Is AO worth playing the free game?

Or is a waste of time, sick of every MMO! All i play is Runescape but I'm seeking something more!

Ao might be it...

Is it worth playing the free part until hitting a certain level/experloring and experincing it all and then venture into a paying customer?

What do you think?

Whats the crafting/harvesting like in this?

Whats a good newbie class to go for?

its free, so just download it if you are slightly interested
but do expect mediocre graphics, bad customer support, and a bit of cred spam (not as bas as "insert korean f2p game here" but its there.
crafting is ingame, and u can make a fair bit of money on it when u reach the higher lvls, u also make xp with crafting.. but thats only a tiny amount so dont expect lvling up by crafting.
good newbie classes are martial artist and adventurer (i prefer to start with the MA)

most people who start out as free players (and like the game) will go on paying customers, like i did.

and for the record, ao + notum wars (1st expansion) = free, ao+notum wars+shadowlands (2nd expansion, offers A LOT) = 5 bucks a month and ao+notum wars+shadowlands+alien invasion+lost eden = 15 bucks a month. theres also the xan booster pack but that is for lvl 210-220 players ONLY, so dont bother with that if the game suits you and you want to subscribe.

good luck with it, will take you a while to figure everything out ;)

Originally posted by 3on1

 ao+notum wars+shadowlands+alien invasion+lost eden = 15 bucks a month.

...and that's if you pay for it on a monthly basis.

if you change the subscription period you get different rates.

3 months at a time = $12 a month

6 months at a time = $10 a month

a year at a time = $8 a month.

As for newbie classes, it depends on your playstyle.  Adventurer is a good all-round class to start with.

Also if you're playing for the first time, I highly recommend you avoid heckler teams in the shadowlands--yes that's the fastest way to level by far, but if you reach the higher levels without adequate equipment or game knowledge to support yourself you'll have no sympathy from other players at all.

Course with the status of Funcom's finacial standing atm, I wouldn't give them too much money in case it all goes south overnight suddenly.  More than likely wouldn't get it back...

From what I understand ad revenue from AO is adequate to cover AO's cost of operation. So even if AoC crashes and burns totally, AO will still be around.

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Originally posted by Khrymson
 
Course with the status of Funcom's finacial standing atm, I wouldn't give them too much money in case it all goes south overnight suddenly.  More than likely wouldn't get it back...
 

---

 
the situation was the worst when they released aoc, now (months later) fc aint dead and they are only getting more money and the short term loans aint a real issue anymore. instead they are working on multiple mmos and have hired a few new ppl in past few weeks.
also i have to drop the cred spam issue, today a patch introduced a few things including:
- Shopping channels will now be limited to level 11+ to help combat spamming issues.
great move by FC, lvling to 10 takes about an hour, bit less. so no more cred spammers who get banned every min but come back with a new toon every min
 
edit: ah ban is only shopping channels (im blind ^^) so they can still use every other channel, global chat lock would work, prolly in the next patch if the community make themselves heard :)

Originally posted by Khrymson

Course with the status of Funcom's finacial standing atm, I wouldn't give them too much money in case it all goes south overnight suddenly.  More than likely wouldn't get it back...

AO has been up for past 7 or 8 years, it's not going to die very soon, also they have stated that they will keep it up, atleast if it stays on it own and doesn't go on red...

Acctualy I don't realy know about finacial stuff, but their reports don't look bad.

Customer retention improving in Age of Conan in early 2009

 The free game is plenty of fun.  But it's not worth upgrading to the paid subscription.

Recent (paid version) content updates have just been adding more "uber" items for endgame players, and not actually making the game better.

At lower levels, the game is pretty dead since Funcom is only focused on keeping people from leaving rather than bringing in new people with interesting low level content.

I've been a paid subscriber off and on, and in general I've put much more time into and have gotten much more enjoyment out of my free characters.   Less grind, less stress from items I should have but don't care to fork out $40 on "expansions" (Lost Eden and Xan) that add nothing but more grind and replacement items.

OP:   Anarchy Online is an incredible, one of a kind game.

That said, I have to warn you...it is old. It looks old, and feels old. It is not for the casual player...you cannot log in for an hour and expect to make any progress.

My advice: grab the fr00b (free) client, and level to about 50. Maybe try a couple different classes, since it doesn't take long to hit 50. As mentioned above, Martial Artist and Adventurer are great starting classes, with MA being the easiest and cheapest to level. Too often Advys are grouped for heals, and as a n00b, you don't want that thankless job.

See if you like it. If so, at least grab Shadowlands, and AI. This will more than double the content available to you, give you 2 more classes, more $$ making opportunities, and really nice gear. Gimps are NOT appreciated in AO, and limiting yourself to basic equipment will not get you a group. A fixer with a MCS is good, but a fixer with a Perennium is much better.

Learn about Implants, and learn to twink. Get the biggest nastiest gear you can, don't abandon your groups, don't open chests in combat, and don't ninja loot. Make a name for yourself, and you'll get groups, and will have a great time.

And most importantly....go Omni!! Omni-Tek is your friend!!

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

OP:   Anarchy Online is an incredible, one of a kind game.

That said, I have to warn you...it is old. It looks old, and feels old. It is not for the casual player...you cannot log in for an hour and expect to make any progress.

My advice: grab the fr00b (free) client, and level to about 50. Maybe try a couple different classes, since it doesn't take long to hit 50. As mentioned above, Martial Artist and Adventurer are great starting classes, with MA being the easiest and cheapest to level. Too often Advys are grouped for heals, and as a n00b, you don't want that thankless job.

See if you like it. If so, at least grab Shadowlands, and AI. This will more than double the content available to you, give you 2 more classes, more $$ making opportunities, and really nice gear. Gimps are NOT appreciated in AO, and limiting yourself to basic equipment will not get you a group. A fixer with a MCS is good, but a fixer with a Perennium is much better.

Learn about Implants, and learn to twink. Get the biggest nastiest gear you can, don't abandon your groups, don't open chests in combat, and don't ninja loot. Make a name for yourself, and you'll get groups, and will have a great time.

And most importantly....go Omni!! Omni-Tek is your friend!!

Yes, AO is special. Leveling about 50 gives atleast some insight of class, of course some classes differ later and also with SL.

If you are going to get more expansions than just SL, get them all, cost difference is neglible and later it's better.

Gear is most important part with knowledge of which skills works for which class. Knowledge is everything.

And I agree Omni-Tek is your friend, don't join terrorist ;D

No... SL and the other expansions are a grind fest coupled with ridiculous long winded quests (cough... schoel)and silly things such as collecting books for specializations. The classic game by itself was the best until sl ruined it. There is plenty to do as a froob. Don't worry you won't miss much if you don't pay grind hecklers all day,grind aliens all day, wait all day for invites to battle station to grind vp which never happens since game pop is dead.

Case in point:

The previous poster clearly is one of those who "have to reach endgame by yesterday", and becomes a bitter burnout by grinding high-XP mobs 24/7 instead of trying to enjoy the game.

Originally posted by Khenthir

Case in point:

 

The previous poster clearly is one of those who "have to reach endgame by yesterday", and becomes a bitter burnout by grinding high-XP mobs 24/7 instead of trying to enjoy the game.

Is he really? Or do you only try to put him in a bad light because his opinion doesn't comply with what you think others should be thinking?

Case in point:

I have played AO for several years now, with nearly my entire focus on one character and always taking it easy. I've always tried to avoid grinding anything as much as possible. After all these years I still don't have a max level character. But I still agree, with the person you claim to be a 24/7 hardcore grinder, that AO without SL was a much nicer game. I like it more without the grind upon grinds that were added with SL and later expansions.

The latest booster (Legacy of Everquest) is a total disaster in that respect. It has 3 team instances where all the loot drops. But accessing these isn't easy* : first you need to complete every single other quest that came with the booster, and on several occasions grind for several items/mobs. The quests themselves are long, boring and tedious** and offer no reward till you complete them, then you get one item for both questlines and access to one of the final 3 areas. After doing 2 of these final areas once each (so after completing all 2 quest chains) you finally get access to the final area.

These 3 final areas take about 10 minutes each to complete, a fraction of what it takes to complete all previous quests, yet all loot comes from here. Then players would have to repeatedly redo these areas to get the loot they want. How many times would the players have to redo an area to get everything they want? With the latest droprate numbers I've heard, it's about 72 times (1/12 dropchance for HHaB upgrade item, 6 teammembers). That's what I call grindy.

*Well, literally it is easy, for the most part there's not all that much challenge to be had in the quests apart from how grindy they are.

**Certainly the one in Arid Rift, there the tedium is traveling time and while Arid Rift itself is a rather small zone, FC tried to squeeze as much traveling time into as little space as possible. When you finally get a quest that is close to the zones entrance, the questgiver himself will be on the other side of the map. Unfortunately they don't have mobile phones in the future so you once again need to run/grind back and forth the entire map to complete your quest. All quests are timed, so you need to complete a single quest ( 1 get to questgiver; 2 get to questplace; 3 complete quest; 4 get back to questgiver) in a single playing session, making it so that casual players are months behind the 24/7 players while having to invest much more /played time into the quest in order to complete it.

I absolutely agree that pre-SL AO was a FAR superior game.

BUT...due to the very nature of AO, the items, perks, etc available with the expansions are NECESSARY in order to be vaible in the game....unless you are content to be a "lower class citizen", aka a fr00b.

Let me see...I'm building a group....do I take a couple of fr00bs who don't have the perks and DPS that I want, or do I grab people who will make the group stronger?? Hm....I wonder.

Gee...do I take the fr00b crat without insurance perks, or the keeper??

Not really a tough choice.

Unfortunately, the expansions are a necessary evil.

"
On to much more important things:

TestLive is now running at the IPSoft hosting center. The move happened on Thursday after the update to the Live dimensions. This is a very significant step in moving to our new host in our efforts to bring you guys better stability and performance. Going hand-in-hand with this move will be a move to newer and simply "more" machines. A veritable wall of hardware is being thrown at the lag issue to see if we can reduce its impact on your enjoyment of AO. This is not an insignificant investment and I am thankfull that after almost 8 years company management still has the faith and pride in AO to continue to invest in the future of our world in both development and support for our initiatives. This is a very, very good week for us...even when taking into account that we just patched on a Friday.

Assuming all looks well we hope to migrate completely (all dimensions) to our new host and new hardware within the next month.

Progress! Progress! Progress!

From Macrosun:

"secret testlive get-your-chat-bot-working protip: chat server is cm2.dt.funcom.com:7109"

Cheers,

Colin "Means" Cragg"
 

Likely they aren't killing it any time soon...

Originally posted by Wharg0ul

I absolutely agree that pre-SL AO was a FAR superior game.

BUT...due to the very nature of AO, the items, perks, etc available with the expansions are NECESSARY in order to be vaible in the game....unless you are content to be a "lower class citizen", aka a fr00b.

Let me see...I'm building a group....do I take a couple of fr00bs who don't have the perks and DPS that I want, or do I grab people who will make the group stronger?? Hm....I wonder.

Gee...do I take the fr00b crat without insurance perks, or the keeper??

Not really a tough choice.

Unfortunately, the expansions are a necessary evil.

With the almost non-existant population as there is now, the "Do I take a fr00b or SL00b?" question becomes more of a "Is there anyone for me to take?" predicament.

pop is fine on rk1 and rk2. rk3 is dead tho

Originally posted by 3on1

pop is fine on rk1 and rk2. rk3 is dead tho

RK3 is indeed dead. But you're living in extreme denial if you claim RK1 and Rk2 pops are "fine". You could merge RK1 and RK2 and barely scratch the edge of "fine".

Originally posted by WisebutCruel

Originally posted by 3on1

pop is fine on rk1 and rk2. rk3 is dead tho

 

RK3 is indeed dead. But you're living in extreme denial if you claim RK1 and Rk2 pops are "fine". You could merge RK1 and RK2 and barely scratch the edge of "fine".

Aww... Is it really that bad? I have been considering to check the game again, maybe rolling a totally new toon. I was last time around when Lost Eden launched (my server was RK 1, Atlantean). If I recall it it wasn't hard to get teams back in the day.

Originally posted by WisebutCruel

Originally posted by 3on1

pop is fine on rk1 and rk2. rk3 is dead tho

 

RK3 is indeed dead. But you're living in extreme denial if you claim RK1 and Rk2 pops are "fine". You could merge RK1 and RK2 and barely scratch the edge of "fine".

mwah mayb rk1 might be a bit low on pop right now but its set back to the default server for new players so it should even out with rk2 in a few months. i agree that on the lower lvls in shadowlands there are more solo players then teams but enough ppl running around, the froob pop is (as it always has been) great for the lower lvls but at lvl 130+ most ppl start to get bored with the lvling and roll an alt, or leave the game

@ guy above me: as a free player u will no probs with getting a team till lvl 130ish, at least on rk1 and rk2.

in the meantime the german server, rk3, might be merging with rk1.. they are holding a survey on the german forums right now to see the players their opinion about the server pop of rk3 and what actions should be taken. it might merge with rk1 for example, but it might just stay as it is.