Anarchy Online, The MMORPG, is Free To Play (No Credit Card Number Required)

[Farid]

I though that everybody knew that AO was now free, and that only the expansion packs were Pay To Play. But after a little talk with the guys on the IRC chan, it seems, that no, not everybody knew that. So, since I'm on a roll today, here's a little heads up about the game, for those interested.

Download the game client here (Mirrors and Bittorrent):
http://www.anarchy-online.com/free/ad_campaigns/freecampaign

Create an account here:
https://register.funcom.com/newuser/aofree

The Game Manual (PDF)

Info about the game:
http://www.anarchyonline.com/




A lot of info on the game from MMORPGDot

Anarchy Online is a sophisticated, dynamic online world, where thousands of players can log on at the same time, roam around by themselves or in groups, shaping and creating their individual gaming experiences. Players will encounter birds, animals, monsters, oceans, forests, deserts, big cities and countryside to explore and be a part of. The environment is forever changing and shifts from night to day, sunshine to rain and blistering sun, to lethal sandstorms or blizzards.

All the player characters will look different, as there are limitless options to add individual touches in character creation. Anything from skin color and body fat ratio, to a huge selection of clothes and tattoos, is available to make individual and unique characters. The size of the game is enormous; walking from one end of Rubi-Ka to the other will take several hours, real-time.

Still, the most important part of Anarchy Online is the social aspect. All the gamers you meet are people from around the globe that you can interact with - through text, chat, and even graphically illustrated body animations.

Anarchy Online from what I heard is a very good MMORPG, so if you always wanted to try a MMORPG but never didn't want it enough to pay for it, or try one of these free sessions that ask your Credit Card members, now's your chance.

Personally, I tried the game for only a few minutes, so I can't pass any judgement other than sying that the UI and the shortcuts are definetly not "natural', so you might want to check that first before starting playing the game.

 

[zsouthboy]

I played AO for hours upon hours upon hours back about 5 years ago.

The interface is especially daunting for new players, however.

I've considered dropping my WoW account (now that I find it boring anyway) and installing AO again, but it's probably better to just.... nerd it up somewhere else.

 

[Malo]

I'm still playing AO after 4 years, nothing has matched it's complexity yet which is why im still playing it. However it can be difficult to learn for a new player. We have had many "fr00bs" (what we call the free-play accounts) join our organisation and eventually become full paying players.

 

[keno]

I thought i'd give this a try, never played any MMOs before. Having trouble starting up the client though. The box where I choose a server sits there trying to connect for a while then times out and says the server is down. I am behind a firewall/NAT router (billion 7402), tried opening ports 7012-7013, 7500-7504, and also port forward on those ports, but no luck. Is it just me or are the servers really down?

 

[pcchen]

I tried it when it bcomes free, but unfortunately it lagged too much from here, so I gave up.

 

[keno]

never mind what i said above, it appears to connecting fine now.

 

[Crusher]

I got an Agent up to level 115ish before quitting, back before WoW stole 90% of its players. I wouldn't call it a bad game, and certianly the complexity of it was impressive, but to me it felt so rough around the edges that you became too distracted to actually enjoy the game.

Complex skill sets and item/inventory design is fine, but you need to provide plenty of information to accompany it. There were many times I had to ask my friends about various aspects of the game, not because it was too complex to understand, but because there was no way of finding out for myself without spending a large amount of time experimenting through trial and error. The game design itself just wan't very smooth.

I was also extremely disappointed in the Alien Invasion expansion, which I paid full retail price for. Not only was it worthless to people who didn't have a large organization, it was almost as worthless to people who were in a large organization but weren't at the same level range as the majority of its members.

Anyway, free games are always good, but the Shadowlands is almost a requriement to be able to level up effectively, so I say take it for the free spin, but if you like it don't hesitate to get the expansion and head up for better experience.

 

[Malo]

Valid necro!

Anarchy Online after so many years has finally released it's DX9 engine upgrade to the test live servers. Maybe they can keep it going for another decade and upgrade to DX12!