Anarchy Online for Windows
- Publisher: Deep Silver
- Genre: Role-Playing
- Platform: Windows
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The fight for Rubi-Ka begins...
Pros
All new concept, incredible graphics & sound, something new & fun to explore
Cons
Funcom is still dealing with many problems, bugs and issues
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
*UPDATE* My rating has been moved to 3-stars because of excessive lag and fatal errors.
***EDIT on 10/31/01***
I had to reduce my rating for AO to 3-stars. Why? Because here we are months later and many of the game problems I originally wrote about have not been fixed. Yes, it was a great concept - but the implementation was rocky, and doesn't appear to have smoothed out. Maybe in a couple of months this game will be playable and fun - but I ended up canceling my account because of excessive lag and fatal errors that still haven't been fixed.
By the year 29.475 A.D. humanity has colonized many of the worlds in the Milky Way, both to accommodate the growing need for natural resources and the expanding number of people. Rubi-Ka is a small planet on the farthest frontiers of the Galaxy. A red and barren desert world, plagued by sandstorms and heavy winds, only made habitable by the terraforming process of the intergalactic hyper-corporation Omni-Tek.
You are an inhabitant of Rubi-Ka, and you must choose: side with the corporate rulers, or ally yourself with the revolting Clans to try and overthrow the totalitarian regime, or simply enjoy life as a neutral spectator going wherever fame and fortune might take you
There it is in a nutshell ? the story (straight from www.anarchyonline.com) of the newest, and one of the most innovative, I might add, MMORPGs to hit the market.
I?ve been playing Anarchy Online (or AO, for short) for a couple of weeks now. I can?t say I know everything about the game, or even how its problems will turn out in the future, but I wanted to give potential AO-gamers an opportunity to read some of the good, bad and ugly before they spent the $55 on it.
Basics
You must choose one of 4 breeds. These breeds are all new - not your run-of-the-mill fantasy races (dwarf, elf, ogre, etc.). On Rubi-Ka, you choose between: Solitus (basic human model), Opifex, Nano or Atrox (androgynous breed). What made this selection cool for me was not only the brand new races I got to choose from, but also the customizations I could make once I chose my breed. There had to be 50 different faces, 3 settings for height and 3 settings for girth.
Of course, you must also choose a profession for your new character. AO gives us (once again) a pick of pretty ?new? careers. This is a sci-fi game, so you?re not gonna? be a ?warrior?! You have 12 professions to choose from, ranging from agent (kind of like the agents in the Matrix), doctor, meta physicist to nano technician.
Personally, I?ve had a blast creating different characters, learning about the new professions, learning what breeds play which professions ?the best? and adventuring around Rubi-Ka. The only downfall here is I can only have 8 characters total? so I can only switch around all that much.
Once you have your new creation all set and ready to go, you must make one more choice before being plopped down in a ?newbie? area of the appropriate city. That choice, of course, is the basis of the storyline for the entire game: Whose side are you gonna? choose? Will you side with the cult-like corporation, Omni-Tek or with the small bands of rebels, the Clans? Perhaps you will decide to stay neutral? it?s all up to you, and the choice you make really will affect how you play the game.
Once created, you have a variety of ways to play. You could be an all-out killer (gaining experience and gaining levels that way) or perhaps you?d like to participate in the thousands of dynamic missions (quests) or maybe you?d like to take up a trade skill? Would you like to engage in PvP? It?s all up to you, and it?s all offered in AO.
Interface
The interface for AO is pretty typical of other RPGs. We have a bar for health and a bar for nano (or mana, for all you fantasy folks). There are action bars that allow us to click & drag special action buttons to it, so we can use the numbers on our keyboard rather than mouse to perform the actions (for example, I can put my combat buttons, which are also in my main window on the right side of my play screen, onto an action bar so I don?t have to scroll through 20 windows to find my auto-attack or brawl buttons).
We have options to tell us our ping (online lag), show us maps of our environment, a compass, game options (like sound, graphic controls, etc.). As I said, the basics are all here.
Graphics & Sound
Video and sound for AO are outstanding. Honestly, when I first logged in (before I had to adjust all my settings to cut down on lag), I was blown away with the 3D graphics in this game. I?ve played a lot of video games? and AO is definitely on the cutting edge. Take a look at the official screenshots (http://216.74.158.92/media/screenshots/shots?qs=1) - you?ll be amazed.
Sound is also great. Gone are the good old midi-sound files? AO uses high-quality music and sounds. Again, all I can say is groundbreaking. By the way, you can also turn the music and game sounds down or off if they annoy you? just check your game option settings.
Community
I must admit, I?ve been very disappointed in the social aspects of AO thus far. Yes, I?m coming from a game (EverQuest) I have played for well over two years, I?m part of a huge guild, I have a lot of friends and when I login, I always have places to go, people to chat with and fun stuff to do.
The chat engine for AO is just plain stupid. Up to level 6, you can choose to listen and participate in a ?newbie? chat? designed to give the new player a forum where he/she can ask all the stupid questions he/she wants. However, I found this channel to be altogether frustrating, as thousands of ?newbies? were utilizing it as a regular chat channel (because we had no other chat channel) and 90% of my questions went unanswered.
After newbie chat, you are given a ?vicinity? chat, where people around you or in the same zone can hear you. There are also shopping & grouping channels? however, they are only in cities. Why would someone seek hunting partners in the cities??
You currently have no way to see if your friends are on if they are not on your friends list (other than sending them a direct tell). How do you get people on your friends list? Well? you either have to stand in front of them and target them, or they have to send you a personal tell. Yeah, you heard me right. Anyone who sends you a private tell is automatically added to your friends list. Stupid.
I?m crossing my fingers that the chat engine gets a major overhaul.
Game-play
Anarchy Online had a very bumpy release. In case you didn?t know, it is housed in one dimension? that means no more having to select a server to play on. We all play together. Funcom obviously wasn?t prepared for the massive numbers of players who wanted to login each day. The first couple of days, it was literally impossible to stay connected for longer than maybe 15-30 minutes at a time (by the way, I?m on a cable modem, so it wasn?t my connection that was causing the problems). Even when I could stay on for longer than a few minutes, gameplay was choppy and quite frustrating.
Even now, Funcom is dealing with connection & lag issues on a daily basis.
There are plenty of bugs still in the game. Everyday, I go to the many AO websites & message boards to read about what fixes are going on, what?s coming out in the next patch, how to avoid certain bugs and what to do if I become victim to one. So far, I?ve only encountered one bug that made me not want to play (problems with ATI video cards) ? and I found a work-around upon searching through the many forums available to me.
Overall
I?m very excited about Anarchy Online. Even with the lag issues and the outstanding bugs, I still enjoy playing this game immensely. My recommendation, however, for any potential players is to:
1) Check AO message boards (especially the techie boards) to find out if your system/set-up has any fatal bugs associated with it. If you don?t check, and you encounter one of these? you might not be able to play at all.
2) Wait a couple of weeks for Funcom to work out and patch the game, so the lag & disconnections are no longer an issue.
3) Research this game before you play it! You will not believe how different it is, how advanced it is, how many new things there are to learn. I could write about this game for 20 pages and still not cover everything.
Helpful References
AO Boards: http://aoforums.funcom.com/forumdisplay.php?s=e02d1cc1be3fa81aa3406f65cc18bd9c&forumid=22
Dr. Twisters AO Site: http://ao.drtwister.com/
Anarchy Lore: http://www.anarchylore.com/
Allakhazam?s Magical Realm: http://ao.allakhazam.com/
Anarchy Online Vault: http://aovault.ign.com/
I had to reduce my rating for AO to 3-stars. Why? Because here we are months later and many of the game problems I originally wrote about have not been fixed. Yes, it was a great concept - but the implementation was rocky, and doesn't appear to have smoothed out. Maybe in a couple of months this game will be playable and fun - but I ended up canceling my account because of excessive lag and fatal errors that still haven't been fixed.
By the year 29.475 A.D. humanity has colonized many of the worlds in the Milky Way, both to accommodate the growing need for natural resources and the expanding number of people. Rubi-Ka is a small planet on the farthest frontiers of the Galaxy. A red and barren desert world, plagued by sandstorms and heavy winds, only made habitable by the terraforming process of the intergalactic hyper-corporation Omni-Tek.
You are an inhabitant of Rubi-Ka, and you must choose: side with the corporate rulers, or ally yourself with the revolting Clans to try and overthrow the totalitarian regime, or simply enjoy life as a neutral spectator going wherever fame and fortune might take you
There it is in a nutshell ? the story (straight from www.anarchyonline.com) of the newest, and one of the most innovative, I might add, MMORPGs to hit the market.
I?ve been playing Anarchy Online (or AO, for short) for a couple of weeks now. I can?t say I know everything about the game, or even how its problems will turn out in the future, but I wanted to give potential AO-gamers an opportunity to read some of the good, bad and ugly before they spent the $55 on it.
Basics
You must choose one of 4 breeds. These breeds are all new - not your run-of-the-mill fantasy races (dwarf, elf, ogre, etc.). On Rubi-Ka, you choose between: Solitus (basic human model), Opifex, Nano or Atrox (androgynous breed). What made this selection cool for me was not only the brand new races I got to choose from, but also the customizations I could make once I chose my breed. There had to be 50 different faces, 3 settings for height and 3 settings for girth.
Of course, you must also choose a profession for your new character. AO gives us (once again) a pick of pretty ?new? careers. This is a sci-fi game, so you?re not gonna? be a ?warrior?! You have 12 professions to choose from, ranging from agent (kind of like the agents in the Matrix), doctor, meta physicist to nano technician.
Personally, I?ve had a blast creating different characters, learning about the new professions, learning what breeds play which professions ?the best? and adventuring around Rubi-Ka. The only downfall here is I can only have 8 characters total? so I can only switch around all that much.
Once you have your new creation all set and ready to go, you must make one more choice before being plopped down in a ?newbie? area of the appropriate city. That choice, of course, is the basis of the storyline for the entire game: Whose side are you gonna? choose? Will you side with the cult-like corporation, Omni-Tek or with the small bands of rebels, the Clans? Perhaps you will decide to stay neutral? it?s all up to you, and the choice you make really will affect how you play the game.
Once created, you have a variety of ways to play. You could be an all-out killer (gaining experience and gaining levels that way) or perhaps you?d like to participate in the thousands of dynamic missions (quests) or maybe you?d like to take up a trade skill? Would you like to engage in PvP? It?s all up to you, and it?s all offered in AO.
Interface
The interface for AO is pretty typical of other RPGs. We have a bar for health and a bar for nano (or mana, for all you fantasy folks). There are action bars that allow us to click & drag special action buttons to it, so we can use the numbers on our keyboard rather than mouse to perform the actions (for example, I can put my combat buttons, which are also in my main window on the right side of my play screen, onto an action bar so I don?t have to scroll through 20 windows to find my auto-attack or brawl buttons).
We have options to tell us our ping (online lag), show us maps of our environment, a compass, game options (like sound, graphic controls, etc.). As I said, the basics are all here.
Graphics & Sound
Video and sound for AO are outstanding. Honestly, when I first logged in (before I had to adjust all my settings to cut down on lag), I was blown away with the 3D graphics in this game. I?ve played a lot of video games? and AO is definitely on the cutting edge. Take a look at the official screenshots (http://216.74.158.92/media/screenshots/shots?qs=1) - you?ll be amazed.
Sound is also great. Gone are the good old midi-sound files? AO uses high-quality music and sounds. Again, all I can say is groundbreaking. By the way, you can also turn the music and game sounds down or off if they annoy you? just check your game option settings.
Community
I must admit, I?ve been very disappointed in the social aspects of AO thus far. Yes, I?m coming from a game (EverQuest) I have played for well over two years, I?m part of a huge guild, I have a lot of friends and when I login, I always have places to go, people to chat with and fun stuff to do.
The chat engine for AO is just plain stupid. Up to level 6, you can choose to listen and participate in a ?newbie? chat? designed to give the new player a forum where he/she can ask all the stupid questions he/she wants. However, I found this channel to be altogether frustrating, as thousands of ?newbies? were utilizing it as a regular chat channel (because we had no other chat channel) and 90% of my questions went unanswered.
After newbie chat, you are given a ?vicinity? chat, where people around you or in the same zone can hear you. There are also shopping & grouping channels? however, they are only in cities. Why would someone seek hunting partners in the cities??
You currently have no way to see if your friends are on if they are not on your friends list (other than sending them a direct tell). How do you get people on your friends list? Well? you either have to stand in front of them and target them, or they have to send you a personal tell. Yeah, you heard me right. Anyone who sends you a private tell is automatically added to your friends list. Stupid.
I?m crossing my fingers that the chat engine gets a major overhaul.
Game-play
Anarchy Online had a very bumpy release. In case you didn?t know, it is housed in one dimension? that means no more having to select a server to play on. We all play together. Funcom obviously wasn?t prepared for the massive numbers of players who wanted to login each day. The first couple of days, it was literally impossible to stay connected for longer than maybe 15-30 minutes at a time (by the way, I?m on a cable modem, so it wasn?t my connection that was causing the problems). Even when I could stay on for longer than a few minutes, gameplay was choppy and quite frustrating.
Even now, Funcom is dealing with connection & lag issues on a daily basis.
There are plenty of bugs still in the game. Everyday, I go to the many AO websites & message boards to read about what fixes are going on, what?s coming out in the next patch, how to avoid certain bugs and what to do if I become victim to one. So far, I?ve only encountered one bug that made me not want to play (problems with ATI video cards) ? and I found a work-around upon searching through the many forums available to me.
Overall
I?m very excited about Anarchy Online. Even with the lag issues and the outstanding bugs, I still enjoy playing this game immensely. My recommendation, however, for any potential players is to:
1) Check AO message boards (especially the techie boards) to find out if your system/set-up has any fatal bugs associated with it. If you don?t check, and you encounter one of these? you might not be able to play at all.
2) Wait a couple of weeks for Funcom to work out and patch the game, so the lag & disconnections are no longer an issue.
3) Research this game before you play it! You will not believe how different it is, how advanced it is, how many new things there are to learn. I could write about this game for 20 pages and still not cover everything.
Helpful References
AO Boards: http://aoforums.funcom.com/forumdisplay.php?s=e02d1cc1be3fa81aa3406f65cc18bd9c&forumid=22
Dr. Twisters AO Site: http://ao.drtwister.com/
Anarchy Lore: http://www.anarchylore.com/
Allakhazam?s Magical Realm: http://ao.allakhazam.com/
Anarchy Online Vault: http://aovault.ign.com/
