Anarchy Online

Rating:
Summary: AO is beautiful but provides poor replayability.
Review: I registered on day one of Anarchy Online's launch. There were the expected launch problems, but my time in game showed me a graphically diverse world. I was willing to overlook the launch bugs....I work with software development and understand what the guys at Funcom were going through.

Now, months later, many of the bugs are still in game and there is little or no game continuity or balance. Gameplay is enjoyable but boringly repetitive. I was able to read chapters of a novel while playing if that gives you any indication as to the lack of immersiveness in the game. Poor AI, random rule changes in patches, technical bugs, repetitive gameplay, template dungeons, grossly misrepresented hardware specs, lack of variety in missions....it all begins adding up to a negative experience in the extreme.

I would strongly suggest against any person purchasing this game in it's current state. When it hits the bargain bin it will be worth [it] to play for the free month, but I strongly urge anyone purchasing the game to ONLY sign up on a monthly basis. I paid for 3 months and sorely regret it due to the fact I cancelled after 8 weeks.

Rating:
Summary: Save your Money, please.
Review: AO was a prety picture and idea that missed the mark horribly in translation from Funcom's mind to my PC.

They have delivered close to nothing they have promised, the game in it's current form is still as buggy as most closed BETA tests, the community is a seriously embittered group of people, and the game, flat out, does not provide any more bang for the buck then other, far more established, and stable, titles.

In short, AO is a flop in my mind. From it's humble beginings with Funcom not adept enough to create a SECURE billing webpage -(yes, we had to tell them it was unsecure), to the last patch which was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back - as it actually made it so players could not damage monsters.

- did I mention they patched this on a Friday and left it, untouched, till Monday morning?

- did I mention they use a test server to *test* patches, and the meat of the server screamed at funcom to NOT realese the patch.

Sadly, we keep hoping Funcom will learn from it's mistakes, but they are not. These mistake keep happening over and over and are now the standard, as opposed to the exception.

In general, if you are considering buying this item, do this instead:

1. Take a fine work of literature.
2. Get all excited about reading it.
3. Tease yourself with what it has to offer.
4. Put said book in the blender, on "puree"
5. Settle for trying to eat the book and see what you get from it.

This is what the current crop of AO players have done, we have settled for less, worked around bugs, and generally tried to make an unplayable game playable. We failed, and received little to no help in the process.

In short, save yourself some time and frustration and steer clear of Anarchy Online; it had potential to be a quality game until Funcom effectivily ruined it with inexperience, bad judgement, and simple ignorance.

Rating:
Summary: Anarchy and com yes, Online and Fun no.
Review: Got it the first day of release. Couldn't play until because the first week they were constantly rebooting the servers to fix bugs that should have been found in beta. Finally got up to speed when a new server was opened and lag was somewhat fixed. However, they are constantly changing skills and abilities, forcing people to lose time and effort they invested in their characters.

Anyway, had fun about 3 weeks ago playing for a few hours and then logged off. Haven't had the desire to log back on since then. Too many problems occur make this feel like a beta.

Rating:
Summary: Anarchy Online - A tale of dissappointment
Review: I can clearly remember the first time I fired up Anarchy Online on my computer. "Wow," I thought, "This game is going to be great."

That was in Beta 4. Oh there were many bugs in Beta 4, but they were forgivable. After all, it was beta, we weren't paying to play. We were beta testers by choice and we knew what we were getting into. Most of us defended the product against nay-sayers. "Its a beta client, its running in safe mode." we would say. "Give it time" we would say. But when they suddenly announced they had gone gold and it would start in earnest on June 27th, many of us got very nervous.

The game then started and I got involved majorly in the politics of the game. I was a martial artist, loyal to omni-tek. I joined a guild called "R.S.G.E. Division 9" and quickly found myself in a command position. For a time, I was second in command, however due to the fact that the Commander in Chief was unable to play, I was the in-game faction leader. This is when the dissappointment really began to set in. Most of the org commands were broken. I couldn't promote or demote anyone within my guild. I could not even remove people from my guild. In fact, people couldn't even remove themselves from the guild. This was as long as a month or more into release.

Certainly some of the org problems have been fixed but many of the promised org functions remain unimplenented or broken. To me, guilds are the heart and soul of any MMORPG game. Your guild is your family, its just sad that in AO your family is mostly dysfunctional.

Through the two months that I played, I saw the game crumbling about me. Of course, bugs were fixed. But new bugs were introduced. Bad programming is forgivable to a point, but it was getting rediculous.

But worse than the bugs was the way Funcom treated its customers. Frequently, we were lied to. They put up press releases saying one thing only to take it down change it to say another thing. They say they offer customer support but through all the problems I had in the game, the numerous e-mails and petitions I sent for help, I never once saw an official customer service representative from Funcom. And then, most recently, Funcom decided to take all negative posts off their own boards, a sad attempt to hide the truth from future customers.

Anarchy Online had a lot of promise. But Funcom has proven time and time again to me, they cannot be trusted. When you buy a MMORPG, you're not just buying a game, you're buying into the promise of a company to competantly run that game. Your monthly fee is in essance "hiring" them to tell you a story.

Well, the promised "4 year story arc" has even yet to start. If it ever does, it will have to go on without me. The only thing I will miss about Anarchy Online is the good people I met in Division 9, hopefully we'll meet again in a different land.

Rating:
Summary: Great concept, lousy execution.
Review: When the game was first released bugs and lag were abundant, the hallmarks of a game that was released too soon, sadly a trend these days.
Now, almost 3 months after release a lot of the bugs have been ironed out and lag has been reduced. Is the game playable now? Yes, if you don't mind running into occasional bugs that cause you to lose everything you worked for for days or even weeks. Don't expect the game mechanics to stay the same either, rules are subject to change on the whim of the developers.

However, if eyecandy is what you're after, you can't go wrong fith Anarchy Online. And the gameplay is a lot of fun for the first few "levels". Once you progress in the game it becomes boring and repetitive. There just isn't anything to do except fight the same monsters over and over (and since monsters have different levels as well, that's exactly what you'll be doing, they don't even look different). The same goes for weapons. They have Quality Levels, the higher the QL the better the stats on the weapon. So at level 200 (the highest level achievable by players) you will be using the exact same weapon that you were using at level 10, just with a different QL.

One of the great things about MMORPGs is their community, the players. Communication in game is rather limited, so a lot of the communication is taken out of the game and taken to fansites as well as the official site's message boards. Recently these messageboards have been effectively shut down, because "there was too much negativity" (ie. people complaining about issues in the game). Coincidentally this change happened just before the game was scheduled to be released in the rest of the world (the game was first released in the USA and Scandinavia), censorship? You be the judge. This is just to illustrate what kind of company is running this game.

If all you're looking for is a short-term distraction that has good graphics and an interesting break from other MMORPGs (this is the first MMORPG with a sci-fi setting), then go ahead, buy Anarchy Online, spend some time playing it, and move on. There is no long term enjoyment in this game, unless you absolutely have to see everything and kill evey monster in the game, that will keep you busy for a few months.

Rating:
Summary: Anarchy OFFline by NotFuncom
Review: If you value your time and money STAY AWAY from this "game". This game is still in beta development (some would say alpha). The amount of bugs in the program is currently over 1,000 and seems to continue to grow with every failed patch that the developers franticly apply. The developers DO NOT listen to their community and the amount of anger felt toward them can be seen on any of the few remaining fan sites on the net. It short, this game only gets one star because it is not possible to give anything else lower. What a waste of time [...]. AVOID! AVOID! AVOID!

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your money on this game..
Review: This was one of the most boring games I have ever played.

And also it is one of the worst coded, laggy, crash filled games I have ever played. Do not waste your money on this game!

Rating:
Summary: Game is broken
Review: I played in the beta for this game and I bought it right at release. It has SOO much promise, but Funcom cannot capitalize on it.

They have SERIOUS management problems.
They cater to the whims of trolls, they have no strong plan on where to go.
Their coders are willing, but very inexperienced.

Amateur level stuff. Does not bode well for the future.

9-27-01

Rating:
Summary: Potential is there, but not worth buying
Review: Basically the 4th large MMORPG to come out after UO, EQ and AC but unfortunatly the distributor, Funcom, rushed out their release, most likely due to financial preassures.

Graphics and Music are good, perhaps even fantastic, but to see the really great graphics, you will need a BEYOND top of the line machine. Even so, expect lag, especially in cities.

Bugs? Well you will be lucky if you manage to install the game. It is the buggiest piece of software I have ever come across. Patches tend not to help, despite patching AO almost weekly, the patches more often than note make things worse.

(NOTE! I am not lieing about the "lucky to install the game" before FunCom shut down their own forums, you would see lots of messages about install failures. Remember this is you try, never click the "Close automatically" and NEVER click the "I agree" until you have finished ALL patches.)

Game play? Well there is no high level play at all, plan never to get above 100 (About half way) because there is nothing to do at that stage. Also, you will very quickly find that while there are a lot of breeds and classes, once you hit level 10 in any character, that character never changes, simply getting more powerful, while the monsters get more powerful. Net result, zero.

This lack of content is obvious with the nanos (read spells) where the next levels nano is the same as the last, just different name and +1 damage or something. You will never hit a new level and saw "Alright, Now I get that new special attack"

PvP? Completly broken. Most character types cannot PvP and those that do, usually have battles lasting all of 2 or 3 seconds since primary attacks are designed to kill monsters with 10 times the HP of a player.

(Side note on bugs, there are several bugs with registration, and account payment, so be prepared to have issues there too.)

I cannot recommend this game in anyway

Rating:
Summary: Don't by Anarchy Online
Review: Anarchy Online is not worth your money. I purchased the game at release and have since cancelled my account. This game is still in beta! 4 years of development and Funcom gives you a shallow world with nice graphics. The only thing that has improved in this game since release has been the connectivity. Originally you were constantly dropping. During the last 3 months of 'live' play, every single patch that Funcom has released rebalances the classes (changes the rules), fixes exploits, adds new exploits, and adds new bugs making the game, IMO completely unplayable. As it stands I have no faith in Funcom as a company. I do not believe they are capable of properly testing and writing the necessary code to make this game playable and fun. The new bugs that are constantly introduced into the game make me seriously doubt Funcoms ability as programmers and designers. Anarchy never should have been released. Do not buy this game.