You people who say the quests are hard slaying monsters over and over again till it drops a quest item what is this supposed to be every mmorpg game u become highest level in seconds sure there will be glitches dude iv played ut for 6 years that still has glitches you all expect everything to be good leveling like so fast quests to easy in an mmorpg game its supposed to be hard if you want a hard leveling game i advise you to go to endless online i asure you that this game is 100% OMG GOOD LIKE EXCELLENT The scenery= =O breathtaking it actually doesnt make the game harder cos u cant solo maybe it takes a while to get a team together but is that because its designed for that i mean it actually makes the game more team based instead of solo u 1 person no frended homo so STFU this game is so cool i actaully advise you to buy the game off Amazon as also you'v got an infinite back-up cd a cd key i mean all you gotta do is keep em organized unless ur a 13 year old prick and cant even keep his/her room clean cos your so unorganized leveling-70 in 3 days and all you said leveling was so hard well heres how to get ingame to actually find the game fun and lots of others alike GET FRIENDS ON THESE GAMES DONT BE A BILLY NO MATES COS U GOT NONE i think this game and expansion is excellent and all you that saying you gotta have this armor but wait u need SL to equip it WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY MADE SL FOR? TO BE THE EXACTLY SAME AS ANARCHY-ONLINE-ORIGINAL? PEACE OUT

I played the free Anarchy before buying this expansion. I was level 95 and once I got it I did wander around for a bit but then, like half the people on, heading out to the beach for hecklers. At that point I just leveled and leveled. Garden keys and quest, who needs it. Just keep killing hecks and level 2 to 3 times an hour. And then go back to AO classic and flaunt your new levels. You also get much better gear that they cant use. Has it ruined the game since I now only to a single place. Sort of but I play with the same players so socially it is nice to group with people you know. Still it creates a real imbalance compared to AO classic and at least in Elysium everyone just about camps the beach.

I played AO for 2 years before Shadowlands Expansion Pack came out. The game, by itself, is one of the best on the market but IMO Shadowlands ruined the fun in the game.
AO is an item based game. In another words, to be good, you need good items. With a current drop rate on some of very good weapons, it might take you weeks to get it if you are unlucky. The droprate is like 2-5% on a mob with respawn time of 25 minutes. Basically, SL made AO a camping game. (Personally I camped one monster for 35-36 hours with no luck)
The adventuring part in SL is boring. How long can you look at beautiful graphics? Day? Two? Monsters there are very hard and you will have problems killing them even if they are your level or even lower. Since most of the items that are good for your level drop from SL monsters, you wont be able to get them until you are higher level and they become useless to you. Or on other hand, you can buy them for over inflated prices.
This brings me to another big issue SL brought to the game. SL ruined the games economy. Relatively easy cash income from hecklers (monsters in shadowlands), inflated the prices beyond believe. The thing is though, you will have to find a team to kill them because they are too hard to solo them. Finding a team might take from 2 mins to 2 hours... Only high level characters can solo kill them with a good gear.
If you are a new player and have not ebayed money, you pretty much wont be able to get a good gear or weapons until you raise your first character to 200 or more.
On the positive side: yeah, graphics is beautiful and FunCom added static quests for garden keys. Plus, AO is a great place to make new friends.
I would recommend to wait for the next expansion (Alien Invasion) to come out before trying out this game.