http://www.anarchy-online.com/free/ad_campaigns/freecampaign

Italics and bold at the end are mine for emphasis



Totally FREE!

Now you can experience Anarchy Online totally free of charge. You don't pay for the software. You don't pay any subscription. All we ask is that you register prior to January 15th. How about that for a Christmas present!

The offer includes the original Anarchy Online. Our Expansion Packs, Shadowlands, Alien Invasion and Notum Wars are not included in this offer.

<!-- --><TABLE width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 15px" width="50%">Step 1: Download game (http://www.anarchy-online.com/free/ad_campaigns/freecampaign/download_cdtool_campaign)
</TD><TD width="50%">or Download with BitTorrent (http://r047.d1.funcom.com/torrents/AOInstall15.7.3_EP0_live_nointro.torrent)
</TD></TR><TR><TD style="PADDING-LEFT: 15px">Step 2: Register a free account (https://register.funcom.com/)
</TD><TD>For faster download use BitTorrent software. Download BitTorrent (http://bittorrent.com/).
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><!--
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<TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=2>Features

</TD><TD>Awards

</TD></TR><TR><TD width="40%">Enjoy unparalleled character customization, including 80 character skills, hundreds of special attacks, thousands of items and a wide range of clothes, weapons and armour. No other online game delivers more character customization and depth.

Explore an epic and believable sci-fi universe with an involving and deep backstory

Experience fast-paced gameplay with more action and intensity and less camping.

Choose your playing style and select one of 14 different professions. Soldier, special agent, pet profession, healer, technological expert, trader or adventurer... you choose.

Go solo or join groups and guilds, AO is packed with fun content for everyone

Instanced dungeon areas mixed with a wide range of static dungeons and quests means that there is always something to do, even for that half hour session.

Express yourself through voice, emotes or chat in a fantastic social environment with clubs, bars, guild houses, player apartments, social clothes and much more.

</TD><TD width="40%">Fight thousands of exciting monsters in a fantastic player versus environment gameworld, or challenge human opponents to conquer land in large PvP areas.

Immerse yourself in a world with a fantastic musical score and unique art direction.

Enter AO more easily with dedicated beginner areas and live in-game assistance

Travel in style with futuristic flying vehicles available to all professions, and access all areas efficiently and fast.

Test our great customer service, they are there to ease your experience.

Join a friendly, large and established player community.

And much much more...

</TD><TD><!--
(http://pc.ign.com/articles/450/450381p1.html)

(http://www.gamezone.com/gzreviews/r20229.htm)
(http://www.gamespy.com/reviews/october03/aoshadowlandspc/)
(http://www.justgamers.de/?page=article&article_id=1068)-->http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/game/inthemedia/awards/leaf_0008_cgw.jpg

http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/game/inthemedia/awards/leaf_0002_rpgvault.jpg

http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/game/inthemedia/awards/leaf_0006_ign2.jpg

http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/game/inthemedia/awards/leaf_0009_pcgamerus.jpg

More press coverage (http://www.anarchy-online.com/content/game/inthemedia/)

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Conditions

*The offer is only valid if you sign up a new Anarchy Online account between the 15th of December 2004 and 15th of January 2005. You can play free of charge until 1/1 2006. Should Funcom deem that a too high-increase in server load or other unforeseen events will lessen the experience for existing players the offer will be terminated at our discretion. The free version does not include access to any of the three expansion packs. Should you wish to upgrade to any of the expansion packs monthly subscription and client fees will be added.

No expansions, and if you wind up buying one and registering it, you will have to start paying.

Still, thats a fantastic deal for a great game. AO is still one of my favourite games. (I personally think it's better than EQ for solo, group and casual play. I never tried a raid in it.)

I think it would be kind of like buying only the original EQ today, when all the paying players are not in Antonica, Faydwaer or Odus.

Hmmm... I'm very tempted. I've heard good things about that game.

It's a bit dated, but it's definitely worth a look. I'll give it a test run :P

Well an ideal way to distribute MMoGs is to give the client software away for free, let people have free beta and trials, then charge for a proper account key. I think Eve and Guildwars have effectively done it that way and AO seems to be following suit now.

It's a bit dated, but it's definitely worth a look. I'll give it a test run :P

AO is less dated than EQ I think. It came out a couple of years after EQ did. Besides, it is set in the future, how can it be dated!?! j/k

Came out I think not quite a year after EQ did but was actually longer in development. I was in the beta for it, which was prekunark. (Gave me something to do once I hit 50 in EQ hehe...)

The no-expansion thing isnt so bad. The regular world is plenty huge. You are missing out on Notum Wars (pvp stuff basically), Shadowlands (kind of the PoP of AO... good xp in those zones but it's a lot harder, and there's keys and crap... crummy design imho, but absolutely gorgeous graphics, also the only place to get over level 200), and Alien Invasion (pretty much just raid content from what I understand, but I havent played that one.)

Maybe I'll start another toon just to take advantage of the offer hehe... BTW the Fixer Grid quest was (up until WoW) my favourite quest in an MMOG. Really cool and creative.

Came out I think not quite a year after EQ did but was actually longer in development. I was in the beta for it, which was prekunark. (Gave me something to do once I hit 50 in EQ hehe...)


Umm. This game launched June 26th 2001, and lvl 60 was already implemented. I played on my friends beta account too but didnt dig it like I was with EQ. One free year, good solo, maybe, MAYBE worth a glance 3yrs later...

Kalest MoonGlade
66th Stormwarden of Tunare
~Gone to WoW~

Yes.. I said I was in the beta... course mighta been during Kunark after we'd gotten to 60 too. There were a few people from my guild at the time that got in together.

Hmmm... I tried to download last night, and didn't get anywhere. Anyone have any luck?

I like AO, dont get chance to play that often but theres never a shortage of things to do when I do play.

Seems Funcom are on a major marketing drive :)

Just got an email with 3 accounts keys that are valid till march for the game (only for a 14day period of play though from activation), with all expansions and a link to to download them free. the aim is to pass them to friends to get them playing.

A good marketing strategy and I hope it works for them. (and yes I will be passing the keys on to friends and hope they decided to play)


:wavey:

With all the stuff coming out and slamming the market, I wont be surprised if a few, possibly AO close down. Then again, UO is still around /shiver. lol. Yeah Panamah, you just have to download that Bit thing, and it's a slow download. My DL rate on cable was 30kb when it is normally 120kb or greater. That's cool Tiane, my friend didnt start till late beta and i was never 100% sure if I started before or after the Velious release in EQ since I started playing EQ May/June 2001 but knew it (EQ) had been out for awhile already ( I asked for it for christmas back in 99" but parents didnt want to pay for it bah).

Kalest MoonGlade
66 Druid Sol Ro
18 Druid Guk
18 Druid Kargath.

I use Azurues to download files, I am on a Cable modem also. I got about 330 kbs down when i was downloading it. Took me like 45 minutes to download. Messed around a little bit on it and will probably keep playing just cause its free. It seems quite a bit harder to get into the EQ. Much harder to play and figure out what is going on.

Yeah, I was getting like 250k/sec with ABC and cable modem.
I played it in beta before and stuff, it's a decent enough game, lots changed since then though, and been a long time =-p I probably won't play it much, cause of WoW and stuff, but it's free, so might as well try it once in awhile.

I tried it at release(big mistake) and came back for 3 or 4 months when shadowlands released. great game but I just never got sucked into it. I'm gonna give it another shot since there is more than enough content even without the expansions.

The download, on my broadband, has taken almost 24 hours!

If you're using the default client, you might try using ABC (http://pingpong-abc.sourceforge.net/). It generally provides better results than the default client, as well as more options and customization.

It took just over 30 minutes using Azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net/).

Couple of suggestions....

1) Choke your upload bandwidth down to about 5-10 depending on your upload speed.
2) Make sure the ports for your client are open on your router.

I bought this game the day it came out. Was looking for something that was diffrent then EQ. It had the worst release I have ever seen. For nearly a month the game was unplayable and when they got it to a playable state is was so riddled with bugs that I cancelled my subscription before the billing cycle began.
Maybe I should give it another shot now that I don't have to pay for it.

It finished after 24 hours. For some reason, bittorrent didn't work at all, but I'd never used it before. I'm having a hard time with the UI, anyone have any references handy?