Anarchy Online: Shadowlands Golden! Anarchy Online announces that their awaited expansion "Shadowlands" has gone gold setting anew benchamark in expansions. From the Press Release: Feature Highlights - 20+ new playfields across seven distinct themes - Enhanced graphics with unique depth and detail - Two new professions; Shade and Keeper - Hundreds of new monsters with improved AI - Thousands of new weapons, armour and items - Faction system to further emphasize the strong setting - Hundreds of Perks; increasing specialization options even further - Shadowbreed, unleash your inner self in combat - Increased level cap, 220. - 150+ Shadowlands dungeons, with a unique new style - New land control areas, where players can conquer the veins of notum - The floating city of Jobe - New music and audio - New deluxe apartments - Loads of quests - And much more... Going along with the expansion, we hear will be a price increase from the current monthly rate of $12.95 to $14.95 U.S. You can check the full release below. Full Story Posted July 31 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Begins PvP Testing: Dragon Empires which is currently in closed Beta Testing has officially announced that PvP Testing has begun for thier eye-candy filled PvP/MMO Game. It's about time! From the release: Dragon Empires, Codemasters' next generation massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for PC, has entered its first live testing phase: online Player Vs Player combat. For the Dragon Empires development team, it's essential that the game's Player Vs Player combat system became the first live test phase; PvP combat lies at the heart of the gameworld where battles for supremacy in the Empires are paramount. You can check the full release below. Full Story Posted July 31 2003 by Div Devlin

Comeback to EQ for 7 Days: EverQuest is trying to woo folks back again, they just ran this special recently. Did they take a hit with SWG? Anyways, they are offering a "Free Seven Day Trail" for you to come back. From the advert: Greetings! Revisit EQ, Free for 7 Days! Just log in! Experience once again the thrill of adventuring with old friends and rediscover the magic. We're reactivating your closed account for a period of seven days so that you can check out old friends, reclaim past glories and to experience new adventures since you departed. With new expansions like The Legacy of Ykesha™ and the upcoming Lost Dungeons of Norrath™, now is the best time to return to EQ! Just log into your old account between July 30, 2003 and August 6, 2003, and you?ll find it has been reactivated during this period! (If you can't remember your login information, there's no problem. Just go to our Username/Password Recovery page. We look forward to seeing you again! -The EverQuest Team Will you? Posted July 31 2003 by Div Devlin

Time of Defiance Review at OMGN: OMGN has published their review of "Time of Defiance" the RTS/MMO Space Game from Nicely Crafted Entertainment after spending thirteen days inside the game. There is some loving going on here with the game as they give it a good score and hit some of the gameplay aspects which are enjoyable. Check it. This could be the next game to watch! I trust the writers at OMGN. Posted July 31 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG Sales Slip: Star Wars: Galaxies has slipped in the sales chart but yet remains strong in the top ten. Down from second they take fourth according to NDP/Tech World's latest release for the week ending on July 19th. Looks like it's a blockbuster. 1 Warcraft III: Frozen Throne Expansion Pack 2 The Sims: Superstar Expansion Pack 3 The Sims Deluxe 4 Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided 5 Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos 6 The Sims: Unleashed Expansion Pack 7 Diablo 2 8 Neverwinter Nights: Shadows Of Undrentide Expansion Pack 9 Rise Of Nations 10 Finding Nemo: Nemo's Underwater World Of Fun Now do I really want to get a copy? Posted July 31 2003 by Div Devlin

As the Market Burns: Ok... With Mythica just having a really great showing at GenCon last week, in which we still have to do our writes (expect them this weekend), Microsoft Games Studio axed 34 people from the PC and Xbox games division citing the layoffs as part of a reorginization. The folks from Microsoft that are on the Mythica Team rock. We fear for them. (Thanks HomeLanFed) 3DO the folks who dumped both Meridian 59 and JumpGate is now auctioning off their remaining game rights for anyone interested in picking up the intellectual property rights. If you have the money. Official bidding begins on the 6th of next month. Posted July 30 2003 by Div Devlin

Scott Miller Live Radio Show: Scott "UnknownPlayer" Miller is back from GenCon and is ready to go with another live radio show taking place tommorrow (Thursday) night. His guests this week will be the head honchos from Star Wars Galaxies, Haden Blackman the Producer from Lucas Arts, and Kevin O'Hara the Community Relations Manager from Sony Online Entertainment. Listeners can call into the show and ask their questions 'Live and On the Air' with the guests. The show will be On Thursday 7/31/03 at 5:30 p.m. Pacific (GMT -7), check out UnknownPlayer.com for more info. It's bound to be a good show, especially in lieu of our update below. I have a question! "How come Tamara Sanderson has excluded us from her lists?" Nothing like going to E3 to meet the folks and getting denied. Posted July 30 2003 by Div Devlin

MEO Interview on MEOSource! The folks over at Middle Earth Online Source have a new multiple part interview up and running with Chris Taylor for Middle Earth Online from the recent GenCon. In it they touch on some of the key aspects everyone has been itching to ask about! Check the first part out. Posted July 30 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG: Spin Baby! Spin! Star Wars: Galaxies changed their tune regarding account cancellation. According to SONY when you killed your account, your characters would be intact for three months: Hello, Thank you for contacting the Sony Online Entertainment Customer Service department. Canceling your account does NOT affect your characters, only your billing information. If you cancel your subscription and then re-subscribe to Star Wars Galaxies within 3 months, we guarantee that you will still have access to your game characters. Unfortunately, after that period we can no longer guarantee the validity of the characters. As we do not actively purge accounts, most characters will remain available. If you wish to reactivate your account in the future, you will need to use the same Station Name and Password that was used before canceling your StarWars Galaxies subscription. Thanks to Chud for pointing out the spin to us, that according to Q3PO this is no longer valid: How long will my character be saved if I cancel my account? Currently the answer is 5 days. Our intention is to have it be for at least a month or more, but that won’t be changing in the near future. As many of you know, every character in SWG takes up an order of magnitude more database space than other MMOs. That is because we have so many unique variables per character (millions of character customization possibilities, every player made object having several unique attributes, large storage space in banks and houses, etc.). When we have a solution worked out for saving these characters longer, I’ll let you know. Believe me, we want to save these characters. There are a significant number of people who, after leaving an MMO, will return at a later time if their character is intact still. Would the real answer please stand up! So, it's probably going to be five days. If ya canceled because you feel "the game sucks right now," and want to wait for them to fix the game, your SOL at SOE for SWG. But, ya have a cool coaster, a figure, and a patch right? Posted July 30 2003 by Div Devlin

Warner Bros. Does "The Grind." Warner Bros. has a movie coming out soon about skateboarding aptly titled "The Grind" which looks like it's going to be pretty good and rocking the house with a killer soundtrack. To go along with the movie's site which features trailers, webcards, stills, etc. they currently have a flash enabled game which is ever-so-slightly-addictive. Check out the movie. Check out the game. Posted July 30 2003 by Div Devlin

Middle Earth Online Screenies: While were recuperating and getting all caught up from GenCon we were able to sneak some screenshots away from Chris Taylor when he was not looking! Were "sneaky-sneaky" that way. Check em. More to come from the show! Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

ATitD Feature Characters The folks over at eGenesis continue to rock with their economy based game "A Tale in the Desert" which introduced a feature character bent on desolating the lands last week. From the fansite ATitD.net: The Stranger has finally appeared in Egypt, and one of his agents has incited the start of an event that rocked Egypt over the last few days. You may know the character 'Khepry', discoverer of the first Magnesium vein in Egypt, which opens the door for white fireworks glowers and improved ash production. Khepry was an agent of the stranger sent to seed discord within Egypt's population by wheeling and twisting the greed of the people over Magnesium to the Stranger's advantage. People flared up in a panic as, when the Magnesium mines were made public and the mining began, the land around the mines began to die and grow rocky! This is pretty cool as opposed to changing the game when everyone logs out. The threat was averted when the players reigned in their greed. Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

AC2 Consolidation Plans: After running a poll last week (?) about the AC2 Consolidation, Jessica Mulligan made an announcement on the official ACCMTY boards that she was in favor of option A in which the poll had: "Keep using Frostfell and Thistledown as the "host" worlds. For characters that are moved there, change the character name to append the world they came from, i.e. of . Example: If a character named Bob on Solclaim was moved to Frostfell, his character name would be changed to "Bob of Solclaim." You can check out the poll here and possibly vote still. Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Round-Up: Don't expect to hit the boards tommorrow for City of Heroes, while at work from 10am to 12p Central Time as they are going to be down for maintenance. They are going to be purging threads that are six months or older. Better save any messages now, if you want it for later! If you missed the news last week as you geared up to meet "Statesman" at GenCon, a Dev Diary went up on IGN with news from Jack Emmert on designing CoH. He shared the basic three rules that went into influencing his decisions on making the game. Also announced was the winner from the Surviving Eight Contest in which players got to create a new NPC in game. There’s a new hero who will soon be laying down the law in Paragon City. She’ll be using her psychic powers to overcome evil and help train super-powered heroes in NCsoft’s new City of Heroes (tm) online computer game, currently under development. Numina, will appear as a ghostly form with small light bursts wisping all around her. She’s the brainchild of City of Heroes' forum member, "Belle" of Bay Shore, New York. Belle’s Numina concept was one of more than 500 submitted to NCsoft (tm) and City of Heroes' developer Cryptic Studios (tm) in a contest for fans to create one of the game’s eight main character heroes who survived the Rikti War. Congrats, it's awesome! You can also check out the other contest entries that had to be hard to make a choice on. Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Dev Diary: Dragon Empires has a new Dev Diary up and running. Colin Smyth one of the animators for the game penned this write, which includes some... animations. If you have not heard, Beta kicks off next week with the first round of testers already inside. Expect to see a video making the rounds sometime soon to follow. Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

EQ2 Trailer: A new trailer has been released for EverQuest 2 which currently can be found on HappyPuppy, and the following sites which also are now hosting it. 3dGamers, GamersHell, and FileShack. The trailer shows off Emotes, Landscape, Effects, Player Rraces, NPC's, Buildings... ya know. Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

Eve Online Round-Up: Simon and Schuster Interactive sent out a press release saying they were now going to be partnering with cable companies to offer Eve Online to subscribers on their ISP services, or something. Cable operators sign up to this low-cost program by agreeing to distribute EVE, a new graphically rich Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) to new, and possibly, existing subscribers. The estimated street price of EVE is $50, however operators who participate will receive the game at a substantially reduced rate. The program begins in September 2003 and runs though December. Operators will receive the game and deliver them directly to subscribers with the cable modem. Ya know, if memory serves me right, back in the early 90's there were a number of game companies that did something similar. It did'nt work. Check the EveCable site for more details if you would like to see what they have planned, or are an ISP thinking of taking part. Also on the official Eve Site is "Sneak Peak" which I have no idea when was released, talking about the movement of the games story-line. Players from Eve can now upload screenshots to the Player Web Site now as well. But, ya need to have an account. Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

GenCon'03 MMO Round Up: It's probably going to take us the better half of a week to compile everything we have from GenCon, but suffice to say, "It rocked." Indie is also a party town. We really will have more on it later. In the mean time, other sites which actually have time, no lives, no kids, (I was being "Smarmy!") and get paid for covering games have their writes already up for you to check out. Horizons: On GameSpy On Horizons Vault On Port of Horizons Lords of EverQuest: On EverQuest Vault Middle-Earth Online: On GameSpy On Middle-Earth Online Source (These guys rock!) Mythica: On GameSpot On Mythica HQ (Concept Art, also GenCon Photos) On Mythica Realms On Mythica Vault Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

Win a Beta 3 for Horizons: Missed your chance to get into Beta 3 for Horizons? Well, here's another chance. MMORPG is giving away 15 Beta 3 CD's to some lucky winners. Rules are that you have to enter thier exclusive contest and hope to be one of the random winners? And claim the pize within a certain time frame or it goes to someone else. I remember when Beta Contests used to be hard, required knowledge of games, and were actually worth the award of being a coveted "Beta Tester." Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

MeO Newsletter: Middle Earth Online has released it's first Newsletter (old news?). It reprints items which have already appeared on the main site recapping a number of items, like housing: The first step with every aspect of MEO game development is to look at how a feature fits into the work of Tolkien. In this case one of the things that immediately springs to mind is that the races of Middle-earth live, for the most part, in distinct towns and regions, such as the Shire or Rivendell. At the same time, individuals of every race wander through the world, and frequently take up residence with new friends. To conform to this vision each race in MEO will have separate housing areas within the game, but any characters of any race will be able to stay close to their friends by purchasing housing in any town they can reach. Go sign up for the letter. A shout-out of congrats to the guys at MEOSource for being listed as the Featured Fansite as well! Posted July 29 2003 by Div Devlin

A Big Hello from Gencon We did make it to Gencon. We have been very busy checking out all the games that are here to show their wares. One thing that really hit us this year is the explosion among the D20 community. Leading the way is Dungeons and Dragons. They have a revised 3rd edition core book set termed as v3.5. Even more teasingly came the announcement of a new Dungeon and Dragons campaign setting which originated from fan submission, Eberron. Continue on to get the dirt. Full Story Posted July 25 2003 by Zalaster

Stuff Gamer Interview: Homelan has an interview up with Simon Munk the Editor of the newly announced Stuff Gamer magazine due out this year. We asked Simon Munk through an email exchange last week how much focus Stuff Gamer would have for MMO Games, to which we were told, "We'll focus on MMOs as much as we think there's a need to for the average guy who plays games." Do average guys play MMO games? Posted July 25 2003 by Div Devlin

DAoC RvR Expansion: Dark Age of Camelot's Matt Frior updated the Camelot Herald with what everyone has been clamoring for, a RvR expansion which they are calling "Frontiers" as the working title, He starts with what's next for good old Camelot. We hear the clamoring from the community for more information about the RvR expansion (working name is Dark Age of Camelot: Frontiers). However, we don't want to release any information about the expansion until we decide exactly what we are going to do. The scope of Frontiers is currently much larger than it was when we first announced it, and we need to be careful not to promise anything until the details are hammered out. Read the full skinny. They also have new screenshots up showing off the differnce between the "Trials of Atlantis" expansion coming out and the current build in "Shrouded Isle." Posted July 25 2003 by Div Devlin

Horizons Beta 3: Tazoon.com the official place for Beta news on Horizons had an update that Beta 3 notices were sent out from Monika Carlson of Artifact. As posted on Tazoon: Monika Carlson, Director of CS and QA at Artifact Entertainment posted the following news on our Beta Forums and gave me permission to post it here: Hello Everyone, I wanted to let everyone know that the Horizons Beta III CD mailing has begun! We will be sending out the CD’s in batches, and will notify each group as soon as their CD’s are sent out. If you are in the first group of people who were sent CD’s today, you will have received an email from me notifying you of this. If you have not received an email from me, do not despair! The people who were not sent CD’s today will receive them in the next batches mailed. Hey, our writer Tune didn't get a beta notice and he is our resident Horizons fanboi! Posted July 25 2003 by Div Devlin

New Underworld Trailer and Game Sony sent word over that there is a "NEW!" Underworld Trailer out for this Matrix/Vampire/Werewolf movie that is going to rock the house next month. But, there is a second treat as well! If you play Half-Life®, get ready to play the new mod - Underworld Bloodlines. The free game allows you to join either the Vampire or Lycan sides as you try to capture the Hybrid who can help your side win the war between the clans. There are two large maps, many characters to play, and a variety of custom weapons from the movie. Check them out. Posted July 25 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG Says No Ebay! Star Wars: Galaxies finally announced their official stance regarding Ebay sales which currently have almost 700 items up for auction. From Haden Blackman on the SWG Developer Boards: We hope you are enjoying Star Wars Galaxies®: An Empire Divided®. This notice is to remind you that the purchase, sale or auction of any characters, items, credits or any copyrighted material associated with Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided is an infringement of applicable intellectual property laws and is also not permissible under the Terms of Use for the game. Any person violating the Terms of Use is subject to having his or her account suspended or terminated. LucasArts encourages you to use the bazaar and the secure trade feature in the game to trade any credits or items, as these features were designed specifically to support the in-game economy. Many people have contacted LucasArts to report improper sales and auctions as they believe such activity interferes with their positive gaming experience. Please note that LucasArts will be working closely with various companies to ensure that improper sales, purchases or auctions do not occur in the future. We look forward to your continued enjoyment of Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. Haden Blackman LucasArts Producer No mention on selling a persons time to aquire the items. Posted July 25 2003 by Div Devlin

CoS leaves Shadowbane: One of the largest and oldest guilds remaining in Shadowbane from North America announced they were leaving the game today. Covenant of Swords (CoS) who made their home on the Treachery server, made the announcment on their message boards stating that they were bowing out, "due to a lack of end game." This is a pretty hard hit for Wolfpack, Ubi and Shadowbane as CoS was one of the most reknown beta guilds within game. Chris "Vosx" Mancil told us he was sad to hear this news when it was announced as "Covenant of Swords" was as he viewed it, "One of the best guilds within Shadowbane. They were very active in role-play, gave purpose to PvP, and are a fun group. Everyone at Ubi and Wolfpack is sad to see them leave." Vosx also stated that he hopes to see them eventually return as Wolfpack and Ubi are convinced that "the core idea that attracted everyone to Shadowbane is still intact," and will be realized in time. "They will be missed." One of the Inner Counil officers for CoS we spoke to said they are not ruling out a return to Shadowbane in the future. "A number of our members are still going to remain active within game on Treachery with alternate tags. At this time though, how many Rank 5 Characters should we have? We [CoS] are bored of fighting mobs, and sieging." We hear rumors that things are coming down the pipe that are going to make some great changes to Shadowbane within the next couple of months that will deliver everything people have been yearning for. Posted July 23 2003 by Div Devlin

As The Market Burns: Simon and Schuster's book division cut 75 jobs or 5 percent of the work force in one of the largest cuts in the division since 1996. Simon and Schuster Interactive are the guys running Eve Online. Should we be worried? (Thanks Pud!) It looks like we should be. AVault has a follow-up that Simon and Schuster Interactive will be cutting two postitions from their staff as well. TECH TV BOOBIES! Wheeeeeeeeeee!!! NSWF! (I found out the hard way!) TECH TV's Catherine Schwartz who does the "Call For Help" with Leo Laporte posted revealing pics of herself on her Blog! If you got to see them if you lucked out. If you missed them, Pud archived them here. Is that Mairjuana? SAHWEET! Posted July 23 2003 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Stuff: City of Heroes announced that they have released the final batch of Hero pics onto thier site. As posted: The final batch of Surviving Eight contest hero pictures are now available for your viewing pleasure. The artistic talent of the CoH community continues to amaze us! Thanks to all who participated in the Surviving Eight contest and look for the winner of the best character design/description to be posted this week! The contest officially ended last Friday but the pics will live on for a lifetime! Don't forget if you are heading down to GenCon tommorrow be sure to meet Jack "Statesman" Emmert while he is hanging at the Eidos booth at 2pm. Posted July 23 2003 by Div Devlin

What makes a game an MMO: Adam Mateljan, the CEO of Terraforge has an article up on Startics detailing what makes a game an MMO as opposed to a multi-player game, which many people seem to get confused on. As he starts out: As the games industry continues to reach more consumers and is discussed by more and more media people who aren't always familiar with our industry, we need to remind ourselves that people outside the industry don't always share our understanding of gaming jargon. The definitions of "multiplayer" and "massively multiplayer online" are a case in point. It's a good read. Posted July 23 2003 by Div Devlin

Realms of Torment Contest: Realms of Torment is holding a contest for thier game in which fans can design audio or visual elements of the game to win the chance of a coveted beta slot! The contest which already started runs until August 22nd. All submissions must be related to RoT (visual or audio for RoT's characters, weapons, armors, monsters, lore, storyline, music etc OR proposals for any of them). Each participant has the right for max 3 contest entries. Posted July 23 2003 by Div Devlin

MMO Marketing by Dave Rickey: Dave Ricky has tossed up his thoughts on how to market MMO Games drawing comparisons from his former employer Mythic (Dark Ages of Camelot) to Blizzard and to his current home Mutable Realms and Wish over on the Vault boards. I dunno if Mutable Realms is ready for such an outspoken guy when they have been so quiet during their development period. Posted July 21 2003 by Div Devlin

MEO Housing Expanded: Middle-Earth Online has updated their site with the long awaited answers to housing that have been plauging the minds of players for some time now. The last update we saw on housing was at the beginning of the month where Namaire posed in a Dev Diary that, "each race in MEO will have separate housing areas within the game." Well that's been expanded upon: Unique housing for each race located in some of the legendary towns and cities of Middle-earth. Players will be able to inhabit individual abodes or acquire large houses suitable for whole kinships. Houses can be customized with a wide variety of items. Housing guest lists allow kinships to gather at the house of any member. Players will be able to keep their possessions secure in private storage. It's slowly getting there and will be interesting to see how Turbine incorporates Player Housing into the game engine. Posted July 21 2003 by Div Devlin

Puzzle Pirates Open beta: Here is a new MMO Game that shipped under the Radar. Puzzle Pirates a game based on, 'Pirates' and Puzzles enterd beta last week for those who are not faint of heart and enjoy problem solving. From the Press Release: "Puzzle Pirates" has been in Alpha testing for eight months, during which players have wagered in Swordfighting puzzle challenges, pillaged the seas in crews by playing the Sailing, Bilging, Navigation, Carpentry and Gunnery puzzles, and enjoyed a few relaxed rounds of the Drinking game. Yohoho! is a highly social game, with players forming Crews and political coalitions. A rich player-driven economy fills out high-level gameplay with shop ownership, trading and island colonization. Three Rings' Designer and CEO, Daniel James, said, "'Puzzle Pirates' brings fun puzzle games into the satisfying context of a persistent, piratical world. Sea dogs love a good challenge, and in 'Yohoho!,' puzzling skill earns booty for ye and yer fellow crewmates. Tis fun to play by dropping in for twenty minutes, yet ye can build a pirate dynasty to last for years! Arrr!" Three Rings has developed "Puzzle Pirates" independently with a team of six fine buccaneers, with a focus on fun and gameplay over technology and realism. The game is written in Java and debuts with support for Windows and Linux, with Mac OSX coming soon. "Yohoho!" will launch this summer as a subscription service for a modest monthly fee, available at www.puzzlepirates.com and through a major gaming network. "Yohoho!'s" audience ranges from puzzle game enthusiasts, many of them adults and the majority women, along with fans of massively multi-player role-playing games. And, of course, pirates... C'Mon, it's really a kids game, no? Posted July 21 2003 by Div Devlin

Wish Beta Applications Open: Mutable Realms is now accepting beta applications for would be testers for thier "Ultra Massively Multiplayer Online Game," Wish through Themis-Group. It's a standard application which asks all the generic questions. Posted July 21 2003 by Div Devlin

AC2 Server Consolidation: Not that this comes as a suprise to most people, on Friday Turbine announced on the Insider that they will be shutting down and consolidating servers for Asherons Call 2. Plans are to open up two new worlds in which they will transfer existing characters leaving the two already merged servers downgrading from nine servers to four. The full announcement. This is pretty much a hard hit for Turbine and we feel for them. Meanwhile, fans of the original Asheron's Call still want an expansion. Take part in the "What We Want Survery." Oh, and lest we forget to mention that right now Mircosoft is offering a trial version for download that will let you play the game free for two weeks. Just in time for the August episode in which the servers will consolidate. Posted July 21 2003 by Div Devlin

EnB Name Change Service: EA is continuing to ream players for every dollar they can, now in Earth and Beyond. Already a program in Ultima Online they are now offering a "Name Change Service" for the low, low cost of $19.99U.S. I'm suprised they are not offering a 900 number to call in for ordering the change. Posted July 21 2003 by Div Devlin

MMO Gaming at GenCon: This week starts the GenCon Game Fair in it's new home of Indianapolis, moving away from it's traditonal home of Wisconsin and once more the presence of MMO Games that will be show casing their games to the general public is increasing. There is a huge line-up already planned, plus a seminar with industry folks. Check below for all the goodness. Full Story Posted July 21 2003 by Div Devlin

Lineage 2 FAQ Update: Lineage 2: The Blood Chronice has a new and updated FAQ for ya know, those "Frequently Asked Questions" up on the main site. From the FAQ they announce that Beta started in Korea on July 9th, with the North American version developed about 70 percent. Also, MAC users won't be getting any love as they are using the Unreal Warfare engine. Posted July 21 2003 by Div Devlin

Mythica FAQ Update: Mythica has updated their FAQ as well, this update deals with the question of "When is the Beta, and how can I get on it?" The answer is, Keep Checking Back for Updates and or keep an eye out on the assorted fansites. Ya knew that was coming, eh? Posted July 21 2003 by Div Devlin

Atriarch Dev Diary: Atriarch has updated their site for the game in development by World Fusion. In the update they tell us about their server and ISP upgrade, on testing the server cluster, testing the patch server (it worked as planned!) and they address an e-mail sent in by an avid fan who wonders how Wolrd Fusion get's all the content done with such a small development team. Check it. Posted July 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Dark and Light Beta Testing: Dark and Light sent word out that they have decided not to skimp out on the quality of the game, so have delayed the start of beta to Septemebr. Meanwhile, still holding true to the course that they are going to be "the largest online gaming world to date," they filled in some of the game worlds back-story on the site. In it they focus on the "Dark Age," detailing the rise of the Dragoons, the spliting of elves' magics, and the conquest of the 9th, 5th, 2nd and 7th Kingdoms. Posted July 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Dungeons of Norrath Gifts: EverQuest subscribers who pick up the "Lost Dungeons of Norrath" expansion are going to be awared some gifts. Sony announced that not only will the box contain a collectible key-chain, but they are going to offer a gift within game: For the first time, Sony Online Entertainment is offering both a "real world" item and an "in-game" item to those who purchase the boxed retail version of Lost Dungeons of Norrath. Inside the retail box is a unique, collectible EverQuest-branded keychain, while the in-game item is the magical "Satchel of Abu Kar." What is a Satchel of Abu Kar? Not much is known about the ancient adventurer, Abu-Kar, beyond a few rare weight-reducing containers that are occasionally discovered. Now rumor has it that a buried storehouse full of these fine satchels has recently been unearthed by the Wayfarers Guild. This satchel will carry eight small-to-large sized items, and magically reduces the weight of everything within by 25%. The satchel will be a single non-drop "lore" item that can only be granted to one character avatar per EverQuest account. The bad news is for those who pre-ordered the expansion, downloaded it, and then die in game lose all their levels past 50, as well as being unrecognized as owning the other expansions. Huge game stopping bug, eh! Posted July 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Starts Beta: In case you did not get the notice, that means you were not one of the first testers picked from the 130,000 that registered for beta of Dragon Empires which sent out activation letters today announcing the first round. Beta is going to expand with more testers being added in during the next several phases. Posted July 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Test Server: We heard rumbles about a Shadowbane Test Server which we had no idea about, and now it's been made public! Well, that is if you have a Shadowbane account. This is another positive step in the right direction for Ubi showing support for Shadowbane as players can actually catch all these bugs that the internal QnA team seems to be missing update-after-update to live servers. Hell, this could be the closet thing to the enjoyment in the final days of Beta for Shadowbane when you know servers will be wiped and new alliegances can be formed and new boundries on maps revisted. Check out how to log into the server and details. Although, one would think that it would of been available prior to release no? Posted July 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Asheron's Call Getting a New Town? Asheron's Call has an announcement up by Turbine that they are going to be adding a new town into the game. The fans were the one's who got choose the name of this town, it's going to be called "Candeth Keep." The new city in Dereth, being built by Isparians, Tumeroks, and Lugians, will be named Candeth Keep. The name is taken from Candeth Martine, a man who was the subject of terrible experiments by the Virindi and was for some time an enemy of the people. At the climax of Gaerlan's attacks upon Dereth, Candeth changed his ways and courageously attached, preventing Gaerlan's victory. Without Candeth Martine, all three races might well have been wiped from Dereth. Fans are pleased. Candeth Keep almost doubled the other names in votes. Meanwhile, the town just ain't good enough. Fans want an expansion! It has been over two years since Dark majesty was released. We've partnered with Stratics, Vault and Warcry who is hosting a "What We Want Survey!" Take the Poll. Posted July 17 2003 by Div Devlin

It's all about the STUFF! If you have not heard there is a new player coming to the gaming magazine market. STUFF Magazine, long a leading men's rag-mag is branching out with STUFF GAMER! This rocks. Stuff, known for beautiful cover girls and cool, authoritative product reviews, is announcing a special video gaming issue called Stuff Gamer. The new publication from Dennis Publishing will put Stuff's trademark attitude and product expertise into a video game magazine. The Nokia N-Gage mobile game deck will be the exclusive sponsor of this separate video gaming magazine, hitting newsstands this October. Stuff Gamer is aimed at the millions of guys out there who play games but don't want to wade through pages of technical jargon, cheat codes and overly-detailed articles just to find out what's hot in gaming. The magazine will cut straight to the point-giving hardcore gamers the depth of information they need, with hard-hitting news and a massive, authoritative reviews section, while recreational gamers will get hooked in by the action-packed features and visually appealing, user-friendly design throughout. Stuff has tapped Simon Munk to serve as Editor-in-Chief of the new publication. Munk was on the original launch team for Maxim in the UK in 1995. "The huge video game industry has outgrown the basement and mall arcades," commented Munk. "And it has outgrown the spotty-nerd profile of existing video game magazines. It's high time for a magazine that doesn't just appeal to the hardcore, but to the vast majority of regular guys who're recreational gamers too." Munk has been Stuff Magazine's video games writer since 2000 and has worked closely with Stuff's in-house team to develop their video game content. He is also a freelance video game journalist for international media including The Times, England, The Evening Standard, and is a correspondent for the international broadcast TV show Gamer TV. Munk first played video games in the 70s, in the bustling arcades of London's West End and has been an avid gamer ever since. Stuff is the nation's # 2 men's lifestyle magazine behind Maxim. It is published 12 times per year by Dennis Publishing. Posted July 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Goodness: Dragon Empires has released their latest newsletter with some video goodness. With beta starting next week for Phase 0, they released the footage that was showcased at E3 this year. Also up is the official opening of the Role-Play Boards where those who love to tell a tale and spin a story can now share with others in the community. Gadsolme has also issued another tale for those who plan to travel the lands of Fortitude with an introduction to of the Greenvale Pivot. Next Monday will also be a House of Commons chat hosted on Stratics with the development team. Posted July 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Sphere Website Live: Sphere the MMO game in development by 1C and Nikita has gone live with their website. They introduce how the game came to be to date. Most of the site is still under construction. Posted July 17 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG Still On Top: NPD/Tech World has released their top ten totals for the week ending on July 5th. Star Wars: Galaxies from Sony/Lucas Arts is still on the list dropping from first the week prior to second place. I can't recall and MMO's launched this year that have kept the top first and second spots in the top ten. 1 Warcraft III: Frozen Throne Expansion Pack 2 Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided 3 The Sims: Superstar Expansion Pack 4 Neverwinter Nights: Shadows Of Undrentide Expansion Pack 5 Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos 6 The Sims Deluxe 7 Rise Of Nations 8 Diablo 2 9 The Sims: Unleashed Expansion Pack 10 Tomb Raider Angel Of Darkness Posted July 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Sorry Twisted Monkey! An apology goes out to Twisted Monkey the developers behind the MMO Game "Path to Zenrai." We had earlier reported that the development of this game was canceled to which they informed us that, it has in fact not been canceled. The Path to Zenrai was not cancelled, simply moved to a new domain at www.thepathtozenrai.com which will be launching a new site on the 21st of July. Our bad. Is Cancelled spelled Canceled or or Cancelled? Posted July 16 2003 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Live Chat: City of Heroes Jack "Statesman" Emmert, the Lead Designer from Cryptic Studio's will be chatting it up with fans live tommorrow night on the Scott Miller Live Radio show hosted by UnknownPlayer.com where callers can ask thier questions direct to the man himself. Showtime kick's off at 5:30pm Pacific time, check for details. It's bound to be a good show. Posted July 16 2003 by Div Devlin

Community News: Joe and Pop had a revelation over on WaterThread in which they have decided to "grow up," and have less hatred for MMO Games and the Dev's who make them. They are actually going to refocus on the 'positive' aspects of gaming and why folks enjoy them... or something to that affect. In what is being deemed as the Ultimate Massively Multiplayer Game to encompass millions of users on a global audience simulataneously, GameSpot's Greg Kasavin reviewed "Real Life." For those who don't get it, it's actually a joke and pretty funny. Posted July 16 2003 by Div Devlin

DarkFall Dev Diary: Warcry sends word they have their very first Dev Diary up, which they are proud to shout out, from BTOrwn of RazorWax behind the game DarkFall Online. I am proud to announce that we have our very first developer diary. BT Oren, one of Darkfall's designers, details how Razorwax landed on the decision to introduce a fallen race into the world of Agon. You'd be surprised know where they got their inspiration, but I'm not going to detail the entire article. It is best left in BT Oren's own words. Coolio for WarCry, and it's a good read to boot! (Note: If the links don't work sorry. They [Warcry] sent it in UBB code, which I'm to lazy to convert to html. Posted July 16 2003 by Div Devlin

Ebay Tells Employees, "Shhh!" Over on Internal Memo's is a note sent to employee's who work for Ebay, from the Safe Harbor Manager telling them that talking at their work desks is prohibited! This is funny. If employees violate this corporate procedure they "will be escorted into a meeting room and questioned as to why you are talking, and if it is relevant to your job." How's that for working conditions! Posted July 16 2003 by Div Devlin

CoH's Surviving Eight Contest: City of Heroes has updated the official site with "Surviving Eight Contest" pictures. The contest ends tommorrow for those who have yet to jump in. Note that folks who have been trying to cheat with Freedom Force and Hero Machine pics are being knocked out of the running. It's not good to use someone else's work, which could cuase legal problems for the CoH folks. Check the rules and the pics. Some of these look awesome. Posted July 14 2003 by Div Devlin

Community News: Scott "Unknown Player" Miller is hosting another two "Live" Radio Shows this week on UnknownPlayer.com. The first takes place tommorrow with special guest Mark Jacobs from Mythic Entertainment's "Dark Age of Camelot,"" followed on Thursday with Jack Emmert the lead designer of Cryptic's "City of Hereos." Remember this show you can call in and speak directly to the guest's while asking your questions. Check the details for times and caller numbers. Posted July 14 2003 by Div Devlin

As The World Turns: Even more old news! Thailand baned MMO Games setting play-time curfews after players became addicted to Ragnorak Online. Bangkok - Thailand is to impose a night curfew on online gaming to curb rising rates of addiction by young players, Information and Communications Technology Minister Surapong Suebwonglee said on Tuesday. Game servers, both local and overseas, will be blocked from 22:00 to 06:00 daily from July 15 to September 30, while internet cafes will also have their hours curbed to those times, Surapong told reporters. Under particular attack is Korean role-playing game Ragnarok, which was introduced to Thailand seven months ago and reportedly now has more than 600 000 registered players here. Save the children! Posted July 14 2003 by Div Devlin

Blizzard Invades d20: Blizzard announced a partnership last month (that we missed) with Sword and Sorcery games to bring the Warcraft franchise into the d20 market of Dungeons and Dragons. Designed with direct input from the Warcraft development team, the Warcraft RPG offers players a chance to explore the world of Azeroth in the aftermath of the Reign of Chaos and the battles for The Frozen Throne. The rulebook also features never-before-seen glimpses into the Warcraft universe. The Warcraft RPG will ship worldwide starting the week of July 28th and will be available at independent hobby/comic stores, major booksellers, and directly online. It's expected debut is at GenCon next week. Sword and Sorcery games are also the same folks who brought EverQuest into the d20 market with paper versions of the game as well. Blizzard is expanding fast! Posted July 14 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Dupers Banned: We got word that Ubi has tossed down the ban stick within Shadowbane on an unspecified number of accounts (we hear tell it was alot) that were caught for duping in game currenecy and items. As told to us: After several weeks of internal investigations and analysis of the Shadowbane server logs, the ubi.com Security and Trust Committee began implementing the first phase of disciplinary action against dupers inside the game. As of this morning, a number of subscription accounts were suspended across all ten server worlds. The Committee will also be seizing all gold from both their bank accounts and inventories. Disciplinary actions include suspension, although the worst offenders or repeat offenders have been banned from Ubi Soft. This is only the first wave of our internal sting operation. The duping investigations will be ongoing, and we expect to have a second round of disciplinary actions against other offenders of the ubi.com Terms of Use and the Shadowbane Code of Conduct very soon. - The Shadowbane Team Kudo's to Ubi. Big company with a "Security and Trust Committee" means hundreds of folks who can sue you. Posted July 14 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG Takes First in Sales: Sony Online has another monster. Star Wars Galaxies during it's debut took the first spot out of the top ten selling games for the week ending of June 28th according to the release by NDP Group. 1. Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided 2. The Sims: Superstar 3. Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide 4. Rise of Nations 5. The Sims Deluxe 6. Diablo 2 7. The Sims: Unleashed 8. Finding Nemo: Nemo's Underwater World of Fun 9. Finding Nemo 10. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos Did you doubt? Posted July 14 2003 by Div Devlin

As The Market Turns: Bikini Babes! No, not the Karate game. Tecmo proudly announced that it has released an eye-popping line of exclusive swimwear based on its "Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball" video game. Now everyone can enjoy the visual feast that the beautiful ladies of DOAX have to offer, by wearing, sharing, or collecting these hot new outfits. With this move, Tecmo becomes the first video game publisher to dive into the fashion apparel arena. "Video games are a huge part of everyone's lifestyle," says John Inada, Director of Sales and Marketing for Tecmo. "With such a successful crossover between games, movies and music, we realized that fashion apparel also needed to be part of this mix. It's just another way of connecting with our trend-setting audience." Available in four exciting styles, DOAX Bikinis have been specifically designed by famed Team Ninja and are manufactured in Japan to ensure the highest quality possible. They are of Limited Edition and are expected to fly off the shelves. DOAX Bikinis are available right now, here in the U.S. at Tecmo's Online Store at www.tecmoinc.com (Note: Tecmo is the game company that was shut down this year at E3 for their crowds which gathered for their Bikini Babes) Posted July 11 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires News: Dragon Empires has a new Dev Diary up and running. This one is with SuperSam, a community member, who gives a players perspective looking from the outside on Dragon Empires. Posted July 11 2003 by Div Devlin

Middle Earth Online Dev Diary: Middle Earth Online has a new Dev Diary up. This is from Namarie and tells us how housing is being planned out for the lands created by Tolkien. The first step with every aspect of MEO game development is to look at how a feature fits into the work of Tolkien. In this case one of the things that immediately springs to mind is that the races of Middle-earth live, for the most part, in distinct towns and regions, such as the Shire or Rivendell. At the same time, individuals of every race wander through the world, and frequently take up residence with new friends. To conform to this vision each race in MEO will have separate housing areas within the game, but any characters of any race will be able to stay close to their friends by purchasing housing in any town they can reach. Check it. Posted July 11 2003 by Div Devlin

Climax Gains 5 Nominations: Climax the folks developing Warhammer Online celebrated its fifteenth year as one of the nation's leading development studios with five nominations in the inaugural Develop Industry Excellence Awards. One of only two companies up for five awards, Climax has been nominated in the coveted categories of Technology, Innovation, Business Development, Best Online Development Studio and Best Independent Development Studio. Karl Jeffery, CEO at Climax was understandably delighted: "Being nominated for 5 awards is fantastic news and is recognition of how the company has gone from strength-to-strength over the last couple years. I can't think of a better way to celebrate our fifteenth year in the industry than to be nominated for these awards. It proves that we're doing things right, and I'm exceptionally proud of the way the company has emerged from the recent tough times as a fitter, larger and more versatile business." Sponsored by respected magazine, Develop, the Industry Excellence Awards have been initiated to reward the talent, innovation and imagination behind games and game technology. The inaugural awards ceremony will be held at Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington on August 27th. Posted July 11 2003 by Div Devlin

Warner Bros Online Games: Looks like the folk at Warner Brothers are gearing up for The Matrix Online as they send over an announcement introducing that they have several new games up and running for various film titles and assorted works on their sites. While they are web based, everyone has to start someplace. The newest addition to their line-up is The Wire based on the Television show. The game takes place in West Baltimore and is similar to Minesweeper and Battleship. As you play the game, video clips from the television show pop up and guide you to victory. HBO - The Wire: The Game Players assume the role of police, searching for evidence and uncovering criminal targets -- before the criminals discover them. A map of West Baltimore sets the stage for addictive game play, and allows players to explore key landmarks from the show. Video from the show provides a rich multi-media experience. Various skill levels test even the seasoned gamer. Check it. (Note: Warner Bros. Online partnered with Ubi Soft to publish The Matrix Online. The Matrix Online is being developed by Monolith with a release date of 2004.) Posted July 11 2003 by Div Devlin

New Astonia Patch: Astonia has a new patch heading into game which adds new areas thanks to Intent Software. The new patch includes a previously unreleased part of the popular Pentagram Quest, as well as several other new special quests for high-level characters. Also coming soon will be Live Quests organized by the game management on a regular basis. Rock On! Posted July 10 2003 by Div Devlin

CoH Message Board Changes: City of Heroes is growing through word of mouth making the community for the game larger. With growth comes change as they tell us they will need to make a few changes to our Message Boards to ensure that they run smoothly and effectively moving forward. As a result of all the recognition City of Heroes has been receiving since E3, we have been experiencing a large influx of new visitors to the web site! We are excited to see our numbers continue to grow over time, but in order to accommodate our veteran and new members. Be sure to check the official site out for details as they change the way messages are archived and limit the size of file attachments within mesages. Posted July 10 2003 by Div Devlin

Community News: UnknownPlayer is hosting another "Scott Miller Live Radio" show with tonights topic being "Breaking Into the Gaming Industry." Tonights special guests will include Gordon Walton (VP and Executive Producer) at Sony Online, Mary Margaret Walker (Founder) of Mary-Margaret.com, and Robin McShaffry (Founder) also of Mary-Margaret.com. Tonights show will start at 5:30pm Pacific where you can call in and ask the guest how to break into the gaming industry. Ok, this is actually pretty cool and we added them to our news categories. While they are not MMO geared, they are offering some really cool gaming services. What the hell am I yakking about? GameTable Online. These guys have created internet versions of some of the cool card and tabletop games that you used to play (or still do) in which you can go head to head against other players. Games like Drakon, Cosmic Wimpout, Nuclear War, and Lord of the Fries with the three most recent additions being Wiz-War, Battle of the Bands and Management Material! Every 13th of the month is free games day too! Check them out. WarCry has been asked by the development company of an upcoming MMO to get your opinion about some rather unique features they're considering putting in their game. They can't give you any further info than that. But if you take their survey, you have a chance to win a Radeon 9800Pro 128MB Video Card or a Radeon 9700Pro 128MB Video Card in a random drawing. Take the survey. It won't hurt anything. Posted July 10 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane News: Ubi Soft has released the teaser notes for their upcoming patch for Shadowbane. Of note is that this patch will include the awaited and hinted at ReSpec options to players who screwed the pooch while leveling up. Also are fixes announced yet again that should reduce lag and crashing. Of particular interest is mention that the Test Server currently has the new client on it that will be available to the public next week. I didn't know that they had a Test Server, I would of played there instead! Wolfpack Studios, the makers of Shadowbane also send out word that they are looking to fill several openings, one of which being an "Associate Producer," as listed on their job page. I thought that role was filled, does this mean that Ubiq is no longer with the pack, or is it for another game in development? Posted July 10 2003 by Div Devlin

UO New Face: Ultima Online introduces a new member of the UO Live Team, STLDude. Would you like to learn more about the members of the UO Live Team? If so, be sure to visit our Comments from the Team section to meet some of the people who create and maintain the world of UO. Hello, my name is Edgar Glowacki and I'm the newest addition to the UO Live team. I am very excited about being at Origin and am looking forward to working with the great people here, as well as getting to know the UO community. My primary job is as a client programmer; I'll be taking some of the load off Alai's plate. Read the Intro. Posted July 10 2003 by Div Devlin

Wish, Themis, Beta, Dave Rickey: Mutable Realms the folks who trademarked the term "Ultra Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (UMMORPGs)" for their upcoming game Wish signed a deal with Themis Group to handle the stages of closed beta testing. From the Press Release: Mutable Realms, an Alabama based independent developer of massively multiplayer games, today announced the signing of a contract with Themis Group, an international provider of outsourcing and consulting solutions and services to the interactive entertainment industry. Under the terms of the agreement, Themis Group will provide critical and quantifiable beta phase services for Mutable Realms' upcoming game Wish(TM), aimed at ensuring that Wish emerges from the closed beta phase ready to successfully scale up to open beta and commercial launch. "Closed beta is a critical phase in the successful development an online game," said Marc Laukien, President of Mutable Realms. "With the Themis Group's experience on our side, we're confident our testing process will be both effective and successful." We saw Wish at E3 and were damn impressed with the game. While it was a early alpha they were showing, the game looked and played better than a lot of games we have seen released as finals. Why go to an outside company like Themis! With so many professionals inside the company of Mutable Relams, why outsource the Beta! Per Themis in the Press Release: "A game as ambitious and innovative as Wish will demand a rigorous and comprehensive beta test," said Alexander Macris, CEO of Themis Group. "We look forward to meeting the challenges ahead." We here on the inside of this site are going to be watching this very closely as the next year ahead is going to be different with Themis doing beta for Wish, based on their past clients. Dark Age of Camelot bad boy Dave Rickey who "was no longer employed with Mythic" has turned up in North Carolina also as the new "Lead Designer" for Wish. Like we said above, this is going to be interesting. Quote of the Day: "It's always a goal of mine to make certain that we as developers listen to the players," said Dave Rickey, Lead Designer of Wish. "I'm now confident we'll hear everything they'll have to say." Posted July 10 2003 by Div Devlin

DAoC + ADS = Editorial! Arcadian Del Sol has an editorial up regarding Dark Age of Camelot housing, merchants and rares. He starts in a narrative prose of Lancelot purchasing his epic quest item from a player merchant at a new house. It is insightful, as he reminds everyone what Ultima Online did wrong, as well as every game to follow including Mythic now. Posted July 8 2003 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond News: Earth and Beyond announced free gifts and surprises that could include Buddy Registration codes, Game Time codes, invites to live community events, and other loot. Founders and veterans especially will be getting a big surprise. A group of players have also started a 900 number so that you can call in and speak to veterans to aid you in the game when you get stuck. This experimental program gives members of our community the chance to receive help and tips from expert players in a new and exciting way. Earth and Beyond's team, as well as EA, disclaim any part of this service what-so-ever! Posted July 8 2003 by Div Devlin

Endless Ages Battle Movie: Endless Ages, which should now be in stores across North America has a new movie up on their official site showcasing battle scenes along with some new screenshots. Posted July 8 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG Breaks 125k Users: Star Wars Galaxies announced last week via a press release that during their first week of "restricted launch or whatever it's called, they topped off with 125,000 registered accounts without any problems? As they say: LucasArts' Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided, the first Star Wars massively multiplayer online (MMO) game, experienced unprecedented success in its first week of availability, garnering more than 125,000 users and receiving accolades from gaming press and players alike. ... "As evidenced by the incredible player turnout during the first week, the launch of Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided was the single most successful introduction of an MMO to date," says Simon Jeffery, president of LucasArts. "The game has broken all previous records for first week subscription totals, which bodes very well for the ongoing success of the game." "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided is the fastest selling MMO in history," says John Smedley, president, Sony Online Entertainment. "We're ecstatic to be in a position with Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided where we can begin to offer events, such as the Unification Day celebration, so soon after launch. Throughout the development and into the launch of the game, the community has continued to grow stronger and more supportive and these types of events are a way for us to say 'thank you' to our players." We missed John Smedley who knows how to spin it! We wonder what game Simon Jeffery was playing at Lucas Arts. Quote of the Day: "The launch of SWG was the single most successful introduction of an MMO to date." - Simon Jeffery, Posted July 8 2003 by Div Devlin

Tajima leaves UO/EA: Bryan "Tajima" Walker has left the OSI building and the sinking ship that is Ultima Online. In his final post after speculation on Stratics boards, he stopped by with his farewell: Thank you very much. I greatly enjoyed my involvement with UO, and look forward to seeing the exciting things OSI is working on come to fruition. -Tajima He will be missed. Is anyone even left at UO? Posted July 8 2003 by Div Devlin

Have a Safe 4th! Have a safe holiday, and for those traveling out of town, safe travels! When you are out and about under the influence, let someone else blow off the fireworks so you don't lose a finger or an eye, and remember don't drink and drive! See you next Tuesday! Oh, and there are two days worth of updates below on what's going on. Sucks when you miss a day and a half of updating. Talk about overload. SO what if it's old news and you already read about it somewhere else, you did not read it here yet! Posted July 3 2003 by Div Devlin

Anarchy Online's Inner Sanctum: Anarchy Online just got some new content in the form of the "Inner Sanctum" as well as an ingame even they are running. The Inner Sanctum is a new high-level dungeon where you can finally come eye to eye with Hezak the Immortal, the enigmatic cult leader at the Temple of the three winds. Then there is an the Hollow island weed event, a massive ringspawn event with hundreds of monsters to battle and close to 100 unique items to be found. Be prepared for a tough fight though. Monsters start at level 150 and hurl themselves at any attacker in scores and scores. If you can solve the riddle and find the location that is. Oh, and don't forget the new content! Loads of new items in all outdoor dynacamps! There are about 140 outdoor boss areas in AO, where you find one tough leader and several minions called Dynacamps, and they come in all level ranges and can be found all over the planet. With this update Anarchy Online implements loads of new items which only can be found in the dynacamps to stimulate out-door hunting even further, since these items can’t be found in regular missions. Wicked. Check the release notes. Dynacamps is a new word, compared to the private dungeons everyone else is starting to include in their upcoming MMO's. Posted July 3 2003 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Screenshots: Did you miss out on the exclusive screenshots for City of Heroes that appeard in PC Gamer mag? Fret no more! Want a closer look at the screens featured in the July PC Gamer cover story? How about the pics just released in the August issue of Computer Games? Check out these visual delights (plus a few extra never-seen-before), CoH has tossed up an update to thier screenshots section with all the pics. Also up on the CoH site are the "Surviving Eight Hero Pics!" The "Create One Of The Surviving Eight" NPC Contest has brought in a lot of great entries according to the folks there! Sharing is fun! They share just some of the hero visuals that they have received, so check them out! Keep in mind – they have not chosen any finalists yet, so if an image is included there, it doesn’t mean it is or isn’t a finalist or that the author gained any advantage by submitting an illustration. CoH just thought you might enjoy seeing some of the extreme creativity possessed by the community members! Names and hero-specific submission information has been left out to protect the innocent. Enjoy! Contest ends July 16th, so read the rules and send in those submissions! Posted July 3 2003 by Div Devlin

Community News: Scott "Unknown Player" Miller is hosting another live radio show tonight after canceling due to faulty equipment last weeks show. With untested equipment he is off to the races for tonight at 5:30pm Pacific Time with guests Brian Green from Near Death Studios and Larry Dunlap of Intelligent Life Games. What makes this so special is that it's just not another radio show, but it's interactive! You can call in, and ask the questions you want to have answers for, if the guests answer your question that is. Details can be found on UnknownPlayer.com. Hackers are getting ready to have some fun this Sunday! The government warns that hackers plan to attack thousands of websites Sunday in a loosely coordinated "contest" that could disrupt the net. defacers-challenge.com (Which has been shut down) listed in broken English the rules of the contest as they go out to deface websites. They also posted a warning that, "deface it's crime." Well yeah, it is illegal. Nice disclaimer! Hey! When boredom sets in and you can't get to your MMOG, browser based games are always a fallback! The folks at OMGN have set up its own server for the open-source space strategy browser-based game, Solar Empire! Be sure to check it out! Warcry sent us word that they have a review up for Jumpgate. There's a little known space game out there, not planet-building, not mining but space game called Jumpgate. Developed more than two years ago, it's never really received it's due attention. One of our staff members, David Ibn Jensen, had the pleasure of trying out the new expansion, Attack of the Conflux, as well as their Commissioned Pilot Program - you can become level 26 in a hurry for only $19.95! What he found was a game of rich graphics, rich gameplay, intense roleplaying and GM involvement of the like he'd never experienced. Check it. Posted July 3 2003 by Div Devlin

DE Story and Q&A: Dragon Empires, short and sweet! The final part of the Beginnings story has been posted. Q&A 28 with IGN RPG Vault is up Stratics have logs of Monday's dev chats! Posted July 3 2003 by Div Devlin

Endless Ages in N.America: Summitsoft Corporation announced the release of Avaria's Endless Ages to retail stores in North America. This unique mixture of genres is the first massively multiplayer online game to boast no invisible load walls and virtually zero lag common among other massively multiplayer games. Endless Ages further claims it is also the first game of this type to add player vs. player arenas popular among first person shooter fanatics. "Unlike other MMORPGs...Endless Ages throws so much variety into the overall experience that there's rarely a dull moment," states Matthew Peckham, reviewer for PC Gamer magazine. "...this game is really solid stuff...Try it if you're bored with the status quo in massively multiplayer games...it's the one I'll be playing." Retailers are the portal for entry to the world of Endless Ages offering a $39.95 launch pack that includes a startup disc, full in-depth manual and beginner's strategy guide, and 30 days of online access. Endless Ages will be available nationwide beginning June 30th, so that means it is now in stores, with one of the lowest monthly subscription rates of $9.95, which beats out Ultima Online who jacked their prices last month! Posted July 3 2003 by Div Devlin

Enigma Comes to N.America! DreamCatcher Games announced that it will publish Enigma: Rising Tide developed by Tesseraction Games, on PC-CD in North America. Controlling the battle at sea ultimately leads to a victory in any war, and Enigma: Rising Tide allows gamers to do just that. Battling as one of three factions (US, German or the League of Free Nations) players must control a naval fleet of destroyers, submarines, battleships or cruisers. Each commander must deploy suitable weapons to tackle an ever-evolving enemy, from deploying deck guns and torpedoes to launching hedgehogs, and depth charges. "Games based on WWII are more popular than ever, and this unique sim, is a must for fans of the war genre,” said Richard Wah Kan, CEO of DreamCatcher Interactive Inc., “its depth is second to none." The game’s not just about blowing ships up though! Players must use stealth and cunning to plan each mission and communicate with their whole fleet. Gamers will also learn how to evade deadly torpedoes and pluck salvage from the wreckage of enemy vessels. The game features an intuitive interface and superb real-time cinematic action as well as real-time weather that effects ocean dynamics and watercraft physics. Enigma: Rising Tide has an RP ESRB rating at time of press and will ship on August 21st, 2003 with an SRP of $39.99. Posted July 3 2003 by Div Devlin

NwN: Shadows of Undrentide Released! Atari , BioWare Corp. and FloodGate Entertainment have released the first official expansion to the smash hit "Neverwinter Nights", the award-winning fantasy role-playing game based in the "Dungeons & Dragons" "Forgotten Realms" world created by Wizards of the Coast. "Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide" is now available in stores nationwide and was developed under license from Hasbro Consumer Products Worldwide. "'Neverwinter Nights' is the definitive role playing experience on the personal computer," said Steve Allison, vice president of marketing for Atari, Inc.'s Los Angeles studio. "With 'Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide,' we are giving the fans all new content for their single player campaigning as well as new tools to push their own creations to the next level in the `Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolset.'" "Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide" will include a new extensive single player campaign as well as game features new to "Neverwinter Nights," such as additional D&D(TM) skills, feats, classes, monsters, weapons and spells. In addition, the pack will include three new tile sets and other assets for use in the Aurora toolset that will enable module designers to create completely different worlds. The game is being co-developed by BioWare Corp., creators of the original game and the popular "Baldur's Gate" series, and FloodGate Entertainment. A second expansion, "Neverwinter Nights: Hordes of the Underdark," which will feature a new single player campaign and even more features is also in the works for Fall 2003 and is under development exclusively at BioWare Corp. "Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide" offers role playing fans even more D&D features than the groundbreaking original. Additions include: new skills, including Tumble and Appraise; new feats, such as Divine Might, Great Cleave and Bullheaded; new weapons, such as Holy Water Flasks and Choking Powder; five new prestige classes, including the Blackguard, Shadowdancer, and Assassin; new monsters from the D&D universe, including the Pit Fiend, Cockatrice, Sphinx and Manticore; and over fifty new spells. In addition, the expansion pack equips module makers with additional content for the "Neverwinter Nights Aurora Toolset," the groundbreaking software included with the full game that allows players to create their own universes, quests and storylines. The toolset will be augmented with all new tile sets for creation of new environments as well as new "Wizards," or automated guides, to help gamers build and play adventures of their own creation. "Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide" is now available at retail stores nationwide with an estimated retail price of $29.95 and an ESRB rating of "T" for Teen. Additional information about "Neverwinter Nights: Shadows of Undrentide" can be found online at www.bioware.com, which features message boards, wallpapers, screenshots, game play information and much more. My daughter is hard into NwN and almost done. She wants this expansion too! Posted July 3 2003 by Div Devlin

UO Adds Quick Looting: Ultima Online has a new feature in testing that is sure to be abused to hell and high waters in Sosaria! Now on the Update Center is the Quik L33t feature. Readon: If you’ve spent tons of time organizing your backpacks and bags just the way you like them, it can be a real pain to get everything back in order after you die. To make it a little easier to pick up your stuff and keep going, we’re working on a new "Quick Self-looting" feature. Once this feature is in the game, players will have the ability to loot their corpse and get everything back into place without spending tons of time rearranging things the way they had been. To instantly re-equip your items and bags, you can double-click your corpse, which will cause all of your inventory to go back to you, in the same arrangement it was in before. Of course, if you simply want to open your corpse without automatically re-equipping everything, you can use the context menu to do that as well. Here’s a few more notes about this new feature: If you’ve equipped something since you died, and there was something else equipped in that slot on your corpse, the item that was on your corpse will go into your backpack instead. If a player dies more than once, this feature will be available on all their corpses. When your corpse is empty after using the quick self-looting, you will receive a message stating, "You quickly gather all of your belongings." If your backpack becomes full before everything has been removed from your corpse, you will receive a message stating, "You gather some of your belongings. The rest remain on the corpse." Depending on the looting rules in the area where the player died, players’ corpses may still be looted by other players; however, auto-equipping will not work for anyone but the original owner. Blocking Items on the Terrain Note: This Update Center document has been updated July 2, 2003. As part of our goal to continually make UO more fun to play, we’re turning some of our attention to all those bits of flora and other items that block player movement and make it difficult to run. We are not planning to change the art for these items, but we are looking to make them no longer block movement. And yes, this will also mean that these items will no longer block house placement either, which could result in more housing spots across all shards! Since some items in the game world are built differently than others, not all items will be able to be done at the same time. The first group is currently scheduled as part of Publish 19, while the second group will take place in a future publish. Part of this change was included in client patch 4.0.0o, which was released on June 30th, which means that until Publish 19 is implemented, you may experience some "rubber banding" when trying to walk through these objects. People only asked for this, what five years ago? Good things come with time, eh? Posted July 3 2003 by Div Devlin

AO Shadowlands Release Date! Funcom has officially announced the release date for the Anarchy Online expansion Shadowlands which gives a whole new meaning to the game. After 18 months in development, Funcom reveals 26th of August as final release date. Shadowlands will bring lots of unique and creative elements to the online role playing genre. With an impressive amount of new features the expansion pack almost doubles the content in the game, one of many reasons the gaming press has been very positive in their previews. The approach taken in crafting this unique world is based on two years of experience running an online world, and the expansion is tailored to both new and existing players. "We wanted to make something totally unique and original" says Game Director Gaute Godager, "with graphics, depth, ambience and game play like no other online title." The expansion pack will include the full version of Anarchy Online, Anarchy Online - Notum Wars and Anarchy Online - Shadowlands, as well as one month of included game-time for new accounts. Suggested retail price is 29.99 US Dollars. If you pre-order Shadowlands you are entitled to an exclusive luxury apartment in the floating city of Jobe. Posted July 1 2003 by Div Devlin

Don't Expect ST: Online Soon! Homelan has a story up about Activision suing Viacom over the Star Trek liscence which links to a press release over on Yahoo Biz section. "By failing and refusing to continue to exploit and support the Star Trek franchise as it had promised, Viacom has significantly diminished the value of Star Trek licensing rights including the rights received by Activision Damn expoliters! Don't expect to see a ST:O game published any sooner with this news. Posted July 1 2003 by Div Devlin

FoM Skinning Contest Begins: Face of Mankind has officially started their skinning contest as of today! Winners who create enter ave the chance of seeing their avatar which they create in game! In addistion to that they are also giving away some cool prizes: Grand Prize: High-End Graphic Card ASUS GeForce FX 5600 2nd Prize: Adobe Photoshop (OEM) 3rd Prize: 6 months Face of Mankind playing time free of charge The contest runs until August 15th. Check the full details out. Posted July 1 2003 by Div Devlin

Things to Watch: Terminator 3 opens today! I know where I'll be at 8pm tonight. It's about time! I've been waiting to see this version of the continuing storyline since they left the last one open ended. The last two days, I've been following TNT's Ceaser, which overall was a good flick. It will be on over the weekend, so check your listings. Ok, I'm always seeing ads in the papers for your chance to be a movie extra, or "Hundreds of Movie Extra's Needed!" Well, go enter this contest to have a piano or other creative means of death fall on you in a special appearance of this new show "Dead Like Me." It's pretty funny! If Sci-Fi is your thing, then get a chance to win a walk-on appearance on StarGate: SG1, mayhaps you can be one of the Jaffa that gets killed each episode! All of these shows rock. So sayeth me? Posted July 1 2003 by Div Devlin

UO: Lord Blackthorn Defeated! Looks like UO is trying to make an attempt at feature characters, ongoing storylines, and events that shape the game. Even without the Live Events team. Or it's just a prelude to UO:X? Blackthorn has been defeated according to this update on the FYI center, in which his body was not recovered. As incredible as this may sound, dear reader, to this reporter’s eyes it appeared that Lord Blackthorn has been defeated! The virtuous Lady Dawn recently delivered a speech to a large crowd of Britannians on behalf of the ruling council. Lord Blackthorn appeared in Serpent’s Hold and interrupted the event. Blackthorn was belligerent, insulting Lady Dawn before summoning his forces of chaos to attack the assembled masses. The battle raged for a while before local heroes fought it back. Blackthorn decided to escalate the confrontation, and shifted his focus from Serpent’s Hold to Lady Dawn’s home of Yew. The battle turned to a war, as daemons and champions of evil slaughtered good, honest citizens. But virtue and goodness are not to be defeated so easily. The tide turned as Lord Blackthorn’s minions and zealots were routed. This reporter can only believe that the expenditure of magic combined with the onslaught of the attack weakened Blackthorn enough that the good people of Britannia were able to deal him his doom and repel the invasion. In a fantastic explosion of gold coins, Lord Blackthorn was brought down. Sources indicate that although the corpse of Lord Blackthorn was looted clean, the body itself was not recovered. In the aftermath of the battle, Lady Dawn was heard asking this: "Is it true? Is Lord Blackthorn finally gone, his terror ended?" "I find this hard to believe, and yet we cannot dismiss what our eyes have shown us, can we?" Can it be true? Is Lord Blackthorn finally gone, once and for all? Although this reporter’s soul will still shiver at the mention of Blackthorn’s name, we can only hope that we are finally rid of the scourge of chaos. Will he come back as a cyborg? Are we going to see an end to UO as we know it, and the engine for UO2 and the story in there brought back out? Time will tell. Posted July 1 2003 by Div Devlin

Blizzard Founders Bail: Cut-N-Paste: Blizzard Entertainment said Blizzard North co-founders Erich Schaefer, Max Schaefer and David Brevik, along with a fourth employee, Bill Roper, "resigned from the company to pursue other opportunities." Blizzard Entertainment, publisher of "Diablo" and "Warcraft," is widely seen in the games industry as one of the most attractive assets of VU Games, which has been languishing on the auction block for months. Read about it. Blizzard sayeth: Blizzard does not believe that these resignations will cause any significant delays or have long-term negative effects on the "Diablo®" series or other projects in development. The company has just launched "Warcraft® III: The Frozen Throne(TM)" and is also continuing development on "StarCraft: Ghost(TM)", a tactical-action console game, and "World of Warcraft(TM)," a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Read that. Meanwhile CNN has a report that they are already planning on their new start-up. (Thanks Blue!) Posted July 1 2003 by Div Devlin