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[AO] Anarchy Online, anyone else a Froob?
zhen_rogue
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Anarchy Online!
http://www.anarchy-online.com/wsp/anarchy/frontend.cgi?func=frontend.show&template=main
Play for free! (Original game + notum wars only, level 200max)
http://www.anarchy-online.com/wsp/anarchy/frontend.cgi?func=frontend.show&template=drill&func_id=1088&navID=1003,1005,1070,1088
I'm wondering if any PA people are still playing this innovative (for its time) MMORPG?
The people who play for free (called "froobs") seem to have a blast, and so I thought to give it a try.
Well, thy were right - and I also forgot just how deep this game really is.
I've been shirking my work duties for days now, browsing website after website of all the tradeskills, items, quests, implants (yikes), profession developments, blitzing debates, etc. trying to re-train myself.
I had several characters in the 100-150 level range previously, and it amazes me at how little to none of the basics I remembered - clicksaver and "alvin" pads were about it.
I'm having a blast re-learning, re-leveling, and developing my new little Fixer.
However, i'm essentially alone, as my previous account is a "pay" account (which I don't want to re-activate), and my old corporations are gone/empty.
So - does anyone else play as a "froob"?
OR
Do any PA people still actively play on RK1 or RK2?
If so, do any PA-friendly corps exist?
If so, do they allow non-leaching, non-begging, non-"blitz me omfg now" froobs to join?
If so, are they currently accepting applications?
This game is a LOT more fun with friends to mission with, and hit static dungeons with, so i'm trying to determine who else out there in PA-land might still be enjoying this gem of a game.
http://www.anarchy-online.com/wsp/anarchy/frontend.cgi?func=frontend.show&template=main
Play for free! (Original game + notum wars only, level 200max)
http://www.anarchy-online.com/wsp/anarchy/frontend.cgi?func=frontend.show&template=drill&func_id=1088&navID=1003,1005,1070,1088
I'm wondering if any PA people are still playing this innovative (for its time) MMORPG?
The people who play for free (called "froobs") seem to have a blast, and so I thought to give it a try.
Well, thy were right - and I also forgot just how deep this game really is.
I've been shirking my work duties for days now, browsing website after website of all the tradeskills, items, quests, implants (yikes), profession developments, blitzing debates, etc. trying to re-train myself.
I had several characters in the 100-150 level range previously, and it amazes me at how little to none of the basics I remembered - clicksaver and "alvin" pads were about it.
I'm having a blast re-learning, re-leveling, and developing my new little Fixer.
However, i'm essentially alone, as my previous account is a "pay" account (which I don't want to re-activate), and my old corporations are gone/empty.
So - does anyone else play as a "froob"?
OR
Do any PA people still actively play on RK1 or RK2?
If so, do any PA-friendly corps exist?
If so, do they allow non-leaching, non-begging, non-"blitz me omfg now" froobs to join?
If so, are they currently accepting applications?
This game is a LOT more fun with friends to mission with, and hit static dungeons with, so i'm trying to determine who else out there in PA-land might still be enjoying this gem of a game.
zhen_rogue on
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Posts
It has great, great mechanics. But the graphics are absurdly outdated and it's item system is relatively confusing.
I hope that they rebuild it one day. I was given a press tour by a GM when Alien Invasions came out, and there is very intelligent game design buried deep, deep within it. Too deep to bother with, unfortunately.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
Love the music, loved fixers and crats.
I played AO waaay back when it was first released.. when the community went nuts because the account creation site was un-secured and everyone was sure all our numbers were gonna be stolen.
I did like the game, and enjoyed playing an Enforcer and an Adventurer. In the end I was put-off by the fact that enemies would run right up into your face and shoot you (It seemed so stupid for two people to be standing face-to-face, shooting the hell out of one another, sorta like a constant version of the elevator scene from Smokin' Aces). I also had something of a crummy computer that couldn't handle the memory leaks AO was infamous for in its early days, so I eventually just kinda drifted away from it.
I've gotten a few e-mails from the company inviting me to come back and play free.. for awhile I considered it but ultimately I'm a WoW whore.
The "Froob" limitations are thus:
1. At the first of the year 2008, Funcom will re-evaluate the "Free" player accounts - they might stay, or they might go, based on whether they're losing money or making money.
2. Free accounts are limited to the original game, and notum wars (you CAN participate in tower battles). This means the keeper and shade classes are not available to Froobs. This also means that perks and alien experience is not available. Lastly, this means you can't equip or use weapons/armor/items/etc in the expansions past notum wars (items all have a "flag" as to what expansion they are from).
3. Froobs are "limited" to level 200.
we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
It's unique among the free-play programs out there in that it offers the ENTIRE original classic game (and now, the first booster pack, Notum Wars). The only limitations are things that are only offered in expansion content. Granted, this is a lot: levels from 200-220, Perks (like DnD Feats), Alien Invasion levels, a lot of cheesy and uber equipment. But it should not detract from the enjoyment of the game much, as most of this content is experienced in a separate playfield (Shadowlands or Alien motherships) and the equipment is geared for those playfields. Even better, you don't get any of the technical glitches and bugs that plagued Anarchy Online at its release, as all of these have been ironed out (at least for Classic AO... they still keep fixing/introducing new bugs with the expansions *grins*).
It's a dated game. It's more akin to Everquest than WoW in terms of graphics and flashy lights. But it's free, and has more depth in character development and sheer volumes of equipment than most other games out there. The thing I appreciate about the game is the relative lack of level-locks for most equipment (there are still some level-locked items).
Froobs also can't post on the official forums, but they can read posts there. Most of the froobs that I know hang out at AOFroobs.com, a community geared toward Froobs and ex-Froobs (those who have turned to the dark side *grin*).
The only thing that really ever bugged me was mentioned above, that 'shooty' mobs would run up in your face to shoot you.
Good times.
Oh the days killing OT and rollerrats outside of Tir because I didn't know what I was supposed to do.
I miss me some AO
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Played it many years ago and it was my 1st MMORPG. Got my adventurer up to 208 before I got tired of grinding away on Hecklers, last I heard they introduced missions into shadowlands which got me interested, but I gave away all my stuff.
My adventurers name was Benjy (spent 95% of his life in leet form), played for the Omni-tek Org Legion, previously known as Trinity. Had alot of good times, though I can't say I like Notum Wars, I lost count of the amount of times I only got 3 hours of sleep before work because some bastard clan attack 1 of our bases. O_o
I'm still waiting for a decent sci-fi mmorpg to replace it, I really have a hard time liking fantasy games.
Still got a few of my old screenshots
The 1st ever Santa Leet!
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I'm trying to make a decent Solitus Engineer. Anything I should get before I leave Newbie Island (the screwdriver seems important)?
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
I second about missing this game. Tried it out for a bit and had a blast few years back. Might pop back in again between WoW and school to see if my char's still around.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
EVEN WITH THE TRAINS
no, but TBH I'd really recommend not doing an engy as your first. It can be a fairly complex class, most of the pet type classes (MP's, crats) are.
I'd really recommend a soldier or a enforcer, maybe a NT. A fixer is about as advanced of a class I'd really say is reasonable for a new player to give a shot to.
I'm just afraid you'll get frustrated with some class-specific frustrations (engys can take awhile before they're strong, or even useful) and not see how much fun can be had.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
If your gettting a "cant write" error, you need to open the properties on the AO folder and turn off "Read Only"
Also im playing an Engiee on RK2 Clan side named Jeshal, look me up guys.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
Edit: Also im playing a tradeskill hybrid engiee, so If I can get the tools/skills, I can knock up Crab/Junkmetal armour for everyone.
@Norgoth: sure man
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
And a coffee machine and a briefcase. Even a suit.
Engiees are actually really easy.
1)Raise bot skills
2)Over buff bot skills
3)Summon a bot of like a retarded level above you
4)???????
5)Profit.
It gets complex if you go the tradeskills route and make like the engiee pistol and stuff. But for like juts killing, its easy as hell. God I dont even fight. I just send in my bot, stand out of LOS and just drop heals on it.
Also, the really high run speed and using two handed machine guns.
But I never got grid armor, too bad.
Edit: Man, overbuffing/overequipping was nice in theory, but then I'd just get headaches as I die and lose a key item or lose a key buff and then there's a huge chain of losing everything I needed to reach that point.
That's why my metaphysicist was cool. That class had the vast majority of the good or hard to find buffs. But pet pathing sucked.
Still Bureaucrats seems lots of fun(there is something wrong with this stament) :pets, domination and some healing.
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Apparently, initially installing the game has a few issues, as there isn't a decent mirror of a fully patched client program anywhere that I know of. It does okay during the patching process if you only do one patch per run. If you do multiple patches in a row, though, there is a tendancy for things to get borked.
The solution to this is to either patch one at a time, closing the client after every patch (d'oh) or manually download the patches from the FTP site: ftp://ftp.funcom.com/cd/patches
You can also find the 17.1.1 installer (the most recent version that I've seen) of the small client here:
ftp://ftp.funcom.com/cd/AOInstall17.1.1_EP0_live_nointro
You can easily buy the screwdriver later (trade department of any general store). I would keep a spare Solar-Powered Pistol (not to be confused with a Solar-Powered Adventuring Pistol), in case you decide to make the Solar-Powered Master Engineer Pistol in the future (a gun that levels up along with you, if you can find/buy the parts for it, and probably the only decent use for Weaponsmithing for Froobs... at least until patch 17.6). There are some items that you can ONLY purchase on Newbie Island like the Omni-Tek Technical Library and the Omni Smelling Salts, but these aren't totally necessary. Sometimes you can get someone on the mainland to buy the Newbie Island items for a much larger sum of money (usually 50k to 500k, depending on the Dimension and demand).
As far as easy playing, Engineers are actually not bad for a first profession. While you may have difficulty when you first start out in combat (your damage output will be anemic, for you and your bot), your IP allocation is incredibly simple (bigger bot = More MC/TS).
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Implants that you can put on yourself, isn't "going above your level" or over-buffing/over-equipping.
Edit: And hell, pretty much any time I would put in implants, I tried to at least get generic buffs like the Agent agility one, or a small wrangle. Then you die or something and lose a few items and boom, all the implants are OE.
There very similar, just the crat is a lot more focused on CC rather than damage. On a previous cha (also an engiee) I grouped with a crat and all we did was summon bots, tame two mobs, then set our pets to hunt and chilled out in the entrance.
You made implant sets to squeeze into a higher implant set, which let you get buffs and put on the REAL implant set that was WAAAAAY over your level.
They nerfed it at one point, but you could still reach dizzy levels of power by working with spreedsheets and such and figuring out how to fit into it all.
Currently DMing: None
Characters
[5e] Dural Melairkyn - AC 18 | HP 40 | Melee +5/1d8+3 | Spell +4/DC 12
The only thing that was nerfed (that I recall) is the Tutoring device cheese, which was a bug that allowed you to get WAY higher NCU than you normally could by repeatedly spamming a Tutoring device on yourself. Incidentally, this also made equipping items with a Tradeskill requirement a bit moot as well.
But I did find ol' Gearbox and Bob, everything they say about pet pathing is true, I still remember not being able to take my slayerdroid in certain missions because it would get stuck :P
EDIT: Gearbox and Bob can be found here: http://aovault.ign.com/screenshots/?ss=55&view=ss&page=1&subcat=1
"We have years of struggle ahead, mostly within ourselves." - Made in USA
Honestly, I found 'em useful from the get-go, though if memory serves me right they really start to make a good impact around 50.
For combat-oriented professions, you will want to have all three implants that can buff your primary combat skill. For example, for an Enforcer focusing on 2-Handed Edged, you will want three implants that boost 2-Handed Edged (Right Arm, Left Arm, and Waist).
For nano-caster professions, you will want to have multiple implants that buff nanoskills and intelligence (which boosts nanoskills at a ratio of 5 Int to 1 point of nanoskill... not much, but every point can count). Of note, you will want to balance Matter Creation and Time&Space clusters for most pet classes. Typically, I go with a Shiny MatCre and a Bright+Faded Time&Space setup (or vice versa), to balance the two nano-skills.
For hybrids, you are balancing both. :-P This is tricky, especially for Adventurers (who are both healers and fighters). Luckily, the implants that house nano-skills generally are in different slots from the implants that house combat-related skills.
I like to keep my implants above my level. If I am level 20, I like to have implants above QL 20. However, not all implant slots are equally important, and some can be allowed to slide pretty easily without hurting your character. For example, the Left Wrist slot often houses... Runspeed, maybe a Multi-weapon skill, Nano Resist. Only an Agent will need this slot to be important (Rifle can be implanted in the Left Wrist). Everyone else can easily ignore putting things in the Left Wrist and it won't hurt the character at all.
Just as a general gauge (this is a rule of thumb and nothing more), you will be able to get into a QL of implants of up to twice your current level, maximum. This is assuming you have the appropriate abilities raised and maxed out your treatment (you are maxing out your treatment, right? Most important skill in the game). It gets more and more difficult to get into double your level in implants as you level up, but it is possible to get into QL 200 implants at level 100 for most professions (at least, in the slots that count). Most of my level 60 characters make it into 131 implants (what QL 125, the highest shop buyable basic implants, turn into when crafted by a good tradeskiller) fairly easily, but I've been doing this for a long time and have lots of resources (buffers on demand, tradeskiller on demand, equipment, etc.) available. Generally, the Head, Eye, and Right Hand lag behind the other implant locations in QL because they are the ones that can house Treatment (Shiny, Bright, Faded, respectively) and thus are often used as slots for buffing treatment to get your OTHER implants in.
EDIT: "ZOMG where do I get the money for all this?" you might be asking. For your first character, you won't have much cash, I'm afraid. The usual answers are "run lots of mission" or "buy bags, collect everything, sell everything you can get your hands on". Don't worry too much about implants on your very first character ever. Focus on making money and levels (so you can make more money). You might want to look for a utility called Clicksaver or MishBuddy. Both of those allow you to automate the process of finding items as a mission reward, thus allowing you to potentially make money by grabbing valuable items. Beyond the scope of this discussion: http://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=151747
EDIT2: I do have a newbie/froob guide over at GameFAQs, but I'm afraid that if I post a link, it would be sitewhoring. :-P
A lot of froobs use a shop bot called Mrshop on RK1 and Thegms on RK2. It is a chat-bot that has several robust features, enabling you to set up a shop that is searchable on an online database at aogms.com. Everyone I know uses this bot, even if they have AI, because froobs can't use GMS (and thus, you lose some of your market if you JUST use the AI shops) and it allows you to conveniently link your items in a shop format. Not that it is not a true player shop, and they will still have to contact you and meet with you to buy the items. But once learned, it makes selling a bit more convenient. AOFroobs.com link to Mrshop topic: http://www.aofroobs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2157