Craig Morrison, Game Director of Age of Conan, recently chatted with the folks at Videogamer.com about the new re-evaluation program. While they had him over there, they poked him about a possible sequel to Anarchy Online. After all, he originally worked on the game before moving to the Conan team.

Unfortunately, Mr. Morrison states that Funcom is not currently working on a sequel, and have no plans to do so. At least, not yet. He does leave the possibility open, though:

“I don’t think it’s something we would see as making a sequel to right now. Obviously we’ve got The Secret World coming up. Now that Age of Conan is out we’re always as a company trying to have two major titles in the works. Maybe at some point in the future after The Secret World is out then… you never know. It’s certainly an IP that we love. It’s a great game world. I wouldn’t say never, but there are certainly no plans in the immediate future.”

Get the full story over at Videogamer.com.

What do you think of an Anarchy Online sequel? Would you like to see one? Let us know in the comments!

MMORPG.com's Jon Wood asked some questions of Anarchy Online's Game Director Colin Cragg about the just-announced Legacy of Xan booster for the seven year old title.

MMORPG.com:

What is the difference between an expansion and a booster?

Colin Cragg:

This is of course subject to opinion...but mine would be that the difference between and expansion and a booster is a question of scale and scope. Expansions often offer new game mechanics, levels to achieve or enormous land mass to explore. In the case of Shadowlands, an area significantly larger than the original game was added along with twenty new levels and significant new player actions and mechanics. Legacy of the Xan, while containing large areas and rafts of new content, is not on this scale and is meant to be supplementary to the game as an alternate path through the Anarchy Online end game experience. This is an end game experience designed for our veteran players and as a booster it is priced as such. Long standing members of our community will find this priced down to as little as 9.99 /$ when supplemented with paid points awarded free with their subscriptions. We feel this is excellent value for the fun this adds to the game.

Read the Legacy of Xan Interview

The folks from Funcom have provided us with these exclusive Legacy of Xan screenshots.

Check out the Anarchy Online: Legacy of Xan Screenshots

The folks from Funcom have sent along this trailer for the upcoming booster, Legacy of Xan, for their sci-fi MMORPG, Anarchy Online.

Watch the Legacy of Xan Booster Video

Our apologies to the dev team over at Funcom's Anarchy Online as we wish their game a belated happy birthday.

On June 27th, Anarchy Online officially turned the ripe old age of 7. Congratulations to the past and present dev team of the game on reaching this milestone.

On June 27th, Anarchy Online turns 7 years old, and we have prepared several great offers and fun, in-game surprises for the players. We look very much forward to celebrating the anniversary of the game together with you!

Keeping in the theme of “7”, we’re delighted to present several great offers to all of you, both the old and the new, and the free players.

Anniversary gifts and offers

Active Anarchy Online players will receive 700 paid points for free. You can use these on whatever in-game items you want, ranging from jet bikes and hover boards, Jobe Luxury Apartment and pet leets, to social clothing to add a dash of color to the game world! We are also giving you 7 buddy keys to invite friends to try the game. With these buddy keys your friends will be able to discover and enjoy the wonders of Rubi-Ka! These keys give a full 30 days of free play with all expansions enabled.

Previous subscribers should keep an eye on their e-mail inboxes for a very special offer giving them the opportunity to return to Rubi-Ka. 

Finally, we have a special offer to our free players. For only $7/€7, you can upgrade to the full game experience, including all expansion content. This offer also includes 7 days of free play time!

All of these special offers are only available until July 4th, so be sure not to miss the opportunity, and join us in celebrating the wonderful history of Anarchy Online!

In-game surprises

Like we have done previous years, we have prepared some in-game surprises and gifts for our players. From June 27th and one week forward, you will be able to find a special party planner NPC, who is happily giving away gifts to anyone who asks her, plus she has a fun little stock of party treats!

Among the items players can get for the birthday celebrations are a special birthday placard, a leetzilla doll, a cake fixture, XP buff items, a couple of clothing pieces suited for partying, a beautiful painting of a familiar place on Rubi-Ka, and finally a small item to tribute a certain barbarian and the story about his world.

Players will also have access to some classic party effects, like the monster sunglasses, the funny arrow and the propeller hat!

Want to party the night away?

Ever helpful and present, ARK has planned parties the entire birthday weekend. Lots of fun, good music and all sorts of unexpected surprises are on the agenda. Find details on when and where here! There will be plenty of available activities for the players who find themselves online this weekend!

Win amazing custom gaming PC from GameRigs!

The power that engulfs us all takes us into the heat of battle on Rubi-Ka. Beyond the simple and meek comes a brave warrior that will defeat all others in a quest for global supremacy.

Enter in the sweepstakes for your chance to win a tweaked, custom gaming PC from GameRigs complete with a decorated Anarchy Online case and mouse pad! Click here to read all about it!

More on AO here.

MMORPG.com would like to bring to your attention a cool sweepstakes that GameRigs.com is currently offering where you can win one of many cool prizes, including a new custom painted Anarchy Online PC!

To take part in this special event just FOLLOW THIIS LINK!

NOTE: This contest is not operated by MMORPG.com - this contest is solely operated by GameRigs.com. 

Funcom has announced that they are making changes to the subscription model of Anarchy Online.  They will be offering the contents of the Shadowlands expansion 5 USD / EUR, in addition to their free to play plan and 14.95 monthly fee.

Durham, USA – January 21, 2008 – Funcom announces the introduction of a tiered subscription system in Anarchy Online, and players can now choose between three subscriptions plans going from free-to-play to 5 to 14,95 USD / EUR a month. The newest subscription level means that gamers can access the areas and content in the Shadowlands expansion pack for only 5 USD / EUR a month, thereby offering one of the most profound, engaging and deep online experiences around for a low monthly cost.

The new areas which open up for the 5 USD a month subscribers are all located in the Shadowlands. This expansion pack got an incredible review score average, several awards and great critical acclaim when it launched, and is one of the most heralded MMO expansions of all time. The expansion not only gives players massive new areas to explore, it also introduces lots of new features as well as a chance to reach the maximum level in Anarchy Online. 

Read more here.

The folks over at Funcom have announced that Anarchy Online will be getting a face lift in the form of a new engine. Game Director Craig Morrison takes the time to answer a few of our questions as we present a trailer featuring the new engine.

MMORPG.com:

What was the rationale behind developing a new engine for a game that launched all the way back in 2001?

Craig Morrison:

We still have thousands of new players every week through the free player offer and we realize that while we are very proud of the games art direction, it is starting to look its age compared to modern titles. With so many players still signing up and trying the game every week we felt it would be a missed opportunity if we didn’t bring the engine up to date and little and improve the visuals. We know we have a great game with a lot of depth so in doing this we hope we can also attract people with a modern looking engine.

Check it out here.

The Anarchy Online official site has been updated with a letter from the Game director.  The letter details what's on the horizon for Anarchy Online, including new items and nanos, a new team instance, a re-write of the PvP title system, and more.

As 17.7 gets closer to being ready for the live dimensions I thought it was a good time to give you all another little insight into where we are at with Anarchy Online.

The coming game update includes quite a lot of stuff that we are all quite excited to see released to the live dimensions. Having spent quite some time now (well over a year in fact when I think about!) working on content with a focus on the Shadowlands it has been great to be able to look at Rubi-Ka again as we work through the new quest lines.

Getting to add some reasons to get people out an exploring the original game world is a fantastic feeling, and not just because it’s a great nostalgia trip for me! It was great seeing the designers and artists adding a little more life to some of the areas I remembered frequenting in the days around launch and sending people to some of the ‘old haunts’.

The Dust Brigade story elements are also shaping up very nicely. I think you’ll find some intriguing developments there and the team is translating the direction we have set out for the coming months into some very interesting content. It’s always quite satisfying to see the plans go from concept to testing to the game itself.

Then there are the new items and nanos, and people, as always, have already had quite a bit to say on the new items so I wanted to add a little here. When it comes to designing items we generally have to face the fact that at least as far as the feedback is required we are often in a ‘no win’ situation! The new nanos that are being introduced in 17.7 are a great example. When items are within the current budgets players have for skills on their characters then the items are seen as ‘too easy’ to equip and the game is being ‘dumbed down’, then when we make items that are intentionally at the high end of what’s possible they are ‘too hard’. In this case that difficulty is very much the intention!

Read more here.

Funcom has announced that they have launched virtual items sales in Anarchy Online on all servers in a new mini-expansion.  Among the new items that will be made available are hover boards and bikes, pets, social clothing, and more.

Durham, USA – October 12, 2007 – Funcom has now launched the virtual item sales in Anarchy Online. In yet another progressive move from Funcom, the players on Rubi-Ka are now able to purchase sets of points which can be used to acquire virtual items inside the game. The first virtual items introduced with the program come packed inside a new mini-expansion. Amongst other things the new pack includes hover-bikes, hover-boards, social clothing, pets and a luxury apartment. Our focus is to ensure that the virtual items do not affect gameplay balance.

The points are available in three different packages which can be purchased for 10, 20 or 40 USD / EUR, where 100 points is the equivalent of 1 USD / EUR. A new hover-board starts as low as 300 points, but the players can also purchase an entire range. As an introductory offer the players can purchase the entire new collection of boards and bikes for 2000 points.

“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. “It really adds an extra dimension to what we can provide in terms of fun social items, designed to look cool while being something players don't feel forced into. That extra element of choice has allowed us to add a much broader range of items than we might if we were simply targeting it into a self contained expansion.”

Read the full announcement here.

Earlier this month Funcom announced that the All American Rejects would be headlining an in-game concert in Anarchy Online. They have now released more information on the concert event which will be held this Sunday.

Durham, USA - August 10, 2007 - Funcom is proud to reveal the world's first MMO concert delivered via in-game video feed delivery. The popular US band "All American Rejects" will have a unique virtual concert for the many citizens of Rubi-Ka this Sunday, perfectly merging technology and music from the 21 st century with a game set 25,000 years into the future.

While some games have had virtual avatars of bands performing in their virtual worlds, this will be the first known concert via dynamic mega size screens, delivered through technology developed by Microsoft Corp.'s Massive. Gamers will see the band's performance, hear them and be able to mingle in the giant concert arena specifically designed for this historical event.

The concert is available free of charge to all players of Anarchy Online, and all they need to do to see it is to opt to toggle on viewing of the commercial advertising billboards in the game during the event. New players to the game can simply go to http://www.anarchy-online.com to download the free client, but since the event is secured via a sponsorship deal with a major U.S Telecom provider it can only be seen by North American gamers. With time Funcom hope that it is possible to expand the offering to global users, as well as providing other encore events.

Craig Morrison, the Producer / Director on Anarchy Online stated, "Virtual world entertainment is definitively expanding, and this historical opportunity to bring a concert to our players is something we have wanted to do for years. We know how much our players love music, whether it's the award winning soundtracks from the game, listening to the in-game radio station GridStream or bringing their own, and now they will get to experience yet another level of interaction thanks to Microsoft Corp.'s Missive's unique technology."

Read more about Anachy Online here.

The folks over at Anarchy Online have announced that they will be holding an in-game concert event featuring The All-American Rejects.

In Game Concert Announced

In a special event next weekend, we have teamed up with our partners at Massive and Verizon Wireless to provide a great in-game concert event.

Preparations have been completed for the grand concert in the ICC area in Andromeda and we invite all North America-based citizens of Rubi-Ka to attend this unique musical event.

The concert features The All-American Rejects and the event kicks off at 7PM Eastern Time on August 12, 2007 (To figure out what that means in your local time check here ).

Keep your eyes peeled for teasers and more information during the coming week for this exciting event!"

Read more here.

Funcom has announced that they have added a point system to Anarchy Online. Players can buy these points and use them to buy virtual items, services, and content.

Durham, USA - June 27, 2007 - Funcom is proud to announce the introduction of a additional business model for Anarchy Online, exactly six years after the launch of the world's first sci-fi MMO. Set to launch this summer, Funcom now introduces a point-based system where players can purchase selected virtual items, as well as new content and services. The new approach comes as an addition to Anarchy Online's existing business models, and it is a current Funcom focus to only introduce items which do not affect gameplay balance.

The first virtual items to kick off the program will be the introduction of jetbikes and hover boards, giving players the chance to cruise around Rubi-Ka in an all new fashion. In addition Funcom will offer previously released scout-mechs, luxury apartments, Leet pets and various sets of social clothing. By using points the players can also get access to previous and upcoming expansion and booster packs, as well as new services like changing in-game names or moving to another server.

"Funcom has long been a pioneer on new MMO business models, and with the introduction of virtual item sales we are once again moving our game in an exciting new direction," said Trond Arne Aas, CEO of Funcom. "Selling virtual items and smaller content upgrades is now a prevalent MMO business model in Asia. This has yet to be fully explored in the west, but we believe that the time is now right to test a limited version of such a model. At the same time we remain committed to the overall evolution of the game, making sure that Anarchy Online will be a success for many years to come."

"Celebrating six years is a fantastic milestone for Anarchy Online, and we are genuinely honored to still entertain so many people," said Craig Morrison, Producer and Director on Anarchy Online. "As we now introduce a new addition to Anarchy Online we have ensured that our paying customers get certain privileges. At the same time we also want to show our commitment to taking the overall gameplay experience forward. I am therefore glad to announce that we are developing a new graphics engine for the game, replacing our entire server farm, as well as developing exciting booster packs which include new playfields and more."

Read the full release here.

For more on Anarchy Online, visit http://www.anarchy-online.com.

Anarchy Online will be turning six in June and to celebrate they will be having weekly contests from now until June. Weekly prizes include one free life-time account, two places in the Age of Conan beta program, one free 'all expansion upgrades' and 30 days subscription, and more.

At the end of June Anarchy Online will be celebrating its sixth anniversary and we are taking the opportunity to give all the citizens of Rubi-Ka a chance to snare themselves some great prizes.

All you have to do to be eligible is to have logged into the game that week (running Friday to Thursday each week) and you will automatically be in with a chance of winning one of these great prizes!

The birthday weekend will also feature extra special events, parties and activities that you won't want to miss, including exclusive birthday items and new items available from the veterans vendors!

You can read the contest details and see all of the prizes here.

Funcom names Craig Morrison as the new Game Director of Anarchy Online. Craig comes with plenty of experience, we here at MMORPG.com certainly wish him luck.

Funcom announces that 'Anarchy Online', the award-winning massively multiplayer online game set in a sprawling science fiction universe, is now under new leadership. Long-time 'Anarchy Online' devotee and Funcom Community Manager Craig Morrison has been appointed as the game's new Game Director, picking up the torch passed on by previous Game Director Morten Byom who will occupy a new position at Funcom.

Morrison has been following 'Anarchy Online' for years. Besides playing the game since before launch in 2001, Morrison has written hundreds of guides and operated one of the game's largest fan sites. For the past few years he has been employed at Funcom as a Community Manager, working closely with the players of 'Anarchy Online' and the potential players of 'Age of Conan', and he also been extensively involved in the planning and development of 'Anarchy Online' as part of the game's management team.

"It is a true joy for me to be working on 'Anarchy Online', and I am very eager to begin the job building on the remarkable success that the game has had for the last five years," said Craig Morrison. "The game is still a top priority for Funcom, and we aim to provide both new and existing players with an abundance of new and exciting content in the years to come."

While Morrison picks up the reins on 'Anarchy Online', previous Game Director Morten Byom takes on the role as Assistant Game Director for 'Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures'. Byom, who is tremendously experienced with developing online games, will be leading the team that is already well into the development of the Xbox 360 version of the game. Funcom is putting a considerable amount of focus on the console title, and is aiming to provide a completely new massively multiplayer experience for console players. The PC version is scheduled for release in October 2007, while the Xbox 360 release will happen later though no specific date is set.

'Anarchy Online' have won numerous awards since its launch in 2001, and over a million people have logged in and taken part in the science fiction-based online universe. The game holds four expansion packs to its name; 'Notum Wars', 'Shadowlands', 'Alien Invasion' and 'Lost Eden'. Players can download the game and play the entire classic version for free, and a paid subscription is only required if the player chooses to download and play the expansion packs.

Read more here.

Funcom has launched the pre-order campaign for their upcoming expansion, "Lost Eden".

For more on AO click here.