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Movement
Unlike the older portion of the world, which has transport tubes that provide instant connections between cities, each area in the Shadowlands can only be accessed from a small number of entry points. This means that to get from area A to area C you may have to run all the way across area B; not exactly my idea of fun. For enough credits, you can purchase vehicles that will get you across large areas quickly, and at higher levels there are other means of transportation available, but at this stage most people still seem to be getting around on foot.

Skills
The AO skill system is robust and permits you to distribute the experience you earn across your skill set as you see fit, within certain limits. It gives you an abundance of ways to personalize your character, but it is rather complicated, and once spent, there is no way to recover improvement points if you made the wrong decision. Beginners that don't want to handicap their character with uniformed choices will benefit from reading the online manual.

Shadowlands introduces an additional set of "perks" which are granted every 10 levels. These are powerful bonus skills and are more flexible than improvement points in that you can switch them around later if you want to shape your character differently.

Shadowlands Screenshots

Death
Like most MMORPGs, you can expect to die on many occasions in the hostile land of Rubi-Ka. Fortunately, your DNA is kept on record so a clone can be made of you when you meet with an untimely demise. In the lower levels the penalty for dying is negligible, but after level 20 you must remember to save your character at a cell scanner regularly, as you will lose all experience gained since the last save should the battle end tragically. No agonizing corpse recoveries; your inventory is returned through the nearest Reclaim terminal.

Housing
Player housing comes in the form of apartments, which AO has been providing for quite some time. In Shadowlands small groups can gather in an apartment for some time out overlooking the floating city of Jobe. It's an ambitious gesture, but, in part because the apartments are "instanced," it doesn't add much to gameplay. You can't exactly drop by your neighbors to borrow a metawater suit.

Graphics
The environments in Shadowlands are a step up from those in the original AO. Much of the scenery in the game is positively stunning, with animated skies and daylight cycles. The zones are large, the terrain and textures are marvelously crafted, and many of the nano-programs (think spells) produce satisfying effects. It isn't quite as cutting-edge graphically as some of more recent MMORPGs that offer seamless worlds, but you are still likely to find yourself stopping to enjoy the view.

You will also tangle with some very impressive monsters in the Shadowlands, from gigantic dragon-like beasts to merciless sharks. By comparison, character models are a bit weak, often appearing chunky and oddly proportioned. This could be because all characters are, for the most part, compatible with both the older portions of Rubi-Ka and the newly discovered Shadowlands. Creating a character in the expansion does not limit you to playing in the expanded world, although some features, such as perks, are only available in Shadowlands.

The interface is adequate and easy enough to adapt to, offering the usual WASD movement controls and the ability to play from 1st or 3rd person perspectives. Some elements are resizable and moveable, others are not, and more options in this area would be welcome. There are an incredible number of emotes to play with; you're bound to get many minutes of entertainment just from watching your character do the "Pulp Fiction" dance. They have also added sound emotes, but curiously, they are accessed by chat commands and not integrated with the emote animations.

Funcom also has to be given credit for offering a remarkably varied game experience in a single package, and for being responsive to their users (undoubtedly endless) demands. The whole of AO is greater than the sum of its parts, with many features, and a level of customer service, that the next generation of games can still only promise. The Shadowlands expansion is a testimony to Funcom's commitment to old and new players alike. I suspect that AO will continue to thrive, as it has for the last couple years, despite being surrounded by 900 pound competitors with larger budgets.

Shadowlands Screenshots