AO - a first look

Anachy Online is the newest Game in the "online-gaming" sector. Logging in you find yourself part of a conflict on a planet called Rubi-Ka.

At Start you select your "breed" while chosing from 4 different ones. Three of them have both male and female forms, the other is a warrior race called in the manual "androgynous" but a race that cant sit on their back but have to knee down is anyway suspect enough imho ;)
The 4 Breeds are the Solitus (some norms), the Opifex (worked in mines are now cpt.kirks), the Nano (mage race), the Atrox (the not-want-to-sit-on back and have sex race). The choices differing your look from others are not bad. You can alter Face (including hair), Size, and height. After that you chose a profession which is relatively lethal for the development of your char. The Game isnt Skill but level based. Abilities in your Profession that you chose at start can be upped far easier and faster than things your race/profession doesnt likes. Now you chose a name, while you cant even make double names like "Cpt Kirk" and chose an affilation between Omni-Tek the evil, neutral or Clan (which fights vs Omni)

So much for the Theory
In RL you get

for around 40 - 50$ including one free month. Right to activate your accoutn you have already to enter your credit card information like you may know from EQ or so. Gametimes arent available.
The TOS of this game reads like most TOS`s of Games or Online games. Basically they can stop service whenever they want but would refund it if they do for the time you payed in future (if i understood right). If you get banned you get no refund, but banning
seems not to be a hot topic.

The Install of the Software Package can make some trouble:

If you are installing the game and get CRC errors while doing it, check if you have a VIA 686 (A or B) southbridge. The game copies a lot of files, and if you have the Southbridge bug especially when using also a SBlive in the system you could get that corruption problem.
If you got this problem ask me and i will tell what to change. Posting 2-3 Bios Parameters that may help but are very dependant of your System setup would break more than fixing.
Now if you installed the game right you may have problems with the auto-patcher. If you have so you can download them also as exe files and apply them one after other. If you do so, never Accept the TOS after a patch, always decline and start the next patch after. Only when you finished all patches accept it and run the game.

At starting of the game it will let you the possibility to chose graphic card if you have more installed and in what resolution it should run. For differences between w and z buffer consult geforcefaq.com if you run nvidia.
If you have performance problems with an nvidia card use coolbits and oc it a little. Also check that you installed the right AGP driver. In combination with AMD northbridge (750 or 760) you will need the miniport driver from amd page, in combination with VIA Northbridge you will need the AGP Filter Driver from the 4in1 package that you find on www.viahardware.com.
If you have AMD norhtbrige but VIA Southbridge in one system, install AMD Miniport, than Via4in1, but only the IDE Busmaster Driver from the package and NOT the agp filter.
In both case get also from www.viahardware.com the USB Filter (which isnt included in Via4in1 and install it.)For Athlon systems dont forget to get the AMD Largebuffer win2k fix from AMD page. (www.amd.com -> support -> athlon), upgrade to sp2 for win2k, and directx8.0a.

dont change your memclock and gpu clock while running ao or you get funny effects ;)

The official Detonators on Nvidia Page are ok but will not let you use Coolbits to get the OC setup of the card. Use the leaked 12.xx from www.gamers-ammo.com, m3dzone.com or wherever. If you dont know what coolbits are search in google or tc forum.
Turn Vsync off(as long it doesnt looks ugly in game), antialiasing off and pci frameahead:5. Check if your Card can work smooth with SBA and Fastwrites enabled that will improve your performance with Nvidia Cards.

One more thing to the VIA Southbridge bug: If you know the BIOS in your board is new and you have either an ASUS or EPOX board DONT install the via 4 in 1 4.31 or 4.32. Your bios HAS already the southbridge-workaround. If you install the 4.31 or 4.32 with via-bug workaround your ide performance may drop to hell as you place a workaround like over the other. In this case use the 4.29 4in1 drivers.

The Game:

You have some kind of macro bar where you can place all useful things in. You have 10 layers of the bar which you reach with Shift-0 to -9 and got for every of it 0-9 macro keys. Thats: ok, although we are used from uo to a lot more. But for AO its sufficient.

You start in a newbie-spawn area where you can kill some boring monsters. Alternatively to this you can take missions from a mission terminal which are a lot more interesting even in the down levels. You also get more equip that way.

fresh from start you can take your own appartment. You will be able to buy later furniture etc and bring your friends to it. You get a key with you that remains with you after death. Very handy and nice solution to housing ;)

-more to follow-