Ultima X: Odyssey Canned! It looks like none can stand to the might of WoW this year, and already companies are tossing in the towel on the games in development. This will be the second time now that EA has quit on an Ultima MMO sequel as they announce the cancellation of Ultima X: Odyssey which was postponed for release until this fall. As written on the redirect page: June 30, 2004 Dear Ultima X: Odyssey community members, As of today, development on Ultima X: Odyssey has ended. We feel that Ultima Online is where we need to focus our online efforts and most of my team will be moving to the UO expansion pack, the UO live team, and an unannounced Ultima Online project. Development on UO will be greatly enhanced as we consolidate our resources behind that franchise. This isn't an easy decision but it’s the right move for the future of all things Ultima, including the community and the team. We look forward to sharing our plans for the future of Ultima Online very soon. I would like to thank all of the Ultima X: Odyssey supporters who have been with us from the beginning. I hope you will continue to support the Ultima franchise and the development team as they transition to new projects. Thank you, David "InQWis" Yee Producer, Ultima X: Odyssey Any bets on EQII? Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

Our New Servers! First up, sorry for the downtime this week. Two weeks ago we made the final move to our new servers which greatly expands the things we can do here on the site. Gotta give shout outs to Muern from the Shadow Alliance and Zalaster from the Spirit Lurkers for all thier aide in migrating the sites and setting up the servers. Those guys rock! Already you can see our uptime is greatly expanded, and the speed at which the sites are loading thanks to our new processing power! We're about ready to add even more to our hosting packages for guilds and those of you looking for an economical way to start up fansites for your favorite games under the GameRifts logo. Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

As the Market Turns: Alchemic Dream and Hypernia Hosting Corp Partner Leader MMOG services provider Alchemic Dream Inc. and Hypernia Hosting Corp, the industry's leading internet hosting services company announce an exclusive partnership for server hosting and server maintenance of the upcoming Alchemic Dream products. Aurelien Merville, CEO of Alchemic Dream Inc. comments "Hypernia has the best network and experience to provide these services for our markets in Europe, North America and South America. Alchemic Dream is growing fast, and a high quality structure on an international scale is required to host our MMOG’s. Hypernia provides flexibility and the perfect architecture for that." Comdex Cancelled Comdex is the big Electronics show held in Vegas every year which is open only to industry professionals. After sinking attendance the past couple years as they jacked prices to attend, it's been slowly becoming a ghost town. This year, it's been cancelled. They say they will be back next year. LindenLab Developer Awards Linden Lab, creator of the acclaimed 3D online world Second Life, today announced the winners of the first annual Game Developer’s Competition. Harvey Smith, formerly of Ion Storm and the lead designer of the award winning Deus Ex, and project director of Deus Ex: Invisible War, judged the competition and spent time with each team evaluating their design and game play choices. In February 2004, 7 teams were chosen from dozens of entries to participate in the competition. Each team spent 3 months developing their game concept in Second Life’s 3D digital world. Second Life Residents were then invited to play each game and the most popular games were awarded 1st – 4th place. Winners took home cash prizes and the much coveted use of free land for an entire year. Harvey Smith joined the competition in mid-June to provide each team with a game insider’s perspective and important feedback about how to make their games better. “Wow, Harvey’s input is almost as exciting as my 3 acres of land,” said Tiger Crossing, developer of the immensely popular Deus Via. “He gave the team some great tips on game design and the importance of a coherent theme. He also had some cool thoughts about ways to engage players and draw them into the game. Harvey’s input was a bonus I hadn’t anticipated when I entered the competition.” PlayVault Launches It's been years in the making, but the guys have finally done it! A Player-To-Player site in which you can barter and exchange items within MMO Games, Approved by MMO Game Companies. Check out the preview of the site in their unveiling. PlayVault.com, and remember the name! Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Issue One: NCsoft has has launched the first update City of Heroes. The update, Issue 1: Through the Looking Glass, gives high level players who powergamed for the win, new challenges by adding ten play levels, dangerous new zones, more missions, and new villains, as well as an in-game costume customization component. The update is free to all City of Heroes subscribers via automatic download. The City of Heroes costume customization feature has been highly praised, and in Through the Looking Glass, players are given the ability to change their costumes in-game. Icon, a company in the game’s fictional Paragon City, will make costume and body modifications. Heroes will also be able to earn additional costumes over time, so they can wear the costume that fits their mood. In order to earn additional costumes, the heroes will need to do a few favors for the Icon tailors. In this update, players will see adds three new villain groups. The Malta Group is a shadowy military organization that uses three levels of Titan robots to terrorize Paragon City. The Carnival of Shadows is a subtle but deadly threat to the citizens of Paragon City who attract the unwary with their spectacle and manipulate their audience to serve their own twisted purposes. The worst new menace to Paragon City is the Praetorians who are extra-dimensional versions of Paragon City’s most famous heroes. The Praetorians have emerged from an alternate Earth to become the greatest threat Paragon City has faced since the war with the Rikti aliens. Through the Looking Glass also introduces new zones, including Peregrine Island located off the coast of Paragon City. The island is home to the headquarters of the Portal Corporation, which created the teleportation technology used throughout Paragon City. The denizens of Peregrine Island include Malta Group strike teams, Crey covert-ops forces, Nemesis troops, and Rikti beasts that threaten Portal Corp. and its employees while creating major challenges for Paragon City’s heroes. In addition to Peregrine Island, Through the Looking Glass introduces the Rikti Crash Site. Heroes can explore one of the Rikti war’s epicenters – a section of the city the Rikti use as a command center. As the military forces cannot contain the Rikti forces, the heroes of Paragon City will be called upon to help keep order in this area. In other City of Heroes news, they climbed back up the charts after falling to fourth to now rest in second for game sales ending the week of June 19th per the NPDGroup. Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

DAoC Plat Edition/Comeback: Mythic sends word that they have released a new Platinum Edition for Dark Age of Camelot which bundles together the original game and all four expansions: Mythic Entertainment, developer and publisher of the critically-acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, "Dark Age of Camelot(R)," released "Dark Age of Camelot: Platinum Edition," containing the original game and all four expansion packs. The retail expansions, "Dark Age of Camelot: Shrouded Isles(TM)" and "Dark Age of Camelot: Trials of Atlantis(TM)," as well as free expansions, "Dark Age of Camelot: Foundations(TM)," and the recently released "Dark Age of Camelot: New Frontiers(TM)," are included in the "Platinum Edition," along with an introductory player's guide, a one-month free subscription to the game and a complimentary trial copy of the game that players can give to a friend. Retail listing on EBGames is $29.99! For those of you who were once part of the DAoC Community, but left. They want you back! Mythic Entertainment, developer and publisher of the award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game, "Dark Age of Camelot(r)," today proclaimed the start of the "Come Back to Camelot" campaign, which invites former "Dark Age of Camelot" subscribers to come back and play the game free for two weeks. Mythic will give former players the opportunity to experience the many enhancements made since "Dark Age of Camelot's" original release two and a half years ago including the recent re-invention of the unique Realm versus Realm (RvR) combat system featured in "New Frontiers(tm)." Existing players and players who take advantage of "Come Back to Camelot" will also be eligible to enter the "Come Back to Camelot" sweepstakes and win NVIDIA video boards, Prima "Dark Age of Camelot" strategy guides and "Dark Age of Camelot" free subscriptions and merchandize. Rules Apply. In other news, Mythic banned hundreds of players with a one day suspension for hacking. Kudo's there! Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

Eternal Lands Interview@GameBunny GameBunny has an interview up with Radu Privantu, Project Manager and prime mover behind fantasy MMO, Eternal Lands. A preview: "In an MMORPG everyone has to be equal, but still allow those who work more to be 'more equal' than the others. In a single player game you don't have to worry about that. You also don't have to worry about the game security, cheating, scripting, etc. and you don't have to try to please everyone, even though everyone wants different things." Check it. Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

FaitH: A New Era! Dragon Claw Studio announced that their massive multiplayer game, FaitH (www.dragonclawstudio.com/faith), a web-based game on the internet, started a new Era on the Battle Server. The new Battle Server Edition of FaitH, unveiled last Era, allows players to compete in a faster environment with hourly Tax Seasons and without having to read the Quests or read massive amounts of texts while still retaining what people love about FaitH; great design, teamwork, awesome artwork, friendly community and much more. The RPG server of FaitH is, of course, still going strong and always available. As usual, FREE trials are still unlimited in length and allow you to play one of the nine church options and one of the five class options. Check em. Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

Fallout Online? After the fallout from Interplay's troubled times they have announced the possibility of moving into the online market with Fallout Online. Commenting on the announcement, Mr. Caen said, "Based on a detailed review of where our industry stands and the level of interest in the gaming community in taking some of our premier properties online, we are now pursuing several options to fund our entry into Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming with titles including Fallout. Initial feedback from our investment bank and ongoing dialogue with others in the gaming sector appear to confirm that the combination of our valuable and popular intellectual properties with the rapidly growing online gaming community is the best way to maximize Interplay shareholder value." After all these years, will they be able to compete now? Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

1000 Days of Jumpgate: NetDevil announced last week that JumpGate has been running now for 1000 days (or two years and seven months), and is still going strong! Louisville, CO - NetDevil Ltd., announced that massively multiplayer space combat and trading simulation Jumpgate has passed the milestone of 1000 days of operation in the US. "Jumpgate broke new ground in online gaming when it released in 2001," commented Steve 'Istvan' Hartmeyer, Jumpgate Programmer, "and even today no other game offers simulated spaceflight and combat with anything like the same degrees of skill and excitement." Join up with the enigmatic Quantar, the warlike Octavians or the mercantilist Solrain as they work to defeat the alien Conflux menace and rebuild civilization following the great collapse. Create an account by visiting www.jossh.com. Jumpgate features a free seven-day trial and is $9.95 per month thereafter. No doubt that they will make 3 years! Congrats! Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

Lineage II Update One: NCsoft has announced their first publish update to Lineage II since release. Titled "Harbingers of War" adds stirring castle sieges, new fierce monsters, items and quests, and a significantly expanded 3D world. Building on the game's player-versus-player focus and the most anticipated feature of Chronicle 1 for current Lineage II fans is the large-scale castle siege. Each server will have five new castles available for conquest, which can be controlled for two weeks. After this time, competitive clans and alliances can prepare themselves for another siege. Several hundred players can take part in the sieges, which feature sword battles, archery attacks, dazzling magic and Siege Golems, huge creatures that can be summoned to knock down castle walls. Once a castle is captured, a player can become the castle lord and hire mercenaries, collect taxes and upgrade the castle against future sieges. Among the many new quests available to players is the Dragon?s Cave quest, which results in a showdown with the massive Earth Dragon, Antharas. Besides having a nasty disposition and fearsome breath, Antharas has the ability to control a player?s actions, so it will take a host of coordinated players to take down this tough new resident in Lineage II?s world. Many of the new quests in Chronicle 1 are designed to challenge higher level players, in particular. Also featured in Chronicle 1 are dozens of new weapons and skills for players to obtain. There will be clan housing, where clans can bid on clan halls through an in-game auction system. Additionally, player and creature movement speeds have been increased and new player-versus-player arenas have been created. The 3D game world itself has been expanded, with many of the new areas dedicated to upper level quests and challenges. I may be checking this game out next, any guilds have an opening for an UberN00bie? If so, drop me line. Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

Lucas Arts Celebrates SWG: Star Wars Galaxies celebrates their one year anniversary, also patches in first Jedi Change. LucasArts and Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), a worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online (MMO) gaming, are proud to celebrate the one-year anniversary of the launch of Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. Launched a year ago, Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided quickly became the fastest growing massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) in North America and today boasts over 500,000 registered users, with more than 115,000 players logging into the game every day. During its first year, an impressive amount of new content was added to Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided. November 2003 saw the introduction of player cities, incorporated townships that allow players to own homes, construct public buildings and elect mayors. A variety of creature mounts and player-crafted vehicles including the familiar speeder and swoop bikes were added to the game in December 2003. Early 2004 saw the addition of the Geonosian Bio Lab, Deathwatch Bunker and Corellian Corvette adventure areas, adding numerous hours of high-end content and depth to game play. LucasArts and SOE are currently working on the first full-scale retail expansion to the franchise, Star Wars Galaxies(r): Jump to Lightspeed(tm). Scheduled for release in October 2004, Jump To Lightspeed will add a whole new level of twitch-based space combat to the game and will feature 15 starships, four space-based professions, and two new playable species. "While we will continue to aggressively expand the game for all players, we also will be rolling out a series of special items reserved exclusively for our long-standing community members," said LucasArts Producer Haden Blackman. With the launch of Jump to Lightspeed, players who have maintained an active account for at least six consecutive months will be given special access to a luxury starship. "This luxury starship will allow veteran players to venture into space with their friends and explore in comfort and style," Blackman added. The space yacht, which is used in Star Wars(r) fiction by wealthy and dashing characters such as Lando Calrissian, is only the first of many rewards planned for veteran players. Over the weekend they celebrated by introducing a new mob and then released publish 9 yesterday which is the star to the Jedi Revamp system as well as the reintroduction of the Hero of Tatooine quests. So, I logged on after the patch. The lag was worse then Shadowbane ever was! Be sure to read Community Letter from Cinco Barnes as well as the Veteran Rewards when Jump to Lightspeed is released. Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

Turbine Nation Beta Give-Away: Turbine Entertainment has announced that they will be giving away up to 50 Beta Accounts for Middle Earth Online at thier upcoming Turbine Nation fan gathering. The Turbine Nation event takes place this August in Rhode Island, where players can hear first-hand details about the the new Asheron's Call expansion pack, participate in discussion panels with developers from Asheron's Call, AC: Fallen Kings, Middle-Earth Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online, collect exclusive phat lewt from Turbine and its games and get a beta account for MEO! Registration opened last week, so be sure to attend. Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

Angel Island UO Shard: Adam Ant strikes back! For those of you who know Ultima, you must know Adam Ant from Game-Master.net, one of the most notorious villians known for his role-play within Ultima Online. Well, he's upped and done it. Him and the gang after years of petitions have formed their own player run shard based on his Angel Island ruleset. Read on: Over the past few months, me and a small team of Ultima Online aficionados have created an Ultima Online Player Run Shard (Free Shard.) The shard has many unique features including the Angel Island Prison System, Bounty Boards, the Bounty Hunter Template, Balanced Economy, The Nox Archer, Semi Lootable Houses, Fine Tuned PvP, Enhanced Treasure Hunter Template, Tinker Trapped Chests, and a Wind Rethemeing to fit with the GUL lore, etc., etc. We're all really proud of what we've built because it represents what we believe to be the perfect UO. Based loosely on Publish 15 PvP, The Angel Island Shard doesn't have any silly items of super duper uberness. To be a good PvP'er on our shard, you'll actually need to be good. Oh, and no Trammel! Role players and merchants will also find a home on Angel Island as well as craftsmen and adventurers like the Treasure Hunter. Being a role played PK, I made sure that killing innocent players has consequences. There is no free ride for murderers on Angel Island, but we've tried to address the issue with in-game mechanisms (Prison) and a player Justice System (Bounty Hunters). All in all, I think the system is working nicely to keep player killing in check while at the same time treating player killers to a bit of enjoyment while they 'do their time'. Murderers that are sent to prison will need to be not only creative, but very skilled if they plan on escaping. There are other things to do in prison besides trying to escape, but most importantly, is these guys are taken off the streets for a while! Oh, and the Prison system has dozens of 'dials' that we Administrators can tweak and adjust, so don't assume you *know* the system! I hope you all enjoy Our UO... we've had a lot of fun putting it together. Register! Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

Robin Dews Warhammer Farewell: Warhammer Online is now a game of the past. A what-could-of-been with players around the globe starting petitions to keep the dream alive. Been there. Done That. Won't See it Happen. Sorry. With the final newsletter released, Robin Dews gives his personal farewell to the fans. As a subscriber to the Warhammer Online newsletter, we wanted to write to personally to say thank you for all of your encouragement and support over the development of Warhammer Online. When we set out on this journey three years ago, we wanted to create an MMORPG that was ambitious, gorgeous and enormous, and that broke with many of the emergent conventions of online role, playing games. We never lost that vision and it was with the dedicated support and encouragement of so many thousands of fans and enthusiasts that we were able to push and develop the game into some truly inspirational directions. Sadly this will never now be realised. MMORPG's are complex and difficult projects that involve a powerful combination of creative, technical and business skills. They are also hugely expensive, and require large and dedicated teams working over many years. Like any enterprise, they also ultimately have to be profitable in order to survive and no matter how we looked at it, the costs to completion and the risks involved were just too much to sustain. Warhammer Online is no more, but I'm proud and grateful for the hard work and belief of many, many people over the last few years. On behalf of all of them I want to say thank you to you, our fans, friends, supporters and forum members. Valiant effort is its own reward and gallantry does not always win the day. Despite the loss, I'm very proud of all we achieved and that we did it openly, honestly and in the company of the many thousands of fans and enthusiasts from around the world who travelled the same road with us. On behalf of the whole Warhammer Online team - thank you. Best wishes Robin Dews A Shame. Really. If done right, the game world could of been great. Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

WoW EU Beta Sign-Ups: Blizzard has announced the Beta sign ups for EU players will begin on July 15th for World of Warcraft! Blizzard Entertainment announced the 5th July 2004 as the date players can start signing up for the European closed beta of its eagerly awaited MMORPG, World of WarcraftTM. Potential testers will be able to register online through the official European Blizzard websites for the English, French and German speaking markets: www.blizzard.co.uk, www.blizzard.fr and www.blizzard.de. The final selection of testers will be chosen randomly to ensure a broad base of playing skills, locations and system requirements to address compatibility and game play issues. All submissions will receive equal consideration at anytime throughout the three-week sign up period. In addition to game play and technical compatibility testing, the purpose of the beta test is to validate the distribution and hosting infrastructure in Europe and, in due time, to verify the localization of the game in French and German. This process will allow World of WarcraftTM to reach the high level of quality that has become the signature of every Blizzard product. How many people do you think are going to try and scam their way in from North America? Posted June 30 2004 by Div Devlin

Turbine Nation Registration: Turbine Entertainment wants all you d00ds who play Asheron's Call, and Asheron's Call2, or those who are looking forward to Dungeons and Draons Online and Middle-Earth Online to come hang out with them this August in Rhode Island for a leet fan gathering at what they are calling Turbine Nation! # Meet and mingle with the most leet group of online gamers in the world! # Hear first-hand details about the the new Asheron’s Call expansion pack! # Participate in discussion panels with developers from Asheron’s Call, AC: Fallen Kings, Middle-Earth™ Online and Dungeons & Dragons® Online!# Collect exclusive phat lewt from Turbine and its games! # Check out the freakish Mr. Potato Head statues in the Providence area! # Learn to make everything exciting by using exclamation points! Registration, which is now open, will set you back a cheap $30.00 if you do not do lunch. Posted June 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Vivendi Does Reorg: Sad News. Vivendi Universal cut 350 folks. Sierra folks told at lunch on Monday. Vivendi Universal Games (VU Games) today announced another step in its turnaround plan to improve operating effectiveness, reduce costs and position for growth. The changes include a significant staff reduction in its North American based operations resulting in the elimination of 350 staff positions. The Company's Blizzard Entertainment studio was not part of the staff reduction. "Restructuring the organization and reducing our cost base are necessary to improve our operating effectiveness and profitability," said VU Games CEO Bruce Hack. "This constitutes another important step in our turnaround plan aimed to better position the Company for growth." With a global and more focused organization in place, VU Games is looking ahead to the second half of the year with several major releases scheduled for launch. VU Games plans to release World of Warcraft from Blizzard Entertainment, marking the Company's entry into the massively multi-player online role-playing games category. Other current and upcoming releases for 2004 include Crash Twinsanity, Leisure Suit Larry, The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay, Van Helsing, Ground Control II, Fight Club and Spyro: A Hero's Tail. Blizzard unaffected. Posted June 23 2004 by Div Devlin

DAoC: Frontiers Live! As of yesterday, Mythic's free expansion Frontiers for Dark Age of Camelot is now live! Mythic Entertainment, developer and publisher of the critically acclaimed massively multiplayer online role-playing game, "Dark Age of Camelot," today announced that "Dark Age of Camelot: New Frontiers" has gone live. A free downloadable expansion for all current subscribers, "New Frontiers" reinvents the game’s Realm versus Realm (RvR) combat system, Mythic’s own unique take on player vs. player or PvP play. "New Frontiers" makes heroic battles accessible to subscribers of all levels and abilities, deepens the tactical options and strategies of battle, diversifies styles of warfare and establishes a new and expanded rewards system for Realm versus Realm combat. Some minor issues did arise which result in the servers going down today, but expected back by 2pm for patching. Posted June 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Newletter: Dragon Empires has released their latest newsletter which opens with a small address from Operations Manager, Phil "Vortal" White on the state of Beta 1: For a while now we have been working on the hardest bit of our project, server load. We are still working to get the server optimised to support larger numbers of people than it can currently and until we achieve this we are reluctant to release Beta1 as the experience would be very unsatisfactory for everyone. On a more positive note we are making some good progress and the servers are more stable now than they have ever been. In-game GM commands and associated security are starting to appear and the petitioning system is being placed into the client code as I type (the web based version is all ready to go) . This means that we can support more users earlier in the next Beta cycle than we initially thought, so a lot more of you will be invited to play sooner! Unfortunately I cannot give you an exact date for Beta 1 and I also do not want to say 'soon' (to all the forum users, yes we are looking to trademark that word for the game!!) which leaves me the only option of saying it will be available presently ;) Also included is the newest edition of the "Letters From Gadsolme" in which he rummages through scrolls and papers old and ancient and comes across a collection of rather interesting periodicals known more commonly as ‘Scale Sheets.’ Posted June 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Guild Wars Lore: Guild Wars has tossed up their second installment of the games background story with, "The Battle for Kyhlo." Found in the Lore Section they include new concept art to go along. Posted June 23 2004 by Div Devlin

PotBS Dev Logs: Two new dev logs have appeared over on the Pirates of the Burning Sea site. Joe, the lead developer, posted a devlog about his recent flurry of bug fixing. Augustus, the lead designer, followed up with his look at their ongoing work on the sailing model. And Paul, co-founder of Flying Lab, recounts his adventure wrecking a Porsche 911 at the racetrack -- including an x-ray! That hurts. Posted June 23 2004 by Div Devlin

UO 7th Anniversary Ed. Ships: Yesterday marked the 7th Anniversary of Ultima Online which shipped out thier new boxed edition of the game including toys. To celebrate seven years of success, players will receive one of seven rare anniversary gifts, each an in-game item taken from UO or one of the subsequent expansion packs. Each item offers an exclusive power for the lucky recipient. Gifts include: # Royal Boots of Embers from the original Ultima Online game # Royal Rose of Trinsic from Ultima Online The Second Age # Shamino's Best Crossbow from Ultima Online Renaissance # The Scroll of Sosaria from Ultima Online: Third Dawn # Hearth of the Home Fire from Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn's Revenge # The Holy Sword from Ultima Online: Age of Shadows # Ancient Samurai Armor from an upcoming expansion pack due this fall As an added perk, with the purchase of Ultima Online 7th Anniversary Edition, players will be able to invite seven friends to adventure with or open seven new accounts, each account receiving the first 30 days of play free. Additionally, players can add a new character and skill set to their UO family by trying out a new profession without having to delete one of their existing characters. Confusion abounds for those who already have Age of Shadows installed, in which they are told they DO NOT need to install the new edition, just enter the promo code. Posted June 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Climax Responds on Warhammer: Climax speaks out on their part as to why Warhammer Online from Games Workshop was cancelled and announces some plans to continue working in the MMO Field: During the past few months Climax and Games Workshop have been undertaking a comprehensive review of the costs to complete and launch the game. MMO's have a very different business model from traditional (boxed) games and require a huge up front investment in servers, bandwidth and customer support teams. The actual cost of rolling out the game was far higher than either partner had anticipated and we have decided that we simply cannot justify it. This decision will not impact Climax's Nottingham studio: we have a second game already in development there and the technology team will continue to advance our Leviathan suite of MMO tools and technology. We are now exploring the possibility of bringing in another partner to assist with the roll out, a company with existing MMO experience and infrastructure would be ideal, as this would reduce costs and risk. Could it be that they are looking to become the EU Studio for Mythic, NCSoft or Turbine? On another sad note with the closure of Warhammer Online, Community Relations Manager Ed Relf's position has become redundant and he is now seeking opportunities within the games industry. Posted June 23 2004 by Div Devlin

World of Warcraft Phase Three: Finally!!! World of Warcraft has announced their invitations for phase three of beta. Phase Three of the World of Warcraft Beta Test has started, and we have randomly selected the next group of people to be added for this important phase of our testing process. Invitation emails will be sent out shortly, so please disable your junk mail filters and check your inboxes! If you don’t hear from us for this phase, please note that there will be additional phases with more testers added in the weeks and months ahead. In addition to that, we will eventually be holding an Open Beta Test as well, during which many more people will have a chance to try out World of Warcraft prior to launch! Please do not contact us to inquire about the status of your Beta Test application. We will continue to post announcements here whenever new phases have started. Were you one of the lucky few? If not, you can always start a World of Warcraft fansite with the new fansite kit released. It probably will not increase your chances to get in. Posted June 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Warhammer Online Dead (2) Confirmation now that it was not just a prank and someone defacing the Warhammer Online website. Now appearing on the Games Workshop site is the following announcment on the status of Warhammer Online being scrapped: Today we have made the following announcement to our shareholders: “Games Workshop Group PLC (“the Company”) announces that its board has resolved to terminate its online gaming development project. This decision was taken following a full review of the progress, costs to date and future costs of the project. As a result both the Company and Climax Development Limited, the computer games developer, have agreed to terminate the development project." The online team has been working for some time to prepare a detailed project report which examines the current status of this project, the work still to be completed, how long the game will take to finish and to get it to market, and how much all this is expected to cost. The board has reviewed this report and has decided that the team’s reassessment of the project shows that it is more risky and very much more expensive than expected and therefore no longer attractive enough for us to continue to commit the group’s resources. While the opportunity to have an online game set in a Games Workshop universe still looks very exciting, this project was always a step into the unknown. We now know much more about online games than when we began this venture, but there remain substantial risks associated with this project, and the potential future rewards are still uncertain. We will be winding down the project immediately, although a small, specialized team will continue to examine whether online games remain a serious business opportunity for Games Workshop. Let us all remember that this project was well worth while, and it very nearly worked. No-one involved should feel despondent. It was a valiant effort. Gallantry does not always lead to success. - Tom Kirby Another for the MMO Dead Pool. Rest Well. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Warhammer Online Dead@ Just overnight the official website has changed for Warhammer Online with an announcment from Robin Dews that the game has been canceled. It is with a great deal of sadness that I have to inform the community that we have decided to discontinue the development of Warhammer Online and will be closing down this website with immediate effect. This has been a difficult and painful decision but it was taken following a following a full review of the progress of the game, costs to date and future costs of the project. As a result both Games Workshop and Climax Development Limited, the computer games developer, have agreed to terminate the development project. I would like to say a personal thanks to all of the people who have followed our development over the last few years, your constant support and enthusiasm has meant a great deal to us. Robin Dews This could of been our last, best hope. Anyone see this coming? Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Anarchy Online Turns Three: Funcom is pleased to announce the upcoming third anniversay for Anarchy Online. In celebration of this considerable milestone, Funcom invites all players to join in the festivities. Parties hosted by Funcom, Advisors of Rubi-Ka and Gridstream will be held on Rubi-Ka, and hopefully player-hosted activities as well. It should be plenty of entertainment to go around, and if you are lucky you might even grab some exclusive Funcom sponsored prices. So, what can you exactly expect? The Advisors of Rubi-Ka (ARK) will be at location as participants in a grand parade, as well as Funcom representatives in various shapes and forms. On Sunday the 27th we reveal the winners of the AO Voice contents, and not the least, lots of additional competitions with cool prices, including a ATI 9800 Pro 256MB graphics card, Alienware prices, various autographed items, several Anarchy Online Alien Invasion T-shirts, Alien Invasion posters, Prophet without honor novels, Anarchy Online Soundtracks, Yalmaha paint jobs, Jobe Luxury apartments and several accounts for the Alien Invasion beta. If that wasn’t enough every active subscriber of Anarchy Online automatically receives three 30-days gamekeys in their mailbox around the anniversary date. These free keys give full access to Anarchy Online, Notum Wars and Shadowlands, but does not includes customers in a 7-day free trial. What you do with them are completely up to yourself whether you choose to create new accounts or give them away to friends. Make sure you have a valid e-mail address for your account though! Sounds like a great time! Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Atriarch Update: World Fusion has two updates for Atriarch which appeared last week and prior, expanding upon the "State of the Game," in which they announced that they have added the player skill system. With the latest news they announce players can create their own skills: This is how it works... nearly every Action in the game has an associated Skill. If it does not have a Skill yet, then the game makes one up for you. How cool is that? More specifically, it makes your character a unique Specialty Skill based on how you are using the Basic Skill. Check it. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

As The Market Turns: Artifact Entertainment Restructures Artifact Entertainment, the guilty party behind Horizons have let folks go as they rebuild internally. Notable personages departed include: Gale "Ross" Rellian, Community Manager; Kristen "Shetani" DeMeza, World Master; Monika Carlson, Head of Customer Service; and Steve Escalante, Vice President. In protest a number of players have opted out of renewing their subscriptions for next month. David Bowman is now leading the charge for Community Relations and is promising to read community boards more actively. PayPal Settles Lawsuit PayPal has settled one of the class action lawsuits filed against them last year for failure to disclose transaction information and not honoring limts placed on user accounts to the tune of $9.3 Million. Themis Announces White Paper Themis released a white paper in which they show the "The Pitfalls of Virtual Property," written by Dr. Richard Bartle, examines what many observers believe to be an inevitable part of the growing online market, that of virtual property. According to the Themis Report 2004, virtual property sales are set to generate over $20m in revenue in 2004, on around $400m in trade volume and could grow to as much as one-quarter of subscription revenues by 2008. As the online gaming industry matures, an industry is beginning to grow around the gathering, selling, and reselling of virtual property. In this whitepaper, Dr. Richard Bartle explores the potential pitfalls of this growth and compares them to the common arguments used in favor of virtual property by its proponents. No links to point to the article were provided. -shrug- Turbine Takes Two Turbine Entertainment announced the hiring of two new members into their house. One of them was not Savant. Moving in are Vijay Lakshman and Jeffrey Steefel who have joined the company's all-star line-up as Vice President of Production at Turbine's east coast studio and Executive Director of Online Programming, respectively. With more than 15 years of video game development, production and management experience, Mr. Lakshman oversees the production, operation and management of Turbine's Massachusetts studio's marquee lineup, including the hotly anticipated The Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons titles. Similarly, Mr. Steefel will leverage more than a decade of gaming, production, media programming and customer service in his new position as the leader of Turbine's online programming. WarCry Hiring Network Sales Admin Things that make you go Hmm... "Warcry is now hiring a Network Sales Executive. This position is based out of Research Triangle Park in North Carolina." The location is the same place where Themis Group is located. Thought the two companies were not one and the same? Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes 1st Update: City of Heroes is about ready to go live with their first mega-update since release for the game, with their "Through the Looking GLass" publish. Included in the update will be new zones, new missions and other exciting additions which can be downloaded now in preperation of live. Full details can be found on the test server notes. Avoid the Rush. BTW: For those keep track, City of Heroes remained in the top ten for game sales last week falling to fourth. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Community Chats: CorpNews Chats with Sunsword CorpNews chats it up with Anthony "Sunsword" Castoro, for Ultima Online. GameBunny Hops with Jason Kramer GameBunny chats it up with Jason Kramer, Lyra Studios’ Producer for RECLAMATION. GameBunny Hops with Richard Garriot GameBunny chats it up with Richard Garriot on Tabula Rasa. A Snip:"I am very comfortable as Lord British and, while Tabula Rasa is not a world for the persona of Lord British to “live and rule” within, I want to be sure that everyone recognizes that it is still a Lord British craft." HomeLAN Fed Chats with Brad McQuaid HomeLAN Fed chats it up with Brad McQuaid of Sigil Games on Saga: Vangaurd of Heroes. OGaming Chats with Mutable Realms The folks from Ogaming chat it up with the folks from Mutable Realms on Wish. Warcry Chats with AC2 OCR Warcry has a two-part interview with Lorien Carney, OCR of Asheron's Call 2. Linkage = Part One + Part Two. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

DAoC: Frontiers Tommorrow! Sanya announced over on the Camelot Herald that Mythic is heading into the home stretch with their expansion Frontiers for Dark Age of Camelot. With your help and feedback, we will launch on the afternoon of Tuesday, June 22. The servers will be taken down at 7:00 AM EDT, and we expect them to return at approximately 2:00 PM EDT. I wish the downtime could be shorter, but it will take a fair amount of time to configure all of the servers. We need to remove the old zones, and load in the new, among many other tasks. Major surgery is never quick. With the number of folks looking forward to this expansion, don't wait until game day to download it, get it now. They list several sites which carry the expansion as mirrors. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Endless Ages Concept Art: Avaria Corp is hard at work on the next part of their game Endless Ages showing us something different from their artist DJ who has been hard at work with a glimpse into what some of the Amphibian's new V2 weapons will look like. Check it below, click to enlarge.The folks over at MPOGD have a review up, and they dislike (to say it mildly) Endless Ages. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

EverQuest II Creatures: A Deadly Duo of denizens from the EverQuest II game world have made their official appearance on the EQII site. Now found in the creature compendium is the seductive Siren and the other-dimensional Shadowed Man have been added and await your discovery. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Lineage II First Castle Falls: Not very often we hear about NCsoft's other game which released the same time as City of Heroes. Lineage II made some news last week as the first castle within game was taken over by a clan. Wolf's Dragoons became the first clan in the North American Lineage II service to take ownership of a castle! They conquered the defenders of Gludio Castle. The siege was intense and chaotic, seeming destined for defeat. However, the tide suddenly turned when Dwarven Warsmiths summoned a legion of Siege Golems to smash down the front doors. Once the outer doors fell, all of the attackers rushed into the inner area, only to meet a shower of arrows. Pushed back by a formation of castle guards, the resolute attackers eventually overcame these obstacles and penetrated the remaining defenses. Sounds like it was long, and intense fight that rivaled epic quests. Congrats to the folks inside Wolf's Dragoons! Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Project Entropia Land Grab Delay: MindArk has announced they have pushed back the highly touted land grab for Project Entropia which was to take place this month, to September based on player request. The launch was originally set for June, in the middle of the summer. This is a problem since many players was not able to participate in the grand event. We have adhered the overwhelming number of wishes for postponement and therefore the release of the Landgrab has been rescheduled for the September launch. This will also give us time to include a new graphics and environment engine which will raise the visual quality to new levels and also enable us to create whole new planets at a very fast pace, we are talking days or weeks here. The change in date does not influence the skill levels needed to partake, nor has any of the pending rules been changed. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Purge Jihad Released: Bugged. Freeform Interactive made their expansion debut with "Jihad" to their game Purge Online last week. Purge Jihad adds several new attacks and weapon modifications, large experience point boosts for teamwork, and new rules for the character attributes Energy and Tenacity. Also, significant features have been added based on player requests. Even being the most throughly tested update of Purge Jihad, Build 2.1.0 has several significant bugs due to the large amount of new features. A very small patch (only 114 kb), Purge Jihad 2.1.0c, has been released. Note: you need 2.1.0 installed first. Get the patch here. They Tried At Least! Credit Where Credit is Due. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Saga Of Ryzom Growing: Some mini updates here. Neverax announced that Saga of Ryzom numbers are growing, with just over 105,000 activated accounts so far. A new forum was opened for Focus Discussions, with the first major entry on how XP is gained. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Shattered Galaxy v.Update: Nexon announces they have updated the latest version of Shattered Galaxy to 1.69 with a number of enhancements for game-play, including: 1. New War Chest feature added. Elite heroes can use the War Chest to access special abilities for their hero. A list of the preliminary War Chest abilities are listed below. a. type \statreset to reset your hero stats. This feature is only available while in your faction capital. cost: 10 uranium b. type \relicmove to move your Morgana Prime hero down to Relic. This feature is only available while in your faction capital. cost: 5 uranium c. type \fasthero to temporarily double your hero walk speed for 3 hours. The increased walking speed will take effect after passing through your first portal. cost:3 uranium d. type \repair to instantly repair all your damamged units. This feature can only be used outside of battle. cost: 1 uranium We are continually working on adding new abilities to the War Chest. If you have any suggestions for new War Chest abilities, please post them on the Suggestions BBS. Thank you! 2. PR limit for Morgana Prime adjusted back to the original level. 3. Curse filter added to the battle text. Ever Play? Download. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Ultimate Baseball Online Details: After three years of testing over at Netamin, it's time to play ball with Ultimate Baseball Online! Andy Wang, CEO of Netamin sent out a newsletter to players announcing the details for release of game. After 3 years of testing, UBO finally reach its goal, it's time for us to move to the next step, the exact timing of official release date which will be soon announced on the UBO site as well as other gaming, baseball and sports related sites. We didn't plan to reset your character's stats and experience point after June 18th either. Stats earned after June 18th will carry over into the production/paid version of UBO. We believe there will be a lot players who will want to take the advantage of carrying over their stats to the official release; however, in order to maintain the quality of game play, we do not plan on taking an unlimited number of members upon the release of the game. We understand that without your help and time spent testing the game we could not have successfully reached this point. Before we make the announcement to the public, we'd like to take this opportunity to offer a Members Only Promotion program as a "Thank You" for your past and future support. What you will get is subscription fee - you don't have to pay anything till the beginning of the second month after the official launch date. For example, if the official launch date is 7/15, you will get 7 days free trial plus 1 more month membership and your first billing date would be 8/22. Moreover, this guarantees a seat for you in UBO -- we are limiting the maximum number of members as we launch; your favorite character names, your accumulated statistics, experience, and levels, and you can start to prepare your characters for the Official UBO League Game earlier than others - giving you a great competitive advantage! As for Launch Details for those who were not already inside the dug out: # The regular License Fee is $29.95 which includes a one-week free trial period and first month subscription fee. During this promotion period, members pay only $14.95 (with Coupon Code) for the license as well as ONE FULL MONTH of free play. # Members Only customers don't pay until the beginning of the second month after the official release of UBO. # The monthly subscription fee is just $9.95 Question, Baseball in summer, most folks are outside at real games, this should of been a winter release no? (Thanks Vash!) Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Warhammer Online Updates: Climax teases us some more with loose info for Warhammer Online! Damn those forces of Chaos at work! Hitting us with an introduction to eight starting professions which players will get to play in game they give us a breif overview of the Thug, Novice, Sell Sword, Scout, Rascal, Petty Crook, Milita and Scribe. Also released is a new animated picture of the Skeletal Archer, in which they suggest you be afraid. Very Afraid! Check it. Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

War Comes to World of Warcraft! World of Warcraft has the first update out for PvP which went live with the last publish within beta. Opening a new server to test Realm wars for Alliance versus Horde they tossed out some hefty patch notes. Rules to govern everyone with a PvP Policy. Actions that would typically be considered "dishonorable actions" are considered PvP mechanics and are not considered harassment. Heh! A new discussion forum for PvP and Quest Spoilers. Fourteen screenshots from the first major battle in which members of the Alliance staging one of the first attacks on the Horde city of Brill. The Horde repelled this attack, however, driving the Alliance back to Thelsamar, where the soldiers of the Alliance held the besieged city, defending the region of Dun Morogh from certain attack. Many valiant Horde and Alliance soldiers perished in battle last night in what is surely a prelude to the greatest war of our time. And finally a new mounts page for travelling the lands on a Nightsaber, Mechano-Strider, Undead Steed or a Raptor. No Taxi service here? Posted June 21 2004 by Div Devlin

Savant Leave Themis House: What's the deal here? Themis announces Daniel "Savant" Manachi has left the house! It was announced today that Daniel Manachi, Themis Group's director of marketing, had left the Company to pursue other opportunities. Mr. Manachi was one of the earliest members of the Themis Group team, having served as community manager of Themis from October 2001 to November 2002, as marketing manager from November 2002 to January 2004, and as the Company's director of marketing from January 2004 to the present. He will remain active with the Company as a consultant and advisory board member, lending his expertise on a variety of marketing and community related issues. [Marketing Fluff] "We wish Daniel all the best in pursuing future opportunities," said Themis President and CEO Alexander Macris, "and thank him for his years of invaluable contributions to Themis." Savant has said he left on good terms and has a Letter of Reccomendation on his site. From within: Daniel’s marketing tactics are often controversial, and his public image flamboyant, but at heart Daniel is a professional who has the rarest of all traits in this industry – loyalty. In his almost 3 years with Themis, Daniel turned down countless job offers by top companies in the industry. C'mon, there really has to be more than this? Where's the drama! The intrigue! The Romance? We wish everyone well, as more folks in the industry will help make the industry grow, not stagnat and pool inside one house. Posted June 11 2004 by Div Devlin

Bunny Assaulted by Autos: Over on GameBunny, they are running an interview with Ryan Seabury, Senior Developer for upcoming post-apocalyptic MMO, Auto Assault! A teaser: "The biggest thing we noticed was simply how much fun people had just driving around and destroying various buildings and structures in the environment...People were laughing and smiling, and they hadn't even started playing the actual game yet!" Check it! Posted June 10 2004 by Div Devlin

CoH Still Leads Game Sales: City of Heroes the superhero MMO game based on the golden era of comic books by NCsoft and Cryptic Studio's is still in the lead for game sales ending the week of May 29th according to the latest release by NPD Group. 1. City Of Heroes 2. Far Cry 3. Battlefield Vietnam 4. Rise Of Nations 5. MS Age Of Mythology 6. Unreal Tournament 2004 7. Call Of Duty 8. Counter Strike: Condition Zero 9. The Sims Deluxe 10. Drop JC Best release sales ever for an MMO game? Posted June 10 2004 by Div Devlin

DAoC: Catacombs Website Up! Catacombs, the expansion coming for Dark Age of Camelot by Mythic has a new website devoted all to things dark and dangerous with the luanch of the official website for Catacombs. The placeholder site includes an introduction, a look at the graphic overhaul, and some wallpapers to download. There would be more but the teams are devoted to Frontiers currently. (Thanks Chern!) Posted June 10 2004 by Div Devlin

Sigil V:SoH Radio Show! The guys over at OGaming dropped a quick note into our mailbox alerting us to a netRadio Show they will be hosting tonight at 9pm EST with Sigil Games guests Brad McQuaid (President & CEO / Co-Producer), Keith Parkinson (Art Director), and Cindy Bowens (Community Manager) to discuss the development status of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. Fans can contribute questions using Ventrillo. Learn more! Posted June 10 2004 by Div Devlin

Saga of Ryzom Publisher: Press Release today announces that "Saga of Ryzom," the MMO by French company Neverax has inked a deal with Tri Synergy to distribute the game to North American players. This tid bit was originally announced during a press event at E3Expo last month. Now that the ink is dry, the announcment: Tri Synergy (www.trisynergy.com), a North American co-publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment software, and Nevrax (www.nevrax.com), a Paris-based online game and software development company today announced an exclusive North American distribution agreement. "We are delighted to have a distribution agreement with Tri Synergy," said David Cohen Corval, CEO of Nevrax. "Their experience in the MMORPG genre and strong knowledge of the US games market makes them an ideal partner, and ensures the game will launch with the highest quality support behind it." Under the agreement, Tri Synergy will distribute The Saga of Ryzom (www.ryzom.com), Nevrax's graphically stunning, multi-genre massively multiplayer online role-playing game into the North American market later this year. Congrats to those Frenchies! Posted June 10 2004 by Div Devlin

Warhammer Online Using SpeedTree: Announcements yesterday have the word that Warhammer Online will now be using the SpeedTreeRT engine within game. SpeedTree has been fantastic in enabling us to bring the tree-covered wildernesses of the Warhammer World to life in a visually exciting, but cost efficient and effective way," said Robin Dews, General Manager of Warhammer Online, Ltd. "For the first time in a game such as this, thanks to the technology behind SpeedTree, we have been able to recreate deep, dark, dangerous environments, the type that keep this game really authentic to the grim, dark and gritty World of Warhammer." It's are dark and deadful world after all! Posted June 10 2004 by Div Devlin

As The Market Turns: Browser Based Games pwn MMO's Screen Digest has issued a issued a report called "Online Gaming Markets to 2007 - The New Growth Opportunities," in which they state that casual gamers who play browser based games are generating more income than MMO Games and continues to grow 1.5 times greater than those produced by the much hyped massively multi-player online game sector. Naming "Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot and Star Wars Galaxies" by comparison, it is far simpler browser-based fare such as cards, solitaire and puzzle games that have emerged as the largest money-spinners. Most of these are written in Java, Flash or Shockwave; can be developed quickly and cheaply and have a far broader appeal than 'hard-core' online games. Now if only the MMO companies would listen to us! We've been telling them for years we don't want endless grindage! Interplay No More As reported by everyone else last week, Interplay is no more as they were shutdown last week by the man, for not paying their staff, and not owning up to benefits for workers compensation. The CEO of iInterplay insists that the company has not been shut down. Whatever. No Fallout sequel. Posted June 8 2004 by Div Devlin

Community News: Comcast Games-On- Demand Comcast announces their Games-on-Demand Service powered by Exent. GameTable and WizKids Partner GameTable Online, Inc. and WizKids, Inc. reached an agreement to create the first online Collectable Miniatures Game. GameTable Online will host a digital version of Creepy Freaks, WizKids' gross-out 3D strategy game, on their website. Creepy Freaks has recently been nominated for "Best Abstract Board Game" by the acclaimed Origins Awards. IDG Launches New MagRag This is geared towards a market audience of old-timers like me? IDG Entertainment, the industry leader in providing editorial products covering the entertainment market, announced the success of the premiere issue of Gamestar Magazine. Gamestar is the first media brand focused on the new adult gamer and his entertainment interests! Ncsoft Names New Executive Producer Jon Van Caneghem, best known as the founder of New World Computing and the creator of some of gaming's most prominent franchises, including the Might and Magic role playing game series and the Heroes strategy game series is in the house as Executive Producer for NCsoft North America. Nightwish Comes to America If you thought rock band Nightwish would never come to North America, Suprise! They are coming for a North America tour! Cities on the tour include: Philadelphia, Worcester, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Phoenix, Anaheim , Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Tukholma. Check out the tour dates. Posted June 8 2004 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires Newsletter: New Dragon Empires newsletter which tells how the build shown at E3 is being further tweaked for Beta1 release and that Codemasters is continuing to add more features, quests and monsters to the world. Based on feedback from E3 and the forums and ideas of their own they have some nice development surprises coming up in the next few weeks, which they are forbidden to talk about. Tease! A new letter from Gadsolme also appears with a focus on an article found on the various customs and remembrances held in the five empires commemorating the "Great Crusades." Check it. Posted June 8 2004 by Div Devlin

Guild Wars Lore: ArenaNet bringa a prequel to the lore for Guild Wars which adds to the six chapters of short stories that came to a conclusion last month. For a peek at the history that precedes the Guild Wars legends, visit the Lore Section. Posted June 8 2004 by Div Devlin

Jumpgate Extends Promotion: NetDevil has extended their promotion for Jumpgate. The promotion included a free 30-day trial (instead of the standard 10) to players who sent in their retail versions of Earth and Beyond. New games have been added to the trade-in list, to give more people the opportunity to test-fly Jumpgate. List of select games for trade-in: - Earth and Beyond - EVE - Neocron - Planetside - Star Wars Galaxies - Anarchy Online This offer only applies to accounts created between June 3, 2004 and October 31, 2004. For more information, see details at http://www.jossh.com/sswap. Posted June 8 2004 by Div Devlin

Planetside: Return to Duty! SOE sends word that they are celebrating the one year anniversay for Planetside, and want all soldiers to return to duty, as they reactivate accounts for all past subscribers from June 5 to June 15, 2004. A number of changes have been made to the game since release, thay SOE says you won't believe. Disclaimer is, "Offer subject to SOE's Terms of Service and may be cancelled at any time without further notice. To continue to play after this time period, you will need to update your subscription." Posted June 8 2004 by Div Devlin

Vendetta Online: New space MMOG coming from Publisher Strategy First and developer Guild Software who have teamed up to bring Vendetta Online to a retail store near you this summer. Vendetta Online is set in space. Thousands of players will interact as the pilots of spaceships in a vast universe and users may build their characters in any direction they desire, becoming rich captains of industry, military heroes, or outlaws. A fast-paced, real-time "twitch" style combat model offers intense action, coupled with the backdrop of RPG gameplay in a massive online galaxy. Beta applications have been closed, no release date has been set, screenshots look great! Posted June 8 2004 by Div Devlin

WoW, Site Update: The official World of Warcraft site has been updated with a new menu system making everything easier to locate, along with a new fan art section. Fans can also submit their own art to be showcased in the gallery. (Thanks EvilCrow!) Posted June 8 2004 by Div Devlin

Interview w/ Andrew Tepper: Selenia drags Andrew Tepper of eGenesis away from development of their upcoming second telling of the underground cult classic "A Tale in the Desert." She asks about his car, the weather as well as the sequel in development in this interview. Posted June 2 2004 by Div Devlin