Anarchy Online-Alien Invasion - Funcom

Rating:
Summary: Alot about Nothing
Review:

I've been playing AO since it opened. I've seen it go from a laggy, buggy game to one that is actually playable and fun. Shadowlands brought a lot of depth to the game. This expansion pack, however, promised a lot but very little was delivered. If you're not in an Org you won't see much of the Aliens once you leave the backyard. I had great hopes for the game and story arc when I created a new toon to try out the new backyard. It started out very cool. Even if you're in an Org (my main is) chances are you aren't going to 'trigger' an attack as it costs so much to get and maintain your city. Maybe the Larger Orgs can afford it but not the smaller ones. There's a lot of promise here, if Funcom would just work at it.
Pros:
Cool new graphics
Cool lowbie sided items (Armor that Levels to 15th and Shades)
Great Potential Story Arc

Cons
Not very Solo player friendly
Takes a lot of VL (Virtual Life) time and Credits to maintain your city

Conclusion
If you're not a member of a large Org pass on this one. Maybe if Funcom doesn't get the sales they expect it will motivate them to develop this expansion pack to what it has the potential to be.


Rating:
Summary: Marketing Deadlines versus Quality Control
Review: After 2yrs enjoyment of Anarchy Online, myself and my in-game guild were eagerly awaiting the release of this new expansion. The pre-launch publicity promised player made housing, player vendors, new Alien enemies and playfields on request. Upon its release however, we found that much of the promised content was not there. The player markets were withdrawn just prior to launch, the customised housing offers little or no storage and no way to personalise anything. Aliens can only be summoned if your guild has a certain building in place but due to poor design and, I suspect, pressure from marketing for a hasty release, many city plots were not made big enough for one of these buildings (something only revealed after you have gone through the lengthy and expensive process of creating the building and buying the land plot). We have experienced many bugs in building placement about which in-game advisors can only suggest - "this site is bugged, buy another site"! Now our guild pooled all our accumulated wealth from all our time in AO just to meet the insanely high costs involved in building a base, so you can imagine how that 'helpful' answer to our concerns makes us feel. As a small organization none of our needs have been catered for by this release. Quite the contrary, it seems, little or no thought was given to the average player with limited in-game resources, instead this expansion was set up so that only a certain sector of the AO community would be able to benefit from it, while penalising smaller guilds and completely excluding the solo player. All this coupled with the numerous bugs that ruin gameplay have made the Alien Invasion expansion a dissapointing and frustrating experience for all of my guild. Non of the promised game content has been made available to us and as the in-game advisors/bug hunters are mostly new volunteers the line from them is "put up or shut up".
We will all stick with the game as the previous expansion still has lots to offer but I would advise others without so much experience of Anarchy Online to give the Alien Invasion expansion a miss as it will taint your enjoyment of the wider game. Demonstrations that game site reviewers see often take place on controlled servers with GM supervision, something that in no way reflects the practical realities that ordinary players experience. No prizes for FunCom this year and definately no pre-orders for future expansions from us.
Score 0 out of 10, waist of money.

Rating:
Summary: Wallet invasion
Review: Anarchy online has really shot themself in the foot with this "expansion". first the pet code that was to be included for preorders wasnt made aviable in many cases, this is a rather large bonus for the game - actualy being able to have a pet to run around with even if its not a combat tool.

Pros
- Aliens have unique looks (though one style looks like its out of the Independance day movie)
- alien weapons are "shiney"
- new cloths look stunning for the graphics engine
- Some very cool "toys" found off of the general of a ship

Cons
- Aliens encounters dont take many things into account includeing profession, they just hit you hard, fast, and ignore your nano resist.
- Shiney alien weapons do pathetic damage. They are actualy better weapons for new players at level 1-20, then they are for level 200+ players. This means you tend to outgrow the hard and rare to find low ql weapons in about an hour of game play
- You dont actualy defend your base, an org of at least 6+ online players summons aliens to fight and by their mere existance your base takes damage
- if you wipe out the you summon fast enough, up to 16 but usualy around 10 people are allowed to do an alien mission
- All player towns look similar
- Benifits from town buildings are sporatic and seem to be on in some areas and off in others.
- Player owned shops dont exist even though they are suposed to
- player made buildings are not very unique, just differeing quality levels for a few weeks untill you get ql 300 ones.
- Base upkeep is so expensive you will have to almost work a full time job of playing to get the credits to keep it from self distructing. (yes even post base upkeep reduction patch)
- The new trade skill interface doesnt work properly. it only really helps identifiy an alien object.
- there are no new flying vehicals - its just a new paintjob that looks like it was made in microsoft paint
- Player citys cause major latency in your internet connection as you get near them. most of the flavorfull decorations compound this effect.
- if your at an alien attack, aliens spawn and attack you immediately. However your client stalls due to memory leaks and rendering problems letting them get several free hits, or even kill you while it loads.
- Alien generals only drop one piece of "good" loot. however require a team of 6-30 people to take down. and even the usefullness of this one piece of loot is questionable.
- Alien perks were -downgraded- in usefullness in beta because they were too easy to get. After release the alien xp gain was nerfed, fixed, nerfed and fixed again. as a result after about 5 or 6 of the alien levels its no longer worthwhile to actualy fight aliens for xp. spending a month to get 1 level isnt pratical.
- new armor is almost imposible to trade skill, and only parts of it are usefull.

On a more specific note - this expansion of the game actualy does not provide much new content. Any player can fight aliens with or with out AI. The only reason to purchase it is if you want to be able to board an alien ship (its a mission) once or twice a week. I regrete paying for this product and should have waited a bit as its already a bargin bin game.

This expansion is not required to play anarchy online, and infact offers very little. I'd rate this product higher if it was actualy a review of the base game Anarchy online, or the Shadowlands, however its an expansion for thoes and as an expansion I'll have to rate it as a 1 star product. Though honestly I would prefer to rate it at about half a star.

Rating:
Summary: MMO to be remembered
Review: I've been playing Anarchy Online for two years now and this game is the greatest MMORPG I have ever played, and basically the best game I will ever play.

All of the expansions to this game are phenominal, Shadowlands was a breakthrough to this game.. and now there is Alien Invasion!

Being able to build your own cities is an amazing idea for this game, and aliens being to invade is awesome.

We got new items, creatures, quests, zones, and everything in between with this expansion. This expansion is worth the money, it doesnt cost much but it will add-on to your experience in the game, whether you are new or a veteran to this game.

Rating:
Summary: Looking forward to this...
Review: This expansion pack will probably be another "must have" for all AO players... funcoms previous expansion packs shadowlands and notum wars are the same. Although I am really looking forward to this expansion pack, I beilve Anarchy-Online should have had this feature (Player cities, houses, shopes, etc) when the game was first released..

Anyway, only a few more weeks left!