Steve Sandfield posted on AnarchyOnline today that the Cyborg Ploy Foiled by Omni-Tek Employees, and tells the full story and his thanks at the end. The courage of several Omni-Tek employees were put to the test when cyborgs forged a plan to turn the notum cannons of Clondyke into weapons aimed at the cities of Rubi-Ka. Hello all hard working and loyal Omni-Tek workers, and citizens. Once in a while, we get a surprise. You know, you're half asleep and your comm goes off, or someone drops something. One step above that, we have shock. Shock is a marriage, between surprise and fear. However, shock generally requires the person to be present at the time of the event, they must experience the surprise and fear. So, what do we call it when you read or learn about something that could have affected us all, that would have been both shocking and fearful? Dismay. I, like many of you, am dismayed to learn that the cyborgs were very close to capturing the Clondyke facility and turning the giant notum shipping cannons on various cities. Although their targets are currently unknown, or being withheld, it's reasonable to assume Omni-1 and Rome would have been on the list, judging by the cyborgs' past actions. Now, I can't blame Omni-Pol or anyone for the cyborgs getting as far as they did, lapses in security happen. There are changes in schedule, working around all that notum, sometimes security monitors fail, so on. Add to that the cyborgs' innate knowledge of machines and their ability to time things down to the nano second, and well, it's easy to see why they are successful. Cyborgs are not people, they are not machines, they are both. They can think like people, be as calculating as machines, and more vigilant than a slayerdroid. Honestly, that gives them an advantage. We, as normal beings, dabble in technology when compared to them. Our relationship with machines is master and slave, push and pull, love and hate. Cyborgs see machines as equal. So what lets us beat them? Why do we succeed and they fail? Dedication, desire, passion. Cyborgs lack all of it. Omni-Tek employees have it in spades. As long as we don't lose the desire to do what is right, the passion to pursue it, and the dedication to the Company's growth, the Cyborgs will never beat us. Although there are no complete logs of all those that helped participate in the routing of the Cyborgs, below is a partial list of confirmed names (in no particular order). Well done Omni-Tek Employees, myself and I'm sure the Corporation thanks you: Senginier, Absolum, Alienchild, Dezzra, Qwart, Tauris, Tarazodoen, Dayhock, Cyberbob, Likebutta, Lordshadow, Briern, Farraday, Thannus, Sebuda, Alaxandra, Bacman, Chaynes, Megastore, Prefab, Meyra, Highpower, and all the others that helped out in the tricky situation. -Steve Sandfield. Omni-Tek is your Friend.

From the news pages of AnarchyOnline this saddening day of a accord that is no more. Read on for the full story. Following the withdrawal of the two founding members of the Athens Accord (Opposing Force and Division9), the Eternal-Flame Guild withdrew from this Accord after acknowledging the undeniable truth that the movement for peace has given way to a ferocious and unrelenting planet-wide desire for violence and war. The Athens Accord appears to be dead, but will its spirit (based on a genuine desire for peace)rise again? Only the people of Rubi-Ka can answer this, and they will do so through their actions and not through their words. Only time will tell what the eventual outcome of the long-standing conflict between Omni-Tek and the clans will come to. However, we strongly feel that it is impossible to uphold an Accord where the founding members are NO LONGER involved and violence continues to increase. Furthermore, the continued silence of both Mr. Henry Radiman and Philip Ross (throughout this period of increasing hostilities) bring to question whether or not their stated desire for peace is genuine or possible. Nevertheless, the (former) members of the Athens Accords should feel proud of their efforts despite this apparent failure. The effort made to establish a genuine peace was nothing less than noble and there should be no shame in this. Perhaps there will be a day when peace will be achieved, but not until the majority of the planet genuinely wishes it. And this will happen! But it may not be until we all come to a point of exhaustion from countless destruction and loss of life. Let history remember that there were a few clans and Omni divisions that briefly attempted to bring a true peace into reality! Perhaps one day someone will remember this and try again. Pray that it is not a day when there are few left to remember us! This news release hereby notifies the world that the Eternal-Flame Guild can no longer participate in an accord that no longer exists. We would have been glad to continue to pursue this path, but cannot do so while the lives and security of the clans are endangered. That is our first priority. Finally, we will continue to honour the amnesty as long as it is supported by the Council of Truth. Nevertheless, we will uphold the justifiable right to self-defence for ourselves, and that of our fellow clans if our safety is endangered. Cordially, Chris Atilius Thompon Chancellor/President, The Eternal-Flame Guild "Yesterday we obeyed Kings and bent our necks before Emperors...But today we kneel only before Truth." - Khalil Gibran

After posting what will not happen I thought we should post what should happen. This is off the In Progress page of AnarchyOnline. In Progress Here is where items that have been approved (from Envisioned) will be moved, based on your feedback and the goals of the live team. They get put into the development stream, and will one day make it into the game. There is no minimum or maximum number of days that an item will remain in this category, so please understand that while these are items we’re definitely working on, some may take much longer to implement than others. Engineer Changes: The Engineer will be able to build a new type of robot; "The Kamikaze Robot". Other Changes: The ability to capture and hold territory - Such as the ability to take over outposts, where the areas will respond with guards changing sides – We're currently working on this, but don't expect it to be completed until mid next year. /List commands – Commands which show all the players in your current area. Improving weapons via tradeskills. Story missions – Good old fashioned questing with an AO twist! Team missions – Team missions will feature rewards to all members in the team, with more dungeon levels and boss monsters. New mission types – GM-generated missions, quests with sub-quests... Preliminary patch notes version 13.6 Inventory Changes: Items in your inventory should now stay in the position you placed them, even if you zone or log out. (Third time's a charm!) Mission Changes: On certain settings (Bad/Money) you would occasionally get only 2 missions to choose from instead of 5. This should now be fixed. Item Changes: All Hacked Symbiografts should now work. Trimmers: The feedback in the chat window when using trimmers on robot pets has been corrected. All Omni-Med Uniforms should now give the bonus listed in the item description. Hellllooooo Nurse! Attack of the Snake should now work properly, even when the item has a Quality Level over 100. "Rubi-Ka World Collectables" now use their proper icons. Reflect Bracelets should now work. The reason they didn't work was a missing stat. Tank Armours will no longer turn black/brown/worn after zoning - They will keep their orginal colours. Auto Targeting Computers (for Ranged Weapon Tradeskills) were in the incorrect booth. They've been moved from the Melee parts booth to the Ranged booth. Lazy shopkeepers! The damage type of the Stigma Rifle has been changed from projectile to poison, to reflect the description it has had all along, "The Stigma Rifle is a well-known rifle, as it is outlawed in most areas of the galaxy. It fires a small stream of poisonous gas, flaring up on impact." Ring of Luck - Defensive now adds to your defensive skill (it added to offensive instead). There are more kinds of backpacks now! -w00t!- The "Kalinkalov Mz-99" had "brawl" as a requirement. We don't have support for brawling with ranged weapons, so we've removed "brawl" from this Assault Rifle. The description on damage increasing items has been fixed. Previously it stated that this was a % increased, which was wrong. It is a straight increase, not a %. ATTENTION: THIS IS NOT A NERF. The way the items operate has not changed in any manner, only the description of the items was fixed. Chat Changes: JAPANESE CHAT- INFORMATION From patch 13.6 there is support for Japanese characters and input methods in the in-game chat. First and foremost it supports Windows 2k and XP. Win95\98 will follow shortly. This adds several new elements to the user interface for Japanese users. There are two new hotkeys that are used to toggle between Japanese and English input. To switch from English to Japanese, you hit CTRL-I. To toggle between Hiragana and Katakana conversion mode you hit CTRL-K. There are some restrictions however: In public channels (vicinity, shopping, seeking team, OOC clan, Omni, Neutral) you MUST tick the check-box to be able to both receive and send Japanese messages. If you do NOT tick this box, which can be found in the Misc options menu, you will neither receive nor be able to send Japanese text messages. The reason for this is to avoid "spamming" to English speaking players who can't understand the char-set. The Japanese channel only works within the playfield you're in, for further distances you must still use /tell. You can not use Japanese characters in names The font which is used by the chat-window is now user-configurable. This allows Japanese players to select a font that supports Japanese characters (the default font does NOT). As an added feature for all languages, it allows all players to change both the font and the font-size in the chat-window. The font can be configured from the settings-panel in the launcher. NOTE: I.e. /tell, /me, /macro etc. must still be written in English, the message afterwards can be written in Japanese. If you are not allowed to write Japanese, you will receive an error message. Chat will no longer be spammed when leaving the Grid. Grid Terminals will now let you know when you do not meet the skill requirements. You will not get an appropriate message when trying to trade with a character already in trade. Nano Changes: Adjusted how NPCs react to "Healing over Time" nano programs. This change should make the life of Doctors a little easier. It is now possible to upload the nano program "Aggressive Captivation." Several Nano Programs with stunning effects did not work properly, they now do: Curse of Chronos Neural Stunner (NT) Tight Embrace (BC) Living Embalmment (BC) Flash Coma (BC) Confining Bonds (BC) Chains of Iron (BC) Death's Gaze (AG) The stun segments of the following direct-damage nanos were also fixed: Thunderous Blow (NT) Furious Assault (NT) Electrifying Containment (NT) The "Thought Juggler" nano is now possible to execute. Bureaucrat Fix: The remainder of the bureaucrat's speech nanos have been added. Projectile Magnet nano program has been fixed: The crystal and nano had different skills and requirements. Team Terrain Knowledge and Team Free Movement had a problem and now affect all members in the team as intended. Team Skill Wrangler (Superior) didn't process the buff aspect at all, now it does. Engineer: Trap artifice will now stack with crowbar subtlety. Personal Grid Beacon nano was missing the nano points cost stat. The duration of Quivering Wreck was too short. It has now been set to 29 seconds. Engineer's buff and debuff auras were in the same stacking line. This has been changed so that the engineer can have 1 buff and 1 debuff aura going at the same time. The martial artist controlled destruction nanos (Crash of Thunder, etc) no longer debuff nano skills for 2 minutes. They now debuff for 15 or 20 seconds. The recharge delay on these nanos was also reduced accordingly. Playfield Changes: New static dungeons: Smuggler's Den and Camelot Castle! Fixed a Reclaim Terminal in Andromeda. Some trees in Clondyke were floating in mid-air. They are now firmly placed on the ground, as trees usually are. Carbon rich rocks can now be found in certain playfields. General Changes: Fixed a number of spelling errors. Slightly changed the way the stationary automated surgery clinic places the treatment buff on you. It now does this as a hostile nano (both so you cannot remove it manually and also so it does not take any NCU space). The effect still only lasts for 5 minutes, and is still removed when you zone. This was done to once and for all stop the ability to stack the treatment buff by cheating. The way it works has not changed in any other way. Also fixed a bug where if you used the clinic with exactly 300 credits it wasn't working correctly.

The once promising news of Funcom's "Envisioned" is not as accurate as it was. Funcom, according to AnarchyOnline has decided some of the ideas that were once told to the players would be in the works have been nixed. Not that all this is bad mind you, this will probably make way for better and newer ones, so hang in there. During the development cycle of a massive multiplayer online game, sometimes sacrifices need to be made. Promises are made with the best of intentions, but reality often times dictates that those promises cannot be kept. That's not to say the promises were necessarily unrealistic, just a bit eager. What we've done, here at Funcom, was to go through every promise we've ever made in print, through fan sites, interviews, and dev chats, then sat down and discussed each and every single one of them; which ones we were able to meet, which ones were yet unrealised, those we'd be able to complete in a timely fashion, and finally those that were out of the current scope of things. As you've seen in the update to our Envisioned and In Progress sections before the holidays, we published the list of items from our discussions that were currently in development, and those that wed begin working on shortly. Some players voiced concerns regarding the additions to the In Progress and Envisioned sections as not necessarily being "new," and they were absolutely correct. These aren't new ideas; these are the promises we made to the players over the course of the development cycle that we intend to keep. Back to that ugly word: Reality. In addition to the updates to In Progress and Envisioned, below is a list of items entitled "No Longer Envisioned." This is a list of features that were promised at one point or another that we've taken a careful look at, and concluded that they are either not as important as they were when they were considered, or beyond our current tech. Fortunately, this list isn't very lengthy, and as part of our dedication to full disclosure and a quality relationship with our player base, we felt we owed it to you. Funcom is proud to have such a loyal and understanding group of subscribers, and we're confident that you will understand the reasons for the list. We're also confident that you will appreciate our honesty in the matter, and our dedication to not only add new features to the game, but to take the time and go back through every single promise ever made, and make a good faith effort at meeting as many of them as possible. Thank you all for your continued support, 2002 is going to be an amazing year for the citizens of Rubi-Ka. Buckle up and enjoy the ride! No Longer Envisioned: Things change during the course of a 5-year development cycle. Many features we initially planned for AO made it into the game at launch, or will be added in the coming months. However, some turned out to be unfeasible, unnecessary, or simply not all that desirable. This section is just to let our players know what's not coming - even though at one time we thought it was. Missions that don't require at least some degree of fighting - Often times, the good intent of the designers turns out to be much more difficult to implement than first imagined. In this case, being able to gain XP without the need to kill things was a sincere desire to allow players to take different roles within Anarchy Online. However, through the course of the development cycle, it turned out that reaching a fair balance between risk and reward was much more difficult than first thought. While the team will strive to find alternatives to advancing without the need to kill things, this promise might never become realised. The players have our deepest apology. War zones in the slums - The idea of slum war zones was replaced with Arenas. The penal system - This was a feature that was planned, and one we'd still like to do eventually, but it would require new tech, and we are currently working on a very long list of other duties. Stealing from other players. The subway system - This was replaced with the Grid. No Linux port - Not enough users to support the addition. Since some people still think the game will end in 4 years: The game will NOT end in 4 years - the current story arc will, but the game will continue on.

Spotted this at AOBasher. It seems that Funcom is quite positive in their hopes for the future of Anarchy Online even with some lay-offs and the new release of Dark Ages of Camelot. Sion Interviews Funcom And Sells Out Before He Posts It Sion has released an interview that took place between himself and several Anarchy Online employees. The questions asked are based on many aspects of the game including how other popular MMORPGs are affecting AO's popularity and how the company is coping after the recent laying off of staff. Sion also confirms that a second bout of interviews should be on the way soon. Sion: The atmosphere over there in the Funcom offices must be really dark, you have recently laid off staff and the future is looking shady. Can you answer in all honesty, is Anarchy online going to still be around this time next year? (Answered by Thomas Howalt, Product Manager on AO) The atmosphere is serious, but *absolutely* not dark. Our staff (both those who are forced on leave and those who'll stay) understands that trimming the organisation happens in all businesses at all times. We deal with it in a professional way. Nothing has slowed down. We have plans for everyone in the next six to twelve months. Business as usual. Regarding the last question: it is hard to predict - especially about the future. But look at what we have: a fantastic product with lot of potential, which has improved steadily and regularly over the last two-three months. We have the will and the production-capacity to enhance it. We are actually walking the talk! Sion: Many people mocked your decision to offer a free month of play to cancelled accounts, some seen that as a sign of a sinking shop, laying off staff nearly immediately after has further enforced that over all view. What reassurances can you provide to your customers that they are not wasting their time building up their accounts and characters? (Answered by Marit Lund, Director of Public Relations) We have all the time pointed out that the staff we laid off was not directly involved in the core production of Anarchy Online. Our customer support department remains the same, and so do important functions such as operations that deals with databases, and server solutions. Our goal is of course to make the gaming experience as good as possible for all our customers. Part of this is to have even more people online at the same time so that the game becomes more dynamic and fun. We also felt it was time to offer former customers a chance to check out the game again since we did not live up to expectations at launch. Take it for what it is: this was a win-win situation. More customers means a better game and happier customers, and possible higher revenues for us in the future. Sion: Did the successful release of DAOC have a negative impact on your own subscriptions? (Answered by Marit Lund, Director of Public Relations) Yes, the successful release of DAOC affected us negatively. Mythic did an excellent job launching DAOC, while our launch was more dramatic than we ever were prepared for. However, this is all history now. Anarchy Online is alive and it is better than ever! We feel very confident with the competitive situation at the moment, and we feel that the only way we can go now is up. We hope that gamers will take the time to play both games, and make up an opinion of their own. Sion: When Funcom say they wish to focus on Anarchy online, what exactly do you mean? What is the current game plan for the next few months? What issues are at the top of the ‘to do’ list? (Answered by Thomas Howalt, Product Manager on AO) It means what it says: total focus on making Anarchy a fantastic experience! We are having an ongoing dialogue with the gamers which gives us information on what they want: static missions with interesting, funny and mind blowing stories and dungeons with unique loot and fantastic monsters, new game features and much more. In the next couple of months our players will see development on team-missions, guilds, and other social elements. We will also cater content specifically for our high-end players. And above all: we will continue our trend from this autumn: providing our players with new quality stuff on a regularly basis! Sion:The story line has been incredibly slow in developing, the main complaint is that people do not feel involved in any of the events or the actual story it self, arguably Anarchy online lacks depth, what are you doing to resolve these issues? (Answered by Thomas Howalt, Product Manager on AO) I *personally* see "the story" in Anarchy as one of MANY stories on Rubi-Ka. The videos are for me a kind of a point of identification. I get to understand the conflict between the Omnis and the Clans (and the poor Neutrals who gets squeezed in the middle :) ). Those two geezers, Radiman and Ross, are as close to me as George W. Bush and Tony Blair is. I can see them on TV, I understand they affect my world, but I can't interact with them - and honestly: I don't want to. I go on doing my stuff in my daily life in Norway as well as on Rubi-Ka. As the Project Manager on AO (and therefore this is the "official answer" to your question) I can say that the development-team are trying to balance the story-telling bit on a knifes-edge: we want to cater for the player's stories, but at the same time we have to tell our main story. It is an act of balance. Both 'stories' contains BIG surprises! In the future you will see the story tied up in: new kinds of ACG-dungeons, new static missions, new dungeons, new monsters, more events, more social stuff, and much more we can't reveal yet. The baseline is this: Anarchy Online is a LIVE product, which means that we have to develop new code, new functionality, new graphics etc to the game to cater for all the needs we understand our players have and will get. We are doing this and we will continue doing this, but we also have to make sure that we don't break anything. Remember: doing this kind of game is actually rocket-science! AO has about 10 times more lines of code than a single player game!

According to Anarchy Online Stratics News Clan Leader NemesIs found, arrested and escaped. Commander Windguard of the Mercury Dragons Clan submitted the following news about the recently announced hunt after NemesIs: The Alus Alliance has made a report on the events which took place Friday Evening, January 4th in the year 29476. The report is available here for all clanners to see. Windguard Commander Mercury Dragons Clan "The most dangerous weapon is the mind"

It seems the original article about Maximum Range brought up some unanswered questions, on AnarchyOnline there are some more answers from Jim Salabim. Read part 2, find links to the original, and links to the new threads here.

On AnarchyOnline there was a great article giving advice on how to run events; suggestions, dos and don'ts, and the link to post your event on AnarchyOnline. Besides the missions, the hunting grounds, and the vast world around you to explore, there is one aspect of the game that is sometimes overlooked; player run events. Several clan/departments and individuals have already planned and run several good events. The following are just a few ideas to help get the process started for anyone who may be interested in running or participating in events but are not exactly sure where to start. Read more here

Just when we thought they had all the winners announced, AnarchyOnline decided that there was some screenshots that didn't fit into any category and this one fits the bill. Today we present the shot we found to be the best one irrespective of category. We have reached the end of our screenshot competition winners' presentation, and we end it in the most fitting of ways with the overall winner. There were, as you have seen over the last few days, many contenders, and many fabulous shots. There was one shot however, that stood out from the others. A shot that would have been quite difficult to get, but the winner has managed it to perfection. That winner is: Epiphonic At the end of the competition we would also like to commend a shot that found to be both humorous and pleasant. Unfortunately for the contestant, it has been cropped and done up a bit so that it isn't really a screenshot anymore. We liked it so much though, that we still wanted to show it off. Ragnar Finnvik I will have to admit I wholeheartily agree with both choices here. Great job AnarchyOnline and all the submitters.

AnarchyOnline announced another set of winners today and this is the last one. The best profession shots from our recent screenshot competition. This is the last specific category we are going to present. We got many entries also in this category, and it gave us the opportunity to have a look at all the different characters out there. The Winners are: 1st: Oyvind Ofsthus 2nd: Balde Corp CEO 3rd: James Tran Congratulations to all the winners in all categories!