Can a player start out in this game and expect to find anyone to level lower content with?  (Or return with some fairly low level characters as the case may be)

I played this game from the worst launch in MMO history   on for a few months.  It was really a great game with tons and tons of depth to the characters... and that is what I am missing in today's crap-MMOs

I played Tabula Rasa with the expectation that it would be a new and updated Anarchy Online.  I was monumentally disappointed.  I TR quit after a few weeks of my box month and returned this month to see if it had gotten any better.  if you can believe it, It got WORSE, slower, dumber and worse!

Anyhow, I was wondering with all the new expansions and content, would I be looking at a ghost town and solo leveling if I returned to AO for a little while?

You will be surprise when you see how crowded ICC Shuttleport is.

Anyway, in the training ground, it is possible to solo although some of the prof dies alot if you are not careful (shade and NT, namely).

If you want team, just sent a /tell to the person, and here you go.

Once you left the training ground, it really up to you to decide how to progress.  Its fast leveling in a team than solo. However, sometime you want to be alone, then its still workable as solo.

As a total newbie, talk to people. Ask questions. Don't be shy.

I just started myself, bout to do a lot of research after I get home about the factions and such. So much fun being a noob again lol.

Im on the 2nd Server if you want to team up my IGN is Sabeir. I play EST 1pm till whenever.

~HappyGaming

Me wants to play again, but I'm waiting for the new graphics engine to launch first!  Hopefully later this year!?

better to find a party.

If you want to solo, and are new, your best bets are either Adventurer or Martial Artist. But I wouldn't worry about it being a ghost town. I've never had trouble finding a group when I've wanted one.

Dont worry about not being able to get teams. Assuming that you have all the expansions, its even easier to level than only in the mainland. Shadowlands give the best exp and burst income while LE comes with a non level lock team alien missions which you get to earn sided tokens an Victory points which you will use to buy LE specified items.

IMO, we are spoiled with choice. If you are happen to be in RK-1, pst Aphelio and would be glad to team up with you.

just roll MA and solo is a breeze......

you can pretty much hunt or mission with impunity for the first 50 levels or more with an MA.

All professions can solo fairly well up until higher levels.    The key is knowing your profession, it's strengths and weaknesses.   Doing some research on your profession before you go to invest a lot of time in it would be ideal. 

However, from personal experience, you can solo well with any profession.  Some are slower than others but I've solo'd with every profession (except keeper and shade) up to or well past level 50......in fact I only have 1 toon under level 50....most are level 80 - 125 and 2 are higher than that.......1 of which is said to have the toughest time soloing and that's agent...however I have been able to solo pretty darn well with agent, but only at certain levels......all professions have a few tight levels where soloing is tought though....that's usually right at or before title level caps when you primary skills have reached max for that title level and can't be improved any more until you get to the next title level.

So far I have to say that before level 100 the hardest for me to level solo was doctor....the easiest was MP and Engy....that's only because I could twink out the pets and go fight stuff 50 - 100 levels higher than my toon (but equal to the pets) and gain massive xp.    Nothing like being level 80 with a level 200 pet and fighting level 200 - 220 monstors......looking at minimum 50,000 xp per kill upwards to 100,000 (depends on your level).     just as comparison...if you were fighting things equal or slightly higher than you, you'd only get around 1,500 - 3,000 xp per kill.....that's a big difference.  Typcially  you won't be able to fight stuff that much higher than you until around level 60 (for some professions like engineer or MP) or level 80, 90, 100 for other professions.   A fixer in GA can fight pretty much anything depending on which GA they are wearing...I've solo'd things in GA around 50 or so levels higher than my fixer....nothing like being level 50 with GA1 or GA2 on and killing level 100 mobs without a scratch to worry about.

doctors, advy's, and somewhat MA's can heal to make their survivability better and give them opportuntity to kill much higher level mobs.   the limiting factor in most higher level soloing is your own damage output and defense.....high defense with low damage makes it inefficient for soloing.......Unless your doing borgs where xp gains are hugely insane per kill.

As an example, I solo'd borgs as a fixer (non-GA...just lots of run speed and HOTS), Agent (massive Aimed shots and roots with a bit of run speed), MP (pets are awesome), Engineer (again pets are awesome) and Trader (but barely....a bit of luck required due to wide variety of damage with shotguns).    Each time, one kill could net me upwards of 100,000 xp per kill.   If I had banked xp, that number could get higher than that.....with my agent (though I was teamed at the time) I once got 130,000 xp from one borg kill when I was only level 78 or something.....but I had about 2 million xp in the bank from dying previously during missions and exploring PW and other places with high level  mobs.  So once that banked xp was reclaimed, my xp gains from borgs dropped back down to around 70,000 to 80,000 per kill.....still high considering I was getting less than 5,000 from mobs my level or 10 levels higher.

The most efficient soloing besides borgs though is team missions where you team with someone to get the team misson, then disband the team and you go at the mission alone (if you were the person to pull the mission).   They spawn double the mobs and a boss who gives massive xp and hopefully a rare item or two.....so xp is good and you could make 30 million or more off of a good rare drop as well.....and you gain tokens which help get you a nice little token board with massive bonuses and makes both soloing and twinking even easier.

bottom line, with the right knowledge and experience.....any profession can solo effectively.....there is no clear cut best in my opinion...at least not yet that I've seen....well other than fixers in GA or engineer with a level 200 slayer......but those are very rare indeed and not practical...besides they cost millions and well I didn't make my first million until someone gave my advy 1 million for winning a hide and seek contest in rome red...LOL  Actually I won 2 million from him because he ran multiple contest that day...

so anyway, pic the profession that is ideal to you and study up on it....go solo, have fun.    When you want to find a team, it's not hard.....unless you want to do something specific like a raid or something, then that's when finding a team is hard.    For just general leveling....you can find a team 5 minutes after logging on....just depends on the time of day....I play during off hours and occasionally I have trouble finding specific types of teams (foreman's team, smuggler den, borg team..etc.).....temple of three winds (TOTW) teams are the most common and easiest to find though....however it's not that common that you can't find a team at all when it comes to just leveling.    Even a two man team is available nearly all the time....someone always needs a parnter...especially if your a crat, doc or anyone with valueable buffs.

When can we expect to see some more screenshots for the new engine? Specifically, looking for Avatar shots, GUI and the game screen from a players perspective. All we have seen so far is enviroments. I take it all the item graphics will have to be re-done, as well as the control scheme? Perhaps implementing Conans real time combat would be a cool move as well!!?

Originally posted by starman999

just roll MA and solo is a breeze......

 

you can pretty much hunt or mission with impunity for the first 50 levels or more with an MA.

MA:s.. That sure makes me walk down memory lane :) Me and JasonX held tjhe record for solo leveling MAs from 1-200 back in the days when the QL 200 missions were the shit :D

A total playtime of 6 days from 1-200 solo with MA. Dont know if it still holds true tho, stopped playing my MA @ 203 and switched to Shade shortly after shadowlands launch. However, I do remember my crat to be quite the solo artist if I wanted to, twink the hell out of that char and u be having ur Ninja droid up at early 70s and charming 2 other mobs and pretty much soloing hecklers (the best XP mob at the time, not sure now tho).

Man, I think Im reactivating my account.

Originally posted by burdock2

When can we expect to see some more screenshots for the new engine? Specifically, looking for Avatar shots, GUI and the game screen from a players perspective. All we have seen so far is enviroments. I take it all the item graphics will have to be re-done, as well as the control scheme? Perhaps implementing Conans real time combat would be a cool move as well!!?

Very likely they won't do anything with QUI and Avatar graphics in begin. Just update water, some enviromental effects and nano effects from what I have understood. Main gain from update is that you get some help from GPU unlike now when CPU does all the work. I would say that AoC's combat-system is too hard to implement... QUI can be customized as now, so not sure if they will do anything major with it...

All the in-game textures will have to be processed to work with the new engine but they aren't going to 'change' anything about them, just run thru some batch code to make each item compatible with the new engine.  Game 'mechanics', such as combat isn't going to be touched.  As for the GUI, that works well as it is and there are also several alternative 'skins' out there already.

Hecks are still great solo XP gainers in the Shadowlands, but, nothing really in the RK other than the grinding missions. Unless you want to try the Merc camps

Originally posted by Baxslash

Hecks are still great solo XP gainers in the Shadowlands, but, nothing really in the RK other than the grinding missions. Unless you want to try the Merc camps

So basically the planeside of AO (which is where the froobs play) is mainly about grinding and the mission terminals.  Nothing much in the way of rolling quests etc.  Would I be correctly in assuming that?

I last played AO on a full account about 4 years ago, has much changed with regards to quests in Shadowlands?

At the time that I left, Alien Invasion was borked big style.  I take it that it got fixed.  Are there quests regarding AI?  Or is it still mainly based around spawning the mobs via drop ships?

Originally posted by Tarka

 

Originally posted by Baxslash

Hecks are still great solo XP gainers in the Shadowlands, but, nothing really in the RK other than the grinding missions. Unless you want to try the Merc camps

I was personally wondering about quest / mission opportunities myself and thanks for confirming this. 

 

So basically the planeside of AO (which is where the froobs play) is mainly about grinding and the mission terminals.  Nothing much in the way of rolling quests etc.  Would I be correctly in assuming that?

I last played AO on a full account about 4 years ago, has much changed with regards to quests in Shadowlands?

At the time that I left, Alien Invasion was borked big style.  I take it that it got fixed.  Are there quests regarding AI?  Or is it still mainly based around spawning the mobs via drop ships?

Froobs, either missions team ones likely, outdoor mobs(borgs/mercs etc.] or IS...

One major change with SL is inf missions with reward SK some 100k-150k... Also pretty good leveling if you can get as lowbie in.

AI is mainly farming now, bots are either from citys or new sectors S10 for 150lvl and S42 for 190/210+, axp can be attained from alien missions which are grinded to death for about 700-1k axp per kill...

Originally posted by Ekaros

 

Originally posted by Tarka

 

Originally posted by Baxslash

Hecks are still great solo XP gainers in the Shadowlands, but, nothing really in the RK other than the grinding missions. Unless you want to try the Merc camps

I was personally wondering about quest / mission opportunities myself and thanks for confirming this. 

 

So basically the planeside of AO (which is where the froobs play) is mainly about grinding and the mission terminals.  Nothing much in the way of rolling quests etc.  Would I be correctly in assuming that?

I last played AO on a full account about 4 years ago, has much changed with regards to quests in Shadowlands?

At the time that I left, Alien Invasion was borked big style.  I take it that it got fixed.  Are there quests regarding AI?  Or is it still mainly based around spawning the mobs via drop ships?

 

Froobs, either missions team ones likely, outdoor mobs(borgs/mercs etc.] or IS...

One major change with SL is inf missions with reward SK some 100k-150k... Also pretty good leveling if you can get as lowbie in.

AI is mainly farming now, bots are either from citys or new sectors S10 for 150lvl and S42 for 190/210+, axp can be attained from alien missions which are grinded to death for about 700-1k axp per kill...

So, if you're wanting something more a little varied and in-depth then the option is still Shadowlands yes?

And from what I've read on the main website, am I correct in assuming that Lost Eden is mainly PVP based?

Rubi-Ka and The Shadowns have about equal amounts of grind and quests.  Each Shadowlands playfield has quests to get to the next playfield, and most have some quests for obtaining some better nanos.  Rubi-ka has assorted quests at low and mid levels and longer quest chains for the hi lvl chars.

Leveling in Rubi-Ka and higher SL playfields is mainly by missions, lower Sl playfield leveling is grinding on hecklers, for the most part.  Get used to staring at moving rocks all day if leveling in some Shadowlands playfields.

Originally posted by burmese

Rubi-Ka and The Shadowns have about equal amounts of grind and quests.  Each Shadowlands playfield has quests to get to the next playfield, and most have some quests for obtaining some better nanos.  Rubi-ka has assorted quests at low and mid levels and longer quest chains for the hi lvl chars.

 

Leveling in Rubi-Ka and higher SL playfields is mainly by missions, lower Sl playfield leveling is grinding on hecklers, for the most part.  Get used to staring at moving rocks all day if leveling in some Shadowlands playfields.