We recently had the opportunity to visit with Norwegian developer Funcom, whose online game Anarchy Online suffered a problematic launch in 2001. However, many of the game's technical issues, including its crashing problems, were solved years ago so that players now enjoy much better technical performance as they play as character classes like high-tech spies, hackers, and shock troopers in Anarchy Online's sci-fi world of Rubi-Ka. The recently released Notum Wars "booster pack" gave players the ability to control plots of land to mine the powerful resource notum, a prized, energy-rich mineral native to Rubi-Ka that serves as an important precursor for practically all of the futuristic world's technology. The Shadowlands, the upcoming expansion pack for Anarchy Online, will literally bring you into a new dimension--the origin of both Rubi-Ka's most valuable resource and the planet's age-old war between the evil Omni-Tek corporation and the freedom-loving Clans.

Here's an example of Anarchy Online's new mission system, which is already being added to the original game.

Unlike the open-ended Anarchy Online, which lets you hunt monsters in the wild, clear out "dungeons" populated by enemies, or go on individual missions for personal gain, The Shadowlands will be a largely linear game. In the expansion, you will begin your quest in the floating city of Jobe, a gigantic metropolis that exists in another phase of reality, the titular Shadowlands. In Jobe, you will not only find plenty of new opportunities to craft and trade powerful new items and weapons, but you will also find the beginnings of a lengthy quest that will take you through various areas of the Shadowlands, each of which is characterized by different climates, environments, and enemies. And the expansion pack itself will be characterized by improved graphics and sound, including new water and environmental effects, as well as more-detailed terrain.

The Shadowlands themselves are controlled by an omnipresent computer intelligence called Ergo (the masklike being featured on the expansion pack's box cover), who was created in a time of war between two ancient factions of powerful inhuman beings known only as "the redeemed" and "the unredeemed"--the precursors of the Clans and Omni-Tek, respectively. These beings battled over Rubi-Ka as it once was--a lush and verdant paradise that teemed with life, until the war between the two factions tore it apart, scattering the combatants to distant parts of the universe, including a small, inconsequential planet called Earth. Apparently, the evil unredeemed faction, whose control over Rubi-Ka led it to develop advanced technology to drain the planet of much of its initial supply of notum, used human agents to create an Earth company called Pharmatech, whose genetic experiments eventually helped give rise to Anarchy Online's playable human races. Now, the unredeemed, working through Omni-Tek, seek to regain entry to the Shadowlands, the source of their original power. The spiritual, nature-loving redeemed have also returned to the world and are now working through the Clans in an attempt to stop the unredeemed from draining Rubi-Ka completely dry, though it's said that some of them even entertain hopes of restoring Rubi-Ka to its former state. The key to victory for either side lies in the Shadowlands, and in Ergo, who controls them and all the notum within them.

The Shadowlands' improved graphics engine will render Rubi-Ka as it once was.

Everything will begin in Jobe, a huge city in which you can actually choose to begin entirely new characters. The expansion pack will accommodate characters from levels 1 to 200 and will even let you advance your characters to level 220, though you can only gain your final 20 levels in the Shadowland areas. Regardless of what level they are, all characters will find life very different in Jobe, especially since the flying vehicles that so many players use to travel on Rubi-Ka don't actually work in Jobe, nor does the Grid, a highly specialized computer network that, for years, has let characters with hacking skills instantly transport themselves from one end of the planet to the other.

However, characters will be able to pick up a huge number of new quests, craft and trade lots of powerful new items, and also acquire all-new suits of profession-specific armor. The Shadowlands' new class-specific armor will be specific not only to each player profession, but also to specific level ranges so that they won't simply be a single, final goal to attain at your highest level; you'll constantly be filling out and improving your collection of class-specific armor, just as you hunt for better weapons and unlock the key to the next area of the Shadowlands. And as it happens, the expansion will also add brand-new character-specific benefits that you'll gain automatically as you gain levels; characters will be able to learn "perks" every 10 levels or so and learn specializations every 50 levels or so. These new abilities will help you customize your characters' roles in Anarchy Online.