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Should I play AO?
DustyBallz
Member Posts: 152
I'm in need of a new game.
I'm not into griefers. PvP is one thing, but a gankfest is NOT what I'm looking for.
How's the AO grind? What should I definately know?
What's up with the Shadowlands expansion? I hear a lot of people don't like the expansion.
MMORPG -- Where's the RP?
MMORPG -- Where's the RP?
Comments
its all to personal taste, to new users, ones who never played played before SL, SL is fine... but the lvl grind is boring at times... those times between unique dungeons(subway, temple, etc.) are really bad. i must say it is a fun game that you should try out, even if the graphics arent that great, the game offers good gameplay.
The real lvl grind hits around 75-100 for most professions, but the adventure in SL can take most of the boringness away if you dont just camp hecklers, try and explore a little... youll have fun
-Scott
lvl grind at 75-100?
You can still get 1-2 lvls per hour at lvl 100...
If you have problems leveling at that lvl then you just have to read up on your profession better, maybe try to get some more friends to play with, join a guild if you're not in one.
If you are teaming then you will get to lvl 150 in notime and sadly even to lvl 200 way too fast..
If you never played AO, give it a try, you can play the 7 day trial so you don't have to pay anything.
But before you start you need to read up on the profession you want to play and also on how the game works, it can be hard to understand everything with skills, implants, abilities, buffs and all other stuff.
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Azzazzimon
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Azzazzimon
To the newcomer, AO can be a bit daunting as there is a vast array of playfields now. That said, choose a side, spend an hour before logging in reading the official forums (Try the profession forums) decide which class appeals to you most, then look @ the beginners guide (Usually find class related ones @ top of profession forum) get a feel for what is expected then log in.
with a bit of luck (and if you had a kind soul donate a coupla million creds to ya) you will level to 50 in a lil over 4 hours.
Although it appears to have loads of content, nowadays the static dungeons are more often than not just a shopping mall for the seasoned players who have started a new alt, as normally from about level 30+ they would be running along a brink area in SL killing rock mobs called Hecklers. The heckler/Horrors look the same all the way upto Inferno. All that changes is the CON colour, but once you figure out that this single Mob is the prefered XP mob for leveling fast, you may then realise just how flat and uninteresting the game has become.
I agree, not only that, you tended @ high level to be stuck in one place for those missions too (City of Home) that said, the plus side was EVERYBODY had to do it that way to level, now, although you could in theroy still level too 200 that way, more often than not you end up resigning yourself to standing for hours on a brink in one of the SL playfields (Adonis/Inferno do have heckler type mobs inland however)
SL served to spread out the player base across several playfields, and as such spread the community very thin, not only that, in the past (Pre-SL) it was viable to team with friends/org members significantly lower than you (within teaming range obviously) at higher levels, nowadays you can map your level to a precise area in SL. For example: 30-70: NAS brink, 70-100: Spiders in Elysium, 100-175: Elysium hecklers, 175-205: Adonis hecklers, 205+: penumbra/inferno Hecklers. Now all though these figures are rough estimates, and appear quite flexible, one of the key undertones and focal points to killing hecks is to maximise XP. having high lvl players in your team reduces your XP gain, thus for the most part, you need to form teams of comperable level players. There are a few exceptions (especially in Adonis) those being Doctors and Crats. Doctors are always useful in a heck team coz those puppies hit hard, and well a crat is a mobile XP shrine, and EVERYONE wants to level faster thus a crats like your bestest b uddy.
one other thing about the 'Old way' was you never had to wait for mobs to respawn, or fight over a place to stand, or join a waiting list to level, you just formed a team, rocked upto a mission post, grabbed a mission or two, went to mission, buffed up, and then kicked some ass.
Seriously, the introduction of SL divided the player base, loads left, i stuck it out as long as I could, now although I have cancelled my accounts, I will give it one more glance when AI is out. If it doesn't blow my socks off, then cancelation will be permanent.
Ex-AO vet Looking for a good Sci-Fi MMORPG PST
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
In my opinion.. and I'm an Avid MMORPGamer . Anarchy Online is still my #1 favorite. When I was last on level cap was 255(i think) and I played for 6 months before stopping getting to level 160.
Leveling is great because you have OPTIONS to do. You get points to distribute amongst all of your stats. Meaning you can up your skills in ANYTHING in ANY class. However each class has different ability's/spells/skills.
You can use pretty much whatever weapon you want w/ whomever you want.
Starting the game is great w/ a lot of people to help you. The game has a lot of players who are more than willing to lend you a hand. I know when I got bored I would visit the backyards (training areas) and just help low levels. Heal them, teach them, give em some basic junk change . I was not the only one.
I sometimes miss Anarchy Online, but my concern with it was by the point of level 150+ It became a grind to me. I hate the grind in most games, but this one took the longest to get to that point. so for that I'm happy.
Even still, get the game to atleast try.. you can download the game from their site, and play it for 30 days free. after that you can continue and they bill you the cost of the game + 1 month. It's not rediculous priced either.. It's very VERY fair.
If you do play.. i'd suggest either a Martial Artist or Enforcer to start you off
I loved the Martial Artist. thats what I was 
lvl grind at 75-100?
You can still get 1-2 lvls per hour at lvl 100...
If you have problems leveling at that lvl then you just have to read up on your profession better, maybe try to get some more friends to play with, join a guild if you're not in one.
If you are teaming then you will get to lvl 150 in notime and sadly even to lvl 200 way too fast..
If you never played AO, give it a try, you can play the 7 day trial so you don't have to pay anything.
But before you start you need to read up on the profession you want to play and also on how the game works, it can be hard to understand everything with skills, implants, abilities, buffs and all other stuff.
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Azzazzimon
i was part of a guild, the great "Unity of Rubi-Ka"... but most were lvl 150+ or low lvl twinks... but with their help i did get items i needed and other stuff, but i soloed alone... by myself, never with anyone else, only times i teamed were to help people like when i joined unity, as a lvl 62 keeper i had helped a member's team kill aztur about 4 times before our team fell apart...
and i read all about my my profession, i was lvl 76 still with styg and lvl 125 omni-elite and still wearing that Guardian Tank Armor... eh... so i wasnt wearing the best, which most alts have, but i wasnt an alt
in reality your first character will most likely lvl 2-3 times slower than your first alt unless you get alot of money/items/help from a high lvl player
-Scott
lvl grind at 75-100?
You can still get 1-2 lvls per hour at lvl 100...
If you have problems leveling at that lvl then you just have to read up on your profession better, maybe try to get some more friends to play with, join a guild if you're not in one.
If you are teaming then you will get to lvl 150 in notime and sadly even to lvl 200 way too fast..
If you never played AO, give it a try, you can play the 7 day trial so you don't have to pay anything.
But before you start you need to read up on the profession you want to play and also on how the game works, it can be hard to understand everything with skills, implants, abilities, buffs and all other stuff.
-------------------------
Azzazzimon
i was part of a guild, the great "Unity of Rubi-Ka"... but most were lvl 150+ or low lvl twinks... but with their help i did get items i needed and other stuff, but i soloed alone... by myself, never with anyone else, only times i teamed were to help people like when i joined unity, as a lvl 62 keeper i had helped a member's team kill aztur about 4 times before our team fell apart...
and i read all about my my profession, i was lvl 76 still with styg and lvl 125 omni-elite and still wearing that Guardian Tank Armor... eh... so i wasnt wearing the best, which most alts have, but i wasnt an alt
in reality your first character will most likely lvl 2-3 times slower than your first alt unless you get alot of money/items/help from a high lvl player
-Scott
If you soloing most of the times then leveling slow down in all MMOGs after awhile, none of them are made for soloing even if it's possible in AO.
If you feel it's slowing down at lvl 75-100 start joining teams, if you don't want that, then it will be extremly hard for you to ever get high lvl and you will have to settle with being lower lvl and socilize and have fun that way instead.
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Azzazzimon
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Azzazzimon
Well, although you tried to sabotage my thread and insult me, I'll give you a very fair review (lol j/k, all in good jest, at least in my case
):
I played both pre and post expansion.
There is very restricted pvp (limited to : If in area with pvp and if of enemy faction => you may attack (level constraint as well, which is rather stringent), there is also the arena (with global within))
The grind in Rubi-Ka is more rigorous than that of SL (which is as they had intended) and the grind in Rubi-ka is very mild compared to that of most games (like EQ, RO etc.), since (until lvl 100 or so) you will only need to kill 10-20 mobs (assuming optimal) for your level.
Classes are very balanced, but some classes are more apt for soloing than others.
In AO the player densities vary greatly, because of the split between non-SL and SL people, and because of the very easy grind (in the early lvls) that requires little to no grouping. Groups of players crowded in one area is very rare, partially due to the vastness of the AO world (which is HUGE).
If you enjoy exploration then AO is certainly for you, since the environments are variable and lush (with a myriad of different enemies (unlike the supposed remapped enemies of FFXI etc.)).
There are plenty of vehicles, but most of the efficient ones require insanely high lvls (for usage) (although there is ONE class with the ability to fly through magic).
There is barely any RPing...., but I have heard there are some guilds that do indeed RP (I haven't been in nor seen one ever). The story itself, although bereft of english errors and such, is sort of drab compared tolkien, but that isn't a fair comparison to begin with)
There is s free trial so why not decide for yourself ?
"Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'ni' at will to old ladies. There is a pestilence upon this land. Nothing is sacred."
MP
This is a sequence of characters intended to produce some profound mental effect, but it has failed.
Yup I think AO has the best PVP system I have ever been apart of.. The lvl restriction is needed due to the implant system.. Which basiclly allows you super tweak the hell out of your char.... Case in point on one of my twink PVP toons (lvl 20) I had lvl 75ish imps in and wielded a Frost Scythe (mid 200's damage in PVP)... Now would it be ok for this Lvl 15 char to be able to fight a lvl 9 char? Hell even if I had implants around lvl 15ish I would not be fare to fight the lvl 9 guy...
Back in the days prior to Sl PVP was a never ending circle, you could find fights any and everywhere and at all times of the night and day... Thats perhaps the greatest thing that I missed when SL came and destroyed AO.
DAMN YOU FUNCOM and your EQ 1.5 EXPANSION
------------------------------
You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
Big NO
I think mainly to the customer support system. Since you pointed out that you wanted to avoid a grieving game. Played game for almost 4 years. I bear through all the bugs, nerfing, and multiple times they alter the game, and still after all these I cant even get a reply from customer support. I have had friends with hacked accounts and no support. Yeah, grieving is part of this game if you intented to play it.
4 years?
The game was release June 2001..last time I checked it's June 2004 now..
Jun 2001-Jun 2002 = 1 year
Jun 2002-Jun 2003 = 1 year
Jun 2003-Jun 2004 = 1 year
Total 3 years.
So how did you squeeze out another year? (don't say you counted beta as playing the actual game..)
I agree about the customer support tho, it's just a big joke with people without knowledge about the game.
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Azzazzimon
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Azzazzimon
As far as customer support goes, I guess I don't rate a game by that. I can't think of a game I've played where my most fond memories is customer support. No matter how fast the reply is, the fact you needed customer support means something bad was happening to begin with. In AO I had some long response times and some incredibly short response times. In EQ, ditto. In AC2, E&B, DAoC, ditto. If I'm looking to play a new game the last thing I care about is what customer support is like since I'd naturally hope I never have to deal with them anyways.
I think AO was a great game and I've thought about going back to it many times. I get bored of games and hop around to the latest entries to the MMORPG or their betas. Throughout them all I always think back to the fun I had in AO.
In response to some negatives people have pasted onto AO.
1. Lack of role playing. Well in every other game out there roleplaying generally revolves around people speaking with thee's and thou's. That's obvsiouly not going to happen in AO. I figure just about anything you say while playing AO could be considered roleplaying. Talking about your car breaking down the other day? Why couldn't that be your character speaking? Met a girl? Could happen in AO. Computer crashed? Ditto. As far as I can tell whatever a person says in AO could be considered roleplaying if you wanted it to.
2. Level grind. Every game has a level grind. To get a higher level you have to do something. That means there's some form of grind or another. In AO I seemed to get plenty of levels at a decent rate. It never seemed like grinding to me UNTIL I got in a group that insisted we HAD to fight Mob X because they had the best xp for us. This leads us to...
3. Camping for xp or items. Some people like it, others don't. One argument I see repeated quite often about AO is that in order to level you HAVE to fight Mob X from lvls 70-100, Mob Y from lvls 100-120. Why? There's plenty of other things you can fight. It's just that some person sat down and calculated out that given X amount of time, allowing for average typing speed, need for the occasional bathroom break, and the phase of the moon that fighting "Mob X of doom" gives the optimal amount of experience. And because that mob was suddenly labeled as being the best to fight you get herds of people that just HAVE to fight only that mob. Forget that there's a TON of other mobs out there you can fight, or missions you can do. So what if you get a little less xp fighting anything but Mob X? You're forcing the boredom of camping on yourself. The game itself isn't forcing that on you.
The same then goes for camping for certain items. Now yes, there are certain things you HAVE to camp I suppose if you want to do a certain thing or another (thanks SL?) but nobody is forcing you to do that either. Just because Item X is the most uber item of its kind does not mean that you have to force yourself to sit in one spot for days on end to get it. You're perfectly capable of getting up and doing something else and just forgetting about Item X and settling for Item Y instead or maybe you'll even get lucky down the road and swing by the Item X camp to get it immediately without having spent days on your butt.
i spent a week at lvl 60 camping GTA... i kept suiciding er... didi i complain... yes... did i get it by soloing as was said to be teh best chance of getting it? no. how did i get it? a team i was i on my last day of the temple killed the gta and it dropped, a ninja looter took it and ran... grr... later it dropped again and the team gave it to me as thanks for helping them wipe the floor with azturs ass, being the 60 keeper i was... did i loot styg? no... i was camping GoT when someone pmed me asking if i needed it, i ran in looted it said thanks and left...
over all the experience i had in AO was nice... alot of nice people who help each other... one guy gave me a sword i needed just for transfering him items... another gave me a few free high lvl swords... i couldnt use yet, but would be nice when i could... one guy gave me ql 194 support armor chest... and orgs are nice too.. one i belonged to gave me full suit of 125 omni elite and one guy gave me 3mil for a yalm...
so heres the line : AO Is a game everyone should at least try.. and download the SL version for the 7 day trial... its all worth it... and read as many guides you can, just dont go strictly by them... randomly do stuff.. one thing i never did was stay in one place too long, in SL i wandered all around alone... sure i ran for my life at times, but overall i had fun exploring and killing what i could... have fun... its not about getting super uber...well maybe some.. but mostly to have fun
-Scott
You should at least try it, it is part of the mmorpg history in some ways.
I spread love and hate about this game since forever, still one of the best and most fun betas I ever participated in for example.
Try it on for fits, as many said it is quite daunting at start but i has a good tuorial built in and the first 50 lvl can be really awesome fun, mostly due to the fact that you lvl fast, you upgrade a lot and you see you character improve for real.
Allthough I recently quit due to the highend game and the coming AI expansion that has allready taken its toll on the community, i still say play it, for a mmorpg history lesson if nothing else
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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I think a problem people have playing the game is that they feel almost obligated to do nothing but fight hecklers in order to get their character to lvl 200 as fast as possible. Take a break from the hecks. Head back down to rubi-ka. Do some of the missions and special quest. PVP a little bit. It makes the game much more enjoyable than constantly trying to level.
Oh I saw some no role playing complaints. This is a problem in all mmo's. It's a dying part of the genre. mmos have made thier way to the casual gamer. They're not RPG fans as much as they are general gaming fans.
ao was a nice game 3 years ago
outdated now and with sl (EQ patch ) is no more enjoiable
grind..lag (outdated engine)..hecklers and stoopid key quests.
Anyone that like MMOs and have nto tried AO should. Just to see how huge and openended a game really can be, and how diverse in classes and skills.
AO has a lot to teach other games, both in style, ambience, and diversity in gaming experience.
I say, try it. It will be an eyeopener. Most newer games can only dream about that amount of toys to play with.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
i love it. play it.