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All site related info and text is © 2001 J. Meinzer and J. Uchman unless otherwise noted. Games and their prospective logos, slogans and images are © their prospective companies. Yeti doesn't have my stick Bob. I still hate Peter Forsberg. Mushroom power. Scissors, scissors...

June 29th, 2001

ANARCHY ONLINE: YOU MAKE ME SCREAM, YOU MAKE ME SMILE, YOU MAKE ME RESTART MY PC

For anyone who has been playing Anarchy Online since the game went live on Wednesday (well...some people may be having a good go at it), I know you can identify with me. My first few hours was a mind numbingly irritating session of scream-itis as I seemed to have started off in LAGZONE where it took me f-cking forever to get to level four and get my short ass out of there. Then it was into Athens where I seemed to crash out in 17 second intervals. Oh I worked my ass off to get to lvl 6 and finally last night me and Stryker got to our neat asses to Tir where we could happily adventure until lvl 20 or so. Yes, I still crash every now and then but Tir County seems to be a very sturdy zone thanks to it's size plus it is prime hunting ground. I got lvl 8 with my soldier, and I'm a happier man.

So what's the problem? As much as I respect Lum the Mad, he's been tearing into the game for 48 hours straight now and I have to admit... while it is bad right now, try and remember how bad Everquest was in it's first month. The only MMORPG that I can think of that had a relatively smooth start (in MMORPG terms) would be Asheron's Call. But AO is far more detailed and ambitious than those two games combined. So while it has been buggy and it has been frustrating, Funcom is steadily chugging away at it, fixing bugs and slowly but surely making this game playable. Just look at all the changes made in the Log In Message screen in the last two days:

[06.29.01] - Important message to all behind a firewall.

To users behind firewalls; We are opening up more port numbers for login - in addition to port 7500 we will be using 7501, 7502 and 7503

[06.29.01] - Secure Connection is up!! (13.00 GMT)

If you haven't registered due to the fact that we did not have a secure connection on the site, now is your time. Please go here to register with a secure connection. Make sure your browser says https://

[06.29.01] - Servers UP! (13.00 GMT)

All servers are now up after the server patch. Read the patch message here

[06.29.01] - Servers going down! (12.00 GMT)

All servers will go down for a patch at 12.00 GMT. Estimated downtime will be 1 hour and 30 minutes.

[06.28.01] - Servers up again! (22.00 GMT)

All servers are now up after the server patch. Read the patch message here

[06.28.01] - Servers down! (20.45 GMT))

All servers are now down for patching. They will be up by 22.00 GMT.

[06.28.01] - Some temporary problems.

We are experiencing some problems on our internal network where our server farm is located. We are working on fixing the problem, and it should be resolved very soon. These problems also include that the chat server is down from time to time.

[06.28.01] - New server-patch might be out later today

We are working on a new server-patch that will fix some issues with the problems on the servers. This patch will most likely go out live today sometime between 1900 GMT and 2100 GMT. We will keep you updated. If we decide to take the servers down for the patch you will be told by ingame broadcasts well ahead in time, and it will also be posted more information here.

[06.28.01] - Some problems with the loginhandler tonight

We have had some problems with the loginhandler during the night. The problem has been located and a temporary fix has been issued. We will continue to work on this as soon as the programmers get to work again. So you will be able to have a good nights sleep, knowing that we are working on fixing the problems for you :-)

[06.27.01] - Servers UP again!

All servers are now up again after the patch, read the patch message here:

[06.27.01] - Servers are up and we are LIVE!

Some important messages to read before you start to play.

Patches and Windows 2000 -

After you have installed Anarchy Online, make sure you reboot your machine to avoid troubles with the patches.

11.1.exe -

Some of you have experienced problems with files being corrupted after patching. We have reproduced the problem internally, and tracked it back to the 11.1.exe patch. If you have this .exe patch stored on your local PC please delete it. The 11.1.exe patch was created for use during the beta, and will no longer work properly.

Faulty error message -

The first time you try to connect to the Anarchy server after installing the game you will get an error message: "Error connecting to server: "The dimensionfile does not correctly reflect the server-version. Please contact support@funcom.com so they can fix the problem. Just click "ok" in the dialogue box, and try to login again. This time it will work as it should. Sorry about the inconvenience.

They fixed the banks, they're working on the SSL problem, the servers are a tad more steady... things are happening. I'm not trying to sound like Happy Funcom Bear or anything, waving a goddamn FC flag... hell, yesterday after yet another crash I screamed at Stryker, "We pay money for this f-cking game?!"... but I will digress. The game is buggy as hell, but Tommy and the Boys are hard at work trying to make the experience better. I'll keep the faith... all the while screaming bloody murder and threatening to beat the living sh-t out of my computer.

Here are some screenshots I've gotten so far from the first few days of retail.

Day one... lag? My lag was so messed up, I was healing enemies instead of myself for some reason.

Really friendly looking mission generated dungeon in Tir.

What type of party involves three midgets? Eeuuw.

I attacked the wrong reet, she's getting her "man"!

June 29th, 2001

PATCHES

Patches no deserve detailed write ups. Why? Because I say so bitch!

-Dominion Wars v1.03 patch is available here.

-Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction 1.08 patch is out.. already. Get it from Blizzard here.

June 29th, 2001

CORPORATIONS: 1, ALLEN GREY: 0

While the indomitable Crossroads of Dereth was supposed to have gone live with in the last few days, on my last sweep of CoD I saw this message:

Doing business in the new economy sucks.
Thursday June 28th, 10:15pm CST: When I got up at 6am this morning, we had every intention of launching the Crossroads Network. Unfortunately our key partner and advertising provider in this joint venture was not adequately prepared to meet the date they had set for the relaunch. As a result of this oversight, and the contractual obligations that have been made on our part to help finance this enterprise, we are unable to launch today as intended.

The good news is that as of 20 minutes ago, a new deadline of 10pm on EST June 29th has been set. This gives our advertising partner the time they need to complete the contracts and advertising campaign that will help finance our relaunch. While we did manage to put in a significant amount of overtime over the last 3 days to complete our preparations on time *our network admin and CTO actually managed to get our final web server online despite his wife giving premature birth to their 3rd child*, we look forward to taking time tomorrow to more fully test the new systems.

I'd like to again offer my apologies to all of you that waiting patiently for our relaunch today. I'm extremely sorry we were unable to do as we intended.

- Allen Grey -

We're still hanging in there Allen... hoping for good news soon. Man the AC community is El hurts without CoD. No offense AOSS.

June 29th, 2001

AC DARK MAJESTY FAQ AVAILABLE

A few days after announcing the now very anticipated expansion pack for this Christmas, the merry gang at Turbine has released a FAQ for it:

Q: What do I need to do to buy a house?
A: We're keeping the details under wraps. For now, we can say there will be a purchase cost and ongoing upkeep payments that must be made to maintain ownership of a house; if those payments are missed, the house will be put back up on the market.

Q: Can my friends visit me in my house? What about people who don't have the Expansion Pack?
A: Yes, as a homeowner you have complete control over who can come in your house (even when you're away) and who cannot. People who do not have the expansion pack will be able to visit your house if they have your permission, but won't be able to access your storage.

To read the entire faq, click here. To see a game that will always sucks balls compared to AC, click here.

June 29th, 2001 I'M THE DUDE WITH THE HAT!
Thanks to FA Nation for the heads up first off... anyhoo, here is the new blue male model (male? are we getting female models?) for the Firearms 2.6 patch. Chainsaw beware! Are your poly's getting hit again!? We shall see...

June 29th, 2001 RANDOM NEWS...
-The AC column should be up in the next few days with the official announcement of our third real staff member! Ooo, cool... and like, what happened to everyone else that wanted to do an article... oh well. If you build it, they will come...one assumes. -The AO page will be up like soon... like in a matter of hours soon. Just putting on the finishing touches right after this update.