News Across the Universe

By Tazerman

The Anarchy Online servers will come down for maintenance on May 15th, 2012 at 1pm EST. The downtime is scheduled to last about 3 hours.

By Silvana

As many of us have lost friends that were part of our AO experiences, we thought it would be nice to have an area to discuss them. Look for the "Commemoration" section on the forum and share with others just how much someone that was close to you in AO has effected you once they were gone.

Even if we never meet the people we play with, they can be just as important to us as a family member or a best friend would be.

By Silvana

Check out the tribute video with everyone past, present, and future chiming in to wish GridStream Productions a happy 10th anniversary/birthday!

By Silvana

While the monthly update for April has been delayed a new piece of concept art for the revamped "New User Experience" has been put up as a placeholder, enjoy! You can view it HERE.

The update for April is now available HERE

By Silvana

Head on over to the "Feeling Strangely Fine...usually" blog, maintained by Craig Morrison, who works for Funcom, to read a nice piece he has written about GridStream Productions and their role in the community of AO.

Remember to keep your calendar cleared for May 19th 4pm - 10pm GMT for the big anniversary/birthday bash for GSP at the glass dance floor in Reet's Retreat.

By Silvana

From GSP:

GridStream Productions, the oldest existing MMORPG-based internet radio station in the world, is celebrating their 10th birthday on May 19th, bringing back some of the legends of GridStream who helped pioneer the concept of broadcasting from within a virtual world. We here at Funcom are very proud to have had them with us for so long and we will be attending the party held that very evening!

GridStream Productions (GSP) was founded in May 2002 by Anarchy Online celebrity Lan Tarryk Kozar, Justin Boco Devane, and others, and is still owned by some of the original staff and founders. The broadcasts are hosted within Anarchy Online with vicinity parties, games and contests, and live music streamed through GSP's website at gridstream.org.

GSP is run entirely nonprofit, by players for players of Anarchy Online. GSP currently has twenty DJ's based all over the world, with different tastes in music providing a varied listening experience. GridStream has also done interviews, like the exclusive they did with Nick Wheeler of The All American Rejects in connection with their in-game concert a few years ago.

Additionally, GridStream Productions is currently planning the first ever fan convention for Anarchy Online. It will be taking place August 10-12, 2012 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can find more information about it at ao-con.com.

The landmark birthday celebration will be taking place on May 19th with an enormous party at Reet's Retreat's Glass Dance Floor – the very place where GSP was conceived. The party will be on RK1 from 4pm to 10pm GMT. Tell your friends and log your alts. It'll be a celebration filled with fun, memories, and friendships old and new.

By Silvana

I recently created an account for both Twitter and Facebook to expand the ways that we are able to keep you guys in the loop! There isn't much going on at first and it all looks pretty sparse, but as some integration with the site is added, you'll be able to stay up to date on what's going on.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/AOUniverse
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/anarchyonlineuniverse

These new accounts will also be utilized for contests, so make sure to follow and like!

By Silvana

Make sure to check out the live stream on MMORPG with some of the AO devs on a show called "Wayback Wednesday". You can go directly to the streaming page by clicking HERE.

The stream begins at 6:30pm PDT, 9:30pm EDT, 1:30am GMT.

The stream is now over! Make sure to check the following pages to watch the video in 2 parts, running about 3 hours.
Part one: http://www.twitch.tv/mmorpgcom/b/316173469
Part two: http://www.twitch.tv/mmorpgcom/b/316179480

By Silvana

While this may not be directly related to Anarchy Online, I know that a lot of people here also play Star Trek Online and/or Champions Online. Cryptic announced today that their account database was hacked. This happened in December 2010 and they've only just noticed. They've said only account names, passwords, and handles were taken.

They are forcing mandatory password resets, but if you use the same on there that you use on AO, I'd highly suggest that you change your AO password as well, especially if you use the same account/user name.

You can read the notice from Cryptic HERE