Dragon*Con 2009!

[Mereditche]

all the attractive women there are already married/with their bf, or such.

Luckily they aren't always loyal

[lordran]

Means referring to Artyomis at 9:11 ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dberq...eature=channel

Think so LOL.

[Lheann]

Well the videos and the whole QA session was very informative.

Little points.
Means, eat more cake. You are skinny.
Means, That hair .... yeah that hair ....

Big points.
Player stats approx. equal to two years ago.
Revenue approx. equal to two years ago. (though the offical stock reports would indicate that is bending the truth more than a little)
300-400 new players try AO every day. That is 109500 to 146000 people per year. And that the retention rate is very very low. Is it even 1%?
We have been saddled with a starter area for 3+ years now that was done up in a weekend. Explains the entire AI addition to the game and how so much seems not well though out.
We are going to get an "in game mail system". From the mouth of the man that argued against it in his own FWM post.
They see AO has no learning curve but instead has a learning wall.

Interesting points.
The devs have stood on NI (excuse me shuttle port beach) and watched people just go off on their own and not do the "duh so simple" thing and talk to the NPC.
That at least one AO team member thought you had nano's before talking to Brandon Thorn. Hello this scary to me.
We have 77 skills but a vast part of them serve no purpose. Maybe they should look at this point a bit more.
Raising he XP reward in the SL zones being skipped currently is a no brainer fix. Means said it. So WHY has this not happened already?

Questions I have after watching.
Where in SL are there QL120 hecklers than Means refers to. I sure would like to know and 120 hecks would be a nice step between tiigs and the 180 hecklers in ely?
---Question Removed---
If players stats have been steady for two years why has even the TL5/7 BS's gone from always running to serious dead times in the same two year period? They have to know where everyone is at some level. If it means I need to be doing other content to be social then I just want to know what content has all the people.
Would it be fair to say that daily missions (if done 1 every day for a 5 day week) is meant to level you one level? That would make sense in my view. That is still 73 levels a year max. Not fast but 20% of level for the mission would make most people feel good.
Will Daily missions (said to be on RK) give SK for players over 200? I have not even seen this asked yet so I may be first.

Ok that is all for now. I am going to go run left and see what the far end of the beach looks like. Will be back later for my equipment and nano's.

[shadowgod]

Why did means seem down on WoW? Sure it is not his game but at least respect the $2bil a year in revenue game that it is. I know a WoW game developer and he plays AO (imagine that). Thinks AO is great and I NEVER here him bash AO or any other game for that matter. Sorry Means but a Game Director bashing or taking pot shots at WoW just seems professionaly discourtious to your counter part at Blizzard.

i know its easy to be the righteous one. however, have you not properly read all of means's friday posts? you'd understand his character (and i dont mean game character) by now. hes not shaking his fist in anger at bliz and their game-so-easy-your-dog-can-play.

and i dont pay attention to wow, or its game director (hell, i've not even heard if there even is one!) and i'd be surprised if he (or them) have never ever taken a shot at the competition.

this isnt politics, this is business. anyone who doesnt try to make an amusing shot at their competition every now and then needs to learn the world better (say hello to Apple even!).

infact, its a standard thing men do. maybe you're actually female irl, so you wouldnt understand this. sometimes, the kindest thing a man can say about something is negative, in some jesting way. theres books even dedicated to this social behaviour.

[Solstiare]

Shadow, you Bastard.

[Means]

Why did means seem down on WoW? Sure it is not his game but at least respect the $2bil a year in revenue game that it is. I know a WoW game developer and he plays AO (imagine that). Thinks AO is great and I NEVER here him bash AO or any other game for that matter. Sorry Means but a Game Director bashing or taking pot shots at WoW just seems professionaly discourtious to your counter part at Blizzard.

I am not down on WoW. Far from it. I am extremely gratefull to WoW for bringing so many more people to the genre (MMOs). Before WoW an MMO with 100000 subscribers was considered an overwhelming success...they have broadened the market by millions of people and brought attention and funding to my profession - making MMOs. I can't imagine what I said that made you feel that I was "bashing" WoW or being professionally discourteous to my counterpart at Blizzard but I can assure you that you are taking my comments out of context to a degree that is only possible on the internet.

At one point during the panel we are all "forgetting" the name of the biggest MMO in the world...this was a light-hearted poke at WoW in general and I can't imagine that anyone at Blizzard would find it offensive. "World of Whiners" was not my sentiment but someone else's...I certainly don't subscribe to that view. AO Players are constantly using WoW as an example of a game that lacks complexity...I have never felt that WoW was too simple or easy but it certainly is not as complex as AO...this doesn't make it better or worse but merely different. The vast majority of gamers prefer the level of complexity offered by WoW to that of AO...that being said we are comfortable with who and what we are and have no intention of removing/altering the complexity that makes AO special and different.

I have a great deal of respect for the current designers of WoW and even more so of the original design team. Although I no longer play WoW (for a few years now) I can certainly appreciate the amazing work that has gone into making WoW the game that it is today...I would even go as far as refering to myself as a "fan". When the WoW european community manager comes to town (he used to be our community manager) it is always great to catch up with him...he made me pose with a Murlock stuffed animal the last time he was here. To say I have anything against Blizzard is silly. We know they play our game and they know we play theirs.

I am also aware of my bad-hair issues. There is unfortunately nothing that can really be done about that. My friends in Canada refer to my haircut as the "euromullet". It has never been "good"..this is just the latest version of bad. If I can live with it...so can you.

[Mastablasta]

Questions I have after watching.
Where in SL are there QL120 hecklers than Means refers to. I sure would like to know and 120 hecks would be a nice step between tiigs and the 180 hecklers in ely?

Aren't Scheol hecklers in the 120-140 range?

[Artyomis]

Very informative Q&A session, thanks for performing it.

Means referring to Artyomis at 9:11 ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dberq...eature=channel

Think so LOL.

Sounds interesting, wtb confirmation or denial.

[Keldros]

Aren't Scheol hecklers in the 120-140 range?

A bit higher than that. Ely hecklers tend to be 160-170ish, Scheol hecks are more like 200.

[Fekal]

Some about OA's learning curve.

Wouldn't tutorial videos, coupled with explaining text, be helpfull?

A few examples:

GUI introduction:
Explains what you see on screen and what purpose it has.

Basic combat:
How you engage in combat, toggleing auto attack/tageting on and off. And more...

Targeting foes and friends:
Howto target yourself, teammates or other mobs during combat using either mouse or keys, like TAB, Ctrl TAB, F1, F2 and so on...

Uploading Nanos and using them:
Bla bla bla Hot bar bla bla bla

Basic tutorials for each profession explaining the types of self/team types of nanos/perk actions and what types of hostile dito each profession has access to.

[Tutomech]

WTB OT t-shirt size M.

[styles999]

Dont forget tho means, complexity is good..as is diversity, I like a challenge, I like to be unique. as do 90% of AO im sure whether it be pvm or pvp.

as for wow, never played it personally and never will. all that i have seen of it was my cousin playing it, and i was like wtf? thats alil on the easy side eh?

[Mereditche]

as for wow, never played it personally and never will. all that i have seen of it was my cousin playing it, and i was like wtf? thats alil on the easy side eh?

When you dig deeper into Wow it can be pretty complex, as there are a lot of options in equipment and spec trees. In fact, AO has often only one end-game option for pvp and pvm, while in Wow depending on which direction you take, your character can play completely different. Ao complexity lies in twinking. In pvm for instance Wow is a lot more challenging than what AO throws at us.

The problem with Wow isn't it's complexity in my opinion. The problem is that once you get good at it, and really work hard on a good setup and the proper equipment, you become so extremely OP that there's no real fun anymore in pvp. Many players in Wow are really clueless. So while killing gimp after gimp in 3 hits is fun at first, it gets old pretty fast.

In AO at least most people are pretty good at the game (due to years of playing it) and even the biggest noob can hurt you with a drain or an ubt. So way more challenging.

Still, I wouldn't call Wow easy. Put a lot of good player together on a server and it might be very interesting indeed. Now there are just to many noobs and casual players that it becomes boring fast.

[Grim-One]

I am also aware of my bad-hair issues. There is unfortunately nothing that can really be done about that. My friends in Canada refer to my haircut as the "euromullet". It has never been "good"..this is just the latest version of bad. If I can live with it...so can you.

You should shave your head to freak everyone out just once. who knows you might find you like it short.

[Lheann]

Means forced yor NCU to run "Read Wall of Text" and you took 1000000 points eye strain damage.

After Shadowgod commented I went back and removed the question. I even sent a lengthy message to him explaining why I had made it at first.

Means,
Never did I mean to imply or state the "World of Whiners" comment was yours. It is my professional experience that when at tradeshows and expos you don't bash/jest/speak badly about the competition. Was taught it is just bad form.

All,
Perhaps I took Means comments out of context. But before this explodes and overruns this thread I will apoligize to anyone that felt my take on it was out of line. As you all can see I have already pulled the question from my post. I have also gone back and watched that section of the video 5 more times and I think that Means comments were acceptable given the setting.

[Lheann]

Aren't Scheol hecklers in the 120-140 range?

Nasc Hecklers are QL80
ElY Hecklers are QL160-180
Schoel Hecklers are QL200

They only keep going up. I watched the video section again and have run it over a few times. I am sure Means is saying QL120 Hecklers. Please where are these beast located. I was in the closed beta for SL and have played in SL since relase and I have never seen 120 hecklers (part 3 video at 1:20). While I hate bashing rocks like everyone else Ql120 hecklers would still be a nice stop gap between 105 ttigs and 160-180 hecklers. Even if it was just for 10-15 levels.

Maybe he was just using that as an example. But 120 hecklers would be nice.

[vallikat]

Maybe he was just using that as an example.

This.

I'm almost certain that the level was just meant for example purposes.

And, if I can just comment on your prior post, I find it extremely ironic that you would accuse Means or anyone really of writing a "Wall of Text."

[Lheann]

This.

And, if I can just comment on your prior post, I find it extremely ironic that you would accuse Means or anyone really of writing a "Wall of Text."

Yes, I am a master of the Wall of Text nano. Thank you. But that time was just a light hearted humor attempt before I had to step up make the apology for taking the comments of context.

[Demongirl]

see.. i think thats the most disapointing thing about freakcon.. i mean.. dragoncon....

all the attractive women there are already married/with their bf, or such.

/me sighs

They're not all taken, I met a few that weren't.


Yes, it was me dressed as my character with the emoticon > shirt, vinyl pants, keelars, face tats, advanced mic, biker boots, and leet doll. We usually have at least one day we dress in AO social items to show some Funcom love. lol

[Ebondevil]

Nasc Hecklers are QL80
ElY Hecklers are QL160-180
Schoel Hecklers are QL200

They only keep going up. I watched the video section again and have run it over a few times. I am sure Means is saying QL120 Hecklers. Please where are these beast located.

I believe you can find some inside some of the Ely Static dungeons, perhaps the Scheol ones.