Game Info:

Category : MMORPG
Publisher : Funcom
Developer : Funcom
Release : 09/09/2003
MSRP (US): $29.99 (Free 30 day trial)
Subscription Rates: $14.95 a month or reduced monthly rate for longer period.
ESRB: Teen

More Screenshots - Homepage - Download

Minimum Requirements:

System: 450 MHz or faster
OS: Windows 98/ME/2K/XP
RAM: 128 MB RAM (512 recommended)
Video: 32 MB RAM DirectX®/Direct3D compatible video accelerator card
Hard Drive Space: 1.4 GB
DirectX: DirectX 8.1
Internet Connection: 56k or faster

Background/Summary:

Back in April of 2001, I was addicted to a little known game called Everquest. I played it non-stop, even called in sick to work just to play it. A friend of mine asked to check out this new game called Anarchy Online that had just reached beta test. After signing up and getting into the beta, I gradually realized that I was no longer addicted to Everquest and found all my spare time was being used to immerse myself into the science fiction world of nanos, implants, and a travel system known as the grid. The story line, dynamic missions created just for me or my team, new and wonderful looking creatures, areas that were absolutely beautiful and a soundtrack that could not be matched by any current game out at the time was enough to make me cancel my Everquest account and start playing Anarchy Online at release.

However, there were several problems at release; the game was incredibly unstable, lag so horrible that it was like watching a slide slow of your relatives that just got back from vacation, and numerous bugs or issues that after two months I had to cancel my account because of frustration and unhappiness.

Fast forward to the present, I received a package in the mail with a copy of Anarchy Online: Shadowlands expansion. So, after a lot of work by Funcom, a booster pack, and now an expansion pack, it was time to return to Rubi-Ka.

In the time since the original story line, Omni-Tek’s right to govern Rubi-ka have become in jeopardy as the rebellious clan’s civil war against Omni-Tek has gained success. Omni-Tek has been searching deeper into the secrets of Rubi-ka to discover the origins of Notum. In the city of Jobe, a team of Omin-Tek’s scientist has opened a portal into another parallel world. That world is the Shadowlands, where incredible new lands of ice, fire, swamp, and wonder have been opened and ready for exploration. Once people began exploring the Shadowlands, they found new beings who call themselves the Redeemed or the Unredeemed. Much like a mirrored universe of Star Trek, the Redeemed are aligned with the clans, and the Unredeemed are aligned with Omni-Tek. The battle has raged between them as it has on Rubi-ka and it has scarred the Shadowlands with a terrible struggle that could bring the destruction of the universe.

Gameplay:

First and foremost, I must say this is not your average rpg, it is much more complex and the developers have put a lot of thought into this game and it shows. The amount of detail and information needed to understand implants, nanos, factions, towers and land control are all a huge part in this game. Those that just want to log into a game and kill things will find that they are out of place here in Anarchy Online. As Ziana, my tour guide, told me this is an intelligent role-playing game that forces people to think while playing.

With the introduction of the expansion pack, there have been many new features introduced. The first of which is the newest city of Jobe. The city of Jobe was built by a rogue group of Omni-Tek scientists and it is a floating city that is an incredible site to see. Jobe has all the facilities that any other city has like shopping, med centers, and entertainment center.

To travel from location to location a portal ring is the transport from island to island. There are also portals that take to you various locations outside of Jobe to the new areas within the Shadowlands. To use some of the portals, there is a required minimum level. This was done for various reasons and least of all if you go to an area that you are not high enough, your character will die. The primary reason is to help give players goals to reach instead of just leveling to reach the next level. It will allow you to explore new areas once you reach that level and open up new adventures and not just have your character get better weapons or skills.

Another thing that came with the city of Jobe was access to deluxe luxury apartments. These apartments have windows and a balcony overlooking the city of Jobe, as well as a hot tub, bedroom, kitchen, and a living room. You may ask what good are the apartments. Well, you can place items that you get on missions or purchase from vendors such as lava lamps, pictures, plants, stereos, and other things found through out the game. With the deluxe apartments, they can hold up to thirty items, while the older ones on Rubi-ka can only hold ten items. These apartments can also be used for role playing events like parties, guild meetings, or just having a friend over for drinks.

Anyone who has heard about Dante’s Inferno should be familiar with the circles of hell and Shadowlands has a similar feeling with the new playfields in the Shadowlands. There are seven new themes with over twenty playfields introduced. As you work through each playfield, you can continue on to the next one as long as your level range allows you. The first new theme is Nascence. This level has swamp areas, wild areas, and a frontier that players can familiarize with the new levels and learn about the Guardians of the Shadow, who determine who is worthy to be in each area or not. Those that start new characters in the Shadowlands will find that the newbie backyards are also located in this level.

The second theme is Elysium which is a garden like level. There are lush plants, lakes, trees, and mountain ranges with large forests as well. After leaving Elysisum, the players will head to Scheol. This area sports Mountain ranges that are more twisted as well as rocky paths and narrow canyons. Both the Redeemed and Unredeemed have strongholds in this area and many other nasty minions are located here.

Following Scheol, those that have persisted will find themselves in Adonis which is reminiscent of Atlantis of ancient Greek history. This theme is almost completely underwater and requires special survival gear to live through this level and future levels. Part of the many quests found will earn the survival gear needed to get into these levels. After the cataclysm struck, Penumbra, the next theme, was forced into an endless winter for thousands of years. After surviving the high winds and ice, the theme following Penumbra is Inferno, where the entire land is ravaged by volcanoes, boiling fire pots, and toxic fumes. To survive the battles in Inferno, the level range of the players should be 200 and up.

The last theme of Shadowlands is Pandemonium. At the time of this review, there are no screenshots or information about this level until after the first player finishes this level. The rumors are the first players should be reaching Pandemonium sometime in December.

In addition to the new areas to explore, there are two new professions available for players to choose from. The keeper is a fighter type that has skills for combat and helping teammates. They primarily have aura nanos which buff grouped members or self-only. The second of the new professions is the shade. The shade is another type of melee class that has a high focus on hand to hand fighting. Something interesting about the shade is that they do not use implants like the other professions, instead they find trapped spirits that will give various benefits. In the nano front, the shade will mainly get self-beneficial buffs that will help their combat skills.

Another feature introduced with Shadowlands expansion is perks. Once a player reaches level ten, a perks icon will show up that allows a player to customize their character even more. There are permanent choices and they are not required to be cast. They have profession specific perks and group specific perks available to choose from. If two players have different perks and when they group, it could trigger a special perk. An example that I was given was a story about a doctor and a keeper that like to group up with each other. The keeper has chosen the perk of nano aura that consistently raises nano over time and the doctor has the perk that raises hp. When these two characters group, they give a huge bonus to all in the group. There is huge list of perks you can have as you level up that give your character to chance to specialize in different areas.

Before I quit playing after the initial release, the guild I was in had often complained about the mission terminals. They were boring and repetitive and you had to run forever. The longest road was truly that – the longest road. A new concept was implemented in the release of Shadowlands – there are no mission terminals. In place of the mission terminals, there are one hundred sixty plus dungeons in the various new playfields. The dungeons are dynamically spawned when you or your group enters and they are huge. They can be up to six or seven levels high and you clear out each level and you can advance up to the next level with a boss mob at the end of each dungeon. The options of these dynamic missions are great because you do not have to run thousands of meters just to get to the mission point. You can just enter the closest dungeon and start the mission, which helps the casual players.

The final major feature implemented in Shadowlands is the faction system. In the original release, there were only three factions – clan, Omni-Tek, and neutral. With Shadowlands, those three factions are expanded to six additional factions. Based on these factions, the players are granted access rights to certain areas that are faction based. The two prominent areas are gardens and sanctuaries found throughout the various area. These areas have save points, vendors, and quest givers that help the player enhance their playing. There are also items that can only be worn if the player has stayed true to their faction. With these factions it allows the players to customize and enrich their playing.

The installation and patching up to the current version was very smooth. I had no issues, although those that are on dial-up Internet may have to long download times, as some of the patches are a pretty hefty size. The whole patching process has been improved as it now allows you to save the patches in a specified folder of your choice to save you re-download time in the event of a reinstallation.

After playing Shadowlands and seeing several of the new areas, I felt like it was not just an expansion; it was a sequel to original release. But with all the new things introduced one of the same old bugs are still around. I had gone out and explored several areas and finally ended up heading back to the newbie area to finish the final quest of one of the NPCs. After completing the mission, I started to head back to Jobe and got stuck at the exit door. I received the error “area change not initiated” which was a huge problem after the initial release.

I did have one crash to desktop as I was changing zones during my playing for the review, but I have had no other technical issues other the one crash to desktop and the one “area change not initiated” problem, which is a great improvement than the last time I played.

Graphics/Sound:

Realizing that Anarchy Online is an early second generation MMORPG, the character models still can use some improvements. Compared to some of the newer games, like Star Wars Galaxies, the appearance of the characters seems blocky and huge pixels. However, that is my only negative thought on the graphics in the game.

Shadowlands is a beautiful expansion pack. I have learned over time that if the game looks good and the story is bad, then the game will stink. However, the story is incredible in Anarchy Online and the landscape, creatures, and nano effects match the storyline’s beauty. The sky in Shadowlands has two suns and several moons that continually rotate around each other as time passes in the day. There are over forty new breeds of creatures and plus several variations of creatures which means there is over twelve hundred visually new creatures. The user interface has also been streamlined to give you more details in less amount of space, although I had been used to the old style (which you can select), once I became familiar with the new layout I preferred the new style.

The developers have done some major improvements in helping to speed up the loading of the graphics. One of the major issues at release was the time to load objects in the distance, which would bring the frame rates to a standstill and a lot for frustration for the players. The developers has implemented a caching system and compressed the graphics quite a bit. The first time a player zones into an area the load time is a bit slow, however each subsequent time the player enters that zone, it will load faster each time. The goal of this was to help reduce lag and let everyone play more instead of waiting for the cities or scenery to load.

The sound effects and background music also had some improvements. The music is eerie at the right moments and can even pound fear into your heart when you are in the dark and scary zones. The sound effects are appropriate in the exact moment they are needed. An example is while you are traveling in Penumbra, you can see your breath and hear your boots crunching the snow below your feet. This just makes the players feel immersed in their environment.

Multiplayer:

As this is a massive multiplayer online role-playing game, there are plenty of options available to the players that want to interact with other players. On the role-playing side of things, there are nightclubs or entertainment centers that players get together and have a party of dancing and chatting. Several of the nightclubs get crowded with several hundred players. Some people have really gotten into the nightclub role play and have started their own player run radio stations online so people can log into the stations that each club is playing and get into the spirit. The only thing missing in the nightclubs are the drinks, which can be bought from vendors.

In various MMORPG games, I have seen that there have been very little GM run event on the servers. The Legends server in Everquest where I have heard of any consistent events taking place at a higher cost. Well in Shadowlands and the old Rubi-ka, they have developed an ARK program which consists of over three hundred volunteers. There is a department in ARK whose main focus is to run events. The volunteers work with Funcom storyline writers to help coordinate the major storyline events and minor ones. They run the flavor characters such as bartenders, reporters, or other important NPCs. There are events running almost daily on all dimensions so that most players can try and interact with the storyline of the game.

Wrap-Up:

In conclusion, those that are new to world of massive multiplayer online role playing games, Anarchy Online and the expansion pack might be daunted as the amount of information and details in the game are tremendous. For those that played Anarchy Online before and quit because of frustration of bugs, lag, or lack of things to do, Shadowlands is a breath of fresh air in the world of MMORPGs and is an expansion pack well worth it’s price. For those that have stuck with Funcom throughout the trouble time, their patience has been well rewarded, Shadowlands has not only added new areas to explore or creatures to fight, Anarchy Online: Shadowlands has added a new dimension to the whole genre.

More Screenshots - Homepage - Download

Dylan Reyak McIntosh - Jan 11, 2004