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

[Silnumtao]

Revamping old encounters + loot to today's standards.

I think revamping everything from basic shop "junk" weapons to hollow island loot to modern standards should be a priority. So much of the game's content has been obsolete for years, and that's sad when you think about how much of it there is.

[Jungtor]

What i want :Profession bug-fixing and Revamping old encounters

What the game needs:New start-up experience.

[Regidoc]

Personally, I think you should start on revamping the startup area. People get their first impression of AO from that area and if they don't get a good vide, then they don't stay.

[DocJones]

Heyas,

most important area to work on is the newbie island/arrival hall section.

regards
/Z

[Beersoldier]

I would prioritize like this:

New startup experience
Alien Playfield below and above S10
Revamping old encounters
Professional Bug fixing
Sending Kintaii to the Bahamas

[Alternity]

Heya Means



I'd really like to see a new endgame raidzone, along the lines on Pande.
We've raided Pande for what 7 years now? Yes there is a lot of new stuff for us to do: APF + Sector 42, LoX, DB.
However all these "new" additions are either instances, or takes a lot of planing (s42)


I think the instancing of Pande was the right thing to do, people need a kick in the ass, and I salute you for doing so.

The instancing of Pande was not a WIN/WIN situation, we gained freedom from the bots but lost one of the most important aspects of endgame PvM raiding, the Kill Team wars @ Beast.
I know I'm not speaking only for my own Org here, but the loss of that competitive aspect made many people leave the game.

I suggest doing a open raidzone like Pande, but when it comes to the endboss make is so that only Team 1 from the Raid Interface gets warped into the Lair.
Open it up for multiple RIs and we again have a KT situation.
You can also give the forces outside tasks that needs to be done, to keep the boss kill team alive.
Makes it more interactive, ofc it must be scalable to the raid force(s)


Also how about some new outdoors RK boss encounters, along the lines of Mercs.
Come on Means I know your spidersenses tingle when you think of 30ft pink Mercs walking over RK!




Viz

[Regidoc]

Perhaps this should be done as a poll as well? that way people can post their opinions but also we have some numbers that we can look at

[TheMekon]

The biggest thing as far as I am concerned, is the startup experience.

If there is one thing that I have always found lacking with AO, it is the fact that when you start, be it on the island, or formerly in the arrival halls, you have basically been dropped, on your own, into the game, with no guidance as to what to do next.

New players need their hands held, they need the floating questionmarks, the arrows to guide them, the little details that veterans ignore completely, but new players, truely new players, want to immerse themselves into.

Give them more chances to experience the backstory, the reasons for the clans, the omni oppression, the indifference of the ICC. Who cares if the graphics suck by today's standards, I remember clearly, when MMO's were glorified text-based adventure games (and god knows I wrote enough of them), there were no flash graphics, it was all about the content. The average player of AO is not an ADHD infected youth, but an intelligent, opinionated adult, who wants more from their gaming experience than "run to the left".


After that, and keeping it short..

TL3 AI opportunities
Viable alternatives to Ely heck kite teams (wtb dark ruins for scheol)

[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.

[Tinypain]

New open PvP content + new BS maps.

Long overdue imho and will put some much needed revitalization into the game. I'd love to see the crowd of people this would bring back into the game as well. I'm sure most everyone knows someone who was really into pvp and simply got bored and afked from game.

Look at NW as well, new towers and contracts maybe? Converting some of the massive lowbie fields to TL5 and TL7 would be nice and provide some breathing room for dominating factions. It also gives a bit of incentive to opposition since more fields up for grabs.

Please don't add any "orbital-like" changes that stupidly change the entire game overnight, for the worse. Just look at adding more content for both BS/NW.

Revamping old encounters + loot to today's standards. ie: Hollow Island
etc etc.

Big bump. I think everyone is ready to see HI, Merc Camp, Mantis Queen, Smugglers Den, Tarasque/Camelot, ect... revamped. Places like Smugglers Den/Mantis Queen have a TON of potential already there and not only will something like this improve content for older players but it provides new refurbished content for newer players.

[Shaylon]

AO endgame content is fun if you have teams...but until we get newer players who want to level to end game it will just keep dying off at the high levels.

As has been mentioned a few times the beginning and lower levels need alot of work to attact/keep new players. AO needs easier ways to get the weopons and creds needed after leaving newbie island. Useless items either need to give alot more creds as shopfood or to be gotten rid of since they just confuse new players. Being able to level without being trained by 220 outside team pocket tanks in aban/elly needs to be fixed [Having that happen a few times just turns people off to the whole AO experience]

It will also need advertising to attract new players. Alot of people think of AO as an old game or just have never heard of it..but as games go it really is unique and deserves more people to know about it.

[dritst]

New bs map :>

[vallikat]

The Bahamas.

Oh now here I was thinking small. I was just going to say "bankrolling GSP Dancers and DJ's trips to DragonCon." However, I must admit I like the the way you think, Brad!

[RoPoem]

Ohohoho, I must be a part of this !

I read all the above and I do AGREE with all of them, tho I have no ideea who the heck is Kintaii, but alien PFs before and after 150 is a good ideea, again.
Noobie island needs improving, so new players get a good feeling about the game and the whole speaking-voice-in-the-players-mind thingy for a good feel of the game.
Old players should be kicked with a spanner into the game with some NW and competition, for all the pvpers out there !
More unique dynas, old ones to pop(I haven't seen some of Tir ones ever in 4 years), pink mercs selling Coke and Hot-Dogs in cities, more camps like Merc one but with updated items (DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE FROOBS!!!).
Game more lively.
Isn't Xan civilation a story ? Nobody tryed to read it ??? ( I didn't, guitly as charged).
New engine, plxkthksbye!
Poket fixers for gsf.
I hope nobody will hate me for posting this haha
Also, This is going to be a HUUUUUUUUUUUUGE thread. Have fun reading Means!

[Whealer]

I'd love to see a new start up area as well that both explains the basics of the game to new players as well as gives a less transparent storyline. Any new person joining the game has a lot of history to catch up on and most of it is really hard to find. Along these lines this would actually be very beneficial at higher levels as well. I know I've been around since before Notum Wars was release and there is just a lot of information that I have forgotten or just never was able to find out.

I'd personally love to see more outdoor raid encounters introduced again and of course more outdoor PvP areas. That was something that I felt was disappointing when all the out in the middle of nowhere zones on Rubi-Ka suddenly jumped from 0% suppression to 75% suppression. Along these lines it might actually even be interesting to make an outdoor raid instance in a 0% suppression area.

[erozc]

Fix all the annoying stuff

With profession rebalance in the works, it appears that profession bug fixing could be redundant... So I wouldn't put high stakes into that before the rebalance is done. However, if old pesky profession bugs or god forbid, new ones should appear in the rebalance, then they should be quite high on the list.

New player experience obviously is important and should go hand in hand with the new engine. Here's a chance to become a much bigger player in the F2P MMO genre, and one of the best looking ones too.

Finally, some real insight. While revamping old encounters seems interesting, revamping old items appears to be a very lucrative thing to do. Who cares whether you're wearing Tech armor or Flowers armor, it's all junk. Similarly for 96% of RK weapons and 90% of SL weapons. Make them interesting - add stuff like really big damage but slow attack times, strange def checks, even combined MA on a ranged weapon ( ), whatever, just make them more viable and more interesting. Just upping the damage range on most junk weapons would make them semi-exciting. Besides armor and weapons, there's a heap of other currently noninteresting stuff.

However, based on what Kintaii said about the effort needed to modify old stuff in the databases, this may not be so simple as it sounds... But I'd really consider it.

[XenonDe]

While we are currently very busy getting the Daily Mission/Collector update ready for release
(...)
This is where my question for this week comes in.
(...)
Good suggestions (that we are already looking into) include:
Alien playfields at levels below and above Sector 10.
New start-up experience.
(...)

On that note... how about adding to those two with daily missions?
I think the daily missions are a good chance to be used early on by new players telling story and back stories as well as adding more depth to the first levels.

Also I'd love to see some daily missions that include clearing a manufacturing plant from alien invaders, and similar missions. Would help to make aliens more available at all level ranges, with or without city which is important for new players. It also would integrate the aliens more into regular leveling and the RK setting. Currently there's still a either/or kind of feeling.. you do RK, SL or Aliens. No and in there.

[Qianjin]

"What should we add next?"

This...

New start-up experience.

...and this.

A storyline to the game mabye?

Have a good weekend!

[No4Sniper]

I think it would go great in this order

Finish Graphics Update (hint hint)
New open PvP content + new BS maps.
Profession bug-fixing.
Alien playfields at levels below and above Sector 10.
Revamping old encounters + loot to today's standards. ie: Hollow Island
New start-up experience.

etc etc.

[Homeostasis]

I too agree that the initial start up needs to be revamped. Imho, the ICC shuttle port really doesn’t prepare the new player for the AO experience. I would propose a tiered approach where the new player would advance though playfields representative of all AO has to offer (classic, NW, AI, LE, etc.) A smorgasbord if you will of the AO experience.

Thanks Means and Co. for asking the community what they want and for listening to us.