Rating: 
Summary: Pitiful, even for MMORPG launches
Review: I played beta, and it was buggy as betas are supposed to be. Unfortunately, it was far more playable than this piece of crap that found it's way onto store shelves. After one week of playing i've already canceled my subscription... it's awful.The lag is terrible, but if it were just the lag I might be ok. The bugs (and exploits) are far far too numerous to list, but let me give you an example. Saturday night my character got stuck in some sort of server glitch that had me playing - online - but bugged so that I couldn't interact with people/see people/do missions/bank/zone. The only solution to remedy this, as support has said, is to have your character committ suicide. Any game where you have to, regularly, committ character suicide to escape bugs is most certainly not ready for release. FunCom claims the game is "110% done and in order". I can only hope they fired the PR guy that made that claim. Maybe, maybe in a few months it will be playable but it's not yet. And by playable, I don't mean "the lag is rough and there's a few bugs" I mean "you cannot have fun playing this game". FunCom should have waited longer on this release. I'm out [price] for a game that isn't even finished.
Rating:
Summary: Well, they tried.
Review: And I give them one star for trying. The game really does LOOK good. And it seems like it would be a great game. But it is, at this point, almost completely unplayable. If you buy this game before they fix it (which could be months from now), here's what to expect: lag (VERY often) that can last longer than a minute, crashing to the desktop at least once an hour, computer lockups at least once every few hours, occasional inability to log in at all, items which do not work, missions which do not work, character death due to lag, and countless other minor and major bugs. I was actually very patient with these problems until the publisher lied to its customers. First, they told everyone the "free month" (your purchase price includes one month of online play) would not begin until the game was playable. Then, six days later, with almost no changes to the game, they declared it playable and began the billing cycle. To make matters worse, I can't even cancel my account. I'll probably have to dispute the charge with my bank. But at least I've already returned the game. Maybe I'll try again in a few months, but I don't really have a whole lot of faith or trust in Funcom right now.
Rating: 
Summary: Wait a bit...
Review: Right now, lag predominates. Sometimes you press X (sit) and wait a good 30 seconds before your character sits. This looks like it has the potential to be a *great* game. Potential is future, not current. Wait 3-6 months if you are thinking about getting it. It should be fixed by then. A quick perusal of their message boards ... should warn you of the numerous issues this game faces. For support, this game has hit an all time low - no phone support. E-mails get answered with automated responses requesting you go to the main boards - where employees of Funcom rarely post.
Rating:
Summary: Anarchy Online... Beta 5?!?!?
Review: I played Ultima Online when it first came out. The horrible lag and other bugs made the game virtually unplayable. UO was also the first in the MMORPG genre way back in 1997. Almost 5 years later Funcom releases Anarchy Online. You would like to think that the company would do some research and learn from all the mistakes that the other games have made(Asheron's Call, Everquest.. ect) but it seems they did not for the most part. HORRIBLE lag, frequent crashes and numerous, game-stopping bugs make this no more than a beta quality game. To add insult to injury Funcom is actually starting to charge people stating that the game is "playable". The game has great potential featuring "mission generators" which gets rid of camping (ala EQ), beautiful graphics (when you're not beset by the horrible lag), awesome soundtrack, and smooth interface (once the MANY bugs are worked out). I was looking forward to seeing a quality product released by this company who created one of the best adventuring games of all time (The Longest Journey). I am terribly disappointed at Funcom for releasing what is so obviously just another Beta and charging the public for it. It's sad to see yet another gaming company to lower its standards just to try and make a quick buck. Maybe... just maybe Funcom will wake up and try to retain market share in an already competitive MMORPG market by either rapidly fixing this game or by temporarily stopping the monthly charges. Otherwise Funcom could quickly see all of it's current customers quit AO and purchase one of the MANY great MMORPG's that are coming out soon.
Rating:
Summary: Daniel Nagy
Review: I would like to review the game. Unfortunately it appears that the company did not test the game thoroughly. You need to register the CD key that comes with the game. Thanks to their horrible coding and non-existent tech support the key comes up as invalid and you have to send email to their tech support (cheap, they don't even have an 800 number or any number for that matter) first. When they FINALLY grace you with a reply other than some idiotic auto reply you then have to FAX them the invoice from Amazon to prove you bought the thing. This is stupid, disorganized and just plain wrong. If you want the game that bad... be prepared to wait and wait and wait. I buzzed the news groups and the boards associated with the game and found that this problem is common and so are many others....
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy this... yet.
Review: While the engine and gameplay system show great promise, the current problems plaguing the Anarchy Online servers prevent me from giving this game any more than a single star rating. Of all of the time I have spent trying to play the game, only about 10% of it has been fun. Read up on the problems at the official Anarchy Online forums for a better idea of all of the network, video, and RAM-gobbling issues that users are experiencing.
Rating:
Summary: Returning It Today
Review: I bought this a week ago. Time spent since then: 7 hours: installing, patching (unsuccessfully most of the time), uninstalling and reinstalling Then: I was down for two days after they "patched" the game on the fourth of July. Turns out the only fix for me was to enter their DNS numbers directly in my HOSTS file to contact their servers. Got back up: Can log in now for an average of 2-5 minutes, tops. And I'm not even in the cities, where lag is heralded to keep most logins at around 30 seconds. I have a 733 AMD Athlon, 384MB RAM, 32MB GEForce 2... The game shouldn't have been released in its current state. I'm returning it because, while Funcom has declared it playable enough to start the guaranteed month INCLUDED in the cost of purchase (it wasn't ever a "free month of play," the guarantee of the month is on the box I paid $50 for), I still haven't gotten anything but major grief out of this game. Of course, the caveat for everyone who bought the game and is ticked off enough to return it: I'll probably buy it again in a couple months when, hopefully, Funcom has gotten their act together, and my included month of play involves more time online than staring at my windows screen while I'm forced to reboot.
Rating:
Summary: Bad
Review: It's not playable at all: 1) Lag is terrible. 2) The game keeps crashing. 3) Exploits are everywhere. 4) The computer specs required to play the game are a joke. You can't play this game with a PII 5) Login in the game can take hours. 6) Register your account can take hours. 7) The CD quality is so bad that your comp might not be able to read it. 8) The customer service is non-existant.
Rating:
Summary: Should be called Fraudcom
Review: Game has been out for weeks now. Same bugs from beta 4 are in it still I run a 600mz with 512 ram and a cable modem. I have to have graphics turned all the way down or off and still have so much lag I get disconnected within 15 mins at the most. In that time if I am lucky I can move perhaps 10 feet in game. After a 20 min wait to log back in I am generaly back where I started with less hit points and exp. If by chance I can get a mission and get into the area to do the mission and it has someone there, and I am attacked then I get the folowering messages: can not loot chest while fighting, can not heal while fighting, can not loot corpse while fighting. Now only problem is whtever is hitting me for 12 to 20 damage is like 5 rooms away and no way to see them or get to them to fight them. so all you can do is sit and die. Instead of returning to the reclaim chamber you come back where you died without everything and 1/4 of your hitpoints. Needless to say you die 4 to 5 times before you can get out. You can not cancel your subscription because they have not implemeted that feature yet. These are just a few examples of this buggy lagged out game. I keep expecting to find that they have gone bankrupt and stolen all the players money. But then I feel they are stealing it now by charging for a poorly written beta game.
Rating:
Summary: Bugarchy Offline
Review: Give me a break! More bugs than pixels on my monitor, the free month has taken effect and it's still not very playable, no way to cancel account because the control panel isn't working, the list keeps growing but for now I need to go return this game before I vomit in disgust. SO MANY CHARACTERS ARE STILL STUCK IN ZONES! BTW, the retail version was actually the final beta version. Thanks Funcom for charging the public [price] to test the game. Maybe we can actually play it in 6 months.
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