Anarchy Online now free

[EddieA]

You can now download and play the base Anarchy Online game (without expansion packs) for free here.  It looks like the free subscription lasts until January 2006.  I'm downloading now, but it's going to take awhile.

[FlyingElvis]

You can now download and play the base Anarchy Online game (without expansion packs) for free here.  It looks like the free subscription lasts until January 2006.  I'm downloading now, but it's going to take awhile.

Bold move. I like it. Go Funcom.

[Misguided]

I played this awhile back. Shadowlands was 5 bucks at Best Buy. It was fun for a few weeks because a good friend was playing. The novelty (my first MMORPG) wore off pretty quickly. The grind in this game is staggering.

[warning]

Moving to Massive Multiplayer Madness.

[unbreakable]

They couldnt pay me enough to play AO again.  Glad to see WoW is making them so desperate.  With any luck, Funcom bet the farm on the success of AO, and this is the last nail in the coffin.

[-Lord Ebonstone-]

Eh, I liked how trippy Shadowlands was.

Just the original AO, though?  Nah, I wouldn't play that, even for free.  

[Xmann]

Unless i missed something, AO has and will continue to be fairly succesful.  I'm sure they did lose a few subscriptions with EQ2 and WoW, but the game content and world is so different than either of these two i imagine it will still be around for some time.  I played on and off for over two years and it remains one of the best mmorpg's i've played.  I was casually playing up until a couple months back and it was stable and fun.  There are 220 levels and up until about 110, leveling is super easy and quick.  With the right groups you can literally get 3 or 4 levels a mission and level super fast.  Whoever said the grind was dreadful wasn't doing something right.
Now, since it's free i'd say go ahead it won't hurt to try it for free.  However, you would be missing out on a ton of the content and the ability to play with the regular population that play with the other expansions.  You can pick up the Shadowlands expansion (which includes AO) for nearly nothing and experince alot of what the game offers.  AO free for a year is good, but it's not represenative of the entire package.

[Jumangi]

Like a poster on Qt3 said this would have been a good idea 2-3 months ago before WoW and EQ2 came out. Doing it a month after is too late to have more than a negligable effect.

[Andraax]

The org I am in lost more than half its membership to either EQ2 or WoW (mostly WoW). I myself haven't logged into AO for a couple weeks, as I'm one of the ones enjoying EQ2. But, I know I'll go back to AO at least a couple nights a week once the newness of EQ2 wears off.

Vanilla AO isn't bad, but you're missing a lot if you can't access Shadowlands, which is awesome through at least the first 3-4 zones (up to around lvl 120 or so), and also allows characters to add extra class-specific abilities.

Since its free, why not give it a shot, but there will be people running around with skills and gear you can't wear unless you buy Shadowlands and/or Alien Invasion.

[Kurt Stevens]

Has anyone managed to get this downloaded from their website? I was getting a download error and now bit torrent shows a download time of over 600 hours with a transfer rate of  0 kb.  Broken download?

[Valael]

I'm pretty convinced AO is one of the most underrated MMOs ever.  It sucked when it was release, but Funcom really managed to pull it together.  It's definitely the best Sci fi mmo out there.

[EddieA]

I tried downloading from their site, but I was cut off and it was slow when it was going.  I managed to get it using the BitTorrent link yesterday, but it took many, many hours.

[Qbert]

I'm pretty convinced AO is one of the most underrated MMOs ever.  It sucked when it was release, but Funcom really managed to pull it together.  It's definitely the best Sci fi mmo out there.

I agree, AND I played it at launch.  I've played almost all MMOs, from AO, DAoC, EQ, EQ2, WoW, Planetside, Lineage 2, SWG, etc....and I gotta tell you, AO still stands out as the one I enjoyed the most (can't speak much for WoW since I only did beta for a weekend).

[Cyjon]

I loved AO but ultimately quit because of the constant CTDs and insane client-side lag whenever there were more than three or four players on the screen. I'm hoping it's more stable now. Unfortunately, I'm not really in the mood for it right now, but I figure if I get registered I can still get in on the free-for-a-year thing until I'm ready to play.

[Jafisob]

I came back to AO a year after their abortive launch and it was a good game.  Good graphics and interesting game play with a roll your own dungeon for you or your group.  What killed it for me after a few months was the complexity of gameplay.  The need to constantly upgrade weapons, implants, armor, and nanos became a chore.  A little too complex for my tastes although I respect those that enjoy it.

The poor launch doomed this game to also ran status.  It has/had many innovative and interesting features.

I still remember when I first got my yalm(flying ship) and flew around all the zones breathing in the sights of the huge outdoor areas.  It was a yet to be paralled feeling of freedom in mmorpg for me.

[Raven]

Played at launch. Canceled the first week, and never looked back.

What Funcom needs to do is open a new server. That, combined with the frea trial might stir some interest.

[Andraax]

They are definitely getting some interest for the FREE basic game. I logged in one of my alts over the last weekend, and Rome (Omni-Tek city) had many new low level people standing around the basic store.

To those still remembering the horrible launch, it is a completely diffferent game now from the playability side. I can't even remember the last time I had a CTD or experienced any significant memory leak, both of which plagued the launch for months.

[maggie-chow]

Is there a Console Gold group in AO?  I just started a few days ago.  I have an adventurer at level 8.

[Semaj]

the year free work if you played for a while?  I got a few high level chars I could break out fo retirement if its free for me too

[Tebunker]

only for new accounts, and their torrent is taking forever, and the mirrors suck...

[onnel]

I got it on their torrent at 100kb/sec..not sucky for me at all!

Onnel

[onnel]

I got it on their torrent at 100kb/sec..not sucky for me at all!

Onnel

[Tebunker]

I have now uploaded more than I've downloaded... ain't that some hooey.. Still waiting on this damned game.