Funcom has announced that Shadowlands Expansion to Anarchy Online will go live on July 17th, only 3 months to go. You can preorder Shadowlands and support Allakhazams all that the same time by ordering it here with EB Games.

We got a few pics of the new mission interiors and they look great. Have a look: One Two and Three

From the official AO website: Greetings! We are pleased to announce that the Mission Content Upgrade (14.8) will go live tomorrow (Thursday 24th April). All servers will go down at 9am GMT and the estimated downtime is 5 hours.

As reported on the official Anarchy Online website. This week's peek of the week at rgpvault is up. There are new screenshots from the area called Elysium. Check it out

Posted on the official Anarchy Online web site: Greetings! The content upgrade (14.8) planned for today has been postponed. We do not currently have an ETA when it will be released to live, but we hope to have more information available later this week. Allakhazam will keep you posted as new information comes out.

This was posted to the official Anarchy Online web site this morning: Servers will be taken down for the mission upgrade tomorrow at 10 am GMT and the estimated downtime is 5 hours. Please be aware that all old missions will be deleated in this upgrade, which means you should finish all your missions before the announced downtime

Rattycrat has put together a map pack . Included in the pack is a script that allows you to pick different planetmaps from within AO. I have to agree with Ratty when he wrote: "No map I have found has 'everything', I find myself switching between different maps depending on the application. Some have boss camps, others have jack legchopper locations, etc. And this project will end, and I will consider it mission accomplished, when someone puts together a map to kill all other maps, and we can just use that. I don't want to continue to update a growing site of lots of crappy maps, I want this to lead to one awesome map, or a set of maps from the same person, now that people can see what's out there. " There's the challenge, let's see if someone out there can do it.

Lots of exciting new changes on Test, here are just a few:

The mission areas have received a major upgrade in looks and layout, and should now be both more varied, challenging and visually pleasing.

New dangers in missions include proximity mines, cameras and gun turrets. The "Map Reader Upgrade – Monsters" will help somewhat against some of these hazards.

A nano program for summoning your pet(s) is now available. It's a very low level program, with no profession restrictions, and can be found in the general nano program store.

The frequency of individuals surfing the ground instead of running has diminished. It's simply not in this year.

The client will now store visibility data for outdoor playfields on your hard-drive. This will cause some extra client lag the first time you enter a given playfield, but a lot less lag after that, as the visibility data doesn't need to be reconstructed.

And this is just a sample complete details here.

Rattycrat has compiled just about every map available into a "Map Pack" available to download from here. Included in the download is a script you can use in game to change between maps. I would have to agree with Ratty when he said "No map I have found has 'everything', I find myself switching between different maps depending on the application. Some have boss camps, others have jack legchopper locations, etc. And this project will end, and I will consider it mission accomplished, when someone puts together a map to kill all other maps, and we can just use that. I don't want to continue to update a growing site of lots of crappy maps, I want this to lead to one awesome map, or a set of maps from the same person, now that people can see what's out there."

Lots of exciting new changes on Test, here are just a few:

The mission areas have received a major upgrade in looks and layout, and should now be both more varied, challenging and visually pleasing.

New dangers in missions include proximity mines, cameras and gun turrets. The "Map Reader Upgrade – Monsters" will help somewhat against some of these hazards.

A nano program for summoning your pet(s) is now available. It's a very low level program, with no profession restrictions, and can be found in the general nano program store.

The frequency of individuals surfing the ground instead of running has diminished. It's simply not in this year.

The client will now store visibility data for outdoor playfields on your hard-drive. This will cause some extra client lag the first time you enter a given playfield, but a lot less lag after that, as the visibility data doesn't need to be reconstructed.

And this is just a sample complete details here.