Apart from concerns over technical issues, the biggest question mark that many Anarchy Online players have about how the game will develop hangs over the promised large-scale story for the online game. The planning for the story has been complete for some time now. Funcom has mostly been waiting for the full European release of the game--scheduled to launch here at the end of September--to start the storyline without leaving this part of the potential Anarchy Online community behind.

　　There are still no specific dates for the story's start. The first major episode will kick in after European players have a chance to get up to speed with the game. Once things are going, players will see big story turns every few months, as well as many smaller guided events that Funcom intends to engage players with rather than letting them sit back and watch. It's at this point that the major characters of Rubi-Ka--like Philip Ross, chief executive of Omni-Tek--will start to make their presence felt in the world. However, while things are planned out to some extent, the future of Rubi-Ka hasn't been pre-scripted. Funcom will watch the overall actions of players in the context of the story to decide how to develop the story over the longer term.

　　But that's not all. Ragnar Tornquist, the designer of the acclaimed adventure game The Longest Journey and author of the Anarchy Online interactive storyline, has written a sci-fi novel that reveals more of Rubi-Ka's history and some of the secrets of the far future, like how nanotechnology works. Funcom plans to start selling the novel direct from its site on October 15.

　　For more information about Anarchy Online, read our full review of the game.