Alien Invasion is absolutely not solo friendly, it was designed to be more raid oriented and sadly enough nothing was provided for more solitary players :(

A summary:

You need a team to do AI raids. You or people in your team need access to an AI city, which is not a given for low level players.

The AI raidzones are also not single player friendly. In the level <150 one only 2 of the bosses can be solod by skilled players of the right profession (this used to be possible at least, the bosses might have received additional buffing because they were not intended to be soloed), you basically need a team to get a shot at the good stuff. The high level AI raidzones are worse, you need atleast a team to accomplish anything in them.

ps: you might have mistaken Alien Invasion for Anarchy Online so for safety reasons: AI is an expansion to AO, it is possible to solo in AO :p

What struck me more was this part: "World of Warcraft released roughly six months after City of Heroes and we, of course, know its success. One of the truly amazing features was that a player could solo effectively the vast amount of the game. Certainly, this told us something at Cryptic. But more important than that was the feedback from our fans. They simply didn't like the idea that they would need to stop their mission in order to go find help. And you know what? The players were right!" 

I haven't played either game at launch, but just looking at all the fundamental changes to CoH during the first issues, I would say that the big difference was that Blizzard actually managed to launch a polished game, unlike Cryptic . If Jack Emmert thinks what made the difference was that not all ATs in CoH could solo everything, then Champions Online is in for some big trouble.

edit: nvm, misread something and there was already an answer to my question

Is the 5$ package AO+NW+SL, without AI and LE?

I used to be a paying player with all expansions so I didn't update a froob account to that package, but I can give you my 2c.

Without AI and LE you will be a lot less competitive in comparison to players that do have those expansions, you probably don't stand a chance in pvp against any halfdecent player that does have all expansions. In pve you would be systematically outdamaged/outtanked/outhealed/... Just as with a froob account your disadantage to paying players will increase as you increase in level, full expansions players will probably have the biggest edge over you at 220.

Personally I would not upgrade my froob account to the 5$ a month package. I would keep the account free of charges so I could always come back for free, once upgraded you cannot downgrade it again. You could however make a new froob account and upgrade that so you can start exploring SL from level 1, till you get tired of it or upgrade entirely :)

If you had laid out your problem like you did in the OP, most players would have instantly known what bug you were talking about, so it surprises me they didn't.

As for your experiences on the official forums:

Not giving additional information because you yourself don't think it doesn't matter is a bad move imo, it could just matter and it helps other people determine what stats do or don't matter when more people start reporting the same bug. In your case level probably mattered because the villainous/heroic bug didn't change the actual mission difficulty, so most likely you had an old mission from a few levels ago.

Another thing is that many forumposters are indeed lazy (post first, read later) and sometimes rather stupid, but that doesn't mean you should start insulting them. Personally, if I was a mod I would have given you a temp ban for the language you used in the OP. You could also answer in a polite manner that their posts are already answered and if they annoy you that much you can put them on ignore instead (which I advice you do with me, because I can see your next flame already flying my way).

Originally posted by Gilgameesh

Omni get a neck that increase the amount of xp gain so they can level faster than Clan.

Both clan and omnis get those neck-items ( http://auno.org/ao/tokenboards.html ), only neutrals do not. Neutrals do have access to other, although less good, neck-items that work as ersatz for the tokenboards and that don't require tokens.  

And I agree with the choice of the OP, keep all options open till you find a group you connect with :)

No, Rubi-Ka and the Shadowlands run on the same engine.

Shadowlands is a couple of years younger though (but it's still very old as well) and it has a somewhat more detailed geography+textures and some armors that look less bland than the free ones. But it's still ugly to todays standards

0) Everyone uses froob (the free player accounts) as transfer mules and banks, duallog them and put them in a quiet place with all graphical+sound stuff off and you can keep them logged in without to much problem.

1) The best money making is selling stuff to other players imo. Engies+traders are somewhat better at that because they can tradeskill stuff themselves to get a higher profit margin. Everyone can buy low and sell high on the market and gms (prices fluctuate a lot, so if you keep track a bit and are patient you can make a lot of money without any effort).

Everyone can also kill mobs for loot (most steady source of income would be dynabosses in SL for symbiant patterns+rare drops (you'll have to know what sells to know what's worth killing), or if you have access to an AI city: farming AI generals for bots to make AI armor). The best suited profs for this are imo: adventurers/shades/MAs/keepers(/crats but takes somewhat more skill, don't powerlevel ;)), because they can kill fast and have enough surviveability.

Fixers get a +% on chest loot (+10% at level 216, which gives the most reliable source of high ql implants/clusters+tower components+crit scopes+stims/rechargers). A fixer pulling team missions and a calmer going through it also makes very good money.

For farming stuff and selling it to shops for credits: traders get to sell to the trader shop (in specialist shop or something) and also have the most comp. lit. for an additional %cred bonus. They are however slow killers and not the best blitzers. Best blitzers for money are still fixers imo (animas+battlesuits) who can sell to omni or miy shops for not much less money than a trader shop. Farming pearls in SL dungeons is also a reasonably fast money making method, but you'll want a good dd prof again :p.

As a trader you can probably also wrangle people for tips, which will make good money at low levels.

2) Yes, darn ugly.

3) Shades > MAs > soldiers/advy, pet profs can also be very good DD (bureaucrat+shade are probably the top dmg dealers), but their damage doesn't come as easily and is less useful in large raids (pets+lags+everyone else alphakilling mobs = useless pets). NTs are for most of their life stuck with levellocked nanos while others twink into weapons, and even at 220 their damage is still not comparable at all with the top DD. Traders are by far the worst DD at endgame.

4) Camping is still very popular in AO, but I allways preferred to buy+resell and use mostly not-nodrop stuff, since as a casual player i didn't outgrow my equip very fast and could just wait on the market fluctuations.

5) Nanonanny is still good, no idea what the best one is because i just settled for nano nanny as well :p

The atlantean recruitment forums: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/forumdisplay.php?f=412

You can also try aofroobs.com ( http://www.aofroobs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2767 ).

Level 7 is also very low to search for an org, only a couple hours played, so i'dd level a bit more and apply to an org with a char that you wish to continue with.

ps: try to find an org with people actively playing lowbies and not just powerleveling them, aofroobs would be my best bet for that.