Playing Anarchy Online and I love it...it has alot of potential, but I question the creativity of the people who run it. Examples...
Engineers and the bot from level 47-123 the same looking bot for all those levels, just different name for each of them.
Armor colors, looks and styles...gets kinda mundane when you see a bunch of people wearing the same stuff as you.
Weapons- same as armor above
I belive this is an issue with people as many of the items in the game are boring cause everything is starting to look the same. Post your comments and see if we can't get this issue started for a post in the AO forums
Anarchy Online content...
I totally agree with the potential of AO. It has a huge potential, never fully released.
See the little stores for implants or armor etc?... They were there to sell specific stuff with little stocks, while the General stores were there to sell regular stuff with high availability... a difference never implemented.
See the skills IP system? It was supposed to be progressively introduced to new players: first you just have to adapt your abilities, then you discover your green skills, then all the skills, for a smooth learning curve... and preventing the waste of IP!
Long long ago, and just for example, I tried to explain that pets are the expression of the progress and the status of a character. In a game where progressing is the goal, progress should be clearly visible.
Therefore, every and each pet should have his own specific look, of course with minor differences between a 110 and a 120 pet, but clear ones between 100 and 150 ones.
I'm almost sure designers agreed with me... You see, there are a lot of little things in AO that wouldn't be there if designers and devs didn't like their job: the ore blocks falling into a crucible and melting in 4 Holes, the bronto burger factory in Galway, the "exit" sign joke at the top of the diving-board at Lush Resort,... these are silly little examples, but there are many others. And for example the instanced content system that AO was the first to implement.
But the main problem is AO was released too fast, in a terrible condition, and never really recovered from that launch. Since then, it seems that FC's management (and possibly some of the game people but not all) feels that many of the concepts in AO were bad instead of realizing the commercial decision of launching the game was bad. So they pushed devs to fantasy with SL (because fantasy MMORPGs work... sigh) etc., instead of leaving them fix and enrich the infrastructure.
In fact AO was the most ambitious MMORPG project ever: animated series, book,... and that ton of backyards showing how many players the management expected.
As the means are now limited, and as any MMORPG requires more ressources than it can really have except if it's a blockbuster like WoW, I believe a new system should be implemented, especially in AO.
My personal opinion is there could be a new birth of AO if the community was asked to contribute while devs focus on things only they can do: in the past years some people designed wonderful models of pets, some textures, some dungeons rooms... even a mission system. (The players-created content project was interrupted long ago because some morons tried to used it for cheating).
CoT people already stated they agree on running events and work on screenplays almost daily if only FC gave us the spawn console system in a limited version (or anything similar), allowing something better than just spawning aliens. (Note: ARKs don't have the spawn rights either, except for minor fancy stuff.)
In the past I always saw the game companies and even the gamers communities first react to such projects by saying "it's impossible"... then, in most situations, it happened.
In the mid 90ies we were able to create wonderful levels and even "full conversions" (today we would say "mods") for Doom 1 and 2 with laughable and awkward tools. Then we did it for Heretic, Command and conquer, Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Quake...
I created more than 200 maps and scenarios for RTSG (even for some that had NO editor at all), and around 50 models of units, both 2D or 3D. And believe me, I was not the most active person! (I probably have some of my very old works somewhere... if I have time I'll post a few).
Think I'm crazy?
.... The proof this is not a dream is the MMORPG Ryzom just released a world design toolkit for players!
www.ryzom-ring.com (specific site for the toolkit)
See the little stores for implants or armor etc?... They were there to sell specific stuff with little stocks, while the General stores were there to sell regular stuff with high availability... a difference never implemented.
See the skills IP system? It was supposed to be progressively introduced to new players: first you just have to adapt your abilities, then you discover your green skills, then all the skills, for a smooth learning curve... and preventing the waste of IP!
Long long ago, and just for example, I tried to explain that pets are the expression of the progress and the status of a character. In a game where progressing is the goal, progress should be clearly visible.
Therefore, every and each pet should have his own specific look, of course with minor differences between a 110 and a 120 pet, but clear ones between 100 and 150 ones.
I'm almost sure designers agreed with me... You see, there are a lot of little things in AO that wouldn't be there if designers and devs didn't like their job: the ore blocks falling into a crucible and melting in 4 Holes, the bronto burger factory in Galway, the "exit" sign joke at the top of the diving-board at Lush Resort,... these are silly little examples, but there are many others. And for example the instanced content system that AO was the first to implement.
But the main problem is AO was released too fast, in a terrible condition, and never really recovered from that launch. Since then, it seems that FC's management (and possibly some of the game people but not all) feels that many of the concepts in AO were bad instead of realizing the commercial decision of launching the game was bad. So they pushed devs to fantasy with SL (because fantasy MMORPGs work... sigh) etc., instead of leaving them fix and enrich the infrastructure.
In fact AO was the most ambitious MMORPG project ever: animated series, book,... and that ton of backyards showing how many players the management expected.
As the means are now limited, and as any MMORPG requires more ressources than it can really have except if it's a blockbuster like WoW, I believe a new system should be implemented, especially in AO.
My personal opinion is there could be a new birth of AO if the community was asked to contribute while devs focus on things only they can do: in the past years some people designed wonderful models of pets, some textures, some dungeons rooms... even a mission system. (The players-created content project was interrupted long ago because some morons tried to used it for cheating).
CoT people already stated they agree on running events and work on screenplays almost daily if only FC gave us the spawn console system in a limited version (or anything similar), allowing something better than just spawning aliens. (Note: ARKs don't have the spawn rights either, except for minor fancy stuff.)
In the past I always saw the game companies and even the gamers communities first react to such projects by saying "it's impossible"... then, in most situations, it happened.
In the mid 90ies we were able to create wonderful levels and even "full conversions" (today we would say "mods") for Doom 1 and 2 with laughable and awkward tools. Then we did it for Heretic, Command and conquer, Total Annihilation, Age of Empires, Quake...
I created more than 200 maps and scenarios for RTSG (even for some that had NO editor at all), and around 50 models of units, both 2D or 3D. And believe me, I was not the most active person! (I probably have some of my very old works somewhere... if I have time I'll post a few).
Think I'm crazy?
.... The proof this is not a dream is the MMORPG Ryzom just released a world design toolkit for players!www.ryzom-ring.com (specific site for the toolkit)
I'm already re-addicted to AO, if they put in a content creation kit, I would never leave my house. A friend of mine that also plays AO, is more into NeverWinter Nights and its "PRC". Player Resource something or another. It is where a community of regular people have gotten together and have nearly designed a whole new world by themselves. More character classes than I can count, more new particle effects, textures, models (there are even Naruto models!) etc etc etc. I have even submitted some content for it as well.
So if they release a "AOCK" Anarchy Online Creation Kit, I will become a hermit in my home hehe.
So if they release a "AOCK" Anarchy Online Creation Kit, I will become a hermit in my home hehe.
Agreed, FC should make a player design kit to allow the players to make their own pets, weapons or armor...they take the pre-designed object for example a Pern and change the color of it and even could tweak the shape of the gun...of course the stats of the gun could not be changed. I think doing this would make the game much more exciting to play, there a so many creative minds on AO that this would make anarchy online soooo much better.
I will go ahead and start a post on this on the AO forums...I feel this is an issue that needs some attention, I will post the link when done.
I will go ahead and start a post on this on the AO forums...I feel this is an issue that needs some attention, I will post the link when done.
Some form of creation ability would be great. Unfortunately it would require a complete revamp of the Anarchy Online system.
EVERY item that is in-game is in the database. There is no such thing as a dynamic item. You don't put a flag on your Tier 1 armor when you level it that says "this person has Tier 1 and has levelled it to QL150". You literally destroy the old item and spawn a new item.
Yep, that means every possible permutation/combination result has an entry in the database. Extremely rigid, and that's also a reason why you don't see Funcom very interested in creating tons of other items.
When you come across a boss that has some special attack, they don't have a flag that says "this mob has full auto" ... they actually populate the mob with special monster items to give it attacks and abilities.
One major reason for this was performance ... back in the late 90's it was much more feasible to do everything this way as it drastically lowered the time needed to process things (you didn't have to apply a calculation to an item to know its stats, because you had a unique item in the database with the stats pre-populated). Nowadays, especially with the way the database has bloated, it would probably make more sense to have a more dynamic inventory system.
Then again, it would probably also make sense to remove 90% of the tradeskill weapons/etc that people NEVER make because they are junk.
A flexible "item1 + item2/upgrade3 = item4" calculation system would be great, it would mean Funcom could create new items based on real recipes instead of manually entering every item in the database.
But that kind of back-end change would be an entirely new server-side engine. Far more difficult than upgrading the client-side engine. And we all know how long ANY progress on that has been taking.
EVERY item that is in-game is in the database. There is no such thing as a dynamic item. You don't put a flag on your Tier 1 armor when you level it that says "this person has Tier 1 and has levelled it to QL150". You literally destroy the old item and spawn a new item.
Yep, that means every possible permutation/combination result has an entry in the database. Extremely rigid, and that's also a reason why you don't see Funcom very interested in creating tons of other items.
When you come across a boss that has some special attack, they don't have a flag that says "this mob has full auto" ... they actually populate the mob with special monster items to give it attacks and abilities.
One major reason for this was performance ... back in the late 90's it was much more feasible to do everything this way as it drastically lowered the time needed to process things (you didn't have to apply a calculation to an item to know its stats, because you had a unique item in the database with the stats pre-populated). Nowadays, especially with the way the database has bloated, it would probably make more sense to have a more dynamic inventory system.
Then again, it would probably also make sense to remove 90% of the tradeskill weapons/etc that people NEVER make because they are junk.
A flexible "item1 + item2/upgrade3 = item4" calculation system would be great, it would mean Funcom could create new items based on real recipes instead of manually entering every item in the database.
But that kind of back-end change would be an entirely new server-side engine. Far more difficult than upgrading the client-side engine. And we all know how long ANY progress on that has been taking.
I hadn't plan on that at all, but if it's not already done, would you let me start the thread please, and enter it just after? As I have some information you probably can't have and I wouldn't like someone to bash the idea because he can desmonstrates some point is not possible. (For example the game engine cannot allow the customization of characters or items like you can in City of Heroes)
Also I know the fears of some FC people about some legal aspects.
Edit: DrHyde just gave more explanations about the game engine. Yes it is a static one, not a dynamic one creating new objects on-the-fly.
What players could create though is geometry, sceneries, and also models/textures that could be added to the database as global content. This is already HUGE.
Also I know the fears of some FC people about some legal aspects.
Edit: DrHyde just gave more explanations about the game engine. Yes it is a static one, not a dynamic one creating new objects on-the-fly.
What players could create though is geometry, sceneries, and also models/textures that could be added to the database as global content. This is already HUGE.
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Valkyrieval
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