f13.net

 :awesome_for_real:

I'm back playing this on a froob account while taking a week off from WoW raiding.

It's fun to be able to jack the client up full blast on my computer, but it's so old now. I'm no graphics whore, but damn does it show it's age.

And my game thought ideas. I go back to AO because I like to play the mission system. It's like a MMOG roguelike to me. (Also why I dug the heck out of Hellgate: London.)
But they abandoned it. They went on to Shadowlands, etc... and there's no reason for me to go past the froob account. And then about level 40-50ish I start to lose interest in running solo missions over and over.

They even added mechs, and that can't get me to subscribe. And that's just terrible.

I could never quite figure why they had a really successful and different type of game and went off into the Shadowlands stuff. Not that I wanted to run the same missions forever, but they'd have done far better to expand on that kind of gameplay than the more EQ-ish stuff in SL.

Yea. I think most pre-SL fans of the game would agree that Shadowlands was the best and worst thing to happen to AO. On one hand, the game needed a serious dose of content. At one point the most efficient means of leveling was running missions over and over again from 1-200. Somehow their solution to this in SL was to have you solo one monster (hecklers) for almost the entirety of the game.  :heartbreak:

It seems like game developers have a difficult time distinguishing between design problems, and execution problems. AO had the perfect setting for a science fiction MMO, and it never fell prey to the cliche "pew pew laser" complex that seems to degenerate most science fiction games into cheese ball territory. The real problem with AO was that it launched in a completely unplayable state with bugs that persisted years into the games life. Rather than focusing on refining, fixing and expanding the core gameplay mechanics (which were good) they wasted years of development creating a new game world which had almost no connection to the old one.

I know WoW pulled basically the same stunt with BC, but at least that game's lore followed logically, rather than the "Hey we're at war over the most important planet in the universe. Oh wait now we're at war over another dimension." we got with SL.

I played AO immediately after launch and I'm not recalling any solid, excellent "core game". From what I remember, you had basically two options.

You could go to the Mission Dispenser Terminals and dial up a random dungeon somewhere nearby that would be filled with NPCs to murder and/or a glowy to click. If you were lucky, the random map generator hadn't shit its pants and you could actually get to the glowy/all the mobs. If you weren't lucky, doors led into walls or there were clusterfucks of seemingly-mislabeled green-con guys who would rape your sweet virgin buttocks the instant they saw your eyes.

Alternately, you could go out into the wilderness, usually with a group, to find a field full of essentially static-spawning NPCs. There, you stood a safe distance away, pulling and murdering single monsters of essentially interchangeable varieties until either your eyes bled or your healer had to go milk a cow.

Did I miss something?

That's pretty much exactly what I remember.  It did give me a giggle to see Leets outside of towns though. 

There needs to be an Anarchy Online 2. Same setting, done right, and less shitty graphics.

But yeah, it's boring as shit once you've explored the cool places. Level 78 or something is the farthest I got.

Given the complete and utter failure that was AoC I would not hold your breath on "AO done right".

They might get some crazies to give them monies for an AO2 but to expect anything good from it would be folly.

Edit: I'll throw in that I cut my MMO teeth on AO, after the major fail had been patched out and things mostly worked. Even with rose colored glasses it was still mostly crap.

Running the same exact missions over and over (Why, hello CoX). Or just camping your spawn point of choice (hecklers!) in the overworld.

You forgot entering a mission and being stuck in a wall, making that toon effectively useless, or missions where the walls didn't exist for the mobs and being shot to death upon entering. And the outdoor vistas, while being pretty (for the time) randomly crashing, warping you to god-knows-where. Or joining up with 20 other people, and that being enough people in one outdoor area to bring down the server.

I had a lot of fun playing AO for a couple of years. Sadly most of the people who made it worthwhile for me have moved on.

There are people still playing. Obviously it's not a ghost town... but it's almost there. Mostly people in OOC chat bitching about WoW (Which is when I turned chat off.)
I started AO about a year after launch. I don't think I've given many MMOGs a chance out of the gate except for WoW and it's expansions. (And UO, which was my first MMOG - and the one where I learned what "potential" meant when used to refer to a video game  :uhrr:) So I never had to deal with the game breaking bugs. Just the annoying little ones left over.

Anywho, here's my wish list for AO2, which will never happen:
1. Work the mission system like a whore putting her kid through college. More objectives. More tilesets and maps. More monsters. Sub-bosses and main bosses. Cardkeys and puzzles and all kinds of shit. Zelda dungeons meet roguelike with sci-fi skins.
2. Graphics bump. More variation on armor and equipment. (Thank god for the social armor tab)
3. Less levels. Do we really need 220 levels? Tighten up the advancement.
4. Fucking cool vehicles. I always hated the shoe cars. WTF retarted design makes them shrink down? Just make their hitbox small if you're worried about collision problems.

I played AO when it first came out and enjoyed it at the time.

I'm glad you bought this up, because I'd almost forgotten about it. Funcom's next MMO, assuming it happens, has a setting (http://www.actiontrip.com/features/pics/thesecretworld8.jpg) which is pretty original for an MMO and could be fun. Hopefully they might once again take a few risks and try out some new ideas.

Funcom is a company which I'd really like to see succeed, because you get the feeling that if they ever do manage to ship a finished game which works properly, it will be worth playing.

Fuck Funcom. 

I'm not even butthurt by them over AoC; I could care less about how it turned out.  They get a middle finger award for straight up lying to us pre-launch about features that were billed as ready but never made it in. 

I'm not buying their shit at launch anymore.  New games will have to be robot jesus for me to give them more money. 

You shouldn't be buying anything at launch if you cant handle the reality.

Other than that, did they just do a graphical update not to long ago?

Definitley not on the froob account.
http://www.angelfire.com/ak4/ratman/Anarchy/AO001.jpg
http://www.angelfire.com/ak4/ratman/Anarchy/AO002.jpg
http://www.angelfire.com/ak4/ratman/Anarchy/AO003.jpg
http://www.angelfire.com/ak4/ratman/Anarchy/AO004.jpg
As a matter of fact, I'm having texture flashing problems on the current client. (I chalk that up to the age of the graphics engine, although the lighting and camera problems have persisted over multiple graphics cards and 2 OSes now... :oh_i_see:)

I see updates that it's coming soon on their homepage.

What a toothsome young lass

I remember being a part of their "special" beta group that tested the infamous miracle patch right before launch. I could crash the server by running backwards against a wall and jumping. It would vault you at some insane velocity and the server would crash. The best part was when you logged back in you would hurtle at some insane speed to your death, fall through the world and crash the server again. The bug was there for a long time and we enjoyed using it.

I like to pretend I'm a pretty princess.  :grin:

That and the 'thrash win2000 installs' beta patches were  :uhrr:

But the magic patch would fix everything!

Ironically, AoC really did get the miracle patch.  (Well, until the post-20 game caught up with them.)

Humm, i did find what i recalled to be, they already did update the engine. (http://www.anarchy-online.com/wsp/anarchy/frontend.cgi?func=publish.show&template=content&func_id=2404&table=CONTENT)

Current version is 17.something. As of the unreleased 18 version forum, the players don't seem to have the new graphics engine yet.

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=545944

I can't say for sure, (Official forums, lolz keke) but my client's graphics are the same old in any case.

There were definitely some fun bits to AO, but I am not sure I ever totally understood all of it. Really disliked the level-tied equipment and having to upgrade to the exact same look with x number more DPS every 4 or 5 levels, but the missions could be interesting. The travel system was also interesting- really made the world seem gigantic.

I don't know what game you guys were playing.  I played the one that Yoru and Nix played.  I can add my fond memories of strolling around by myself in the wilderness, then hearing voices!  Turns out I just could not see the other 15 people in the vicinity.

people still play this crap? Yet another example of something that should have rocked, but failed once funcom got hold of it. When the hell is Valve going to give me an MMO?

Actually, AO is one of the few MMOs that managed to make a comeback. It's also the game that pioneered various things, such as instancing. For all it's faults I still love it, and for a good while it had a great (and slightly more mature than average) community.

George Foreman made a comeback. AO never made it off life support.

It also pioneered advertising in MMO games and a free model.

Instancing is probobly one of the worst things ever to happen to mmos. It's like going to a rock concert, only to be put into a back room and forced to listen to the show on a boombox. Thank's AO, great idea.

And Listen, if you're going to make a game that involves SHOOTING and I don't have a crosshair in the middle of my screen when I log in... FAIL.

MMOs without instancing are like going to a rock concert and waiting outside in a line.

Yes, instancing can be overused (Conan), but the notion of instancing a dungeon, raid, or battleground to provide a more scripted encounter or to  avoid server rotations, waiting lists for spots in dungeon camps, etc etc. Fantastic idea.

Of the three major ways of "grinding" xp in different games, I will take running instanced missions, as generic as they are, in COX or AO over EQ's sit in a single place and camp or WoW's "follow the quest helper dots" quest grinding any day of the week.

Non-instanced content is fun for approximately 1% of a server's population, the rest don't get a look in. Also, your analogy makes zero sense, a better analogy would be that instancing is like going to a rock concert, but everyone gets front-row seats, rather than just 1% of the crowd.

um... no... an MMO should have enough content to support the servers population. If it doesn't, it already sucks and instancing is just a way to spread out what is already thin. Instancing is counter to the very basis of what MMOs are about, plain and simple. If you want to play "missions" with just your "Friends" then get baulders gate, invite them over... and get out of my mmo.

While aspirational, the notion that you could make an MMO with enough content to support an MMO-level server population and have nobody left out is a pipe dream. The closest you'd get is something like EVE, where content is incredibly spartan. You cannot realistically design enough rich content for thousands of players to use simultaneously without instancing.

How's that overused in Conan?

Either that, or you'd have to make a huge amount of content to handle flash-crowds and population spikes, so the world would largely feel empty.
 
Alternatively, you have to step outside a model involving content gated by levels. That's another can of worms entirely and obviates the original point, so... :-)

:oh_i_see:

Name some mmos that meet your criteria.

That not being able to be in the same zone with other players is not an unusual happening, but is constant and intrusive. If you have to constantly shuffle instances to get together with people in what is effectively a public zone, it's IMHO overused.


I can't think of a one. Even in Eve aren't the "dungeons" instanced? That would be about as close as I can think of for a game that isn't underpopulated. But generating new systems in Eve would appear to me to be quite easy--you could probably computer generate new ones.

The dungeons in EVE are pseudo-instanced. They take place in either random or a wide range of pre-selected spots in space (not sure which), but the content at that location is only spawned while you're on a mission. If you're talking about exploration dungeons, then those are similar; they spawn in some spot and only last until their content is exhausted.

You're still in the same "space" as other people - other people can find (and gank) you using in-game tools - but the content in that space is spawned.

The downside is that EVE missions are invariably bland and uninteresting. EVE shines on it's PvP front, not it's group PvE front, and there I would agree that instancing is probably more of a detriment when applied to PvP than PvE.

All of them prior to instancing? EQ1 up until they introduced it... UO... etc...
Eve is another good example... while you might say they have instancing, it isn't really instanced... because you still feel like you are in-system and other players can do long-range scans, find you, and warp in. The first time you get capped in a mission by another player is quite the surprise. I really still don't like it, but at least they don't make it feel like you just walked into a closet and closed a door behind you like AO does.

Instancing solves certain problems in MMOs, yes... But its a crappy, uncreative way to solve them. Take, for example, Warhammer. They have the 2 factions, Then they create a PQ... in some PQs the 2 factions have different goals inside the same PQ. They have effectively doubled the content in that area through a very simply mechanic that doesn't even involve PVP unless the participants want it. You can play the same content from 2 different angles and have a totally different experience each time. The fact that all PQs in Warhammer don't have goals for both factions is a real missed opportunity.

Dude.

This isn't so much a consequence of instancing but a consequence of procedurally generated content, AO was also pretty pioneering in this regard (as best I am aware) and I'd agree the generated missions were far from perfect in many regards. Good automatically generated content is going to be very hard to do in a way which isn't simplistic or bland though, and so we come back full circle to heavily designed and scripted encounters which are best done as instances.

(http://www.f13.net/media/images/tabula_rasa_tutorial_01.jpg)

 :awesome_for_real:

All of them prior to instancing? EQ1 up until they introduced it... UO... etc...

Though art smoking the pipe of crack.

Is having enough content sitting in High Keep in EQ for 3 hours on a waiting list to get into a group because even with that three hours AFK it was going to be the best XP?

Is having enough content sitting in Guk with every single square inch camped to hell and anything that dared spawn dying within 15 seconds because someone was waiting... is that "enough content?"

Is a server rotation on Morrel Thule among 10 or 15 guilds except for that one Korean Guild that ganked raid mobs somehow "enough content?"

Are you high? Shit, I've had 3 Manhattans, can I have some?

Hey that's me! :grin:

There is actually a reticle there, it's just hard to see in that pic.

Should have came to Rallos-Zek with me. When people were camping what we wanted, we killed them.
Like I said before, instancing solves certain problems. There are better solutions, use them.

Seriously though... I played TR for a whole 2 days before I hated it. But if it had been FPS ala quake/unreal/doom... I think it might have been really cool. I dunno how hard that would have been to keep out aimbots and what-not though.

They didn't listen to me in beta. So it failed.













 :why_so_serious:

And if you don't like PvP?

Wait, I know this one!  You sit nearby, making glaring rp style emotes at them, waiting for them to leave, until they get annoyed at the spam and just kill you and your party!  Er, wait, this was about anarchy online, not darkfall...

 I miss the Anarchy Online as it was, around the time the Temple of Three Winds opened, but it was too overly complicated with little to no documentation on anything.  They were going in the right direction (for me) for a while, then they shifted back to the same old crap that never worked for that game.  Go team.

I really don't think true FPS combat would have made TR any better. Maybe if a bunch of other stuff had been different, but then we're just re-writing the game to be Planetside with bots.

You like instancing, you don't like PVP... Why are you playing an MMO again?

I think instancing has its place, not that it is a godsend.  I also think PvP doesn't work well in an environment with Classes, Levels, and a huge dependence upon Equipment.

But then you seem to like games which make applying power tools to your nether regions preferable, so we're probably not going to agree on 'fun' regardless. :-P

Do I need to explain the answer to this again or can you come to your own answer? 

MMO's provide more than just a venue to kill other players of argue over spawns in a dungeon.  Think about the other metagames and competition that wouldn't exist without other players being in the same world. 

Sly and me had a convo along the "solo" lines. I used to be a big proponent of the solo gamestyle. I aknowledge "Big world, lone wolf" and the concept of character interaction beyond group up and go run an instance lawlz. But after raiding in WoW, I don't think I could go back to that. I mean, I solo Anarchy Online because all the other players suck ass. If there was a single player version, I'd be playing that instead.
MMORPGs are anemic in gameplay outside the DIKU box. So if I'm not in a DIKU mood, fuck 'em.

If nothing else, I appreciate MMOs giving me the ability to chat while I do my own thing.  That's at a bare minimum without any other interactions considered.

Always a good question to ask in WoW forum.

I'll go with what Lantyssa said -- being able to chat, or even just listen to other people chat and see them doing their own thing while i do mine, that's extra entertainment i get from these games without having to have extra application open or whatever. I don't need 24/7 interaction on level that involves them rubbing their thing specifically against me, in order to consider these games social 'enough'.

Don't forget about having an economy to play with and the opportunity to buy things rather than obtain them.  So many reasons why I enjoy being solo in a large world.  You have people aroudn when you want them around and you can solo or play the crafting/econ metagame when you want to be a loner.

That would be one of those other interactions not considered. :-)

There are many reasons similar to that which are why I like MMOs.

IM?

I love EvE and Anarchy Online for stuffing everyone on the same server (IIRC for AO).

AO had 3 servers, but most of them played on one.

Games that crash when alt-tabbing?

Being able to talk with someone playing the same game for hints, strategy, lulz?

Being able to make a selective list of the people playing the same game right now instead of a five hundred person chat list all wanting to talk right now and thus not being able to play the game.

So yeah, apparently there are plans to move the game onto the AoC engine?

http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?t=553916

Huh. I don't know how I feel about that.

Half  :oh_i_see: / Half  :ye_gods:, 100%  :uhrr:

If they redid the assets, they could feasibly relaunch the game. But why not just make a new game at that point?

I enjoyed Tabula Rasa more than Champions... Though in both cases you can't do highly interactive combat (like FPS or even Conan's positionals) under laggy servers and high latency. Maybe one day, but it's never worked so far.

WoW's use of instancing is pretty much perfect. Stories that are designed to tell a story for a set number of people, and where that story has a start and an end, are instanced. Everything else is shared world. PvP can be either. And EQ1's model of contested content is now more or less untenable and remembered fondly only by those who were high up on the food chain.

And sadly those screenshots are a bit too painful to tempt me, even with a moderate interest in MMO history.

I loved AO in 2001 and I am very happy about this. Only, am I reading it wrong or that is 4 months old news? I wonder if it's still going on.

There seems to be a communication "problem" between the entities "work" and effort" with the folks who make decisions at Funcom.

I just now, not kidding, found a printout from where I bought AO from the EBGames web site for $49.95 and it made me kinda sad.  I am going to smuggle it home and hang it on the wall, maybe.

They dont need to redo assets to receive benefits from a new engine. Export, sure, re do completely, that's a good deal of work. but no, starting over would not be easier.

I do no get the instance hate, I think instances have been a great tool in this space, and have allowed a great many things.

Redoing avatar and NPC art would already be enough.

I'm very skeptical that this will ever happen. They worked on doing the same thing with another engine for how long and just abandoned it because it wasn't going well? And now for a second time they're going to put that amount of work into a game that is how old and has how many people in it?

Funcom claims that AO still makes a profit.