Anarchy Online

Anarchy Online Gets A Face-Lift!

DoranM — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:22:04 GMT

Funcom has told us that they're working on updating Anarchy Online with an improved 3D engine! It's still very early but they've decided to share a few screenshots with us!

Before and after screenshots:

Seven Years of Anarchy Online Video

Zyuu — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:27:56 GMT

Today Funcom released a new video that has Gaute Godager, Morten Byom, Craig Morrison, Ragnar Tørnquist and Colin Cragg. Three Game Directors, one Storycreator and one Lead Designe sharing their thoughts and views on how Anarchy Online has evolved over the course of seven years. The video is very insightful and there's quite a few flashbacks and also information about the future.

Back through memory lane...

Anarchy Online - Seven Years

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Anarchy Online 17.9 Patch Notes Preview

Zyuu — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:37:17 GMT

Funcom have released information about the upcoming 17.9 patch for Anarchy Online. View the preview patch notes below!

We are happy to present a preview of the content we plan to release with the 17.9 update.

Steps of Madness – the nightmare continues

Neleb the Deranged sits in his cave, oblivious of the world outside and lost in the dark pits of his insanity. On the outside, a handful of people have long been convinced that Neleb is not a deranged mind with delusions of grandeur, but rather a misunderstood visionary. One of these people is more than happy to talk to people and will even supply quick and easy transport to the cave itself…if you dare venture inside, that is!

Steps of Madness, which was the first dungeon added to Anarchy Online back in 2001, is not going to be quite as you remember it! Recently, nostalgia got hold of us and we decided to give it a small facelift. Targeted for levels 30-60, Steps of Madness now has modified monsters (yes, before you ask, we have taken them off their insane diets and their hit points should be a bit more manageable now!), new and improved loot and some revised items and drop rates. We hope that both new and old players alike will find their way to this curious place where sanity balances on an edge.

The Escaped Prisoners

Quite recently, the prisons in Newland, Omni-Trade and West Athen accepted prisoners from the priests of Home. There were several things out of the ordinary about these inmates and now, to everyone’s horror, they have managed to escape!

This is a major crisis for the penitentiaries on Rubi-Ka, and they could use all the help they can get in catching these prisoners again. High level players should seek out the prison wardens if they are willing to help track down some of these dangerous foes and maybe earn themselves a bounty or two along the way. Some of the tools they used to escape might have uses in the outside world as well!

Dust Brigade – Locating the threat

It is no secret that the Dust Brigade is interested in Xan technology, but this knowledge has spawned more questions than answers. Why are they searching for it? Where is their base? Who directs them? What are they planning?

The ICC intends to find out at least one of these answers, and may accept help from those who have shown their reliability before.

A letter from the Game Director

Kody — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 06:30:40 GMT

With a new year comes a new perspective for developers when taking a look back, and a look toward the future for their games. Funcom is no different, and Anarchy Online's Game Director has written up a letter to AO fans to talk about some of the things coming for the game.

In his last letter he mentioned the 17.8 update, but now he has more details to share about some of the major changes -- the replacement of the PvP title system, and a new ranking system with separate ranks for solo and team PvP.

Funcom will also be introducing a true duel system to the game for players who want to challenge others to a friendly scrap, with special titles for duelers being included in the new ranking system as well.

The final available ladder of progression will be for the new duel mode. Players will now be able to duel another player by targeting them and typing /duel which will send a duel invitation to the other player. (There will be an F10 option to auto-refuse duels so as to prevent people spamming this window on you)

Once a duel is accepted the fight starts and a beacon is placed on the ground. Players will have to remain within a certain radius of the beacon or they will forfeit the duel (this is to prevent players hiding far way to prevent them from losing). Players who zone or otherwise ‘evac’ will also count as having lost the duel.

Duels will be possible in any 75% or 100% zone, if you are in a 25% zone then the normal PVP system apply and duels are not possible (to avoid people being able to use duels to avoid the consequences of being in a PVP enabled area). You will be able to duel anyone regardless of their side.

There are a few other changes, like Diminishing Returns, modifications to Notum Wars, and AFK/Evac changes for Battlestations. To read everything, head over to the letter from the Game Director.

Virtual Item Sales added to Anarchy Online

Kody — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 23:53:23 GMT

This morning Funcom announced the addition of virtual item sales for their six-year-old game Anarchy Online.

The news comes in addition to Anarchy Online's recent version update - 17.6 - which was released on Wednesday.

The new virtual item shop allows players to purchase a wide variety of items, ranging from hover-bikes and hover-boards to social clothing, pets and even a luxury apartment. There are three packages for purchasing the points required in the item shop; you can get them in 10, 20 or 40 USD / EUR increments, with 100 points being equivalent to 1 USD / EUR.

An example given is a new hover-board, which costs as low as 300 points, but there is an entire line of hover-boards with varying point costs.

“This kind of system puts the choice in the hands of the players by allowing them to take as little or as much of the new content as they like,” said Craig Morrison, Game Director on Anarchy Online.

For those players who pay a monthly subscription - you'll be getting a set of points each month to spend in the item shop, with longer subscription plans receiving additional points.

To read more about it, head over to the AO item shop announcement.

Name a Jetbike and Win a PC!

Kody — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 04:06:29 GMT

Anarchy Online has a new contest running in conjunction with iBuypower called "Name the Jetbikes."

So why should you enter this contest? Well, firstly you get a chance to name something being added to the game, but you'll also get your hands on a powerful gaming PC in the process.

Head here to read up on the contest.

17.4 Update Series

Kody — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 22:38:17 GMT

There's a new patch available for Anarchy Online today. You can check out all of the notes below.

Update Notes 17.4

New Adonis Quests
- Aid the ancient Yuttos and the scientists of Jobe to uncover the secrets of Adonis.
- Complete over forty new quests.
- Uncover the dark secrets of the ancient Xan and what befell their once great civilisation.
- Earn new rewards and items including new Brain Symbiants / Spirit for the final quests.
New Alien Playfield
- New playfield for players up to level 150
- Playfield can be accessed through the Unicorn staging area
- Fight new bosses and mini-bosses while exploring the chasms of Sector 10
- Complete new missions and quests inside the playfield
- Earn yourself new items and armor from battle against the alien hordes
New OFAB Vendor items in the shape of new back armors
A host of new veteran items added to the veterans vendor
The Rhinomen of Rubi-Ka have acquired some new armors that melee professions might be interested in.
New birthday items in time for the sixth anniversary celebrations! NOTE: These items will only be available during the birthday celebrations
The damage cap in PVP combat will be lowered from 40% to 30%
New options for multiple hotbars.
- You can add up to 10 hotbars to your GUI through a new option in the F10 menu
- Any visible hotbar can be manually set to be the active one through the toggle on the hotbar
- Alt+number cycles through which is your active hotbar
Upgrading a buff will now only require the difference in NCU cost to be available, not the whole amount.
Split out the rank required to destroy city buildings and drop the City shields. Now only the top two ranks in an organisation can destroy buildings while the top three can drop the shields to start a raid. NOTE: Org types with the three or less ranks (Monarchy, anarchy etc) remain as they are.
Tweaked the area nuke used by some of the bosses in Albtraum.
Added a new option so players can choose whether zooming in places them in first person mode or not
Added new auto-afk function. Players will now be flagged as afk after three minutes. Going afk in a battlestation will result in you being kicked from the battlestation
Added an option to turn off activating the default action when double-clicking a target.
PVP grace period should now work correctly when leaving the decontamination room in the Battlestations
Corrected the equip time on Aban garden Key
Resolved the issue with the Security Card Encoder in the Biomare quests
Sureshot Glasses should now have a correct icon
Fixed a visual bug that could cause some skating animations
Fixed an issue where trickle down IP might not be calculated correctly visually in the GUI
Removed the psychic requirement from The Voice of Truth nano crystal
Fixed incorrect time descriptions in some engineer snare reduction nanos
The Mistreatment perk now requires a fighting target and for you to be in combat to work. This should prevent the perk locking when attempted to be used on an invalid target.
You should no longer take Environmental damage in Shadowlands zones when zoning wearing the correct protection gear
Drake Rodriguez should only spawn you the bracer of strength once now and not spam you with messages about unique items
Ring of Sister Merciless now locks perception rather then intelligence and should no longer interfere with sneaking
Changed "You must sit in order to use /lounge." to "You must sit in order to use /lounge or /sleep."
Reduced the spawn time of the catacombs bosses required for the Scheol quests to one hour
Some Food and drink items have been given the fixture flag so that they can be placed on the ground again
Changed text in demolish buildings tab to the correct delay of 2 minutes before a house disappears

Anarchy Online Version 17.3.1 Notes

Kody — Thu, 03 May 2007 22:58:30 GMT

There was a patch today to the Anarchy Online live servers. It looks like a bug fix patch for the most part.

Version 17.3.1

Streamlined the quest flow in Albtraum
- You should no longer need to reset the playfield to continue the quest
- The Yuttos will clear the path to the mini bosses for you somewhat should the zone be fully populated when you activate that stage of the quest
Extended possible looting distance back.
Corrected the issue where some mobs and objects were not targetable correctly due to small bounding boxes
Corrected the issue with flying or floating objects having a bounding box that extended to the ground.
The NPC at the plastic surgery clinic will now mention the correct price.
Resolved some issues where the camera would drift in 3rd person lock mode.
The Show Target's Target option will now save correctly.
The Jobe IPR item should now be available in the Jobe Hardware Dimension shop.
The Improved and Masterpiece Ancient Manual Aiming Aids should now correctly list Martial Artists as being able to use them.
Added the correct Psychic bonus to the Masterpiece Ancient Bracer.

Version 17.3 Update Notes

Kody — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 21:18:13 GMT

There's a new patch for Anarchy Online today; you can read the notes below.

Version 17.3

New Shadowlands Team instanced playfield: High level players can now access a special new playfield in Inferno
Playfield is instanced to your specific team
A Quest series will give players a series of repeatable goals inside the playfield.
Three separate types of bosses, mini-bosses during the quest chain, a final boss encounter as well as a series of spawnable pocket bosses
New quest and monster loot to be found inside the playfield.
You can find more information on the playfield here
Single IPR points can now be purchased from the OFAB vendor for 50,000 VP or from Jobe for credits (NOTE: price in credits will vary depending on your computer literacy skill)
The Unicorns are interested in speaking to anyone who has secured the Alien Invasion plans from Sector 42

New OFAB Vendor items

New profession rings
New Martial Arts attacks
New Bureaucrat calm nanos aimed for use in boss encounters
New Bureaucrat pet buff nanos
New Doctor DoT nanos
New Soldier HoT Blocker nano
New MP pet buff nanos
New Engineer pet buff nanos

Carlo Pinetti's contract has been renegotiated to be more flexible.
Added an extra confirmation for trades with other players.
Reduced cost of plastic surgery clinic to 25 million credits.
Bank terminal added to player market buildings.
Players will now exit the battlestation near the terminal from which they signed up.
Tweaked the difficulty on some of the Rubi-Ka military bosses.
Engineers Offensive Aura Line should now include Cold ACs correctly instead of chemical ACs twice.
Pets in modes except /pet hunt will again finish their current fight before despawning after their timer expires.
The Cripple perk ability should now be correctly affected by having the Numb perk running.
Increased the amount by which the Engineer Miniaturization nanos will shrink their pets.
Fixed some personal research actions that were incorrectly causing a long recast timer when inits were debuffed.
The team version of Calia's Form: Sabertooth now gives the correct 56 fire damage modifier.
Kyudo and Greater Kyudo should now stack with general and composite nanos.
Amended description of level of the Nano Crystal for Enfraam's Triple to match the nano correctly.
added Poison damage & Cold damage to the Borrow reflect nano.
adjusted the way side bonus is displayed in chat when XP is capped.
Added feedback to the person promoting org members.
Client should now Update AMS on client correctly when leaving a mech.
Client should now Update stats window correctly when entering or leaving a mech.
Channelling of Notum is no longer hostile so it will no longer proc looping service or be resisted by friendly targets or received by enemy targets.
Reduced cast time on Shadowlands bind and recall nanos
Health should no longer update incorrectly visually on the client when zoning
The donations to the Newland Militia have been received and they now have access to alien weapons.
Doctor nanos Viral Neurotoxin and Entropic Sores now have the correct corresponding level use requirements.
Using an MMR (Improve Thrusting Weapon) on the Jagged Claw will no longer consume the MMR.
Quest keys should now be deleted correctly when a quest is removed (solved/deleted).
Players head should no longer disappear for Opifex male characters with the MP wing items
/anon should now work while in a mech.
The Pelisse of the Elyssian Nymph should now drop again. The drop rate has also been increased slightly.
The White Dryad is now visible again.
Vanward Four realized that he gave meta-physicists an incorrect reward and now offers a new item, both to new and previous helpers.
New option to see your target's target visually in the GUI (this can be activated from the F10 menu)
The description of NCU Booster now displays the level locks on targets for the perk effect.
Level 1 of NCU Booster should now show the correct icon in your NCU.
Targeting with the mouse cursor now uses bounding boxes (=should be easier to click overlapping stuff). Targeting small objects near/under big objects requires you to click several times to cycle through objects under your mouse to the one you want.
Wearing boots with can be worn with social no longer disables social armor on zone.
Right wrist Arul saba bracelet should now correctly give 120 Max health and 53 additional fire damage
Increased Psychic on level locked SL pets to prevent charming out of pvp level range.
Defensive Procs will no longer fire on self actions (i.e. nuking yourself)
Pet attack / heal buttons should now update correctly when pets comes inand out of range.
Clan superior stores should now have a Superior Bookstore instead of an advanced one.
Character view distance slider now displays the value of the settings in meters.
Fixed issue where the GUI would not always properly show the red overlay for over-equipped items.
You should no longer get an incorrect error message when attempting to choose an invalid nickname.
Fixed some vendor terminals that allowed opposing faction players to access.
Fixed spelling error in Viral Targeting Subunit description.
Fixed spelling errors in predator armor items.
Fixed Spelling errors in some tower descriptions.
Fixed Spelling error in the Ring of Nucleus Basalis.
Fixed Spelling error in Keeper Keeper's Virtue personal research line.

Multi-Dev Interview

Nimloth — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 03:06:00 GMT

>I really like the fact Lost Eden will readdress your earlier expansion Notum Wars. With the way most expansions are released and then dropped what made the AO team want to revisit a earlier release? > >Mainly because we saw some really cool angles to improve it! Also as time goes on player develop certain tactics after a while and the experience can be dulled a little once they have refined their art down to a science. We wanted to shake things up and make the players have to think of new tactics and give them some new and exciting options for trying to take an defend the Notum Wars areas. In addition we wanted to make it more inclusive so that even if a player didn’t feel they had the most powerful PVP character, they could still contribute by jumping into one of the new vehicles. > >What has been the biggest roadblock in the implementation of Lost Eden? > >The Anarchy Online engine is almost seven years old at this point, so a technical barrier was defiantly getting some of the cool visuals to actually work in our game engine. It was complicated and a lot of work, but our artists and coders worked together and pulled it off. I was very pleased with what they managed to achieve in the end. > >What been the most enjoyable part of developing Lost Eden? > >Defiantly working with the AO team, there was really a lot of dedication and passion shown all the way through the process and its great to have people around you that care so much about improving the game and understand what you are trying to achieve as a Game Director. > >Which changes and/or additions have garnered the most positive community feedback? > >People are definitely enjoying the battlestations and really like the fact that PVP has opened up to be more inclusive. We have had pretty good feedback overall on almost all the features of the expansion, but I think the biggest ‘that’s so cool!’ comments have come when people first saw the mechs and the orbital laser strikes – there is nothing quite like blasting a huge crater into a tower field and causing havoc amongst your enemies!

Read the full interview here!

Latest Patch Notes

Nimloth — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 23:59:39 GMT

17.0 Update Series

Version 17.05

Trader Personal Research procs should now fire correctly on their intended targets
MP Personal Research proc debuffs should no longer affect character sheets incorrectly and should time out correctly
Agent Type 1 Personal research actions shouldn't clash with their proc based nanolines PLEASE NOTE: In order for this change to work Type 1 actions for Agents only proc on ranged attacks
Trader Type 1 Personal Research actions shouldn't clash with the Accumulator perk actions PLEASE NOTE: In order for this change to work Type 1 actions for Traders only proc on ranged attacks
Keeper Type 1 Personal Research actions shouldn't clash with their proc based nanolines PLEASE NOTE: In order for this change to work Type 1 actions for keepers only proc on melee attacks
Bureaucrat Personal Research proc social services should no longer stun you and / or your team

Latest update notes

Nimloth — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 14:46:22 GMT