Thanks goes to Athen Paladins for hosting a site for the videos and these great shots. Anyone who says AO wasn't playable because of its graphics may want to think about that decision.

AO is still alive!

www.athenpaladins.org/aonewengine/index.html

This great news! Now I am strongly considering coming back to AO.

Originally posted by joeyboots

This great news! Now I am strongly considering coming back to AO.

Heh, I remember how many people thought I was lying when I kept saying it was coming.

I'm uploading a copy of the hi-def vid to megaupload right now, since the links are down for those. I'll post the link when it's done in about 10 minutes.

The youtube link works though: www.youtube.com/watch

Edit: here's the megaupload link to download the hi-def vid, just enter whatever security code it ask for and hit download: www.megaupload.com/

Looks really good.

I am curious about what they plan to do with the character models and a few other things.

One issue I always had with the game was the lacking vehicle selection with both ground and flight. Also the absence of space and ships. Its Sci-Fi and I'm all about sh*t that flies...really fast. Ground trudging is for fantasy slugs.

Can you play with the new engine now, or is it something coming in a near future?

Originally posted by Gnazon

Can you play with the new engine now, or is it something coming in a near future?

Not quite yet.  But as stated by Torak, I also wonder what happens to all the models.  Newly redone models for characters and items such as armour and weapons or will it stay as the old art, sticking out in a beautifully re-rendered world? Hmm.

I might go back to this now : )

Originally posted by DeaconX

Originally posted by Gnazon

Can you play with the new engine now, or is it something coming in a near future?

Not quite yet.  But as stated by Torak, I also wonder what happens to all the models.  Newly redone models for characters and items such as armour and weapons or will it stay as the old art, sticking out in a beautifully re-rendered world? Hmm.

I am just interested because AO has such a huge variety of weapons, armor and equipment. I can't wait to see what they do with it.

I'm pretty sure I'm in also unless they keep the new engine to the paying subscribers only.

I'm really in a "retro" mood lately mainly because so many of the MMO's of the last few years are so damn simplistic. I just got my old AC account from years past  recovered and an upgraded AO would make a full and complete fantasy / Sci-Fi combo. Thats a line up of some real 5 star games. Now...to just get Turbine to redo the AC engine....

Add Fallen Earth to the mix and what else could you want in gaming?

Wow... that makes me want to relive my Engi who grinded up to level 237, and was capable of making Stilletos...

I'll definitely come back once this is released. I love(d) AO, just the graphics got really out-dated. Nice to see that they are updating it.

Turbine should learn from this and update Asheron's Call now.

That looks really sweet, i wish they could buff some of the classes and fix pvp aswell :P

Looks good.

Sadly, not even close to release.

Mid / Late (or later) 2008.

If   WAR   blows though, AO will be worth a re-look.

Especially if Avatar graphics are also updated.

Really not a bad game now, but the Software rendition engine really lags, even now with computers many times more powerful than at release.

Originally posted by Shoal

Looks good.

Sadly, not even close to release.

Mid / Late (or later) 2008.

If   WAR   blows though, AO will be worth a re-look.

Especially if Avatar graphics are also updated.

Really not a bad game now, but the Software rendition engine really lags, even now with computers many times more powerful than at release.

And all the graphics will be updated, not just the engine. What is in the screenshots/video is the Alpha version. They still have a bit to go.

I think there's gonna be some really surprised people ( in a good way ) when it's all done. Sil had said not to expect any dramatic changes in appearance when he first announced the upgrade, and look what they've delivered so far. This is what happens when you finally put a guy who was a player since beta and rose up to community manager, into the game director position. Sil has completely turned this game around since he took over leadership, adding more content, fixing old bugs, etc.

I think some of the newer games are going to have some competition from an almost 7 year old one.