Happy Holidays and the Latest AO News from Game Director Marius Enge

Seasons Greetings! As I am writing this many of our developers are getting ready to go home to their friends and families to celebrate the holidays. It's a busy time of year for everyone, but I wanted to take the time to give you the latest update about changes on the live servers.

For this update, we sat down and analyzed the feedback from mail, forums, chats and fan sites and targeted several of the common issues to make changes that we believe will make Shadowlands an even more enjoyable experience for all.

As many of you know, there has been made many tweaks in the recent weeks relating to game play in Shadowlands. We realize the risk was increased with the introduction of Shadowlands and it made sense to increase the rewards accordingly. In the 15.2 update we increased the amount of XP received when hunting outdoors. In addition, we removed some elements from the progression quests in response to your feedback and made it easier to get to the higher level areas without needing to quest for access when player level is sufficient.

These changes were immensely well received. Now we hope you'll find the 15.3 update improves the experience even more.

In this update:

[li]The drop rate for some high demand items in Shadowlands has been increased. There is more in the pipeline. We will still be doing tweaks and changes to Shadowlands to further enhance the "AO feeling" but this isn't something finished in a couple of days.

[li]Reduced the aggressiveness of gray creatures. We will, in our next update, focus on monster toughness in SL so there will be some interesting changes later on that should really benefit the players.

[li]Adjusted many quests to increase chances of successful completion. This is also something we will continue to tweak after this update.

[li]We have also added the ability to delete installed nanos.

These are just some of the tweaks, have a look at the changes text for all the news.

For our next update, we are making the Ergo Quests a more rewarding experience, making major adjustments to faction and many other changes that should be a real treat for our playerbase.

Special Advisory: Eyewitness reports from some of the developers state that they have seen a small creature wearing a santa hat, speaking d00d speak and collecting trees. We can't be positive this isn't some odd after effect of yuletide eggnog, but if you happen to encounter one of these creatures, it might be beneficial to have a little chat with him and see what this is about. He may have a little something for you if you have been good =) (Petitions asking for a Santa Hat will NOT help!)

We hope you will enjoy the latest update and be assured that we are already working on the next improvements. I also want to use this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a peaceful holiday. Thank you for all your support this year, from all of us at Funcom, and we look forward to seeing you again next year!

Marius Enge,
Game Director - Anarchy Online

Congratulations to the Following Winners of ATI Graphics Cards!

Kyle, Tampa, Fla
Stratics

Murtaza, Orlando, Fla
MMORPG.COM

AO players, please check your email for prize notifications from Funcom!

Other winners to be announced from:
Vault
Warcry
MMOGhell
RPGFan
Gamigo
Gamezone
Games.no

Watch for other contests at: Jeuxpress, MygameTV, and AO-Shades