AO: Alien Invasion Live! Anarchy Onlines newest (and greatest) expansion, Alien Invasion is due to go live tommorrow, hope everyone already has planned to take the day off. Funcom announces that Anarchy Online - Alien Invasion launches tomorrow. The new expansion pack promises to bring Anarchy Online to a whole new level, making the ultimate sci-fi MMORPG even better. In a genre dominated by fantasy titles, Funcom brings a clear and exciting sci-fi alternative to all MMORPG fans. "With the coming of Alien Invasion we are virtually changing the entire face of Rubi-Ka as the players repel a massive world-spanning alien invasion," said Game Director Marius Enge. "Not only do we seek to become even better at the fast-paced sci-fi action we are known for, we are also adding plenty of new social features like player-made towns and guild houses." To celebrate the launch Funcom has released the official Alien Invasion trailer. Anyone who is interested in Massively Multiplayer Online games is advised to take a look! Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

Europe to be Jolted by Turbine: Turbine and Jolt have announced thier partnership for European Gamers answer to Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2! Jolt Online Gaming, Europe's largest independent online gaming network, is pleased to announce it has signed an exclusive agreement with Turbine Entertainment Software, a premier provider of online subscription services, for the right to host, operate, market, distribute and support Asheron's Call and Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings online services in Europe. The deal marks an important step forward in Jolt's business operations and reaffirms its position as a leader in the provision of online gaming services in Europe and a dynamic, strategically expanding company in the fast moving market. What an ever expanding market! Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

As The Market Turns: Acclaim Files Bankrupt Acclaim Entertainment, the Glen Cove, New York game company that got its start with titles such as WWF Wrestlemania and NBA Jam, officially filed for bankruptcy, has let all its employees go, and shut its doors for good, IGN learned today. The 600-employee company (NASDAQ: aklm) that owned studios in Manchester, UK, Austin, Texas, and was headquartered in Glen Cove, NY, was unable to renew a loan with GMAC Commercial Finance, and could not secure an additional $65 million loan from another financier. Friday, the company sent employees home, but there was no official or public conclusion of its closure. Codemasters New NA President Codemasters, has named Marc Bennett to the position of President, North America. The announcement was made today by Codemasters' Chief Executive Officer, Nick Wheelwright, to whom Bennett will report. In his new capacity, Bennett will be responsible for all sales, marketing and business development activities for North America. This will no doubt also cover the North American release for Dragon Empires! SWG Heads to Japan LucasArts, a leading developer and publisher of interactive entertainment products for video game consoles, computers and the Internet, has jointly announced with Electronic Arts K.K. (EA Japan) that the two companies have agreed to distribute and operate the massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) Star Wars Galaxies(TM): An Empire Divided(TM) in the Japanese market. Under this agreement, the parties will begin offering the MMORPG in Japan, starting with the launch of the first expansion, Star Wars Galaxies: Jump to Lightspeed. There Get's Funded There Inc, the folks behind the Sim style MMO Game there have been funded by an Israeli Company and have thus changed their name to Forterra Systems. Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

CoH Film Festival: This is pretty cool. The folks for City of Heroes want to check out, and include player made videos from within game on the upcoming DvD Edition of the game in a contest. For players who believe their City of Heroes character is ready for their close-up, the City of Heroes Film Festival Contest is the place to be and be seen. The contest starts today and ends on midnight (Central Time) on Monday Sept. 20. The contest invites City of Heroes subscribers to create a short film of up to three minutes long using game footage, animation live action or whatever medium the player prefers. Contestants will have their entries judged in two categories: Best Action and Best Comedy. The winners of each category will receive a Sony DVD Handycam Camcorder, have their film included in the Special DVD Edition of City of Heroes being released during this year’s holiday season, and the winner’s City of Heroes character will be featured in an upcoming issue of the City of Heroes monthly comic book. Winners of the contest will be announced no later than Sept. 22. To qualify for the contest, each film submission can be no longer than 3 minutes long. Films must be submitted in Quicktime 640 x 480 format and codec suggestions are mpeg 4 or soreson 3. Audio should be 16-bit stereo sound, 22khz. Contestants may host the film on a website and submit a URL where it can be downloaded, or burn the movie to a CD and mail it to the NCsoft offices. Only one film per category, per person will be accepted, so contestants can enter one action and one comedy film. Contestants must be 13 years of age or older to participate and a legal resident of the United States (excluding the state of Rhoad Island) or Canada (excluding Quebec). No entries that infringe upon trademarked or copyrighted materials will be accepted. All participants must be current City of Heroes subscribers. For more information and complete rules of the contest, go to: http://www.cityofheroes.com/community/contests.html At the following link are examples of unauthorized video clips created by City of Heroes players. (Because many of these use copyrighted music, they would not be elligible for entry into the contest). Those are going to be fun to watch. Killer prize also to the winners, those list at $1000.00US Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

Community News: Arcadian Mocks Ultima Arcadian Del Sol laughs at Ultima Online and mocks the suits at EA as he has more fun playing free servers and paying for a real Ultima Online account. Great read. GameBunny's Saga of Ryzom GiveAway Get your grove on with GameBunny as they hold a Saga of Ryzom giveaway with copies fo the game, shirts and caps and mousepads. Grooving With GrooGrid Warcry has an interview with Ray Pingree from the new MMO/Ant Farm Game GrooGrid (that's how we read it, could be incorrect). Interactive Cartoon Games Norman and Company (That's their name!) send word they have a new interactive cartoon game available for play. Be a detective in one of five interactive cartoon murder mystery games. These free online role playing games are Web-based, so there's nothing to download to play - just point'n'click! PlanetSide Review GamersInfo sends word they have a review up for PlanetSide. Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

DAoC Concept Art/Bannings: Mythic has released even more concept are from their next expansion Catacombs for Dark Age of Camelot. Check out thew new works for the Inconnu domain beneath Albion, and Midgard's mysterious Viking Burial Grounds. Check them out with the details in our Gallery. Meanwhile, over on the Camelot Herald, Mythic is reporting that they have banned another 150 accounts from Dark Age of Camelot due to folks just not playing by the rules. It's another beautiful Monday. We're making it more beautiful by suspending over a hundred and fifty people busted for third party programs, and permanently terminating just under two dozen repeat offenders. The bright side to all this is that the number of people cheating has dropped dramatically. Why Cheat? Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

Meridian 59 3D Client Updated: Near Death Studio's has updated their 3D Client for Meridian 59. New Features: - Full 3D graphics engine featuring a high resolution display, texture filtering, dynamic lighting, and many new special effects - Rebindable keys through a new Configuration Menu - Adjustable mouselook with optional y-axis invert - Bugs causing lag in player movement (commonly referred to as "lag drift", or "map lag") have been almost completely eliminated - Hotkeys are now saved per-character, instead of per-install - Inventory window has been reformatted to show more items when in large graphics mode - Personal Enchantment area has been reformatted to display a much larger number of enchantments - Full 8-way directional movement (e.g. the ability to move diagonally) - Option to "always run" - Ability to run while strafing - Ability to target players/monsters with the mouse without automatically attacking them - Ability to target yourself (and remain targeted) with a key - 3D view no longer "sinks" into the ground when running up a steep ramp - Sound effect volume has been drastically lowered - Automatic inactivity logoff timer has been increased slightly We got to talk with Brian Green last week at GenCon, check the recap on all the goodness. Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

Saga of Ryzom Beta Open: True to their word with lat weeks announcment that they would reopen Beta, Nevrax announces that they have really reopned beta again for Saga of Ryzom. Paris, France – August 30th, 2004 – Join the adventures on Atys! Nevrax, an online game and software development company, announced today that The Saga of Ryzom has re-opened its Beta for a final two-week testing period prior to the game’s launch in September. "Our past months of focus beta testing have allowed us to improve and balance Ryzom and add further depth and interest to our content," said David Cohen Corval, CEO of Nevrax. "And now gamers worldwide will have an opportunity to preview Ryzom before it hits store shelves in September." The Saga of Ryzom was in Open Beta for eight weeks in April and May, and has featured two Open Weekend play sessions over the summer. More than 130,000 players have subscribed to join the beta so far. For those interested in participating in the Open Beta: - The Open Beta officially started at 5:00am (ET)/9:00 am GMT on Monday August 30th. It will end Tuesday, September 14th. - You will need a valid account to participate. If you need an account, register here! - Client downloads are available via BitTorrent, direct download, and on Fileplanet GameDAILY, and DLX Gamespot. - All civilizations and territories are available! Originally scheduled to launch in June, Ryzom was delayed to allow further development and focused testing. The Saga of Ryzom is now scheduled to launch in Europe and North America in the second week of September 2004. The decision to launch Ryzom in September rather than June came with the full support of Nevrax's local partners – Themis Group in North America, Jolt Online Entertainment in the UK and English-speaking Europe, and MDO Entertainment in France and Germany. The three companies have provided managed testing and quality assurance throughout the summer, and will provide world-class 24/7/365 customer support and community management during and after launch. After launch, Nevrax will be opening a special advanced test server. The advanced test server will be where all new features will be tested there before being live, and advanced testers will be the first to try out new missions and other updates. All North American fans who pre-order The Saga of Ryzom will have access to the advanced testing server when it opens in September for the duration of their subscription period. Access to the advanced testing server will otherwise be by invitation only. What did you think of your time inside? Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

Shadowbane Changes: Talk about full circle. Chris "Vosx" mancil leaves UBI as the Shadowbane Community Realtions Manager, takes a job over at Monolith for The Matrix Online. Sean "Ashen Temper" Dahlberg rekindles his role as Community Relations Manager and throws up an interview with the newest member to the Shadowbane Team, Janus Anderson. Woah. Meanwhile, the Wolfpack Gang are preparing to head down to AGC next week. Time for a Fan Gathering again? Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

Wish Beta Delayed: A letter sent, to everyone. How I WISH it were not so. Dear friends of Wish, We would like to inform you that Wish Beta 2.0 will start on December 1, 2004, and not, as originally planned, in fall 2004. The beta test will last until December 31, 2004. We apologize for the delay. The reason for the delay is that we want Beta 2.0 to be a truly mind-blowing experience. We are therefore reworking many parts of our game client, server, and content, based on the feedback that we received from our E3 version and from community message boards. These changes will take longer to finish than anticipated, but we are sure they will be worth the wait! We are also moving the release date of Wish from the first to the second quarter of 2005. Too many games have suffered from a premature release, and we do not want to be one of them. Best regards, Your Wish team Delay is good? Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

WoW, Beta Buy In: Blizzard and FilePlanet announced their partnership to test stress loads in which you can jump into a special beta version of World of Warcraft by being a FilePlanet subscriber. Blizzard Entertainment and FilePlanet bring you the opportunity to participate in a one-week, North American World of Wacraft closed stress test beta. This stress test is designed to tune the World of Warcraft network infrastructure. Your participation in this stress test beta will help Blizzard in finding the optimum server population for delivering the best online experience possible! Sign-up right now to GUARANTEE YOU'RE SPOT in this exclusive Stress Test Beta. Now we can pay to beta! Posted August 31 2004 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Announcment: This weekend at GenCon, a huge announcment was released to City of Heroes fans with two new hires joining the Cryptic Team. From the press announcmnet: NCsoft Corporation, the world's leading developer and publisher of online computer games and Cryptic Studios announced the addition of two new members to the City of Villains development team, a sequel to the critically acclaimed and best selling online game, City of Heroes. Dave "Zeb" Cook has been named senior designer and Shane Hensley will serve as senior writer on the City of Villains team. Cook has 25 years of experience designing games, including 15 years working with TSR Inc., a leading innovator of role-playing games. He has numerous novels and role-playing games to his credit, and is best known for designing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Dungeon Master's Handbook and the pen-and-paper game [Planescape. -Div] Cook is a 2003 inductee of the Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame. Hensley, best know for creating the RPG game Deadlands, will join the City of Villains team after an exemplary career writing computer games, board games, game guides and novels. He founded Pinnacle Entertainment Group, a company specializing in role-playing games. Hensley has also provided his writing talents to companies such as TSR, West End Games, SSI, FASA and had his novels published by Harper Collins and White Wolf Studios. "The addition of Dave and Shane to the City of Villains team is quite a coup," said Michael Lewis, CEO of Cryptic Studios. "We want City of Villains to draw players into their roles, and so we brought in Dave, a pioneer in the role-playing game market. Shane will add substantial storylines and narratives for City of Villains. Together, they will help City of Villains maintain the high standard that fans of City of Heroes have come to expect." City of Villains is projected for release in 2005. You can see our coverage of the event in our GenCap Recap later this evening. Posted August 23 2004 by Div Devlin

New Dragon Empires Lore: Codemasters release new lore on Friday for Dragon Empires. The second installment follows the Lore based on "The Crusades" from the games history. Intro for 'Greenwater': We gather our water from the lake beneath us, we dry out clothes in the sun and when it rains we hang them in front of the hearth. The children scream for food and sometimes I can’t feed them, it is even harder in the days since my husband left. Read on! Posted August 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Endless Ages Updates: Avaria Corp sends over word that they have massive update announcments for Endless Ages. To much to recap, cut-n-paste: Hi everyone! With the upcoming upgrade and expansion closing in we wanted to get some pertinent information in regard to them out to you. First, we have some new technology that will be implemented into our servers. This new technology will increase smooth out game-play and reduce latency for players. We will be using the Atlanta server as the launch platform for these new upgrades in technology. In conjunction to these planned hardware upgrades for our Atlanta server we will be closing the Cali server. We are going to migrate all of the players' characters on Cali to Atlanta. This means you can have up to 6 characters on your Atlanta account if you migrate 3 from Cali. You can only create up to 3 characters so if you delete any characters (if you have more than 3) you will not be able to recreate them. As you know we have been saying that the weapons upgrade is going to be free to all players, as have been our past upgrades. That means all players, either existing right now, or coming in the future, will get all of the weapon and item upgrades for free. The Kingdom expansion is going to be our first paid expansion pack. This will sell for $19.95, but is free to everyone that pre-purchased the gold edition. To honor this you must have stamp date of 08/01/02 on your account. The following is what will be included in the Kingdom expansion - - 1 new world (about twice the size of Boom Town) that can be conquered and controlled by clans, team battle towers - 19 new quests - 20 new creatures - New weapons (duals, +) - New jet packs (each race has at least 6 now) - Special items (magic items and tools) - New Easter Eggs Check out the news for upgrade and expansion updates! Head over to their portal site to learn more. Posted August 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Imperator Online Makeover: Mythic sends word that the official site for their Romanesque themed Space MMO Game has had a massive makeover for Imperator Online. With new content, you can check out the site to read Developer Diaries, Concept Art and an In-Depth Q&A. Mark jacobs starts with his Diary: As part of the ongoing development process for Imperator, this is the first in an ongoing series of developer diaries created by members of the Mythic Imperator team. This diary focuses on the concept as well as some other basic facts about the game. Future diaries will cover everything from the historical and current backstory to the "guiding principles" for the game's development and much more. As always, we thank you for your interest in both the game and Mythic. Check It. Posted August 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Mourning Guild Incentive: Limitless Horizons has a novel idea for guilds to jump into Mourning and to become part of the games history! Mourning invites all respectable Orders from around the gaming community to join us in the realms of Krel! With an open PvP environment, a fame system that holds players accountable, dynamic territories that can be controlled and put under siege, and an innovative bloodline feature, the stage is perfectly set to provide the best roleplaying atmosphere in any MMORPG! If that wasn't enough, here are some more reasons that guilds should consider Mourning: - Write your Order into the history of Krel! - Receive a limited beta 3 account(s) - Be privy to exclusive screenshots - Stay in contact with the Mourning team That rocks. Check it. Posted August 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Box Office Smash: So, Friday at GenCon we have about an hour to go kill and decide to check out "Exorcist: The Beginning" and it really was a time-waster. Wait for the DvD cut. According to box office results it came in at number one to the head-spinning (YAR!) tune of $18 million. It was a good setup, if you had read the original book... Just expected more. Posted August 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Ryzom To Reopen Beta: Nevrax in partnership with Themis Group have announced that they will reopen their closed "focus group" testing to those who would like o get into beta on Saga of Ryzom, prior to the games release. Read On: Now is the time to join the community of Ryzom! Starting today, Nevrax, an online game and software development company, will begin a ten-day ramp-up of the closed "focus beta" test of The Saga of Ryzom, leading up to a complete re-opening of the Ryzom Beta on August 30th for a final testing period prior to the game’s launch in September. "When we took Ryzom back into closed beta, we promised that we would re-open the testing prior to release and invite everyone from the community back," said David Cohen Corval, CEO of Nevrax. "We are pleased to be able to honor our promise and look forward to this final period of Open Beta." Nevrax also announced today the details of a special advanced test server that will be opening when the game launches in North America. The advanced test server will be where all new features will be tested there before being live, and advanced testers will be the first to try out new missions and other updates. "The closed tests we've done this summer have proven invaluable in balancing and improving Ryzom," explained Mr. Cohen Corval. "By inviting the most dedicated of our fans to play in this special server after launch, we will be able to continue to receive the input and testing we need to manage Ryzom." All North American fans who pre-order The Saga of Ryzom will have access to the advanced testing server when it opens in September for the duration of their subscription period. Access to the advanced testing server will otherwise be by invitation only. Originally scheduled to launch in June, The Saga of Ryzom was in an Open Beta for eight weeks in April and May. Ryzom was delayed to allow further development and focused testing. Since then the game has featured two Open Weekend play sessions over the summer, and more than 120,000 players have registered to join the beta so far. The Saga of Ryzom is now scheduled to launch in North America in September 2004. Nope. No smarmy comments, everyone has said their words. We actually liked the game, check out Kal's preview. Posted August 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Massive Bannings in SWG: Players are revolting in a galaxy online, far, far, away. Last week SOE was made aware of a dupe bug finally and began banning accounts in Star Wars: Galaxies for anyone who had duped gold in their possesion, or so we are told. What this means by anyone is that even innocent players who were tipped duped gold, had duped gold on their vendors, or were given cash for item trades were also banned. "Blair," a producer posted the following: - All persons potentially involved in the dupe have been banned or suspended. - People who have been banned or suspended are going through the appeals process now. Each case is resolved privately between the customer and customer service. The appeals process will be complete by early next week. - Over 75% of the duped credits are being removed from the economy preventing hyper-inflation in the SWG economy. - No vendor owners were suspended for purchases made from their vendor with duped credits, only people that had money directly transferred to them were affected. - We are committed to maintaining a safe and fair playing environment and exploiting will not be tolerated. So, innocents may still be safe. Posted August 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Vendetta Online Gold Soon: Guild Software Inc., has announced that Vendetta Online, their space themed MMO Game will be going gold as early as September and on the streets for retail by October 5th. From their news page: Vendetta Online will be going gold in early September, with a final street date of October 5th. Pricing data and preorder information will be posted in the near future. Pre-order promotions will be offered to Earth & Beyond users and others. We will be expanding our Beta in the near future. Those who wish to be notified when we open to additional beta accounts should sign up here: http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/signup More space games with actual ship combat is a good thing! Posted August 23 2004 by Div Devlin

Were Off To See The Wizard: So, 1 day and 12 hours behind schedule, already losing two of us who had to cancel out at the last minute, were on our way to GenCon in downtown Indie! To See, what there is to see of course! This time we will have the laptop ready to go, along with digital pictures to upload during the next two days. See us Monday for a full recap, and if you are heading down, have a safe trip and a good time! Posted August 19 2004 by Div Devlin

Help Wanted: So, anyone want to help me out, we are once again looking for two news folks, who can help out with doing either nightly or morning updates. It will require about an hour each day checking various game sites for items of interest which is newsworthy for the MMOG Community. I know cash is an issue, and while I can not pay a ton, I can pay Fairly. If interested, tell me why you would be a great addition to our team here. Should know basic html, be able to spell better than I, and preferably have English as your native language. Must be knowledgable about the MMO Game Community, and have played several MMO Games or have covered them on other sites. Posted August 19 2004 by Div Devlin

As The Market Turns: Word has it layoffs over at Ziff Davis as a few editors are no longer with the company. If you are wondering, they do PC Magazine, 1UP.com, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World, and GMR. This could be a bad thing. Posted August 19 2004 by Div Devlin

DAoC Vegas Bash: Mythic announces party time Vegas style for Dark Age of Camelot. ythic Entertainment, developer and publisher of the critically-acclaimed massively-multiplayer online role-playing game "Dark Age of Camelot," today announced that they are hosting a “Dark Age of Camelot” Roundtable fan gathering in Las Vegas this September. As "Dark Age of Camelot" approaches the third anniversary of its launch, players from around the world are invited to gather on September 24th and 25th to meet one another and the game's developers. The Roundtable will feature “Dark Age of Camelot”-themed activities including LAN play, and costume contests. NVIDIA and Prima Games are amongst the official Roundtable sponsors, and along with Mythic will provide an array of prizes. The Las Vegas Roundtable will be held at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino on September 24th – 25th. For more information on the event and to purchase tickets, check www.darkageofcamelot.com/roundtable. Remember! "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas." Posted August 19 2004 by Div Devlin

UO Community Manager Rampages: You can read the sordid details here, here and here. To summarize, UO's Community Manager "Binky" announced a poll about shutting down Siege Perilous, the 'hard' server, for Ultima Online. Stratics news gal defends why the options to keep it going are more viable to support it. Posts degenerate. Binky calls for the firing or removal of Stratics news gal, or EA/UO will no longer 'partner' with Stratics. Much Drama Ensues. Posted August 19 2004 by Div Devlin

Asheron's Call Expansion Named: Fans of tthe Asheron's Call community may already be aware of this fact, but the lastest expansion for Asheron's Call has been named. The new expansion "Throne of Destiny." From the Press Release: In Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny, players will experience a new epic story line and participate in a bitter struggle for power. Behind the conflict are the war-like Viamontians and their calculating, ruthless king, Varicci II. Also, powerful figures of Dereth who hid in the shadows in years past will be thrust to the forefront of the burgeoning revolution to help define Dereth's new destiny. The third installment of the original Asheron's Call series will feature an exhaustive amount of new game play to compliment the massive amounts of existing episodic content. Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny Primary Features -- Graphics Upgrade: Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny will feature a substantial upgrade of Turbine's first generation graphics engine, the Turbine Engine(R). The game will upgrade to DX9 and add 5,000 repainted textures. As a result, AC:TD will have dramatically enhanced texture sizes, resulting in more detailed characters, creatures and landscapes. The improvements won't significantly impact performance, allowing robust play even on lower-end machines. -- New Playable Race: Players can now choose to play Asheron's Call as a warlike Viamontian, which have long been the scourge of the nations of Ispar. The Viamontians' bids for continental domination have finally resulted in a rapidly expanding kingdom under the leadership of King Varicci. Along with the new race, players will discover and explore a unique archipelago in the North of Dereth, which is held by the Viamontians. -- Raised Level Cap: AC:TD will challenge elder players in Dereth with a new high level cap of 261. With the new level cap comes skill credits that players can spend to activate precious gems that augment their characters, such as extra carrying pack storage slots and lesser death penalties. -- Rare Items: Adventurers in Dereth will occasionally come across advantageous rare items that are scattered across the land. Some of the items are transitory and may be used only once, while others are eternal and may be used over and over again. However, players will lose the precious rare items should their characters meet their demise. In addition to the key features, AC:TD will also provide players with several new monsters, hundreds of new inventory items, a slew of new quests and dozens of new exciting dungeons. Throne of Destiny will include all of the massive amounts of content from the original Asheron's Call, its first expansion pack, Dark Majesty(R), and all of the episodic updates that Turbine has provided since the game's launch. I admit, I've never been a fan of Asheron's Call but this sparks interest. Posted August 17 2004 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Book Deal: NCsoft and Cryptic Studios have 'inked' a deal with CDS Inc., the largest independent service provider to the book publishing industry, of a multi-year, multi-book licensing agreement for CDS to publish a series of books based on the world of NCsoft’s successful online computer game, City of Heroes. The first book, The Web of Arachnos, is expected in late 2005. It will detail the origins of Statesman, the signature hero of Paragon City, and will provide readers with some of the shadowy beginnings of one of City of Heroes’ first villain groups. About CDS, if like me, you never heard of them: Established in 1999 by the executive team of one of Random House's leading divisions, CDS is now the largest independent provider of distribution and fulfillment services to the book publishing industry. CDS Books began publishing in 2003, and its list to date includes such titles as the bestselling Secrets of the Code: The Unauthorized Guide to the Mysteries Behind the Da Vinci Code, The Highwayman by R.A. Salvatore and A Son Called Gabriel by Damian McNicholl. CDS operates out of New York City, with its distribution facility located in Jackson, Tennessee. Posted August 17 2004 by Div Devlin

DAoC Kobold Concept Art: Mythic releases new concept art based on Kobolds for their Dark Age of Camelot expansion "Catacombs." The ten images include concept art for the evil Kobolds’ structures, the Kobold main city, the forge, Kobold furniture, and Kobold mine carts. Check them and details on our gallery page here. Posted August 17 2004 by Div Devlin

Eve Online: The Great Scam! Interesting read is how one player succumbs to the great evil of MMO Games within Eve Online. Once a caring player, following the rules and playing the game as intended by the developers, he goes from a novice to an extereme greifer in the ultimate scam. Read the tale by NightFreeze. Not the kind of publicity one would want for a game, eh? (Thanks to all who sent me this link, it was a great read!) Posted August 17 2004 by Div Devlin

Face of Mankind Beta: Duplex Systems announces that their move for the Face of Mankind portal site has been fully completed and once again they are accepting applications for beta. However, a slight problem which was unforseen did ocur. Some previous appliactions were lost. In their words: Our move to the new domain of www.fomportal.com has been completed, and the beta portal is back online. This means that beta signups can be processed again. Unfortunately, due to unforseen complications during the transfer, some of the application data was lost. So please login, check your details and update them if needed. Make sure your beta account details are up-to-date, we might call upon your skills soon, as we enter the third phase of closed testing. Go signup. Check out the Beta page. Posted August 17 2004 by Div Devlin

MMO's At GenCon: With GenCon unofficially kicing it tommorrow night, the list of MMO Games that will be attending is begining to grow with last minute announcments. The folks going: Lucas Arts SWG:JTL Lucas Arts will be showing off "Jump to Light Speed" inside the Nvidia booth for their Star Wars Galaxies expansion. Mythic Pre-Fan Gathering Mythic will be holding a private fan gathering for Dark Age of Camelot folks local to Indy. Head over to Jillian’s in Indianapolis Wednesday, from 6:30 pm to 100pm in the private Billard room. It's a "Bring Your Own" if you want food and drinks for those 21 and over. NCsoft Showcase NCsoft will be showcasing both City of Heroes and Lineage II. Be sure to check out HeroClix which may/maynot have the first "Statesman" Hero Figs at the show. Posted August 17 2004 by Div Devlin

Warner Buys Monolith: Monolith, the developers working on The Matrix Online have been bought out-aquired-swallowed whole by Warner Brothers a announced last week. Television and film studio Warner Bros. has expanded its interactive gaming capabilities by acquiring video game producer Monolith Productions, officials said Thursday. Monolith, which has created "Alien vs. Predator 2," "Tron 2.0" and "No One Lives Forever," will become part of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, which licenses video games, co-publishes games and produces multiplayer online games, including "The Matrix Online." Terms of the deal, which will close Oct. 1, were not disclosed. Jason Hall, senior vice president of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, co-founded Monolith Productions in 1994 and was recruited by Warner Bros. while the two companies developed "The Matrix Online." Hall does not personally have a stake in the company, according to a press release issued Thursday. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. bought a small stake of Monolith last year and has chosen to exercise its option to buy the company. Monolith's headquarters will remain in Kirkland, Wash. Wonder what this means for "The Matrix Online," which is not drawing any major attention. Posted August 17 2004 by Div Devlin

Saga of Ryzom Pre-Orders: Nevrax announces a special preorder gift for those who grab their copy of Saga of Ryzom in advance. Players who pre-order The Saga of Ryzom from selected online retailers will receive an in-game item, the Armlet of Atys. The Armlet of Atys is the sacred symbol of the Living Planet, awarded only to the most devoted disciples of the Goddess Jena. The Armlet of Atys will be the only item of its kind in-game at launch, and is exclusively available via this offer. "We want to thank all of the fans that are supporting The Saga of Ryzom through a pre-order," said David Cohen Corval, CEO of Nevrax. "We've designed this special armlet just for them as a sign of recognition" No word on if this gift has any benefit to in game play. There is however a short animation available on the official website. Posted August 17 2004 by Div Devlin

Lucas Arts Boots Staff: Lucas Arts announced last week that they are continuing their restructuring under Jim Ward with some team members being let go. LucasArts confirmed today a major restructuring of its development studio. It marks the first change within the company since Jim Ward took over as president in May. "Since joining LucasArts in early May, I’ve taken a hard, critical look at our business. I’ve come to the conclusion that to make LucasArts thrive and to position ourselves for the long-term future, we need to make some fundamental changes." Today Ward named Peter Hirschmann Vice President of Product Development, who will oversee both internal and external development. Hirschmann has been with LucasArts for two years and has been involved with such titles as Secret Weapons Over Normandy and the upcoming games Star Wars Battlefront and Mercenaries. Hirschmann was previously with Electronic Arts where he launched and oversaw the Medal of Honor series. As a result of the restructuring, 31 people from the development studio were laid off as the company will be concentrating on fewer titles. This follows the announcement last month that key members would not see merit increases as the refocused on the Lucas Arts brand in this internal memo. That bites. We wish those well who are leaving. Posted August 17 2004 by Div Devlin

Endless Ages Items Updates: Avaria Corp. sends word that they have an update for the character items revamp in Endless Ages. The Bloblic is holding the new Jakkle Blaster, the human male is wearing a pair of Amphibious wings called Wings of Kruelogue, and the Amphbian is wearing a new set of horns (1 of 4 new sets) and holding dual Laz weapons. Please note that the environment they are standing in is still in the beta phase. Check em. Posted August 12 2004 by Div Devlin

EverQuest PvP Changes: With official word that there may never be PvP Combat in EverQuest II, Sony has announced a PvP Revamp for the old school EverQuest servers. The Notes from the Watch List: - Safe Zones: We're still looking into a better solution for the problem of safe zones. Expect some kind of change in the future. - Point System: There are still concerns of potential exploits with the point system at this time. Therefore the selection of PvP items available on the merchants will be limited to consumable items for now. We'll monitor the accumulation of points after this update. If all goes well, we will add a selection of equipment to the merchants in the near future. - Sullon Tokens: As a secondary concern with the point system, we are delaying the addition of the turn-in quest for Sullon Zek tokens. If there's a potential problem with the point system that eventually requires us to make adjustments to the way points are awarded, we don't want players to end up with less than full credit for these tokens. Once the point system has had any potential issues ironed out we will add a quest to turn in your tokens for PvP points. Check out the full revamp which includes changes to the Combat System, The Scoring System and The Leader Boards. Posted August 12 2004 by Div Devlin

Khan Absolute Power: Mirinae Entertainment would like to announce that one Koreas best known Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, Khan the Absolute Power's English web site has just had a face lift. Now you can have quick and easy access to all the information you require. Besides the usual information such as news and game information, you now can get a wealth of background facts on maps you are playing and the characters waiting for you to appear in their domains; such as Forest Giant - a one-legged monster living in the deep forest, it used to protect human beings to get some money, but now threatens people with the power of Evil; and Desert Spear - a slave soldier who leads other deserters under the command of Evil. I was wondering why I had never heard of this game. I'm not native to Korea. Posted August 12 2004 by Div Devlin

Ragnorak Online Champs: Last month we had heard about the Ragnorak Online Championship fights taking place, in which rep's from the US of A headed over to Korea to take part in these events. Turns out the underdogs (us American's) are doing well. Team Denuo Convena, second place winner of the U.S. Ragnarok Championships, handed stunning defeats to some of the world's top teams at the Ragnarok World Championships (RWC), ultimately placing fifth. Several of the Asian guilds have been playing together for the past three years, while the U.S. teams had less than six months to prepare. With relatively green teams, both U.S. guilds were expected to be eliminated in the first round. The final results of the competition proved the predictions about the U.S. teams to be wrong. During the course of the tournament, Denuo Convena defeated several teams favored to win including UF Power from Indonesia and 321Colors from Japan. Denuo Convena was eventually eliminated by Unforseeable from Taiwan-Hong Kong, which finished first. GO USA! Posted August 12 2004 by Div Devlin

Roma Victor Logo Poll: RedBedlam, developer of the historical MMORPG Roma Victor has announced an online poll to vote for the new Roma Victor logo as designed by their community members. A contest to create the logo was announced last March and now the entries are up. The poll will be available until midnight 14th August 2004 and the winning logo will be announced during September. Kerry Fraser-Robinson, RedBedlam's President & MD spoke thus: "We've been impressed with the standard of entries and narrowing down a shortlist of finalists was tough, I'd really like to thank everyone who entered for their effort and with the help of the Roma Victor community I'm sure we'll pick a great winner." Go Vote. Posted August 12 2004 by Div Devlin

ATitD2 Beta Begins: eGenesis sends word that Beta is to begin today for those following the second telling of A Tale in the Desert. From Andrew Tepper: Are you ready to unlock the secrets of this next Tale in the Desert? Just wait until you see what we have in store... A special early Beta of A Tale in the Desert II will begin on Tuesday, August 10 at 12:00 Noon EST (GMT-0500). This beta will be open to all with an open (paid) account on ATITD, and also to FilePlanet subscribers. ATITD players can retrieve a key using their avatar's Utility menu, and FilePlanet subscribers should receive their keys by email starting at noon. A Tale in the Desert II's open beta will begin on Friday, August 13 at 12:00 Noon EST (GMT-0500). Although no key is required to get into the open beta, if you do have one from FilePlanet (even a free one), there's a cool little bonus to pick up in the game. Did anyone see a man dressed in a funny green hat? For those who signed up (even after we closed the sign-ups) your info has been sent in, thanks for helping to make the game great by hunting down those bugs while testing. Posted August 10 2004 by Div Devlin

Anarchy Online Expansion Gold: Funcom announces that thier newest expansion for Anarchy Online has gone gold. Alien Invasion will include all new features, pets and more. From the Press Release: New Action Features: - Repel massive world-spanning invasions by a ferocious alien race - Provoke alien city invasions! Experience epic large-scale warfare for entire guilds! - Attack and board alien spaceships - Discover and utilize powerful alien weapons, armor, technology and perks - Challenge yourself on numerous new quests - Experience a brand new beginner area New Social Features: - Build epic cities with powerful benefits - Construct towering guild houses - Decorate cities with extra fixtures - Set up your own player-controlled shops - Access revised tradeskill interface and item search tool - Dress up in a wide array exciting new social clothes - Rule the sky in futuristic flying vehicles Suggested retail price in the U.S. will list for 29.99 and include the full version of Anarchy Online, Anarchy Online - Notum Wars and Anarchy Online - Alien Invasion, as well as 30 days of included gametime for new accounts. Don't forget to enter into the contest (See Below: Anarchy Online PC Contest). Grab a preorder copy to win. Posted August 10 2004 by Div Devlin

NCsoft Farmland Invasions: Ncsoft announced today that they are heading down to GenCon next weekend in Indianpolis to showcase both City of Heroes and Lineage II. So far, the MMO Games attending have been rather quiet. Looks like NCsoft will steal the show. From the announcment: NCsoft Corporation, the world's leading developer and publisher of online computer games, today announced plans to attend this year's Wizard World show in Chicago, Ill., and the 2004 Gen Con show in Indianapolis, Ind. The company will be showing two titles released in April 2004: the critically acclaimed and best selling City of Heroes', and the popular player-versus-player game, Lineage II: The Chaotic Chronicle. At both shows attendees will be able to meet the development teams, see live demonstrations of the games and participate in giveaways. Antharas, the Earth Dragon in Lineage II, will make daily in-game appearances and City of Heroes fans will be able to create their own superheroes using the game's character creation tool in the NCsoft booth. Be sure to head City of Heroes off at the pass, as they make their first appearance at the Wizard World show the following this weekend in Chicago where Jack "Statesman" Emmert will attend. Additionally, Jack "Statesman" Emmert, creative director at Cryptic Studios' and lead designer of City of Heroes will speak at Wizard World and will conduct comic book hero and villain trivia contests at both shows. Wizard World will be held at the Rosemont Convention Center from August 13 to August 15 and Gen Con will be held at the Indiana Convention Center from August 19 to August 22. Attendees can find NCsoft in booth 715 at Wizard World and booth 1439 at Gen Con. That sounds like it's going to be smashing. Posted August 10 2004 by Div Devlin

Guild Wars World Preview: Things have been heating up with all the news on Guild Wars from ArenaNet. Now it's time for them to unleash their world preview with the announcment of pre-orders becoming available, and BETA BABIEEE! Read on: ArenaNet', creators of the highly anticipated online role-playing game Guild Wars', and NCsoft the world's leading developer and publisher of online computer games, today announced that they will host a World Preview Event October 29-31, officially kicking off the game?s beta period. During the World Preview Event game players from around the world will be invited to play Guild Wars and enjoy exciting cooperative quests, challenging competitive play and robust guild support. Guild Wars will be available for pre-order in September. Subsequent monthly beta events will allow gamers who purchased the pre-order product to return to play the Guild Wars beta during the first weekend of each month. "Beta events are a unique way for players to get a taste of Guild Wars and participate in the crucial beta process," Jeff Strain, Guild Wars producer and ArenaNet co-founder said. "We welcome feedback from the millions of players invited to join the events and plan to incorporate their input as we polish, tune and balance the game." The October World Preview Event is the second time players have been invited to play Guild Wars. The May 2004 "E3 for Everyone" event drew more than 200,000 players from more than a dozen countries who experienced Guild Wars first hand. Now, the question remains, "Will it live up to the hype?" Posted August 10 2004 by Div Devlin

ReKonstruction DeKonstruction: ReKonstruction the sci-fi fps game from Damage Studios has ceased development with an announcment from Chris DiBona the Co-Founder of the Studio. Hi everyone, Damage is, at best, my personal hobby now. The company has been inactive for some time and I've been sending out backstory in a vain hope of pulling some rabbit out of a hat. Alas, no such luck. If you want to continue receiving the story with no promise that a game will come, stay on the mailing list, otherwise, I'd suggest unsubscribing in the next few days. Sorry it worked out this way, really. I'd like to thank so many people for their help since we started the project, especially the fan site guys, our advisors and former employees. Find me online if you'd like to chat more about it. I can be found sporadically on slashnet and freenode as Gamara. Chris DiBona Co-Founder Damage Studios, Inc. It hurt's seeing another game in development canned. Time for a new poll. Posted August 10 2004 by Div Devlin

Doh, Sorry. Eight business days without any updates, sorry. Spending the last few days of summer bonding with the child before school starts. I open wallet, and give her money. She denied me taking her shopping for school supplies, went with mom, came home and told me, "I should of went with you." I live for stationary! We now return to regular updates, whatever our irregular schedule may be. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Anarchy Online PC Contest: Alienware and Funcom have partnered together for an Anarchy Online Sweepstakes, in which the grand prize giveaway will be an Alienware Area-51 PC, by purchasing one of the first 100,000 copies of the Anarchy Online: Alien Invasion expansion. Inside each retail box will be a Alienware insert advertisement containing a contest code. Enter the code, and your information onto the contest page, and be entered into the drawing. The PC looks good, and makes me cry. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

As The Market Turns: Financial News tells us that both of NCsoft's upcoming titles, Guild Wars and Tabula Rasa have been delayed. Guild Wars has been pushed bak to the first half of 2005 (originally penned as 1stQ'05) and Tabula Rasa being pushed back to the second half of 2005. No doubt the recent change's at Tabula Rasa explain that delay, while speculation is that Guild War's was pushed back to not compete with other titles slated to release at the same time. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

City of Heroes Hits 180k: NCsoft continues to grow with City of Heroes, taking their spot as one of the largest MMO Games to date, hitting 180k in subscribers. From the Press Release: The game launched on April 28 and already has reached a total of 180,000 active users. "We're very proud of the growth of City of Heroes and we?d like to thank all our customers for making it such a huge success," says NCsoft North America President Robert Garriott. "At this point, the game has yet to be launched in Asia or Europe, so these numbers are just from our North American service and we find that especially gratifying." City of Heroes is scheduled for release by NCsoft's recently formed European subsidiary later this year. As a teaser, NCsoft released new screenshots for thier free expansion, "Issue 2: Shadows of the Past," with the most request feature. Capes! The screens include several different characters hovering, flying, running, jumping and fighting in their capes of different designs and shapes. Check em in our Gallery. Winners have also been announced for the bumper sticker contest, in which the winning slogans will get the players a cameo in the eigth issue of the official comic book. The winners and slogans were: "Truth, Justice and Amazing Gameplay" Submitted by: payback0069, Glenwood City, WI www.cityofheroes.com "Unleash The Hero Within" Submitted by: Mjolnir01, Forest Lake, MN www.cityofheroes.com "Where Heroes Come To Life" Submitted by: Knightfall2060, Tallahassee, FL www.cityofheroes.com "I'd Rather Be Fighting Villains!" Submitted by: Alvis, Merrimack, NH www.cityofheroes.com "Evil doesn't sleep, Why should you?" Submitted by: eelektrik1138, Riverside, CA www.cityofheroes.com "I'm not a real hero, but I play one online" Submitted by: Badmoon1029, Sheboygan, WI www.cityofheroes.com Congrats too all, these were good. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Community Views: Arcadian Previews Man with the hat, and MMO Veteran Arcadian Del Sol takes a look at the upcoming MMO Games in his run down of what's hot or not. Funny read, but more to the point, scary at the way the industry is going. Deyth on Gaming Deyth of The Combine guild has his latest editorial up titled, "In Spite of the Game" sharing with us his persepctive of why MMO Games are built, and why he almost quit MMO games altogether. It's about the community building blocks and the hoops we as players will jump through for the developers. JCal on MMO Comics JCal over at HomeLanFed has his latest editorial up, with a focus on the Comic Book Industry and the City of Heroes Comic Book, wondering why it's not being embraced be the media. They are publishing a minimum of 180,000 comics a month which rivals some of the titles produced by DC and Marvel. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Dragon Empires New Mom: As announced previously, Peter "Calistas" Tyson has left the house over at Codemasters for Dragon Empires, and with his departure there is a new mom in the house to handle Community Relations. No, it's not Donna "Katrica" Anthony. Sam "Satine" Russel now leads the way, and reports it was not a coup. Her intro from the latest newsletter: I have every intention on carrying on the good work Calistas started. I don't envisage any huge changes right now in the way we do things, although I am going to re-assess areas to see if they can be 'freshened-up'. For this, I should like to consult with all of you every step of the way; get your feedback, ideas and suggestions. I thought this newsletter was a good place to start and so placed a Poll over on our forums so that you can vote and add your comments regarding the frequency, content etc. Don't forget, if you don't tell us how you want things we can't *always* guess :) Check the recap of things taking place: - Satine writes of her first week as CLM in a new Dev Diary- - Calistas' last Dev Diary A welcome again to Sam! Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

EverQuest II Lore: A new chapter has begun in the EverQuest II lore with chapter one of "The Council of the Gods." Also, preoders are now being accepted in which those who reserve their copy in advance (preorder) will get a bonus starter kit for the CD or DvD Editions. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Face of Mankind Moves: Quickie update from Duplex System's announcing they have a new home page for their Face of Mankind title currently in beta testing. The old url will redirect to the new fan portal site, and be sure to check out the new boards, which also moved. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

... On Guild Wars Delay: With the announced delay from NCsoft on two of their titles including Guild Wars (See Above: As the Market Turns) being delayed, Community Relations Mamanger, Gaile Grey stopped over to the GWOnline site to address some of he rumors, to wit: Oh, heavens, this old thing again? We don't have a whole lot of info on this. The financial report is constructed a long way from the development team, and you will note it's a "could be" and not a "officially announced as" in the report. I do want to say that all release windows are constructed on a "when it's ready" basis. You guys know that! Will it be released in early 2005? Could be. Will it be released in 2004? Yes, could be! I am afraid I cannot say -- honestly do not know -- when Guild Wars will be released. But I can say it will be released when it's as good as we can make it. And as the astute members of this forum point out (and thank you for that!) it's far more important to release a polished, complete and truly wonderful game than to mark some arbitrary date on a calendar and release something less than great. If and when we have more finite information, I will be sure to let you know. In the meantime, please know that NCsoft won't set the date, nor will they "hold up" our release. NCsoft is solidly behind this project and will support the dev team and the management here who will determine the best possible release date for Guild Wars. It's not really a rumor though. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Lineage II Movie: Normally we do not offer download movies, but this was to good not to share. NCsoft has released a new game play movie previewing Lineage II, Chronicle 2: Age of Splendor, the newest update for Lineage II set for release in the coming months. Some of the new features of Chronicle 2 in the trailer include incredibly lush new areas such as the underwater city of Innadril; a PvP Coliseum that serves as an entertainment venue for settling large scale conflicts in spectacular fashion; monster races at the Monster Race Track; a massive tower topped by a very big and mean new adversary named Baium; and many new character items and game enhancements. Watch the video to the very end! You can download it from us here. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Mourning Combat Movies: Limitless Horizons has unleashed a new combat movie in which you can see a human fighting a spider, and the animations used for Mourning (aka Realms of Torment/Realms of Krel). Also give a shout out to the New Marketing Manager that has joined the team. Theres a new addition to our team! - Athos, Marketing Manager. Over the next couple of months, we will be focusing more intensely on our marketing and publicity. These efforts will include many new events, which Athos will be spearheading, beginning with a developer chat on August 21, 2004. More details to come in regards to that soon! By bringing Athos aboard our team, we are hoping to strengthen the community and watch it grow even more as we approach a larger testing period and eventual launch. Three years ago, Athos founded C3 Promotions, a marketing firm focused on the touch industry. He has been working closely with Touch International - a global leader in the touch industry since then. His responsibilities included issuing press releases, developing newsletters, creating specials, and maintaining the websites. His previous business experiences and zest for gaming will be invaluable during his stay with the Mourning community. We already have many projects lined up, which he will tackle. We are looking forward to the future and can't wait to see you all in game! Welcome to the team. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Neverwinter Nights 2: The Blurb: Atari Interactive, Inc., Obsidian Entertainment and BioWare Corp., under license from Hasbro, Inc., have announced plans for Neverwinter Nights 2, the sequel to BioWare Corp.'s best-selling and genre-defining role-playing game set in the popular Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms universe created by Wizards of the Coast. Atari, Inc. will publish the title. Originally developed by BioWare, Neverwinter Nights has set a new standard in the role-playing genre with a deep and engrossing storyline; immersive character development; stunning graphics; and, an expansive multiplayer experience like none other. Neverwinter Nights 2 will be developed by Obsidian Entertainment, founded by Feargus Urquhart who, as the President of Black Isle Studios, was responsible for the publishing of the Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance series and the development of the Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment franchises, both powered by BioWare Engine Technology, as well as overseeing the creation and development of the Fallout series. BioWare will provide tools, technology, and game assets from the original Neverwinter Nights as well as lend creative input and oversight to the development process. Neverwinter Nights 2 is scheduled for release in 2006. More information about Neverwinter Nights 2 can be found on the Atari website at www.atari.com/nwn2, which includes user forums, project news, development updates and more. Rock On. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

PotBS Dev Logs: Piates of the Burning Sea has two new dev journals up for reading. The first is about their recent crunch time by Misha giving a chronicle and a new screenshot, and the second is from Joe telling about the integration of the new particle effects sysyem. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Rubies of Eventide Returns: Rubies of Eventide by CyberWarrior, the MMO Game which crashed and burned last year after financial troubles has made a triumphant return as freeware. Rubies of Eventide is free to download and play but we are a shareware game. Meaning, there are no upfront fees to pay or play this game but we operate on donations. We feel that many people help a virtual community grow and contribute in ways that are priceless. In order for us to maintain this model (and set an example to other games that it can be done) all we ask is that players chip in a little effort or funds to keep a good game running. Please visit our website www.eventide.net for more information on donating or helping out with this project. Good to see them back. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

Return to Shadowbane: Ubi sends word they have a new "Return to Shadowbane" program in which those who left in good standing can now return and play for free until August 21st, to check out all the strides that has taken place in the PvP Game that could. If you are wondering what to do iside game, or looking for more detailed coverage, be sure to check out our hosted site, "The Great Library" at aerynth.com. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

SWG Character Purge: Kurt "Thunderheart" Stangl the Community Relations Manager over in Star Wars Galaxies made a great announcment on the boards due to hit this October, the Great Character Purge! In mid-October, we will be doing a "character purge" of the system. This will be the big deletion of stale characters and items and it will affect all Galaxies. What this means is that any account that has been cancelled for longer than 6 months will be deleted from the database. Character names, items, lots and everything the character possessed will be permanently deleted. The Character Purge is being done to free up names and game space for incoming and existing players. After the mid-October purge, we will be performing a character [purge] once every month. We will announce all purges at least a week prior. This must be an effort to make space for the increase with Jump to Light Speed, their upcoming expansion but if it's after the purge, old players will not be doing a revisit to grind over again. Not a good move. I've recently been powergaming to victory in SWG (if you see Div Devlin on Bloodfin it's really me) and noticed a couple inconsistancies on poliy. So, after extensive testing, if you delete your name, it really is free after five days. Your ingame emails are saved, with attachments, but everything else is gone. You also will not be friended to buildings. Be sure to check out the Hutt Fighers for the JTL Expansion. As always though, nothing could not be broken. SUch is the case for the link to the larger shot of the HUTT Light Figter. Typical day. Posted August 9 2004 by Div Devlin

UBO Beta Bannings: Netamin has annnounced they have begun bann