View Full Version : O/T Anarchy Online Shadowlands beta???
Err anyone playing this, know ought about it??? (good, bad, indifferent???). Being as i;m currentley having issues connecting to the saturn server does anyone know ought about this?? Looks interesting but wanted an insideers view on it 1st.
I've tried AO, and it has its pros / cons.. Here is what I felt about it:
Pro:
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HUGE playing field.. I mean its HUGE!!!! The cities are huge! The dungeons are huge! IT HUGE!!!! Also there is a virtual world for people to travel around in. (Need to be a fix or have a good comp. literacy skill to access it)
Lots of objects to play with, and able to customize your character throw clothing, even tattoos.. So your character image is somewhat diverse
Character classes are more diverse than NC.
Lots of hidden objects
Some humourous objects (Leet Dolls, Concrete Pillow <Yes, real pillows>) that can be used as weapons.
If you are ub3r n3wb1e (Someone who just got an account) there.. I believe one of the GMs (Advisors as they are called) will actually come and greet you. They will sit with ya for short time to explain the game a little and answer any questions.
And well, they've had 2 previous expansions packs along with a brand new one. So you can build upon the standalone edition of AO.
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Cons:
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My biggest beef.. Was that if the mobs were 2+ levels lower than you.. You would recieve 1 XP point.. Thats ALL. So you were stuck fighting mobs -1 -> Higher skill than you to get any XP.
XP is one giant pool (When ya level, you get a bunch of points to divde up to all the skills), vs. NC's XP is spread through all the skills depending on what ya do.
If ya wanna POWER level quickly, you'll need to find a team to join. Which is a task within itself..
Its not true FPS.. You wanna be able to use your mouse to move, you'll need to hold your right-mouse button to turn.
Trying to figure out what works with what class is not a easy task, and leads to more re-rolls than you would like. Even the forums dedicated to the specifc classes are rather vague, or met with YA too many opinions about what you should use in that class.
The RES / CON abilities (Using NC terms) are very difficult to figure out, even using the AO Codex online that explains it in point detail.
The latest expansion costs money.. Its not free.
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When I took a break from NC for a month, I accually popped over to AO to try it out.. But, as you can see, I came back. Give the 7 day trial a shot, you may like it.
Typically I find whatever online game you start off with, you'll usually stay with. Simply due to familiarity and understanding you've gained. I started with NC, and I keep coming back since I haven't found a game that comes close to what I enjoy or like about NC. (Also due to the fact, its the only game that has real kept close to a cyberpunk / shadowrun theme in mind) And trust me, I've tried every MMOG out there that isn't a simulator / fantasy based.
Hope that gives ya some ideas of what to expect...
i tried shadowlands beta, it seemed i was crashing more then i could get in to play, from what i did play, 3/4 the zones are unenterable, missions don't work, you get randomly warped around, and when you exit the game(to relog another char) you'll get the blue screen, the new content added does look pretty good, too bad AO just sucks
While I can't comment on Shadowlands specifically, I did buy a copy of Anarchy Online, Notum wars in June. (It was for a University Project! Believe me!). As you can see, I'm still here. I did like several of the ideas of Anarchy Online, but in the end the twin aspects of having 200 levels to go up till cap and dull psuedo turnbased combat, combined with clumsy and confusing chat commands persuaded me that I didn't like it.
I will concur FreeBase however, the cities were truly a sight to see. Sure they weren't truly beauitful but they did project this image of immensity. I spent about two hours walking around Omni one. Although the fact that there was almost jack all of interest in most of it persuaded me to stop exploring.
Another problem was the sheer amount of gear. Considering a newbie has almost no idea what's a good gun I found myself screwing around with a lot of things unsure what to do with them. Did like the custom clothes though.
Overall though, it screamed "TIMESINK!" from the word go. Oh and did I mention the game was hideously Ugly? I though it would be good looking but I saw Everquest look prettier in places...
The GFX aren't too bad, but not great..
I would have to be on the other end saying that EQ GFX suck.. Its like watching Bards Tale on the C64. Hell, EQ is a multiplayer version of Bards Tale..
AO suXX ass. I hate that game.
In reply to the first post (as I believe "suXX ass", aside from being 12yr old drool talk, doesn't answer the question correctly)
I am in the Shadowlands beta and it's impressive. If you are someone with an open mind, and realise that games can vary in gameplay by great degrees but still be fun.
AO/Shadowlands is to a very great degree, just like neocron, the difference is in it's combat and PvP systems. It isn't turnbased at all, but it isn't twitch style like neocron. Now taking into account that most of your life in neocron is spent leveling and killing npc's and monsters the method of combat really isn't an issue. If you want to pvp you can, and just like in NC, whomever is the fastest, has better resists, a better weapon, armor, skill etc..... is usually the winner, and unlike neocron, you achieve a PvP title as well (ie: novice, freshman, master, legend etc...)
The original worldmap area of AO is huge, whereas it takes me 20min to run from NC city to the military base it would take me about 4+ hours to run from Rome Blue in the south to the Sentinels Base in the far north. The games factions are easily split among Omni/Clan with Omni existant in most of the southern map while clan is in the north (with a small number of Neutrals around the middle)
There are boats, cars and flying vehicles you can purchase (most opt for the flying ones). Omni themselves have 3 majorly large cities (rome, omni trade, omni entertainment (omni ent. is huge in scale) neutrals have 2 mid-sized ones and Clan has 2 large ones of their own.
There are 4 bioclasses you can choose from with about 12 different, relevent professions you can choose from (Shadowlands is adding 2 additional professions as well)
The shadowlands expansion brings with it (aside from the mentioned additional professions) new cities (Jobe, which is a floating sky city) new weapons, armors, missions etc...
Since nearly every item has it's own individual look (ie: not how an archer companion, tar, and pain easer all look the same) it is possible to recognize in-game friends just by their custom look.
The game also introduces something called "Perks" which is a new method, based on your bioclass and chosen profession, that allows you to really super-fine-tune your character (aside from the mormal method of spending your earmed points in your skill and sub-skill categories.
There are 200 levels to get to the top, but as someone commented, it does not take forever to get there. It takes a bit longer, but thats rather a nice aside. In NC, with a weekends casual gaming it's easy to cap 1 major class (the PE) and you can bring most others to capped in their lesser skillsets and pretty close to cap in their majors while in AO your character develops over a longer period.
There are 3 servers, all crowded with people, no crashes, no rollbacks, great teaming, great team missions, dungeons/leveling areas specifically geared to newer and new players between certain levels, a great ammount of diversity and if you are a roleplayer you'll be in heaven.
Overall it's a good game and it's certainly worth trying it out for it's free trial. It's a good game, it is different from neocron but if you are looking for somethign to play as well as NC then give the trial a try, it is free afterall.
p.s. and to those who'll read what I wrote and say "why don't you go play AO then" it IS possible to play more then one game, of different styles, and to like them both. Intelligent people do it all the time and know the difference. I like AO, but I like NC slightly better. It has more of a closed-in, claustrophobic, desperate feel to it.
[ p.p.s. -for below-
"Im really just a 23 y/o loser who sits on a computer at work all day and goes home to play NC and get high
[edit]and get really high"
wow, so much to be proud of ]
I was using "12 y/o Dr00l talk" to emphasize just how much i hate that game and everything it represents....
Im really just a 23 y/o loser who sits on a computer at work all day and goes home to play NC and get high
[edit]and get really high
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