Why just not have the "merged server" and a new one with the ep 3/3.1? It should not be that difficult

Because a rollback to EP3 wouldn't fix the actual problem. EP3 isn't that much better in terms of P2W content. Sure, there weren't hyper protect cards or slot armos, but on the other hand, we wouldn't have super gamble cards and fix resets and restat cards in the WP shop. Even EP2 was P2W if you think about it. Super gambles and protect cards were in the game at that time and the only way to get them was by using credits. You need to restat? You get one fullreset from the mission. If you already used it, you're pretty much screwed without credits.The only reason why it didn't felt like a P2W game back then was because almost no one used credit items besides trails and maybe membership and lot's of nostalgia.  There were some crafting recipes for super gambles though, but at least Gameforge disabled all of them. 

A rollback wouldn't fix anything, because the game was P2W right from the beginning. That's how most korean MMO's are and it work's just fine. It did even work for us back then but times have changed and there are now so many MMO's out there that are not P2W. The mentality changed and people doesn't accept a P2W concept anymore. You can't just people tell not to use credits. That just wouldn't work. And Masang needs to make profit from the game in any way. So even if we would go back to EP3, there would be some people that pay massive amounts of money, only to get some hyper fixes or super fixes with the right lucky bonus. And the rest of the palyers that doesn't use credits or only low amounts of them would get stomped in PvP. 

EP4 isn't that bad after all. It gave us many new things I personally enjoy. The new maps, the new HUD (which looks way better imo), new skins, new bosses and even new towns. EP4 reduced the P2W a bit by adding most of the weapon build stuff to the WP shop. On the other hand, it added a lot of new P2W content, so we have a similar situation to what we've had before. The payment system needs to change and Masang needs to understand that. You can merge and rollback the game however you want. As long as it's a P2W game, people won't come back. 

Stormy, you speak a lot of truth here.

But just imagine the costs for upgrading Ace Online with nice graphics and stable massive fights.

You have two choices. Either 1. upgrade the existing game or 2. start from scratch.

However we are talking about a 14 year old engine, or whichever engine was used to created ATUM Online, the first game from which later on Ace Online should be derived. The amount of changes in computer graphics and software engineering are just massive. To update such an old engine requires a lot of people.

Most likely you will have to gradually upgrade the game itself as well due to the engine changes. This can lead to new bugs. In addition you might want to fix old bugs as well, like the Alt+Tab-Crash. This probably happens due to an old version of DirectX which is used in the engine.

Even then, you would require new Textures to receive a HD-feeling. You want nice Shaders for the models and actual shadows?  Indirect lighting? Destructible meshes? You have to implement these features since they do not exist yet.

Then we should also add some nice Cheat-Prevention like Client-Side-Prediction with Server Validation. That's why CheatEngine was a valid option to cheat in such a multiplayer game and should still be since they need 3 party programs to scan to your RAM for potential cheat programs, so that you do not cheat. Currently the server always trusts the client. There seem to be some cheat detectors, but it is quite questionable how they exactly work.

The lags in the massive fights could have several reasons.

1. Network Bandwidth of the server is not enough.

2. Rendering takes too long

3. Game Logic takes to long.

I assume that 3(Game Logic) is no issue, since this should be no problem. And you can effectively only use the CPU to solve this.

I guess 2 is an issue due to the 'Dragon-Trail'-effect. This one always caused trouble. This is also a hint, that no parallel programming is used for that. Graphic cards from 12 years back weren't as strong as today's. So I guess they also at least partially used the CPU for rendering in the worst case.

Main Problem is however Network Bandwith. This is also the reason why games like ARMA3 can only handle around 50-100 people. And usually those players are distributed around the map, so that not all players have to be informed about every player. This conditional informing is also kind of implemented in Ace Online, even though you always notice when you have to load a player at first.

Then I guess that the game itself doesn't even use multiple server to host such a game, but only one. So the load on this server is not 50-100 people. But actually the amount of players of the whole server, which was 500-1000 at good times.

I can go on with this list of how outdated Ace Online really is. Point is, you would need an actual active team to upgrade the engine with this game. To do this in 1-2 years, you would need a team of  20-50 people. 

Let's be gracious and just assume 20. And they would need 2 years. You would have to pay each developer around 2000-5000€/month. Let's assume 3000€/month.

Then you have 20 * 3000€/month * 24 months =  1.440.000€

That's without accounting the cost of IDE's such as Visual Studio, 3d Modelling Programs such as 3DS Max or 3DS Maya. Of course there are open source alternatives.

But just think about this number of  ~1.5 Million €. (in a good case)

What is the better option? To have a player base which still plays this old game and complains of how things are and still plays and pays for it to some degree. Or to actually invest time and effort into an old game where the outcome is unclear?

Instead they can use this as a money making product as long as it lives and focus on new projects which will most likely offer more money.

Sorry to say it, but I don't think that you can hope for new Graphics and so on. Only that they respect the players and do something about the gameplay and do some balancing.

I didn't say anything about fancy graphics or building up a new game from scratch. That won't happen.  That's why i said they need to focus to make the game at least "playable" for veterans. They just need to adjust the cash shop, to make it more fair for players. That's all. Rebalance the cash shop to make it possible to get good PvP equipment,without paying tons of cash and adding cosmetics and "nice to have" thigs to the cash shop.

Ah, I didn't read the " So, forget to get the attention of new players." statement.

Well, now I've written my post. And others with not so much knowledge about game development at least get some hints about the future of this game.

Greetings.

Interesting read, and you are both correct looking at the game per se from different perspectives altogether. However, it is most unlikely that Stormy92's thought-out suggestions can or will be met, just as it is highly unlikely that the amount of needed money underlined by D4rkFox shall ever be even considered as an option for improvement.

Said all that, I still see a bright light at the end of the tunnel, for the simple reason that, as many have of course, I have gone to check AO Subagames and tried to understand how it is that the very same game with the very same problems actually works - it rock and rolls, to be precise, and full of players 24/7. So how is that?

Beside server capacity or details that I cannot be aware of, AO holds the same ol' graphics and mechanics, client side,  and whatever else you can think about as AR, uh, AOEU does, but the big difference is something Masang devs can do easily and rapidly, once this initial holdup on transfers and server merging is over. They have a lot of small things that players gloat over, one for all the 1000% exp bonus at all times, or the 400% drop rate all over (I myself popped over into a few maps with a crappy gear and dropped the world), all sorts of bonuses and events, gifts, and of course the up and running ep. 4.6.2, which has turned the entire economy to wps - which in turn drives people to war and fight all over the place all the time. The newcomers get a lot of help and grinding is quick, and the amount of people playing make is so acceptable for lower gears to war and actually town with some kms in their pocket. 

Because they have a lot of people - because all levels have a lot of fun. And these details change the game in a flash, and cost nothing to the devs. I strongly hope Masang will do exactly that, because when you have a wagonload of players even the hacking gets stepped over, and a new player logs into an extremely active game and goes on from there, old engine and bugs and glitches and all, it does not really matter, it's too much fun.

[quote]- Increase the price for membership.[/quote]

Are you f****** JOKING?

No. I'm not. Please read my entire post and think about it, before quoting one sentence without context. Membership is totally optional and not necessary to play the game. But it sure is nice to have. My whole post in a TL;DR manner is:

- Remove all stuff you need to build equipment from the cash shop and put it in the WP shop or Boss mobs (Hyper Enchant protects and Hyper Gambles as a rare drop, to make bosses important again)

- increase the price of things you don't actually need to play the game instead. Like cosmetics and premium/membership

If they'd do it like like that, you would spent much less money on the game. Sure, membership and cosmetics would be more expensive, but it's way better than spending 100€ + just to get your weapon to enchant 12 or even 13. We need to keep in mind that Masang needs money to keep the game running, but the way it is now for years just isn't fair. You just can't build decent PvP equipment without spending tons of cash. That's a fact and that needs to change, to get the attention back from old AR/Ace players. Otherwise the servers will die out. Again.

@catch22 I'm not that familiar with Suba's AO version and it's updates. At least not for the last months. I played about 2 or 4 weeks about a year ago but what you said is true as far as i can tell. Lot's of events and and good additions, coming from the newer game version. As i said. EP4 isn't as bad as most people say it is. A lot of that is just pure nostalgia. EP4 and the later updates actually removed a lot of P2W stuff and added a lot of new fun things to do ingame. That's why I'm pretty sure that Masang is well aware of that problem and try's to fix it. But we all know how long it takes for the game to get new updates, since Masang isn't a big company. Combine that with a good staff that hosts a few events every now and then and you get a proper and stable community. The only reason why i stopped playing Ace (Suba) instead of AR Germany, was the ping. I had massive delay because of the server location. That's why i actually hoped Masang would make a contract with Suba Games to let them host AO Europe :P

Problem is that membership is in fact a huge asset when playing, not a little one, and I´m not talking about the extra wps you get at SPs but mainly because of the double ammo and inv space. When you reach a higher level it sure sucks to have to town every 4 minutes to empty your inv and die because your bullets have run out. So ok, it may not be vital, nothing ever is, but the change in your game is substancial.

Regarding your ping, Stormy, I have no idea where you are located but I, here in Spain, am surely not close to Suba servers and have no problems at all. So either you live really really far away from them or maybe lately they have modified something? Perhaps you might want to log in there now and check yourself.

Hey, I sound like an AO Suba promoter ffs -.-

From Germany you should have around 120ms-200ms ping. This absolutely lethal if you're playing BG's. You will also miss almost all Barrel Rolls.

Exactly. I didn't know what my ping exactly was but it sure felt like it was way over 100. 

Do add some ideas:
Set every Boss time on random (for example Hazle Bosses from 8h Respawn to 6h - 12h)
So that you can't farm them by looking on timer. This will bring more traffic on boss maps and maybe more fights to get them.
Also insert them more cr stuff or other good items to make them more atractive

Make Outposts more interesting:
The Leader of the Brig which own the Outpost will get an Shild (like leadshild) which looks like the symbol of the outpost.
(The signs are already ingame). but not 10k shild only 3k shild, so the bonus is not too op.

To stay on shilds:
Give the subleaders a shild with 3k-5k shild too, so the subleader position will be more atractive

Give the Mystery Coins and Machine more sence:
Clear the Mystery Maschine and insert following items:
Gambels Items (Fix & Enche Protect Cards, Resets, High lvl Weapons (Revision, Arrow 102+,...)
The Influense could be doubled price --> ~3k
So you can have a chance to get more cr stuff ingame

Skill Cooldown:
(wondering nobody crys so loud)
Pury(MG): 5 min, so you have to use it more tactical and not for spam
Call of Hero(MG): Reset this delay shit, or reduce it!!!!
Shiled Paralyse(AG): 4min
Bubble(AG): 2 min, no reset after death
Silence(IG): 3min, no reset after death

That's my oppinion

H4CK3R
The hacking one }:D
C:/>_