AC2 Sweepstakes: Asheron's Call 2 is running a BYOF Contest where you , if you are the lucky winner, can get a lifetime comp'ed account to AC2. From April 23 to May 30, Microsoft will be running a sweepstakes for people who refer Asheron's Call 2 to their friends. Ten people will win the Grand Prize: a lifetime AC2 account! Check out the details. Good Luck to any who enter. Posted April 30 2003 by Div Devlin

E3 Guests of Honor: News from E3Expo announces which developers will be having "Special Guest's of Honor" to showcase their games. Most Guests of Honor usually are from the Entertainment Industry, so no doubt you will know these names. Missing from the list though is Britney Spears whom we met at E32000. We lost those pics when our camera bag was lifted. Anyways: [edit: The List is so large, we had to move it to it's own section. Read the Full Story.] Full Story Posted April 30 2003 by Div Devlin

PotBS NPC Contest: (Cut-n-Paste) Flying Lab wants you to write up your own Pirates of the Burning Sea adventurer – pirate, naval officer, or free trader – and send it to us. Craft your tale of action and danger on the high seas of the Caribbean in 1720! The three best entries will be put into the game as NPCs and the winners will be offered a slot in our Beta program. (Actually Pretty Cool! Go read the rules!) Posted April 30 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Video: En-Tranz has tossed up thier version of a Tutorial Video which walks players through the basics of Character Creation. This Video Guide is the first in a series they plan on releasing for Asian Players of Shadowbane. In other Shadowbane news, today is patch day for N. America and Ubi Soft's servers which have been plauged with problems since it's launch. Our final review should be up next week, based on what changes occur now that the first month is over. Posted April 30 2003 by Div Devlin

Time of Defiance Hitting E3: Nicely Crafted the folks behind Time of Defiance will be hitting E3 next month (it's only days away now!) for their first time. From their press release: NiCE is visiting E3 in association with the Department of Trade and Industry and will be showing their Massively Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy game Time of Defiance on stand 2340, as well as showing off one of their next generation products behind closed doors. Ben Simpson, Creative Director said, "Nicely Crafted has never been to E3 before so this marks a big step in our company's history. We think that E3 is the right place to show off our exciting next generation of massively multiplayer games as well as the huge leaps that we continue to make with our unique 3D real-time-strategy game, Time of Defiance." Looking forward to seeing them. Posted April 30 2003 by Div Devlin

NwN: SoU Site Launches... NeverWinter Nights expansion pack the Shadows of Undrentide has thier official site up and running now. Currently the site shocases the five prestige classes, the 16 new monsters and three new tile sets which will be included, as well as an introduction and expanded information. Posted April 29 2003 by Div Devlin

Neocron and iGames Gathering: Neocron made an announcment that they are celebrating the release of the download version at over 100 iGames centers around the globe (Link: iGames.org). On May the 2nd (this Friday), there will a be huge World-Wide-WAN-Party at the iGames centers. If you want to join the action, then signup at a center near you . Non-Neocron players and newbies allowed! Posted April 29 2003 by Div Devlin

BETA-BETA-BETA-BETA-BETA (Anyone remember where that came from?) Second Life the virtual MMO coming from LindenLabs has entered into open beta as they welcome an emerging online society to a 3D shared reality of their own creation per their announcment yesterday: Linden LabTM announced today that its private beta test of Second Life is now open to the general public. Second Life is a burgeoning new online society, shaped entirely by its residents. Participants can explore a constantly-changing 3D world, create anything they can imagine, connect with friends and acquaintances, and compete for fame and fortune. The public beta follows a successful limited beta test that has been in progress since November 2002. Beginning today, anyone who wants to become part of this exciting, emerging world can begin their "Second Life" by registering at www.secondlife.com. In other news they also named Mitchell Kapor as Chairman of Board of Directors who was a founder of Lotus and Electronic Frontier Foundation to help guide development of the game. It looks pretty interesting and an alternative to what we know if you have not checked out the features yet. Posted April 29 2003 by Div Devlin

Universe Unlimited Announced: Another contender enters the MMO market as Ethereal Evolution's website for Universe Unlimted went live. Universe Unlimited is being billed as a science fiction-themed game that will feature gameplay aspects of strategy games, flight sims, and first-person shooters where you can immerse yourself in a constantly expanding and player expanding universe that is based on a 'trade secret.' In UU players will be able to colonize planets, control portions of the universe, help fellow players, or even join the UED military. It's going to luanch 4thQ of this year. They have some message boards up. Posted April 29 2003 by Div Devlin

WoW Classes: World of Warcraft issued an update regarding classes in their upcoming game from Blizzard. Highlighted are the Mage, Shamon and Warrior. They give a sneak peak (1 each) at some of the abilities/powers for each class. Posted April 29 2003 by Div Devlin

AC's Gathering of Colors: "Colors. Colors. I'm a nightmare walking, psychopath talking..." Er, Sorry. AC Warcry sends word that the latest event for Asheron's Call, "A Gathering of Colors", was propped without much of a hitch. Old forgotten quests received upgrades long awaited for. And sneaky stout-imbibing drunks showed their true colors as more powerful characters than ever imagined. As the storyline continues, we see more of a start to the Time of Troubles that precedes the Time of Peace before the Great Cataclysm in AC2. With 100+ years to go, AC1 shows no signs of stopping. You can read the build notes and view the changes on WCoD's Patch Tree. (Thanks Warcry!) Posted April 28 2003 by Div Devlin

DE Dev Diary and Images: Dragon Empires released a new dev diary from departing Principle Artist, Toby Eglesfield who is seeking warmer climes after 13 years at Codemasters! Following the press release announcing what Codemasters would be showing at E3 next month, twelve new images were also released which you can check out in our gallery. Posted April 28 2003 by Div Devlin

Eve Online Preview: Darkmoor Dragon of Four Below Zero has his preview up and running for Eve Online: The Second Genesis. He pulls off the gloves with this introduction: For those who have been avidly following EVE from outside of the beta, be warned, I'm going to tell you how things are, I'm not going to tell you what the Fanboi's want it to be or the PR department are telling you it will be. As such this could be a rather long "Preview" so get comfortable now, while we go over the roller-coaster love and hate relationship that I, and many others, have experienced in EVE - The Second Genesis beta. Check out his honest preview, if you dare. Posted April 28 2003 by Div Devlin

Middle Earth Online News: News is circulating around that Chris Taylor has been out and about on the Official Vivendi Boards for Middle Earth Online, which were captured over on Middle Earth Warcry where he addressed a few questions. How will the advancement system work? Have they reconsidered the idea of "evil" races in Middle Earth? The fledging MEO Warcry site also uncovered a tidbit that there will be no 1st or 2nd Age in LOTR: Middle Earth Online that you can read about. Posted April 28 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Ranks 5th: Ok, somone needs to explain this to me. According to the newest tally by NPD/Techworld for the month of March Shadowbane took 5th out of the top 20 best selling PC games in the U.S. 1 Command & Conquer: Generals 2 The Sims Deluxe 3 Delta Force Black Hawk Down 4 MS Freelancer 5 Shadowbane 6 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield 7 Battlefield 1942 8 The Sims: Unleashed Expansion Pack 9 MS Zoo Tycoon 10 Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell 11 Sim City 4 12 Battlefield 1942: Road To Rome Expansion Pack 13 Master of Orion 3 14 Roller Coaster Tycoon 2 15 Medal Of Honor: Allied Assault Spearhead Expansion Pack 16 Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos 17 MS Age Of Empires 2: Age of Kings 18 Mall Tycoon 19 MS Age Of Mythology 20 MS Zoo Tycoon: Marine Mania Shadowbane by Wolfpack Studios and Ubi Soft was released on March 25th. Most people were not able to attain their copies until March 26th in the store. NPD/Techworld's list released from March 30th to April 5th in which the previous week covering Shadowbane's release showed it taking 8th place. It fell off the chart's the following week. So, how did it take the 5th spot for March, when it was only available for 6 of the seven days? Anyways, congrat's to Wolfpack and Ubi Soft. Discuss: Math is Confusing Posted April 28 2003 by Div Devlin

UO BYOF: (BYOF= Bring Your Own Freind, based on the party slogan BYOB) Some news from inside the world of Ultima Online first home to many a gamer of today. If you "Bring A Friend To Britannia" you get a chance to win a UO in-game (18x18 tiles) custom house plot in Malas on the Shard of your choice! They have some fine print you need to pay attention to. Posted April 28 2003 by Div Devlin

DAoC Formal Announcment: Mythic Entertainment made a formal announcment regarding Dark Age of Camelot and the future. After a nationwide search for a PR firm to take Mythic Entertainment, developer of one of the fastest-growing online games, Dark Age of Camelot, to the next level, the company has settled on The Bohle Company, Los Angeles, as its new agency. Congrats to The Bohle Company as they be representing! The Full Release is Below. Full Story Posted April 28 2003 by Div Devlin

E3 News: With the E3Expo coming up fast, official news comes out from them that over 1,300 never-before-seen interactive games and products will launch this year according to their press release. Leading interactive entertainment companies from around the globe will converge at the 2003 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3Expo) next month to unveil more than 1,350 never-before-seen computer and video games and related products, according to data from the E3Expo 2003 Exhibitor Survey. Survey data, which was released today by the show's owner, the Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA), indicates that 83 percent of all products being shown at this year's E3Expo will be in stores in time for consumers to purchase during the 2003 holiday season. It looks like it's going to be better then previous years. You can check the full release below. Full Story Posted April 28 2003 by Div Devlin

Biting the Hand Hiatus: Jessica Mulligan the infamous ranter/writer for her thought provking articles in which she slams the industry on gaming, reknown author and now some big-wig at Turbine for both Asheron's Call 1 and 2 say's she won't be udpating for a few month's as she has nothing new to say on her Biting the Hand site. I thought there was a rule about ranting, and working for the man? Is she just a temp for AC? Bah. Its not even worth mentioning at this point how she has been against PvP but is now promoting a KvK game. Anyone have a link that works to the "What's the Frequency Kenneth" article that appeard on SBVault a few years ago? Posted April 25 2003 by Div Devlin

MOG Magazine #2 Coming: Yes, this time it really is coming. Statement issued: MASSIVE ONLINE GAMING #2 to Ship in May, This Time We Really Mean It? After much delay, the long-awaited second issue of MASSIVE ONLINE GAMING (MOG) magazine is scheduled to arrive on retail shelves in mid-May. The first issue of MOG appeared in October 2002, but the follow-up was delayed when the original publisher of the magazine went out of business, forcing the magazine's creators, Incan Monkey God Studios (IMGS, Inc.) of Austin, Texas, to go searching for a new publishing partner. Now with the clout of a major publisher supporting it, MOG is available either by subscription ($35.99 for 12 issues, domestic) or at your favorite game store. MASSIVE ONLINE GAMING is a monthly, full-color, 144-page magazine with limited advertising. It covers massive-multiplayer, persistent world online games and the communities of players that support them, written by players for players. The cover feature for MOG #2 is a 12-page exclusive look at Star Wars Galaxies. Other games featured in this issue include: Asheron's Call 1 & 2, Dark Age of Camelot, EverQuest, The Sims Online, Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, Earth and Beyond, World War II Online, Furcadia, Dransik, Warhammer Online, Astonia 3, Neocron and Phantasy Star Online. Subscription information and other details may be found at www.mogonline.com or by contacting David Ladyman, Editor-in-Chief (dladyman@incanmonkey.com). Cool. Posted April 25 2003 by Div Devlin

Mythica Announced: A new MMOG from Microsoft was unvieled yesterday on GameSpy in a first of two part introduction to Mythica, a Norse themed game. Posted April 25 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Off Charts: Shadowbane in North America had a good debut during the first week of it's release as reported by NPD/TechWorld in which it made it's debut at Number 8, now the results are in for the period of April 6th April 12th. 1 Delta Force Black Hawk Down 2 The Sims: Unleashed Expansion Pack 3 Command & Conquer: Generals 4 The Sims Deluxe 5 MS Zoo Tycoon 6 Powerpuff Girls: Mojo Jojo's Clone Zone 7 CSI: Crime Scene Investigation 8 Warcraft III: Reign Of Chaos 9 Battlefield 1942 10 Mall Tycoon That was shortlived. Posted April 25 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG Interview on Warcry: Tark from SWG.Warcry was recently given the chance pose Haden "Shug_Ninx" Blackman and Kevin "Q-3PO" O'Hara some of the same questions from an interiew recently done with Jeff Grills, Grant McDaniel, Raph Koster and Arnie Jorgensen from the Star Wars: Galaxies team. Check out the interview. Posted April 25 2003 by Div Devlin

AC2 For Free! So like what do you do when no one is buying your game, and you have no subscribers? Give it away! Well, it's not really Turbine that's doing it. Or is it? Any how, EBGames is running a special right now where you get a 30.00 rebate on a 29.99 copy of Asheron's Call 2 if you send them proof of purchase from one of the other MMO's out. Gamestop is running the same thing. Someone has to pay for those rebates, no? Posted April 24 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Thing: The official Dragon Empires site got a touch of a remake with a new top banner as well as some bits and peices. They are planning on doing a full makeover and relaunch of the site after E3. If yer feeling the need for DE, then head over to PC Gameworld to check out this interview as well as an interview up on Moonshade covering some of the new races. Posted April 24 2003 by Div Devlin

Eve Online, Rutro Shaggy! Negative as Negative Can be. With the official removal of the NDA for Eve Online yesterday some folks beat me to the punch on slamming this soon to be released title from CCP and S&SI. On Four Below Zero, Darkmoor Dragon (Yes, that guy!) reviews the press release, comparing notes on what they are telling us, as opposed to what they are actually giving us. I could literally see him frothing at the mouth as he wrote that up. It's all good. HaemisH over on WaterThread give's a first look from what he encountered within beta. In sapce, no one can hear you scream right? I think he was screaming to himself over his short stay in the game. Sentiments that are being echoed throughout the MOG Community. Posted April 24 2003 by Div Devlin

Planetside Golden! The Station sent over an advertisement that Planetside will be in the store on May 19th, of note in the wording is that the game will be in "limited release nationwide." They hope you will pre-order now to secure your copy. Is this a gimmick? Create a mad rush to get copies sold, or they don't think it will sell well, so they are creating hype while limiting production? Posted April 24 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Stuph: Smackdowns commenceth as further information is released about that whole hacking thing. Turns out some players accused BoneDancer of the Rolling30's guild of hacking their accounts and city, so that they would not be crushed in an upcoming guild war. Six members of the city to be razed screamed fire and blame-shifted in a cover up sparking riots all across the player base when Ubi and Wolfpack were already having server problems. In the end, Wolfpack and Ubi have been working on the problems non-stop and have issued a credit to accounts in good standing for the down time. You can check it on the Chronicle site. Drama is good. Valkyrie on Aerynth Sanctum has released a Mapping Utility which can be downloaded. It rocks. Shows Mob Points, Locations, Cities, and let's you add in your own notes. Kinda of like the old UOMapper for those who know it. SBVault has been standardized with the other IGN Vault sites with it's new look and format, Sachant also has Part Three up to her long in the waiting Houses of Thrones series. Love for Euro's! Even though Swing! is gone right now for Shadowbane, some aspiring players from E.U. have discovered a way to play Shadowbane in N. America while using their Credit Cards and Home Billing Address. Check it out. (Thanks Darkmoor Dragon!) Posted April 24 2003 by Div Devlin

Anarchy Online major content update! Anarchy Online gets a major content update with the mission system revamped! The "Mission Update" is one of the largest content additions to Anarchy Online so far, both in terms of new gameplay, looks and technical improvements. The main focus of the update has, as the name inclines, been our unique mission system. We have now revamped all missions areas in order to make it more fun, diverse and not the least a lot better looking. The "camping is not so fun" attitude has always been central in the design of Anarchy Online, and the Mission Terminals, with their personalized content on demand, has been at the core of this. With more than 15 million missions completed so far, they are most definitively a vital part of the gameplay experience in AO. This update further proves that AO continues to lead the way as a cutting edge MMORPG. No other online game has anything similar. The "Mission Update" introduces new looks, better layout, improved view distance, mines, turrets, cameras, new loot system, better pathing due to larger rooms, and not the least a whole host of other changes. Check out the full skinny dawg. Posted April 23 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Q&A: Dragon Empires has a new chat up and running on RPG Vault, this one on the Shadow, one of the two new races we announced last week. Jonric pulls out a good question in the interview: From the initial information and what you've just said, the Shadow race seems best suited to rogue-like characters. How accurate is this assessment, and how do they fit within the game's clan vs. clan context? And how viable will Shadows be for solo play? Go check out the interview for the answer to that. Posted April 23 2003 by Div Devlin

Eve Online Golden! Eve Online the Space MOG developed by CCP and published by Simon and Schuster for North America has gone gold. Only days remain for their launch with the game available in the store on May 6th. Crowd Control Productions (CCP), developer of the highly anticipated massive multiplayer online game (MMOG) "EVE Online: The Second Genesis" announced today the client portion of the game has been certified 'gold' and has been released to manufacturing. Work continues on the server side of EVE which will be ongoing through to launch on May 6, 2003. The NDA has also been removed. No information is available on the Eve site. Fans are always the last to know. Posted April 23 2003 by Div Devlin

Warden Speaketh! Warden speaks. It's 2am CST, and here is a quick update for everyone still awake: - A patch just went up on the login servers, and Game server numbers are climbing.. so while this issue certainly isn't behind us yet, we are making progress. We will continue to monitor this from our side and give you updates as we can. - We're putting a designer and a server programmer on a 5am flight to Montreal (meaning 3 hours from now) to assist the operations team in any way possible to try and make sure this problem doesn't continue to plague us. - While I'll have to sleep at some point, tomorrow I will continue my efforts to sit on the forums and give you guys up-to-the-minute information as it becomes available. I know I'm not always able to provide the answers you want, but at least you'll have someone listening to your questions and concerns and trying to provide answers. - The rest of the development team (i.e. the ones not on a plane) will be on constant duty until this problem is resolved. I understand the frustration that many of you are feeling, and we will continue do everything we can to resolve this situation and get you back into the game and having fun. Please realize that we understand the gravity of this situation, and are doing everything we can to fix it. Information goes a long way. This is why so many people are interested in the vision of Shadowbane. Trying to read posts on the boards though is an entirely different matter. Posted April 23 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG Open Beta, Not So Open: "Dude, u suck." Thats probably running through many of a Star Wars Galaxies fanboi's head right now, when the Community Relations Manager, Kevin "Q-3PO" Ohara announced on the message boards that open beta won't be as open as most MOG'ers expected. Sorry, LucasArts has not yet announced the new "official" release date. I doubt it will come until sometime after we go to open Beta 3. When we refer to "open", we mean it is open because the NDA will be lifted, you will still have to receive an invite to join. The new question is, "Where are the invites!" Posted April 23 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Rumors False: Lietgardis from Wolfpack Studio's spanks my ass and call's me Sally as she hit the discussion thread from our earlier report about the Shadowbane problems which recently occured as well as the rumor circulating around town that Ubi player accounts and servers were hacked. You may not be able to read these posts since like, you need to be a registered account holder of Shadowbane, but if ya can, there is more info than these cliff notes provide. First up is Ubiq giving an update about the server issues, most important of note he writes: There have been rumors of hacked accounts and/or credit cards. These will, of course, merit a very thorough investigation. However, as of yet, I have seen absolutely no evidence that anyone has gained these as a result of improper access to any resources either at UbiSoft or Wolfpack. Players are reminded, as always, to treat their account password with absolute care, and to ensure that it does not fall into unscrupulous hands via 'social hacking'. NEVER give out your password. Thus ending the Hacked Account thing. Vosx from Ubi Soft adds further clarification's about the login servers NOT being hacked with The Truth. The Login server was not hacked. That is not true at all. Our Lead CCR asked the two affected guilds to go change their passwords because obviously someone had at least two of them (and this was a smart suggestion). [...] We are investigating these two claims, and tracing all IP addresses that logged into those two accounts. We will find the individuals responsable. Thanks Lietgardis for pointing those out to me. Now I feel stoopid. Posted April 22 2003 by Div Devlin

E3Expo MMO Games List: We’ve gathered together a list of confirmed developers and publishers that will be showcasing their games and more at the upcoming E3. These are games many of us within the community are looking forward to, and games we plan on having E3 coverage on. Full Story Posted April 22 2003 by Div Devlin

Eve Online, Beta Now. For those who have been trying to get into the beta for Eve Online, but don't seem to have any luck with the free acount giveaways being tossed around on other sites. There is still hope for you! If you preorder a copy of the game from EBGames or GameStop you will be eligible for a Beta account with password which will allow you to start testing now. Posted April 22 2003 by Div Devlin

NCsoft Announces Guild Wars: From the key developers behind Blizzard's mega successes, Warcraft, StarCraft and Diablo, NCsoft is pleased to announce Guild Wars, a mission-based competitive online role playing game, produced by its Seattle-based ArenaNet studio. From the Press Release: In the fantasy world of Guild Wars, players can engage in cooperative group combat, in single player adventures, or in large head-to-head guild battles. Guild Wars is a game that will constantly evolve, using streaming technology to provide players with the latest updates while they're online. In addition, gamers will be able to play Guild Wars without a monthly fee in North America. NCsoft will announce a variety of pricing options for gamers in other parts of the world in the near future. The official website has info up about the game, a gallery with some screenshots, and a general faq. Guild Wars will have its first major public showing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), May 14-16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. We will be sure to check this out. Posted April 22 2003 by Div Devlin

Helen of Troy: So for the past two days I've been watching the made for TV mini-series Helen of Troy on the USA Network. I have to say, this was a damn good movie and Sienna Guillory is a damn hottie! She was the gal in that knock-off flick Time Machine which was one of those revisioning things not worthy of linkage, the gal who got whacked. If you missed this flick, you need to catch an Encore presentation. Drool over Helen, it was a well written, produced and acted story. Tons of action! Check out that accent. Posted April 22 2003 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane -sigh- For most subscribers to Shadowbane (myself included), billing starts in a little more then a week. Server Issues. Log-in down for entire day. Characters vanish. Cities vanish. Unfair practices for compensation. CCR's Unavailable. No information forthcoming. Rumors abound. By all accounts, until Ubi speaks regarding the issue, everyone is following with the supported arguments that Ubi was hacked yesterday. The silence is not welcome. Especially for a MMORPG. Vosx did update though to announce that there are new Dynamic Server Maps which give live updates from within the game world. Discuss: That about sums up the first month? Posted April 22 2003 by Div Devlin

AC May Teaser + Q&A: May's teaser for Asheron's Call was just announced. "A Gathering of Colors" appears to bring the Lugians and Tumeroks into a truce against the Virind - furthering the beginning of the history of AC2. About the room a host of Lugians and Tumeroks exchanged wary glances. Their leaders had debated for four hours. Each had highlighted the goals of their campaign, their alliance with the Virindi, and their contempt for those that claimed regency over them. Their words had been laced with vitriol and at points it seemed the two sides would engage in open conflict. Eventually, the tensions drew the meeting to a standstill that had now lasted a full two minutes. The Lugian and Tumerok banners were still in the windless hall. Then the silence was broken. "A union, then." Muldaveus' voice was as deep as his face was stoic. The Tumerok seated across the table offered his hand. And hints of Asheron returning home...and Ulgrim! It looks to be a VERY content filled month. You can read the entire teaser on CrossRoads of Dereth! The developers over at AC took the weekend off, mostly. They answered a few questions about some quest dynamics. But the most interesting was a response from both Orion and now Executive Producer of both AC1 and AC2, Jessica Mulligan, about why having one executive producer for both is a good thing. You can read the full Q&A here. (Thanks Ohpelea!) Posted April 21 2003 by Div Devlin

MMOG Gamers Wanted: This got tossed to me, if your a MMOG Gamer, there are some folks in L.A. that would like you to hook with them to do some Focus Testing according to RPG Vault: Online World Focus Group Participants Sought A major PC game publisher is looking for hardcore MMORPG fans in the Los Angeles area to attend a focus group session. Applicants should be able to get to a location close to Los Angeles Airport (LAX) on Wednesday, April 30th by 6PM. Experience of dice-based fantasy role playing games is advantageous but not essential. So if this applies to you go check out this link on Vault to get the full skinny. We know hundreds of folks in L.A. they should of asked us (Or sent the link to MMOG sites). Good luck to any who can make it! Posted April 21 2003 by Div Devlin

E3 2003 Compilation: With just a few short weeks to the E3Expo where ton's of gaming goodness will be unleashed, we've been steadily collecting ton's of press releases and announcments that will be unveiled at e3, including major lineups that will be showcased. E3Expo 2003 Surpasses Key Milestones World's Leading Computer and Video Game Trade Event Sees Growth according to a press release issued which states: Reflecting the Electronic Entertainment Expo's (E3Expo) position as the world's leading venue for interactive entertainment products, E3Expo show management today announced that the event is on track to surpass key exhibit space and registration milestones from the prior year. To date, E3Expo 2003 has sold approximately 515,000 net square feet of exhibit space, the largest amount of space sold since 2000. This year's show is on track to host more than 400 exhibitors, including 163 new exhibiting companies, and has also seen growth in the number of qualified pre-registered general attendees, with pre-registration numbers exceeding those seen at the same time in 2002. The show, now in its ninth year, is scheduled May 14-16 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. Nokia will make some major announcements concerning N-Gage, the revolutionary new 3D mobile game deck that provides multiplayer over-the-air game play. Nvidia will be unleashing a graphics inferno in celebration of what blazing gaming power is all about. World Cyber Games is invading E3 also. WCG (World Cyber Games), the biggest game event that attracts interest and participation from gamers all over the world and creates harmony of humankind through E-Sports, participates in the E3 show this year. At the 2003 E3 show, WCG Organizing Committee will announce the outline and schedule of WCG 2003 which will be held at Seoul, Korea from 12th of October to 18th of October. And then there are the games which we have confirmed will be there, so it's shaping up to be a great show so far, and were looking forward to hitting it. Posted April 21 2003 by Div Devlin

Ryzom UK Starting Beta Signup: Ryzom the MMOG from Nevrax is now accepting beta registration for those in Europre interested in checking this out. Posted April 21 2003 by Div Devlin

Star Wars Galaxies Beta in May? Rich Vogel (everyone know's who is right?) announced on the boards that Beta for Star Wars Galaxies could start up in May: Our current plan is to go to Open Beta in early May. This all depends on how polished we are. I realize lots of you want to play but it is important that we make your play experience an enjoyable one. Everyone is awaiting with fevered hope of an acceptance letter. Posted April 21 2003 by Div Devlin

Things that make you go, "Hmmmm..." This little tidbit was snuck into the upcoming announcement of the next Player Gathering for fans of Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2, where they printed that Jessica Mulligan is now the Executive Producer for both games in Turbines franchise. Which adds fuel to the fire that Asheron's Call may be headed towards a cancellation later in support of the Asheron's Call 2 game. With recent updates leading the storylines to become more interwined between the two specualtion mounts. Congrats to Jessica Mulligan on the promotion!?? There is also a Free 15 Day Trial up for AC2 on FilePlanet. Read about the Player Gathering. (Thanks everyone who sent this in!) Posted April 18 2003 by Div Devlin

MtG Online 2: AVault has an article up that announces a major upgrade of Magic The Gathering Online bringing this MMO/Card game to version 2.0 including new features and improvements. The will be shocasing the expansion at E3 highlighting: New custom interfaces New tutorial introducing basic concepts A playback feature Thousands of new cards Swappable avatars New tournament formats A premier events room for advanced players No word about it on the official site, but some questionable players left unanswered on the official boards. Posted April 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Myst: Uru Goes Offline? Conflicting reports about Myst Online: Uru circulating based off a press release issued yesterday by Ubi Soft, that now this game will be a single player game, that will include online content updates similar instyle to NeverWinter Nights by BioWare where players can join together with ...other explorers across the land." Except that now you need to pay for the content as a subscriber to Myst Online. The new press release cites: Ubi Soft's forward-looking strategy for its Myst(R) franchise will be visible with this game, a single-player experience that can be enriched with online content. Hopefully clarifications will be sent soon. Posted April 18 2003 by Div Devlin

Z-Opolis, The Girls MMO: PersistentWorldZ set to be a leading Game Service Provider, through the introduction, continued expansion, and successful service, of massive unique persistent game worlds that capture the imagination of the whole family - Massively Multiplayer Online Community Games (MMOCGs) for the mass-market audience announces thier launch of Z-OPOLIS™ The First MMOG to Appeal to Teen Girls. From the press release: The vibrant world of Z-Opolis with its family-friendly, ESRB E-Rated game play that replaces weapons, combat, and conflict with cool clothes, positive social interaction, and cooperation is the first MMOG designed with girl appeal. Couple this to free software, usage-based billing and family plan options, and casual, inexpensive play becomes a reality for the 4 million U.S. teen girls who spend five hours or more online per week. ... Reaching potential girl players also requires new marketing channels. Women and girls, unless they are in the games industry, tend not to read game magazines or visit game websites (the majority of which cater more to the hard-core male gamer). So how would they hear about or be attracted to playing an MMOG? With a campaign launch today through gurl.com, a recognized leading content provider for teen girls, and dELiA*s, whose dynamic brand of apparel, accessories and home furnishings has almost universal consumer recognition with teen girls, PersistentWorldZ will be inviting girls to come play Z-Opolis. This sounds really good. The bad news, is my daughter and I are going to end up fighting for computer time as she tries to player this game, and I play the boi games. Posted April 18 2003 by Div Devlin

As the Market Burns, More: Stratics has released the details for their pay-for-view premium service they announced last month, in which readers can do away with banner ads since the collapse of the advertising market on the net. They plan to include Item Databases for several of the games they carry content for. No items included for the Ultima Online Community which recently moved there after the Offical boards were shut down. The Press Release states that Vivendi Universal confirmed today that USA Interactive has filed a lawsuit arising out of the transaction between Vivendi Universal and USA Interactive that resulted in the formation of Vivendi Universal Entertainment LLLP on May 7, 2002. The company stated the following: "Vivendi Universal is confident that USAi's position is without merit. This dispute has been ongoing, has been fully disclosed in numerous public filings and represents nothing new." "Since Vivendi Universal Entertainment declined to make any tax distribution in respect of taxable income allocated to USA Interactive's preferred interests at the end of 2002, we were not surprised that they brought this lawsuit. As with the Liberty Media lawsuit filed two weeks ago, the USAi lawsuit was filed to gain leverage in the negotiations regarding our asset disposal program which has generated significant interest." "This lawsuit will not interfere with our asset disposal program. Vivendi Universal continues to focus on returning to an investment grade credit profile during the first half of 2004 by continuing to reduce the company's leverage." There is a disclaimer saying this press release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 at the bottom with additional information. Posted April 17 2003 by Div Devlin

DAoC Announces Housing: Mythic announced that their newest expansion, in which they plan three of, will be a free download titled "DAoC: Foundations," in which player housing will be included. From the Press Release: Mythic Entertainment, developer and publisher of Dark Age of Camelot, plans to release a free download-only expansion called Dark Age of Camelot: Foundations that adds player housing to the immensely popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The expansion enters closed beta testing this week and will be available for free via optional download to all subscribers in mid-June. Dark Age of Camelot: Foundations is the first of three expansions Mythic will be releasing in 2003 according to Mark Jacobs, CEO, Mythic Entertainment. Foundations will be followed by another free expansion that will concentrate on further enhancing and developing the game's unique Realm vs. Realm combat system in the second half of the year. The third is a major expansion, which will be sold at retail in the fourth quarter. The Camelot Herald has Housing Information up, with an Introduction, Features, Faq, The House Types, A Manual about the Houses, and Screenshots where the download will be. Posted April 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Player Races: Just as I was to submit the morning news round-up, I get the latest Dragon Empires update in which they reveal they are adding two new player races, the Shadow and Dragonblood explaining why: In thinking about our world we decided the game would be more interesting and exciting the more options players had. We felt that while we liked our human characters and character options there just wasn't going to be enough to distinguish players from each other. Also, we wanted to strongly distinguish the types of characters people would play by the look of their character. For these reasons we decided to add our two new races. More races also give us more storytelling options and more chances for players to roleplay. We look forward to bringing you the myths and beliefs of our two new races. As always, their Sage adds the story behind these new races. Posted April 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Lords of EverQuest: Sony announced the official plans for their RTS game "Lords of EverQuest" based on their MMO game, launching the offical website. James Parker the producer introduces all of us to the game in his first Producer Letter where he tells us about the concept of the game and gives an overview of what we can expect when we take control of the armies of ancient Norrath. Posted April 17 2003 by Div Devlin

Middle Earth Online, No Wizards: Chris Taylor the producer for Middle Earth Online says there will be NO WIZARD CLASS within game, when asked on the official boards. Also Hobbits will not be able to do Magic. (Thanks Stratics) Posted April 17 2003 by Div Devlin

AC and AC2 Stuph: Thanks to Ophelea (who recently took part in our fansite interviews) from CrossRoads of Dereth, we get a ton of info about AC and AC2 (Congrats to her on taking over as site manager of AC2.Warcry)! Brent Schmidt (aka Keth al-Sheth), has written a wonderful piece regarding some of the landmarks of Osteth. Interestingly enough, they seem to tie more and more of the lore of AC1 into AC2. Those of us who've played both games will never forget the destruction of the Shadowspire near Cragstone by Elysa Strathelar. But, who imagined that 300+ years later it would become a landmark? Check it. This week, Orion and Alicia Brown have given us a look behind the "why" of the enormous creature rebalancing and spawn move of the previous two months. No slight undertaking, we learn that this process started in February and isn't due for completion until May. Check out the "Monster Rebalancing." Once upon a time, in a Dereth not long ago there were the Advocate's and their brethren. Then, due to reasons both silly and not-so-silly, the program ended. Warcry is proud to announce that they're transferring their support expertise here, to WCoD! Thanks to WarCry and Ophelea for the news! (Side note, as she mentioned above, it is interesting that as more lore is released the two games are becoming closer together, could they be slowly building up to the ultimate destruction of the lands of Dereth and the closing of AC1? Something to wonder.) Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

Beta Alert: Final Fantasy Online Supported for both PC and PS2. Go Signup. Official website coming soon. It's been a long time in the waiting. Nothing more to say. Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

NwN Chat: Bioware sends us word that there will be a chat on GameSpy Arcade this Thursday, April 17, at 4pm PST (7pm EST) about Shadows of Undrentide. Stop by to get the latest on the first expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights, and you just might win a signed copy of Neverwinter Nights or the NWN Collector's Edition! Trent Oster (Producer/Project Director), Darcy Pajak (Assistant Producer), Dave Gaider (Designer), and Jay Watamaniuk (Community Manager) will all be in attendance! Check out the GameSpy Arcade website for details! Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

Planetside Stuph: Planetside is currently allowing players who were invited into the exclusive beta to "Bring a Friend" inside joining them in beta! Need someone to watch your back in PlanetSide(tm)? Got a friend who's itching to get online and join your Empire? We know you do, so read on! Many of you have been asking about it, and now the time has arrived - we want you to get your friends online and join our beta test! We all know just how integral the formation of Squads and Outfits are in PlanetSide, and now we're giving YOU the opportunity to recruit your friends. Whether you enlist in a Squad together, or decide to strike out and form your own, the fight for total domination can start right here! Just forward the instructions below to your new recruit. (Minimum system requirements are 256MB of RAM with 1Ghz CPU or faster, and a Direct3D compliant video card with at least 32MB of Video RAM). Tons of folks are jonesing for this! Also, there is a new producer letter up by Dave Georgeson offering the latest news on the Open Beta and the ongoing internal play-tests. He also reports on patches and fixes, current and upcoming. Vodoo Extreme had an article up and running that Ubi Soft will be the U.K. publisher for Planetside bringing this soon to be released FFPS/MMO across the pond. No word if they will restrict N. American players from playing on the servers there. Unsure if this will affect PKer.org as they refuse to have any dealings what-so-ever with UbiSoft. Even indirectly related! Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

World of Warcraft Screens: Four new screenshots have appeared on the World of Warcraft site. They are the bottom four showcasing 3 dwarves hanging out with awesome looking Vardo's in back, female dwarf fighting a snow troll (note the arquebus), the poser, and orcs storming the hummies on bridge. They look pretty good! Check em! Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

Community Corner: The Fansites Everyone follows the top sites regarding their current favorite game, but how many readers are actually aware of the time, devotion, love and hassles that go into running a dedicated fansite for their favorite game? We asked representaives, who are players just like you, what's involved in running thier sites which are currently some of the the recommended site's for the game they cover. You would really be suprised by some of the answers, and by how much each site has incommon for the different MMO games. Check out our Fan Site Interviews. Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

As the Market Burns: Steve Case from AOL has been named in a lawsuit saying he took part in Insider Trading. GGA's (GameGirlAdvance) Justin Hall has an insightful article up about how game reviewers are biased due to the almighty dollar sign forcing publications to be favorbale to products. It's actually alot deeper then that, and worth a read. Also, as we reported yesterday, IGN Network has purchased gaming site Voodoo Extreme (VE3d) which is a huge boon to IGN as they continue to become the gaming conglomerate of all things game releated. Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

Earth and Beyond Update: Contrary to the rumor on Fatbabies that Earth and Beyond is going to have their plug pulled by EA in July, a new developer letter has been placed on the official site letting players know that Planning for Next Years Earth and Beyond has started." Speculation has it, that currently only 20,000 subsribers are active in Earth and Beyond which were similar numbers in Motor City Online prior to their announced shut down, another source highly suspects we will be seeing a day of doom for EnB. Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

Frontier 1859 Faq: New faq added for Frontier 1859 the upcoming Wild West MMOG in development by Cosmic Origins, LLC. From the Faq when one wonders what there will be to do in game: Exploration, travel, hunting and gathering, preparing food, maintaining gear, navigation, problem solving, setting/striking camp, working/crafting/service providing (offline or online), socializing, horseback riding, learning new skills, building apparatus, treasure hunting, prospecting, panning, asking questions, rescuing, grooming, practicing skills, running from danger, fighting for your life, acquiring resources, building structures, helping others, sponsoring, reading, exercising faith, setting new goals, mentoring, differentiating tall tales from truth, testifying, voting, trading, bartering, investigating, gambling, con-artistry, thieving, fist fighting, stealth-ing, healing (downtime), courtship, marriage, taking care of children, taking care of animals, farming, rustling, jail-time, praying, visiting, herding, planting, digging, irrigating, swimming, canoeing, chopping, logging, hauling, writing, planning, faction-ing, whining, complaining, spreading rumors, having fun, hating it, loving it, and hopefully not swinging from a rope. Give it a glance. Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG News: Star Wars Galaxies announced they may try a limited version of downloadable versions of the beta for testers to take part in the ongoing tests, in limited numbers. Lucas Arts has also unvieled thier E3 site for their Star Wars titles, of note is the announcment naming the 10th planet in SWG Dantooine. Posted April 16 2003 by Div Devlin

IGN Buys Voodoo Extreme: Hot off the press from the Aquistions and Mergers Department on Business Wire, IGN has purchased venerable gaming site Voodoo Extreme merging it into the IGN Network. From the Press Release: April 15, 2003--IGN Entertainment (Nasdaq:IGNX) -- home to IGN.com, the web's largest information and entertainment destination for video gamers -- today announced that it has acquired VE3D, a preeminent online site for up-to-the minute gaming news. IGN's acquisition of the VE3D web site from BA Ventures, LLC, enhances IGN's reach among hardcore fans of PC games. VE3D is particularly known for its in-depth coverage of action and strategy PC games, which complements the in-depth coverage of massively multiplayer online role-playing PC games (MMORPGs) provided by IGN's Vault Network. I guess this would be a Luck according to Pud, but a Fuck for the readers of VE3D. Congrats to the Voodoo Extreme folks, hope they get a windfall! Last week IGN acquired AC2HQ one of the premier Asheron's Call 2 site, the sad thing about this is that all content on sites now become the property of IGN, and will lose what they once had making them unique. Posted April 15 2003 by Div Devlin

AC2 Promoting KvK: Jessica Mulligan has never been one to promote player versus player combat. But, now as the Executive Producer for Asheron's Call 2, it appears that her stance is changing. Turbine has released their "Vision Update" for their sinking ship, and within the new vision they are refocusing some items on the Kingdom vs. Kingdom aspect of PvP. It looks very similar to Realm vs. Realm and Guild vs. Guild of other games out now. As Matthew "Stucco" Ford explains: KvK means players of different Kingdoms competing against each other, each group seeking to advance his or her Kingdom and slow or reverse the advance of other Kingdoms. Before I got bored reading, Jessica further explained that, "The emphasis will be on group play, not solo play." regarding mobs. I may of read something about classes 'not being balanced' for KvK as well. Will it matter? Posted April 15 2003 by Div Devlin

Hibbies Protest in DAoC: Dark Age of Camelot's Hibernian Realms players rose up over the weekend invading the test server in protest about how the game is unfair to them. Citing points based on each of the three relams, they find lacking Mythic's committmant to ensuring the game is enjoyable and balanced to each Realm. Sanya stopped by to quell the uprising, much to no avail. The Hibernian Protest. Posted April 15 2003 by Div Devlin

Planetside Open Beta: Planetside announced last week that they have entered open beta, and that the NDA has been lifted. If you have not yet been selected for beta, you should hit the official site and sign up. During the open beta some 25,000 players will be getting their disc's shipped to them via first class mail according to this post on the boards, where the announcment was made. The Planetside folks are looking for a May launch! Posted April 15 2003 by Div Devlin

SWG Interview on Warcry: Tark from SWG.Warcy has an interview up and running with the Team Leads from Star Wars: Galaxies in which Jeff Grills - Technical Director, Grant McDaniel - QA Buildmaster, Raph Koster - Creative Director, and Arnie Jorgensen - Senior Concept Artist all take part. Worth a read. Posted April 15 2003 by Div Devlin