Since launch, Turbine has increased the Lord of the Rings Online dev team by 25% in terms of staff, and as the closed beta test begins for the game’s Korean launch, Turbine’s team in Korea has grown to almost the same size as their North American counterpart. To be clear, the Korean team is just for LotRO, just for Korea. They have a completely separate group preparing for launch in China as well. Typically, a developer having more employees post launch than they had pre launch, and launching the game in several major gaming regions are also signs of an MMO’s overall health. They also pointed out that despite Turbine’s swelling ranks, Turbine is still hiring, and anyone who’s interested and who’s got the right skills is encouraged to visit TurbineJobs.com to see if there are any openings that might suit them.

Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra are the two World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King zones on tap in this special preview of WoW's next expansion. Ten Ton Hammer's Cody "Micajah" Bye travelled to Blizzard headquarters in Irvine, CA to get the lowdown last week, and he relays his experiences and the words of Co-Lead Designer Jeff Kaplan to you as a voiceover to this new in-game video from a recent build of the expansion.

Rather than introducing another skill update this week, we're finishing a new system to balance key skills separately for PvP and PvE. Within the next few weeks, we'll introduce PvP versions for a handful of skills. These skills will work the same way as normal skills, but have different number values (damage, healing, cost, recharge, and so on). We will do this as sparingly as possible and start with very few skills. So that we don't confuse players, we intend to keep as many skills unchanged as we can.

Tuesday 13th May - Brighton, UK/... Lineage II enjoys its reputation as one of the most hardcore player vs. player (PvP) massively multiplayer online games in the market today, and its die-hard community reflects this in many ways. New players are coming to the game in greater numbers and enjoy the unrestrained gameplay and intense battles, and our recently released 4th Anniversary Edition box awards the loyalty of our long-term veterans with discounted player services. When our passionate players and clans aren’t involved in long-term castle sieges or fortress battles, what do they do to wind down or just want to have some fun?

That’s what Fantasy Isle is for. We recently added the island to the game as a place for players to explore, socialize, and have some fun. Fantasy Isle is a peace zone, where there is no fighting, except in special areas (like the Underground Coliseum), so all characters can enjoy it without worrying about being stabbed in the back (or worse). It’s essentially a giant amusement park.

The first thing you’ll notice upon arrival is that the Isle is completely different from the rest of the lands of Aden and Elmore. The environment is frequently bright and alive with color, featuring a beautiful town, lush fields of grass, jungles, hills and many other interesting places. As you can imagine, Fantasy Isle is not a small reef of land, but a huge island, steeped in its own mysteries and places to visit. The local people and creatures are all rather small and cute, and fit within the happy themes of the island.

In March we held an event to formally open Fantasy Isle, which we called the “Bunny Money” event. Players could travel to the island and hunt for pieces of various treasure sacks, which would contain various random goodies we were giving away. With a special skill you could discover all sorts of treasure chests, featuring Rabbit Transformation Scrolls and a special magic eye that let you see even more hidden treasure chests. This two-week event gave the players a chance to explore the wonders of the island while scrounging for some great stuff, including S-grade armor and shadow Agathion bracelets.

The opening of the island is just the start of what’s coming. For the release of Hellbound two new features were added to Fantasy Isle: the Underground Coliseum and the Monster Parade. Featuring a new type of team-battle PvP (essentially team deathmatch), the Underground Coliseum pits teams of players against each other in a series of matches—the team with the most accumulated kills wins. The winning team moves on to the next match, while the losing one has to sit out or enter in another series. Each team has to consist of at least seven players, and there are four different coliseums, split up by level, and one coliseum for players of all levels. Players can access the coliseums from Fantasy Isle, offering up another fun diversion from the normal style of play (or PvP) that regular Lineage II players know.

The Monster Parade occurs four times a day and is a procession of each type of NPC in the game, making its way through the play area of the Isle. Players will be able to see the wide variety of NPCs throughout Aden and Elmore in one place. Some of the participating monsters and NPCs will also show up at the performance area on Fantasy Isle, where they may partake in some special performances, including circus acts and even talent shows.

Of course, that’s just the beginning of what we have in store for Fantasy Isle, not the end. The Isle lets us hold large special events that all players can enjoy at once in one area, which also is a big plus for us. Bunny Money was just the beginning, and shows a fraction of what we’ll be able to do. Also, to keep with the amusement park-style theme, we’re looking to integrate all sorts of mini-games on the island, to keep the area fun, fresh and vibrant. When you’re on Fantasy Isle, we want you to relax and have some stress-free fun.

The MMO Gamer: I remember that [hero] classes are something that were first mentioned back in beta, and have been on the upcoming features page since it was launched.

So, to be blunt: What took so long? And is it going to take four more years to see the next one?

Tom Chilton: It could, I don’t know. We’ll have to see how the Death Knight goes in terms of how well it slots in with the overall scheme of classes.

Really, what’s taken so long is that one of our core values is that we have very distinct character classes. I think on some level the original idea of hero classes and having forking hero stuff that would go on, with each class able to become one of multiple different possible hero classes, that was kind of what our imagination was before we even shipped the game.

But, the realities of, “Ok, we’re not looking to ship, we have to maintain the integrity of the game, and make sure we don’t screw it all over overnight by tripling the number of character classes in the game all of a sudden… or even adding two or three of them at a time.”

Durham, USA – May 13, 2008 – Funcom and Eidos are proud to confirm some of the impressive figures powering the Age of Conan launch, and the two companies are happy to reveal that the Age of Conan Beta has passed 1 million sign-ups! As one of the most anticipated MMO’s ever, the 1 million mark confirms the amazing interest in the game.

“Funcom has not been able to find any higher beta numbers for MMOs in the western world,” said Morten Larssen, VP of Funcom Sales and Marketing. “We believe it represents the largest ever beta sign-up figure in the history of the genre.”

In addition to the incredible beta numbers, Funcom confirms that almost 800.000 gamers have signed up for the Clan of Conan newsletter. The hundreds of thousands following the development of the game have moreover resulted in a rapidly growing forum community. Last week Funcom registered over 115.000 posts on the official forums, across four languages. This comes in addition to Age of Conan discussions on external forums and in other languages.

In 2008, Funcom has also seen a tremendous growth in the amount of people who visit the official Age of Conan websites. Since January 2008, Funcom has registered more than 5 million unique visitors, from more than 200 countries. Last week alone over 725.000 unique visitors came to the Age of Conan sites.

The coverage and interest on external gaming sites has skyrocketed as a result of the growing anticipation. Age of Conan has topped numerous charts as the most read about, most popular and most anticipated PC game in development. As an example, GameSpot.com has Age of Conan as the #1 most read about upcoming game over the last month, on any format. The game has seen a similar interest on genre specific sites, including being the #1 most popular MMO over the last 12 months on MMORPG.com. Print gaming publications have also covered the game widely, and the game now has over 20 covers, including the coveted cover of PC Gamer US.

“How all of our strong figures convert into later sales and subscription figures is still unknown,” continued Larssen. “But our pre-order numbers in some important retail chains track as among the highest for any MMO launched.”

Age of Conan launches 20th of May in North America / Oceania and 23rd of May in Europe.

The previews come from Games Radar:

I suspect that if anything keeps me playing Age of Conan over time, it will be the combat. I am not a level-grinder or a guild-joiner, which is why I’ve never stuck with any MMO for longer than a few months. Conan’s destiny-quest aspect - which you’ll return to every 10 levels - could be enough to keep me playing, though I’d have been happier with an every-five-levels scheme. The combat system and my ongoing quest to deliver decapitations is enough to keep me hooked for a while, as is the promise of a mount I can use in combat. Given that a mercenary system will let even loners like me participate in sieges (which we’ll cover later in the week), and that it seems pretty easy to find groups on a quest-by-quest basis, maybe I’ll be able to amuse myself in between finding out why I’m marked and memory-less.

and IGN:

While the game is still in beta, we did not run into any technical difficulties throughout our travels. No falling through the world or anything like that. If a gripe (more of a pet peeve really) is to be mentioned, it would have to be the typos in the feat and spell descriptions. It may seem like a very small and trivial observance, and the game is still in beta, so perhaps Funcom will go over those again prior to launch.

At the end of the day MMO gamers are ready for something new right now, something a little bit different. Is Age of Conan that something we're all looking for? A lowbie Necromancer who gets stuck in bushes and drowns while afk is probably not the right person to ask. But upon Age of Conan's launch you may just see us hanging our virtual hats in Hyboria. See you at the end of the Necro's oar.

Blizzard Entertainment today announced its plans for the third BlizzCon gaming convention, to be held at Anaheim Convention Center in California on 10th and 11th of October, 2008. lizzCon is a celebration of the global player communities surrounding Blizzard Entertainment’s Warcraft, StarCraft, and Diablo franchises. In response to the demand to accommodate more attendees, this year’s event has expanded from two convention halls to three.

“Whenever we’ve been able to meet and interact with Blizzard gamers from around the world, it’s been a great experience for us,” stated Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re looking forward to seeing even more of our players at this year’s BlizzCon and delivering another entertaining and informative event for them.”

BlizzCon will offer a wide variety of activities to help all attendees get the most out of the two-day event. In addition to serving as a gathering place for the different Blizzard Entertainment gaming communities, attendees will be able to enjoy:

* Hands-on play time with upcoming Blizzard Entertainment releases
*Discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers
*Competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents
*Areas and activities devoted to licensed products such as the World of Warcraft® Trading Card Game
*Costume, machinima, and character sound-alike contests with great prizes
*Commemorative merchandise based on the Blizzard Entertainment franchises
*A silent auction
*More exciting activities to be announced

Tickets for BlizzCon will go on sale in the next few weeks at a price of $100 USD per person. As the event draws closer, further details will be announced on the official BlizzCon website: http://www.blizzcon.com.

Biggest of the cheeses GI spoke to was Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley. He gives some interesting insight into how his company operates and relates to his customers, and how it was "too arrogant" in the past. He even sticks up for Vanguard, bless him - it's "rocking and rolling" now, apparently.

Guild Wars has been an innovator in so many different aspects of the MMO genre, but none more than the introduction of ally NPCs to fill out a party and make soloing easier.

This was nothing new to online gaming though. Diablo did it way before Guild Wars, but GW refined the process with Henchmen. They made it simple to hire a few NPCs standing around near the city gate and get them to join your party for their share of the loot. It started out simple enough, but it eventually evolved into something much more advanced (and exciting) with Heroes.

Brannoc - *Dal* How many Worlds can we expect to me in SGW?
lyon - One of the brilliant aspects of Stargate is that you get to travel to so many different locations. This is true for both the show and the game. When watching the series, I especially enjoy the exploration of new worlds. I think one of the things we have been very successful with in the game is the creation of many different and rich worlds. The player will get to travel to deserts and lush jungles, ice planets and primeval volcanic worlds a
lyon - worlds as well as very alien worlds. The player will get to travel to more than 20 different worlds at ship.

owarinoyume asks: Will the crafting tree's be similar in design to the ability tree's used in the Matrix Online?
Hmm, Crafting wise, they are a little more "branchy" - we have a line for luxuries, for instance, but yeah, a tree's a tree in any game. If you go down BioMed, you'll be gaining blueprints for cool BioMed stuff, but won't be learning shielding and the like in the Power Systems and Materials lines.

In a recent phone Q&A with EA Mythic the question actually came up about how viable solo play was in Warhammer Online. Jeff Hickman's answer was:

"It's the only thing Paul does because he's a malcontent. There will plenty of opportunities to group up with others, but solo is very viable. The deal is the game tricks you into making friends. It tricks you into having a social life. Public Quests do that, as do scenarios. You don't have to wander around the capital city LFG, you can run out get involved, socialize and get involved right away. You've painted your face blue, they've done the same. Soccer fans who love your team are everywhere!"

Now an interesting phrase stands out in that quote and no it isn't the Soccer reference because we know no one plays Soccer in America. Tricking you into making friends seems like an odd way to present a mechanic but it's subtle and brilliant in nature. What they essentially had in mind here was that you'd show up to help assault a city, a Keep, or play a scenario and the classical Esprit De Corps would kick in prompting new friends and allies in the war. In addition to this, it's a well known fact that Creative Director Paul Barnett has a preference for solo play and has no problems letting people know that. With that in mind it seems very likely he has been providing his input about this playstyle.

First of all, to those of you who may have been in the same boat as I have, I would suggest that at some point you try this game out. Folks who are clamouring for an MMO that doesn’t resemble WoW in terms of the UI and the way that the game is played should certainly take a look.

The controls of Final Fantasy XI hold more of a resemblance to the franchise on which they are based than those of its MMORPG brothers. There is no attack bar at the bottom of the screen, players select their attack from a series of menus (like you’re used to if you’re a Final Fantasy fan).

While the graphics seemed dated to me, I could tell that there was depth in the game’s design that made up for it as the team has continued to build this game through four expansions and about five years.

The first item of note is that more character transfers have been announced. There are a number of players that have come back to the game in the last few months, but as such, missed the character transfers that ended in December. Players that were originally on Woefeather, Florendyl, or any of the other previously combined servers have come back to find they've been moved. Even if you have already taken advantage of an earlier character transfer, you can still transfer again.

has been an innovator in so many different aspects of the MMO genre, but none more than the introduction of ally NPCs to fill out a party and make soloing easier.

This was nothing new to online gaming though. Diablo did it way before Guild Wars, but GW refined the process with Henchmen. They made it simple to hire a few NPCs standing around near the city gate and get them to join your party for their share of the loot. It started out simple enough, but it eventually evolved into something much more advanced (and exciting) with Heroes.

PTS Level Command

Meet PTS Level Command. Level Command will be activated on the Public Test Server with Deployment 8.3 with one sole mission - to grant your character with levels and sweet cash! Don’t you wish all NPC’s were this way? At this time Level Command does not dispense logos, so for the time being, you will have to collect them yourself. Level Command is just part of several changes we have planned to make testing easier and more fun for Tabula Rasa players.
Patch Note Update

There is a patch note in Deployment 8 that the Classes and Combat Team would like to expand upon.

Crab Mines are now more responsive. They acquire targets sooner, chase them earlier, and explode with little or no delay.

The developers adjusted the Crab Mine AI in an effort to make them more responsive. They will now generally acquire a target within 0.5 seconds of creation and they will now generally detonate within 0.5 seconds of arriving at their targets’ feet. However, they still for unknown reasons sometimes fail to detonate, or switch targets without reason. The Classes and Combat team is working towards improving the reliability of Crab Mines in for a future Deployment, and more information will be released as changes are put into place.

GS AU: Tell us more about single-player in Age of Conan. Are you still locked to that for the first 20 levels of the game?

AG: That's been changed a bit. You still have the core destiny quests which is where you swap into a single-player quests where you're doing you're own destiny quests to progress you through the story. You get the bulk of that through levels one to 20. But we found out in beta testing that players wanted more interaction with other people, so now you can switch back to the multiplayer mode during that period so you're not actually locked in to single-player gameplay. The first five levels are tutorial, and that's just you progressing through the beach until the city. But once you get to the city at level four or five, then you can switch into multiplayer mode.

One of the most prominent features of the new content is the addition of a new class, the Death Knight. Though we didn't actually get to play the class during our hands-on time with the game, we were given some details about how he fights and plays. If you have a level 55 character, which you likely do if you're still playing the game at this point, you can head to the character creation screen and generate one Death Knight, limited to one per server. Once created, you begin your time with him in an all-new starting area at level 55, which includes story bits explaining why and how you broke away from Arthas. Interestingly, this means you won't actually be able to see any of the new content as a Death Knight until you've leveled to around 70, which means you'll be plowing through Outland again.

We still like leveling up our character and watching numbers grow larger as we acquire bigger swords and learn better spells as much as when we played our first MUD. But it’s the excitement that comes with exploring and discovering things like that sweet spot at the top of the tree in Grizzly Hills that made us fall in love with World of Warcraft years ago. We’re looking forward to rolling a Death Knight and finding new equipment for our main character. But most of all, we’re looking forward to losing ourselves in World of Warcraft… again.

The last bit of info we'll discuss before we dive into the zones are the new quest types. We saw a demo of a rescue mission that segued into a unique twist on your typical escort. The demo followed a Draenei paladin who rescues a human from captivity. In order to escape, the former captive hops on a horse and heads off to safety. As he does, the Draenei actually mounted the same horse, sitting behind him, and went along for the ride. While the ride was obviously on rails, it was possible for the Draenei to perform a small selection of attacks on the enemies swarming to stop the escape. This feature is tied to the new vehicle mechanic for siege weapons that will also add action functionality when you're on certain flying mounts as well.

Unlike Burning Crusade, which threw all players into the same starting zone, the new expansion will give players a choice when starting their adventures. Not only does this serve to spread players out (which helps ameliorate the "mass extinction events" endemic to new areas), it avoids boredom during alt-play. Both the eastern zone of Howling Fjord (which was the area featured at Blizzcon) and western entry points of Borean Tundra will be accessible to Horde and Alliance. Each of them also sports creatures of similar level ranges along with starter dungeons players can access almost from the first moment they set foot on the continent.

The story arcs are fantastic, and have layers of intrigue woven throughout them. There are several locations to explore while in the Tortage City setting, from the Archeronian Ruins to White Sands Isle, the Underhalls and the Tortage volcano – each with challenges, but for the player who adventures smartly, and does not try to take on too many of the opposing mobs single-handedly, these levels are built to drive you deeper into the game and give you success while doing it.

Commandos and officers can stack certain abilities up to 10 levels; some abilities, like Core Bomb, can be stacked up to five.

Rather than displaying each stack of the DoT ability separately, the bottom right of the ability's icon on the opponent's target window displays the current number of stacks applied to the enemy.

The duration is "refreshed" by each increment to the stack. Once a DoT reaches an increment of 5 or 10 (depending on the DoT), each application refreshes the duration of that DoT.

Stacking the DoT only begins during the battle again if the target uses an ability to remove a DoT, if the opponent resists new applications enough during the existing duration to stop a refresh, or if the commando or officer doesn't continue to refresh the stack.

It’s not all about death and destruction in Hyboria, sometimes you will also want to create something yoursel... that others can destroy, of course. Player-made cities will pop up once we open the servers, and now you can pick up a little information on each of the different buildings you will be able to construct in your guild’s city.

he next free expansion coming to City of Heroes and City of Villains, Issue 12: Midnight Hour, has entered Open Beta Testing. This means any and all subscribers to the game can log into the Training Room and try out the many additions and improvements included in Issue 12 for themselves!

BT: So what did you learn from the beta? What feedback did you get?

JD: Oh, boy. Well, the first big thing we found out about was about a month in. The first major changes were all about the RvR system – realm versus realm. It’s all about huge armies and kind of similar to what we did in Dark Age of Camelot a few years back. Players really wanted it to feel like there was more combat going on within the cities. They also wanted more instant scenarios, so what we did was go back and reorganise the entire world map.

BT: That must have taken a fair bit o’ time.

JD: Man, you have no idea. Two straight months of nothing other than tinkering with the RvR system to really bring it in line with what players wanted.

The Lord of the Rings Online™ launched a year ago and we want you to help us celebrate! That's why we're giving you free LOTRO access from May 8-12, 2008!

Play your old characters, check out the LOTRO Anniversary celebration events, explore new areas, and tackle new quests. Just log into your LOTRO account from May 8-12, 2008 and we'll take care of the fun and adventure.

Flying out to Blizzard's California headquarters this week to see the second World of Warcraft expansion, we felt neither apprehension nor any great excitement. After the reinvention and reinvigoration that was first expansion The Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King seemed a more workmanlike sequel: ten more levels, a new continent, a new profession, a new class, a new battleground, all as expected, little of it pulse-raising. Fine; Blizzard had earned the trust that it would get it right, and the right to stop driving itself so hard.

We should know better. A lot more detail and a little more time on Lich King remind us that laurels - and Lord knows there must be a mountain of them stored somewhere in this clean white campus - don't get rested on at Blizzard. A stunningly brave revamp of raiding is the big surprise; every raid dungeon in the expansion will be playable with either 10 or 25 players, opening the full sweep of the game to far more people.

A lot of the cutthroat changes were aimed at skill order and acquisition instead of new skills, since they already have so much functionality. The old skullduggery and evasion chains are gone, although some of the skills still exist. Due to the addition of the Buccaneer, Cutthroats now have the same number of skills as other careers. The two careers are intended to work together with complimentary abilities to compete on even terms against national groups. The removed skills were generally tiered skills and redundant skills. Were trying to move all the important Cutthroat functionality into a more condensed list, thereby providing more options with the same skill selection. This is harder to quantify, but important.

Therdon wiped the blood from his eye, keeping his gaze locked on his opponent. The dwarf's lungs pumped to feed his aching muscles; he no longer felt the axe gripped in his rough, scarred hands. Only the weight of it pulling on his exhausted arms assured him it had not fallen to the ground. A knot was forming in his right thigh from a blow that had nearly cost him his life. Therdon was in trouble.

Stratics Central: This is your first content update produced since NCsoft purchased CoX. How does it feel? Were there any thoughts that fans might be looking at this update a little more critically?

Matt Miller: Oh yeah, we had the plans for Issue 12 before the acquisition, and we were very nervous about them being the first thing they saw out of the new studio. Fortunately we were able to get some major Quality of Life improvements into the mini-update that was 11.5, and we were able to fast-track Villain Epic Archetypes into 12, and beef up the Issue substantially over our initial plans.

A lot of the cutthroat changes were aimed at skill order and acquisition instead of new skills, since they already have so much functionality. The old skullduggery and evasion chains are gone, although some of the skills still exist. Due to the addition of the Buccaneer, Cutthroats now have the same number of skills as other careers. The two careers are intended to work together with complimentary abilities to compete on even terms against national groups. The removed skills were generally tiered skills and redundant skills. Were trying to move all the important Cutthroat functionality into a more condensed list, thereby providing more options with the same skill selection. This is harder to quantify, but important.

Q: There's definitely a skill to predicting what's going to be popular such a long time in advance, and get work underway, it seems.

John Smedley: It is, and I just saw this quote, I think it was from Henry Ford, that Steve Jobs also used: "If I'd asked my customers what they would have wanted, they'd have said 'A faster horse.'"

You have to think a few steps ahead, and I think one of the things that World of Warcraft did really well was take a game like Everquest, which really pioneered the space, and they really polished it up.

Now it's time for us to lead in new directions, and work on games in different genres. With The Agency we're working on the spy genre, with the DC Comics we're working on the heroes genre, we're makin