Tying up lose ends.. AO past, present, future..

[Myrella]

*bumps*

[shigawahhhh]

Looks like good stuff. One can hope some of it gets done

[hamms]

/spanks to the top!

[Xaun]

/shiggybamp!

[Xaun]

I would like to see the morning star tossed out for the junk it is. Most simplistic brainless Character Creation system I have seen.


I would want the ORIGIONAL CC process returned. I want to detail why:

At each step how to play AO is carefully described to you.
At each step backstory and world building concepts are passed to the player as he creates the character
At each step precise scientific english is used

It is so "heavy" with thematic atmosphere that its great.

Sure it would need updating but that would be great too. Hell if you like the morning star put it there with a shuttle ride down afterwards. The thing is the old newbie system audables completely describe basic gameplay procedure to the new player. The newbie island DOES NOT, it NEVER HAS. I remember playing in newb after it was brought into the game thinking.. oh yeah... this helps people.. yah right.

Essentially FC wanted something to advertise AI with.. FINE... but they did it at the cost fo AOs "atmosphere". Successive game patches and expansions have bled the game white of atmosphere and left behind: PvP, Twinking, Powerlvling. Atmosphere encourages socializing. Thats good. The "atmosphere" added has all been lowbrow, simplistic, shallow crapola on a stick.

Other things that I would love to see to bring back "depth" to a game voided of it and turned into land of the powerleveling twinking pvp only thing.

Omni-Tek is a hypercorp but it was modeled after noir cyberpunkish bladerunnerish super-corps. One major aspect of that is Corruption. One great way to do that is with dark cities.. which as well all know it rains alot on rome and Ent. More fog and such is needed as well as a graphics facelilft to improove it. But a MAJOR part of corruption is the: Feeding of Employees Vices to the ends of keeping them saited.. saited people dont rebel, follow orders, and thus are profitable.

In those lines OPEN Heads Or Tails. Such "randy" locals are common places for men in suits drinking and smoking fine cigars to plot and scheme in similar stories as to AO. Open up XLossyX as a drug den. Introduce drug effects. .. hey since you like to copy wow.. wow has drunkeness. Should be too hard to add in statmodifiers and a visual filter to the game. The point is stuff like this adds depth to the game beyond the current flat/2d/no depth hollow gameplay and style.

As for the kids? Well I thought you europeans were supposed to be more open about that sorta stuff... har har. I wouldnt mourn the loss of el'kidos. Slap an M on it for Mature. Sex, Drugs, and Heavy Weapons.

As corrupt as the Omni-Cities are with vice, the Clan Enviroment was gritty, frontierish, hard-bitten. Soo much potential there.. so much wasted.

I have to say I nearly forgot of this old intro it has been so long. I do like it quite a bit as far as how had more possible outcomes at the end because of having options like "face" "hair" "etc" where now we only have preset outcomes of certain combinations. Even tho there are many. I wouldn't mind them combining the two in to one with more enhancements in the new engine updated version of AO.

[Boltgun]

I think introductions should be reworked. There is already something about cinematics but I see it that way :

First it's the only place where they tell you can building your identity like changing breed and such. The only other place I saw it is in the original manual mentioning Tucker being changed from Solitus to Atrox upon arrival to RK. Still it gotta be that way since it only make sense for a Solitus or Opifex to be an moving to the planet.

But anyway... First starting on Rubi Ka, after a shot of the shuttle (this time with matching OT colors like on the Morning Star!). Your char is sitting in his cabin with his bag, and the script follow the "OMG we're going down". After coma you see the face of the nurse you used to see in the first version of noob island reanimating you and dragging you out.
Then you're outside, she scan you for reclaim and tells you to talk to the doctor. I don't get why AI weapons are confusing but having to guess that the guy hand you the starting equipment not.

Shadowlands start, a view of the shuttle landing on a platform at Jobe. Then cut to your char walking down a corridor escorted by 2 scientists and a armed Jobe guard. They talk about the exciting, and dangerous, experiments about to happen. The group reach a door opening to a huge gate room (those who did SL beta remembers), one technician hands you a bag and you walk toward the gate. Materializing in the shadowland and disoriented the hologram guy appears in front of you, and then you have control. The hologram will tell you the usual instructions.

As for the arrival hall, personal I'd love to have it back as a museum you can access and see important artifacts of the game and events.

Edit : And the audio must be looked at, many sounds are now gone. I mean all the interface sound, all of them! Lots of footsteps are MIA, ranged and melee hit sound are missing, let alone checking against target type to give a "flesh" or "metal" hit. Missing gunfires ricochets. Tons of unused nano execution sounds, did you knew that all the different nano effect have sounds made for them ? I think FC did a great job bringing new music but the sound effect shouldn't be forgotten.
It is not to be disregarded, my souvenirs of pre SL days included the sounds of picking stuff of my inventory, the dingdingding when adding my IP and all. It's important for the ambience. And it should helps a lot when receiving tells of invite to team and BS.

[Bugzybug]

zampbump

[Moonjumper]

Hello my name is Moonjumper and I approve of this message.

[Xaun]

I think introductions should be reworked. There is already something about cinematics but I see it that way :

First it's the only place where they tell you can building your identity like changing breed and such. The only other place I saw it is in the original manual mentioning Tucker being changed from Solitus to Atrox upon arrival to RK. Still it gotta be that way since it only make sense for a Solitus or Opifex to be an moving to the planet.

But anyway... First starting on Rubi Ka, after a shot of the shuttle (this time with matching OT colors like on the Morning Star!). Your char is sitting in his cabin with his bag, and the script follow the "OMG we're going down". After coma you see the face of the nurse you used to see in the first version of noob island reanimating you and dragging you out.
Then you're outside, she scan you for reclaim and tells you to talk to the doctor. I don't get why AI weapons are confusing but having to guess that the guy hand you the starting equipment not.

Shadowlands start, a view of the shuttle landing on a platform at Jobe. Then cut to your char walking down a corridor escorted by 2 scientists and a armed Jobe guard. They talk about the exciting, and dangerous, experiments about to happen. The group reach a door opening to a huge gate room (those who did SL beta remembers), one technician hands you a bag and you walk toward the gate. Materializing in the shadowland and disoriented the hologram guy appears in front of you, and then you have control. The hologram will tell you the usual instructions.

As for the arrival hall, personal I'd love to have it back as a museum you can access and see important artifacts of the game and events.

Edit : And the audio must be looked at, many sounds are now gone. I mean all the interface sound, all of them! Lots of footsteps are MIA, ranged and melee hit sound are missing, let alone checking against target type to give a "flesh" or "metal" hit. Missing gunfires ricochets. Tons of unused nano execution sounds, did you knew that all the different nano effect have sounds made for them ? I think FC did a great job bringing new music but the sound effect shouldn't be forgotten.
It is not to be disregarded, my souvenirs of pre SL days included the sounds of picking stuff of my inventory, the dingdingding when adding my IP and all. It's important for the ambience. And it should helps a lot when receiving tells of invite to team and BS.

Very very good suggestions. I will figure out where to work them in to the original suggestion posts at the start of the thread.. gimme a day or two to figure it out.

zampbump

^_^

Hello my name is Moonjumper and I approve of this message.

<3!!

[Boltgun]

And while we're at it, reduce how often mobs taunts you but add voice acting. I wanna hear Ian War shouting "You came here to die ?".

[meatybtz]

i believe FC turned off alot of the sounds for "lag" reasons... or at least that is what I recall them saying. That being said "some" of the sounds enviromental and otherwise lurk still in low use areas.


Once on newb I used a bow and i actually heard it clatter (the miss sound) off rocks. I was shocked. It never happened again. Weapons with long attack times were supposed to make a charging up sound loop to function under the premise that the big plasmacannon powering up. That was removed. Also some places still have the metal-plates + boots sounds. However some 90% was nerfed. The perens are supposed to go BOOM when the target is hit. Some dev some time back accidentally turned it back on.. at 200% volume. Anyone remember the BOOM BOOM Perens? The quickly shut it back off. Was hillarious to do an FA with a blaster at that time.. was noisy as hell. Point is, FC could bring it all back. I am nearly certain that the origional starter area still exists. FC usually does not "remove" areas from the game.. would be too much work. So I bet the origional character creation area still lurks in an inaccessable zone. Need to find some compliant GM to warp me there.

[Jenshiye]

*bump* for bringing more agreed upon ideas into one thread.

[Boltgun]

i believe FC turned off alot of the sounds for "lag" reasons... or at least that is what I recall them saying. That being said "some" of the sounds enviromental and otherwise lurk still in low use areas.


Once on newb I used a bow and i actually heard it clatter (the miss sound) off rocks. I was shocked. It never happened again. Weapons with long attack times were supposed to make a charging up sound loop to function under the premise that the big plasmacannon powering up. That was removed. Also some places still have the metal-plates + boots sounds. However some 90% was nerfed. The perens are supposed to go BOOM when the target is hit. Some dev some time back accidentally turned it back on.. at 200% volume. Anyone remember the BOOM BOOM Perens? The quickly shut it back off. Was hillarious to do an FA with a blaster at that time.. was noisy as hell. Point is, FC could bring it all back. I am nearly certain that the origional starter area still exists. FC usually does not "remove" areas from the game.. would be too much work. So I bet the origional character creation area still lurks in an inaccessable zone. Need to find some compliant GM to warp me there.

The volume of that hit sound was a good reason, but 'lag' is a pretty lame excuse. 'Bugged code' or 'I won't bother' is more realistic. Sound causing lag ? Might as well turn of the whole system. Also with newer CPU I'm sure we can handle a few new terrain detection algorythms when sound is activated.

Well I hope the new engine will come with a new sound engine as well. With EAX.

[Xaun]

The volume of that hit sound was a good reason, but 'lag' is a pretty lame excuse. 'Bugged code' or 'I won't bother' is more realistic. Sound causing lag ? Might as well turn of the whole system. Also with newer CPU I'm sure we can handle a few new terrain detection algorythms when sound is activated.

Well I hope the new engine will come with a new sound engine as well. With EAX.

Updated OP with your suggestion.. also yes it would be nice if they reimplemented some of the old sounds in to the new game if not new sounds done better than before!

[kalakala]

Ok, i have been reading forums for about one week, and NOW i saw you and your posts. I came to the forums with an idea of FC givving ao the old Sci-Fi-ish looks and feels. Just look at FC's first intendions with AO, and a first few years in AO. I'm firstly talking about graphics, about character creation. AO (as a SF game) should be dark, misty, imaginative, and with lots of wiering around

Some of your designs would bring AO right to that, to a Sci-Fi game. I really wonder WHY doesnt FC employee you, with your ideas, you caold easily replace a big part of this team now, since they keep "ruining the game" (by not making it more and more sci-fi).

As for "character creation", old c"haracter creation" had it's bad points, as does the new one. A hybrid between the two would bring FC more money (why: if u dont attract ppl at the first play, they won't continue playin). By "character creation", i think of the creation of a sharacter, creation lab - 10th lvl. Someday, FC had in mind a great system of backyards, where you will get everything you need (shops, lowbie mission terminals, even a indoors playfeild to lvl up in <a separate part of a subway>). Instead of that, they implemented an island... OK, an island, nice place to begin, but, it AINT sci-fi, its somehow like "world of warcraft in future", and the big defekt is that island has a particulary bad graphics, furthermore, higherlvls with their shiny weaponary and armors, can't access the island and so make up for the low graphics-seems like FC is trying not to earn money, and wants to take games like WoW, GW, SR as their rollemodel.

For starters, ok, an island can be a nice starting point, but it really would be nice of FC to add some indoors playfield like catacombs to newb island, and they better make it look nice.

Now think, this is a little bit of coding work (they dont even have to redesign <ufh, like they ever do> that playfield, they would only copy the exsisting models (of a inf/pen mission perhaps) to newb island) and there you go, a lot of new players would get interested in what game has to offer?

>>>>>>>>>>>>>

As for the armors, they are beginning to look more and more normal, and less and less sci-fi. If you want to be a sci-fi game, you cant be a bit of sci-fi, a bit of epic, you msit be a sci-fi straight. Now, melee is something you must have and is resonable to have in game, and as for this aprt, fc did allmost a good job, by getting most of the melee weapons be sci-fi looking.

Your proposals of armors are really great (except the clan-sol i dont really like, but objectively, he is great too) Now look at Omni Unicorn officers (i'm talking about the BIG black guys with razorblades wondering around in Rome and sectors) can a player look that way? NO! But player has to look that way if you want to be sci-fi, and that would lead us to this, Armors as they are now look really simple, like a rubber clothes you buy at chineese shops down the street. If you mix two armors of different cinds, you look terrible, and the point of Sci-Fi MMO is the looks!

Now i'm begging FC to at least consider the last paragraph about the armors, because that would really improve looks of everything, and there won't be need for social tabs.

(just take a look how other games did it: Knight Online, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Silkroad Online, even Archold Online <wich is a straight copy of AO> and so on...)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[Bugzybug]

lol got a friend to play ao.. he's a concept artist and quit because of the island, and couldn't convince him to play past it. He felt that the island had no history, and was strange and not-scifi at all.

[kalakala]

Well, that is one of the points in my post, beggining of the game is the most timportant factor in future, for player: if he likes the beginning, he will always remember that beginning, and furthermore it will make him want more.

for FC: beginning means a space to place advertisments of SL AI LE and so attract more customers + the chance someone continues playing froobish raises, therefore, the chance of him taking expansions later in the game raise...


I don't think FC are stupid, but i really don't get it why they just dont want to listen to what people are saying (although they really help and listen more than other MMO-making companies blizz ncsoft joymax etc.)

[Xaun]

hehe thanks and /bump!

[kalakala]

np and /bumpybumpbimp...

[./macro bump /bump %t]

::::::
As i was talking earlyer, it would be nice of FC to make this cind of changes with the new graphs patch, that way we (ive been playin since dec 2005) older players would feel like playing a new game, and the new players (wich will come after the patch) would continue playing because they would really like what ao has to offer (and it really has what to offer)

[kalakala]

bump n pls consider some of this pages i future development of ao