Basically, does AO have a good story? I recently rewatched and reread some SL previews and thought of some of the stuff I heard before SL came out. I remember hearing that SL would be story based, with the new areas being heavily influenced by the seven layers of hell in "Dante's Inferno". Examples would be Elysium, Penumbra, and Pandemonium. I remember being told about ERGO being very important to the story. What I am getting to is if AO has a lot of story to it. Does the story change over time and/or over the course of leveling from 1-220? Is there a lot of story to keep me playing, if only to hear the backstory of the zones and mobs? Does SL keep the story promises I heard about before it came out? This was a question I always wanted to ask after SLs came out. Thanks for reading.

Originally AO launched with a 5 year story arc. I quit playing a few months after release due to a much much better game coming out at the time so I left off after the first halloween event with the pumpkin head dudes coming out in droves.

It's past 5 years now so the original story arc has ended and I have no clue what's going on now. All I know is now that the base game is free to play all my original toons have long since vanished and their customer service swears I deleted them I know better. Ah well, can't complain it is free now so no bid deal.

That 5 year story didn't survive the launch of Shadowlands. Unless you accept quest text as story. They gave up the idea for a player interacted world that could be dynamic on the smallest scale for attempting to be an Everquest clone and then failing that they tried to be a generic PvP game (and failed again).

Despite its miserable launch, if you were any kind of roleplayer the first few years of AO were the best and only went down hill.

AO has probably the deepest and most active story components in any MMO in existence.  Every patch new story content gets added with either more background or new developments.  Every day characters from the events team roam around the world interacting with regular players.  From time to time, major story-driven changes occur, such as Omni-tek policing Borealis or Clans taking over 4 Holes.

Originally posted by burmese

AO has probably the deepest and most active story components in any MMO in existence.  Every patch new story content gets added with either more background or new developments.  Every day characters from the events team roam around the world interacting with regular players.  From time to time, major story-driven changes occur, such as Omni-tek policing Borealis or Clans taking over 4 Holes.

It isn't that AO doesn't have story, but this quote isn't even close to true.

You can say that in WoW every patch new "story" content with more background and developments is added and you'd be correct in saying it has about the same amount of story. Plus lets be honest how often is "time to time, major story-driven changes occur"? About every time they're launching a "booster" pack these days.

I don't know which game could be considered to have the "most active story" components, but games like Istaria: Chronicles, LotRO and Saga of Ryzom blow the story elements of AO out of the water.

If AO still had the story driven development and role-playing community it did in the first few years then I and many others would never have left.

Well, the role playing community seems fine to me.  I myself work as staff on the clan Council of Truth and we don't lack for RP interaction every day.

Major story-driven changes to the structure happen maybe once a year, which is fine by me.  Anything more rapid would make AO like a soap opera.

LoTRo has books and movies to draw from for more RP content as is merely a game tagged on as a marketing device to a literary license. I prefer the background AO has - written around the MMO from the start and still well supported today.

Originally posted by burmese

Well, the role playing community seems fine to me.  I myself work as staff on the clan Council of Truth and we don't lack for RP interaction every day.

 

Major story-driven changes to the structure happen maybe once a year, which is fine by me.  Anything more rapid would make AO like a soap opera.

 

LoTRo has books and movies to draw from for more RP content as is merely a game tagged on as a marketing device to a literary license. I prefer the background AO has - written around the MMO from the start and still well supported today.

Agreed. Also, when taking in account of story parts such as Prophet without Honor, which details the real background of Rubi-ka from the death of 90% of Earths' population from a man-made virus distributed by a handful of "immortals" who would later form Omni-Tek all the way to the colonization of Rubi-ka itself.

One of the things rarely mentioned anymore ( not since the first concepts of Lost Eden were being thrown around ), is that if you read Prophet without Honor along with the ingame story bits you come to understand that the Xan were ancient humans, the Unredeemed in SL are the same as the demon who led Drake to becoming immortal and wiping out Earths' population, and the Redeemed are the opposing force against the demons.

So you have devils, angels, and humans. Then you look at the fact that Rubi-ka is the only planet in the universe with notum, which enables the reclaim terminals to rebuild you at the instant you die, soul and all ( reclaim terminals do not work off Rubi-ka, even if notum is transported and supplied for use with the terminal. ). It is the only planet where "death" is not permanent. As you get further in ingame story, you find that Rubi-ka was the birthplace of the Xan (ancient humans). Rubi-ka is Eden.

So in basic principle, Omni-Tek at the core is evil (unredeemed), Clan is good (redeemed), and neutrals are just indifferent bastards.   Every one of my characters is Omni, by the way.

It's all rather fascinating and well done. Just a pity that Funcom did allow the story to fall off to the side, so most newplayers think it's just Omni vs. Clan and that's it. But for those who look for it, the story is there.

Some good links:

This is the book, Prophet without Honor, by Ragnar Tornquist which is the base of Anarchy Online:

www.anarchy-online.com/anarchy/frontend/files/CONTENT/download/documents/prophet_without_honour.pdf

The Anarchy Online timeline, from present day back to the first vessel landing on Rubi-ka ( you'll notice quite a bit of roleplay fuel there ):

www.anarchy-online.com/wsp/anarchy/frontend.cgi

And if roleplay is what you want, this is where to go (Editor News section of the AO forums):

forums.anarchy-online.com/forumdisplay.php