I started playing AO way back when it was still brand new, when engi bots got stuck in every door and every table. When door missions always opened into a big room with 2-3 mobs that would often curb stomp most unprepared parties. So many bugs, but so many memories.
The problem with AO right now is its old, dated, and everyone’s a god. New players can not get invested, the economy is busted beyond all hope, players have very little to aim for or desire anymore. Its sad, but even as my favorite MMO of all time, I find that I simply can not play with the same thrill I once had. Its just going through to motions.
Thats when I had a wonderful thought. What would it be like if they opened a brand new sever. A fresh start. No character transfers, no established economy, no 220’s or high level anything. A clean sweep of fertile ground for players new and old to stake a new claim in. Level up, develop trade skills and bring new life back into AO with a jump start. It would be like a gold rush. Sure vets would have an advantage knowing what they need and where and how to get it. But starting on a evening footing… the need for others would super charge the community into action. The economy’s wheel would start to turn again and player engagement would sky rocket. It would be so fun…
So what is everyone elses thoughts on this? AO being in maintenance mod is kind of sad, but even something as simple as a fresh start might be just enough to bring the magic back.
I Like the Idea of a fresh start server, but if I could be picky and choose an expansion to play then I would choose Pre-Alien Invasion Anarchy Online, with the only expansions being Shadowlands and Notum Wars. This was a time when itemization was interesting, power creep was low, and the game had a minimal amount of “dead content.”
It would take less than 6 months for experienced players to once again become “gods” on fresh server.
Wanting a new fresh server is window dressing for nostalgia.
The server would be fresh but the knowledge would not be.
Of people on the existing server not many would not be willing to give up all they have achieved and amassed; the only ones that would go there would do so would go to become “gods” and run everything.
They would carry the knowledge with them, but they wouldn’t be “gods” in 6 months. Outside of instances you’ll have a hard time getting your hands on intelligent symbs, ai bots, special drops from SL, twinking equipment. You won’t be able to powerlevel to 220 and do content instantly because there aren’t groups there to leech from. Hell, most veterans don’t even have the time to farm like they used to due to work and/or family.
I think a fresh server is a great idea, I supported it when FC asked the question on Facebook as well. A server without several years of exploit history, without ingots or s10 bounties having brought in trillions of credits to the game in the past.
i think new server would be pretty much pointless. I mean i would just quit playing for like 6 months and then when i come back, i go sell grace instantly to get cash. After that i would multilog 6 characters and power level them to 220 and start doing same things im doing in old server.
edit. what i mean by quitting for 6 months i estimate that its time period when market has started to roll and there would be all inf boots etc available to buy, and since nobody said that grace is getting removed it is gonna be there also. If there is someone playing the game.
I think the population split would be the worst aspect of this idea.
The new server would start out with a portion of the current server’s population plus inactive people who are so excited about this idea that they would resubscribe.
The legacy/current server would lose all the players that want to try the new server and there would be no reason to expect a larger number of players returning than now.
My personal expectation is that both servers would have fewer players than the current one and I think the new one would not even be viable after half a year when the novelty wears off. Possibly not even from the start.
Nave, you know TNH can be done with two averagely equip players right ? betas drop like rain from Xan instances.
Once you have 10 220’s on the server you can power level 100 in a month easily at about 4 hours per day effort.
Not even taking into consideration xp boosts available on the FC store; which would mean level 200’s in less than 5 mins after the server went live, 4 to leave Arete maximum and 1 minute more to use the heckler juice 1-60, click 60-100 click 100-150 click 150-200 click. max Faction click. etc.
Straight to inferno with an access pack and start farming pearls cutting and vender selling them in less than an hour those players would be rolling inf missions by the 4th hour with max faction hitting 220 in a week.
You have to be realistic when thinking about such pipe dreams.
The economy and content is not the issue. It’s the date graphics that keep new people away more then anything else. PvP… no mmo does that right with out breaking PvE, unless abilities are stored in coding in branches where one is PvP and one is PvE.
The largest bulk of new players will be on RK tryign it out before they lay money down and which looking around is not as populated as it should be leaving much content needing to be done as a solo or multi-box instead of a team. And less then the visual population is the just dead chat where even asking a question may or may not result in a reply. Forgot to mention the also vacant tower sites with some not even claimed. The empty and marked open world player cities wont do anything but add to the feeling of emptiness.
The content mix AO has is unique which oddly no other MMO has tried. Sci-Fi, first person and third person, vehicles, guns, magic, swords, multiple classes with overlap, open world with no strict you must go here route.
There was a time when averagely equipped meant something far less powerful than an average setup of today, and when buying your way to max level and faction was not possible. Although hecklers existed back in the day, leveling to max was much more of an accomplishment than it is now. These are just some of the reasons why I think that an “oldschool” Shadowlands reboot would be more successful than a fresh server of the live game. The difficulty here is that it would mean running two separate games which I don’t think FC has any intention of doing with AO.
Well a lot of the current QoL features in the cash shop were put there to contend with the low population. I’d hope if they made a new server it would be cash shop nerfed… meaning only cosmetics allowed for a period of six months.
I also forgot about all the ‘fast track’ additions they did with all the daily missions and such… I think it would be quite hard to make a ‘clean’ fresh start server. To many additions have gone into the game to trivialize lower end content (like the subway weapons). Also all the nano and class changes. I think I agree. A pre AI new start (at that patch level) would be great. Roll back many of the changes. But sadly that would include a lot of fix’s as well. I don’t think AO has the sort of dev support to do anything to that scale anymore… not even close.
Here is to hoping the Q1 announcement (if its more then a rumor) is more then ‘we are shutting Ao down so we are unlocking all content till date X when servers go offline’ haha XD
It is true, Michi and team are hard at work creating something a bit different for new content/challenges.
While i dont have details on when the official announcement will be made (with actual, shareable details), it shouldnt be too much longer (maybe this month or next, optimistically).
