AnarchyOnline/GettingStarted

1. [Download the client]
   
2. [Register a username and password]
   
3. Wait for the download to finish.  Not that many BitTorrent clients are broken and will say '100%' and not really mean it.  Quitting and restarting (it scans the file again, doesn't download from scratch) fixes that.
   
4. While you wait, you might want to try browsing some of the [newbie guides] out there.  Or you might prefer not to.
   
5. Install the client.  Yay.
   
   1. Note that decrompressing a Gigabyte takes a while, and may appear to have hung.
      
6. Run it.  Wait for it to install patches.  Yay.
   
   1. You can manually download and install the patches, if you prefer.
      
   2. When it asks you 'backup the patches' say YES.
      
      1. If you need to recover for some reason, just copy the patches from wherever you backed them up to, into the directory you installed ao into.  Then run the client, the patcher will pick them up automatically and skip the download.
         
7. Networking: If you're behind NAT or firewall, you really need to punch ports 7500 to 7600 through.  It usually copes well enough without manually forwarding them - but sometimes on zone transition it'll expect you to pick up on a different server, and that can cause you to lose connection if you've not forwarded them.
   
   1. [Useful site with how to set up your particular router for many common apps and games].
      
8. Once you're in, you need to create your character.
   
9. Despite what the game wants you to do, choose your profession (class) first, then decide on breed (race).
   
10. The easiest professions for newbies are:  Martial-Artist (because you don't need to fuss with weapons and it's obvious what skill you need to raise), Adventurer (because they do a little bit of everything) and Enforcer (because they're big things that hit other things, and easy to understand.)
    
11. The races are:
    
    1. 'Sol' (human, average at everything).  Choose this if nothing else fits, or you want to be more rounded. (And hence called 'suboptimal' and other, ruder, things.)
       
    2. 'Opti' (let us be frank here, elves).  Choose this for a sneaky or slippery character.  Martial artist, fixer and agent, traditionally.
       
    3. 'Nanothingy' Choose this if you want to be made of glass, but have lot more mana.
       
    4. 'Atrox' (troll).  Choose this if you want to be big and get hit a lot without caring.  (Enforcers.)
       
12. Actually, for your first character, it doesn't really matter what you choose.  It's well worth creating a character just long enough to get the hang of how the game works, then deleting it and starting again.
    
13. After creating, it asks you where you want to start.  Unless you've bought an expansion pack, you can only choose one place.
    
14. You get a short sequence where a shuttle descends to the planet, your body is reconstituted (it'll be doing that a lot) and aliens blow everything up.  You crash.  Welcome to newbie island.
    
    1. I missed this, despite having "show intro movie" ticked. --CH
       
    2. Odd.  I saw it despite it not being ticked.  --Vitenka (Mislabelled control?)