for our opinions on it.

Thank you.



There are LOTS of good ideas already posted. Here are my ideas/opinions, some of which are new, some are simply agreeing with those already posted:

1. Less new SL/fantasy content, more sci-fi/alien/faction content. (If I wish to play a fantasy MMORPG, I'll go play AoC/WoW/Aion/LotRO/DDO/WhateverIsPopularThisWeek/etc...)
2. Bring back the arrival hall. Even if it is altered some to work with the new start-up experience we need the story line back in the game.
3. Revamp the start-up experience.
4. Finalize the updated graphics engine & release the revamped start-up area with it before the end of 2010. We can't have Means losing face for pushing back another deadline. Funcom is already notorious for that. Let's break the cycle.
5. Merge the mail system & GMS together & put GMS terminals in player shops, beside the bank. I'll pay an extra 5% fee to have the item delivered to my mail terminal & keep from having to fly out to the middle of nowhere, then whompa back, only to discover the next item on my shopping list was in the same org city or the one beside it.
6. Fix /stuck to work if you are standing/falling/etc. & if it still does not work, let them petition without a malfunctioning automated system telling them they did not do it right, so their petition is denied.
7. Finalize the Profession balance.
8. A month's notice before major events (and a week's notice before minor events would be nice) with the notice being in the launcher, on the website AND in the forums, not just in the forums the day before the event. Slip the info out to some MMO websites & they will probably do an article on it, which means FREE advertising!
9. Increase the xp of RK mobs to at least 75% of the xp of SL mobs of the same level.
10. Add the word "junk" or "shop food" to the junk loot in game & increase the value of said junk items by a minimum of 5 times the current shop fodder value (who wants to carry something in their pack for hours, only to find out it is worth 42 credits?).
11. Make the SL quests possible without needing a level 200+ toon to come help. (Scheol yuttos/scientists, Ado brain symbiant, Pen yuttos, etc...)
12. APF for level 60-89 & 151-179 with progressively increasing difficulty. In other words, no Grade II mobs in the first room. They are the major reason no one wants to do sector 10 until level 145-150.
13. Change LE missions & RK team missions to where someone can solo without having to find someone else to temporarily team with them while they pull the mission.
14. Give people a reason to be in an established org, versus creating another new org.
15. Random major city raids (AI raid, Leetzilla, GigantoMeans, or some random level 250-300 mob & adds), with a minimum of 1 per week in Omni Ent., Borealis, Old Athen.
16. Mentor accounts. What about having the ability to allow players with all expansions to merge an additional paid account to their existing account for free, but limit the mentor account to level 20? Level 20 is high enough to mentor new players when they leave noob island, but still low enough to not affect any dungeons with an influx of highest level twinks (subway, crip cave, etc...). In PvP, it would only have an effect on baby tower fields.
17. Change the battle station to red vs. blue, not faction versus faction. A rotation of 3-5 maps would be nice too.

Update:
A couple additions.
All grey SL mobs that are NOT in a dungeon should run from you. Do that & the Ely Hecks pocket wars problem is fixed. If the grey mobs are in a dungeon, either do not let them run or give all professions at least a 10 second duration mob root nano.

Delete the default planet maps & create something better or use the Atlas of Rubi-Ka/Atlas of the Shadowlands maps. We have better (IRL) world maps of Earth in 2010 than the default RK/SL maps are & AO is supposed to be over 20,000 years in the future? (Thanks to Wantsumore for the reminder.)

[Alternity]

I agree on the Sci-Fi sentiment many people here display, leave all that fantasy crap behind.


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