Somewhat spontaneously, and for no particular reason more pressing than sheer nostalgic wallowing, I found myself downloading the veteran freebie Anarchy Online Basic Client yesterday. I'm not sure what it is with me and Free MMOs, but I've always had somewhat magpie-like tendencies when it comes to free-to-play client downloads. Oooh! Free! YOINK!

I'm also interested to see how badly these older titles conflict with Windows Vista, being ever the online masochist, although this weekend's gaming was good...only one Blue Screen of Death all weekend long! Score! I'm quickly developing a flinching aversion to installing anything on the new PC that's older than 2006, fear of such ancient and darkness-woven software manuscripts causing the highly strung, sickly and nervous idiot-savant that is Vista to have (another) 'one of it's headaches'. Vista is a delicate child and must not be allowed to play with the other, rough and common, children! I exaggerate, of course, but I really can't wait until the inevitable 'SP1', and a few decent MMOs that have been written with any kind of awareness that Vista might be what people are going to try and play games on In The Future.

Quite surprised to see Anarchy Online work first time then, with none of the sudden and fatal OS-deaths I've come to half-expect from my ordinarily sturdy vintage games collection. It even runs quite happily at 'Ludicrous Resolution', 1600x1050. It still looks extremely dated, mind you, but no amount of hardware in the word will help with it's very small textures and crude character meshes, and even Second Life manages to look slightly better. AO was released in 2001 though...what's Second Life's excuse?

It was a bit laggy, as I rolled up an Engineer and jogged up the beach at the ICC Shuttleport, and my character's disorientation (after a shuttle crash in the sea, en route to it's new life), mirrored my own a bit as I tried to remember how it all worked. Somethings you never forget though, and I was soon shooting away at Leets, Reets and Rollerats, looting, equipping and even managing to spend my skill points correctly, and another session will see me of the tutorial island, and into the cities, grasslands and deserts of Rubi-Ka once again.

Of the new and recent Lost Eden expansion, I've yet to see anything, although I'm not expecting to see a lot - it's a paid expansion for subscribers, afterall, but usually Funcom add a few bits and pieces to the normal world with each expansion, so we'll see. I hear it's all Mecha, PvP Space Station 'Battlegrounds' and the like, adding to the Shadowlands' PvE metaphysical storyline extravagance, Alien Invasion's raid and the Notum Wars guild-based territorial conquest. The only really new thing I saw since my previous visit, last year, was a revamped Skills window - now containing a bit more explanation about what each of the frankly overwhelming things to spend your skill points on, actually does, along with a new auto-allocate function to do it for you. Neu. Newbie OOC, the chat channel for most starting people, generally agreed that it doesn't do a very good job of it, and it's best to spend the points yourself. I'm sure there's more new things to see once I'm off the stater island though.

I was most surprised to see how busy the newbie beach was, and by the look of the confused flailing about and avoidable deaths to the Level 1 Yard Trash, a lot of these looked to be actually new new-people, rather than the usual throughput of bored Eng-Game Obsessives starting up yet more alts. How the outside world feels, I've yet to find out, although that particular shutleport island place is the starting area for everyone on the server. I remember the original game, at launch, had three 'sides', chosen on creation, each with two or three Residential City Zones. Each of those had around 20 Appartment 'Backyards', and these were all starter areas, which players got randomly assigned to. Even at it's height, 180 newbie areas was probably a tad optimistic, and I can see why they created the ICC Shuttleport since then. I've no idea what the actual numbers are nowadays, or what the new expansion has done for bums on seats, but it felt like Autumn to me, last time I was there, and still does now. A thing once glorious, now faded, but still going anyway.

Still, the game seems remarkably healthy at first glance, although I expect most of the folks there were playing at the indulgence of the clients of Massive Advertising Inc, or whatever they're called, rather than out of their own pockets. The billboards were still there, vexingly enough, but now seem somehow subtler. I guess The Big Boys must have gotten fed up with not seeing much return on investment from a target audience which in most advertising arena, is probably quite miniute, and have taken their money to the portal websites and download host sites instead. Gone are the Motley Crues, V for Vendettas and Sprites, and in their place are adverts for much smaller things I've never heard of, many of which I suspect are actual in-game things - Clan and Corp recruiting, AO Podcasts and Radio Streams and the like, and all of it seems to fit much better, and in a much less jarring key, with the world of Rubi-Ka around it. Of course the real test remains - the General Store Video Billboards, but we'll see. I'm a bit more calm about it nowadays, and anyway, can buy supplies form street vendor machines. Now the whole advertising thing seems to have been brought down to a more realistic footing, it may be possible to grudgingly coexist with it.

Anyway, I've no idea how long, or how seriously I'll be playing this one - a nostalgic go at the first ten levels only, or a resurgence of interest and serious go at L200 - but it's certainly nice to have memory lane just a desktop icon-click away. Despite it's near-self destructive launch troubles, I'd always quite liked it and to this day, it remains one of the few serious choices for the determined Sci-Fi MMO enthusiast. Having it installed and handy should tide me over until something a bit more modern comes along.

The free basic Anarchy Online client can still be had here:

Anarchy Online: Play AO For Free

Basic game is free, but Shadowlands/Alien Invasion/Lost Eden still cost and require subscription.