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

[Beckordos]

Start-up Experience. No question.

I want to introduce my friends to AO because I love this game, but I am embarrassed to because of the lousy graphics and poor intro.

My list would be:

1. Start-up
2. Engine
3. Annoying bugs that have been around forever

My 2 creds

[wyldebeast]

In order of importance:

1) New start-up experience.
As it is now, a player new to AO is left clueless and runs off to the left after the current newb island.

2) The stuff Gatester mentioned in post #199.
This! There are so many professions in AO, but you only ever see the same ones since the rest are obsolete. (they are! no matter what you might like to think)

3) Revamping old encounters + loot to today's standards. ie: Hollow Island
Would be so lovely if all the old places were we used to have fun was actually worth visiting again. As it is now, there's maybe 1 or 2 things that could be okay to use for a short while, but mostly your time is better spent levelling on and getting higher lvl stuff.

4) Profession bug-fixing.
Always do this. Never stop.

5) Alien playfields at levels below and above Sector 10.
AI xp is strange. You get 2 levels on newb island, then there's nothing till 150 where you get about 1k axp before you realise that s10 is twinks only and you should move on. Then at 220 you start grinding. Could be fun to have them spread out over all levels.

After everything else has been done and there's nothing more to improve on:
New open PvP content + new BS maps.
PvP is for the people who have billions to throw after a new idea. As long as it is like this, you can freely ignore them (even if they act like own the forums). When AO offers pvp to normal players, please work on more content.

[Soule]

Notum Wars needs to be looked at badly its getting quite outdated incentives and general balance tower hp damage etc needs some tweaking its one of those area of the game that has always been left behind

[PhoenixOfAges]

What I would like to see is for FC to begin establishing a necessary role for all professions in teams or raids. Most of the improvements and documentation I have seen is balancing for PVP content and between professions.

Except for things like a special tool they add that is quite wanted in an encounter (ex: keeper ant-fear aura) FC generally can't make another prof needed/wanted in an instance. Although FC likely would respond with how every prof already has a role to play in any encounter as I think they have in the past.

What you're suggesting though is more a matter of treating a symptom rather than the cause. The cause is that we want those certain items from the encounter which have a low chance to drop. With less people in the group our odds of getting it go up so we only want to make those bare bones teams. Other profs could help but we don't want them as it reduces our chance of getting the loot we want. Change it so we get that loot some other way that still requires us to do the encounter many times like collecting common unique tagged drops and/or official raid points/tokens and the cause is dealt with.

Even though I am an avid PVPer, I will warn you that catering to the most vocal forums crowd, which is the pvpers, is not the proper first step in this game. Fixing major issues like OP nanos in the next patch is good, but PVP balance should not come before PVM balance. I can wait on solid pvp if it means AO can keep running, and the others should do the same.

Quite sensible and I would hope others will follow that lead.

Although while there are those that keep saying this is a PvP rebalance FC has at different times said it's a whole game rebalance. For the things we've seen the biggest thing that says PvP related has been how if the target is a player the effect is reduced and/or different than if it's a mob. That although is only for what we have seen and we have only seen a portion of the whole.

We have really only seen detailed in progress perk data so far which largely is general aside from the differing effects thing. Aside from that items, nanos and mobs are apparently getting changed to some degree or another. For those things we so far have only heard a little talk about concepts but nothing detailed. Changing of many of those things especially mobs certainly would have a more general or strictly PvM impact.

[Elfgirl]

Fix pvp

[Keldros]

About the new start-up experience:

For some, their first introduction to AO is when they look at the website to find out more about the game.

Information about breeds, professions, and how to get started used to be prominently displayed on the AO Website. I spent time reading through that before I ever created an account. As soon as I read the description of a Fixer, I knew I wanted to try that. It fascinated me, and was a big part of why I created my first account.

That was all removed from the website quite some time ago. I'd like to see it put back, to grab the attention of those who might be just casually browsing the site to see what AO is about.

This is an understatement.

It does not matter if Anarchy Online is the best game on the planet or the worst game on the planet. If the information on a game's website is outdated & uninformative, most will not bother to take the time to download the game.

Anarchy-Online.Com is a terrible source for information about the game. We keep hearing about how this team or that team has taken over the website, yet we do not see changes, aside from occasionally an update of a forums post from weeks ago will be posted as "current news". A single "news" post on the website in the last 5 months is NOT how you show a game as still being alive & thriving. Enough is enough.

If a thread is started anywhere in the Announcements section of the forums, it should AUTOMATICALLY show up on the website at the same time. It is not a time limitation issue. It is an issue of someone not wanting to be bothered with less than an hour of their time. There are probably 50-100 people on these forums that could create the script for that in less than 10 minutes.

...And after a brief flurry of updates, the timeline is looking dead again. This should be something the events/storyline teams update at least once a month, not something that leaves new players with the impression that nothing is happening with the game for 9-24 months on end. (Also, look at the timeline from the period just prior to SL release. The events team ran major events on a weekly basis, and these were described in weekly timeline updates prior to the opening of the Jobe portals. You'll see similar activity around the time of NW release.)

On a related note, there should be two alternative ways of displaying the timeline--new players need to read it in chronological order ("History textbook" mode), and the players looking for the latest updates can see them more easily in the reverse order ("latest news" mode). I would suggest one page where players can view the most recent 5 events in reverse chronological order, with a link to another page where newbies can follow the storyline from beginning to end without trying to read 24+ pages of text from bottom to top.

Ingame, I'd like to see the storyline tied to the starter experience. Maybe instead of bringing back the arrival hall, try adding historical museums to the various starter cities--that way newbies can get a dose of RK history (no doubt slanted by their faction's propaganda), and old-timers can occasionally get a peek at armor/weapon setups we haven't seen since before SL just for nostalgia's sake. The museums would also be a great place to hand out lowbie quests, like "find me some weapons from the corporate wars" (AKA "sealed weapon receptacle", SOL K-91, etc.). If you're not going to make old "junk" weapons viable, you can at least make them relevant to solving quests instead of adding new items that serve no other purpose.

[Suicidal]

New start-up experience for sure.. actually.. OLD start-up experience merged in to current one..

Just for fun, Means, got to any backyard with Guide in it, talk to guide. Look at how much info you get even if you just take kill the leets mission (Guide explains you a lot about missions). Talk to guide about some other things too.

Now.. go to shuttleport/SL startup.. what do you learn there? Nothing much..

Also.. until I had higher lvl main to support my alts, I could afford one implant OR few heal/nano stims OR 1 or two nanos once I got off the shuttleport.

And ofcourse all that shuttle crash thing in shuttleport.. what shuttle? what crash? WTF are they talking about?

Bring back the Arrival Hall.

[byteflush]

1. A coherent storyline.
2. Start-up experience.
3. Other stuff

[Kinkstaah]

1. More players. Thats all that matters at this point. Whatever improvements to the game need to target this area first.

As a side note, I loved the fact there was no info when starting, because I had to figure things out, explore, etc. Felt like I had just stepped onto a new planet with no information about any of it. However, I feel I am a minority here.

[MassDebater]

1. More players. Thats all that matters at this point. Whatever improvements to the game need to target this area first.

As a side note, I loved the fact there was no info when starting, because I had to figure things out, explore, etc. Felt like I had just stepped onto a new planet with no information about any of it. However, I feel I am a minority here.

Not knowing the game world, definitely. Gave me a sense of wonder about the place I will never have.

About simple game mechanics, not as much, one example:
I was killing the leets and reets around subway, and asked in OT OOC why the mobs were respawning as grey, and not giving me xp.

[Moosecatcher]

Shop items/weapons, there is literally hundreds of weapons, all groovy and interesting with lots of crazy descriptions, but most of them are useless.. could we make them even slightly useable? as a low lvl/newb you have no idea whats good or bad so you go to the shop and buy the cheapest weapon which requires five different skills and only does 1-3 damage or something silly like that

[Lheann]

Again I will say start up experience is top priority.

Got to kill the grind of leveling. People are suggesting instances and such. I think what makes people mad is that without OST at level 80+ it takes what 200+ mobs to level up one level if you solo greens on RK and maybe 100 mobs in SL. I feel that at no point in leveling that a solo player killing green mobs should have to kill more than 100-120ish mobs for a level on RK and 50 to 70 in SL. Not fast but not so bad that solo RK mission with 50 to 100 mobs would not feel like you made good progress. That would make leveling more fun. Yeah daily missions are going to give that type of experience but the truth is existing missions could have been made to fill this roll and at the same time all mobs would have filled this roll.

Fix the old content items and shops. It may be hard but it needs to be done. If it means Macrosun has to build a new tool that can edit any item in the DB then make it happen. The post Kintaii made that you need to find the right tool to edit different items just tell me it is time to develop anew tool that allows you to edit any item type in that tool.

Fix cluster shops in stores. Once more I am finding ql 70 clusters in the superior cluster shops. Of all the shops problems this one just erks me to no end. My idea is 3 ql of a cluster in each shop.
Basic Shop: 5 to 15 and 16 to 30 and 31 to 50
Advance Shop: 51 to 75 and 76 to 100 and 101 to 125
Superior Shop: 126 to 150 and 151 to 175 and 176 to 200
From a vets stand point a day running around for clusters is a pita. for a new player it is a game breaking mechanic. And if a training quest on implants is added it would fail so bad if the user had to spend a day looking for the right ql cluster to complete it.

As a vet from day 1 I have to say that the utter and complete lack of any game play information on your web site sucks. The fact that every new player is told about Auno and AOU and told to get AoRK and AoSL maps should indicate just how crappy the offical information is. The arguement that alot of it is in the game just does not cut it when most other mmo's have excellent information available about basic game play on their offical sites. Also the state of the AO offical site is such that most people get the idea the game is dead or dying. I am with the group that says get people off their butts and updating it or fire them.

But that was more stuff i thought about that would help.

[Ceenah2]

As a vet from day 1 I have to say that the utter and complete lack of any game play information on your web site sucks. The fact that every new player is told about Auno and AOU and told to get AoRK and AoSL maps should indicate just how crappy the offical information is. The arguement that alot of it is in the game just does not cut it when most other mmo's have excellent information available about basic game play on their offical sites. Also the state of the AO offical site is such that most people get the idea the game is dead or dying. I am with the group that says get people off their butts and updating it or fire them.

But that was more stuff i thought about that would help.

Not to mention that new players (froob mostly) are forbid to access forum to ask the experience player questions directly.

[Tazalanche]

Not to mention that new players (froob mostly) are forbid to access forum to ask the experience player questions directly.

I thought that was changed in October 2009?

[Anarchy]

One thing that doesn't seem to have been mentioned (sorry if it has) is levelling

I would also mention that although I think Funcom do a stand up job with Anarchy Online, I look through all the (albeit GREAT) stuff you are doing, profession rebalance, new instances and the engine...that is a HECK of a lot of stuff for a small team to get through, so what I would suggest (flameproof jacket set to ON) is that maybe for the next project, really focus on it and churn it out, that way you keep the player base interested, which neatly leads me on to levelling.

The levelling process is one of the few things i loathe in the Anarchy Online experience, everyone knows the drill, startup..cripplers...croakers...mini hecks....mortiigs....big hecks....bigger hecks...missions. That seems to be the current consensus...from my point of view, anyway.

From what I see about daily missions it will be a step in the right direction, a quick way to get XP. emphasis on quick. My old man plays AO when he gets the chance, but he can't push past 150 or so because it just takes too much time, in WoW (flameproof jacket still on) questing and daily missions are a great way to level, log on for 30 minutes and you've got results, but in Anarchy, once you're past elysium, finding a team can take 30 minutes, which is deeply frustrating.

Also, it plays in your favour (Funcom team) as you want as many people as humanly possible to subscribe to AO and keep the game going, now from what i see you're not making content for lower levels, and probably rightly so, but with levelling as it is it's just too far off for your average player to get to 220 and to experience the content which you are putting so much time into making! I know that the elitist ******** will say "well average players shouldnt get to 220" blah. Those days should be over. You cannot say only the best and most dedicated get there, you want people to get there, I'll use wow as an example again, Blizzard consistantly make levelling faster with each expansion, because they want players to get to the top and say "yeh, this is bloody awesome, more please!" not people getting to level 50 and saying "F**k this, i'm gonna go play table tennis." you WANT people at the top, so I would strongly suggest that you take a look at it.

Wall of text I know.

edit: I'd also look at having side switches for 200+ players, it's something enough people want, I joined the game as clan and most of my RL buddies left and by that time it was too late. I think it's about time something like that was implemented in one way or another

[Ayria]

I thought that was changed in October 2009?

It was, Froobs can post on the forums for awhile already.

[Gunfytr]

Newbie Island needs fixed. As long as its done before the new engine. If its not fixed before new engine, u wasted all the time/effort/$$ put into it, cause as it stands, no one will make it passed the Island.

Adventurer= +300 evades, is it nice? Yes. Do we need it? No. Healing is enough for good tanks? Yes. Will we invite an advy for heals when we can get a doc? No. Good DD? Not really. Good Mezzer? Not a chance. Can they offtank? Yes, but tanks don't need an offtank if they can handle three bosses at the same time. One of the best solo professions in game, but I have no clue why anyone would ever team one unless they are filling team slots.

Then ur hangin out with the wrong advys. I have OD'd solders with mine. The old school theory was, Docs heal the tank, Advys heal the doc.

[Junkseller]

Shadowlands needs a level lock for each area of shadowlands. Ely needs 50-100, Scheol 101-145, Ado 146-170, Pen 171-199 and Inf 200+. Once they reach the lowest lvl req. of the next step they can advance to that area such as ely to scheol. this will help to control power leveling aka pocket teams in Ely from 80-180. THATS INSANE! Pluse with level locks that will force people to get to know there toons more and explore all the SL they really never get around to rather than power level to 220 in a month with out knowing anything about there toon.

Please take this into thought

[Keldros]

Allow mods to permanently revoke forum access for people who suggest that newbies should be grinding hecklers.

[Ceenah2]

I thought that was changed in October 2009?

Dont think so, i tried one of my old froob acc just now. it seems doesnt work.