Where AO went wrong, and why it can't be fixed. Hope you have a drink and comfy chair ready. I may digress a time or two
There was a game called Anarchy Online a decade ago. It had problems, but was a good game. Notum Wars was a great addition to this game. Then came Shadowlands. Now, don't get me wrong, personally, I liked this new world; for me it was a great contrast to Rubi Ka, having a mystic, ancient civilization feel to it, yet still seeming futuristic to me. The addition of a new world wasn't the problem.
The problem SL introduced was new levels, and perks (and resultant corresponding items to match). In one fell swoop, 20 new massive levels (and many perks to go with it) suddenly made nearly everything that came before obsolete. New symbs to replace implants, new armors, new weapons, all (nearly all, anyway) better than what came before. They had made RK, and all things in it, pretty much useless.
BUT, the biggest problem was that these new levels were NOT for everyone! They were only for those who bought sl. So, they also made every player who did not care for SL obsolete, no longer able to compete with massively stronger sl characters. The new levels should have been not linked to the expansion, they should have been universal, and not sl levels. They should have been regular levels. More on the problems that caused below.
So, 2 years later, what happens? They did the SAME thing again with AI!!! Only this time there wasn't even a new world to go along with it. Now only AI weapons and armor mattered, rendering what came before useless once again. Not to mention: whose bright idea was defacing the RK landscape with all these stupid looking, out of place player cities?!? New zones should have been made for player cities only, but that was just icing on the cake. Eventually they opened new zones solely for player cities, go figure. Too bad that wasn't from day one... (I won't elaborate on cities much, and the problems they caused to the gameworld and gameplay, just that they should have been instanced from the start, properly, or given an offworld moon to inhabit, anywhere but where they ended up; anyone with eyes could plainly see they don't belong on RK. As out of place as towers would be in SL... The zones were not designed for them, they would not work, as cities do not work in RK)
Anyway, later still, LE comes out, and they do the same thing yet again, just to a slightly lesser extent. Now there's research levels, MORE perks, more insane overpoweredness, more powerful weapons yet again.... Seriously, dev dudes, did you not learn from the previous 2 expansion debacles?!?
Graphics aside, AO can't be fixed and balanced within this system, ever! What needs to be done is ONE level system - ie: make it level 1-200 again, for the entire population: no sl levels, no ai levels, no le levels, no perks (or less perks), ONE unanimous serverwide system. ONLY then can the world start to be properly balanced. RK mobs, SL mobs, AI mobs, LE mobs should all give xp only, and make it scale properly. If a mob is 20 levels higher than you, then it gives a certain amount of xp - adjusted SLIGHTLY for weaker/tougher mob types. Then levelling can happen anywhere again, no matter what the mob. No multiple xp/sk/axp level structures. How did you ever think that could balance properly to begin with?!
The mistake wasn't adding new content, it was always the way they added new levels to the game, then as a result having to add overpowered items to match it, rendering all that came before useless and obsolete. Not making those levels - content itself could have remained separate - available unanimously to all players was a massive intermingled mistake as well.
Without a complete overhaul, friends, this system can never be properly balanced. The whole levelling system needs to be scrapped and redone, only then can the items and mobs and players be properly rebalanced.
10 hotbars of perks and nanos must go as well, it's all way too much, way too overpowering. Symbiants should vanish as well. Armor needs to have holes in it like the old days. They had it right before SL. The Shadow levels and perks and resulting items are where it truly started to go so very wrong. Yes, I do think it was a mistake removing penalties for death, and lootable pvp as well - you couldn't loot important stuff, that was fine (good, in fact, as losing important items would be bad for business, someone's hard work ruined by a lag spike, bug, crash, or just losing to chance, or a better opponent in that battle, luck of the draw. That doesn't keep customers paying), but it was a nice touch being able to take SOMETHING!
Sidenote about the graphics engine: I know the graphics of the game are NOT going to change much with a new engine, that's not the point of wanting a new engine, people! The old engine was designed for CPU use, graphics cards were still very new, not very popular when AO came out, so the game was designed accordingly to not rely on graphics accelerators much. ALL new computers have 3d graphics acceleration in them now, AO would run a million times better if it used this power. THAT is the point of why the engine should have been a priority, people. The graphics will not change without redoing all the textures. AO is still, ten years later, a cpu intense, hard drive thrashing, game with poor prefetch, and needs to also be redone.
As an old player who loved ao, and played for years during the glory days, the pinnacle of AO's existence, I must say, even a new engine won't bring me back now, it's too late. I do believe AO cannot be fixed, not without redoing the whole levelling/xp/perks structure as noted above. Now with instances making the raids I loved so much obsolete as well, there's no reason to return to AO at all, except nostalgia once a year because I do like to run/fly through the zones of RK and SL that I enjoyed so much time in, once upon a time.
My history: 3 paid accounts, 2 froob ones, former dedicated AO veteran. I can hardly fathom making alts in other mmos, AO was special. Was.
Obviously, these are my thoughts, and some might agree, and others disagree. Balance is impossible within this convoluted multiple levelling structure. The entire system needs a massive level nerf, and complete overhaul. Without this, balance is futile. Yes, I said it.
In other mmos, the most popular question i hear from new players is without a doubt, "how many levels are there? What is the maximum?" Usually, the answer is just a simple number.
Here is the answer in AO: Well, the maximum level is 200. But if you have SL there are 20 sl levels. If you have AI there are 30 ai levels. If you have LE there are 70 le levels.. New player: Huh?!
Before you jump in about noobs, these new players aren't stupid, this convoluted levelling system, however, is.
I've seen other mmos go through complete combat revamp/restructuring for better or worse, and i truly believe this, above all else, is what AO needs first and foremost, or everything else is just useless and futile. For pvp AND pve, bring it all down back to reality. Players should not be gods.