I beta tested AO and their is not really no worthwhile high level game. Its like Las Vegas. Lots of big buildings and bright lights but the more you hang around it the more you see the shady side.
The random quest generator is ok. Just who wants to go on a random quest for x item with x better stats because you are at x better level.
Game does have nice graphics and amazing sounds. Lots of lag and lots of bugs though. Personally Neocron looks very similar (But much better at current state) imo.
Remember just my opinion here.
Review -- Anarchy Online
We are now just six weeks away from the release of Anarchy Online, the first new MMORPG to come out in more than a year. Rumors keep flying about whether or not the game will be ready for prime time. Certainly the version that the current beta testers are playing is still extremely unstable. Still, I thought I would review the game based upon my current experiences with it.
I have been beta testing this game for a while now. A lot of changes are still being made to the game, so this review is likely already dated to some extent. The game has great potential. The graphics and sound effects are excellent. The first time I got caught in a planet storm, I just stood in awe as lightning flashed all around me and chunks of ground flew in the air due to the force of the strikes. I also never got so much use out of my computer's subwolfer. Battles both look and feel really intense and the world has a nice grainy washed out feel that truly fits the theme it is shooting for.
There are also quite a few nice touches throughout the world that make it interesting to look at and explore. The world is huge. I can't imagine how long it would take to see all of it. Unfortunately, many of the areas seem pretty empty right now. I am assuming that they are still filling in detail and there will be more life in the final release. There seems to be very little interaction with the npc's, which I think is a shame, but you often run into cool graphical effects which are obviously just in there to make things look more interesting and add some fun. Again, it is hard to judge this aspect in beta, since the detail work is often the last thing to get added to a game prior to release.
The gameplay is still being tweaked. The good part is that soloing seems to be not only possible but viable through most of the life of your character. I personally found that things were just a little too easy to kill. You get too much experience for killing the easy Mobs and not enough for killing the tough ones. Money is also very difficult to accumulate. However, I would assume that this is going to be one of the focuses as they go into the final testing phase, and there will be more balance at release. There is a nice combination of range and close up attacks and a ton of nano spells for every profession, more than you will possibly be able to use for your character.
The one thing that I think will take the most adjustment is the way that the professions (i.e. classes) are handled. There are good points and bad points to their system. The good part is that you are not totally locked into a set pattern just because of your profession. Spells (called nanos) are set for each profession, but skills are not. You are allotted a set amount of skill points per level to boost up a selection of skills. However, the points do not boost the skills on a one to one bases. Instead, your profession dictates how easy or hard it is to boost certain skills. Thus, your caster types can learn fighting skills, but at the cost of quite a few of their skill points. This allows you to develop your character the way you like it rather than the way the developers dictated it.
The bad part of this system is that it is much harder to put together a random group and immediately know the roles everyone should play. In Everquest, everyone knows the set roles each class should play in a group and you can often just create a group of strangers and start fighting. With Anarchy Online, you won't know if the player you are adding to the group has specialized in hand to hand fighting, ranged fighting, spell casting, or something else. You don't even know what spells they should have. This can on one hand promote more interesting encounters, as each group should have its own unique dynamic. But on the other hand, I am not sure if it won't discourage random grouping simply due to the difficulty of determining who best fits with your fighting style.
I have not tested out the pvp areas of the game, but that is clearly a large focus of the developers. The ongoing war between the clans and the omnitek corporation should lead to some interesting strategies and encounters. What I have seen of it seems pretty well thought out. You have the option of playing a neutral character who is not part of the wars and thus cannot be attacked. Later, you can choose to forego your neutrality and join up with either side. Or you can just pick a side from the start. Certain zones have suppression gasses that do not allow agression, so you can choose to play in areas where you are safe from attack or head to the front lines of the battle. I am guessing that after a while the pvp aspects will become predominant, and many players will spend more time fighting the war than fighting the Mobs in the enviroment.
Finally, one of the most interesting aspects of the game is the mission system. With this system, you can go to a mission machine and choose a quest. When you accept it, a mini dungeon is created just for you or your group, complete with its own mobs and treasures. Under the current beta, this system is still very flawed, but it really has promise. I like the idea that when I only have an hour or two to play, I can just grab a mission and clear out a dungeon and perhaps feel like I accomplished something in that short time.
As you can see, I like the game. The science fiction aspect of it is a nice change of pace. It is kind of fun to be going around blasting things with machine guns and flame throwers. My biggest concern with this game is whether it is truly ready to be released. The current beta version is very unstable. Compared to where EQ was at this stage, or even to the current version of Dark Age of Camelot there seem to be an inordinate amount of bugs. I am not enough of a programmer to know how easy those troubles will be to fix in the six weeks they have left. If they do get them fixed, this is definitely a game to check out. It may not suit everyone's style, but it offers a nice change of pace from Everquest.
If you want to read more about the game, you can go to their main site through this link.
You can purchase an advance copy of Anarchy Online on Amazon.com through this link.
Tags: AnarchyOnline, News