This in from Funcom: We are currently experiencing a power outage which is effecting some of the tools used in the Customer Support department. This could increase the response time for emails and petitions. We are very sorry for the inconvenience and hope to get the issue resolved shortly. Regards, Jerry Godwin Funcom CS Manager We will keep you posted.

Cz wrote today about what’s in the near future for the game and the community, here are some of the more interesting items:

Production of Shadowlands is the main task right now, and the dev team (designers, programmers, graphics and sound artists, world designers, the project manager and the game director) and our QA people are extremely busy. The beta test is about to start, and everything needs to be ready for it. That's priority #1 right now.

We're currently aiming for two updates before Shadowlands. The first one is 14.8.2, and is for fixing bugs, and some additional tweaks on changes in 14.8.0 (e.g. the ping-pong aggro). We hope to run this update the live dimensions next week (Wednesday).

The second update we're aiming for will be 14.9, which is a pure data update. That means no new code, though we have some "dormant" features in the game just waiting for this data, so you'll see some new stuff anyway. And some item data bugs are likely to be corrected here too. More stash, basically. And, of course, the long awaited Inner Sanctum dungeon.

For the entire tread and more on beta selection check out the AO official boards here.

Lots of good information about the upcoming Shadowlands Expansion and AO in general. Here are a few items:

All changes will only be inside the Shadowlands themselves. Nothing will change in Rubi-Ka

All treatment and nano recharge equipment will be obsolete. It will be exchanged with other, just as effective, equipment based on Spirit-Tech instead.

All flying equipment and nanos will be obsolete. So will all other cars. This includes also flying effects from Adv. Polymorphs. All grid-in nanos, summon team member nanos, evacs etc, and teleport to location (NT) nanos will be obsolete. They will be replaced by something, but we haven't decided which of the (3) alternatives we shall go with yet.

Hardware requirements will be higher for the shadowlands, We have not decided on the details yet.

New High level dungeon called Inner Sanctium will be out before Shadowlands in version 14.9

The entire chat is posted over at Stratics.com Click here.

Added some Shadowlands items: New Zones Elysium, Infermo, Nascense, Penumbra, and The Brink. New Professions Keeper and Shade. Add some comments and lets see what people think of these new Professions and Zones.

Changes include: Jobe Clusters, and name changes made by Funcom in game. For more info, and download click HERE.

This in from the Official Bulletin Board for AO: Sunday May 4th 2003 @ 8pm UTC/GMT* the next round of "the Road to Shadowlands" takes place at the Stratics Network's IRC server. The place: irc.stratics.com, port 6667, #aohoc The topic: Toys and puzzles (equipment, trade skills and quests) The attendees: Gaute Godager - Game Director Johan 'Belith' Karlsson - Lead Designer Trond Ivar 'Jim Salabim' Hansen - Designer Daniel 'Longshot' Persson - Designer Jon Helgi Thorarinsson - Designer Thomas 'Cz' Johnsen - Community Manager 4pm US East Coast (EDT), 9pm Great Britain (BST) and 10pm Central Europe (CEST) For more details click here. We will be posting anything of interest, stay tuned.

Problem solved, this in from the log in screen: New: We have now re-enabled reactivation of accounts for people that were affected by the inventory problems. This was fixed in todays 14.8.1 patch.

From the AO website: Client side update Tuesday April 29th 2003 Some more tweaks and corrections. Monsters and NPCs Creatures will now focus more on one target instead of switching back and forth all the time. Creatures on a timed despawn (e.g. Peter Lee) will not despawn even though their time is up, for as long as they have anybody on their hate list. Sentries activated by cameras spotting you now give XP. Equipment Withered Flesh now has its bonuses correctly applied when worn. Augmented OT Rings of all quality levels can now be worn on either finger again. Other changes When exiting indoor areas while morphed and having a vehicle equipped you will now stay in your morphed shape and not enter the vehicle. When the morph runs out, you'll need to reequip the vehicle, or change playfield (to an outdoor one), to enter it.

On Anarchyonline.com this morning: 28 April, 2003 Customer Services Department After constant review and a large amount of petition abuse of the current Ninja Looting Policy, we have attempted to find a more solid and well defined policy on this matter. This policy change begins today and is not retroactive. Ninja-Looting Definition and Policy Ninja-Looting Definition Items looted while in a team situation will never be considered "Ninja-Looted". As a killing team member (the team doing the most damage therefore having loot rights) you have as much a right to an item as anyone in your team. Team leaders are able to change loot order and are responsible for that loot order. Only no-drop items will be considered when discussing ninja-looting. Items that are tradable can easily be looted by the leader of a team and traded to the proper individual. The killing team does have rights to the looted item. Again, team leaders are responsible for this action. Looting of a no-drop item outside the killing team while the killing team is discussing the distribution of the item will be considered ninja-looting. Ninja Looting Policy A ninja looting claim must be petitioned within 12 hours of the incident. This gives you a chance to determine if the person actually intended to ninja-loot. If upon an investigation of ninja-looting a character is found to have actually ninja-looted an item, the item will be deleted from the character and there will be possible disciplinary action including possible suspension or banning of the user account. Ninja-looted items are not returned to the team or person claiming loot rights for any reason. Abuse of this policy or false petitioning regarding this policy will be treated as attempting to defraud a Customer Service Representative and treated accordingly. Best Regards, Funcom Customer Service Anarchy Online ARK Program