Where are all the players?

Funcom AO is getting mind numbing and what are you going to do about it? I hope you are not waiting for Shadowlands to bring you out of your slump. I started playing AO in November and since April I have seen AO steadily spiral down hill. AO is a wonderful game but with many issues. Some of those issues are complex and some of the problems could be easily remedied. I took a break from the game for three weeks and came back and created another character. (The main reason that I play AO is due to the character size. I don’t like playing a game where the character are the size of a quarter on my monitor.) My new character is only level 40 and I can honestly say that there are fewer people playing the game now then ever. I have spent days at a time looking for a team with little success. Every once in awhile, just by good luck, I would fine a full team and then its back to standing around yelling for a team to group with, but only having to give up and soloing a mission. (and no I’m not one of those players that team just to get a team mission to solo). Maybe Funcom will fix that issue.

I asked an ARK representative where all the new players were? He told me that probably they were on vacation and that Funcom sales are in better shape then ever. Hmm! The polls reports families this summer are staying home this year or traveling a hundred miles from home, only to be back at the end of the day. Hotel occupancy is down and airline ticket sales are low. Funcom had to restructure their organization and let personnel go. Funcom is even asking their clientele base to find players for them. The days of having 59 or 100 petitions ahead of you are no more, (zero, 8 or 20 is the norm). Are these indications that maybe something is wrong with AO?

I remember the days when we hunted for experience and did missions for items and credits. Plus, there were many groups of people standing outside the west gate of Newland, standing at various OP-s outside Tir for the purpose of forming teams to go hunting. Those days of seeing 3 to 4 teams hunting shades are gone, 4 to 5 teams hunting in Rhinoman cockpit are gone, people standing in line waiting to group at bully bridge are gone, and countless teams in Mort are no more. Remember the days when you were new to the game and you had a mission out in the boondocks and on your way to the mission you would always see another player coming and going. Just to stop and talk to them was a special moment in the game. The ARK told me that players are doing team missions now days. Well! Ok! they still have to stand around looking to join a team to do those team missions. Where are those players I ask? I have stood many hours by Fare Trade which is the chosen location now for low level clans to find a team. For higher levels its North West terminals in Tir. I don’t see many high levels standing there anymore. Maybe they started ALTS, but then why don’t I see them by Fare Trade? Has the game come to players creating MA-s to run solo missions? Not many people get to play 8 to 10 hours a day at this game.

Here is a suggestion: Remember the ARK department responsible for events? Or did Funcom do away with that department? That department is responsible for “producing, and starring in small, medium and large events”, so why don’t we see much for this? Where are those Dust Brigade terrorists? Are they in nursing homes now? It sure would be nice to let us know this, or are we suppose to wait for them to pop up in their walkers. Do you want to create excitement and mayhem? Staging an event can liven up the game so much if you would take just 30 minute to one hour a week. The terrorsit doesnt have to be in a team, if anything have a renegade terrorist. This doesn’t have to be done in the cities, where a lot of the other events took place only to have the servers crash. It can be done in the wilderness. I would love to encounter the Dust Bridge while running through Varmint Woods and then getting on OOC chat and telling the whole world of Rubi-ka that the DB are having a picnic in the woods and lets gank them. It doesn’t take a lot of computer programming and organizing to just run around killing people. Plus, players like to see their names posted as participants or casualties of an event. I remember way back when you had other events and of course the servers crashed, but hell we had so much fun and ended up talking about it for a few days afterwards. Take the most wanted article, that was a hoot. However, you forgot the little man. Just don’t recognize the higher players who may have ARK characters and whose main playing character gets reconized. Characters that are level 20ish and 70ish would like to see screen shots of their bodies lying in some field or city recognizing them as being a casualty. Which would be Rubi-ka Times or Voice of Freedoms responsibility to stimulate the players lust for gossip, dirt, envy, or sorrow. I wish and hope that maybe you will actually listen to someone that didn’t post a letter to bad mouth another player or whine about not having something that another profession possesses.

... there are fewer players because those who want to play / come back can't get past the installation process these days.

I've wasted a huge amount of time trying to reinstall AO over the past week, and still have no success. And this is a reinstallation on the same machine I used before. Yes, I've no doubt there are fixes for all the problems I've encountered, but they should be downloaded "as if by magic", not by me manually fiddling the download process, messing about with "fixit" tools and other such time wasting activities.

If the installation and patch process isn't reliable, people will just give up and move on to other games. Content isn't worth a great deal if there's nobody to look at it.

The fundamentals are broken. New content and expansion packs will simply exacerbate the situation unless FunCom takes a "back to basics" approach.

Regards,
Scelto.

For me well I know I have said this tons of times in this board but.. 14.4 been the killer FC way to put all boss drops and increase rare item count (which I especially want because they are only useful crap I could get my hands on). The trader team heal 'fix' that turned out disaster due FC short eyesight.

The biggest stumbling thing in AO is that it seems that funcom try to make their own vision out of AO and it seems that 75% of the players (at least) disagree. And they sadly still think they are right.


Question for the moderators do you really think I have enjoyed the 1.5 week camp hunt for the shape hard/soft armor and the grid armors? I used to play like 8 hours+ per day depending did I have job or not. How much wasted time this makes? Too much in my opinion. Is games supposed to be fun or just all camp camp campcamp campcampcampcampcamp?


Of course I can TRY to buy them but oh where is my 10-150mils ingame creds?

All this because FC way to counteract 3rd party progs.. well I have had it.

And its true everybody sees it. Its impossible to find good team anymore after 14.4.

And nubi and average lvl player is nowadays impossible to get hands on good items (especially some of the quest items) due camp camp camp camp camp camp of high level players.

Oh well its soon time to give big eternal wave to evercamp. I have had ENOUGH!!

That is just a small part of the problem Repluse. I can do without the Nodrops, uniques and rare items. I dont even mind camping a location for something. I have camped 3 hours for a crat suit to only have it snatched up by a higher level that all of a sundden logged in at the spot 5 minutes before the spawn time. If a person wants to stare at empty space for two hours, I think they deserve to have the loot, not the ones that arrive, log and then reappear before the spawn time and lay claim to the spot. In fact my character is still wearing her level 15 armor at level 49 and that doesnt bother me. I may have to run outside the mission a lot of times though but I am content. Just give me more interaction buy outside forces that can change the direction of the game.

I think Funcom should put a restriction on the Mobs to prevent camping from higher levels. I would like to see funcom put a loot restriction on the static bosses. IF the boss or static boss is a level 60 only people in that range can get the loot item. If there is another player that is level 150 in the team or doing the killing, then the boss or static boss should not drop that item. This will prevent the higher ups from killing the boss and then giving the item to their Alts or duel logging in one of their Alts to loot the remains. I have also seen ALTS log on their higher main character to start the attack and then just stand there and draw all the fire, while the ALT does the actual killing, which I think is wrong and could be solved by putting that restriction on the boss. Doing this may have its pit falls though. The higher levels are hardcore players and are hooked on the game and this is Funcoms main support. If there is nothing for the higher levels to do, then they leave. Once a person becomes a higher level the only thing left is to collect items. Funcom says that they can create another character. Well! ok then you have to do the same things over again and that really starts making the game routine. They end up having to go to the various hunting grounds and doing missions after missions. Funcom says playing other characters allows one to learn what other professions do. Well! after teaming with other players you already have learned what they do. You end up having to ask them for the buffs and I have heard many players telling people how to play their characters while in the team.

I dont think what is hurting the game has much to do with your concerns. I agree that your concerns a valid. I think it has to do with not enough adventure or excitment in the game. This stands true for most MMORPG games. The characters complete all missions and aquire all items and then what is there to do? Once the game becomes routine and boring we move on. When players move on to another game Funcom will run the chance of never capturing that client again and that is the risk that all businesses take. I have played many MMORPG-s before and I have not gone back to them. When Shadowbane, EVE online and Star Wars come out, I will try them and if they offer more excitment then I will probably stay with them. I will return for Shadowlands to see what has happened to the store line.

With AO they have to ability to change that because this game is very unique in the fact that Funcom can change the direction of the game. They have the ability to send in the events people to stir up trouble. Why they dont is beyond me. Its a crying shame that we have to wait for a patch to come out, just to add some excitment to the game.

Nice that you posted a 10 most wanted list of criminals. However, you stated that we are suppose to contact case officers and the Omni Pol branch. Well! can we actually do that and if so who are they? LOL

Sure would like to see Funcom make the ritual knife (forgot the name of it) usable on those individuals. Oh! did i just make a suggestion there on how funcom can make the game more exciting. Strike fear the the hearts of those PVPers. Ritual Knife equals no return loss of life. Hehe All their precious stuff gone.

At some point, playing my level 42 engineer, i asked the leader of my organization, "whats the point? the point of progressing and gaining higher levels?" He didn't have much of an answer for that. My friend goes around power-leveling, and yes that's fun to a certain extent, but sometimes you just have to pause and ask yourself why you have been running around Rubi-Ka fighting against the same mobs over and over and over.

I dont need to be level 200 to have higher self esteem, and all I've heard from the higher levels are "slayers are da shiznit" and "PVP is fun!"

It's great that PVP is fun but if i wanted that i could play any of the countless shooters and strategy games out there.

If i want an RPG all i have to do is buy a PS2 and play the latest Final Fantasy.

So what makes this game better? Why should i play it? Just cause there's players i can team with? You can do that over a lan playing Baldur's Gate. What makes this game unique!? When i play a console 1 player RPG all the scripted events happen to me. What events have happened to me playing this game? None! Oh yeah my guild had a meeting i missed cause it was at 9:00 am on a friday morning and i was working. Woopteedoo. How about instead of just finding lots of mobs walking around, when i'm walking on the path maybe a group of rhino-men could ambush me. (even if i die from that i wouldn't mind cause it was UNEXPECTED) Something that makes me feel like more than just another client in a game of thousands. When i get to a high level i plan to fly to Omni-Trade (i'm clan) and kill the guards over and over with all the omnis watching. At least that'd be fun!

There are less new players, rather than less overall players it seems. If you're in Newland and you're looking for a team in the 140+ range, you'll wait maybe 5 minutes during non-peak hours. During peak hours there will be maybe 3 different teams, all searching for different types of members (calmer, healer, tank, etc.) With Shadowlands this will change seeing as how all us highbies will make new chars, and, being the super-twinks they will be, will be able to level up to you, who will probably be about 120 at the time, quite quickly. But maybe not. We'll see.

Role-Playing Games have no point as such... Such games are what you make of them to some extent. However, there is an issue with an online game such as AO, many players come from a pure CRPG background, where there often is some point, however vague and ill-defined. There is also often a story, however basic. PnP RPGs rely on the players themselves.

Of course, in PnP, one of the players is the GM, and there role is to provide interesting situations, background atc. In AO, the GM is Funcom, and I guess that is the real issue here. As a GM, Funcom seem to have dropped the ball a bit. Of course, there's a huge difference between a PnP GM and GMing a game like AO.

Funcom can provide more interesting situations. Themed encounters would be nice, such as 'you come across a group of omni and clanners fighting - what do you do?' or 'you come across a merchant being robbed by some thugs - what do you do?'. Stuff like that could be largely automated and would add some flavour and zest to the world which does seem rather flat at times.

Funcom as GMs can organise more RP based events, not just the 'try to kill the NPC(s)' type which seems common. Though I have seen a few efforts at this, but more, and involving more people would be good. The GMs should liase with players who have shown dedication to the RP cause, and feed them bits of information to set up such events.

Implementing PvP oriented areas with mechanisms to enable capture and hold of outposts and the like. And the PvP system itself needs revisited, removing all restrictions on who can PvP who at level 75 leaves lower level (and by that I mean under 150) players out of such a mechanism by and large, so that needs to be looked at. If a few groups of level 80-90s are holding an outpost, and a single group of opposing level 180+ can come along and kick their butts... realistic perhaps, but no fun. If the 180+ couldn't initiate combat against the 80-90s, then this wouldn't be a problem.

Such a mechanism should work something like as follows. Each capturable outpost should display a flag or banner showing who currently holds it.

In each outpost is a door. Inside this door is the outer zone, this may simply be a few rooms which can be guarded to prevent access to the elevator to the inner zone. The inner zone is where it's at. If the only players in the inner zone are of a single side, then the outpost is held by that side (maybe have to hold the zone clear for a minimum time).

So, the aim is to keep at least one player in the inner zone on your side whilst using the outer zone to defend. There should probably be multiple elavators from the outer to inner zone, and the outer zone needs to be designed to offer both oppertunities for defence and for attack.

Outposts could come in a variety of sizes, and can have level limits placed on the doors to enable a variety of levels to take part.

Each outpost would also 'control' an area round about it, and affect the 'side' of any terminals, NPCs etc in that area.

Any guards at an outpost should be in the outer zone and of toughness suitable to the level range of the outpost. There are still issues relating to PvP around the outpost (bringing in extra attackers or defenders), but that relates to how the PvP system works currently. At higher levels, engineers whould be used to bring in reinforcements anyway...

Hmm, ok, started on one subject and wandered a bit... :)

If Funcom claims that their sales are soaring, they are out right lying as they usually do. :P

That's why the had to let people go and restructure. That's why they've halted production on their next online game.

Just sit in NLC or BS for an hour or two. Even when it's busy and easy to find a team, stop to actually think of the amount of players there are. I've actually started to memorize the names of a lot of people in those two zones. That's scary.

Now, keeping in mind that characters are stored long after account cancellation, look at the number of characters that exist in AO. Look at that number several months ago. Look at that number several months from now. Then tell me with a straight face that AO is increasing it's player base. Or that it even has a large one.

I play AO because it was the new thing for me. As something new, it's got the new sparkle that gives me some fun. I imagine the sparkle will wear off soon as if you look objectively at this game, the only thing going for it really are the nice graphics, the treatment kids, and the nano chargers. :P But for now I'm in that stage I call 'noobie love', where I'm able to ignore the gross deficiencies because the thrill of playing something new outweighs them. :)

About the events people. You probably don't want them to be sent in to stir things up. Generally speaking, their events suck. Many of the 'greenies' are just title ganking power hungry egomaniacs who kill anything in their path to get their neophyte title while hiding behind the guise of furthering the story. The concept of mediating and directing the storyline, while letting the story (events) be played out by the players are an alien concept to them.

Where are all the players ?

Easy. Inside a mission.

Go to a server monitor. Add all the %'s from the playfields. You get maybe aroun 40%. Which means that 60% of the players is inside missions.

The rest is in Tir, Omni-Ent and maybe a few other zones, either LFG (for a mission), getting a mission, or on the way to their mission.

And the dumbest thing is that chat channels don't extend into missions.

Im totally bored with AO!! All i can do are missions or pvp at high levels. Also i hate having to keep rolling atl's to make up for lack of content. SO for a while i'll be logged on long enough to say hi to guildmates but i wont be online nearly as much. We were told last patch there would be new hunting grounds for higher levels. Well they did add hunting but not for 175 plus. Anyway i'll leave my account opened for a little while longer in hopes funcom will do something to make the game worth my time .

Yes, im disappointed!