EQ II Sales Top Rank: EverQuest II during it's launch took the number one spot for the week ending on November 13th per the NPD Group. The breakdown: 1. EverQuest II 2. Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 3. The Sims 2 4. The Sims 2 Special Edition 5. Rome: Total War 6. MS Zoo Tycoon 2 7. Axis & Allies 8. The Sims Deluxe 9. Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault Director's Ed 10. Halo: Combat Evolved People speculated on how good the sales would be, this shows they had a good launch compared to the titles also released. I went with Axis and Allies. A congrats to the first set of players who hit level 20 last week and opened up their subclass! Details on this significant event from within game can be found on EQ2Players.com. Posted November 29 2004 by Div Devlin

Guild Wars Weekend Event: Reminder this weekend will be the next weekend event for Guild Wars. Those who preordered or have key's will be able to log-in and play starting at Midnight (08:00 GMT) on Friday Night/Saturday Morning, December 4th and ending Sunday night. It's worth testing out just to take a break from other games, and while some folks are of a mind that it does nothing for them immerse yourself for more than a few hours and you will become addicted. It's the new black.. er.. crack. Posted November 29 2004 by Div Devlin

Khan Online, Online: "KHAN: The Absolute Power," an established online MMO game from across the Pacific has made it's way to the States with an English version thanks to NetGames. Called "KHAN: The Absolute Power," Netgames has licensed the distribution of game in the Philippines. "KHAN" is set in the Thirteenth Century when the Mongol Conqueror Genghis Khan was on the verge of reuniting the entire Eurasian continent. Khan embarks on diverse quests and battles of heroes against monsters and evil enemies. With a stunning 3D visual spectacle that is first and unique in the Philippine online gaming industry, Khan takes the gamers to the exotic locations of inner Mongolia where the battles are fought by Genghis Khan and his alliance of Heroes. Khan's alliance consists of the Knight "The Indestructible Shield"; the Micko "The High Spirit"; Necromancer "The Brilliant Harmony"; Sorcerer "The Blade of Crystal"; and Assassin "The Secret Shadow." "Netgames is very excited about Khan. We are optimistic that its (Khan) launch will significantly expand the market of local online gaming as more gamers discover and fulfill the ultimate gaming experience in Khan," said RJ Maclang, Sales and Marketing Director of Netgames. Aside from advanced 3D graphics, Netgames boast of other special features which make the Khan gameplay absolutely involving and entertaining. One can actually see his or her character evolve from its basic beginner looks to the more mature and sophisticated look emitted by higher-level players. Khan you Khaunt how many times they repeat the name Khan for their game Khan in the aboove release about Khan? Posted November 29 2004 by Div Devlin

Knight Online: Free Play? K2Networks, the North American provider for Knight Online has announced that players can play their MMO game for free with no purcahse needed for the client, or monthly subscription fee. K2Network is pleased to announce the launch of "Free 2 Play" for Knight Online. There will be no subscription fee required & no game purchase. All of the Knight Online game, updates and future expansion will remain free online. Everyone is welcome to register and play Knight Online for free with newly designed website to showcase all the exciting new developments with the game. The new website will offer variety of new features, along with new design and graphics, such as clan ranking and individual ranking. "Power-up Stores&" will also be introduced and it will feature items designed to enhance playing experience for the gamers to play Knight Online. New servers will be opened to greet new players very soon. Please stay tuned as there will be many exciting events happening around Knight Online!! They plan to offer a premium service for those who want to purchase upgrades within game or gain access to higher level content and services. Posted November 29 2004 by Div Devlin

WoW, Trial Extended: Blizzard announced via message boards that due to the issues over the holiday with the servers, they have extended the free trial for players to play World of Warcraft. Since its release two and a half days ago, World of Warcraft has already seen incredible concurrency numbers across all active game servers. To keep up with the demand from our players, 47 new servers were made available, increasing the total number of servers to 88. Doubling our server capacity in such a short period of time created issues in existing servers. We immediately recognized the issues and began implementing fixes. However, some players were unable to log in and enjoy the game during this period. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and are dedicated to providing World of Warcraft players with the best play experience possible. Therefore we'll be adding a small trial-period extension for players who created accounts before or during the downtime. In the days ahead, we'll provide additional details on how the trial-period extension will be determined. As always, we appreciate your continued patience and support; we're still monitoring the servers very closely and making adjustments as needed in order to ensure that World of Warcraft continues to run smoothly for everyone playing. Time returned is better than nothing. Kudo's to Blizzard for another good move. Posted November 29 2004 by Div Devlin

WoW, Go Away: All the Blizzard love. With 20,000 players all attempting to play on the official PvP server where all the major guilds are, Blizzard disperses the players from World of Warcrafts server Alchimonde (and others). We sincerely apologize to all players who have characters on the four servers that were taken offline yesterday for emergency maintenance. They are Archimonde, Dalaran, Khadgar, and Mal'Ganis. We understand that you are all very eager to return to your characters and we understand your frustration. We are doing everything we can to bring your servers back online. However, after careful analysis, we regret to inform our players that these four realms will need to remain offline for a period of days as we migrate them to a new database cluster. We currently estimate that the total downtime will last 1-2 days. We would prefer to take this more long-term approach rather than implement a short-term fix, as we do not want to see the problems appear again later on. We know that you were looking forward to playing World of Warcraft during the holidays and we sincerely apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for your patience during this downtime and we hope to get you back online soon. Thats one way to get them to move. Posted November 25 2004 by Div Devlin

WoW, Waiting On Warcraft: ...And while you wait, the League of Pirates have a some enjoyment to help pass the time. Posted November 25 2004 by Div Devlin

WoW, Where's Our World: The official Press Release: IRVINE, Calif. - November 24, 2004 - Blizzard Entertainment® today announced that World of Warcraft® has become an instant success, achieving epic sales figures in less than 24 hours. Launched Tuesday, November 23rd, the company's subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) sold-through to consumers an estimated 250,000* copies of the game. At retailers across the country, players lined up for blocks at midnight to purchase the game, which sold out in many stores nationwide after only one day on store shelves. In just the first day alone, over 200,000 players created World of Warcraft accounts, and over 100,000 were already playing the game concurrently as of 5:00 p.m. PST on Tuesday. The account-creation and concurrent-user populations are both record numbers for a MMORPG on its first day of launch, making World of Warcraft the fastest-growing online game in history. World of Warcraft is expected to continue to shatter records and achieve a record-setting week-one population in the days ahead. With dozens of World of Warcraft servers already filled to capacity, Blizzard is deploying additional servers rapidly to match the growing player base. "We had a lot of confidence in World of Warcraft, but the success on day one far exceeded our expectations," said Mike Morhaime, president of Blizzard Entertainment. "We are extremely happy that players are enjoying our game, and we are doing everything we can to meet the demand and maintain a fun and smooth game experience for everyone playing." Retailers across North America, including Wal-Mart, EB, GameStop, and others are reporting that hundreds of their stores have sold out of World of Warcraft due to the demand. If consumers have not yet purchased their copy of World of Warcraft, they are advised to call ahead to make sure their store has copies still in stock. "World of Warcraft has once again shown that Blizzard consistently delivers the best games in the industry," said Robert McKenzie, vice president of merchandising at GameStop. "It sold better than any other PC game this year - in fact, World of Warcraft enjoyed the best day-one sell-through GameStop has ever seen on a PC title!" Blizzard Entertainment and its retail partners are expecting all remaining supplies of World of Warcraft to sell out soon. Meanwhile, the company is working diligently to increase server capacity to accommodate the growing number of players connecting to the game. As the additional servers are brought online and proven stable, additional copies of World of Warcraft will be made available at retail. Blizzard will announce the availability of those additional games as soon as they are on retail shelves. *Based on internal company records and reports from key distribution partners in North America. Largest MMO Launch to date. Also, more servers have been added doubling the amount they started with. The Official PvP Server where everyone is at (Alchimonde) remains overcrowded with excessive wait times. Posted November 25 2004 by Div Devlin

World of Warcraft Launch: It's not even prime-time yet but looks like things are off to a bad start with World of Warcraft by Blizzard. Ignoring the most important element for a new mmo game, is making sure the players can play for the first four hours. In two hours when it hits 5pm Central and EVERYONE, EVERWHERE in the midwest (even my granny on the farm) tries to login for the first time to take their first look Azeroth, expect to wait in a queue. Blizzard updates: Greetings players, As many people are discussing the server queues, allow me to give some insight on topic. Server caps have been set lower than normal so there are some people not being allowed onto a server. While we would like to allow players to enjoy the game on whichever server they choose, we also want to make the launch week game play a positive one for everyone. If there were no server caps during this time, it would result in an extremely high number of people in a small area. Instead we use the server cap method to encourage players to try one of the other numerous servers available in all time zones. We also saw an issue with a small number of servers incorrectly displaying their player population. This issue has now been corrected. We thank our players for their patience during this very hectic time. We want to provide the best possible experience, and are working toward that goal even as we speak. [Update] If you are playing the game for the first time, and the game is showing you the queue, please go back, and select another server from the server list. Several servers are seeing very high populations, while others are relatively low. [Update2] Server caps have been increased for the few servers that were showing the queue. There is still one server that has a very high population but the queue has been greatly decreased and we hope all players can get into the game shortly. Oh joy. Most of the PvP guilds are migrating to Stormgard as of last report. Posted November 23 2004 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Movie: NCSoft and Cryptic have released a new short movie for City of Heroes which features a prestige power that players who purchase the Collectors DVD Edition receive. The "power slide" which allows players to slide along at sprinter speeds "surfing" on a pool of reddish energy. You can check oout the movie from our downloads sections. Posted November 22 2004 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Beta: Ubi is welcoming back former subscribers of Shadowbane to come check out the beta period for their upcoming expansion Throne of Oblivion. Starting Monday, November 22nd, any Shadowbane Accounts that are reactivated will be added to the Throne of Oblivion Beta Test every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This will occur until the Throne of Oblivion launches on December 7th. If an account is reactivated over or prior to this weekend, that account will have access to the Beta on Monday, November 22nd. If reactivated on Tuesday, the account will have access to the normal game servers immediately but not to the Oblivion Beta Test until Wednesday. The Throne of Oblivion Beta Server is using a rapid advancement system, allowing testers to progress through character development quickly and help test the new Races, Classes, and Game Systems more thoroughly. More Games, Not Enough Time. Posted November 22 2004 by Div Devlin

UO Invites You Back: If you have a closed account that is in good standing for Ultima Online, it's time then to go check the game out as EA has reactivated all closed accounts for a free trial from now until November 29th (11:59PM PST). Welcome back to Britannia! Posted November 22 2004 by Div Devlin

Yu-Gi-Oh! goes online 2005: Konami has announced that their popular card game Yu-Gi-Oh! is slated to become an online game next year invading the US, Europe and Japan in 2005. KONAMI CORPORATION has announced that it will launch Yu-Gi-Oh! ONLINE, an online version of the Yu-Gi-Oh!TM Official Card Game, Konami's global strategic product. Konami's subsidiaries - Konami Online, Inc. and Konami Computer Entertainment Japan, Inc. - have joined forces to develop the new on-line service, which is scheduled to start December 18 on a test basis. The full-scale service will be launched simultaneously in Japan, the US and Europe in Spring 2005. Konami Group's leading companies will collaborate on network infrastructure, services and operations as well as content development to further enhance the internationally popular Yu-Gi-Oh!TM. Fun times! Posted November 22 2004 by Div Devlin

The Monday Morning News: I had to see the dentist this morning. My mouth hurts. The numbing and drooling has stopped. News is a bit late. - World of Warcraft goes live tommorrow. - Cosmik at N3RFED is moving cities so is also offline. - We have a contest starting later today for Guild Wars. - Don't ya hate Mondays! Div Posted November 22 2004 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Contest Winners: Cryptic and NCsoft has announced the winners for their City of Heroes costume contest. To be a contestant, a player needed to provide a digital picture of themselves dressed in public as their character from within game and a screen shot of their character from the game. Those who best re-created their hero in the real world were eligible for prizes in six different categories. No copyrighted heroes and/or trademarked names were eligible. Congrats to the winners, and runner ups! Be sure to check out the most daring, they have tons of gutz to do that in public. Posted November 18 2004 by Div Devlin

Cryptic Responds To Lawsuit: Cryptic Studios has issued a release statement over the pending lawsuit filed by Marvel over City of Heroes. As reported by The Associated Press, Marvel Enterprises Inc. and Marvel Characters, Inc. have sued NCsoft Corporation and Cryptic Studios. The complaint is meritless. Cryptic Studios is confident that the District Court will reject all of Marvel's claims and fully vindicate Cryptic Studios in all respects. Just about everyone agree's. Posted November 18 2004 by Div Devlin

Lusternia Hits Full Release: Iron Realms Entertainment, an award-winning California-based developer of text-based massively multiplayer games (MMORPGs) announced that its fourth MMORPG, Lusternia: Age of Ascension, is in full release, having recently completed a 6-week open beta. Lusternia, employing the Rapture engine that powers all Iron Realms games, is an original high-fantasy world with a strong focus on planar travel in a roleplay-encouraged environment full of customizable player-run governments, adventuring areas, over 600 quests, and a PvP combat system with over 700 abilities and spells. Check the game out, spyware safe! Posted November 18 2004 by Div Devlin

Lineage II Next Chapter Release: NCsoft has announced the release date for the next chapter (Chronicle 2) for Lineage II slated for December 8th. Currently C2 is on the test servers available for play-previews. Interested in learning more, check the website for full details on what's in store. Posted November 18 2004 by Div Devlin

World of Warcraft Beta Over: Blizzard has announced the end of beta for World of Warcraft, with today being the close as they prepare for their live launch next week. In preparation for the upcoming retail launch of World of Warcraft, we will be taking the North American open beta servers offline on Thursday, November 18. While this will mark the end of the open beta test, there will still be some work left for us to do. To provide the best experience possible at launch, we will be making numerous final optimizations to our hardware based on the data we've acquired during the open beta test. As you prepare to make the move into the largest game-to-date ever to launch, make sure you are up on the billing rates. If you have been wondering who out of the major guilds will be playing on specific servers, SIN has a running list of which guilds will be playing on commercial release. (Thanks Nightmare Inc.) Posted November 18 2004 by Div Devlin

EQII Launch Party Pics: With the launch of EverQuest II last week SOE rolled out a Hollywood style party to celebrate with Hollywood stars during the official private party. Check out these pics of all the major players you love, hate and lust after in our gallery section! Now, if we could only get a new promo movie (Downloads: EQGrrls) with Brande Roderick and Bai Ling in the private VIP room. Posted November 16 2004 by Div Devlin

DAOC Catacombs Went Gold: Another news item missed last week was the announcement from Mythic that Catacombs the uber expansion coming for Dark Age of Camelot went gold. Mythic Entertainment, developer and publisher of the massively-multiplayer online role-playing game "Dark Age of Camelot," today announced that "Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs" has gone gold. This latest expansion to "Dark Age of Camelot," "Catacombs" elevates player model graphics into a leadership role in the MMORPG market with stunning detail and the ability for players to customize their character's appearance. In addition, Private Adventuring (TM) areas challenge players to solo or group quest through unique and challenging dungeons. Players can now also choose to play five new player classes and experience the game from a new perspective. "Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs" is scheduled to be in stores on December 7, 2004 for a suggested retail price of $29.99, and has a "T" for Teen ESRB rating. It's a historic date, so no worries on forgetting to get it. Posted November 16 2004 by Div Devlin

Dark and Light Update: Wonders never cease! NPCube and Farlan have announced that they will be adding all new content into the next beta test for Dark and Light! Yes, the game is still alive! Over 30 new spells, along with new races, sound effects, are included in the new beta test for Dark and Light, an MMORPG scheduled for commercial release in April 2005 by developer NP Cube and publisher Farlan Entertainment. The new array of spells, with their impressive visual effects, can now be used during fights assuming, of course, players have invested a few skill points. New spells for Fighting include Snake Attack spells (Glue, Mamba Attack, and Python Power), and Weapons Expertise spells (for Swords, Crossbows, and Critical Hilts Expertise, among others). The Healing axis also includes new spells for Healing Fundamentals Skills (such as Self Healing, Quick Healing, and Instant Healing), God Gifts Skills (God Armor Shield Expansion and God Abilities Expansion, and others), and for Guardians Invocation Skills (spells for Wolves, Bears, and Pets Healing). New spells for "anytime" use are also included for Energy Power, Molecules Control, and Spirits Appeal Skills. It would help though if you were actually in beta to appreciate all the new content, no? Posted November 16 2004 by Div Devlin

Guild Wars January Beta Moved: Depressing news for everyone in need of a fix with Guild Wars. ArenaNet announced that their next beta event weekend scheduled for January has been moved by a week. I wanted to send you some new information about the Guild Wars Beta Weekend Events. We have received a significant amount of player feedback concerning the scheduling of the January event. Many have been concerned about family obligations, school-related travel, and other holiday scheduling conflicts that might impact their participation in the BWE. Due to the holidays, we have decided to move the January Beta Weekend Event one weekend, so that it does not fall on the New Year's holiday. Therefore: The January Guild Wars Beta Weekend Event will begin at Midnight PST (08:00GMT) on Saturday, January 8th, and will end at 11:59 PST on Sunday, January 9th (07:59 GMT Monday, January 10th). Real mmo-gamers miss family obligations! Posted November 16 2004 by Div Devlin

Mourning Release Date: Limitless Horizons has sqaushed the rumors that their upcoming PvP based, world conquering game Mourning is not vaporware after all with the announcement of their release date. Limitless Horizons Entertainment LLC today announced that its eagerly awaited massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Mourning will be launching in the United States on February 25, 2005 with subsequent launches occurring in Europe and Canada at a later date. Is that another holiday? Posted November 16 2004 by Div Devlin

Marvels Sues Over City of Heroes: This just in. Marvel has filed a lawsuit againt NCsoft and Cryptic over City of Heroes making claims that the game allows players to make virtual characters that are too similar to "The Hulk," "X-Men" and other heroes in the comic book company's stable. But in its lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, Marvel argues that the game's character creation engine easily allows players to design characters that are virtual copies of its own superheros, including "The Incredible Hulk." The company singles out a game feature for creating "a gigantic, green, 'science-based tanker'-type hero that moves and behaves nearly identically" to the "Hulk." Players can also create a "mutant-based" hero powers and a costume nearly identical to Marvel's "Wolverine," according to the suit. The New York-based company also took issue with the ability of players to go so far as to name their superhero creations after Marvel comic book characters. Thats one way for Marvel to take care of their Superheros game that never came to pass. Sue! Now that's incredible. Who did not think this would happen.You can read the full story on USA Today. Posted November 12 2004 by Div Devlin

M59: Evolution Goes Live! Near Death Studios with their classic Meridian 59 has gone live with their upgrade/expansion Evolution which evolves the game to the next generation. Near Death Studios, Inc., the developers of the independent multi-player online roleplaying game Meridian(tm) 59, is proud to announce the latest update on their client software and the recent release of Meridian 59: Evolution. This update includes a new hardware-accelerated 3D graphics engine featuring a high resolution display, texture filtering, dynamic colored lighting, and many new special effects. In addition, many interface changes have improved the game, including the addition of the mouse look to ensured a more responsive control, rebindable keys, and hot keys that are saved per-character. Meridian 59 is a player vs. player (PvP) focused game, allowing players to fight between themselves. Flexible skill-based character advancement allows players to create individual characters to take into the balanced PvP combat situations in a nearly lag-free environment. This latest update enhances the gameplay and is free to all subscribers. Near Death Studios is also excited to extend the opportunity to take advantage of a month of play time to explore and enjoy a trial version of Meridian 59: Evolution during the entire month of November. Players will enjoy increased advancement rates on the trial server, as well as the unique quests, events, and PvP contests found on the regular servers. After the trial players can subscribe to the full version of Meridian 59 for only $10.95 per month with no sign-up fees or box to buy. As a special bonus, on Saturday, November 13th the developers of Meridian 59 will be on the trial server running special events for people who have signed up for the trial. The event will take place at 2 PM Pacific (5 PM Eastern and 11 PM GMT), afterwards the developers will be on hand to a talk with the players and answer questions about the past, present, and future of Meridian 59. Posted November 12 2004 by Div Devlin

Middle Earth Online Dealyed: Say it ain't so! Who would of thought. Turbine announced over on their message boards that inevitably, Middle Earth Online has been delayed. The raw, hard truth is that Middle-Earth Online has been delayed. The game is moving forward daily, progress is being made. How do I know? Because I walk over to the dev pit o' hell and I hear the discussions, people buzzing, see landscape being painted and monsters placed. Before the game had been delayed, we were very forthright with information, screens, movies, game details, etc. Life was good. Then, THE DELAY came and we have not been able to be as forthright as we once were. Game systems and are under a very intense review to see how it all fits together to create a great and cohesive game experience that will do the books and license justice. This takes time to get right and execute. MEO has been delayed to make a better game. Delaying a game is a huge step that not every company is willing to do and, purely from a gamer's point of view, this decision should be applauded. We are putting our money and talent where our mouths are and making the best Middle-Earth Online that we possibly can. Turbine has bigger games to make? Posted November 12 2004 by Div Devlin

Handango Adds Games: If you are like me, you are always on the lookout for new games for your PDA or PocketPC. Handango has just added venerable classics to their lineup. Hurst, Texas/San Jose, California - November 10, 2004 - Namco America Inc., a leading publisher of wireless games and content, and Handango, the leading provider of mobile downloads, announced today their strategic partnership to make PAC-MAN, Ms. PAC-MAN, Galaxian and MAPPY for Palm OS available through Handango's network of sites. Handango will be the exclusive download partner via PC distribution for these games through the end of February, 2005. Namco will also use the Handango Commerce Engine to provide mobile e-commerce to their customers worldwide at http://palm.namcogames.com. PAC-MAN, Ms. PAC-MAN, and Galaxian are available immediately through Handango's online channel network including , the palmOne Software Connection (http://software.palmone.com) and dozens more, as well as through Namco America's mobile Web site (http://palm.namcogames.com). The games are available for $14.99 USD each. The arcade classic, MAPPY, will be available this holiday season. Posted November 12 2004 by Div Devlin

ToonTown Goes to the UK: Disney's great ToonTown is heading over to the U.K. as they hitch ride across the pond with MSN. MSN UK, the UKs number one website, today announced an agreement with Walt Disney Internet Group to promote the award-winning Disneys Toontown Online multiplayer game. ... The month-long promotion, which begins on MSN.co.uk this week, will see ad placements across MSN and the games channel homepages. The campaign is primarily aimed at increasing awareness of Toontown and the number of players of the game. Amanda Anthony, Digital Marketing Manager for MSN UK said: "This is the first time we have partnered with Walt Disney Internet Group and we are delighted to be working with such a successful dynamic and vibrant brand." The new UK site is http://www.toontown.co.uk/ Posted November 12 2004 by Div Devlin

Wish Beta Delayed: Mutable Realms made an announcement that their next phase of Beta for their game Wish has been dealyed. Dear friends of Wish, While we could have started our Beta 2 test on December 1 as planned, we feel that Wish is not ready yet. There are still known bugs that need to be fixed, and we need more time to polish several aspects of the game. Wish could have a good Beta on December 1, but we want it to be a GREAT Beta. We have therefore decided to extend the closed Beta 1.5 phase by another month, delaying Beta 2. The new Beta 2 launch date is now January 1, 2005, instead of December 1, 2004. The Beta 2 test will last until the end of January. There are no specific problems that can be singled out as the reason for the delay. The core architecture of Wish is sound and stable. It is simply the sheer number of small issues that still need modification or testing that calls for this unfortunate delay. None of these issues alone is a big problem, but getting them out of the way before open beta requires time. It remains our chief mandate to do what it takes to make a game that is both reliable and worthy of our fans. Best regards, Your Wish team Problems? If all these games keep getting delayed, how will they still have enough funding to make it to launch? Posted November 12 2004 by Div Devlin

Anarchy Online New Game Director: These guys sure go through the Game Director's for Anarchy Online. Funcom announes that Marius Enge is out and now stepping up to the helm is Morten Byom. Funcom announces Morten Byom as new Game Director for Anarchy Online. Morten Byom is a long-time member of the Anarchy Online development team, and has proven his exemplary abilities for years. One of the highlights of his previous achievements can be found in the mesmerizing world of Shadowlands, where he worked as Lead World Designer. Shadowlands won over 20 awards. "I am aware that I am standing on the shoulders of giants when it comes to being a Game Director for AO," said Morten Byom. "Still, as I have been an integral part of the team for years I feel confident I can carry on the torch to further illuminate AO. I truly look forward to take the creative lead, and will do my best in making the ultimate sci-fi MMORPG even better." Funcom is also very happy to announce a major graphics upgrade for Anarchy Online. Even though AO has constantly received great praise and awards for its graphics and art direction, Funcom always seeks to make something better. The first evidence of a vastly updated world will be experienced through all-new ground textures and more detailed characters. Moreover, the entire color scheme will be upgraded to make the planet more vibrant, colorful and lush. All of these changes will be implemented in the months to come, in addition to new playfields which will further escalate the intense and action-filled alien conflict. At the same time Funcom is further staffing up the Anarchy team. One of the newly arrived is Enno Rehling, who was Lead Programmer on Notum Wars (Expansion pack of the year, CGW). A multi-award winning staff mixed with quality newcomers means that Funcom feels confident about a continued strong future for Anarchy Online. Marius Enge, the former Game Director for Anarchy Online, has accepted a position as Senior Designer for one of the premier upcoming MMO games. Funcom is siad to say that they are sad to see Marius leave, but at the same time grateful for the outstanding work he has delivered through the seven years he worked on AO. Funcom wishes him the best of luck in his new endeavor. A personal letter from Morten about his visions for the future of AO and, Before and after shots of the ground textures and screens from a new Alien playfield Posted November 11 2004 by Div Devlin

EA Spouse Speaks Out: Most companies know, never mess with the homelife of their employees. It looks like Electronic Arts failed this basic business practice (along with all the others they fail) as a spouse for one of the employees within the company speaks out on their business practices in a blog on Live ournal titled, EA: The Human Story. It kicks off like this, "My significant other works for Electronic Arts, and I'm what you might call a disgruntled spouse." You know this is going to have a lot of drama, especially with this: Our adventures with Electronic Arts began less than a year ago. The small game studio that my partner worked for collapsed as a result of foul play on the part of a big publisher -- another common story. Electronic Arts offered a job, the salary was right and the benefits were good, so my SO took it. I remember that they asked him in one of the interviews: "how do you feel about working long hours?" It's just a part of the game industry -- few studios can avoid a crunch as deadlines loom, so we thought nothing of it. When asked for specifics about what "working long hours" meant, the interviewers coughed and glossed on to the next question; now we know why. It gets better. Read On. Posted November 11 2004 by Div Devlin

Billboard Names CoH Year's Best: Billboard Magazine has named City of Heroes from Ncsoft/Cryptic the "PC or Console Game of the Year" and "Multiplayer Game of the Year" at their Billboard Magazine's Digital Entertainment Awards held on Nov. 5 in Los Angeles. "City of Heroes," a massively-multiplayer online game published by NCsoft(R) and developed by Cryptic Studios(R), beat out other well-established PC and console games "Prince of Persia," "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" and "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora" to win the "PC or Console Game of the Year" honor. "City of Heroes" was also named "Multiplayer Game of the Year" over "Socom II: Navy Seals," "Splinter Cell" and "Unreal Tournament 2004." The Billboard Digital Entertainment Awards honored 30 companies and their products across the entertainment spectrum including games, music, film, television and video. According to Billboard, the awards recognize "cutting-edge developments and forward thinkers shaping the future of entertainment" as well as "innovation, entrepreneurship and brand development in digital entertainment." "This recognition for our first title in front of the elites in the entertainment industry is a tremendous honor and is a testament to the hard work that went into developing 'City of Heroes,'" said Jack Emmert, "City of Heroes" lead designer and creative director at Cryptic Studios. "This is a very pleasant surprise, considering we are the new kid-on-the-block going up against other well-established games and big-name companies." "City of Heroes," which allows players to create a super-powered hero and battle villains in the online world of Paragon City(TM), was released in April as one of NCsoft's initial entries into the North American market. The game attained 180,000 subscribers after only four months, has won critical acclaim throughout North America and is now expected to be released in Europe in the coming months. Congrats to the new guys. Posted November 11 2004 by Div Devlin

Matrix Online Reveals PvP: In their newsletter for The Matrix Online, Warner and Monolith have revealed their plans for player versus player combat. The world of The Matrix Online will allow players to engage in three distinct forms of player-vs.-player combat; player-vs.-player dueling, team dueling and Construct PvP. PLAYER VS. PLAYER DUELING The Dueling System allows individual characters to challenge other players to one-on-one combat inside of the game. Characters inside of the Matrix will have access to a duel ability! Players will be allowed to challenge each other to mortal combat nearly anywhere inside of the game. This functionality is currently scheduled to go live in the beta very soon! Read below to find out more details about how the duel functionality will operate. TEAM VS. TEAM DUELING The second type of PvP action inside The Matrix Online is a variation of the single character Dueling System: the team vs. team Dueling System. The team vs. team Dueling System allows groups of up to eight players to challenge an opposing group of players to team vs. team combat. The Team vs. Team system will closely resemble the player vs. player PvP dueling system. THE ARCHIVE: PVP CONSTRUCTS The third form of PvP combat available at launch also introduces another feature: Constructs. Constructs are "pocket worlds" which exist outside of the actual Matrix. In The Matrix Online, the Archive is a special Construct where players will be able to take on others players who work for opposing Organizations. We all know Kung-Fu! Posted November 11 2004 by Div Devlin

Shadowane Expansion Open Beta: Wolfpack, a Ubisoft Company, is proud to announce that the open beta for Shadowbane: Throne of Oblivion is about to begin. In preparation for the launch of the expansion on December 7th, 2004, we need your help for the final testing of the new Vampire Race, the new Necromancer and Nightstalker classes, the realm system, stress testing, and more. Late this week we will be opening up the testing phase to the entire subscriber-base of Shadowbane. For more information, please visit the official Shadowbane Community site Ok, so it's not really an open beta if you already need to be a subscriber. Posted November 11 2004 by Div Devlin

Ryzom Trial Follow-Up: Follow up to our news posting yesterday regarding the 14-day Free Trial for Saga of Ryzom. The trial page went live in the afternoon with the client and key's being generated for you to check out the game, no matter what part of the world you live in. Also reported are some credit card issues for those who use Maestro/Swift outside of the US as you will need a valid credit card with one dollar for account verification. Posted November 9 2004 by Div Devlin

DAoC Retires Classic Client: Mythic announced via the Camelot Herald that the class client for Dark Age of Camelot is being retired with their newest patch. Classic Camelot users will still be able to play on live servers using the Classic Camelot game engine until the launch of the Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs expansion. At launch of the expansion, the Classic Camelot game engine will no longer be supported. Classic Camelot users will not be able to patch or play on any server with the Classic Camelot engine. Classic users who wish to continue to play Dark Age of Camelot must upgrade to the Shrouded Isles engine. The Shrouded Isles engine without the content is available for free download from Fileplanet. Posted November 9 2004 by Div Devlin

EQII Server Names: With today the launch of EverQuest II and still undecided what server to play as no names have been released, SOE announced the names for their servers yesterday. Antonia Bayle (RP Preferred) Befallen Blackburrow Crushbone Guk Mistmoore Najena Permafrost Runnyeye (UK) Storms (French) Unrest Valor (German) Cazic-Thule is gone. Posted November 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Blizzard Blunders WoW Beta: Yesterday did not bode well for Blizzard with the announcement of open beta for World of Warcraft. First issuing key's to FilePlanet for an open but closed beta with only a limited amount available, players crushed the servers and were mighty pissed when after applying were met with errors to determine keys were gone. A follow-up announcement said that more keys were available from the official World of Warcraft site which also in turn got crushed under the wieght of players looking to get in. At this time, keys are now available but the official website is still closed. Posted November 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Mail Servers Down: Our server provider during a maintenance upgrade Sunday has knocked out network emails. At this time we do not have an ETA on when service will be restored, but the mails are not being lost. We currently have 1800 letters residing in our queue awaiting routing. If you have submiited anything in the past 48 hours and we have not addressed it, please note that we are working on it. This affects both our incoming and outgoing mail and is affecting all of our hosted sites. Posted November 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Ballerium Dies: Majorem'sMMO/RTS which has been in development has been suspended. Ballerium ran into some financial problems first revealed last month where they announced the lookout for other funding options has now been halted. From the Developer site Having no viable alternative and following the collapse of Majorem's only client, development is immediately suspended. The technology, demonstrated successfully with Ballerium will now be offered as-is for whomever is interested in making an offer. Rest In Peace. Posted November 8 2004 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes DvD Set: NCsoft and Cryptic announced last week the launch of their exclusive DvD set for City of Heroes. City of Heroes Collectors DVD Edition game pack includes: -- A DVD containing City of Heroes including expansions, Episode 1: Through the Looking Glass, and Episode 2: A Shadow of the Past with new zones, villains, costume tailoring and capes -- An exclusive Statesman HeroClix figure -- A 16-page PvP online mini-comic book -- A new Paragon City fold-out map and City of Villains(TM) poster -- A 32-page mini manual and reference guide -- A revealing excerpt from the upcoming City of Heroes novel, "The Web of Arachnos," from CDS Books due out in Spring 2005 -- The winning entries from the recently conducted City of Heroes Film Festival -- A unique in-game item that can only be found in the Collectors DVD Edition -- Preview trailers of the upcoming City of Villains expansion and other NCsoft games The figure is going to be worth bucks on Ebay. Posted November 8 2004 by Div Devlin

EQ II Ships: Sony sent the word out that EverQuest II has shipped today as planned. From the press release: Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), a worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online (MMO) gaming, today announced that EverQuest II has shipped to North American retail stores. EverQuest II is the highly-anticipated follow-up to Sony Online Entertainment's EverQuest, the most successful and longest-running 3D MMO role-playing game in North America. More than 100,000 people have already pre-ordered EverQuest II in hopes of being among the first to experience this massive gaming phenomenon. The CD and DVD versions of the game carry an SRP of $49.99 and include the game, an in-game item and an exclusive in-box item. Limited quantities of the EverQuest II Collector's Edition (DVD) are available at an SRP of $89.99. "Today is a proud day as we open our new online world to people around the globe," said John Smedley, president, Sony Online Entertainment. "Over the past five years, we've worked hard to ensure EverQuest II is fun, and meaningful to our players. We've spared no expense and we're confident players will agree that EverQuest II is an amazing interactive online gaming experience." Expect copies to be in stores tommorrow if you are still undecided where to play. It's a manic Monday! The official Community site for would be players is b0rk3d, with a "Forbidden" error message. Posted November 8 2004 by Div Devlin

Ryzom 14 Day Trial (Not!): It's a Saga in it's own telling for Ryzom! Today is supposed to be the official kick-off for a new 14 day free trial from Nevrax for their Saga of Ryzom. As of this update (10am Central) the official games website has yet to update the option to download and register the trial software, but you can access the trial which has begun via this hidden link on their message boards. Ofcourse that is broken as well and much fun is ensuing by players who have been eager to check the game out. The questions on everyones minds are, "When Does Monday start?" Posted November 8 2004 by Div Devlin

WoW, Traits & Film: Blizzard on Friday released the long awaited listing of racial traits that will for characters within World of Warcraft. Most of them are pretty run-of-the-mill. PVP'ers are rising up in revolt over the latest patch which cripples PvP with an increased decay rate for items, and a new movie has been posted. Posted November 8 2004 by Div Devlin

Guild Wars Preview: Last weekend was the Worldwide Weekend Preview Event for Guild Wars where players from over 140 countries all logged into ArenaNet's PvP/Team bases MMO. Kicking it off was a private event in SanFransico where we were invited to check the game out with the developers first hand, with a hands on preview. Posted November 5 2004 by Div Devlin

ATitD Dev Chat: eGenesis developers will be taking part in a chat tonight about A Tale in the Desert with players about the state of the game and future plans for their game.: Game of the Year (DIYGames) award winner, A Tale in the Desert (ATITD), continues to raise the benchmark for online games with yet another unique synergy for multi-player online games. Friday November 5, 2004 at 6:30 p.m. EDT there will be an developer chat between players and the development team to discuss the current state of A Tale in the Desert 2 and the future plans for the game. Andrew Tepper and his staff of developers are encouraging the community to attend this online chat to be hosted in #atitd channel, on irc.sorcery.net. How To Connect: The Developer Chat with the developers of A Tale in the Desert 2 Friday November 5, 2004 at 6:30 p.m. Eastern / 3:30p.m. Pacific in the #ATITD channel on Sorcery IRC. You can connect to one of the IRC servers through the use of your favorite IRC client, such as mIRC, ircle, xchat, or whichever you prefer. Connect to irc.sorcery.net port 6667 Sure to be an interesting talk. Posted November 5 2004 by Div Devlin

Meridian59 Free Trial: NearDeath Studios announces that they are running a free 14 day trial for venerable classic Meridian59 and with the enhanced client which now offers a new rendering engine, added mouselook and rebindable keys, as well as the addition of a lot of new content, and still maintains a very balanced PvP game. Those who participate in the trial also have the added relief that they will be on a sperate server with enhanced gameplay along with events in which you can greif the dev's. Sounds rockin. If you are suffering through PvP withdrawal next week from Guild Wars and are waiting for World of Warcraft open beta, check out their free trial. Posted November 5 2004 by Div Devlin

WoW: Open Beta Next Week! Hot on the heels of Blizzard announcing the street date as Novemeber 28th for World of Warcraft comes the announcement of open beta slated for next week: World of Warcraft Free Open Beta Set to Begin by November 8th! By November 8th, the fog of war will be lifted and Blizzard will invite thousands of North American gamers to take a free tour of the epic World of Warcraft. This will be the final stage of testing for the massive online world before it ships to stores in the U.S. and Canada for a November 23, 2004 Street Date. Willing adventurers can download the World of Warcraft Open Beta by visiting https://signup.worldofwarcraft.com. The official start date of the Open Beta will be announced on www.worldofwarcraft.com, so stay tuned for additional information. Now, are you not grinning ear to ear for not getting a FilePlanet subscription? Posted November 5 2004 by Div Devlin

UO:SE Pre-Orders Delayed: With the new expansion Samurai Empires from EA for Ultima Online due out, fans who wanted to get in on the ninja action and preordered their copies through EA are in for dissapointment. The EA Store ran out of/never stocked copies of their own game! Dear EA Store Customers, We must regretfully inform some of our EA Store customers that their order for Samurai Empire was delayed due to the great demand for the title. The orders will be fulfilled as soon as additional inventory arrives. We are expecting more copies to arrive for shipment next week. We understand that some who did not receive their order may choose to purchase the game from a local retailer. If you placed an order at the EA Store and have not received the shipping confirmation and, wish to submit a cancellation request, please go here: In addition, those who placed a pre-order for Samurai Empire before November 2nd will receive an e-mail with a Soulstone code and further information regarding their order. We apologize for the inconvenience and delay. Sincerely, The EA Store Team For the Ninjas! Posted November 5 2004 by Div Devlin

Guild Wars Hits 400K: Arenanet and NCsoft have announced that the Guild Wars world preview event which was hosted last weekend was a major success with over 400k gamers from all over the world playing. The results are in and they show that hundreds of thousands of people played Guild Wars(R) last weekend during ArenaNet(R) and NCsoft's(R) free World Preview Event. More than 400,000 people representing more than 140 countries participated in the event, which took place October 28 through 31. "The World Preview Event was a great opportunity for people to try out Guild Wars," said Jeff Strain, Guild Wars producer and ArenaNet co-founder. "We were pleased that so many took advantage of this unique opportunity. If Guild Wars was available for purchase, last weekend's subscriber numbers would have ranked the game as one of the top three online role playing games operating in North America." This weekend, ArenaNet will roll out another chance to play the game during the first of several Beta Weekend Events. These exclusive events will take place on the first weekend of each month and will be open only to players who purchase the Guild Wars preorder box or obtain access to single events through ArenaNet's programs with leading game magazines and websites, iGames game centers or select retailers. Again this weekend for preorder folks too! Posted November 4 2004 by Div Devlin

World of Warcraft Street Date: The speculation is finally over. Blizzard has announced the street date for World of Warcraft: Blizzard Entertainment(R) today announced that its eagerly awaited massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) World of Warcraft(R) will be in stores in North America on November 23, 2004. World of Warcraft will launch simultaneously in Australia and New Zealand, and is planned for release in Korea, Europe, and other countries throughout Asia shortly following. With a monthly subscription, players in these regions will soon be able to experience the epic adventure of the Warcraft(R) series in an immersive and continually evolving online environment. Now I can take my last week of vacation! What a race it's been, Blizzard trumps SOE. Posted November 4 2004 by Div Devlin

Tektronix Sues Everyone: The Register (Thanks Grimwell!) reports that Tektronix has filed lawsuits against each of the major game studios over the use of 2d and 3d graphics displayed on computers. A US legal firm specialising into corporate law is taking the world's biggest computer games publishers to task over what it claims is the violation of a 1987 3D graphics patent. The patent, number 4,734,690 is owned one time printing and graphics specialist Tektronix and covers the display in 2D of a 3D image. It was filed in April 1987 and granted almost a year later. The technique described is used by almost every game that uses 3D modelling, from the latest titles right back to the likes of Quake and possibly right back to Doom and even Wolfenstein all products of the 1990s. It covers the use of a 3D space like the UAC HQ on Mars, to encompass one or more 3D objects even a half a dozen Cacodeamons. The patent details how panning across the scene or sidestepping past a plasma bolt, can be realistically depicted on a 2D display such as a computer monitor. Given its ubiquity, the firm behind the suit Dallas, Texas-based McKool Smith, has named all the big guns in the gaming industry including Electronic Arts, Activision, Take Two, Ubisoft, Atari, THQ, Vivendi Universal, Sega, Square Enix, Tecmo, Lucasarts and Namco. Some smaller firms are also in line for action, apparently. Only Sony is missing, they must be a smaller firm? Posted November 4 2004 by Div Devlin

Dark and Light Event Partner: Farland and NPCube announced that they have partnered with Canadian (just saying they are from Canada) company Alchemic Dream to assist in community management and the official website for thier upcoming MMO game, Dark and Light. Farlan Entertainment, publisher of upcoming MMORPG Dark and Light, and developer NP Cube, have retained the services of Montreal-based Alchemic Dream, Inc., to provide administrative support and expanded community management. "Dark and Light has an unusually large pre-launch database exceeding 100,000 testers and interested people," says Laurent Paret, Co-founder and VP Business Development at NP Cube. "We wanted to be sure we properly managed this huge and important asset, and, as a result, we have partnered with Alchemic Dream." "Our experience and expertise in the MMOG space have positioned Alchemic Dream, Inc., as the leader concerning services and community management," says Aurelien Merville, President and CEO of Alchemic Dream. "The opportunity to bring our method to a user base as large as the Dark and Light one consolidates our strategy. Our commitment to get a high customer satisfaction and our live team of game masters and storyliners will be a major added value to ensure the success of Dark and Light." Alchemic Dream's goals are to keep the Dark and Light web site updated, bring the future players' suggestions to the developer team, help guild masters and fans feel "at home" and welcome the new members, and create pre-launch and at-launch major events. Is this going to be the next trend, outsourcing community managemnt and events? Posted November 4 2004 by Div Devlin

Eve Online Expansion: CCP has announced their expansion for Eve Online titled "Exodus" with/as a download. "The EXODUS expansion finally gives our players the opportunity to truly begin the territorial conquest they have been building up for " said Reynir Harđarsson, CCP's Art Director and founder of CCP. "All players can now affect the political landscape of the EVE world by conquering everything from solar systems to whole regions of space... This feature originated from the player community, and demonstrates well that EVE is a living world that evolves through player interaction." EVE Online: EXODUS is predicted to have a revolutionary impact on the persistent world game genre. Exodus contains new tools that allow powerful players to manage very large political structures like alliances, which can contain thousands of players each. The sizes of player alliances in EVE are considerably greater than in any other MMO game. By formalizing the gathering of player corporations into player alliances, along with tools sets to allow these massive entities to control territory, the current underlying power structures will be more visible to players. Also available for download on tehir site is a teaser trailer. Posted November 4 2004 by Div Devlin

Second Life Nudity Scandal: It's a scandal! It's really art though. Second Life by Linden Labs is the newest game to get far reaching public outcry as players raise up and revolt against the ethics of the company. While this may be old news, I'm just hearing about it (thanks for the mails all!). It appears that a guy in-game placed a picture/portrait of himself in front of his house, which is across from a gal's house. Nothing new in MMO's with housing. But the picture/portrait is full frontal nude. This makes the gal gamer upset. It spirals out of control from there. From Wired: For Linden Lab, the dispute, and an increasing number like it, poses a significant problem. The company has no formal dispute resolution system in place and it's growing at a rate of 20 percent a month. If it doesn't come up with a well thought-out solution soon, it may find itself overwhelmed by a flood of users asking it to resolve their player-to-player problems. The market is going to change, again in MMO's. Posted November 4 2004 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Expansion: Wolfpack (Ubisoft) has announced that with their new Throne of Oblivion expansion for Shadowbane who had players rise up in outcry have added a new character slot giving them 7 characters per account. Since the original announcement, many members of the community have asked if the Throne of Oblivion expansion will include an extra character slot. Wonder no longer! Although originally not included in the expansion, overwhelming support from the community has convinced the development team to invest a little more time and added this to the list. For those who purchase the Throne of Oblivion expansion, they will have seven character slots per account! This will include those accounts that upgrade from Shadowbane to Throne of Oblivion since this expansion will include access to the content from the Rise of Chaos expansion. Seven! AHH... AHHH... AH! Posted November 4 2004 by Div Devlin

Endless Ages Expansion Testing: Avaria Corp announces that thier new kingdoms system is now in full testing and we will be releasing soon for Endless Ages. On the main site is a new screenshot from within game, but they ask for you to keep in mind that they are still doing some polishing. Break out the wax. Posted November 2 2004 by Div Devlin

Horizons Gets Hosting: Artifact Entertainment, developers of "Horizons," announced that it has reached an agreement with Tulga Games LLC in partnership with Limelight Networks for the online distribution of the game. The agreement supplies Artifact Entertainment with important bandwidth, hosting and download services aimed at providing game subscribers with the highest quality on-line gaming experiences. Artifact Entertainment's President and Creative Director, David Bowman, said, "When researching content delivery providers and colocation facilities, the products, pricing and experience that Limelight offered was vastly superior". "Horizons" has a worldwide following, played by tens-of-thousands of fans in nearly 40 countries spanning territories in Asia, Europe and North America. Fans can download "Horizons" for a free seven-day trial and subsequently subscribe to the game for a one-, three-, six or twelve-month commitment period. Things are getting fixxed? Posted November 2 2004 by Div Devlin

Matrix Online Adds Voice: The Matrix Online announced that they have added voice talent for NPC's that will appear in game. Not just any old voice talent, but key stars from the movies: Capturing the authenticity of the Matrix films, Fishburne (Morpheus), Bellucci (Persephone), Alice (The Oracle), Lambert Wilson (The Merovingian), Harold Perrineau Jr. (Link), Harry Lennix (Lock), Nona Gaye (Zee), Collin Chou (Seraph) and Tanveer Atwal (Sati) have provided voice-overs and their character likenesses to the game. Don Davis, the film composer for the Matrix trilogy, is also providing the score for The Matrix Online. Since Neo is dead, no "Woah." Did he ever actually say that in the movies, just in Bill & Teds Adventures? Posted November 2 2004 by Div Devlin

UBO Halloween Havoc: Netamin is kicking it a bit late for Ultimate Baseball Online as they start their Halloween Havoc series within the beta test. UBO is pleased to announce the game schedule for the UBO Halloween Havoc Tournament 2004! The 10 teams will start the showdown to the championship tonight! An Experience Level cap for each team was put into place for this tournament to ensure that whatever levels players are in the game, their total Experience points were not permitted to exceed 90,000 by the sign up deadline last week. As we are in the period between the end of the sign ups and the start of the tournament, the Experience Cap was raised 5% to 94,500 for the nine highest level players on the team (whether they are starters or backups). Play Ball! If you need your fix, you can spectate the games as they play out, and cheer your favorite player based team on. Posted November 2 2004 by Div Devlin

UO:SE Goes Gold: The saviour expansion, Samurai Empire for Ultima Online has gone gold per EA. Electronic Arts announced that Ultima Online: Samurai Empire, the highly-anticipated expansion pack to Ultima Online (UO) began shipping to retailers. The newest addition to the renowned UO franchise combines the trademark high fantasy of UO with an exotic Japanese culture and features two deadly new professions for players to master -- the Samurai and the Ninja. "Ultima Online: Samurai Empire marks a new era in the world of UO," said Anthony Castoro, producer of Ultima Online. "By adding a new culture to the classic medieval European setting of Ultima Online, we've given the game a unique twist and a wide array of new things to see, do and experience." NINJA'S! Posted November 2 2004 by Div Devlin

GameNGame Imports Four: GameNGame (pronounced game and game) is a new company which went live yesterday as part of a Global Test Bed Program for iPark Silicon Valley which is bringing four Korean MMO Games to the States, with a 50 US city tour including grand finales in New York and Los Angeles. iPark Silicon Valley (www.iparksv.com) today launched a Web portal dedicated to promoting South Korea-developed MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) based games. Starting today, North American players can directly download and access four of the latest upcoming Korean game titles and their highlighted features, absolutely free, by visiting http://www.gamengame.com/. iPark Silicon Valley, a U.S. business development subsidiary of the Korea IT Industry Promotion Agency (KIPA), is promoting the thriving B2B relationships between South Korea and North America IT leaders. The Government of Republic of Korea - Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), operates KIPA. www.gameNgame.com is designed to serve as a destination for North American players to preview and sample variety of pre-released South Korean MMO based games. The site provides details and full version downloads of the soon-to-be-announced games including, d.o, Legend of Mir3, Navy Field and Shot-Online with "free" open play running from now until early December. The break down for the four games are: d.o (www.doonline.co.kr/eng): Full 3D MMORPG Based Martial Arts Game Legend of Mir3 (