Fires of Heaven Guild Message Board - View Single Post - Anarchy Online

Flight · 04-24-2008, 02:58 AM

Anarchy Online is free to play, permanently, for the vanilla game. Its had 4 main expansions, but the best for me have been the vanilla game and the first expansion, Shadowlands. I've been playing over from scratch the last few months and its as much fun as ever.

If you bought the original, but none of the expansion, you can d/l the client and log back in and play, permanently, for free. If you've never played, or you want a new account, you can create an account and download the client here. if you decide you want it, you can buy the Shadowlands expansion separately, or all the expansions, for a small charge, but you then have to pay to play.

THINGS TO KNOW

Its a Sci-fi MMORPG thats based after a world apocalypse. Even though it is sci-fi, it has what amounts to a magic system, with spells that are instead called Nanos. Every class gets a huge range of 'Nanos'.

It has what at first appears to be a complex skill and stat system, but its easy to get a grip of and it quickly becomes compelling. Twinking is not only a part of the game, it is encouraged and integral to it. You can play just fine without going over the top, but a part of the fun is pushing the limits as far as you can. For example, its relatively easy to play a lvl 30 pet class that has a pet dozens of levels higher than you.

Remember soon after the Planes were first launched in EQ1 and necro pets solo - wtfbbqpwned the whole plane solo ? In EQ1 that was an exploit or bug - in Anarchy Online its a feature thats meant to be there.

SKILL SYSTEM

Every class and race gets the same series of stats and skills. Every time you level you get a mass of points to raise those stats and skills. As each of them is raised it gets more expensive to raise to the next point. Everyone of the stats and skills can be either cheap (green), normal (light blue) or expansive (dark blue) to raise, depending on your race and class.Its a hybrid skill / level system, which is much more skill based, as we will go on to see. The level cap is 220. Its the only game where I honestly don't think about or notice levels and never feel like I'm grinding.

The stats are : Strength, Stamina,Sense, Agility, Intelligence and Psychic.

The six stats cap all the dozens of other skills. Of those, some of the most important are the nano limiting skills : Matter Metamorphosis (MM), Bio Met (BM), Psycho Mod (PM), Matter Creation (MC), Time and Space (TS) and Sens Imp (SI). All classes rely on some or all of these to cast various of their Nanos.

EQUIPMENT

Your character sheet doesn't just have one paper doll, it has four. They are weapons, armour, implants and social clothing. We will ignore social clothing as it is just what it says (although for people into that there are many very cool looking clothes and costumes - it makes CoX look limited).

i) Armor

Does what it says on the tin. 15 different slots for armour.

ii) Weapons - Your weapon(s) ... But much more. This tab includes your component belt and its (up to) 6 slots as well as various HUD and other upgrades to you.

The belt is REALLY important. The only limit on the amount and level of buffs you can get is often how many NCU (think buff slots) you have available. As you progress you can equip firstly a belt that opens up two memory unit slots, going through until you eventually equip a belt that opens up all six slots.

The limiter on the belt you can equip, and thereby the number of memory slots and buff points you have, is NOT your level. It is your Computer Literacy (CL) skill. You can get short term CL buffs from a variety of methods - you only need the skill when you actually equip the belts and the various levels of memory units. Once equipped it doesn't matter if that skills falls below the required level to equip them. The same thing is true of weapons and armour, though for those Funcom have introduced something called OverEquipped (OE), which reduces their efficiency. Its still worthwhile though and possible to still massively twink your armour and weapon (s).

iii) Implants

The third tab on your character sheet is implants. As you can see, from the link above, 13 slots equating to various body parts that can receive implants to upgrade skills.

This is an essential link to easily available (in every main town) shop bought, pre designed Implants. Its also possible to buy or find empty implants and put 3 ability 'clusters' in to design and make your own Implants. Thi uses the nanoprogramming trade skill.

NANOFORMULAS

All classes get 'magic' like abilities called Nanos. At this link, under the heading Nanoformulas, on the left, click on the various classes to see their list of available Nanos.

We can see the quality level of each and the requirements to use them. Once again, the requirement to use these 'spells' is not level locked, it is skill locked. Again, it is possible to use all these class abilities dozens of levels above your own character level, by careful twinking and buffing.

You will see at the bottom a link to 'Generic'. These are nanos that all classes can use. Pretty much every skill or stat has a powerful buff available to everyone, once their PM and SI are raised (or buffed) to 61.

So, the 3 main methods of buffing to enable the use of higher levels skills and equipment are : i) implants, ii) generic class buffs and iii) specific class buffs.

This is a great link on Who Buffs What Skills, taken from the AO Wiki.

EDIT : ADDED THE FOLLOWING LINKS :

Official Forums

Class Forums

AO Universe - Guides and dB

AUNO Org - Stats, Item dB, Nanos, Implants etc

AO Froobs and AO Froobs Forums - Specifically for non-paying players who can't use the expansions

Download and Use Clicksaver - Best app ever. External add on that lets you see mission info and loot rewards. You can also set it to auto with a list of items to look for as rewards and it will continue to roll missions for you until what you want is offered. Picture of this attached below.

04-24-2008, 02:58 AM	#1 (permalink)
Flight Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 490 +1 Internets	Anarchy Online - Free to Play Anarchy Online is free to play, permanently, for the vanilla game. Its had 4 main expansions, but the best for me have been the vanilla game and the first expansion, Shadowlands. I've been playing over from scratch the last few months and its as much fun as ever. If you bought the original, but none of the expansion, you can d/l the client and log back in and play, permanently, for free. If you've never played, or you want a new account, you can create an account and download the client here. if you decide you want it, you can buy the Shadowlands expansion separately, or all the expansions, for a small charge, but you then have to pay to play. THINGS TO KNOW Its a Sci-fi MMORPG thats based after a world apocalypse. Even though it is sci-fi, it has what amounts to a magic system, with spells that are instead called Nanos. Every class gets a huge range of 'Nanos'. It has what at first appears to be a complex skill and stat system, but its easy to get a grip of and it quickly becomes compelling. Twinking is not only a part of the game, it is encouraged and integral to it. You can play just fine without going over the top, but a part of the fun is pushing the limits as far as you can. For example, its relatively easy to play a lvl 30 pet class that has a pet dozens of levels higher than you. Remember soon after the Planes were first launched in EQ1 and necro pets solo - wtfbbqpwned the whole plane solo ? In EQ1 that was an exploit or bug - in Anarchy Online its a feature thats meant to be there. SKILL SYSTEM Every class and race gets the same series of stats and skills. Every time you level you get a mass of points to raise those stats and skills. As each of them is raised it gets more expensive to raise to the next point. Everyone of the stats and skills can be either cheap (green), normal (light blue) or expansive (dark blue) to raise, depending on your race and class.Its a hybrid skill / level system, which is much more skill based, as we will go on to see. The level cap is 220. Its the only game where I honestly don't think about or notice levels and never feel like I'm grinding. The stats are : Strength, Stamina,Sense, Agility, Intelligence and Psychic. The six stats cap all the dozens of other skills. Of those, some of the most important are the nano limiting skills : Matter Metamorphosis (MM), Bio Met (BM), Psycho Mod (PM), Matter Creation (MC), Time and Space (TS) and Sens Imp (SI). All classes rely on some or all of these to cast various of their Nanos. EQUIPMENT Your character sheet doesn't just have one paper doll, it has four. They are weapons, armour, implants and social clothing. We will ignore social clothing as it is just what it says (although for people into that there are many very cool looking clothes and costumes - it makes CoX look limited). i) Armor Does what it says on the tin. 15 different slots for armour. ii) Weapons - Your weapon(s) ... But much more. This tab includes your component belt and its (up to) 6 slots as well as various HUD and other upgrades to you. The belt is REALLY important. The only limit on the amount and level of buffs you can get is often how many NCU (think buff slots) you have available. As you progress you can equip firstly a belt that opens up two memory unit slots, going through until you eventually equip a belt that opens up all six slots. The limiter on the belt you can equip, and thereby the number of memory slots and buff points you have, is NOT your level. It is your Computer Literacy (CL) skill. You can get short term CL buffs from a variety of methods - you only need the skill when you actually equip the belts and the various levels of memory units. Once equipped it doesn't matter if that skills falls below the required level to equip them. The same thing is true of weapons and armour, though for those Funcom have introduced something called OverEquipped (OE), which reduces their efficiency. Its still worthwhile though and possible to still massively twink your armour and weapon (s). iii) Implants The third tab on your character sheet is implants. As you can see, from the link above, 13 slots equating to various body parts that can receive implants to upgrade skills. This is an essential link to easily available (in every main town) shop bought, pre designed Implants. Its also possible to buy or find empty implants and put 3 ability 'clusters' in to design and make your own Implants. Thi uses the nanoprogramming trade skill. NANOFORMULAS All classes get 'magic' like abilities called Nanos. At this link, under the heading Nanoformulas, on the left, click on the various classes to see their list of available Nanos. We can see the quality level of each and the requirements to use them. Once again, the requirement to use these 'spells' is not level locked, it is skill locked. Again, it is possible to use all these class abilities dozens of levels above your own character level, by careful twinking and buffing. You will see at the bottom a link to 'Generic'. These are nanos that all classes can use. Pretty much every skill or stat has a powerful buff available to everyone, once their PM and SI are raised (or buffed) to 61. So, the 3 main methods of buffing to enable the use of higher levels skills and equipment are : i) implants, ii) generic class buffs and iii) specific class buffs. This is a great link on Who Buffs What Skills, taken from the AO Wiki. EDIT : ADDED THE FOLLOWING LINKS : Official Forums Class Forums AO Universe - Guides and dB AUNO Org - Stats, Item dB, Nanos, Implants etc AO Froobs and AO Froobs Forums - Specifically for non-paying players who can't use the expansions Download and Use Clicksaver - Best app ever. External add on that lets you see mission info and loot rewards. You can also set it to auto with a list of items to look for as rewards and it will continue to roll missions for you until what you want is offered. Picture of this attached below. Attached Images Last edited by Flight : 04-24-2008 at 10:37 AM.