Thursday, June 23, 2005

A Change Of Pace

The cause may be that I simply didn't have enough time to play anything new this week, or just that I felt like it but, whatever the reason - today's post is once again about Anarchy Online. To tell the truth, once I got my hands on my Yalmaha and hit level 60, I hit a wall of sorts when it comes to leveling. Not that it's difficult, I just haven't found myself doing it much. I spend more time just cruising the Yalm around, trying to find "dyna-bosses", as they're called, and killing them. That, along with a few missions, has gotten me up to level 65, but I was still itching for a change of pace.

What did I do? Well, I started a new character. I've tried this a few times before, but none of them ever got higher than level 5 before I'd just go back to using old faithful. This time, I tried a Trader, and it's been pretty damn fun getting him up to level 15, even if it did come at the price of being in a few bad subway teams. The differences between playing an Adventurer and a Trader are nearly night and day when it comes playing the classes. I've got to admit, as an Adventurer I got pretty used to being able to solo pretty much anything that came my way with little effort. A Trader's capability for soloing is nothing to sneeze at, it just takes a different approach.

I wouldn't recommend Trader as a first character to someone new to the game, since there's a bit of finesse required to make the class shine. Traders get nano-formulas called drains, which hinder an opponent's offensive skills while improving yours, which is cool right off the bat. It gets cooler when you realize that drains boost nano-skills which are used to get better drains, and said drains stack. Draining to be able to cast better drains has a ladder effect that soon lets you equip a much better weapon than you should be able to. As long as you keep your drains up high enough that your weapon doesn't become less effective, you've just turned yourself into quite a badass.

Traders also get a nice line of roots (which render an opponent unable to move) and calms (which, well, calm) that make blitzing missions for easy cash a breeze. Needless to say, it's quite a bit easier making money than it was when I started my Adventurer. If you read the description linked above, you'd already know that making money is more or less what a Trader does. The name gives a slight clue. Once I get him up to level 25 I get access to the Trader Shop, to which you can sell items for a much higher price than your normal shops. Pretty soon I'll be wiping my ass with credits, if that's possible in any way.

One last note to those of you who already play Anarchy Online, before I wrap this up. Somewhere in the options is a little check mark to use "Offscreen Surface Technology". I'm not sure what types of videocards can use it, but I'd suggest trying to turn it on as it basically amounts to a "Make Water Way More Pretty" button.

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