AO was where I cut my teeth. The computer I played it on was so horrible that moving through Tir was a slide show at times but man was it fun, the world was open and the game had a progressing story line that interacted with the players base.  To me it made me feel like I was a part of something and I always liked how the website acted like a news service, it added to the immersion factor which has completly evaporated in the current MMO market. I never got a chance to try SWG before the NGE, but I'd read some about the game and it too was a prime example of the game being an interactive world and not just a guided tour.

I miss those days, I'd love to find something to feel that gap, my wife re-installed WoW on my computer and has been playing that recenetly. I tried to jump back in but I couldn't play for more than like five minutes before I gave up. I have some hope with SWTOR but I'm keeping my eye focused on Prime Online.

Just watched an old youtube video of kiting hecks and got nostalgic enough to wander down to this forum and see how the upgrade is coming along.  For all that Funcom pissed me off sometimes and for all that some of the players in later years made me want to put my keyboard and monitor through the wall, I've never found anything that replaces AO.  And yeah, teams were a big part of it.  Chatting with everyone while we waited on borgs to respawn or waited for someone to get back from ducking out of a mission to save (back when dying meant you lost your xp) or waiting for hecks to respawn up on kite hill or the sunken house was a huge part of AO and the reason why getting leveled by kiters and pocket 220s wasn't horribly boring and grindy.

I was kiting on a pure piece of garbage pc, too, with high latency and crap internet connection, and I didn't even know what latency was back then.  All I knew was those stupid hecks would be rounded up and following along at the perfect distance and then they'd be all over me!  But I persevered in a way I never have with anything in any other game, and when I finally managed to kite the hill, it gave me more MMO happiness than reaching any level cap or getting any piece of gear or finishing any dungeon or quest has ever given me, especially since my team got the xp along with me.

So from AO to...nothing, really, or nothing for very long.  A company with the vision to create something like AO and with the funding to bring that vision to life hasn't turned up again yet, including Funcom.  AoC is nice, I'm enjoying the new pvp server, but it's not alive to me like AO was.  We'll see how TSW turns out.

Played Eve 2 years of and on, Fallen Earth 1 month solo grind, AoC 3 months, and no never got the same level of enjoyment, engagement or sheer fun like I did with AO. Remember playing AO for 2 days straight when my laptop exploded :) 

All my best memories come from being in a group and doing missions, hecks whatever, very very rarely soloed anything.

Originally posted by Madimorga

 

So from AO to...nothing, really, or nothing for very long.  A company with the vision to create something like AO and with the funding to bring that vision to life hasn't turned up again yet, including Funcom.  

It may be that once the rebalance and engine are live you may find some of that joy anew. Now...

I do know that by the time FC is done with those, I'll have a whole farm of hamsters ready to power a server farm to run AO on. I just wish FC gave the AO team more people and money :(

I hear this game is rather nice http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/438/Perpetuum.html

seems many people go there from eve online, haven't tried it myself yet but then again i still like AO enough to have 3 accounts subbed :)

Originally posted by Sweedehaven't tried it myself yet but then again i still like AO enough to have 3 accounts subbed :)

Doesnt look much like it with 22 hours in World of Warcraft this week...you sure you still play AO?

Originally posted by Javafan

Originally posted by Madimorga

 

So from AO to...nothing, really, or nothing for very long.  A company with the vision to create something like AO and with the funding to bring that vision to life hasn't turned up again yet, including Funcom.  

It may be that once the rebalance and engine are live you may find some of that joy anew. Now...

I do know that by the time FC is done with those, I'll have a whole farm of hamsters ready to power a server farm to run AO on. I just wish FC gave the AO team more people and money :(

id try AO again after viewing that vid on the new engine. it reminded me of ol'SWG preNGE. and if there are better balances coming then good too.

until then im in Vanguard. its one game i keep coming back to after wandering the wasteland that is the realm of recent mmo's. the population has climbed, a lot of the bugs have been fixed, and they just recently reassigned a small dev team to give it a few updates and fixes again.

if you try VG again look for the guild Twilyghte Song (sp?) pretty active group and there are a few others forming up as well.

I still play but never said it was the only thing i played, i have cancelled wow and currently i play fear 2