this game is going to come back completly when they redo all the graphics for the game it will be considered in the top 5 MMO's of today once it happens. And will be considered the #1 sci-fi mmo (with an avatar) on the market. (if something truly amazing happens before the revamped world releases.

this update will happen at the end of 2008 probably competing War and WoW and AoC (even though aoc was made by the same company)

if they dont release the revamped world then it will die.

I heart your name OP.

Funcom won't be around much longer for that since they have been treating their customers including myself like garbage. The company may not even survive now till 2009 at the rate they are going to hell.

I am not fully sure if it will die, but certainly over the past 6 months I've seen a huge decline in the amount of players online at any given time.   when I started playing 2 and a half years ago, I could go to any dungeon, omni trade or anywhere in rome and see lots of players.   I could go on looking for a team and there were many players to team with and you would get team invites in a matter of 5 minutes and it was a matter of choosing which team you wanted to join.

Lately, all those places are either empty or very low populated.  I go to any dungeon and I see maybe 8 - 10 people.   Even during supposedly peak hours I won't see more than 2 teams (and they aren't even full teams..more like 4  -  5 people).

Certainly the froob population is down badly.  A lot of them have upgraded now that the population has dropped because most people left are paying players and in order to compete in anything you need expansions at the higher levels.  You don't stand a chance verse a sloob if your a froob at level 150+.  

So surely I think the life of the game will greatlly depend on how well this graphics update is.   Also, I believe a graphics update should be the starting point.   Funcom has to have some physics and sound upgrades as well...and there are a few bits and pieces of the old game that needs fixing.

However, in my opinion, I've noticed a lot new age gamers are more impressed by the look of a game and having next gen type graphics and that somehow is what makes games great to them.   Even though AO is probably the best MMO out there as far as how well put together, how much freedom you have and how well the game plays and is balanced (better than any other MMO I've ever played), yet players still end up disliking AO more often than not and the one reason why in which I see most of them have in common is because the graphics suck.    Seriously, that's what gaming seems to come down to these days...it don't matter how good the game is, if the graphics suck, then gamers don't like it.   In fact many of them will go play a game with amazing graphics but crappy in every other area compared to AO.

Anyway, overall AO is one of the top 5 or top 10 MMO's and the graphics update (and really low subscription fees) should make it a contender amount sci-fi MMO's.   Certainly, stargate will have a large impact in the sci-fi genre of MMO's....if stargate is really good, that could mean bad things for AO....

RIght now though, it is my opinion that majority of those still playing AO are die hard fans  and dedicated to it....much like those players who still play star wars rebellion (though not a MMO).  YOu do still have your new players here and there, but nothing like  when I first started playing.   90% of the time now though when I meet a low level player, he usually is just an alt of a level 150+ player who has been around for a few years....I rarely see new players....

Oh and also, the orgs are starting to decline as well....not many large ones still around and many of the new ones are made using 5 alts and only have a hand full of members at most.    The tower wars have declined greatly too....Omni has been sitting at 13% side bonus for nearly a year now....in the past, clan would have forced it back down to near 8 - 9%.   I keep my bot running also and looking through the log, I don't see many tower battles being won or lost either.    One day there was only 1 (maybe 2)  tower battle won....so yeah that's a great drop off when I use to see 10+ battles per day.

Whatever happens, I'll still play myself until the servers go offline for good.  I really enjoy the game and graphics don't mean as much as the substance of the game...yeah the graphics are choppy but I'm not bothered by cosmetics of anything...to me, loving the look rather than the quality of something is superficial and materialistic in nature and that's a bad thing because the fun should be in how the game plays, not how it looks.

I agree with playing till the servers go poof.

All i have to say is that from 2002 when i joined till now that every year sometimes a couple times a year i have heard that AO is dying, AO is dead etc. etc. I didnt believe it then I dont believe it now. Ppl are still playing D&D even though WoTC murdered it in cold blood shortly after they republished most of 2nd edition then took it to 3rd. As long as there is enough money being made to cover the basics with a bit of profit AO shall live the population will come and go like it always has but I doubt its death for a long time to come.

play it and it shall live

The two biggest hits to the population AO has taken have been from WoW and AoC.  WoW hit worse...I could spend hours in West Athens back then and not see a soul...two months after that, they started the Fr00b program and that has been the lifeblood of the game...steady stream of fr00bs turning into subscribers.  They anticipated the hit AoC would take and that is part of the reason why they started the program for a new graphics engine back around the start of 2007.  When they drop that in, it will have the 'eye-candy' to compete with newer MMO's.

Originally posted by amithist

I agree with playing till the servers go poof.

All i have to say is that from 2002 when i joined till now that every year sometimes a couple times a year i have heard that AO is dying, AO is dead etc. etc. I didnt believe it then I dont believe it now. Ppl are still playing D&D even though WoTC murdered it in cold blood shortly after they republished most of 2nd edition then took it to 3rd. As long as there is enough money being made to cover the basics with a bit of profit AO shall live the population will come and go like it always has but I doubt its death for a long time to come.

play it and it shall live

Hola Ara  <---Sylane/Madpierrot :P

I want to play AO when the engine is upgraded.  Isn't there just a ton of content in this game?

Yep, they keep tossing in new stuff faster that anyone who plays less than 60 hours a week can digest.

there is a ton of stuff to do, a level of depth that you dont find in most games....this is a game that will take years of play to fully "master" which is why it still has a following and a healthy population on RK2

Originally posted by hobo9766

Funcom won't be around much longer for that since they have been treating their customers including myself like garbage. The company may not even survive now till 2009 at the rate they are going to hell.

Most silliest posting I read today..

If that were to be true several other even more shitty game companies would be dead long time ago and somehow they're still there.

FC as company is valued at 2.000.000.000 NOK or 400.000.000 USD just yesterday stock note release.

For people who cares for stocks etc.. note this is in Norwegian so I recon most people won't be able to read it.

http://e24.no/kommentar/boerskommentar/article2513975.ece

also reported a sale of more than 700.000 copies so far.. also in norwegian...

http://e24.no/it/article2512697.ece

all in all I doubt FC will be gone in close future as well as Blizzard, SOE and other companies people love to hate.

Not only do they treat their customers like crap, they ignore them and have stuck AO on their worst servers, to the point that playing the game is often impossible.  I never had this problem before, but now... I can hardly stay connected for more than 10-15 minutes at a time, I get lagged off and when I get back, it turns out half the clan did as well.  The lag is just horrible, if I was paying for this, I'd be pissed.  I considered their $7 upgrade offer, I'm just glad I didn't do it, why pay good money for bad service?

That's not to mention that they don't pay attention to petitions.  I sent one in three weeks ago.  Never heard anything.  Sent it again a week and a half ago.  Nada.  They don't care that their game is screwed up.  Why should I?  I haven't logged on since last week, who knows when, or if, I'll try it again.

And lots of people think the same.  Funcom, if you're listening, you're fucking up big time.

AO is running on a new server farm they put in place almost a year ago. Lag has little to do with the servers, it has a lot to do with how your hard drive spools graphical data to the video card and most modern video cards and drivers don't expect to handle the game the way AO code wants to run.  That's one of the major reasons for the upcoming graphics engine.

As for petitions, I put in one or two a day, mainly to get rid of RMT gold sellers spamming the channels; and get responses from ARK's normally within the hour.