Guild Wars, in my opinion anyway, is the best MMORPG on the market.  I know many love World or Warcraft and others have dabbled with Aion, Star Trek Online or Lord of the Rings but I always find myself re-visiting Guild Wars.  So I was completely made up when I heard that the sequel was coming next year.

NCSoft  & ArenaNet have, via their website, released information on the Ranger class that will feature in Guild Wars 2.  Offering many a fine skill the biggest change to the game dynamic will come in the suggested implementation of pets.  A derisive subject for many, pets have crept in to several games lately and made a significant contribution, most notably in titles like Fable II and Torchlight.

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Yesterday Blizzard Entertainment announced that it will be making some major changes to it’s forums in preparation for StarCraft II and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. The biggest thing being changed is that “anyone posting or replying to a post on official Blizzard forums will be doing so using their Real ID — that is, their real-life first and last name.”

That’s right folks, anonymity on the Blizzard forums is going to die. According to the official posting, “These changes will go into effect on all StarCraft II forums with the launch of the new community site prior to the July 27 release of the game, with the World of Warcraft site and forums following suit near the launch of Cataclysm. Certain classic forums, including the classic Battle.net forums, will remain unchanged.” Read more… »

Today a few details leaked onto the Web regarding Runic Games’ up coming dungeon crawling MMO based on their smash hit Torchlight.

Currently, Runic Games is planning on having the Torchlight MMO be free-to-play, with funding coming though microtransactions. Also, a main focus of the MMO is to make it feel like a single-player game. Read more… »

Since the advent of the WoW era, countless subscription MMOs have begun with a fanfare before slowly fading into free-to-play obscurity. While many fun games in this genre have been created, the life-blood of any MMO’s long term success hinges on one all-important factor: end-game content. If there isn’t something fun to do once you’ve bumped up against the level cap, players will eventually move on to the next big thing.

This is why I was impressed with the way Sony Online Entertainment chose to show off their superhero MMO on the E3 floor. Instead of a standard PvE walkthrough of features, when I picked up the controller for some hands-on time with the game, I was thrown immediately into a PvP battle with other live players, intended to be one form of endgame content once the game launches.

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Star Wars fans worldwide rejoiced this afternoon as representatives from Bioware and Lucasarts released further details on their highly anticipated MMO set in the Star Wars universe – The Old Republic. Along with the world premier of their newest action packed trailer, fans were treated with an interesting tidbit of information – every player will have access to their very own starship.

Hit the jump for the full trailer, and stay tuned to Gamer Limit for our impressions after some hands on time with the game later this week.
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Today publisher Warner Bros. and developer Turbine announced that their literary MMORPG Lord of the Rings Online will follow in the footsteps of fellow Turbine title Dungeons & Dragons Online by shifting to a free-to-play model this fall. While the basic game will be free, gamers looking for “[e]xpansions, quest packs, items, and account services” will either have to earn them though in-game points or pony up some cash via microtransactions.

Gamers will still be able to subscribe to “VIP” accounts that grant them access to all premium content, however, Warner Bros. has yet to announce the price for these subscriptions. This “VIP” subscription model mirrors Dungeons & Dragons Online‘s, which seems to have been quite the success considering Turbine reported a 40% rise in subscriptions following the free-to-play switch. Read more… »

It seems that the eyes and ears of the gaming press are pretty much everywhere these days. No sooner have Realtime Worlds, the games developer, updated the FAQ on their site than the world pounces on the information.

EA & Realtime Worlds had previously slated a July 2010 to September 2010 release window.  This looks to of be spot on if this post on the games official FAQ is to be believed:

APB: All Points Bulletin will be released for the PC on June 29th in North America, July 2nd in Europe. Read more… »

Today EA announced that Black Box’s PC exclusive free-to-play MMO racer Need for Speed World will launch sometime this summer.

According to the press release: “Need for Speed World brings together best in class action racing with an unparalleled social experience. For the first time in a racing game, players will be able to compete against any one of their friends, family or pick from thousands of top ranked players to challenge in intense online battles and police pursuits across 150 miles of sprawling open world. Need for Speed World takes the well known and popular cities from Need for Speed Most Wanted and Need for Speed Carbon to create the biggest, most exciting race world ever released in the Need for Speed universe.” Read more… »

Today developer NetDevil announced that it is now accepting beta test applications for the upcoming MMO LEGO Universe.

Slated to arrive sometime this year, LEGO Universe throws players into a world populated by LEGO minifigures. Apparently the LEGO Universe is under assault by a dark force called Maelstrom that is destroying imagination. Players will have to work cooperatively to complete quests and vanquish the Maelstrom. Read more… »

Today word got out that Korean games developer and publisher Hanbitsoft has acquired the rights to Flagship Studios’s new defunct MMO Hellgate: London in North America, Europe, and Japan. Apparently Hanbitsoft feels like there is some money to be made there because the company plans to re-release the game is those regions, as well as in China, Taiwan, and South East Asia later this year.

For those of you who don’t remember (or chose to forget) Hellgate: London was an MMO made by a team of Blizzard Entertainment veterans who parted ways with the gaming giant in hopes of founding their own studio, Flagship. When Hellgate launched the game was plagued with bugs and billing issues, causing many gamers to cancel their subscriptions. Read more… »

If there was one MMO in my life that drained the most out of my day, it was Star Wars Galaxies.  It wasn’t my fascination with the lore, or my lack of friends, but it was the game’s dedication to player interactivity, deep character progression, and fantastic PvP mechanics.  Other MMOs funnel players into arenas for PvP conflict, create skyscraper monstrosities for groups, and build a glass ceiling out of loot.  Not SWG.

Granted, all of this was before the dirty combat upgrade or the piss-poor new game enhancements.  These two updates destroyed everything the game stood for, and are the primary reason the game is desolate today.  However, that topic has been drilled more than the middle east’s oil reserves. Let’s focus on the positives instead because, before that happened, Star Wars Galaxies was on the right track. Read more… »

In a whole bunch of business mumbo-jumbo released by SyFy parent company General Electric today, development for a hybrid MMO and television show is intensifying as the latest GE shareholder report states that the game and TV series will be tentatively know as One Earth.

Hoping to revolutionize both the MMO genre and television watching itself, the pair will develop the two concurrently and they’ll play-off each other as their life spans grow. Continue reading for more information and a spiffy video from those behind the project. Read more… »