With the end of the winter holidays, Funcom's work on the 17.8 AO update has restarted, so that we can probably expect it to hit the game servers at the end of this month or in the beginning of February.
Let's see, in the meanwhile, what new features this juicy update is going to include.

The 17.8 game update will bring with it a great series of new content and system additions.

New Dust Brigade Team Instance – Inside the Machine!

The Dust Brigade menace continues to expand as their mysterious plans on Rubi-Ka are explored further. News has reached the ICC of unusual activity beneath the crust of the planet itself. What exactly are the Dust Brigade up to and what is behind their continued interest in ancient Xan technology?

This new team instance designed for high level players will bring with it a new and exciting challenge as players can take the latest Dust Brigade commander within a great new environment that will present its own unique challenges.

New PVP Ranking Systems

As mentioned in the recent Letter from the Game Director 17.8 will include the first stage of a total re-write of the PVP title system. With options that will be able to cater for all the PVP tastes as much as possible the new system will offer different ranking systems for different types of PVP.

There will be separate progression ranks for several different areas of PVP

•    Solo PVP
•    Team PVP
•    Dueling

Included will be a totally new system for duels so that players can challenge each other without outside interference.

Each section will have its own ten levels of available ranks that players will be able to work through.

There will be options available as to which of your PVP titles will be displayed with your characters name. (and don’t worry, your old title will still be available to display as a ‘legacy title’ option)

New Social Clothing Mode

17.8 will contain a new social clothing mode for players. A new tab has been added to your equip window that allows you to equip any item purely for the visual effect (i.e. you wont get any stat bonuses from them, but will get to use the visual looks). There will be options that allow you to tell the game client whether to render your equipment tab, your social tab, or a combination of the two (in effect having the social tab ‘overlay’ on top of your existing armor).

The tab also does have special rules regarding combat to ensure it can’t be abused to trick people in PVP, but we will go into more details on that closer to release of the update.

In addition following on from the shoulderpad options in the current update the 17.8 update will also include options for whether or not you wish to display your helmet or your characters head.

New Inspect Functionality

Another great new feature in 17.8 will be the option to inspect other players and see their equipment windows. There will be a link under the character info screen to launch the new inspect window.

You will be able to see all four inventory screens of the targeted player, including the new social tab.

New tooltip views

In addition to the new social clothing and inspect views we have also added a new tooltip options system that gives some item information when the mouse moves over the item without you having to click further to see the item description. The old ways of seeing item details will still be there as well of course, and players will be able to use which they prefer to use.