GridStream Productions

Well, I would love to still have the addiction I had when I first got AO, but I've become a lot less Naive.

I know that without a Main, I will suffer like a bitch till I reach 100, and have to have MILLIONS to even be alright in PVP, let alone level up.

The economy, well it sucks. Its like Funcom wanted us to suffer, and actually look at leveling up more as a punishment or cumbersome trial than to enjoy it, or like it.

Without Implants, your almost pitiful even with a great gun against greens and even greys.

I look at AC2, which has what Ive always wanted, almost NO Npcs and the social element that people have to work together, it looks fun for when I want to devote time, and for casualness.

My though, why play a game for the sometimes little time I have, that I have to suffer to actually enjoy a few things, although those things can be great.

Im not sure, maybe I'm seeing the real effects of MMORPGs, maybe playing CS and Operation Flashpoint has tainted the paitentness I had in AO.

Im not sure whether to leave, stay, or come in once and awhile...

DONT LEAVE!
IF IT WASNT FOR YOUR POST TO GSP ON THE G4 FORUMS I WOULDVE NEVER COME BACK TO AO AND DISCOVERED GS!

*pout*

Nah, I wouldnt leave Gridstream, I listen to it all the time, I just think I wont be part of the clans or Omni or neuts anymore, Im not sure, I might go back in shadowlands, I dunno.

I seriously know what you mean here. I mean, when it becomes a chore to actually continue playing the game, it really isn't worth it. Trick is to see if there's a way to play it that makes it worth it again. For some it's rp, others it's pvp, and yet others find it in messing around with orgs. Bad part is that for every person, enjoyment is found in a totally different way, and there's no one way to make everyone have a good time.

Think of it this way; the point of the game isn't to mindlessly level up all the time. Yet at the same time, there isn't a clear cut goal...there's no final boss, no saving the world, and no giant meteors to destroy. That means the game itself lies in the in-betweens. Let's face it: if you wanted a seriously non-stop fun adventure, you'd be playing a single player rpg. I mean, those are tailor made to make your character important, constantly in the thick of things, and pretty much guaranteed to make a serious difference. Instead, mmorpgs rely on people to provide for the gameplay. When it comes to people, there's really no better place than Rubi-Ka. Through a mix of maturity and game mechanics, the world's a mostly nice place. Unless of course, you want to make the world not-so-nice, in which case we all know where to go, heh.

Basically, here's a short summary. A mmorpg relies on people. AO has good people. Therefore, AO is relying on its good people, which is a good situation.

Only complaint I've ever had about AO is that with 200 levels, it's easy to become alone in the game. I mean, if your friend gets too good, or plays too much, suddenly they can't really do anything with you. Only way you can get around that is by placing yourself in situations where there are more people, making for a greater chance of being able to interact with them.

As far as money and implants and such...it seems as though AO was built with twinking in mind from the get-go... So much, in fact, that the gameplay itself seems to cater to twinked players. Being in the level 60-70 range without a yalm is just irritating... It's as if they intended for every player at that level to be able to fly out in the middle of bumfuck for their little missions.

I guess at this point, the only real solution is to get in a really generous org or something where you might be able to receive a little help. Besides, with an org chat, at least those missions aren't totally boring.

By the way, if you find an org like that, lemme know. I'm in almost the exact same situation as you right now...

Are you guys on Atlantean (RK-1)?

I have only been in AO for about 2 months now, but my Org Elite Academy has been great. We are about training and helping the new players within AO. We don't hand out millions of credits however we do help each other out where we can while having a good time.

If you reach level 60 you can apply to join the parent Org Elite Operations, and well they are all Academy graduates which means the two orgs are very close to one another and work together in a lot of ways.

I know for me AO is a bunch of things.

I like talking to the people as well as RPing situations. Sometimes the PvP is a fun distration as well. Generally I spend a lot of my time hunting or mishing with org mates... I got to say if you've been running mishs the whole time your only getting 25% of AO... you should get out and explore, even on foot you can cover a lot of ground...

I think I took a few hours and just trekked the wastes and forests of Rubi-ka... of course as an Engy I had my bodyguard which meant solo travel was a little safer.

I think anyone who just runs the endless missions would get really bored of AO, try getting out a bit.

Yeah, Again I guess sliding past 10-30 in Obsidian order with free Div-9 Upgrades (After all, we had 600 members) sort of spoiled me, and I thought of taking up PVPing.

Another problem, even with 200k on a trader or soldier, it was sort of fun at first, but got very very repetitive to have to check stores every day for weeks on end just to find a nova-flow my lvl, or the same length in shop channels. It would have been interesting to have it with clusters and that each store would have that weapon, of some QL.

And I was hearing that some people who went out and explored Rubi kai had a great time, I might pick that up as well, Im not really sure, I will probably never leave AO perminalty, but Ill be picking up other MMORPGS as well.

I still love AO. I don't mission much any more but that has nothing to do with the game. I have to team due to the nature of my doc. I will do a couple of team missions and then get so fed up with them I want to kill at least half my group. lol
My main wish is that they would clean up the shopping channel. There is so much spam in there that I get a headache after a few min of looking at it. I hope that they will take a few pointers from EQ on that one. I saw the new shopping system at a friend's house and it rocks.
There is a certain place to shop. If you wish to sell stuff you buy a special backpack, put the stuff in it, set the price of the items, and turn on merchant mode. You can just go afk and let the people come to you. If your looking for items to buy you just open a shopping screen and set the list to what kind of item your looking for (such as helmet, pants, and so on or you can type in the name) That will bring up all items for sale that meet your quarry. You click on the item you want to buy and it gives you an arrow pointing to the person selling it. Folow the arrow, click on the person and select the item. So much better then a shopping channel I think. That would rock so much if AO did that.

To be honest, its been slipping from me too.

Theres just not that much exciting things going on for me. I log on, go to a party, play a mission, level up, and do the routine over. I dont like routine, im a person that can get bored easily.

I need action in a non FPS form, and AO isnt delivering too much.

Damnet, why do i always have to speak my mind and forget theres an edit button until about 30 people have read my post... what edit button?

Tastyvixen wrote:I still love AO. I don't mission much any more but that has nothing to do with the game. I have to team due to the nature of my doc. I will do a couple of team missions and then get so fed up with them I want to kill at least half my group. lol
My main wish is that they would clean up the shopping channel. There is so much spam in there that I get a headache after a few min of looking at it. I hope that they will take a few pointers from EQ on that one. I saw the new shopping system at a friend's house and it rocks.
There is a certain place to shop. If you wish to sell stuff you buy a special backpack, put the stuff in it, set the price of the items, and turn on merchant mode. You can just go afk and let the people come to you. If your looking for items to buy you just open a shopping screen and set the list to what kind of item your looking for (such as helmet, pants, and so on or you can type in the name) That will bring up all items for sale that meet your quarry. You click on the item you want to buy and it gives you an arrow pointing to the person selling it. Folow the arrow, click on the person and select the item. So much better then a shopping channel I think. That would rock so much if AO did that.

What store can I buy this backpack?

Ichyro wrote:What store can I buy this backpack?

Just to clarify, I'm 99% sure she's talking about EQ...

On that topic, though, UO had something close to that. In UO you could buy houses(insanely hard to get, but that's beside the point) and place vendors in that house who could sell the extra stuff you find. You'd think that in the year...uh...whatever AO's in, they'd have something akin to Ebay still...

Yeah I liked that part of UO, I like customizing sh*t and to have real player-made cities, so AC2 looks great for me.

CRAP! I DID THE UNTHINKABLE! I ABSENTMINDEDLY REACTIVATED AND PLAYED EQ... (crys)

UO was good for lots of reasons... Anyone could help anyone. You could actually train with other people instead of just camping spawns. Houses, REAL tradeskills, a (mostly) working economy... Just a shame the game decided to punish its players so badly.

Equipment wore down. Fast. This wasn't that big a problem though; it kept blacksmiths in constant business. However, what WAS a problem was that upon death, you dropped EVERYTHING you were carrying... That makes for timid playing, and you would rarely go out on an adventure unless you were pretty darn sure that you weren't going to die. That makes for boring gameplay...

yeah lol, you didn't want to have ANYTHING you weren't willing to loose when out hunting. I lost so much stuff because I died and kept dying every time I went back to loot my body. That was and still is the largest downfall of UO. They are cruel to thier players between that and still putting out really bad patches. Anyone who thinks AO has bad patches never played UO for very long. lol I was a player for 5 years and a counselor (UO version of ARK) for most of that and got to see just how truely bad it was. All the people I knew in UO left a long time ago for games which treated people much better. Thats why no matter how bad it can be sometimes in AO I don't complain much. It will never be as bad as UO was for a long time unless all the bugs AO started with came back. *knock on wood* And if n00bs think they have it bad in AO they should have played UO before they came up with "Candyland". Nothing like creating your character, walking out of the city, and being ganked right away. lol

I've seen and see so many people that start to slip out of AO, and start to become subject to repeating a routine.

Missions I learned were meant for getting equipment, money, and levels. If that's all you care about, then you're bound to have a little bit of fun with that.

Parties are meant for socialising, and having fun.

camping (Oy, I can't help but think that whoever [think it was tarryk or 'Lynx] said that they should just make the item rare on a bunch of other creatures rather than on the one, like the notum shard or whatever was a SUPER genious. ) is for that one item, and if you really want it, go for it.

I started to burn out a while back. I was lvl 50'ish, and I started to feel that leveling, missions, everything I did became a routine. It was starting to get boring. I was sort of in a lucky possition in a way; since I was a doc, I was in high demand, and the constant need to stay on my toes for my teamates was something that kept me in the zone. But after a while, I didn't want to do that.

I could have made an alt and tried soemthing new, but before long, I'd find myself back where I was with that routine. So I tried to think of things that I don't normally do; Exploring was my big thing that I never did.

For one thing, exploring all by your lonesome can be a little boring. But exciting all at the same time, depending on whats going on. At the time I was about lvl 55, and I had never been out past a point of Tir.

So I went out, and found myself sitting in Varrent (sp?) woods! I had never been there, but the forest was large enough to litterly have gotten lost in! it was crazy! But before I knew it, I was having fun again.

I stumbled onto a rag tag group of people (RPers at that!) that offered a space in their team, I saw the Blaster Beatle in this huge crator, I even saw creatures I'd never seen before!

For just jumping out into the unknown, I had a great time of it. And I was only lvl 55ish, and i was willing to go anywhere. I didn't need or require several million creds just to aford the best gear, or implants. I just on the fly said "Screw this!", packed a lunch, put alota stuff in my bank, and set out! (Speed stims were a big part of my diet back then. )

And when I say explore, I mean, get out of your Yalm and walk. Don't use your yalm. ^_^ That will kill the experiance of exploring.

If you're in a routine, break out of it! Grab a friend, explore together. Kick up that sneak and get a cloaking device, see if you can infiltrate Omni/Clan territory. Walk up to Rosses front door step and throw rotten Chirup Eggs at his pollished doors.

Don't fall into a routine. Strive to have fun.

I liked Goin to Gridstreams parties, heck it made AO seem like a real world (taking a break from killing Neuts!), except unless Im a gal my Uber Dance moves wont faze Tarryk or Metalynx...

Still I might pick that up, try and find a RP group and join them. I guess I wanted to have a sort of experience in it, like a group of players (Doc and few soldiers, witha agent or two) acting like we were Omni/clan soldiers hunting out for them, and we were out in the wilderness, Rping is as close as it gets.

Then again, I had a blast PVPing with towers, even fora little taste. It felt like a cheap mans Realistic combat, guys at a small outpost commanding troops, and so on.

Part of the reason planetside attracts me.

But I wouldnt mind seeing Funcom let people move their RP characters to RK II, and then making it the Only-RP server. And if someone was to break the rules, they could be sent back to RK 1.

Ichyro wrote:I liked Goin to Gridstreams parties, heck it made AO seem like a real world (taking a break from killing Neuts!), except unless Im a gal my Uber Dance moves wont faze Tarryk or Metalynx...

u r only playing on atlantean?

Ichyro wrote:But I wouldnt mind seeing Funcom let people move their RP characters to RK II, and then making it the Only-RP server. And if someone was to break the rules, they could be sent back to RK 1.

That'd be interesting, however it'd break up a LOT of orgs on BOTH worlds. It'd make it a tough choice for those who like to both rp as well as goof off...which is what I notice a lot of people in AO do. It's kind of neat really; I've not seen another game with such an aloof rping atmosphere. Also, I might be wrong, but I think that RK 1 and 2 are in different places so people might have different pings to them... I've got broadband, so I can't really notice a difference. But to a 56k user, it might be kind of important.

as far as i know they r both in the same place, and as a dsl user i notice a difference, caused by the fact that on rk1 r more ppl logged in.

and it would realy nice to move ya chars between servers. ( i dont wanna have rk2 all pvp made) i wanna go to gsp partys with my main, or atleast the possibility to tranfer items/creds between chars on different servers, i would realy like to spend my money prices from gsp on usefull gear not only clothing.....

damn it my rk1 char has 10 times more money then all my rk2 chars together, and they r not lvl2.