AO Attempts to beat SWG at it's own game come September

[geldonyetich]

Depth?  Well, I'll give Star Wars Galaxies Breadth.   This Star Wars themed economy simulation works to create a certain level of "far reaching consiquences" to your actions.   Mining resources dry, building items that last for a long time, and throwing them into a player economy that allows you to assemble everything from a blaster to a city hall to (soon) a Starship.   It is in considering the big picture that many existing SWG players are able to enjoy a game that (in my own opinion) could use considerably more focus on the individual player's interactions.

However, highly customized item crafting alone is not really what I'd call an impressive level of far reaching consiquences.   The thing is, people are throwing up these buildings and whatnot, and they've really no reason to worry about the consiquences of doing so.   So long as they can pay the maintenance, these player constructed cities are free to be a real blight upon the landscape.    There's never any barbarians bashing down your gates.   Ultimately, where's the accountability of that?

Ironically, good ol "mortifyingly crippling launch" Anarchy Online has an ace up it's sleave.  A new expansion coming out in September, Alien Invasion, will both allow players to build their own cities *and* create an alien blight you have to keep them safe from.    AO may not have the same detail in the trade system SWG, but most agree you'll enjoy the combat a bit more.

[schild]

AO is another game you'd have to beat me over the head with a IBM Model M Keyboard to play. It seems companies are putting all their eggs into their first expansion. I gotta ask, what's the goddamn point. CoH (City of Villains), SWG (JtLS), Lineage 2 (errhmm the chronicles that add 'fun content'), and now AO. What the fuck is going on? Is there EVER going to be a feature complete MMO?

[geldonyetich]

This would be AO's third expansion.  They've also released The Notom Wars (PvP expansion) and Shadowlands (which I consider mostly a PvE Expansion).

The interesting thing about Anarchy Online is that they've recovered from their disasterous release and have actually whipped the game into shape.   Unfortunately, it's still somewhat Everquest in space.   Me, I'll likely stick with City of Heroes/Villians myself.  

I just thought it would be interesting to see if Anarchy Online and SWG start butting heads as a result of this Alien Invasion expansion.     Eh, probably not, SWG will trump it on name brand recognition alone.   You can probably count a positive integer of some sort of how many players buy the game, per day, because it says Star Wars on the box without awareness that it is in fact a MMORPG.

[schild]

Sigh, yea I knew about the AO expansions I should've just worded taken out the word 'first.' I'm just worried that developers truly believe that feature incomplete games are ok. That bothers me, a LOT.

[Krakrok]

Let me know when SWG adds Star Destroyers that pound Rebel player cities into dirt in real time. Unpredictability, that is what all these games lack.

[schild]

Unpredictability, that is what all these games lack.

I beg to differ. I remember this time I was tending to my moisture evaporator and a horde of durnis came over, donkey punched me and then proceeded with what would seem like a durni ritual azzraping. Hm, maybe not.

[Krakrok]

Those were rampaging WoW fanbois on their way back from an Easter Egg hunt.

[AOFanboi]

This would be AO's third expansion.

Just to be pedantic, Notum Wars isn't formally considered an expansion by Funcom, only Shadowlands is. I can't remember the word they used for NW, though.

NW is perhaps more like a variant on the "pay for extra content" thing that Guild Wars is going for.

[Liquidator]

Just to be pedantic, Notum Wars isn't formally considered an expansion by Funcom, only Shadowlands is. I can't remember the word they used for NW, though.

I believe it was dubbed a "Booster Pack."

-Liquidator

[Neph]

Nothing wrong with AO though, as was mentioned they have totally recovered from the shitstorm that was their first year. It's totally playable and with some friends, you will have a good time. I gave the open beta of Shadowlands a try to see how things were after all this time and godamn, it was pretty good.

If I had the time/money to play a MMOG right now, AO would be a good contender.

[Numtini]

AO's very very good. Great community, they're getting the storyline running as well.

[Evil Elvis]

AO's expansion pack was announced way before this jump to lightspeed crap was formalized.

But AO has it's own problems.  Like an atrocious "crafting" system, spawn camping, random drops, slow reaction time to player concerns, and all the other normal caveats every mmorpg seems to fall prey too.

[Numtini]

Most of those are a problem, but not slow reaction to player concerns. I've found funcom to be very responsive. They made some terrible decisions with Shadowlands, but it was the year everyone decided linear ubercamping was somehow fun. It's not like they were alone. But looking at it then and now, they really fixed a lot of what players didn't like.

[Murgos]

Let me know when SWG adds Star Destroyers that pound Rebel player cities into dirt in real time. Unpredictability, that is what all these games lack.

Ooh, and then shield generators and scrambling fighters an dfleet operations and landing AT-AT's to get the shields and then base defense and land speeders to get the AT-AT's and then the Jedi sneak onto the star destryoers to crippple them and the hoyven and the flayven.

Never happen.

[Alluvian]

The people still enjoying starwars enjoy it for the in depth economy model, vendor system, factory, tradeskill system...

None of this is being patched into AO ever.  They are adding cities.  Nice feature.  But it would be like saying "AO is out to beat Ultima at their own game" when they added the new shadowrealm housing.  Cities <> SWG.  And sure the combat is better in AO, but EQ still has better combat IMO.  AO has so little group dynamic and the gameplay is still utter boredom (like all mmogs except CoH).

People are sticking in SWG for similar reasons that there are still people in EVE.

[Sky]

AO has so little group dynamic and the gameplay is still utter boredom (like all mmogs except CoH).

And Planetside.

[Alluvian]

Agreed.

[geldonyetich]

Has Planetside improved a bit?  I grew a bit tired of the game a couple months ago when I realized they were never going to get around to fixxing the current vehicle/ground troop imbalance.   Reavers just rocket-spammed the hell out of everything, and Medium Tanks > All.

Two months ago, they said they were going to add some vehicle varients and tweak the way Infiltration suits work.   They still are.   By now we should be given a lot more toys to play with.   It was just too few updates to satisfy.

Thottbot has Planetside's population down to about 23,000 as of May 2nd, a drop of about 2000 since an March 2nd.   Seems relatively stable, but since then SoE has started blocking crawlers which prevents them from updating.

[Liquidator]

The people still enjoying starwars enjoy it for the in depth economy model, vendor system, factory, tradeskill system...

None of this is being patched into AO ever.

One of the stated features for the upcoming Alien Invasion expansion for AO is "Create your own shops."  I take that as a vendor system of some type.  Another new feature is  "...Get access to a completely new trade skill interface."  Not sure if that covers the tradeskill system that you mentioned.

-Liquidator

[Alluvian]

Well, I would hope they get a new tradeskill system.  AO had the most painfully archaic tradeskill system ever.

[Venkman]

The people still enjoying starwars enjoy it for the in depth economy model, vendor system, factory, tradeskill system...

None of this is being patched into AO ever.  They are adding cities.  Nice feature.

Exactly. But it does highlight a point: cities alone do not make a game. It's how they're implemented for those who care. AO cities seem more like defensible front lines against hording mobs than the social/commerce centers that SWG cities are that have no such defensibility.

(UO cities = SWG cities <> AO cities > DAoC houses > AO apartments) < ATITD cities :)

[Numtini]

On the cities, don't forget AO has a much larger social gamer and roleplay community than most games. That's a very different dynamic. And it's very well supported by ARK and the GMs.

You'll find more people at the Reets Retreat on a friday night than the Theed cantina, even though it's purely social.

[Krakrok]

Has Planetside improved a bit?

I re-subbed over the weekend. It's still fun. Seems like plenty of big battles as they merged a bunch of servers.

It's still pretty much static. I'd like them to keep adding new vehicles but it looks like they were cheap and just added new guns to existing vehicles and called them new vehicles.

They took the Deliverer and made 3 variants with different gun types. The machine gun variant really cleans your clock. They also added more weapons to an ATV variant.

Instant Action is fixed. It usually provides what it says now.


The only new issue I had with it was it seems the Terrans only have one gun now. The chain gun, they all use it and it rapes everything to hell and back. Oh and running people over with vehicles is nerfed.

No more Magmower :(

[geldonyetich]

Oh and running people over with vehicles is nerfed. [...] No more Magmower :(

That's a good thing in my opinion.  Back when I was playing it was far too risky to be an infantry on the ground because it was extremely easy to get popped by a passing vehicle.   In beta you could scare off a Reaver by having an anti-vehicular cert weapon or by dropping a spitfire turret - this was no longer is this the case.     A single ANT could easily kill an
"Anti-Vehicular" MAX by ramming it.    Anti-Vehicular MAX were downgraded to Anti-MAX Max, really, since that was the only thing they could consistantly kill.
 
The nail was really driven into the coffin bed when they jacked up the anti-infantry damage on rocklets (which are supposed to be Anti-vehicular) on the Reavers and massively increased the anti-infantry damage on medium tank shells (which again used to be Anti-vehicular).   You can't even take a walk without getting insta-ganked by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Between that and having surgile (Surge + Agile armor) twitchfest be the dominating means of gameplay, things were really going downhill in Planetside.    Fortunately, they have increased the potency of Rexo armor (it carries 200 AP instead of 150) and also tweaked surge to put your weapon away when active.  I haven't actually seen the tweaked surge in action as I quit right before that, but it should have helped bring tactics back to the battlefield.

Perhaps I'll give Planetside another spin, after I'm sure I've enough cash on hand post-books purchase.

[Sky]

Oo, I haven't played in a while, I need to go back and check out those changes (I always keep my sub open for some fragging goodness). Planetside always had and will always have balance issues. If it's not the chaingun, it's the jackspammer. It's always going to be something, and people will always flock to it.

My last incarnation was a combat engineer with rexo and rocklet, that was pretty fun.

[Aslan]

I liked PS, with the exception of some of the issues mentioned here.  The main reason I never resubbed it seemed like two months after the game was out they put out an expansion pack and I never liked the game enough to pay ANOTHER 30 bucks to play, but I didn't want to resub and not get all the new stuff...so I did nothing.

[Alluvian]

You don't really lose anything for playing without the expansion pack.  The added vehicles pretty much all suck anyway, and the surface folks can be plenty helpful to a core raiding party by helping escort them topside.  The only real effective vehicle addition seems to be the flail.  With a spotter the range on that thing can make it pretty nasty when they are spamming a vehicle facility from 1/4 of the map away.  You don't need core combat to go blow it to hell though.

If you have not played since core combat, the game will feel VERY different to you though.  The capture the flag style bases I think came out after core (could have my timeline wrong though), I think they fully redid the base benefits for the different base types and how they now need a lattice link to give the benefit (base shields, vehicle rearming/repair terminals in the courtyard, etc...)

[Venkman]

The lattice system really changed the game more than anything I saw before or have seen since. I've been back a few times since CC and haven't missed it. I played with the toys in VR and honestly, I have more fun with the Skyguard and Mosquito than anything from that expansion.

[geldonyetich]

One thing I didn't see menitoned here was the addition of the force domes.   Basically, some bases on the map have been designated as "capitols".   There's a giant force field around it in which allies can move freely but enemis cannot shoot into or even enter.    You can lower these force domes by taking three out of the four surrounding bases out of the owner's control.

I don't honestly expect this changed the face of zergs much.  However, it's something that they were adding at just about the time I canceled my account.   I haven't seen how it actually plays out on the "real" servers.

[boley]

I have been thinking a bit about giving Planetside another go.  Does anyone know if there are any brief trial period offers available.  Would be nice to see how things are currently.

[Venkman]

boley, I haven't found one unfortunately, though I could swear someone official-like said they'd be having a previous-account-reactivation or free trial period the week following E3.

There's only 3 servers, so whoever re-ups has a 30% chance of hooking up with whoever's here or from Corpnews. The old WT.o Brigade was on Emerald, and those that remained hooked up with KAOSS, co-lead by Hedron.

[Sky]

I have the CC expansion, but I don't like it much. The new weapons are kinda cool, though, so I have a preset loadout with a bunch of those, which I store in lockers for myself while actually playing the game. Can't reload them unless you're in the caverns, so they're pretty much disposable weapons.

[Zetleft]

I've ninja cloaked my way up to BR 16 or so and never bought the expansion... don't think I ever will unless they make it free.

[ClydeJr]

Does anyone know if there are any brief trial period offers available.

I know they've had 7 day trial offers before. Might want to check the PS homepage to see if there's anything there (I can't check here from work).

Can't reload them unless you're in the caverns, so they're pretty much disposable weapons.

I think they added in ammo for the CC weapons. If your base is linked to a weapon module, you should be able to get ammo for all 3 CC weapons.

To me, the game really started going downhill when the consolidated the servers. On Konried, we usually had one big fight on the world and then several smaller (2-3 squad) fights scattered around. You could choose what kind of fight you wanted. Once Konried got merged into Emerald, the only fight seemed to be the huge ones. Even if you started a small fight, eventually a ton of random people would show up.

Plus the nerfed the climbing ability of my thresher. Dammit, I like to be able to climb near vertical surfaces with it. I could climb the walls below the Ceryshen superbridge. Bastards...

[boley]

It appears that this weekend Planetside has started a pair of promotions.  First is a 10 day reactivation of all old accounts from June 5-15.  Second is an offer of downloading the client and playing for a month for $9.99.
More info: http://planetside.station.sony.com/index.jsp

Looks like I will join some friends on Emerald/NC or try out my old character (wherever the merges put him).