tell me about this game

Blue3000

I'm looking for a game to play but don't much about this one other then what the game itself says.  I tried downloading the free trial but for some reason couldn't do it at the end.  It only had 2 days left of being free so I didn't have much time to work on it.

I just cancelled City of Villains due to boredom, nothing to do after reaching top level.

You guys who play this game can you let me know a bit about it.  How are the graphics, game play.  Would you really recomend this game as being really good or mediocre at best?

Thanks for any info.

Beanchilla

Okay well good,
cause CoH is realllyyy repetitive.
And lets hope you wanted more depth cause you'll get it with this.

AO has dated graphics, while SL is great for eye candy, the majority of the game is not.
AI has some nice alien models and ships. But this game is not about graphics.

However gameplay this thing excels.
I would greatly reccomend AO, and im not someone with a low end comp.
I played, coh, eq2, wow, swg, gw, and others.
But ao is the best.

The fighting is great, huge communities, frequent updates,
this game decorates for every season, with special quests and goodies,
its got player housing, tradeskills, monster fighting, city owning, raids, pvp, pve.

Its an extravaganza of skills, action, community and fun.
It can be a lot to take in.

However you give it a week. The game will become great fun.
If you can get used to the complex gameplay, which only takes about a week.
Its the greatest game.

First, get a class (tons but adventurer is good for newbs),
then do newb mishs which introduce u to game,
then get a guild,
then level a few times,
then you truly enter the game.

this is the best mmo i have played.

I suggest at least trying it, it is free,
if it aint your cup of tea, then try something else.
No harm, no fowl.
g'luck, and if ya want im "deimmos" on RK-2.

Jason11x

How do you level up, by grinding? If it is a grind, how long does it take, like do you have to grind for hours in  higher lvls to level up.

What is the combat like? Is it fast paced? Is it done with spells, or guns, or what?

Is there a lot of PvP? How does the PvP work? is there large PvP battles?

I read that no character will look the same.. how does this work? Is it through large number of character creation options, or a large variety of armor and weapons?

Thanks,

-Jason

Beanchilla

Level up can be done in a few ways.
Grinding of course, and the grind isnt bad til you get to high levels, if you get a group in SL or totw.
it isnt hard at all.

Theres also crafting, missions,
and other things that give you exp.
But grinding is never that hard.

Combat is not fast, :P:P biggest dissapointment for me,
its done with spells and guns and swords, it uses them all, but the spells are called "nanos"

PvP is present and it works well, theres places to battle, duels, guild wars, tower battles
yes there are huge pvp battles, however this game is not PvP oriented, i mean it can be,
but most people dont focus on pvp
its just no that kind of game.

Characters do appear smiliar sometimes, but majority do look differient,
this isnt becuase of large number of char creation,
honestly char creation is a let down other than variety of classes,
the differience comes from the equipment, armor, weapons, etc.

This game is the best mmo,
i hope you try it :).

Phoenix_Hawk

You can go around fighting random mobs, go after dyna camp bosses, missions, quests, craft and I think PvP can give XP too. When doing quests and missions aside from the XP gained killing things you also get rewards for doing them which include XP. Then when you team the XP the team gets for killing something will be higher than you'd get soloing so once spread over your team mates you'll end up getting some decent XP. Not quite as much as if you soloed it but you'll still get some good XP in a team. Due to that alone levelling with a team can be pretty useful and moves along well, especially when you take on things you'd never manage on your own. Once you get to high levels in any such game it will take you hours to pick up levels but for the first 100-120+ levels or so (depends on play style and class, build, etc...) you'll be moving along pretty well. By this time you may have been able to get all to most of your nanos which for pet classes in particular will flatten out your effectiveness but to get them all in early you'd need to do some twinking. Having the SL expansion will help things along as you can use the higher XP critters there to gain XP faster. You can gain XP through crafting, but you're not allowed to level by crafting, you need to kill something for that last bit of XP. The biggest grind can be missioning for tokens if you're clan or omni but you get more tokens at a time now than you used to so it's not too bad.

Combat can keep you rather busy but will depend on the situation, your play style, gear and your class. With some classes you can be casting, using special attacks, commanding pets and/or doing other things steady. With others it's mostly select the target, hit attack and wait with all your nanos being pre-fight buffs for the most part and not all weapons having specials. This isn't a space sim MMORPG like the craptacular Vendetta Online which is nothing more than a sad little FPS and this isn't a mouse masher like Diablo (good game but hard on your mouse). As your level increases your attack and cast rate can decrease with points in those skills plus you'll have more nanos and other things you can do in a fight at once then higher level mobs can be more powerful and have new tricks too. Teaming is a good way of keeping things interesting too.

AO at it's source is based around the clan vs omni conflict. The SL expansion drifted away from that but to some extent AI and certainly the coming Lost Eden expansions are aimed at bring it back to the front of the stage. Although the way it works in AO is that there are areas that allow PvP, those that don't and those that could in some situations. Then those that don't can still allow it if you're "flagged" but if you don't like PvP you can avoid it and there is plenty of PvE to do. If you live for PvP though you can get into it from the start but most have twinked up lower level chars or have camped enough to get the high end hard to get stuff that lets them PvP very effectively at high levels. There will still be those you can get a good match with and things even out more in group PvP but various vets that are into PvP have picked up some pretty sweet gear over the four plus years AO has been around so don't expect to be at the top of the dog pile too soon. One thing to add though is that big PvP fights can get rather laggy due to the old graphics engine AO is using which is largely based on the power of your CPU, not your video card. Due to this you first off would need to tinker with your graphics setting to get things to play well then would want to lower them before engaging in group PvP. Also as is certainly true with AO the more RAM you have the better.

There is a lot of gear in this game and a lot of ways to make your chars. Just about everything you put on can change your look with different types of weapons and armour actually looking different from one and other when on your char. Depending on the class, breed and skills you choose some weapons and armour pieces will be better for you than others and some will be harder to get at than others. When making your char there are various of creation options (height, face, sex, breed, physical build) to make your general look different, but your face will often be covered up by helmets. You can see people at different stages looking rather similar to one and other but for the most part different choices in breed, class, gear or build will result in different gear set-ups so most of the time people look different from one and other. Robes can cover most things up though so if you're for instance a fr00b in ToTW you'll see a lot of other fr00bs with exarch robes. AO certainly allows for a LOT more appearance changes than Linage I but at the same time certainly can't hold a candle to Second Life (most can't in that regards though).

Xpheyel

One thing about combat, I find that combat is really slow and boring on my Fixer. But, against orange/red mobs, very intense on my Enforcer. As a Fixer you mostly stand around eating damage with your Heal-Over-Time and shooting the mob with an SMG. Maybe root/snare, hope it lands, and run away.

On my Enforcer, I've got to make some snap decisions on what nanoprograms to use. A wrong one will almost always land me in the Reclaim. Just this evening I was teaming up to kill Mort Cyborgs (ah, nice 1/6th of a level per or something off those guys). I drew aggro from the, I think it was a Cyborg Lt. General. Anyway, I was getting nailed and I'd already used my absorb shields so I hit my Mongo (Area of Effect taunt which also heals me and increases my maximum health). I think it hit another Cyborg which attacked and got a critical hit on me. When I was solo-ing the Guardian of Tomorrow, I was able to use his split damage type (projectile and melee) to my advantage by chain-casting Rages (move/cast/hit faster) and Absorb shields.

Combat is way faster in a team.