Alien Invasion (Anarchy Online)

Funcom are obviously trying to attract new players to Anarchy Online, as one of the features of the expansion pack is a brand new beginner area for new characters. After creating a character (unfortunately no new breeds or professions are available in AI), the player will be transported to a new backyard, which has been infested by the aliens. A handful of beginning quests introduce the player to the world of Rubi Ka, but unfortunately these quests are neither as comprehensive or as well explained as the Shadowlands beginner quests. As such, it is strongly recommended that new players keep the tip window active, and have a list of game hotkeys to hand. Players in the backyard will receive their first glimpse of the invading aliens, starting with very weak ones, and hopefully honing their skills enough to receive their first Alien Level. A few things are missing from the new backyard however: insurance reclaim is not available, which means that if new players die after level 10 they will lose all the items in their inventory and have to exit the area to get these items back, with no way to get back in afterwards. There are also no vendors selling ammunition for the guns which drop from the monsters, or health kits for when the players use up their start-up kits. All this points to Funcom not wishing for players to stay in the backyard for too long, but may prove to be very frustrating to a new player.

Alien experience comes from fighting all types of aliens, either those present in the new backyard or those which attack the player cities. In a change to the existing system, Alien experience cannot be saved, and a proportion of the player’s current A XP is lost every time the player is killed be an alien – it is not, however, possible to lose AI Levels or the perks gained at each level. At the moment, the only ways of spawning aliens are to play in the backyard or to be part of a city that’s attacked by them which means that players without an organisation (which is required in order to build a town) will have to approach organisations which have their own town in the hopes of being invited to some of their alien raids. Players attacking aliens at a town without prior permission run the risk of being accused of kill stealing, which can lead to a bad reputation, despite the fact that Funcom has no policy on kill stealing.

Alien Levels are similar to Shadow Levels in SL, except that they can be reached at lower levels. AI Levels are still linked to levels, however, with AI Level 1 only being possible once the character has reached level 5, AI Level 2 at level 15 and so on. Each level brings new perks – each perk adds to certain skills, or gives new special attacks or actions. Each profession has their own line of perks, as well as sharing perks with some other professions. There are also breed perks, which can be used to increase the character’s base abilities. Unfortunately, the perks in Alien Invasion are much less powerful than those in Shadowlands, and new AI Levels do not give any other benefits (unlike Shadow levels which gave new skill points – a welcome boost to those players who had maxed out their levels and skills.) The calculation for how much experience is received from each alien is likely to change several more times, however, as at present the experience is not scaled according to the difficulty of the alien. The experience required for each level is also changing on a regular basis, and hopefully these adjustments will mean that more casual players will conceivably be able to reach the highest AI Levels.

The expansion previously went by the name of “Towns of Rubi Ka”, and as such the new player towns are a very important part of it. Unfortunately, once again things are unbalanced. Instead of everyone being able to live in a player town, only those in organisations that can afford the hefty price tag will be able to experience this part of the content. Land which can be built on ranges in price from around 30 million credits to 600 million credits. All plots of land can now build a cloaking device, necessary to stop constant alien attacks which will quickly destroy the city controller and cause the benefits from the town to become inactive. The means for repairing the controller is an item which is either a rare drop in team missions, or can be purchased for a very large price from certain shops. This forces a lot of people to “farm” these items in order to be able to spawn aliens on demand for their town.

Once an organisation has purchased its land, it needs to place a Head Quarters on it. This and the other town buildings are made from materials which drop from various creatures, or are bought in a shop. A tradeskiller is required to assemble them, and the difficulty depends on the quality of building, as do the benefits for the organisation. Each building gives different benefits to the organisation owning the city. For example, within the HQ is a grid access point and a workshop which adds 50-160 to the trade skills of anyone who uses it, and also a bar and executive meeting room for people to use as they wish. The larger HQs have a Cosmetic Surgery Clinic, which can change people’s appearance for the hefty price tag of 50 million credits a time. The Notum Mining Operations building adds to nanoskills and the Notum Silo, as well as allowing people to PvP inside, adds to nano regeneration rate and reduces the cost of nano programmes. The Cloaking Device stops aliens from detecting the city, and when the cloak is taken down an alien attack can be triggered within the next five minutes. There is, however, a restriction with only one attack like this allowed every two hours.

When aliens attack a city, all members of the controlling organisation receive a warning, if they have installed the appropriate warning device. They then have 5 minutes to get to their city, hopefully ahead of the invading aliens. A ship will land, and drop off several waves of aliens, with their levels adjusted to reflect the levels of the players online at the time. Thus, if there is a level 30 player, as well as several level 150 players, theoretically a level 30 alien will spawn for the lower player, with higher level aliens for the higher players. However, there are frequently problems with the higher level players killing the aliens meant for the lower levels, as even lower level aliens can be very dangerous (the monsters are fiendishly difficult, and can focus on the target which is most of a threat to them, such as healers). This means that the lower level players in an organisation rarely get to gain any alien experience, unless specific attacks are spawned just for the lower levels. The number of waves of aliens depends on the condition of the city controller – whenever aliens attack, they also damage the city controller, and when the controller is at 0% nobody receives the city benefits, and no large scale attacks by aliens are possible.

One other feature that has been eagerly awaited is the addition of player shops. Players will eventually be able to rent a shop within a Market building placed by an organisation. Fortunately, even people who are not members of an organisation will be able to rent a shop to sell their wares. A robust search tool will be available throughout the game, enabling people to seek out the items they want to purchase and compare prices. This will make a welcome change to the present system of selling using shopping channels and forum messages, and will allow buyers to purchase items even when the seller is offline. Unfortunately, some bugs were detected during the final stages of testing and so the player shops are not yet in game; there is no information on when they will finally make it into the game.

At the end of the last wave of aliens, a General will spawn. This is a high level alien boss monster, whose level depends on the level of the players present. Defeating him will usually require a concerted effort from everyone available, and frequently assistance from friends and neighbours will be necessary. In fact, in many cases the General is too high to be killed by the players available, another bug which will hopefully be looked at soon. The General drops some nice items when he is killed, which may include the new trade skill items, weapons or other alien items. After this, random people from the controlling organisation will be selected to board the alien ship. Several groups can be chosen (a total of 18 people maximum in each ship), and in some cases up to 6 different alien ships will be spawned for the different level ranges chosen. Once on the alien ship, a time limit starts and the teams must get to and defeat the alien boss within this timeframe, or die when the ship takes off with them on board. The artificial intelligence of the aliens, and particularly those on the space ship, is very well done, forcing players to adapt their play style in order to be successful against this new enemy. The ship boss also drops some rather nice items, in line with the difficulty of fighting the aliens on the ship, as opposed to the wide open spaces on the ground.

Various types of new items are available in Alien Invasion, almost all of which drop exclusively from the aliens. Powerful weapons are available which can be upgraded using trade skill items also provided by the aliens. Other items, including profession specific items, armour that is made using trade skills, and various gadgets to improve skills can be looted. There are also some quested items which are useful for identifying and using alien technology.

Alien Invasion tries to please all the different types of players by including various types of content. For the role players, social content is available in the form of the social aspects of player cities and almost 200 items of new social clothing. This clothing is available through a series of quests, and is of particular interest to long time players, as many of the outfits are named after various organisations across the three AO servers.

Graphics wise, the expansion does little to improve the graphics on Rubi Ka, apart from the towering skyscrapers of the new player cities. The aliens, however, are very different from any of the monsters seen so far in AO – they come in all sizes, and are clad in some kind of mechanical suit which enables them to take large amounts of damage before dying. The interior of the alien ships are also fascinating, with moody lighting and long corridors leading to open rooms containing hordes of waiting aliens. The view over the cities as alien ships pass overhead, or circle before landing, is spectacular, and those who wish to do so can actually follow the ships over a playfield to their final destination. The alien mother ship is particularly breathtaking, filling the sky when it passes overhead, and making its presence felt with a throbbing drone as it passes by. The new alien music fits in very nicely with both the original soundtrack and the new SL, and makes a nice accompaniment to alien attacks.

For players considering trying out Anarchy Online for the first time, Alien Invasion is not the best place to start. I would recommend that new players seek out Shadowlands instead, which also has the advantage of being cheaper and having had many of its bugs eradicated. For the existing player, the expansion will primarily be worthwhile for those in large organisations, or those who have exhausted all the existing AO content. Players who spend a good deal of their time solo, or who do not have the spare time necessary to group/belong to an organisation would be advised to steer clear of this expansion, which has its emphasis firmly set on grouping. With so much of the content subject to change, or missing, it may be a while before the expansion is properly balanced, and so players may want to hold off on purchasing this expansion until everything is in place. There may also be problems where organisations have a number of members spread over different timezones, as the less populated timezones may have difficulty spawning alien attacks.

Final Grade: 60%