I would agree with you if you were considering AO as only a "levelling treadmill" game. I believe that there are other facets of the game that help satisfy the role-player in us (if you choose to try to connect with the community). I realized how much deeper it was than AC2, and I'm glad I went back.

Just curious, have any of you guys played past level 100?

AO is now a Solid, reletively stable MMO with good uptime and relitively good customer support. The comunity is good, the chat system works well and if you are in a large and active guild then you almost always have the option to do one of the many things in this game.

And by many things I mean Mission with, or without a full time doc. Either one, talk about variety! I got to admit, my main character is Barely level 157, and is in fact a Doctor (Chlamydia is her name for those of you that maybe play RK1, tho I haven't logged in in a few months...) But aside from either camping a spawn or missioning, there is very little to do. Now when you are gaining lower levels out the wazoo leveling is fun, but at a certain point you are no longer trying to squeez into good equipment, or cast the best nano's, so you lose all motivation to play.

AO is a boring boring game past level 130, Content is simply not there and what content there is usually consists of camping an NPC or running missions.

In AO you spend your early days trying to figure out the convoluded and unforgiving implant / skill system. and in the later days you are simply to bored to care anymore.

with the Implants and such the framework for variation IS in place so Shadowlands may be promissing. But as of yet the game hasn't done very much with it. Its all the same means to the same end. Of course, Im rather pesimistic anymore...

Here is a perspective from someone who plays AO regularly for the past year and also for many months on the live Test server they have there (which has hundreds of dedicated testers who pay their monthly AO fee but CHOOSE to live on the test server where there is a different sort of family community, they have a chance to improve AO, and also to preview changes before they hit the live server, and help provide final QA feedback as a reality check for Funcom QA.

* This beta has not even been seen by most of the Testlive community yet. I'm sure that will change, but basically it has gone through only internal and a VERY private beta for invited participants

* Therefore it is early beta code, likely quite unbalanced still.

* The release appears timed right as the Star Wars Galaxy beta is winding down with SWG's imminent release.

* AO is an amazing game, very involving on many facets. Shadowlands is basically another game on top of it that hopefully will give already satisfied players another couple years of fun.

* So I hope that a tremendous amount of you who are considering Star Wars Galaxies give it a try for a measly $7 fileplanet fee (or who knows maybe it will go to free fileplanet trial, maybe not)

I have to agree with the others. AO isn't buggy anymore, it's actually very, very good now. I would even go so far as to say it's the best MMORPG out there currently. The graphics still look good, the sounds are good, the music is great, and it has shedloads of content.

Omnitek is your friend.

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Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds...

-Bhagavad Gita

In addition, I believe that it has more content than most of the other games out there. They have some a fantastic continuously-evolving storyline, tower struggles if you're into pvp/land control, and incredible community support. www.gridstream.com hosts a 24/7 radio station, there are community-run events, as well as GM-run live events that may impact the dynamic environment. (Poisoning the water supply, creating hostilities against clanners in neutral cities, etc).

While far from perfect, I'd say that it's one of the best MMO's out there. And to concur, it has come a long way.

This comment was edited on Jun 18, 23:57.

You know how far AO has come since its shoddy release?

They have comes leaps and bounds from then.

With Anarchy Online, why bother playing the beta when you can play it when they release it as finished?