Does anyone play Anarchy Online?

[samroski]

I recently started playing anarchy online, just to see what the game is about. Have logged in a couple of times, but the learning curve is steep, thus have little clue what is going on.

 

Wondering if anyone else has tried this game, and whether it is worth persisiting with.

[Vagrant0]

I recently started playing anarchy online, just to see what the game is about. Have logged in a couple of times, but the learning curve is steep, thus have little clue what is going on.

 

Wondering if anyone else has tried this game, and whether it is worth persisiting with.

Played it for awhile, but ended up having to quit since I couldn't afford to pay for the accounts any more. Of all the MMOs I've played, it seemed to be one of the most balanced between professions, and provided for the greatest variety of builds within each profession. I liked how each profession got their own nanos and buffs, and had their own unique advantages and disadvantages.

 

As for the learning curve, that can depend on what profession you have, and if you are using a free account or not. Generally, Metaphysicists, Adventurers, Enforcers, Martial Artists tend to be a bit easier for people to pick up. Depending on weapon choice, these classes tend to have an easier time to find weapons that are capable. They also have a good range of nanos and buffs that can help them when fighting.

 

For your first 20 levels or so, you'll probably want to run as many missions as you can stand. You can head to the subway in each of the starting towns to take a break and pick up some of the unique items that can help out greatly, but missions get you tokens, which upgrade your rank within a faction (and provide some nice bonuses eventually) and if you're using clicksaver, can give you the means of aquiring weapons and nanos that cannot be gained otherwise.

 

After level 20, try to visit the Temple of the three winds to get a good cloak, and pick up some of the unique items. There are some unique weapons which are better than anything else at that level range, plus some other things, like implants, or circuit board items. There's also a rare tank armor, but the highest robe is usually better. When you get these items, go back to missions for more nanos that you can use. If you can't find a party for anything (probably won't until after level 30) just do some missions and come back later.

 

If you're a payed account, you might also want to head into those expansion areas from time to time to see what items you can get, but most of your early exp should still probably be gained in missions. Missions become much larger and more difficult after level 60 or 90, and although you get more tokens per each mission, for the amount of time spent, you are usually best off running most of your missions between level 25 and 40. Your goal should be the 1000 token board, which increases health, nano, offensive, defensive, and NCUs by quite alot.

 

As for skills to raise, you should usually try to only raise things as they become needed for new implants, weapons, nanos, equipment. Once you have decided on a weapon type, stick with it, and max it. Treatment is one of the most useful skills, and should always be maximized since it allows you to use higher implants and medkits. Runspeed and firstaid can be raised to around 100, and left there. Computer Literacy should only be raised as needed for new belts or NCUs, All other tradeskills should be mostly ignored unless you are an engineer. Vehicle skills should be ignored until level 50 or so, and only vehicle air should be raised if you manage to get a low QL yalm. Everything else should only be raised as needed for equipment. Stats should only be raised when the related skills cannot be raised further. Body Development and/or nano pool can be maxed till level 25, but probably shouldn't be raised further unless you have excess points to spare. Unless a nanobased profession (nanomage, metaphysicist (using attack nanos) Bureaucrat (using attack nanos) Doctor/adventurer (if focusing on healing), the capped limits for nanopool at 25 should be as much as you'll need till around level 100, at which point you should probably know enough to decide on your own.

 

There are several guides for the game, and you can usually ask questions in faction chat when you're in a main city, but this should hopefully get you steered in the right direction. Just remember, unlike most other MMOs, just because a person is a healing class does not mean that they cannot fight well. Some professions, like soldier, doctor, fixer, agent or trader can be rather tough to start out, but can be almost godly when built right, or when they have the right gear.

[samroski]

Vagrant0 thank you very much for the detailed information.

 

I'm a froob. Will play for a while before I decide to pay for it.

 

I have read up some of the guides on the site, and your guidelines are just as useful. Fortunately or unfortunately I decided on being a Trader, thinking that this may be a good way to make money. Reading up on it, it seems that Traders are difficult to start off with. I would like to persist with my character, though as I have just started I could consider making another one?

 

Starting was like being thrown at the deep end. Lots of words like nanos and buffs that make no sense to me right now tbh :)

 

I roamed around a bit and then logged.

 

3rd time I logged on and was aimlessly wandering around when this person came up to me and I saw in this chat window that he was trying to get my attention. He told me to jump if I did not know how to chat. This was my kind of talk. It seemed that this was an NPC but he seemed to understand what I was saying, and led me to this fellow who gave me a mission for collecting monster parts. I also collected some other stuff from the corpses, but could not figure out how to use it, or how to put on items like armour. In the meantime I got killed a couple of times trying to kill a robot like thing.

 

I was apparently levelling up and got some skill points that I was supposed to allocate but could not figure out head or tail of the system, and thus chose the automatically allocate points option- which I am ashamed of, and which I am sure is screwing up my character.

 

Finally I figured out how to wear stuff, though I am sure I'm not doing it right. I also managed to buy a shotgun, and then realized that I was already carrying one, and was unable to sell it back. I also managed to figure out how to heal myself, and this was a major breakthrough.

[Vagrant0]

Vagrant0 thank you very much for the detailed information.

 

I'm a froob. Will play for a while before I decide to pay for it.

 

I have read up some of the guides on the site, and your guidelines are just as useful. Fortunately or unfortunately I decided on being a Trader, thinking that this may be a good way to make money. Reading up on it, it seems that Traders are difficult to start off with. I would like to persist with my character, though as I have just started I could consider making another one?

 

Starting was like being thrown at the deep end. Lots of words like nanos and buffs that make no sense to me right now tbh :)

 

I roamed around a bit and then logged.

 

3rd time I logged on and was aimlessly wandering around when this person came up to me and I saw in this chat window that he was trying to get my attention. He told me to jump if I did not know how to chat. This was my kind of talk. It seemed that this was an NPC but he seemed to understand what I was saying, and led me to this fellow who gave me a mission for collecting monster parts. I also collected some other stuff from the corpses, but could not figure out how to use it, or how to put on items like armour. In the meantime I got killed a couple of times trying to kill a robot like thing.

 

I was apparently levelling up and got some skill points that I was supposed to allocate but could not figure out head or tail of the system, and thus chose the automatically allocate points option- which I am ashamed of, and which I am sure is screwing up my character.

 

Finally I figured out how to wear stuff, though I am sure I'm not doing it right. I also managed to buy a shotgun, and then realized that I was already carrying one, and was unable to sell it back. I also managed to figure out how to heal myself, and this was a major breakthrough.

You might want to just start over with something a bit more straight forward like adventurer, atleast until you learn the game a bit better. If you go the 1 hand melee route and follow the guidelines mentioned above, it's kinda hard to screw over your character too badly. I forgot to mention that the general guidelines mentioned above may leave you with extra improvement points from time to time, you'll need these later. since you really never get to a point where you have enough IP to spend on less essential things. Don't worry about money too much. Most things which are sold from shops (as is typical from any mmo) are usually crap. Once you get to the mainland and start running missions, you should eventually start getting enough money to afford implants and such. As a melee class, about your only financial drain is from medkits (which you get alot of from missions) implants, (which only need to be upgraded on occasion and aren't too useful until around level 20) and armor (which can occasionally be expensive, but isn't really needed till after level 30 or when you start having to tank (since that robe mentioned maxes most of your needs as far as normal mobs go till about 50))

 

I don't recall how the auto-distribute works with a trader, but traders can be rather tricky to get right since they are one of the more unconventional professions in the game which depend quite significantly on their ability to layer buffs upon themselves just to use their weapon. They get buffs which drain the skills of an opponent and increase their own, while this is well and good, these are short duration and eventually become critical to being able to really do anything with any success. Much of the challenge of this class is really just in managing buffs, stepping up your drains, and trying to keep them going for the duration of the mission. If your drains fail, you're pretty much dead. This is because the weapon type for traders, shotguns, have a fairly large damage range, so you often need to equip a shotgun that is twice your level (made possible from buffs) and keep your skill high enough to use it (only made possible by buffs). I got my trader to around level 50, but didn't feel like going much further than that since it became rather hard to grind out missions, and I even had the advantage of expansion items. As far as money goes, traders really don't have any significant advantage there other than being able to access a trader-only terminal that rarely has things that others want. Engineer is the only profession that can really get involved with trade skills, and that's only because they have a robot that can do most of the killing for them. Even still, you don't really get enough spare Improvement points to do trade skills until after level 60 or so, by which time you probably have enough money to pay for most of your needs.

 

I'm not sure if they've redone anything with the newbie island since the last expansion, so can't help you too much there. Just try to read what all the NPCs say, and try to buy anything that you can use. Every starter weapon can be improved somehow. Newcomer armor can be made to level with you once you join a faction (so buy lowest level to start). There should be some larger, glowy creatures scattered around. These are harder, but have a bunch of stuff you can sell. Try to stay to the lower level area for awhile until you get a few levels and some of the basics down. You can probably find better information about what is and is not useful from other, more current guides. There are some useful items which can only be made/found in the newbie area, so don't be too quick to leave, items that add to skills may not seem too important, but can later become exactly what you need to squeeze on that piece of equipment or implant a few levels sooner.

[samroski]

Ok. You've convinced me. I'll start a new character. It'll be fun to do so, I think, now that I know a little more about the game. Will keep you updated here.

[samroski]

Update:

 

I started a new character- an Adventurer. I spent a long time reading up on all the pros and cons of different professions and this THOROUGHLY confused me, and thus I just went for this one.

 

The main issue I have experienced is that I chose a female character, human-like, and she happens to be really good looking, and I now have these hoards of big macho (?Atrox) guys after me, trying their best to make out with me in-game! I have had to resort to wearing this scary looking headgear to hide my face and am looking for some non-appealing clothing!

[Vagrant0]

Update:

 

I started a new character- an Adventurer. I spent a long time reading up on all the pros and cons of different professions and this THOROUGHLY confused me, and thus I just went for this one.

 

The main issue I have experienced is that I chose a female character, human-like, and she happens to be really good looking, and I now have these hoards of big macho (?Atrox) guys after me, trying their best to make out with me in-game! I have had to resort to wearing this scary looking headgear to hide my face and am looking for some non-appealing clothing!

Just remind them that Atrox are not equipped for the job, and that there are no real women on the internet. Tell them to go away. If that doesn't work, report them for harassment. These people are clearly other noobs who are mistaken about the game. Don't let it discourage you, once you get to the mainland and get to normal playing, this kind of thing will be rare.