The Anarchy Online team has officially announced the commencement of holiday frivolity. Players can score a new snowman mask, twinkling snowflakes and even clean up with a snow blower. There are new costumes and Santa's workshop has magically appeared too.

Something has gone wrong, though, and it's up to players to figure it out and return things to sanity.

Read all about the holiday happenings on the Anarchy Online forum.

Funcom is celebrating the tenth anniversary of one of the first sci-fi MMOs ever created, Anarchy Online. To celebrate, the team has announced a new birthday raid, new in-game vehicles, clothes gear, pets, action figures and more.

And of course, no celebration would be complete without a grand party, and we’re featuring music from the founders of the world’s first virtual game radio. The combined efforts of Funcom, in-game volunteers and Gridstream Productions is going to bring it to you live with one of the biggest AO parties ever. Running over three days on two dimensions, this is the Anarchy event of the decade. The party starts this Friday, and a complete list of times can be found on the official site.

We hope you will join us for the party, and if you have not been to Rubi-Ka for a while we are certain that you have a lot of exciting new content to catch up on.

Read more about Anarchy Online's 10th Anniversary.

Check out the latest Developer interview over at AO Universe, this time focusing on Lindelu!

After a bit of a break the AO team has hooked up guys and gals over at AO Universe again to bring you another interview from the development staff! Up on deck today: Lindelu! The awesome designer who's brought us the daily missions system and is currently working on the new startup experience takes some time out of her day to answer questions, talk shop, and even give a few sneak peek previews at some of what she's been working on!

Read the interview here.

The team over at Anarchy Online are moving studios, and it's a stressful time, indeed. Follow along as Means details the stress, but also posts the First-Draft Trader Nano Document Changes.

This week has unsurprisingly been filled with OMG WE'RE MOVING tasks for the team as everyone realizes they actually have to pack and leave this coming Tuesday. I had a combined 4 hours of sleep between Sunday night and Thursday afternoon when our shipped goods were collected from the office...only one hallucination which was harmless enough.

Read the post here.

The folks over at Anarchy Online have gone to great lengths to correct the actions of an "unplanned and unwanted volunteer event" after an account with GM Powers was taken for a joy ride.

It has been an interesting week. Any week in which I spend a full 30+ hour period in the office qualifies as "interesting". The "unplanned and unwanted volunteer event" some of you had the pleasure of enjoying on Tuesday night kept us pretty busy through until Thursday afternoon. For those of you who were not present someone got ahold of an account with GM powers and proceeded to have fun with it on the live servers for a period of almost two hours. Items like the "combined combined" armor that was never made available to the players was definitely available on Tuesday night. To be clear this is far from the first time something like this has happened. Over the years there have been many occasions where GM enabled accounts have brought havoc to the live servers...this is to be expected in an environment where we empower volunteers and was something we were always willing to live with and always cleaned up the mess as quickly as possible. This time was a little bit different in that this individual really did go out of his way to put on a spectacular show with special guest stars like The Beast and Tarasque making special appearances in Borealis...unfortunately with the distribution of unapproved loot and getting some individual characters stuck in a no-fight state through the use of fear effects they also created a significant mess to clean up

Read the whole story here.

In a new dev post on the official Anarchy Online forums, updated information about last Friday's addition of an item store has been released. Included in the store are social and convenience items that will allow players to remain competitive. Devs are quite adamant that these items are not 'power' items and are not required to play the game.

Tokens:

Token packs will be available from the shop in different amounts. This is an item that has been long requested by the community as it represents a very significant time investment to most players. The end-game boards themselves will not be available and will still need to be obtained in the normal fashion.

Victory Points:

A great many people enjoy PvP, while at the same time a great many people do not. Points will be available in the shop for those who would rather avoid the experience altogether. At the same time Basic OFAB armor pieces (not upgraded) will become Yes-Drop so can be sold by players with large surplus amounts of VP.

XP Stims:

Experience Constructs will be available in the shop for those who want to progress quicker and enjoy the game at their own pace. This is another item that has been long requested by the community. The best benefit available from the store will top out at 20% for 4 hours. These will not stack with previously available Anniversary buffs.

There is a full list of items the dev team feels will generate the most discussion along with a list of items that will be coming to the store in the future.

Read more here.

Funcom has announced plans to celebrate Anarchy Online's ninth year of service this week. Anarchy Online, which was Funcom's debut on the MMO scene, got off to a rocky start in 2001, but has become a real turnaround story for the company in recent years.

Not only is it Anarchy Online's birthday this week, but it's also Mr. Squeaky's birthday. Mr. Squeaky is the corporate mascot for NipponTech and players can expect to see a giant version of the rubber ducky in the world as a result.

Players with enough Paid Points can look forward to a trio of new items, including an awesome new Spectre bike (250 Paid Points), NipponTech "Kami" sunglasses in six different colors (200 Paid Points), and a set of nano-balloons social pet (300 Paid Points).

Funcom will also be distributing numerous new social clothes as part of the festivities, such as the new "Addict" shirt, Play Costumes, and even a giant cardboard box. Golf aficionados will want to look out for the special birthday nine iron as well.

Two new posters will also be available, but what players should definitely be interested in is the new Personal Mechanized Vehicle (PMV) that Funcom will be showing off this week, the new PMV can be purchased by players by itself, or can be acquired as an exclusive bonus for players who subscribe a year in advance to Anarchy Online.

Players who own Alien Invasion cities will be able to participate in a scavenger hunt that will span the entirety of Rubi-Ka and the Shadowlands in the search for a new tradeskill process that will reward the player with a special city building to place in their city.

Finally, Gridstream Productions will be throwing a ninth anniversary in-game party on June 26th at 15:00 GMT on Atlantean, and then at 21:00 on Rimor. The ARK Community team will be attending the party and giving out tons of prizes to players, including the aforementioned Spectre bike and PMV, one lucky player may also find themselves a winner of the grand prize which includes a lifetime account to Anarchy Online and a bundle of other goodies.

Read the full announcement here.

Funcom has sent us four new screenshots of the new Anarchy Online engine in action. Things are looking pretty snazzy! The screenshots are of the before-and-after variety for the purpose of comparison.

Check out the new shots in our Anarchy Online gallery.

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.