Anarchy Online for Windows

Heard of Everquest? If, like me, you're allergic to generic "elf & dragon" fantasy worlds, with their nonsense histories and improbable societies, you might have wondered what possible appeal there could be to an online role-playing game in such a world. I know I did. Even supplemented by improbable magic, Bronze Age technology (and medieval fashion) are boring and stupid. Who'd do that for fun?

Along comes Anarchy Online, from Funcom. Like Everquest, it's a Massively Multi-Player Online Roleplaying Game (MMPORG). That means that you start with a new "character" who has few skills and little or no equipment, turned loose in a world full of menace -- only some of which comes from characters operated by other human beings, both paying players and company employees. But this one isn't set in some Lord of the Rings/Dungeons & Dragons rip-off universe. This one is set in the far future, on the far-away planet of Rubi-Ka.

The World of Anarchy Online: Ancient History

In the 21st century, a handful of industry insiders were the first to perfect nanotechnology. In case you haven't heard of it, nanotechnology deals with (so far, mostly hypothetical) computer components, medical equipment, and machine tools -- all roughly the size of a germ. In fact, nanotechnology is modeled loosely after germs. Like germs, nanobots may even be able to reproduce.

The first nanotechnologists, living in a world perched precariously on the edge of ecological disaster, decided that they were the God-given solution to the problem. So they spent years and billions of dollars to custom-tailor a suite of nanobots to each of themselves, making themselves unaging and nearly unkillable. They then used biological weapons and nuclear terrorism to kill off 99.9% of the human race, beginning a fall of civilization later called the Long Winter.

A thousand years later, as simple bronze age civilizations were starting to rise again, the Omega (as they called themselves), emerged from their hideouts beneath the Earth and conquered the survivors, whom they called the Solitus. (Funcom has yet to explain that term; perhaps it makes more sense in Norwegian.)

To prevent another ecological nightmare, the Omega set themselves up as the absolute rulers of the world, with all other humans as their slaves. They rapidly brought the survivors up to 19th century tech levels, and just under 19th century population levels. They then decreed, thus far and no further. What followed was 12,000 years of despotism and stasis, as they carefully (and brutally) preserved their "perfect society."

That society eventually fell, in the Solitus Rebellion, and nearly all the Omega were killed. What was left (and recoverable) of their factories and technology was given to a new corporation called Omni-Tek. To keep Omni-Tek from becoming another Omega, they were put under the oversight of an elected government body still called the ICC, even though it no longer stands for International Council of Corporations. Omni-Tek's most valuable asset: a perpetual patent on nanotechnology.

That was thousands of years ago, and in the intervening years, mankind has made tremendous progress, an awful lot of it thanks to Omni-Tek.

Faster than light travel (albeit not much faster) has spread mankind to the stars. Artificial gravity has (among other changes) made small flying vehicles almost common. Terraforming has made it possible to live almost anywhere. Limited nanotechnology has all but conquered disease, poverty, and starvation.

Implanted computers, called Nanotech Control Units (NCUs) give everybody instant access to downloaded knowledge, plus constant access to their planet's Internet. Other neuro-muscular implants, connected to the NCU, make it possible to enhance human performance.

Genetic engineering has made it possible (albeit unpopular) to tailor human beings to specific environments and tasks. This has led to the creation of at least three new species since the Solitus:

* Homo Opifex: Small, skinny, nimble, bright, and needing very little food or life-support, the Opifex were bred to thrive on shipboard and in orbital habitats.

* Homo Nanomage: Sickly looking and spindly, terrible compromises have been made in their biology to wring the best possible performance out of nanotechnology.

* Homo Atrox: One of Omni-Tek's more controversial projects, a sexless race of dim, surly, over-muscled soldiers and workers. (Imagine an exaggerated cartoon of a steroid abuser.)

And of course, there have been other improvements in the small stuff, like tools and weapons. But even in 15,000+ years, no one has managed to duplicate the nanotech capabilities of the Omega. Immortality and cosmic power have remained outside human reach. At least, until recently, when things have gotten really interesting.

The World of Anarchy Online: Recent History

All of the above is ancient history, and almost nobody cares. Indeed, almost nobody has studied enough history to even know it, although most people have heard of the Long Winter, the Omega, and the Solitus Rebellion.

(The full details, more than the above, are in a separate book available from Funcom called Prophet Without Honor: Anarchy Online Book 1 by Ragnar Tornquist. It's a surprisingly good book. Check it out even if you don't fall into the game.)

But more recent history is what's on almost everyone's mind on the planet of Rubi-Ka.

A bit over 700 years ago, Omni-Tek surveyors found a barren, lifeless desert of a world, and called it Rubi-Ka (Red, Dry). Given its eccentric orbit around a binary star and near total absence of surface water, it was considered a poor candidate for terraforming. Consequently, the ICC gave Omni-Tek the most generous of leases: 2000-year ownership, with the standard proviso that they had to accept open immigration (of anyone willing to live under their rule) after 500 years.

What the ICC did not know at the time, but Omni-Tek did, was that Rubi-Ka has notum.

Notum is an obscure kind of metallic crystal, unknown anywhere else in the galaxy. On Rubi-Ka, it's so common that it makes up a big chunk of the dust in the atmosphere. In the presence of notum, even ordinary nanotechnology performs almost as well as the legendary Omega. And thanks to their lease, Omni-Tek owns the only source of it.

To a lot of people around the galaxy, this was intolerable, and so, as soon as they could do so, they began infiltrating as colonists. Only a few years ago, they struck. Rioting mobs of anarchists and political malcontents, anti-corporation activists, professional terrorists, and weird movements alike all mobilized at once and struck at the heart of Omni-Tek civilization on Rubi-Ka. They conquered the oldest city on the planet, Athen, and fought the company to a standstill in the deserts between there and Omni-1.

Those battle lines are still in place now, as the game Anarchy Online lets you join the story line. You start out as a new immigrant, with no money, barely any equipment, no skills properly developed for this environment. You get your choice of sides: the rebel Clans, the legal corporate citizens of Omni-Tek, or the poor civilian farmers and traders caught between them.

As of when I'm writing this review, there's a cease-fire and amnesty offer in place. Like other fragile cease fires of history, there are still renegades from both sides trying to stir up conflict, but officially Omni-Tek and the Council of Truth, a (mostly self-proclaimed) ruling body for the Clans, are negotiating peace terms that would cede territorial rights to the northern end of the continent to the Clans, presumably in exchange for their agreement to honor Omni-Tek's patents, planetary lease, and mineral rights.

Nobody expects this to work.

Indeed, if you've read Ragnar Tornquist's book, you know that "Boss" Ross, the CEO of Omni-Tek Rubi-Ka, never intended it to work. He only hoped that it could work well enough to persuade an estimated 13% of the Clans' troops to accept amnesty and come over to his side, shifting the battlefield balance of power. But outside of Omni-Tek Rubi-Ka's corporate board, nobody really knows this. They just suspect it, a lot.

Recently, as in only in the last couple of years, both Omni-Tek and the Clans have enthusiastically deployed three new technologies that only work here on Rubi-Ka:

Suppression Gas: Added onto the terraforming technology of the planet, suppression gas (when it works) lets each side create areas where people's own NCUs won't let them attack each other. (This works best in outside areas of the major cities, making them the only totally safe zones.)

Resurrection Booths and Insurance Terminals: It is now possible (for a fee) to back yourself up periodically. If you do so, then when the planetary internet detects your death, it recreates your body so fast that your soul naturally jumps back to it. This gives you a crippling headache for about 15 minutes, and it takes at least one minute for your possessions to catch up with you, and some of those will be lost. But on the bright side, as the company advertising slogan goes, "Death Isn't Fatal!"

Teleportation booths and the Grid: Using the same technology, the company has made it possible to scan (and destroy) yourself in one place and reappear instantly elsewhere. If you do this when you aren't fighting for your life, it doesn't even give you resurrection shock. Both Omni-Tek and the Clans operate separate, unconnected networks for mass transit between cities. Characters with enough computer literacy skill can also, at maintenance points called Grid Terminals, bypass the network altogether and appear at any other grid terminal.

So What Is There for Your Characters To Do?

When you create each of your characters (and you're allowed up to 16 of them now, 8 per server set), they start out with your choice of breed, gender, and physical appearance. You also get a hard-wired add-on to your NCU, making it easier to learn certain skills and abilities; this is called your Profession. (As such it means something much closer to what the word originally meant, a calling, rather than a job.)

Some professions are natural-born warriors, guards, and soldiers. Others are natural-born engineers and traders. Yet others have affinities for nanotechnology that, at least here on Rubi-Ka, make them the next best thing to wizards.

Traders and doctors ply their skills, the former making and selling things, the later healing and performing surgery. All professions have access to Mission Terminals, job-search databases operated separately by the Clans and by Omni-Tek, offering paying jobs putting down cease-fire violators and such. Teams of players can also, in some places, ambush players (and NPCs) from the other side, building up a reputation among their side's belligerents.

On a lesser basis, you can also make small amounts of money (and quite a bit of experience) hunting nuisance wildlife. Rubi-Ka's terraforming is being done under difficulty conditions, at best. Worse, the departments involved seem to have the following priorities:

1) Do everything fast and on the cheap, and fix it later if at all.

2) Show off how clever and cool you can be with access to this much nanotechnology.

3) And oh yeah, eventually build a working ecosystem -- if you ever get around to it.

(This is a nice touch. One of the things that's always bugged me about Dungeons & Dragons and its imitators, including Everquest, is just how improbable the ecosystem is. On Rubi-Ka, that the ecosystem makes no sense actually does make sense; it has been explained by the story. Cool.)

In between paying jobs, there are plenty of places and opportunities to socialize, organize, propagandize, scheme, flirt, dance, rant, grab a bite to eat, grab a beer with new friends, and so on.

One of the things they've done to make this part of the game even better is that they've included about 40 chat commands called emotes. Each one kicks off a pre-programmed set of gestures and movements by your character: bow, curtsey, salute, wave, laugh, point in various directions, wave your hands while talking, surrender, blow a kiss, flip someone off, spit on the ground, and more. At least a quarter of them are dance moves.

All these activities take place on a playfield that is dozens of miles on a side or longer, including a half-dozen or so major cities, dozens of small outposts and farming towns, dozens of indoor settings, and wildly varying natural environments. Much of the artwork will take your breath away.

Funcom also maintains a huge bulletin board on the World Wide Web, with in-character and out-of-character areas, for the players to organize their own activities and events on Rubi-Ka.

If It's So Cool, What Is Everybody Complaining About?

Yes, well. Umm.

If you've looked at the other reviews, or worse, if you've read Funcom's own online BBS on the Web, you already know that there are some plenty ticked-off people out there.

There are three main problems. The least important one is that Funcom customer support and customer service is nearly non-existent. This is not acceptable for a pay service with monthly fees, and it ticks people off. It also makes the other problems even worse.

There are also several important features that have been promised but, five months and 12 major software releases after the game opened, still have not shown up. Players were promised that each character would have their own apartment to decorate and to use to entertain; only barest stubs of that feature have been implemented, and that poorly. Trader characters are supposed to be able to go up in level and make steady income building things, but almost none of the "recipes" have been implemented, and component parts are almost impossible to come by. Chronic problems with the Mission Terminals keep undercutting the rest of the planetary economy.

Oh, and it is five months after some people started and it is only now, in the last few weeks, that the much-vaunted four-year story line has begun.

All of these things are being worked on, but some people have gotten tired of waiting.

However, the biggest problem is that Funcom's code for Anarchy Online is a steaming pile of excrement. No, really. I could drink a bottle of ink and vomit better code than this. Compared to Funcom, Microsoft produces code that is compact, resource-efficient, state of the art, and reliable.

Although the user interface is lovely and functional, the 3D graphics engine looks like vintage 1995. Quake 3 Arena this is not. They also do not support almost any graphics card driver update from the last year.

Anarchy Online also leaks memory like a sieve; if you don't reboot every hour or so, performance goes downhill. What code does run, runs very inefficiently compared to other games. Honestly, consider the "recommended" system requirements to be the minimum, and ignore the minimum system requirements on the box.

Ever since 1986, the software industry's official motto has been, "Ship It, Then Fix It." But even by the software industry's low standards for quality control, Funcom is the pits. Every software release or patch since the beginning has broken almost as many things as it has fixed.

Their servers have been remarkably reliable, in terms of up-time. But they're undersized; any time a crowd gathers in one place, some of those players start getting intolerable levels of lag. And how can you tell stories about politics and war without crowds gathering?

There's also something other players have complained about, that neither Funcom nor I see as a problem. Perhaps you would, so I'll try to explain it to you.

Many people consider Player vs Player (PvP) combat to be broken, because there is no guarantee that a fight between you and a character of the same "level" is a fair one. For one thing, all other things being equal, the character with the more in-game money will win, from having better implants, better armor, better weapons.

But the other reason, and bigger one, is that whoever is more popular with higher-level characters will also win, due to what's called "over-equipping." At any given character level, there is equipment of such a high quality level that your character can not "equip" it, that is to say, prepare it for use. Such equipment is also very, very expensive. However, if a much more powerful character gives you his or her hand-me-downs, and then one or more high-level characters run software on your NCU to temporarily raise your abilities, then you can equip it just fine -- and from then on, it works normally.

Everyone was given fair warning that this was possible. People need to learn not to put too much trust in their NCU heads-up displays. Remember, "Death Isn't Fatal!" Besides, it's perfectly fair to reward popularity in a game. Consequently, neither Funcom nor I see a problem with this.

So If It's Got All These Problems, Why Four Stars?

In a nutshell, because while broken and stupid software can be fixed, broken and stupid ideas can't.

Nobody else is doing the kind of role-playing games I'd enjoy online. Nobody. Yes, I know that there's a Star Wars MMPORG supposedly coming next summer, and rumors of a Star Trek one. Both universes strike me as only slightly less stupid than Everquest's D&D-like universe.

Show me a Known Space, Humanx Commonwealth, or Casablanca MMPORG, or a Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda MMPORG, or maybe a Babylon 5 or Alien Nation MMPORG, and we'll talk. But still, even more than those things, I'd rather reward something as creative, original, and innovative as Anarchy Online.

What's more, the miracles that their art department and storytellers have managed to wring out of that awful software give me real hope for the future.

So maybe, to paraphrase the Bene Gesserit, I'm letting too much hope cloud my observations. But at the month-and-a-half mark, I'm having way too much fun playing Anarchy Online the way it is now, bugs and all.

Even though it feels at times exactly like dealing with an under funded dot-com (which Funcom obviously is), I keep hoping that enough people will sign up to make it economically possible for them to finish and fix it.