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Part 1 of 3 - Changing from the ugly duckling of yesteryear, to 2003's beautiful white swan, Anarchy Online is not the same 'ol chaos you may remember.

Anarchy Online: Shadowlands
A Three Part Perspective from Noob to Vet


Part I: To Noobs from a Noob

What is the most fun you can have online while still fully clothed? How about a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG)? More specifically, how about Shadowlands (SL), the expansion pack to Funcom’s Anarchy Online (AO)?

Taking a cue from the sighs and moans from the crowd hearing, “But I’ve never played an MMORPG,” or “Yeah, well, I already tried AO when it first came out…” this reviewer promptly stands up and tells both sections to, “Please fasten your seat belts, and in the event of an emergency should oxygen be required, an oxygen mask will drop from the overhead compartment…please sit back and enjoy the ride and follow along as we go over the destination itinerary.”

Mon. Part I: To noobs from a noob, a brand new look through a girl gamer’s eyes
Tues. Part II: An RPGer and MUD player’s perspective of graphical online gaming
Wed. Part III: A veteran online gamer’s review of Shadowlands
Thu. Part IV: A Shadowlands Wedding


Don’t hate me because I am a ‘noob’….

Yes, I realize you thought I was the flight attendant…well, surprise! We are now in the air and reaching altitude, so I guess now is as good a time as any to tell you that I am, in fact, your in-house flight captain, and this is my very first flight into the deep blue recesses of online gaming.

Entering into this review as a noob to the genre, I gathered a co-pilot (who incidentally, is a novice himself but is at least familiar with what a flight control panel looks like, having played RPGs and text based MUDs), and took him with me inside the world of SL.

Okay, okay, for those passengers with their hearts in their hands thinking the inevitable has finally arrived and a crash and burn is imminent, you can relax; we do have a veteran flight captain aboard. {You readers ruin all my fun….was going to dip the plane up and down and run back to look at your faces…}

So, if you have never had the opportunity to play a MMORPG, then allow me to introduce you to SL, an outstanding online game that is striving to be ‘newbie friendly.’ In fact, the developers have created SL Jobe Research, a special entrance and training area, with noobs in mind. The research area is designed to help players acclimate to the game’s interface while also teaching them about completing missions.

Additionally, it also serves as an introductory area to a variety of monsters and adds the element of teaming up with others. In-house ARKs (Advisors of Rubi-Ka) stand ready to greet noobs on their first foray, helping them to learn the basic chat commands and basics of moving around. Additionally, there are tours, tip boxes, and newbie chat channels to help with the learning curve.

Funcom’s website has an online beginner’s manual and hosts numerous forums to help beginners get started. Does this mean that it is all smooth sailing? Well no, there is still a learning curve involved.

Playing SL as a newbie can still be a bit overwhelming at first, but fortunately the environment fosters a cooperative atmosphere and players in general are very friendly and willing to give a hand. {Would you like a bag of pretzels?)


Estrogen Airlines gives you a bird’s eye view from a noob

The dissidents of Rubi-Ka (a hot, arid desert mining colony), called the Clan, and the Omni-Tek (a hyper-corporation that originally funded the terra forming of Rubi-Ka making it more inhabitable), have been locked in a battle spanning several millennia.

Their battle is one that is fueled by lust; lust for the ultimate power and control. The age of war began when the corporation subversively obtained the rights to the wealth of Notum contained on the planet and began exploiting it.

Rising from the dusty ashes and sinister shadows of conflict between the Clan and the Omni-Tek, another battle rages just beyond the newly opened portal in SL. Redeemed and Unredeemed creatures locked in fights for control have aligned themselves with the inhabitants of Rubi-Ka.

Rubi-Ka and SL, like the concept of yin and yang, the dark and light forces, exist as both opposites and compliments of one another, mirroring and reflecting the same strife that exists on each side of the portal. And once again, in the shadows lurks the same lurid and destructive search for greed and power, hovering ever so closely and threatening to destroy all.

The first thing that will capture the eye of players is the in-depth graphical 3-D setting and artistic quality that went into SL. The graphics and colors, from the blazing orange and purple skies with dual moons, to the lush green fields, underwater regions, and icy tundra are no less describable than to call them what they are: major eye candy.

To put it mildly, had this eye candy been a man, I would have been donning some skimpy airline flight attendant uniform with pumps and serving coffee, tea, or me... With 20 enormous playing fields that contain 160 dungeons, the game definitely requires traveling and sightseeing, which means creating more than one character to get a good feel for the SL experience and the numerous playing fields, while absorbing the eye-catching surroundings.

SL brings character creation to new heights with the ability to choose not only from three breeds of characters (Solitus, Opiflex, Atrox), but players can also choose from over 70 different characters faces in combination with gender, race and body shape. In addition to customizing characters, players can also choose from multiple professions such as an Adventurer who specializes in pistols or melee weapons, or an Agent with the ability of hiding his/her true identity, just to name a couple.

One of the best features of SL is encountered the moment a player enters— there is an awesome sense of community. Not only does SL have personal greeters, but many fellow gamers are overtly friendly, generous, helpful, and willing to help fellow gamers of any level. (It didn’t hurt matters that my Solitus Adventurer character was a petite, long-haired brunette who had Laura Croft-like attributes, either.)

It is almost as if an unwritten golden rule exists wherein every new player is offered assistance in some way and later expected to return that favor to another. Fortune smiled its toothy grin upon my gaming experience as a noob and I was lucky enough to meet OldBilluk. He became my mentor, teaching me the ropes about specially-created armor, upgraded weapons, implants, nanos, organizations, and whole lot more.

Most of this review credit goes to his constant watchful eye over one lone adventurer without a clue in the world, but then that is what new players can expect to find when they too wander into SL: a helpful hand and people like Oldbilluk who are willing to share something outside of the game—personal time.

As a gamer chick, I found a lot of things to get into besides monster-bashing. There was shopping, apartment decorating, buying a hover car, sightseeing, and major socializing with holiday events to attend.

Since most online gamers are male, I definitely got the distinct impression that the word had spread that “something rotten was going down in AO town, and her online name was Kyrren.” Kyrren managed to look at a whole host of aspects that typically get ignored by male reviewers, and even went as far as to create an in-game wedding (complete with guests and a reception) for this review since it is an option that Funcom offers people (but more on that in Part 4).

Kyrren had scads of money given to her to buy supplies with, and when grilled as to what she had purchased, she received a usual response of, “You bought WHAT?!” or “Ky, that money was for armor and weapons!” Armor, shmarmor…there was plenty of time for warfare, and buying armor was like spending money on tires and an oil change; it’s a necessary evil, but definitely not my first choice for a spending spree.

For gamers who want to get into the thick of warfare, there are weapons, armor, towers, and implants to buy that enhance abilities. There are also uber vehicles, organizations to join that affect the storyline, highly prized items to seek and trade for, and a whole slew of other things that are a far cry from fingernail polish and perfume. It is all there for the looting, so fear not, my studly little war muffins.

I must admit that mastering the interface was a slightly daunting task for me as a noob, especially having had no previous experience with any type of online or single-player RPG games. With careful instruction and tons of button pushing, the interface eventually became second nature and easy to find my way around.

The musical scores in Shadowlands are no less than first rate and enough to make you think you are sitting in a movie theatre. With the option to turn off sound effects, it is possible to crank up your computer speakers and immerse yourself in the experience. {Had there not been monsters blocking my paths, or fissures in the way, which I found myself frequently falling into, I would have done a rendition of The Sound of Music while running up a hill.}

So was it all singing, dancing, and chatting? Heck no! Eventually, major monster butt kicking commenced, character strengthening began to be mastered, map reading phobias were conquered, and missions were completed. “Power leveling” became the newest phrase in my vocabulary.

Character level-ups went quickly, and red bar-labeled monsters fully loaded with xp (experience points) eventually turned to gray bar-labeled monsters with no xp. Special perks added increased skills and abilities, and armors and weapons were kept upgraded as much as a computer geek keeps up with the newest technology. SL can best be thought of as the land of opportunity, where the loot is good and the xp is downright hot.


The captain has now turned on the seatbelt light

Most of the downturns for Shadowlands have to do with the fact that the integration with Rubi-Ka is not always seamless, in addition to a few technical snafus that persist. The seams I speak about are the little nuances, such as having to switch to different health kits between the two places, and not having the vehicle (that cost 5 million credits’ worth of hard work and leveling), in the basic AO, able to be used in SL.

Another seam oddity occurs when a character falls off a cliff in SL; the character will respawn in some odd region of Rubi-Ka, and even at that, sometimes the landing ground can be in the middle of a body of water. Although not a huge deal, it is a major inconvenience.

There are also a few major bugs that cause frustration and put a dent into game time, as the player has to sit and wait for help from an ARK to rectify them. Things like crashing in your apartment and having to wait underneath Jobe upon reboot, or getting stuck in your vehicle with no way to get out except for shutting down, can get annoying.

Unfortunately, with such a large and ever-expanding game, bugs are inevitable. Thankfully, there is staff that works 24/7 to keep updates, script writing, programming, world creation, and patching as current as possible. After all, that is what people pay for with their registrations and monthly fees, so players can expect that the bugs will eventually get cleared up as soon as Funcom can get to them.

Lag is still an issue here and there and frustrating server disconnects still abound. Overall, though, these issues are more a source of irritation than an unsolvable problem as disconnects usually take about 5 minutes before allowing a reconnect to the game. Additionally, graphics in SL are much more detail intensive.

Combined with heavy graphics and extensive movement, graphical acceleration may suffer from slowdown, giving your computer a run for all it is worth. Despite these inconveniences, the game is still very much worth the play time and money.

After four months of game play with 220 levels all for the taking, I have managed to reach level 130, and putting my money where my mouth is, I must admit that I have officially been converted to an online gamer.

Flight attendants, please prepare for a landing… those passengers continuing on to their next destination should please read Part 2 tomorrow… and thank you for flying Estrogen Airways.


Article by Michelle Whicker.


Continue on to Part 2...