mmorpg

Star Wars: The Old Republic will feature many explorable planets. Devs have revealed the latest, Nar Shaddaa, also known as the Smuggler's Moon. Nar Shaddaa is a tough place where the black market rules and everything comes at a premium.

Even the venerated Wall Street Journal is sitting up to take notice of of the fact that some of the West's biggest gaming companies are taking games into the realm of 'free to play'. In an article in the newspaper's 'Tech' section, writer Nick Wingfield talks about both Sony Online Entertainment and Time-Warner shifting popular titles Everquest and Lord of the Rings Online to a new monetary paradigm.

Warhammer Online players will want to check into the public test server tonight at 8 p.m. EST for a stability test. Devs want to get as many players as possible online and have a couple of incentives to get them there: 1) Two devs will be held captive in the opposing camp's keep. Players are to rescue the dev and escort him back to his keep before the other team. And 2) There will be a Ventrilo dev chat beginning at 4 p.m. EST.

Star Trek Online devs have announced that Chase Masterson, the actress who portrayed Leeta the Dabo girl, has joined the voice cast for the game. Masterson joins Star Trek TV vets Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto in STO.

In this week's Player Perspectives column, MMORPG.com's Jaime Skelton takes on the issue of the free-to-play market and the contention made by some that it's in a player's nature to want to purchase items from in-game shops. Jaime tackles the microtransaction issue with compelling arguments against that thought. See if you agree.

The DC Universe Online dynamic duo of game director Chris Cao and creative director Jens Andersen are the stars of the latest Inside the Studio video on the game's Facebook page. The video features the pair answering questions posted on the Facebook page and covers a wide range of topics including shape-shifting (animal and costume forms), powers-enhancing weapons and items and tons more.

Blizzard has released two new concept art screenshots from the World of Warcraft. While 'golden oldies', they're awfully nice looking. Check them out!

The lawsuit between publisher NCSoft and Richard "Lord British" Garriott has finally been settled. Garriott has been awarded $28 million by a Texas jury. The suit came about after Garriott, according to NCSoft, left the company amicably in 2008. Garriott has always contended that he was fired and forced to sell his 40,000 shares of stock quickly resulting in a profit loss.

To get the biggest news out of the way, Isaiah Cartwright has revealed that the Guild Wars 2 level cap is 80. That said, Cartwright spends a lot of time in this latest Guild Wars 2 blog talking about character progression and the leveling curve in most games as compared to that envisioned by the ArenaNet team.

This week's Community Spotlight focuses on the thread "So why do many MMORPG gamers hate so many new MMORPG games?" by Qazz. Qazz appears frustrated by MMO gamers who seem to hate every new MMO that is announced or is coming out. Are we all just grumpy grognards or are the new crop of games, well, crap?

The City of Heroes: Going Rogue expansion is set to feature some nifty new power sets including the Kinetic Melee set. The Kinetic Melee power set uses an attacker's power against him and heroes wielding this set mold the power with their hands in a very Kung Fu-esque way before hurling it at an opponent. They are able to knockback, knock down and stun foes.

Today's The List column is a provocative look at the free to play movement in games these days. MMORPG.com writer Bill Murphy has four reasons why you need to embrace the F2P movement. See if you agree or disagree.

Yesterday, Runic Games showed off a partially revealed image and today more of that same image is revealed. Speculation is that it has a lot to do with Runic's upcoming MMO based on its best-selling single-player RPG, Torchlight. See what you think!

Frogster International has announced that it will be hosting a Runes of Magic fashion show during this year's GamesCom in Cologne, Germany. The fashion show will feature clothing designer, Textilzelle, and its interpretation of seven different character classes from the game. Oh and there will be a Playboy model on hand too.

The Fallen Earth team has issued a challenge to players: "Quarantine" has replaced "Monkeytown". Players are encouraged to adventure out to the area to check on the suspicious activity and capture screens to document what they find.

Martial Empires players will have a lot fewer bots and spammers to worry about now that gaming portal, gamigo, has taken an aggressive stance against them. New 'monsters' patrol the game called the Suricat Police. These creatures warn players not to attack them and, if heeded, all goes well. However, bots that attack anything that moves will be summarily beaten to a pulp and turned into unplayable ghosts.

Turbine has sent out five new screens featuring a look at the Lord of the Rings Online Men and Hobbit starting areas. Be sure to check them all out in our Lord of the Rings Online gallery.

Joe "jwbarry" Barry has written more about the upcoming changes to Lord of the Rings Online instances when the game goes 'free to play' later this fall. Barry takes a look at instance rewards, stat tracking and details how devs are working to improve the overall quality of each instance in the game.

World of Tanks devs are introducing medium tanks in the latest video produced by Wargaming.net. These medium tanks are the 'jacks of all trades' in WoT. They can accompany larger tanks and protect the slow moving behemoths from enemy fire. They can also ram smaller tanks utilizing their superior size.

4Story devs have named the third kingdom coming to the game in the next expansion. Broa has been revealed to fans by Zemi Interactive. Check out the new look in the four new renders.