Recent reviews by SLOB ON MY KNOB

Keep in mind for this review:

• I have been playing for about 2.5 weeks
  
• This is from a pure F2P (froob) perspective
  
• Highest level toon is a 120 Meta-Physicist, and a few <60 toons to test classes
  
• All of my playtime is on the standalone client, not steam

So Anarchy Online is a very old Science Fiction MMORPG released in 2001, putting this up there as one of the oldest MMOs to still be running. This shows a lot, so off the bat you really have to have low expectations going into this or you will probably bounce off very quickly. Read everything through this lens. I tried to play the game 2 or so times over a decade ago, but resources were even worse from what i can remember. A guide mentioned below is the reason i decided to give it a real try this time. Theres bugs, quirks, sometimes crashes, inflation, sparse updates, basically most issues you can expect from a game running this long. So let me try to lay things out in a manner that seems coherent and helpful. I will try to split the categories meaningfully.


Before you even play theres some things you need to know:

There are 2 clients. The "old" client and the "new" client. The old client is the original 2001 client while the new client is an attempted "remaster" of the graphics. The new client is marked to have increased instability and incompatibility with community addons/themes. I have never used it but this is the prevailing idea. The old client is mostly stable, but sometimes crashes when zoning into the main "hub" of the game (or at least of the non expansion places, ICC). As in it happens maybe once a play session at most and most of the time not at all. Steam only uses the old client.

This game is from a time where information was not spoon fed, datamined, easily available, and nothing has been done to change that. You will want to use various resources outside of the game to help with this:

Official AO Discord:[discord.com]Very active, very helpful, people answer my questions at all times of the day and have helped me kill hard bosses or other things.
AO-Universe[www.ao-universe.com]: Massive resource for general use guides for the game, i always have this up.
TinkerTools[ao.tinkeringidiot.com]: Items database, implant planner, nano list, etc. All very useful tools.
AOSetups[aosetups.com]: Build setups, although not very useful for a while.
AO-Stonks[ao-stonks.com]: Online database for the in game Market, bot scrapes it and updates the DB.
Faffy's Froob Guide[docs.google.com]: THE resource for any new player looking to get into the game.

Faffy's guide is single handedly the reason i decided to give the game a fair shot. It includes a massive amount of things you need to know to get off the ground, start your character, and not ♥♥♥♥ it up. It even has a mini guide for every class on gear and other milestones. There are other resources linked inside of itself, so please make use of everything.

So AO's model is essentially F2P have access to base game + 1st expansion (Notum Wars) while a paid subscription allows you access to the entire game. No box price. This includes the Keeper and Shade class not being available to F2P players. The base sub price is the typical $14.99 per month. It does scale down heavily, the yearly sub only costing about $99.99. One thing of not is that F2P players do not have access to the market system or are able to send mail. This means you have sell things the old fashion way and need to make an alt account to transfer credits (games currency) or items to alts. You can receive mail from paid players however.

It does have a cash shop. The good thing about this is the cash shop is mostly irrelevant. Most things can be purchased from other players with credits (more on the economy later) but also the value of a lot of these items are very low. The biggest thing is that this game DOES have a way to legally purchase credits, as you can buy an item that gives 30 days subscription time from the cash shop and sell it in game. This is called a GRACE. One thing of note is that you cannot purchase a GRACE until you have been subscribed for a full month, presumably to combat CC fraud.

Gonna be honest i know a story exists but this is going to be an area i have zero idea of. What i do know is that the vibe is VERY Sci Fi. Guns, energy weapons + armor, flying vehicles, etc. A lot of areas though do give off a more Phantasy Star or Star Ocean "sci fi but also not really" vibe, if you get what i mean. I still really like the idea. A lot of the classes are also very flavorful.

This game basically uses the holy trinity. Healers, Tanks, DPS. Issue is that there really is only one dedicated optimal Healing and Tank class, while the rest basically fall under DPS with varying amounts of supportive elements (buffs/debuffs/CC/etc). Some classes can perform other roles to a lesser degree. Note this will be the only thing i will be going off of paid accounts for, i was provided this info from a veteran player. Fixer is reportedly not used in end game groups at all.

Generic idle for the most part. Interesting mechanic with your sheep being attacked, but other than that pretty standard. Graphic style is the most unique thing about it, and what i like the most. Close to beating it, got another night to leave it open to probably max or near max. Will probably be about 3 days.

Eventually got to the hidden prestige mechanic. Took to long and it being hidden is most likely not good for the game. If i didn't read more reviews/discussion forums i would have quit before i got to it.

Not bad. Good systems, just very short. Paced pretty well.

NOTE: Play on the non steam client. There is a bug where if you have more than 1 monitor your FPS will slow to a crawl. Disable your other monitors if you want to play. This issue is not present on at least the JP server, and has existed for like 4 years now unfixed. Safe to say it will never be fixed.

This game is grindy, pay to win, clunky, buggy, and reaks of 2000's Korean MMO game design (This game was released in Korea in 2004 or 2005). With that said, if you like mindless grinding and don't mind spending at least 7 USD a month you can have fun playing.

Additional disclaimer, i'm only 89x and have yet to rebirth. I've done a lot of research, asked questions, and think i can judge a decent amount of this game. Anyone correct me if i'm wrong.

+ Large amount of classes with 3 awakenings per class. They can change the gameplay of your class drastically. Classes are still being released every few years
+ Decently consistent events. "Power hours" most weekends which is either 2x or 3x xp and i think drops
+ Still somehow being updated, and i believe the EN servers have been up for around 13 or 14 years now with no sign of a closure. I believe we're about 6 months behind Japan in terms of updates?

= "Infinite" progression. There is technically no hard level cap
= Grind, grind, grind. There are several daily/weekly/freely available PvE modes but you will spend a majority of your game time grinding maps solo
= Feels like an ARPG. Most classes are 1/2 button game play after buffing and you will aim to 1 shot any non boss mob. I've seen end game(~1200+ 5 rebirth) characters clear maps in under 20-30 seconds
= Isometric 2d art style
= 2 different pet systems. Nephon and mini pets. The issue with mini pets is they only last 30 days, and as far as i know outside of possibly events the only way to refresh their time is a cash shop item. Theres also a cash shop item that allows you to use 2 at once instead of only 1
= Has a battle pass system. Gaining decent levels is probably not going to happen until you get to level 900+ for a lot of the daily missions. Not to mention Raid is a daily mission on it despite it being a weekly activity, meaning they want you to raid every day of the week on a different character. Wack
= After not playing for 30 days, your next login will give you Returner status for 2 weeks. This comes with 2 weeks of a separate login reward, a pack with some goodies including a 7 day Portal Sphere, Returner missions that give you a bunch of a currency (adventure coins) used to purchase leveling gear/other things and other freebies, along with a temporary title that gives you a big xp and drop rate bonus. This is listed as neither a negative or a positive because it on one hand gives you a pretty good incentive to come back if not just for the free sphere and xp/drop bonus, but you REALLY feel playing without it. Not to mention i would advise any new player to login on an account and just wait a month for Returner. Its just that good for early game
= Rebirth system. Restart from an earlier level with additional skill and stat points, up to 5 times. Minimum level 600 for rebirths 1-4 and 900 for 5th. I haven't done it yet myself but the bonus on rebirth is flat, the level you rebirth only determines how many levels you lose. The advice is to just wait until 905 if possible because you only lose 1 level per rebirth after 900. You can plan and do it earlier if you wish

- Class balance is very bad, the class/awakening combo you choose can make or break your experience. A lot of classes seem to have a clear best awakening
- PvP is supposed to be a big part of the game and has systems like guild wars but as far as i can tell we have such a small player base that no one actually takes it seriously. Guild wars are from what i understand basically forced if you have a guild but sometimes guilds just dont show up
- Very small player base, as such the economy is small
- Party play seems non existent
- Very little english information. The english information that does exist is for some reason on player ran blogs, with only one that isn't dead. Most of your information will come from word of mouth on discord and google translated Japanese fan sites/blogs
- Extremely pay to win. In addition to your typical cash shop items there is the Portal Sphere, a 30 day account bound item that provides teleports, xp boosts, a mount, access to premium only maps, etc as long as its in your inventory that costs 7 USD. I would consider it a mandatory subscription. Playing without this means you will be spending a ton of gold you will not have to use teleports in game, not accounting for the teleports and maps you wont have access to.without it
- Old Korean MMO design like quests that need you to wait a week of IRL time or mandatory quests that need hundreds of an item drop from mobs at extremely low rates (and they sell an item that boosts its drop rate)
- Terrible, terrible translation. It looks like 90% of the game was ran through google translate. Grammar errors, nonsensical words, needlessly verbose, straight up a paragraph that will say anything but what the item does or painfully vague that it might as well not say. The % sign shows as "£¥" for no discernible reason. Yes, the british pound and yen symbols together. Who knows why
- Buggy mess. Field name search just doesn't work. Sometimes you will just be unable to target mobs with your cursor unless you go in and out of a menu. When i first played years ago there was a few days where characters could get bugged and just not access their bank. The client issue mentioned above. Way more examples too lol
- The game is basically unmoderated. Theres one guy spamming racist, conservative, conspiracy theory ridden insane world chats every day on dozens of characters. I think this has been going on for months if not years. RMT is regularly accepted by the players and there seems to be no repercussions. Botters seem to be unchecked. The only time ive heard of people being banned is if they bug abuse and are caught
- Massive amount of upgrade systems that are almost entirely RNG based
- XP curve has a MASSIVE increase at about 880



Yeah, this game has a lot more wrong with it than good. Regardless i'm still having fun. I'll play it until i don't. Again, i REALLY urge and prospective player to make an account then come back in a month to play with Returner. Being able to play with Sphere, the title, and getting enough adventure coins to buy a ton of Association gear after like 5 minutes of returner missions makes early game such a breeze. I'd also honestly say you want like ~100 USD to spend on any character youre playing seriously or your main. Backpack space, bank space, costume, either the mount that prevents CP loss or the one that lets you attack while moving, as permanent things.

zoop zoop
helmbreaker
i can't control it

69/69

Pros:
- Unique Gylph systems for skills/stats
- Good stylized graphics (imo even better than Hero Siege)
- South East Asian folklore setting (i believe)
- Multiclass system (2 additional classes beyond initial) with combos that transform specific skills into new ones
- Path Of Exile like "map" infinitely scaling end game
- Food system that "crafts" permanent passive stats for additional min maxing

Neutral:
- Glyphs and gear do not have a level requirement. Glpyh levels seem to almost be meaningless while the level indicated on gear mostly determines how high the ceiling is for the modifiers to be upgraded. This means you can pre-farm high power gear/glyphs to make early game much easier
- You can technically upgrade legendary (yellow) gear to epic (purple) to get additonal modifier lines (GEAR only NOT GLYPHS) but it is entirely RNG, pray to RNGesus to get what you want
- Timeline for character creation to end game is probably around 2-6 hours depending on build/experience/focus on speed/etc
- Respecs as of right now cost 100k gold, which is kind of a lot as of this current review. I think gold drops were nerfed sometime in the past few months. You will probably be better off remaking a new character if you havent made it to end game and can farm it in a decent time frame. Keep in mind, you can switch what skills you use within your class choices freely but respecs change your multiclass selections.

Cons:
- Defensive stats sometimes feel useless, and even with recent mob nerfs still feels like "the only good way to stay alive is to not get hit"
- Balance between skills doesn't feel the best, and some skills feel terrible to start off without pre-farmed gear/glyphs/ Melee builds here seem to feel the worst out of any ARPG i've played before.
- No unique items, sets, or big ticket rares
- No way to reroll/upgrade glyph modifiers unlike regular gear leading to an even longer RNG grind than the already long gear grind
- Still moderately buggy, for example one of the skills Sixth Sense as of this review straight up doesn't work

Overall, it is a fun little ARPG with its gylph and skill glyph system being an interesting way to approach the traditional skill and gear systems. I personally feel like 20 bucks is a fine price if you can stomach the cons.

negative cuz i was bored this season and they ninja nerfed drop rates

GAME IZ GUD. SILVER SCRUB SUK DA DAD. 1V1 ME ESEA AIM SERVER BRUH