question about time it takes to level, and pricing question

[damoshemeister]

Ok the first question i have is what is the level cap? From what i've been reading it is 220. Secondly, estimately how many hours does it take to reach the level cap, how long did it take some of you guys who have made it. The other question i had was in regard to the pricing. According to their website i can buy 2 expansions one for 30 and one for 20, or i can buy the newest for 30 that includes all of them. So why would anyone buy the other expansion than? It doesn't make sense to me. Well I appreciate anyone who took the time to read this, and make a response. Thanks.

[Sferykal]

The time to 220 (and that's not all there is to level, you have a number of other levels to master, too) takes as long as you want it to take. For real fast leveling you will need others helping you and/or alts, so forget that line of thinking. Especially on first chars I'd suggest you level in pace, because this game is horribly complex and I've met a number of players which leveled to fast for their own good.

I haven't checked into the pricing since some time, as a froob (someone who plays for free) I got many different offers, including partial and complete free upgrades (dunno about LE now, didn't look at the mails anymore ). I bet others know these things in more detail.

[Trgeorge]

As Sferykal said, game is complex. So some players like to upgrade gradually in order to get less distracted about all the features/content different expansions bring. And don't go by pricing on FC store, since from time to time FC offers different expansions for free (at least for frobs), as well as you can buy older expansions cheaper elsewhere.

[Snakebite]

If you are playing a free version of AO, the level cap is 200...
If you are playing a subscribed version of AO, the level cap is 220 because you get 20 'Shadow levels' added onto the top of the original 200...
If you have the Alien Invasion expansion (AI) then you have a maximum of 30 AI levels to get (which come easy at first & take a damn lot of alien killing to finish... (these run beside the normal and Shadow levels, not on top...)

As to how many hours to reach 220/30, well, there's not a great many players that have characters at that level, but there are many with a 220/?? character or 3. How long it takes you depends on how much you play the game, how much help you have, how experienced you are with AO & lastly, how much game cash you have...
I'm told it's possible to get a newly created character from lvl1 to lvl220 in 1.5 - 2 weeks... But I don't know anyone that's done it... To do this, you would have to play as many hours you can stay awake for, have a team (& I'm not talking about another 5 ppl to join your team) of ppl helping you force level & shed loads of ingame cash (easily 1Billion, probably more like 2 - 3Billion ...).

If you manage it, what you will be left with is a top end character of your choice, with all nanos & some damn nice equipment...

HOWEVER...

You won't be able to play him properly to what he should be played like, you just won't have the experience that only comes from leveling that character class from the start & hitting all the problems & stuff that you've missed by being power leveled...

& it WILL be obvious to other players...
& it WILL get you called a n00b...
& it WILL get you dropped or just not invited to teams/raids...
& you'll be back to square one...

Trust me, you can buy ?â?ôberness, but it won't do you any good.
Don't play this game just because you want to be the top of the pile, cos trust me, I've been playing this game over 2 years now & there are many ppl out there that will walk all over me still!!!
Play the game for the fun of it, it's a very complex game that will give simply hundreds of hours of enjoyment...

That said, don't be depressed, nothing realy good ever comes free or easily, have fun!

[damoshemeister]

THanks everyone who took time to reply. I'm mostly just looking for an estiamate. Lets say i don't have any friends, and I level mostly by myself. HOw long would it take form 1 to 220. Over 500 hours? over a 1000?

[Khuri]

Erm, are you looking for a challenge or creating some statistic of which game is to be beaten as fast as possible? Or doing a speedrun?

Actually, i think thats not that easy to calculate. What i can tell you is, that a group of 6 students i heard of (well, i know one of them), once made a run for level 200 in one week. Let's assume they had tons of time (as they apparently had), and played 16 hours a day straight. In 7 days, that would be 112 hours, for level 200 only.
What you need to know about this one now is that they have been 6 people at all time, and since they already had end-game characters, they could equip their "new chars" with almost everything you could buy for money in the game. So they had been "twinked" the whole time.

Now, considering being a new player, without "connections" in the game, money, people who will be ready to join you for a team 24/7 ... you will probably need damn longer
If you look at our guides section, there is a graph for the level curve, where you can see how experience required for a new level goes up each time.
Apart from that, if you look at the additional 30 Alien Levels, that come with the Alien Invasion addon, and consider it was released in late 2004, Auno.org reports that there is only 221 people on all 3 dimensions together that have reached that highest level by now

I can only give the advice: Take time, don't rush, experience more of the game...

[Trgeorge]

A speed run? Kinda hard to estimate, especially with no info on breed&profession. I belive fastest 220 ding was in 3 weeks, but that was in team. There are several factors involved:

- profession: not every profession is equally designed for soloing. Some do it better, some worse. No matter which you decide upon, every one has "tight" spots - level ranges where going will be slow&tough
- breed: skills depend on this one as well. As well you'll have to take into consideration what quipment you'll be able to equip at certain level.
- availability of equipment: some stuff is easier to come by (bot in regards to time involved & price). Some piece that might be junk to certain profession/breed might be more than adequate for different one
- and most importantly knowledge: anything from which nanos to get, what skills to invest Ip to at certain levels to what mobs or locations are best to level at.

I don't agree with your idea (or question), but fact remains, you can reach absulute endlevel by simple, mindnubing grind. There's notorious example of that on Atlantean (or it was till FC banned him).

Problem with all this is that this is MMO. You'll miss all the stuff most players manag to learn while leveling up, you'll miss on all the contacts and possible friends. And once you reach such goal, you'll still be noob. At endgame raids other players expect their team mates (and in most cases you need at least full team) to know their ropes and role in team. Noobs are easily indentified and can be ignored, banned (by player organized raid bots) or simply avoided.

Trust us, there's more to this game than simply leveling. Players who play the game since launch and not having single toon lvl 220 are proof of this. And only idiots think less of them due to that.

[damoshemeister]

You guys seem to be missing the point of my question. I'm not asking with the intent of seeing how fast I can possibly level, I am simply asking for a rough estimate and rough as it needs to be, a range even. I do not have any friends or money. AS for class lets say one that levels at about an average rate. For starters would it be more or less than 500 hours? Or let met ask it this way. How long did it take you specifically to level your first character?

[Khuri]

Read between the lines of my post, and the answer is there...
But to simply answer your question then: I believe you will need more then 500 hours, and especially a LOT more if you are looking to play alone, without a team.

And i can't tell you how long it took me, because my main character i got since more then 4 years, is still not level 220

[Snakebite]

There is simply no way to work out even an estimate... Too many variables... Sorry.

As an example, AO was my first MMO, I was indoctrinated quite heavily by a close friend (often stood behind me), I had the bonus of having played pen & paper RPGs for about 20 years, I am proficient with computers, I am dexterous (using mouse & kb quickly & accurately), thru part of the last 2.5years of playing this game I have been unemployed (back injury) so have been able to spend sometimes 16hrs+ online at a time , although I've spent long periods online I've never been in a huge rush to level up & have often just sat around socialising with Org members, I have 6 paying characters, lvls (aprox) 220/20 // 216/16 // 60/5 // 120/7 // 21/0 // 5/1(reroll).

So it's taken me 2.5years to get to those levels, taking them turn & about...
That's about the best estimate I can give, sorry.

[damoshemeister]

THankyou to everyone who took the time to post. I understand how hard it is to make an estimate when there are so many variables to consider. However, I do feel like I have a better idea of what kind of investment it takes. I did download the free client version of the game, and intend to give it a shot in the near future. Possibly once my warcraft character is lvl 70, maybe sooner we will see. Thanks again to everyone who was kind enough to post.

[Haliy]

ok, for added info for time leveling...

I am a casual gamer in the military and when i do play, i try to play at least a minimum of 2-4 hours because anything less and you dont really get to accomplish anything... hell, a 220 inf mish with high DD takes an average of 45 min and thats if you already have everyone in your team and ready to pull the mission.

I think it took me 3 years to fully hit 220 with my agent (was my first character. my first 197 levels were pre-SL and that time included some powerleveling points) and about half that time with my doc (and thats taking in consideration of 6 month deployments and playing different alts.

If you do not have the shadowlands expansion, it will take considerably longer to level because of the xp difference the SL mobs give compared to the RK mobs. leveling 1-100 solo is definatly easy, 100-150 a bit more difficult and obviously 150-200, well... i wouldn't want to wish that upon anyone.

I do not have any friends or money. AS for class lets say one that levels at about an average rate.

you will make friends through the game guarenteed if you play your character to the best of its ability and become known as a decent player. you will get invited into more teams and even get some tells from players that you have never heard from before because "they have heard that you are good" (common occurance for tank's, doc's, and crat's. i know i've had my fair share)

as far as not having any money, you have to place that into your consideration of leveling time because as you level up, your not going to want to be still using that QL 50 weapon on your level 50 toon or that QL 50 weapon on your lvl 100 toon. having the best equipment for your class is a definate way to make or break a characters reputation.

now... about pricing. imho, it all depends on the profession and how well you want to outfit your character.

damage - keeping in mind that the current peice of QL 300 commandos goes for 600m (for 1 peice), average and a RBP goes for 1.5-2b and dragon chest goes for around 500m

casters - QL 300 Officers (if you want to go that way) go for on the average for 150-200m

some of the items you will want wont even have a price tag on them because you will need a raid force to aquire them (eg... burden)

now you can set up any character to play how ever you want. Ive seen doctors that score in the top 5 DD in beast raids. your play style is yours and nobody elses. don't let anyone tell you how to play your character unless they have a valid point or they have some type of experiance on playing that character and want to offer some suggestion.

please o' please like everyone else said... please just take the time and learn your character before you start getting power leveled. You never know who you are actually teaming with when you are leveling for your first time. for all you know, it could be a couple 220 players leveling their alts and wont want to team with you later in the game because you dont know what TMS is at level 100 or when or when not to use mongo on your enforcer... players like that put a bad taste with me and i wont team with them again, at least until they show me that they know how to play their character.

[Snakebite]

If it helps as a guide whether to get into AO or not, I always swore blind I'd never 'pay to play', & I didn't until AO was forced under my nose (other MMOs had been also), & I was hooked & had a subscribed account within a month...

[Jozef]

Over the weekend I took some time off work and ran individual missions with my characters, ranging from level 20 to level 105. This was primarily a statistical exercise - all chars have different professions, but other than that I tried to keep everything equal - always picked the first mission rolled, and only rolled missions at my level. Based on my results (and extending the curve up to Lvl 220) I now assume that a mission takes on average 40 minutes (including travel time), and yields around 20% of the experience needed to level up (the lower the level the less time it takes to complete a mission and the more relative experience one gets). As a result, if one focuses only on individual missions, reaching level 220 would take around 30.5 days of continuous playing time, or an average month. Given that I assumed the mission curve to keep the same shape between levels 105 and 220, I would take that result with a grain of salt.

As much as I like missions, they get a little boring over time. That's when other factors, such as permanent dungeons (Subways, Temple of Three Winds, Biomare, etc.) come into play. They present essentially no-gain time wasters from a leveling perspective - the player is often killed without leveling up - and thus at least another day or two should be added to the complete play time. The Shadowlands expansion doesn't really add more playing time, as I found to be gaining more experience from creature kills than in Rubi-Ka, but that was offset by dying more often.

Then there are other factors to consider: how much the player is involved in socializing, team play and role playing. Also note that none of my characters gets twinked or gets any help (such as money transfers) from my higher level characters, which slows down their development. In addition, even my level 108 Keeper finds it difficult to find anything really cool to purchase (other than the occassional symbiant), and as such he saved up most of his earnings. I'm sure that if I spent more time exploring various possibilities to squeeze a few more points into my stats I'd speed up my leveling time a little.

[Snakebite]

XP needed to get to the next level is nowhere near level with the amount you get from doing missions as you get higher... & obviously, you're not going to get SK (what you need to get from 200 to 220) from RK missions, you need to head to the shadowlands...