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Lunatrik writes "In a not entirely unexpected turn of events, Flagship Studios, the producers of the bug-ridden (at release!) game Hellgate: London is going under, as reported by multiple sources. In addition, many current subscribers to the game are finding themselves unable to cancel their subscriptions due to 'technical errors.'"

WarCry was one of the first with the news that Perpetual Entertainment's years-in-the-making MMOG Gods and Heroes is now canceled. The title was due out in August, and was pushed back after changes to the animation system were put into place. Now on 'indefinite hold', it appears a game just weeks or months away from release will never see commercial production. From the article: "Our source tells us that the majority of the Gods and Heroes development team has been let go as part of the move, which comes only a few weeks after they had downsized and pushed back the release date. The Star Trek Online team, those who worked on the Perpetual Platform (which was recently licensed to BioWare) and a small number of people from the Gods and Heroes team will be remain with the company." For a great deal more usefully cynical commentary, F13 (as always) has us covered.

To the surprise of almost no one, EA Mythic has announced that Warhammer Online won't be out until next year. Eurogamer reports: "'Since our acquisition by EA, we have been afforded many wonderful development opportunities and we plan to take full advantage of everything that is available. This includes taking several additional months to make the best MMORPG possible,' Mythic's Mark Jacobs wrote in a community newsletter." They're going to use the extra time to go back over the Dwarven and Greenskin areas to implement new ideas they've had since working on the original content. With the successful launch of LOTRO this week, and the continuing crash and burn of Vanguard , MMOG developers seem to be wising up to the importance of a really good launch.

Gamasutra is reporting on announced plans from EA to invest in The9, the Massive firm that currently runs World of Warcraft in the Chinese market (among several other properties). EA Mythic recently announced they would be sending Warhammer Online into Asia, and one could easily imagine The9 being an instrumental part of that endeavor. The WoW angle is another wrinkle to keep in mind, as well: "Shanghai-based MMO executive Bill Bishop points out in some detailed analysis on his weblog: 'EA and Vivendi Universal Games (owners of Blizzard, developer of World of Warcraft) are direct competitors. Perhaps the Blizzard-The9 contract does not have any protection for Vivendi in the event that a competitor takes a significant stake in The9, but that would be surprising.'"

The Non-Disclosure Agreement for the Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) beta test has been lifted, and with the game set for release soon it may be useful to you to peruse some hands-on previews of the title. Hexus.net offers A Day in the Life of a Hobbit, and Tobold's MMORPG blog has similar hobbit-related impressions. Tobold also has a comparison between LORTRO and World of Warcraft for those who might be thinking about making the jump. More hands-on info is available from Warcry, Kill Ten Rats, and Gamers With Jobs. Van Hemlock offers up a high level overview of the title, mentioning recent releases and pointing out the realities of Massive gaming: "How the Great Fantasy Epic Saga will stand the ravages thousands of petty powerlevelling smacktalkers all loitering about Rivendell bank, level one hobbit girls - dancing as naked as the game will allow, shouting ridiculous three-letter-acronyms and generally not getting into the spirit of the thing, remains to be seen. I expect Our People can crush even The Lord of the Rings beneath our metagaming heel without feeling too guilty."

Game Developer Blizzard Entertainment's long-anticipated expansion to World of Warcraft has gone live. Initial impressions are ... not available, since all 8 million players are currently in the Outlands. I'll take that to mean the servers for the most part have not melted yet. At a Burning Crusade launch party, a Blizzard exec revealed we may see a new StarCraft game very soon. But today is all about WoW. If you're not playing, and want to live vicariously, check out WarCry's extensive preview of the expansion. You could read designer Jeff Kaplan's comments on new features at FiringSquad, or Shane Dibiri's talk of inspiration at Next Generation. One new expansion a year, eh? Some folks are already looking to the future, where we probably won't see WoW on consoles, but may see it with security dongles. 0.1% of the Earth's population can't all be wrong.

Both World of Warcraft and EVE Online will be debuting collectible card games based on their online worlds this week at Gen Con. From the EVE announcement: "CCP will have a 128-person tournament at Gen Con in Hall G of the Indianapolis Convention Center on Saturday, August 12th with cash prizes totaling $10,000. The tournament will be open to everyone and since EVE: The Second Genesis will be launched at the show, those competing will have as equal a chance of winning as possible. The tournament will be a Swiss double elimination tournament with cash prizes for the top 32 players, with additional prizes for random players between rounds. A double elimination tournament is a competition where participants are eliminated from the tournament upon having lost two matches. All players will receive a starter deck free of charge when they come to the EVE booth for a demonstration."

Robert Cox from SWG.WarCry.com interviews SOE producer Grant McDaniel on the three-year anniversary of Star Wars Galaxies. From the article:
"'There was certainly a concern over how [the NGE] was going to be pursued by the players, but we knew that to make the kind of game that us and LucasArts expected for a Star Wars online game, we needed to make the changes,' said McDaniel. 'And to actually be able to continue to support the game that we've got, we needed to make those type of changes, to make it something that we could really feel good about, that we could really make sure was a high-quality game that provided the action experience that you'd expect from a Star Wars game.'"

Warcry has a very short blurb about a just announced Horror-genre Massively Multiplayer game. Titled Exanimus, the game looks to be set in a post-apocalyptic zombie setting. From the piece: "While most of the world is dead, there are small pockets of survivors that exist in barricaded cities across the globe. Players of Exanimus will have the option of playing as a living survivor or as one of the dead roaming the earth. Exanimus will allow players to experience a MMO based in a horror genre by creating a dark and visually "intense" environment. Exanimus is expected to be rated "Mature" and not intended for anyone under the age of 18."

Warcry has a short article with impressions from someone who was asked to participate in a Star Wars Galaxies focus group. The moderator evidently presented several options, and the group responded. From the article: "The final question/topic was whether we'd choose any one of the pamphlet outlines to add to the game, or if we'd prefer for them to work on bringing things back that were taken out. As soon as he was done talking, the group said 'Rollback' almost as one. The moderator seemed like he saw that coming, because he'd probably heard the term a dozen times already from the other groups."

Back in December of last year, the CBS News site did a feature printing some of the frustrated and confused emails sent by Star Wars Galaxies players. These individuals were all upset by the 'NGE', or New Game Enhancements, patched into the game by publisher Sony Online Entertainment. Evidently the feature was so popular they've gone back into the well, printing up a whole new batch of SWG-related frustrations. When CBS and the Washington Post are covering something like this, it tells me two things. First, MMOGs are definitely mainstream now. Second, Sony made a mistake. Warcry has some information that may reveal how big a mistake. They claim that a packet sniffer built into the SWG client made population numbers for the servers available to players. On a Friday night, at peak time, post-NGE Galaxies is apparently only drawing 10,400 players across all galaxy servers. This is basically 'some guy on a website' talk, so take this with a big grain of salt. It's sobering news, though, if true.

It's the last day of the first month of 2006, and already there are plenty of new things brewing on the Massive front. World of Warcraft's community is abuzz with news of the Raid content Jeff Kaplan mentioned over the weekend, and details on the 1.10 patch, which is to feature priest updates and weather cycles. City of Villains has big changes a-coming as well, with content for levels 40 to 50 going in, as well as new zones and a new mission type. The Mayhem missions sound like they're finally living up to the promise of 'being a villain'. The EQ2 server combines are the least of the changes occurring at SOE. Chris Kramer did an interview with GamerGod about some of the sweeping changes inc, touching on the free Planetside scheme and mentioning the Sony Station blog, which so far just has an intro from John Smedley. More romantically, FFXI is rolling out information on its Valentine's Day event. Valentione's day is the chocolate and hearts holiday as only Moogles could imagine it. It's fun to play for love, but also fun to play to crush. Guild War's world championships are taking place in about two weeks, with the first place purse weighing in at $50,000. Vanguard's own brand of hardcore lost a little bit of mystery this week with the release of a features list. Finally. Even though you can't win big bucks for playing them, Eve and Ultima Online continue to please their players with updates and releases. Eve's Creative Director spoke with OGaming about plans for outer space in 2006, and UO will see a new player tour and seasonal spring items. It's a good spring for Massive gaming. Update: 01/31 20:30 GMT by Z : I knew I would miss one. A reader wrote in to mention that Anarchy Online is gearing up for some great new stuff in the 16.2 patch, as well as in the upcoming expansion Lost Eden.

Lord Satri writes "The WarCry Network lead me to the world's only ultra-high resolution map of the World of Warcraft universe. From WarCry: 'The site leverages the powerful Google Maps API to create a revolutionary scaled map with detail and precision never before seen on the Internet. A user can display any number of ore, herbs, or, treasure. Currently there are more than 15,000 resources in the database. All this, on one easy to navigate page.'"

Via Kotaku, the final moments of Asheron's Call 2 in text and images. Highlights include the in-game appearance of a community moderator, and a killable version of a notorious dragon. Then, a lost connection. Gamespot has the story as well. From that article: "Turbine performed a little house cleaning this weekend as it shut down its massively multi-player online role-playing game Asheron's Call 2. Originally released in November of 2002, the fantasy game world met an unceremonious armageddon December 30. As of press time, the Asheron's Call 2 forums were still up for mourning players, and blow-by-blow accounts of the world of Dereth's final moments had started circulating the Web. "

Shockeye writes "Over at f13.net we have posted an on-site report on the upcoming Star Wars Galaxies overhaul. SOE and LucasArts are changing the entire core of the game in order to make things more fun and make you feel like you really are a part of the Star Wars Universe." Indeed, F13 has the goods, and a lot of analysis in their forums. Available elsewhere is the community letter that unveiled the changes, commentary from Aggro Me, and a breakdown of what exactly is happening. From F13: "I don't know how else to explain it other than SOE has done the right thing. They've revitalized combat in an MMOG. It's a huge step in the right direction. Do I think they'll perfect it here? No. But it's by far the most interesting thing a studio has done. They've taken a gamble, and from what I've seen it's paid off. In other words, they've added the 'Wars' back to Star Wars. It's been in the works for over a year now. In fact, the expansions could probably be called smokescreens for the launch of the real game. It'll shake things up."

ILuvJoesMom writes "Hot on the heels of Wednesday's news story, Warcry has an editorial up with strategies for defending the video game industry from the oncoming hordes. 'If you're sick of hearing politicians kvetch about video games, make it worth their while to stand up for them by voting for them and supporting them. Given the choice between a hundred thousand overprotective moms with ballots in hand and a million gamers at their computers, I'm going 'mom vote' every time, and I imagine any politician hoping to stay a politician feels the same. This is that 'elected' thing I was talking about earlier. If you're over 18 and not a felon, then odds are you have the right to vote, and that's more powerful than a thousand 'I think Congress sucks, who's with me?' threads on the message board of your choice.'"

hapwned writes "A news release at Warcry writes that the ESA (Entertainment Software Association) plans on filing suit in Michigan to overturn the recent Violent Games Act. From the article: 'The ESA argues that this bill is an effort to substitute the government's judgment for parental supervision and turn retailers into surrogate parents. Lowenstein said that the industry's products were being unreasonably and unfairly singled out. He contends that while there is no question that a few games have content that some audiences will find offensive, the same can be said for some content in TV, films, music, and books. Since the government does not regulate the sales of those entertainment industries, it should follow suit for the sale of video games. Ultimately, he concluded, parents, not government or industry, must be the gatekeepers of what comes in the home.'"

The Guardian Gamesblog has a post up with snippets from an interview with SWG fixture Javier, the mastermind behind the Cantina Crawl Machinima series. These short films feature Entertainers dancing and grooving to music, shot within SWG and edited by Javier. From the article: "Q: What are the unique benefits and drawbacks of making machinima in an online game? A: The benefits, I think, are the flip side of the same coin as the drawbacks. It's all about the other people playing the game. When you shoot a video in an online game, other people actually participate, and sometimes on a large scale. The resulting video is very special to those folks. They can also bring their own unique personalities and actions to the process, much in the way real actors do. The drawback is that, like with real actors, people are often unpredictable, and perhaps even more so in a game which they pay to play."

Orsonwarcry writes "Kieron Gillen went to Prague to speak to Bohemia Interactive, known best for Operation Flashpoint. He goes on to discuss the effects of bias on simulation games. 'In other words, a simulation is never just a simulation. Equally, freedom is rarely actually free of designer- imposed desires. Even in games with the most self-expressed mandates of "choice" for the gamer, it doesn't mean that there isn't a message. In Deus Ex, the generally politically liberal Ion Storm Austin created a world where you could choose between violence and pacifistic approaches, but the charismatic characters urged you towards peace while the monsters suggested violence.'" Some interesting stuff in there.

Garthilk writes "In the last two weeks since E3 I've read at least three gushing reviews about an upcoming game by Simutronics, called Hero's Journey. MMORPG.com gave it their E3 best of show award. CorpNews said it blew their pants off. IGN even had a good interview with the CEO of Simutronics. Warcry even goes so far as to say that it will turn gaming world upside down. The question still lingers though, can a company who has focused on text based roleplaying games cut it in the graphical world?" From the MMORPG.com article: "In a year full of big budget, big company titles, Hero's Journey offered graphics on par with all the major players and an extremely exciting look at their game play. E3 2005 marked a show where several high profile games were touting very similar features (state based combat), and in swept Hero's Journey with their innovative group combat, highly cinematic missions, interactive environments and hands down the best character creation ever put into an MMORPG."

Final Fantasy Online Warcry has the news that iTunes is now carrying Final Fantasy scores and music from the Black Mages. Square Enix has a listing of all of their iTunes offerings, which includes music from FFI - FFXI, a live concert offering, and two albums by the Black Mages (Nobuo Uematsu's rock band).

Puzzle Pirates (the boxed version) launches next week across the country, and in preparation Warcry has a rundown on the different games you'll find on the high seas. From the article: "Swordfighting: Swordfighting is the noble art of Pirate combat. Clear blades of the same type to strike blows upon your enemy. Swordfights can range from individual challenges to the great battles between Pirate crews that occur at sea during boarding. " When the cap'n says to team up on a scurvy dog, ye best hop to it!

The interview on Okratas we mentioned yesterday was mostly funny. Game currency seller IGE responded to the honest (if ham fisted) questions of a reporter with harsh marketroid speak. A reporter at Warcry responded with his own reactions, expressing publicly some of the distaste the average MMOG player has for IGE. Since then threads started last week in various online communities have started to appear on online news sites, shedding some more light on uncomfortable realities about IGE. Namely, that the currency seller apparently owns gaming media outlet OGaming. Read on for more.

Ogaming is a hub site much like Warcry, with a sub-site about most of the major Massively Multiplayer Games out there. Some enterprising /whois work by the original author of the WowCensus thread led him to realize that OGaming was registered with the same street address used for IGE's New York Office. OGaming's registration information was updated on the 10th, and now displays the name and address of a proxy registration service. Further damning is the thought that at one point a page on the Ogaming site claimed to own Thottbot.com, a universally respected and utilized tool for World of Warcraft in-game information.

The page that once claimed this (an advertising page) is now blank, with the words "under construction" displayed there. The Internet Archive's last update for ogaming.com is this time last year, so there is no way to check on the authenticity of that claim. If it is true it's disquieting to say the least. Thottbot is a massive database of in-game quest, item, character, and drop frequency information. Thottbot's information was gained through the goodwill and work of World of Warcraft players. The popular UI enhancement, Cosmos, included a plugin that sent information from the user's playing experience back to Thottbot. This included locations of enemies, the types of loot dropped, items the character had, and other specific details. While Thottbot claims to only keep information that is pertinent to other players, with the revelation that they may be owned by the disreputable IGE their trustworthiness is out the window.

This revelation didn't stay quiet for long, with MMOG sites CorpNews, Grimwell.com, and Allakhazam all creating discussions of their own about this weighty topic.

The authenticity of this story is hard to prove or disprove at this point, with the OGaming.com and Thottbot.com domains having a proxy listed under their contact information. But if it's hard to believe that IGE would go to the trouble of owning a media outlet and a popular plugin, think again. Garthilk writes "Cindy Bowens, community manager for Sigil Games online and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, outlines their stance on secondary market items, and how they deal with IGE. Most interesting is the fact that IGE approached Sigil, and had offered to cut Sigil in on the revenue that IGE might make in the future."

Update: 02/15 20:07 GMT by Z : Drey pointed out in the comments that, at least for the time being, Google still has a cache of the page listing Thottbot as an Ogaming site.

Yesterday saw the launch of two new expansions for a pair of well-established Massive games. The titles are Thrones of Oblivion, the newest expansion for Player vs. Player game Shadowbane, and Catacombs, the newest expansion for Dark Age of Camelot. Thrones of Oblivion adds some interesting high end content, graphical enhancements, and the ability to play a Vampire as a character. Catacombs is an impressive (and much anticipated) enhancement to the Dark Age of Camelot graphics engine, and adds massive underground areas beneath the three Realms.

Yesterday saw the launch of two new expansions for a pair of well-established Massive games. The titles are Thrones of Oblivion, the newest expansion for Player vs. Player game Shadowbane, and Catacombs, the newest expansion for Dark Age of Camelot. Thrones of Oblivion adds some interesting high end content, graphical enhancements, and the ability to play a Vampire as a character. Catacombs is an impressive (and much anticipated) enhancement to the Dark Age of Camelot graphics engine, and adds massive underground areas beneath the three Realms.

Warcry has some final details as the World of Warcraft launch looms closer. Pricing for WoW has finally been nailed down, with discounts going to folks who purchase more than one month at a time. There are also sneak peeks available, including footage from the special edition DVD and images from the Brady Games strategy guide. The guide includes Penny Arcade strips that illustrate game concepts. On character names: "I'm really sorry, Xaxziminrax. I tried to warn you, but I couldn't type your name in time. - 'Oh look, it's a bear' might also have worked."

Warcry has some final details as the World of Warcraft launch looms closer. Pricing for WoW has finally been nailed down, with discounts going to folks who purchase more than one month at a time. There are also sneak peeks available, including footage from the special edition DVD and images from the Brady Games strategy guide. The guide includes Penny Arcade strips that illustrate game concepts. On character names: "I'm really sorry, Xaxziminrax. I tried to warn you, but I couldn't type your name in time. - 'Oh look, it's a bear' might also have worked."

Aspyr Media and EA put out a joint press release yesterday announcing Aspyr's conversion of The Sims 2 to Macintosh. Information on the game is available via Aspyr's site, and will soon be available for preorder. No information yet on when the game will be available on the Mac platform.

Thanks to Gamespot for the quick blurb about City of Heroes players honoring Christopher Reeve, who passed away recently. The Superhero Massive Game has been awash in showings of respect. Screens and commentary can be found on CoH Warcry for the past several days.

Thanks to Gamespot for the quick blurb about City of Heroes players honoring Christopher Reeve, who passed away recently. The Superhero Massive Game has been awash in showings of respect. Screens and commentary can be found on CoH Warcry for the past several days.

Thanks to Gamespot for the quick blurb about City of Heroes players honoring Christopher Reeve, who passed away recently. The Superhero Massive Game has been awash in showings of respect. Screens and commentary can be found on CoH Warcry for the past several days.

pdawerks writes "Heard through the grapevine: Apparently Lucasarts is displeased with the way that SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) has handled Star Wars' MMORPG Galaxies. The day after the JTL expansion goes live, they plan to announce the second expansion pack and the divorce between SOE and Lucasarts." This appears to be a complete rumor. However, I found corroborating rumormongering at SWG Warcry and Second Life Herald. Lucasarts has previously lessened their developer stable, casting doubt on this idea. I can't imagine Lucasarts could do a worse job with the game than SOE has, though.

nevermore94 writes "After a long wait, Tribes: Vengeance, the latest game in the Tribes series has finally shipped to retail stores in the United States. Reviews are available at ActionTrip, GameSpy, GameZone, and WarCry .

Thanks to Warcry for its coverage of MMO creator Turbine's 'Turbine Nation' fanfest, an event which has included new details on the 2005-due Dungeons & Dragons Online, confirming "dungeon randomization as well as instancing in... the game (when you enter a dungeon, a completely separate version of that dungeon is created for you and your party)." GameSpy also has multiple new articles on D&D Online, including a new preview mentioning "D&D Online will be extremely combat-heavy. A whole lot of thought was put into its real-time combat system." Finally, Warcry has details on the Asheron's Call expansion, being developed following Turbine's buyback of the franchise, which apparently includes a "level cap... raise from 126 to 275."

Thanks to Warcry for its coverage of MMO creator Turbine's 'Turbine Nation' fanfest, an event which has included new details on the 2005-due Dungeons & Dragons Online, confirming "dungeon randomization as well as instancing in... the game (when you enter a dungeon, a completely separate version of that dungeon is created for you and your party)." GameSpy also has multiple new articles on D&D Online, including a new preview mentioning "D&D Online will be extremely combat-heavy. A whole lot of thought was put into its real-time combat system." Finally, Warcry has details on the Asheron's Call expansion, being developed following Turbine's buyback of the franchise, which apparently includes a "level cap... raise from 126 to 275."

Thanks to Warcry for its coverage of MMO creator Turbine's 'Turbine Nation' fanfest, an event which has included new details on the 2005-due Dungeons & Dragons Online, confirming "dungeon randomization as well as instancing in... the game (when you enter a dungeon, a completely separate version of that dungeon is created for you and your party)." GameSpy also has multiple new articles on D&D Online, including a new preview mentioning "D&D Online will be extremely combat-heavy. A whole lot of thought was put into its real-time combat system." Finally, Warcry has details on the Asheron's Call expansion, being developed following Turbine's buyback of the franchise, which apparently includes a "level cap... raise from 126 to 275."

Thanks to 1UP for noting that Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi has founded his own independent development company, according to Japanese magazine Famitsu Weekly. The company will be using "a small group of elite creators", planned to include "artists Yoshitaka Amano and Takehiko Inoue" - the article author also mentions: "Sakaguchi was ousted from any position of significant responsibility at Square after the multi-million-dollar boondoggle that was Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within." Elsewhere, RPGFan mentions a third Final Fantasy VII spin-off has been announced, following the CG movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children and the mobile phone-based Before Crisis: Final Fantasy VII, but "no release date or platform information has been given so far" for this new title. Finally, Warcry reveals the Final Fantasy XI clock, due out Fall 2004 in the U.S., and featuring "the time, day of the week, date and year in both [Final Fantasy XI's game world] Vana'diel and also here on Earth."

Thanks to Warcry.com for its three-part interview with Playboy: The Mansion lead developer Brenda Brathwaite. She discusses the Sims-like gameplay of the multi-platform title in development at Cyberlore, arguing: "I think I have an advantage as a heterosexual woman in that Playboy just wasn't part of my past: I was able to approach it from a brand-new angle... I can flip through those magazines and not have it effect me in the same way that it would clearly affect a heterosexual male." She concludes: "We go through and take a comparatively high road with this game, and show you a little of what it takes to build the Playboy empire, and what has happened historically. That was the challenge."

Thanks to Warcry.com for its three-part interview with Playboy: The Mansion lead developer Brenda Brathwaite. She discusses the Sims-like gameplay of the multi-platform title in development at Cyberlore, arguing: "I think I have an advantage as a heterosexual woman in that Playboy just wasn't part of my past: I was able to approach it from a brand-new angle... I can flip through those magazines and not have it effect me in the same way that it would clearly affect a heterosexual male." She concludes: "We go through and take a comparatively high road with this game, and show you a little of what it takes to build the Playboy empire, and what has happened historically. That was the challenge."

Thanks to Warcry.com for its three-part interview with Playboy: The Mansion lead developer Brenda Brathwaite. She discusses the Sims-like gameplay of the multi-platform title in development at Cyberlore, arguing: "I think I have an advantage as a heterosexual woman in that Playboy just wasn't part of my past: I was able to approach it from a brand-new angle... I can flip through those magazines and not have it effect me in the same way that it would clearly affect a heterosexual male." She concludes: "We go through and take a comparatively high road with this game, and show you a little of what it takes to build the Playboy empire, and what has happened historically. That was the challenge."

An anonymous reader writes "Another MMORPG bites the dust before it's out - the Games Workshop/Climax co-produced Warhammer Online PC MMO has just announced on the official website that the project is canned, apparently following 'a full review of the progress of the game, costs to date and future costs of the project.'" Over at the Warhammer Warcry fansite, there's an official FAQ with plenty of info on the allegedly near-completed ("the release date is currently penciled in for Summer 2004"), Sega-published title, which was shown at E3 this year without any hint of its grisly fate, shared by fellow PC MMO Mythica and by console MMORPG True Fantasy Live Online.

An anonymous reader writes "Another MMORPG bites the dust before it's out - the Games Workshop/Climax co-produced Warhammer Online PC MMO has just announced on the official website that the project is canned, apparently following 'a full review of the progress of the game, costs to date and future costs of the project.'" Over at the Warhammer Warcry fansite, there's an official FAQ with plenty of info on the allegedly near-completed ("the release date is currently penciled in for Summer 2004"), Sega-published title, which was shown at E3 this year without any hint of its grisly fate, shared by fellow PC MMO Mythica and by console MMORPG True Fantasy Live Online.

An anonymous reader writes "Another MMORPG bites the dust before it's out - the Games Workshop/Climax co-produced Warhammer Online PC MMO has just announced on the official website that the project is canned, apparently following 'a full review of the progress of the game, costs to date and future costs of the project.'" Over at the Warhammer Warcry fansite, there's an official FAQ with plenty of info on the allegedly near-completed ("the release date is currently penciled in for Summer 2004"), Sega-published title, which was shown at E3 this year without any hint of its grisly fate, shared by fellow PC MMO Mythica and by console MMORPG True Fantasy Live Online.

Thanks to IGN Vault for its multi-part report on the Star Wars Galaxies Fan Fest, held in Anaheim, California, on the 4th and 5th of June. There's also a summary of a developer's panel, in which the important question "When will Wookiees get Mohawks?" is addressed - apparently: "While the response was not overwhelming, more than a few attendees thought it would be a good idea." Regarding new in-game locations for Lucasart/SOE's MMO title, it's noted that the devs "all want [Coruscant to be added as a location to the game] very much. It's on the list, just as is Hoth and Bespin." There's also a Fan Fest photo gallery up on SWG Warcry, and there's currently a free 14-day trial of the game via FilePlanet.

Bruha asks: "There have been several reviews of SuSE 9.1 lately in the online press. However I'd like to hear what the buying public has to say about Novell's first release of SuSE since buying the company. I'm currently typing this article from SuSE 9.1 x86_64 and I have to say past a few quirks I'm really starting to love this distro and admire how polished it has become since 8.2 my last SuSE purchase. What are other's opinions of the software after trying it out and what problems and new things have you discovered? And if you're sticking with it after a move from another distro why did you decide to stick?"

Bruha writes "It appears the RIAA is being very low key about the fact that the five major labels think that 99 cents per song is too cheap, and are discussing a price hike that would increase the tariff to $1.25 up to $2.99 per song. I was a huge fan of the 99c per song, but if they think that they can raise the price on me just because I don't buy full CDs anymore, they've got another thing coming. Suggestion: make good CDs, and maybe I'll buy the whole thing."

Ellen Spertus writes "Astraware is offering a special Valentine's Day version of Bejeweled (one of the most popular PDA games) with an embedded marriage proposal you can enable." Elsewhere, Warcry has a Valentine's Day gaming article, including gamer gift picks and "Gaming as a Couple: A How To Article", including advice such as "Be willing to negotiate play schedules and set time limits up front", and, most importantly, "Never choose games over your partner." Update: 02/14 18:07 GMT by S : Blizzard also has Valentine's Day fun on its official site, including a special Warcraft III map for Valentine's Day.

Thanks to Warcry for its interview with Sony Online's chief creative officer, Raph Koster, as he discusses his relatively new job ("My job is primarily to help the teams make their games better, not to have them make my game. I know a lot of folks have been wondering if I'm here to change EverQuest to be more like Ultima Online or Star Wars Galaxies, and the answer is no"), the evolution of the MMO ("I see a little bit of a backlash here and there against the MMORPG in its classic form. There's maybe a sense that we haven't advanced the genre fast enough. My main answer to that one is 'it takes three years to make one of these things, give us a break, we haven't actually gotten to iterate very much yet'"), and why it's not just about designing the game ("I've been reading more and more in psychology and anthropology and sociology... Game design is only one facet of online world design, frankly.")

Thanks to Warcry for its report revealing what's claimed to be the first corporate sponsorship for a massively multiplayer game guild. The press release explains: "The Syndicate is one of the oldest and largest guilds in online gaming... [and] has become the first guild in online gaming to obtain corporate sponsorship [from a custom PC manufacturer]." Although sponsorship of FPS teams are common, sponsoring a larger gathering of MMO players, currently playing on titles such as Ultima Online and EverQuest, is much less normal - though it's unclear exactly how 'sponsorship' will work with so many members and no FPS-style showcase competitions.

Bruha writes "Almost all of the bills I receive today have the option to go paperless. I already pay all utilities and creditcards online but have yet to tell them to stop sending me a physical bill even though they heavily advertise the advantages of it. My concern are mistakes they could audit out and claim were not there. Has anyone experienced any problems with paperless billing or are my worries without merit?"