AO Extreme-Peanut Buttery AO News

Monday July 9 2001

Servers Down Monday July 9, 2001 6:00AM

The servers were just taken down for an update. The ETA is 90 minutes. Since the last patch i've experienced a nice boost in stability. I still get massive lag spikes where i can't do anything for 30 seconds up to about 3 minutes. But the server lost problems have almost gone away for me.

As for the site not being updated nearly as much i'm having a few problems with my computer. I'm going to need copies of Dreamweaver and Paintshop Pro but it will probably be a while before i can afford them again.

Friday July 6 2001

Quake 3 Designer Speaks Friday July 6, 2001 6:00AM

Graeme Devine one of the lead designers on the PC game Quake 3 has updated his plan file with some suggestions for Funcom on AO. One of the things he talks about in it is how is posts on the community board keep getting deleted. Not very cool Funcom. Here is the obligatory snip:

When you've got 700 people in a dimension you've got to trust the client to do a certain amount of prediction. The extent of updates from the server for me seems to vary drastically because of dropped TCP packet timeouts. At the very least a UDP noise channel should be established for some of the events around the player.

Check the whole thing out here

Lowtax Does AO Friday July 6, 2001 5:45AM

Lowtax has posted his ao first impressions. Pretty funny stuff had me laughing my ass off. Check it out here

Wednesday July 4 2001

Servers Down Wednesday July 4, 2001 1:00PM

Servers are now down again for yet another server-side patch ETA 90 minutes. After yesterday's patch our group of adventures experienced yet again massive lag, constant disconnects, and crashing. Hopefully this patch gets us back to at least some semblence of stability. Made it to level 25 last night even though i experienced 3 character resets and 5 deaths due to lag last night. That's it for now see you all in Rubi-Ka.

Tuesday July 3 2001

Dr.Twister's Manifesto Tuesday July 3, 2001 8:40PM

TeeKayOhh has emailed me to let me know about the Dr.Twister Network's new manifesto:

The Dr.Twister Network, to which Anarchy Online Twister Belongs, has just released its new Manifesto. This Vision into Online Gaming explains who we[DTN] are, and what we believe in. As Consumer Gaming Advocates, we want to encourage the Game Companies to treat their customers with the utmost respect. We outline our principles in this document, and I ask that all take the time to read it. Click here to begin your journey.

=Quantum
Administrator
Dr.Twister.com
The Dr.Twister Network

Servers Down Again Tuesday July 3, 2001 4:10PM

The servers were just taken down for a server side patch again. ETA is 90 minutes. Last night i got to play for quite a while with only sporadic crashing and disconnects. I made it to level 23 but as morning turned into afternoon and more people started logging on i began to lag and crash everytime i tried to zone. I also hope they fix the reset bug soon as my character has been reset numerous times already back to his savepoint losing all the exp and cash that i had earned.

Monday July 2 2001

Servers Down Monday July 2, 2001 2:21 PM

The servers were just taken down for a patch. ETA is 90 minutes. With any luck this patch will at least fix a few problems. No word on what they are doing yet. Here we have 3 interesting screens. Check the lag meter in the 1st one. A pleasant graphics bug in the second and last but not least Devlz stating his opinion =).

Sunday July 1 2001

Retail Sunday July 1, 2001 6:09 PM

I haven't updated the page for a bit because of the inability to play AO at this time. In a couple days i will write a longer article on my current experiences with the retail version. But here is the short version of how it has been going for me and everyone else i know so far. 50% of the time cannot log into the game as the servers have been down. When i do get into the game i sometimes can play for a few minutes and a few times as long as 30 minutes to an hour. But usually i get kicked out after only about 3 minutes. Even when i am in the game there is so much lag most of the time that i cannot perform any actions such as even sitting so i can log out and i frequently have to use the /quit command to get out of the game. One of the things that has frequently been happening to me is time warp and save point warp. I will play for a while and then log out only to come back to find out that nothing i had done or any of the exp i had earned had been saved and i had to start over. A few times i logged out only to come back on and find myself back at my save point never having died. Not to mention the inability to zone 90% of the time and sometimes dying on missions and repopping back in the mission and dying over and over again because i can't zone. I could go on for a while but i will end it here because i have hope that Funcom will get the game working shortly. One last thing i will mention is that apparently some players are still able to dupe credits as i have been recieving reports of players flashing around millions of credits in game.

Friday June 29 2001

Massive Beta 4 Report/Impressions Friday June 29, 2001 1:32 AM

I've finally finished the kick ass beta 4 review/report. It contains my impressions of the entire beta not to mention 35 all new high quality screenshots. I encourage everyone interested in anarchy online to check it out. I've posted it here with the first page of the screenshot gallery being here .

Thursday June 28 2001

Devlz End of Beta Report Thursday June 28, 2001 8:27 PM

Devlz has written a report based on his experiences at the end of beta. Included are some great screens he took. Check it out here .

Allakhazam AO Site Thursday June 28, 2001 4:40 PM-Devlz

Maker of a very popular everquest site Allakhazam has now opened a site for Anarchy Online. Check it out here.

Gamespot Q&A Thursday June 28, 2001 4:36 PM-Devlz

Gamespot has posted a new Q&A with Morten Byom. Here is the obligatory snip:

GS: One of the most interesting things about Anarchy Online will be its story, which is scheduled to play out over four real-time years. How will Anarchy Online's environments reflect the game's story, and how will they change to accommodate changes in the game's storyline?

MB: The world of Anarchy Online is a dynamic world; things change all the time. As the story moves on and the conflict between Omni-Tek and the Clans escalates, there may be changes as to who is in charge of different areas. A player might actually come back to an Omni-Tek outpost in the borderland between Omni-Tek and Clan areas and find that it is now overrun by Clan and is no longer friendly toward him or her.

Wednesday June 27 2001

The Beginning Wednesday June 27, 2001 2:55 PM

Anarchy Online has now launched. The servers are currently down for an emergency patch. Now on to the problems. One thing i must mention is that i was finally able to log into the game a bit ago and some bastard stole my in game name Ryoko. For all my friends in game my character is now named Ayeka(for now). There are reports of massive amounts of problems. Thousands of people are unable to register and those that can are getting all kinds of error messages. Many people are unable to patch the game also due to a bug with the patching program. While i was in the game for a very short amount of time i experienced massive lag and disconnects.

When i tried to register i kept getting a server not found error so i then tried the support page and yet again a server not found error. I then checked my hotmail and uh my account was shall we say bombed by Funcom lol. 92 new messages all the same the ao registration details. There is also word that the registration itself is totally unsecured. I would advise anyone not to register as your credit card number could easily be taken. Lucky me i didn't notice the lack of the little lock in the bottom of my browser. So maybe there is a bunch of people busy buying goat porn with my card.

Since i have nothing better to do i'm going to take this time to comment on Funcom's recent attempts at class balance. In the recent patch many of the fixer's combat skills were made harder to raise. Fixer's now are able to raise all their trade skills easily but are combat skills were totally gimped. I thought the trade skills would be the role of the trader guess i was wrong. The only combat skill we have that is green is MG/SMG and even the burst skill that is required to train with that is not green. In addition our nano skills are dark blue and very hard to raise which doesn't make much sense to me as our main skill is supposed to be transportation. It should be noted that they have always been dark blue but i feel this should be changed.

The End Wednesday June 27, 2001 2:08 AM

Well folks the beta of Anarchy Online has come to an end. The most anti-climatic end in history but still the end. I am now going to spell out my feelings on the end if the beta and the current state of anarchy online.

First off i have to say the one huge problem today and many other days and i cannot stress this enough Funcom. Communication. There was zero communication from Funcom today. With thousands of players waiting anxiously to play and spend their ten million credits you would think Funcom would have something to say when zoning did not work. But alas they kept silent as hundreds of players sat gathered in the backyards talking and generally waiting hoping for anything.

What they were waiting for never came. Some people were teleported out to Rome but it did no good as you could not zone out of the city anyway and there was constant crashing. Even just one message broadcast serverwide saying something like hey we are working on zoning but it will not be fixed in time for the end of beta would have helped everyone but that never happened.

I sincerely hope AO is a huge success as i love the game when it works. I can't wait for the full release tomorrow. But i also know there is no way any human programmer can fix all of the issues in even 1 months time. Most likely at least the first month is going to be a very bumpy ride with massive amounts of disconnects and general all around server problems.

Zoning with the grid did work a few times for me and i was able to get in a little exploring with my air vehicle before the end of beta. In that time i happened upon a small clan outpost and ruthlessly killed a few clan players that were sitting around the reclaim booth there. Sometime this week most likely tomorrow i am going to be posting a massive Beta 4 report for everyone to enjoy. It will include a huge amount of high quality screens and commentary from me and devlz not to mention some general tips and strategies. This is Tenchid and Devlz signing off Beta 4 and looking forward to retail AO. I'm posting 2 screenshots as a teaser of the beta 4 report to come soon.

Tuesday June 26 2001

Beta Event!... Not! Tuesday June 26, 2001 9:41 PM

Well after days of anticipation so far everything has been a disaster. No one can zone. Most people are stuck in the backyards they created their characters in sitting there level 75 with 10 million credits. I was able to zone a few times but now i am unable to. I fully equipped myself and bought a car and devlz is stuck in his backyard. I took some pics of the most people i have ever seen in one area of any mmorpg ever. No one knows how soon it will be before Funcom ends the beta. Could be hours or minutes. I sincerely hope they fix zoning before they end it so we can actually have some fun with the levels and money they have bestowed upon us. While i was stuck in the backyard i participated in an impromptu strip show and that was about the most fun i had so far today. Well enough talking for now here are some pics i've taken:

Dance Fever Tuesday June 26, 2001 1:00 PM

After the servers came back up last night me and Devlz decided to do some dancing lol. Pics to follow.

There has been alot of changes in most classes including the one i play the fixer. I'm not sure why some of these changes were made as some of my skills that used to be green are now dark blue and vice versa. You now have to pay each time you press the generate button for the missions also one credit per level. I do not agree with this as i think ammo, weapons, and armor was a big enough money sink as it is.

Many new weapons have also been introduced and they are much cheaper now which helps alleviate the added cost of missions. The new camera system is very well done. You can press ctrl+F8 to switch between the different modes. All missions now seem to be working and the lag meter has been added also. Implant shops are now fully stocked and alot more trade skill items have been added. Alot of people are still having major crashing problems when zoning and being kicked to desktop when just walking around including our own Devlz.

In what i hope is a bug missions have been made ten times harder where sometimes every enemy in the mission aggros on you just by walking in the door and they attack you through the walls. The NPC AI has been upped big time they cast many more nanos now and sometimes root you and run away which can be very annoying as a couple times i was rooted for upwards of 4 minutes. Update: The servers are currently down as after everyone was upped to 75 and the people were beginning to suit up and head for battle there was mass lag and disconnections. You can look forward to some great screens and a report later.

Monday June 25 2001

The Death Of Ryoko Monday June 25, 2001 12:46 PM

There is a new message on the login screen as follows:

We have now stopped to count the time to release in days and have gone over to hours even though there are still two days left. In the works for making
the launch day as painless as possible we want to make a general rehearsal with the introduction of new 11.4 patch also know as the launch patch. A
total character wipe has been performed to simulate that a fresh start, as we will have on the 27th. The rehearsal will then escalate into a beta event
where all characters are upped to level 75 with millions of credits. All characters created before Tuesday 26th at 12 noon (EST) will be upped. All those not with buffed characters at that time, will be unable to participate in the event.

I would like to thank everyone for a wonderful beta period. Some of you have been with us since the start and have bearded with us through thick and
thin. We could not have done this without you. We have learned a lot during this beta, knowledge that will help Funcom to run even better beta tests in
the future. With only 2 days to launch I know that many of you already have your retail box and that many of you are going to take advantage of the
online offer. Wish us luck and bear with us when we launch the first ever Science fiction MMORPG on June 27th.

As of now the servers are still down and the patch message from 11.3 can be found here . As you can see they have performed a full character wipe. I wish there had been some warning as i feel like something was taken away from me. Funny how you get attached to a character you know is going to be wiped anyway. With them giving away millions of credits to each toon i foresee everyone driving around in their cars and almost no one walking period. Now that everyone will be same level or close there is going to be some spectacular battles taking place im sure and i will be there to bring you all the great stories that take place.

Let's take this time we have before the server comes back up to mourn our lost characters and move on. I can't wait to see some of the higher level nanos and some of the cars that were way too expensive to buy before. Prepare everyone as the end of the world approaches and the deciding battles begin. Let Anarchy Reign!

Let the Battle Commence! Monday June 25, 2001 3:12 AM

The servers are down for what i assume is 11.3. So time for an update. I took part in a massive and still ongoing battle between the rebels and omni. It took place in and around the areas of the 4 Holes, Argentum, and Stret West. There was no clear victor and many battles were won by both sides.

It all began with a few of us turning off our lanterns and beginning to scout the area for clanners. We spotted one and commenced the chase. He got away but loe and behold the dev Karmacappa popped in to show us his support in the ongoing battle against the rebels and help us out a bit.

Next we headed towards the 2 bridges on the way to Borealis and we encountered our 1st large Clan group. This is where we won our 1st clear and decisive victory as most of the high levels we killed did not return. The battle then raged on for many hours into the night and was still ongoing when the servers were taken down for the update.

I've now obtained my car and my inventory back which i had lost yesterday in a crash. At the moment i am a level 35 Opifex Fixer and i'm enjoying the hell out of it. I've posted a page with a bunch of great screens from the battle and also 3 teasers here on the front page.

Saturday June 23 2001

AO Adventures Saturday June 23, 2001 7:40 PM

I haven't updated the page much lately do to the fact that i've been having a very hard time playing AO and staying connected or even connecting at all. One of the biggest problems i've been having is that i get kicked alot while zoning and then i can't get back on my character for hours at a time sometimes four hours or more.

While i have been playing i made it to level 33 and bought myself a bunch of new armor and weapons in the meantime. I bought a car but i'm unable to use it yet due to the fact that i need about 20 more points in my ground vehicle skill(209). The new weapon i bought is called a mausser and i would recommend it to all the fixers out there. it can be bought in any store that stocks weapons and it costs about 60k. My average hit is about 60 with burst averaging 100-250.

There is only a short amount of time left in the beta so i am going to try spending the next few days exploring and getting some cool screens for the site. When the beta ends i will be posting a huge Beta 4 report on the site which will include many tips, hints, and screenshots. In the meantime here are some mainly plain battle shots and a new daily screen:

Launch Notes Saturday June 23, 2001 7:34 PM

Vinz the Funcom support manager has posted the following launch notes on the official boards:

Citizens of Rubi-Ka,

For those of you who have received your Anarchy Online retail box via Funcom pre-order, please note the following:

- You will not be able to log onto Anarchy Online, using the CD key that is packaged with the retail version of AO, until Wednesday, June 27th.

- Any character that is created, by using the combination of the retail version software and an Anarchy Online beta 4 CD key or by way of beta acceptance, will be wiped at the conclusion of the Anarchy Online beta phase.

- Upon the launch of Anarchy Online on Wednesday, June 27th, there will be a final patch deeming the Anarchy Online client and servers ready for play.

- If you have installed Anarchy Online prior to launch on June 27th, you will have to un-install and then re-install AO for it to function correctly.

We thank you and certainly hope to see you all in Rubi-Ka shortly. The time for Anarchy is soon at hand!

Sean Cunningham
Support Manager, USA
Funcom Support
www.anarchyonline.com
www.funcom.com

Intro Movie Saturday June 23, 2001 7:31 PM

The Anarchy Online Intro has been made available for download here .

Download AO Saturday June 23, 2001 7:23 PM

The official ao page has been updated with word of AO being downloadable for countries it is not sold in:

Because of our retail commitments, this offer is only available to people based outside North America and the Nordic countries. It will also only be available until we have secured retail distribution in those areas. For those of you based in North America or Nordic countries, we encourage you to visit your local games retail store.

You can find the rest of the info here .

Friday June 22 2001

AO Adventures Friday June 22, 2001 4:21 PM

I haven't posted any ao adventures for the last couple of days due to the fact i've basically been unable to have any. This has been due to the constant disconnections and crashes. At the end of Beta 4 which is supposedly this sunday night i will be posting a massive report with screenshots and all the relevant info i can provide. My Opifex Fixer is now level 30 and still the only real fixer nano that i use often is grid hack all the others are basically useless. I am going to play the same thing in final as i am still having a hell of a lot of fun and can't wait to see what the high level nanos are like.

Wednesday June 20th 2001

Disconnects Wednesday June 20, 2001 11:01 AM

Last night was my 1st non enjoyable night of AO yet, but these things are to be expected in a beta. I was unable to stay online for more then 5 minutes at a time with an average of about 2 minutes before getting kicked. This was on several different characters all in seperate areas. My friends list usually full of online people was a barren wasteland. When i did glance someone for a second we could not hold a conversation because either i or they would get kicked within minutes so this is far from an isolated problem. Some people are reporting greater stability but these are by far the minority considering all the 40 people on my friends list all had the same problem as me. On a side night during the one span i was able to stay on for more then 5 minutes i took part in a few PvP battles. A clan engineer a couple levels lower then me attacked me in meetmedere so i opened up a full auto and killed her in one hit for 743 damage. She came back a couple minutes later with a doctor friend the same level as me. The doc and i both buffed up and went at it. In the end she won the fight which lasted a good couple of minutes but then due to a bug i got off a fling shot as i was falling to the ground and she died also. So in closing i am hoping for word from Funcom on when this problem will be fixed so i and everyone else i know can get back to testing the game.

Monday June 18th 2001

AO Adventures Monday June 18, 2001 1:35 PM

I spent last night playing AO as per usual and here is a recap of some of the things i experienced. I finally got to use the grid yesterday afternoon. My computer literacy when i first entered it was 117. So what happened you ask let's just say it was very buggy. My first instinct was to go to a city i hadn't seen before so i chose Newland. So i moved my little avatar over to the elevator and bumped up against it to go down. It said comp lit skill must be 100 and mine was 117 so i was like doh! That is when i fell off the side only 300 damage so i lived. I then saw the Newland banner and i walked up to it and began zoning. I appeared in a strange looking area that looked suspiciously like clouds and im like wth? I looked down and i saw the city below and thought oh my god oh no. Next thing i knew boom 969 damage dead on the spot. I appeared back at my save point but decided to go right back at it. I then took the grid to an area called Meetmedere which actually worked very well. I looked around the outpost a bit and then went looking around the wilderness only to be caught in a blinding red sandstorm. When it was finally over i saw the city of Newland in the distance and headed there to meet up with my friend Korkin. That is just a small part of the adventures i took part in last night and of course some new screens of what took place. In the first screen check out the text of my falling damage. The second one is of the grid and the third a pick from the sandstorm.

Sunday June 17th 2001

AO Adventures Sunday June 17, 2001 11:47 AM

For the 1st time since the patch i had hardly any stability problems at all yesterday. I spent the day and night fighting with only 1 group in 2 different mutant towns. I made it all the way to level 21 and i got about 10 new nanos. One of the nanos limited grid jump accelerates your character to an amazing speed. I can see everyone asking for it in the future. It is a fixer specific nano. During the night i met alot of nice people and i think the community and players for AO are shaping up quite nicely. There is nothing like a few hours of good battle with some excellent people. So without further ado here is some screen luvin for everyone.

Saturday June 16th 2001

Morning/Late Night Uplink Saturday June 16, 2001 1:02 AM

I've spent the last couple hours trying to play AO. I don't know why but since the patch to 11.2 AO constantly crashes on me and i also get constant rubberbanding for no particular reason. Before the patch it ran great for me. There was lag in the big cities but that was it. Now i can't walk more then a couple steps without the game crashing. Even with all this i still enjoy the hell out of the times when i can play so you can look forward to some more high quality screens later today. Well Devlz the screen hoe is busting on me to post at least one of my luscious screens tonight so here is two.

Friday June 15th 2001

Servers Down Friday June 15, 2001 9:46 AM

The servers just went down. They will be down for the next 4-6 hours. Here is a couple new screens to help alleviate your boredom.

Split Download Friday June 15, 2001 8:50 AM

The official AO site has been updated with word that they have a split version for download. That way, should you get an error in one part of the download, you can just download that part again instead of having to download the whole client again. Access it here .

Thursday June 14th 2001

AO Adventures 2 Thursday June 14, 2001 11:47 AM

Last night i had the time to play a couple of hours of AO. I took plenty of screenshots but 1st my advice and tips for all lower level players. If you are a fixer or a class like that put your newbie gun away and brawl in my opinion it is much more effective. Stay in the newbie area till level 4 and then venture out and do missions. I recommend to everyone to stay the hell out of the cities the lag is unbearable and it is almost impossible to play if there is alot of people in the city. Pick a nice cozy spot in the countryside with a mission generator and get to work. When you do missions put the slider all the way to easy and shift left-click on the mission to find out what you have to do in the mission. You can also scroll all the way down to the end of the mission to see your reward. You can also shift-left click on the reward to see its stats. Some of the outlying areas have almost no one in them and are almost lag free. I've also noticed that the missions on the outside seem to give much bigger rewards. An average mission in Omni-1 Trade gave about 200 credits as its reward. But the mission i picked up in the 2 holes gave 1k.

I take this sentence to plead with Funcom to at least put in an OOC channel as everyone is using the seeking team and shopping channel to blab about EQ and AC. I think putting in a specific chat channel for each city would alleviate alot of the problems players are having communicating. Alot of people are having trouble zoning into their mission. The best way i found to do it is just stand there or even sit down and wait till it zones you. It has worked almost everytime for me. If you get the message area change is not initiated on server log off and then back in again.

As far as IP points go i would recommend that if you are lower level only put points into what you feel is necessary. Save the rest or as many as you can till you get in the city. When you do get in the city make sure to find a store with starting equip and nanos so you know what you are going to need IP's in. That is it for my starting tips for today as this has gotten too long already. Now here are some great screens i took last night with more to be found on this page.

Wednesday June 13th 2001

Omni Trade Map Wednesday June 13, 2001 8:09 PM

AO Stratics has posted up a link to a great map of Omni-1 Trade for everyone.