It looks creepy, is filled with monsters, dudes throwing flames from their hands and of course, AK-47s. The monsters look awesome, and have a unique flavor all about them. The whole thing has a very horrific feel too it, and I’ve been waiting for a good horror/sci-fi MMO for awhile. Will this deliver?

Well, Funcom certainly is trying to revitalize Age of Conan, and some close to the game and various sources believe that subscriber numbers are doing substantially better and perhaps may have stabilized. So with that positive note, hopefully they can continue to feed the hype on the Secret World, and see it actually deliver. Either way, check out the trailer below. It’s worth a peek, giving me some memories to the old days of Parasite Eve.

[Via: Ign / Source 1, 2, 3]

The Co-Creator of Flickr, Stewart Butterfield (who wins points for a cool name), has a new project taking off that looks very compelling while also like a child’s nightmare. It’s a new online browser MMO being developed that is trying to make leaps and bounds in creativity and ability for change. It boasts to have the ability to have quick and daily updates of all sorts, which isn’t unique in itself, but it also claims to have a wide and vast compatibility with other applications out there. They haven’t been too specific on that yet, though. It’s said to be built in the spirit of the web, So we’re guessing lots of openness, freedom, and pornography. Hey, let’s be honest here!

Unfortunately there isn’t much hard info yet, but you can check out the trailer below. It really does seem like a terrible dream you’d have when you were 5 years old and crashing from a sugar rush on Halloween. Yeah, that specific. You can also sign up for Alpha testing, which is starting soon, here.

And of course… The trailer, as promised:

[Source/Pic]

It wasn’t too long ago I admitted how, to my surprise, awesome the new LEGO Universe’s trailer was. LEGO Universe is a new LEGO themed MMO. It was only a matter of time with the popularity of all the LEGO titles these days. It ALMOST seems like someone should do that with Pokemon, as well. I mean, you’d make a killing! But, I digress…

Although not much info had come out about LEGO Universe until this year, Beta sign-ups have already arrived.

Welcome to our beta site.

Sign up now for your opportunity to become one of our chosen heroes that must answer the call. Your mission is to test LEGO Universe for bugs, so prepare yourself to strap on your suit of armor and help your friends battle the dark forces of the Maelstrom!

I’m slightly ashamed to admit I’ve signed up already. Why not give it a shot? Sign-up here!

[Via: 1Up]

So when the game came out yesterday, I decided to go out and pick it up. After an unfortunate experience at Best Buy where they only had Collector Edition’s of the game for sale in what seemed like some sort of scheme, I finally got a copy somewhere else. Now, over 12 hours later, I’ve finally exited my cave with a few thoughts.

The game’s character creation system is top-notch. Cryptic knows there way around character creation, that’s for sure. You can choose from multiple different Trek races, or even create your own alien race. No matter the race, you get a total of 4 racial abilities including preset abilities for the known Trek races. They’re pretty straight forward bonus to resistances, certain skills, etc. After that, you can get to create your looks which is as diverse as it needs to be.

Quickly after that, you’re really in the game and ready for action. There’s 2 factions currently, the Federation or the Klingons. You start as the Federation (with little choice) and after level 6, you can start on the Klingon faction. From what I’ve come to understand so far, the Federation will be more PvE base and the Klingon’s more PvP based, for right now anyways. You come equipped and at level six when you begin with those Klingon fellas.

I can’t say that running around with phasers is the most exciting thing you’ll ever do, admittedly the combat certainly does start slow, which is true for most MMOs. But STO is a slightly different type of MMO, I see it taking a lot from Guild Wars in terms of fast-past action and not taking long to get into small instanced action. Once you get past the beginning slow phaser-battles, things do get more exciting, especially once you get your ship.

Yes, of course it’s all about space-combat. Once you get a buddy or some allies to fight with, you’ll quickly find yourself in epic space battles shooting out torpedoes and flying around massive battles that J.J. Abrams himself may have produced for his film. Space combat is seriously where it’s at. Flying a ship around, barraging enemies, and finally seeing an enemy ship explode when your Torpedoes make contact is VERY liberating to any Sci-Fi nerd.

I’m still working on getting all the specific mechanics down and getting to know that game, so for right now I’m soaked in the feelings of a new game. So far, it seems very solid. For playing a game on launch, it went smooth. There hasn’t been very many errors, I haven’t had any crashes, and for the most part I haven’t noticed too many glitches other then some problems with camera angles during space flight & combat. Overall, it seems like it will be a very valuable life time-sink, at least for awhile.

Once I push on further…. I’ll be back with more thoughts!

Anyway, the biggest disappointment in MMO history apparently still exists, and now they want players to come back.  If you’re one of the unfortunates that, somewhere around 7 years ago, threw $49.99 into the toilet dropped $49.99 on this potentially great game, and then quit (like almost everyone who played the game did), Sony wants you to come back and give the game a try again.  In fact, to make this as tempting as possible, they’ll let you play for a whole month for free.

This coincides with the game’s latest update, called Galactic Civil War: Forces Under Siege.  The expansion aims to bring a sense of war to the major cities in the game.  Depending on which side (Rebels or Imperials) currently controls a major city, factional NPCs appear, quests become available, and the side in control gets a number of other benefits.  Successfully capturing one of these cities for your side also means you’ll be getting some significant rewards, too.  In general, SWG is trying to give the game some additional PvP action, and this expansion may just do the trick.

That is, for all 189 people that still play the game. 

If this sounds like a good deal to you, you can find out more right here at the official site.

Capcom’s popular Japanese title, Monster Hunter Frontier Online, is coming to the Xbox 360. MHFO is already out on the PC, and the Xbox 360 version will apparently be a PC port, no surprise there.

There’s no official release date for the states yet, but this is a pretty big title in Japan, like huge franchise big. How it will fair here is hard to say… Current rumors are it’s going to cost the standard $15 a month for access. The Xbox and PC servers will also still be separate.

MMOs have had a tough time taking a niche market on consoles so far and it seems like this one may have the same problem as well, but it does have potential and there certainly isn’t too much competition yet.

There’s a trailer out, and it includes all the typical MMO-fun. Big dragon battles, cute little pets, characters running around aimlessly in huge surroundings. There looks to be A LOT of really big and mean enemies and there seems to be a lot of unique and interesting ways you’ll get to kill them. Check it out below.

[Via: 1up]

The one time fee is $239.99. On top of that, you also gain access to a special character, who is a ‘liberated Borg’ with special abilities and racial traits. Pretty sweet. You also gain 2 additional character slots. It’s a pretty nice package, and there hasn’t really been many offers like it from any other MMOs yet. If you end up playing the game for awhile, you’d save a good deal in the long run that you could spend on more important things, like snacks.

I know I could of used a deal like this when World of Warcraft first came out…

You can read more here!

[Via: Kokugamer]

Press release:

HanbitSoft Inc., announced today that the company has obtained the publishing rights for Hellgate in North America, Europe and Japan from NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc.. HanbitSoft and NAMCO BANDAI Games America, the formal owner of the publishing rights in these regions, have entered into an agreement for the game to be distributed by HanbitSoft in the future.

Nice! Not really too many other specifics as of yet, but this game had a lot of potential before it was buried alive. Will HanbitSoft be able to make the game great? Well, that remains to be seen. The game has already been re-activated in Korea as Hellgate: Resurrection and is steadily gaining account memberships. How will it fair here again? We’ll see.

[Via: TenTonHammer]

French gaming site NoFrag says that they’ve got an inside source, and that Blizzard is working on a very different kind of MMO.  It’s set in a very sci-fi future, where everyone has two lives.  The first life is quite like the Sims, and takes place in some sort of hub-like city environment where trade and social interaction takes place.  From this hub, players can connect to their second life, and it’s in this life that all the futuristic sci-fi fighting action takes place.

Is this possible?  Sure it is, and Blizzard does have a strong corporate presence in France, so a rumor leaking out to a French website is possible.  It’s also possible that Blizzard is working on an FPS in which everyone plays different kinds of dinosaurs that wear lingerie and spend all their time baking pastries and trying to summon Cthulhu.

[NoFrag translation, via Destructoid]

It also had one particular staffer laughing so hard, tears were rolling down her cheeks, so it definitely qualified.  Of course, since we don’t want to embarrass her, we’ll maintain her privacy.  We’ll just call her “D” and not mention her name. 

Due to a time anomaly, this MMO report comes from January 2011.  Yeah, that’s right, next year.  You know, the future.  So we can now know, with certainty, what the MMO landscape will look like a year from now.

Our favorite prediction?  The “slapfight” that occurrs between the developers at Blizzard and BioWare, when the BioWare guys announce the release date of Star Wars: The Old Republic.  Tune in for more.

Here we have Alfred Hightower, who was wanted on some drug dealing charges. He skipped the country when a warrant was put out for him, and then investigators found out Hightower was a fan of a game about, “witches and warlocks.” They eventually put it together that it was World of Warcraft and contacted Blizzard to see if they could gain any information on him.

Blizzard eventually responded to investigators with his IP Address, account information, his character name ‘Rastlynn’ and pretty much everything they needed to find him in his dangerous secret hidden base, located in Canada. It didn’t take long, and now Hightower will be back in the states by January 5th to face charges.

It seems those in charge of our delicate computer information have no problem at all shelving it over to the police, which is great that their catching the bad guys, but a little unnerving at the same time. Well, I guess that’s something to keep in mind before starting any elaborate criminal plots.

[Via: Kotaku]

I posted a few of them below for your viewing pleasure – inhale deeply the scent of extreme geekery, comrades.

Work enviorments with computer access now face the possibility of being swamped with Facebook users playing games or chatting with their friends, in-fact a lot of workplaces are having to come up with new rules and procedures just to deal with these new changes.

Well, take one of the most addictive types of games out there and mix it with Facebook and what do you have? City of Eternals, the new MMO being developed, which is still currently in an Alpha phase.

The game seems to be taking advantage of the popularity of both Vampires and Facebook games, as it’s set in a world of vampires where you can battle the undead, decorate your house (vampires have houses?), and form a coven.

It all sounds pretty straight-forward, but this opens a greater question… Will this be the birth of multiple MMOs on the Facebook platform? They arguably already exist, but this is more in line with what MMO players expect.

What do you think? Will you give City of Eternals a try, or any forth-coming Facebook MMOs?

[Via: TenTonHammer]

So you’re at your local LAN tournament and you’re totally stoked about playing World of Warcraft, Unreal Tournament, or Halo for the next 48 hours straight.You’ve got your modded out gaming system, your supply of guarana-infused energy drinks, and even your USB drink cooler. The nearest pizza joint is number one on your speed dial, and you are ready to kick some major ass.

You get all set up, when all of a sudden, out of the corner of your eye, you see a super hot chick standing by a really sick gaming system. Some guy’s babe of a girlfriend must be dropping him off before she heads to the mall to go shopping, you think to yourself. Then you realize, holy shit, that water cooled, dream-machine is hers, and she’s here to game.

This is the number one key to picking up girls – you have to act like you are the perfect man for them, they just don’t know it yet. So for those of you that are ready to claim the prize, here’s my top five suggestions for picking up a sexy geek goddess at a LAN tournament….

While some of the steps sound reasonable, there are others that sound like they’re taken out of that lame teen TV series, Degrassi High.

Take idea number four for instance.

Plant a fake virus on your friend’s computer, and then come to the “rescue” very loudly and triumphantly as she looks on. Appear to save his computer from sheer and utter demise, and then hope that she is attracted to your knightly tendencies. Just make sure that while you’re saving your friend’s computer, he doesn’t go over and talk to her first.

I hope this is a joke.  Plant a fake virus?  Assuming you knew there was going to be a girl gamer at said LAN party anyway.  Unless you’re a genius coder, you’re not going to be able to write a virus on the spot.  Also, there’s too much risk.  What if you accidentally plant that yucky old virus on the vixens hot comp instead?  Wouldn’t that suck?  Anyway, bad idea.  Don’t do it and don’t say I didn’t warn you.

While the article is full of satire, Raven redeems herself in the end with a very logical, down to earth suggestion that any gentleman gamer should consider.

Letting a girl know that you’re interested, and the fact that you had the balls to actually say it, will make you highly exciting and sexy to her….Yes, guys, this strategy actually works.

Anyway, read the rest of the article here.  It’s well worth it and the comments are a great read as well.