MMO

It looks like the launch of Warhammer Online has been Electronic Arts' biggest success in the MOM genre to date. The fantasy MOM developed by Mythic Entertainment has now registered 750,000 players in North America, Europe and the Oceanic territories (Australia and New Zealand) since launching last month, according to a press release issued today.

Of course, having high initial player participation doesn't mean you will be keeping all of those players and we are approaching the time when the 30 day free period included in the game's box is going to run out for those players. We will soon see if the churn rate is acceptable to Mythic and EA but for right now having three-quarters of a million players online is certainly an achievement.

Turbine has been promoting its upcoming Lord of the Rings Online expansion pack Mines of Moria for the past several months but the developer has some other plans for their fantasy MMO as well. Gamasutra reports from the Tokyo Game Show that Turbine plans to launch a Facebook-like social networking web site around the game sometime before the end of 2008.

Turbine CEO Jim Crowley stated during his presentation that the web site would contain features like player profiles, friends, character achievements, blog sites, and player created videos and screenshots. Turbine's other two current MMO titles, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Asheron's Call, will also have similar social networked sites in the near future.

Yeah, the Tokyo Game Show may be happening right now but that event is almost all console games. The real cool PC cats know that the place to be this weekend is BlizzCon 2008. And we can report that thanks to our friends at our sister site WoW Insider Big Download will have exclusive coverage of the events going on at the Anaheim Convention Center beginning today and ending on Saturday.

Specifically our special WoW Insider correspondents will be covering the non-World of Warcraft games that will be shown at BlizzCon. Yep, that means both Starcraft II and Diablo III will be covered on our site (and it looks like Diablo III will be playable to the public for the first time this weekend). Of course WoW Insider is your best bet for coverage of all of the World of Warcraft related news and events at the event and we want to thank the team for their help in covering BlizzCon for us. It's going to be a very cool couple of days and we hope you stick around for it.

We are just a couple of days away from the start of BlizzCon 2008 and Blizzard has been updating the official web site with more info on what will be happening at the convention on Oct 10-11 at the Anaheim Convention Center. One big development is that Blizzard will be streaming "selected" portions of its various game tournaments from the BlizzCon web site so folks who are unable to attend can at least see some of the tournament action for free.

Also, people unable to attend can enter the Original Question Contest. You can submit a Blizzard related games question and Blizzard team members will answer a select number during BlizzCon. People who have their questions selected for answering will get a prize package of BlizzCon related merchandise as well as an ATI graphics card.

Turbine has finally announced the ship date for their upcoming MMO expansion pack Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria. The expansion will ship to stores on Nov. 18 as part of a new "Complete Edition" that contains the original game, the expansion and all of the free downloadable content that has been released prior to the expansion.

Pre-orders for the Complete Edition are being taken now. Folks who do pre-order the box will have the options of signing up for $9.99 a month as part of a multi-month subscription deal or a $199 lifetime subscription. They will also get a number of in-game items and a free music CD. Current subcribers can also pre-order the downloadable digital edition of Mines of Moria. They will also get the same subcription offers and in-game items.

Turbine is also holding a contest to celebrate the launch of Mines of Moria with codes inside the retail box that can be redeemed for instant win prizes. They also serve as entries for one person to win the grand prize of $10,000.

Several months ago, French developer Cyanide Studios announced plans for Dungeon Party, a free to play MMO with a cartoony art style. It's been a while since new info has been released on the game but this week Cyanide released new screenshots of Dungeon Party for all to see on the game's official forums.

While the game apparently missed its beta test date for this past summer Dungeon Party is now scheduled for launch in the first quarter of 2009. It's still going to have players pick from six character classes and then battle in teams of five players against another team searching for treasure with a number of traps and monsters to deal with in each round.

Another day, another entry in the very crowded MMO game genre/race race. Today's new announcement is for Gathryn, a new title with a kind of "steampunk" setting that's being developed by Mindfuse Games, a San Francisco based developer of 30 team members.

The title takes its inspiration from books from Jules Verne and H.G. Wells with this alternate Victornia-era timeline full of airships and other out-of-place items. According to the web site, "You assume the role of a Victorian themed character as you explore, socialize and quest your way through the world." No release date for Gathryn has been mentioned yet.

[Via Blue's News]

On Tuesday we reported that Tim Cain, one of the original developers of the Interplay Fallout RPGs, was taking on the duties of design director at NCsoft's Carbine Studios. But that doesn't mean he's forgotten the Fallout franchise. In a new chat over at Edge Online, Cain states he is looking forward to playing Bethesda Softworks' take on the series with Fallout 3. Cain is quoted as saying, "It's not necessarily the direction I would've gone, but I can tell you I have my Fallout 3 pre-ordered. I want my life-sized Pip-Boy. I'm going to be playing that at the end of the month."

Cain does have a design concern about both Fallout 3 and the upcoming Fallout MMO that's being handled by the now revamped Interplay. Cain says in the article, "The biggest problem I have with expanding the game is that the original games were designed to make you feel like you were one of the last people left on Earth. And with Fallout 3 and the online version, I'm curious about how they'll handle making the game not feel too crowded--making it feel like there's not much life left out there after the war."

The new screenshots from Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria continue to come from developer Turbine as the upcoming MMO expansion pack gets ready for its release this fall. This week five new screenshots show off some of the new "Legendary items that players can get their hands on in the game.

As we have previously reported, Mines of Moria will be released as a paid download for current subscribers and bundled in a new release of Lord of the Rings Online for retail stores. In addition to two new player classes (the Warden and the Rune-keeper), the expansion will raise the level cap to 60, and add 200 new monsters and 10 new areas along with lots more new features.

If you are one of the millions and millions of World of Warcraft players around the globe you may have some concerns about if the second expansion pack for the game, Wrath of the Lich King, will run on your PC or Mac. Thankfully Blizzard's official message boards have some updated system specs for you to take a look at. Both PC and Mac versions require 15 GB of hard drive space, a keyboard and mouse for controls (multi-button mouse with scroll wheel recommended) and a broadband Internet connection (duh).

For the PC Blizzard has minimum and recommended specs for your system:

• OS: Windows XP (Service Pack 3), Windows Vista (Service Pack 1)
• Processor: Minimum : Intel Pentium 4 1.3 GHz or AMD Athlon XP 1500+ -- Recommended: Dual-core processor, such as the Intel Pentium D or AMD Athlon 64 X2
  
• RAM: Minimum - 512 MB RAM (1GB for Vista users) -- Recommended - 1 GB RAM (2 GB for Vista users)
  
• Video Card: Minimum - 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 32 MB VRAM (such as an ATI Radeon 7200 or NVIDIA GeForce 2 class card or better) -- Recommended - 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM (such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better)
• Sound: DirectX-compatible sound card or motherboard sound capability

Mac owners, here's your minimum and recommended system specs

• OS: Mac OS X 10.4.11 or newer
• Processor: Minimum: PowerPC G5 1.6 GHz or Intel Core Duo processor -- Recommended: Intel 1.8GHz processor or better
• RAM: Minimum: 1 GB RAM - Recommended: 2 GB RAM
• Video: Minimum: 3D graphics processor with Hardware Transform and Lighting with 64 MB VRAM (such as an ATI Radeon 9600 or NVIDIA GeForce Ti 4600 class card or better) - - Recommended: 3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM (such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA 7600 class card or better)

NCsoft may be restructuring its Western operations but the company still has a number of US based dev studios working on various projects. Today the publisher announced that Tim Cain, best known as one of the creators of the original Interplay Fallout games, has been given a promotion at their Carbine Studios operations.

Cain, who joined Carbine in 2005 as their programming director, now has been named as the design director of the studio. Carbine is currently working on a so far unnamed MMO project. Cain was one of the designers of Fallout and Fallout 2 and later helped to form Trokia Games which released a number of RPGs including the acclaimed Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.

This video offers 5 tips for EverQuest II guild hall design. At the same time, it shows off many of the guild hall features recently put into the game.

Download HD EverQuest II Guild Halls Trailer (79 MB)

We are just a few days away from the start of Blizzard's latest edition of Blizzcon and this week the event's official web site has revealed the full schedule and floor plan for the Oct. 10-11 show. The event, which is completely sold out even with $100 tickets, is being held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California.

As you can see from the schedule, Blizzard is planning at least a couple of panels on their two upcoming announced titles, the sci-fi RTS game Starcraft II and the fantasy action-RPG Diablo III. Of course panels and events for their MMO World of Warcraft are also being held. The schedule also has the times for the various tournaments and contests and their closing ceremonies. The interactive map gives attendees the locations for all of the various stages as well as the many exhibitors.

[via WoWInsider]

A few days ago rumors spread that a major game announcement from LucasArts was close at hand. Today Gamasutra reports that is indeed true as they have revealed they have received an invite to attend a press event for the official reveal of the project that is being handled by developed BioWare.

The deal, announced before BioWare's purchase by Electronic Arts, is widely thought to be a MMO based on BioWare's RPG game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. While the invite states that the event will be about "the official unveiling of the game that's been rumored about for years" that's all the parties involved are saying publically,

Blizzard is pulling out all of the stops for their (sort of) annual Blizzcon event that's being held this weekend. They have already announced that comedians Jay Mohr and Patton Oswald will be appearing at the event at the Anaheim Convention Center in California. Now comes word that a legendary comic book artist will be there as well.

That would be Jim Lee, who first gained fame drawing The X-Men but has mostly worked for DC Comics on various projects. Lee, a major gamer, will be signing at Blizzcon on Sunday to promote DC's World of Warcraft comics (Lee handles the cover duties). Lee is currently heading up the art direction for Sony Online's upcoming DC Universe Online.