You can argue the specifics about whether or not MAG qualifies as an MMO, but the game certainly fits the "massive" portion of the bill -- 128 characters to a side in battle, customized and developed characters, persistent world based on the performance in the skirmishes. The game's release is only a couple months away, and there's still a great deal more to learn about it if you haven't yet opted in to the preorder beta. Luckily for all of us, Giant Bomb has an interview with Seth Luisi which sheds more light on how the game will play and progress.

The interview is quite substantial, covering everything from MAG's skill progression to leadership roles in the game. Among the more interesting tidbits is the system for squad leaders and further command posts. In order to give some incentive to follow a commander's orders, the objectives they set give a bonus to experience when fulfilled, and as the objectives are fulfilled the leader gets points to help improve their character. It's an interesting dual-reward system that should help lead to people being a bit more inclined to give and take orders in a setting notorious for just the opposite.

But that's hardly the entirety of the interview -- it's only a tiny slice of a talk that ranges to the state of the world affecting map play, character specialization, and some of the problems that the team is facing and working on improving. Take a look at the full interview, which clocks in at around eight minutes long, and you might be inspired to place a pre-order and get your hands on the beta early.

North American Closed Beta Test 1 is beginning on November 10th for Allods Online, and we're happy to throw a few keys out to our loyal readers. We have 500 to give out, thanks to our friends at gPotato, so they may go quickly. Simply head on over to our giveaway page and follow the directions there.

You can download the game from this link, but it won't be available until 2pm EDT today. You can also take a look at their main website to find out some interesting tidbits about the expansiveness of the game and its award-winning development team.

[Update: Make sure to only enter the numbers after the comma in the beta code you receive. Thanks!]

If you're looking for some more RvR action outside of Warhammer Online, then you might want to take a look at Gala-Net's newest addition to their MMO lineup, Aika.

Aika is a new free-to-play MMO with the same type of nation versus nation bent that Warhammer and World of Warcraft provide to their players. Players get to defend territory during castle sieges, can steal artifacts from the enemy side, a la Dark Age of Camelot, and participate in the standard PvP battlegrounds.

The game has just gone into a closed beta testing phase for America, but getting in couldn't be simpler. Simply go visit the Aika website, fill out a survey and you'll be entered for a chance to participate in the closed beta.

Linden Lab, the company behind the Second Life platform is launching the open beta of Project Nebraska today. Project Nebraska was the working title for what is now called Second Life Enterprise, a standalone Second Life solution for enterprise use.

This "Second Life in a box" solution, is actually in two boxes. It consists of a combined software and hardware bundle, including two 1RU rack-mount servers, prepackaged as an appliance and configured to provide virtual environment and voice services, ready to use with standard Second Life viewer software.

But that's not all.

Zodiac Online, the free-to-play MMO with a Chinese zodiac theme, entered closed beta on Sunday. They've made quite a few changes since alpha: "we've corrected many bugs and added a lot of new content, now Zodiac Online Closed-Beta test is coming back in a very different appearance!" If you took a look at the game in alpha, the new content -- including the addition of PVP -- may warrant a second trip to try the beta.

The Zodiac Online storyline centers around the twelve Chinese zodiac signs - the dragon, tiger, ox, etc. -- and their battle against a force of demons heralding doomsday. Your job is to help the zodiac envoy defeat the demons.

Beta keys are available through several outlets, including the Zodiac Online Facebook group, prearranged giveaways, and the "Good Wishes" program in which you register on the ZO site, leave good wishes in a forum thread, and receive your key. (Zodiac Online obviously isn't too shy about handing out beta keys.)

Closed beta is expected to last "several weeks depending on test results," and beta key information is available on the official site.

Mixing side-scrolling fighting action with RPG elements seems like it should go together like peanut butter and chocolate, so the biggest surprise about Dungeon Fighter Online is that no one else thought of it first. The game is still in the middle of its open beta, but Nexon's most recent offering gave us a small preview of some of the dungeons to come in the game as well as a number of screenshots of them in play.

Each of the dungeons in question are accessed from a larger hub area, allowing you to whisk yourself promptly off to a specific dungeon, each with its own enemies (and presumably different rewards). The central area Grand Flores, for instance, leads to Mirkwood Frost and Blazing Gaqarak, with the former being a rime-coated expanse of woods and the latter an eternal forest fire. The Sky Tower leads to the Vestibule of Darkness, full of light-dousing goblins and enchanted armor, and the Golem Tower, in which you fight a large number of... well, okay, that one kind of makes it obvious. (It's not kittens.) The Temple of Apostasy leads to the GBL Arad Branch, a library-themed dungeon in which hordes of librarians attempt to surround you with magic and the rage of a thousand cracked book bindings.

Last but not least, Noire Ferra includes among its cavernous reaches the Spider's Lair, sure to be a top vacation spot for arachnophobes everywhere. Take a look at our gallery of shots, and if it gets you interested in Dungeon Fighter Online, let's not forget that the game is currently in open beta.

If you were disappointed to hear of Alganon's recent delay until December 1, this news might cheer you up. We just received word that Alganon open beta is set to launch on Wednesday, November 11, 2009. This is a great opportunity to check out the game for yourself rather than taking other peoples' opinions for it. The client can be downloaded from a number of places including Direct2Drive, Fileplanet, MMORPG.COM, Curse, and the Alganon and MyAlganon websites.

If our previous closed beta key giveaways are any indication of the interest in this new title, open beta should receive a hefty amount of player attention. If you're already in the beta, Quest Online seems to have made a number of improvements across the board that should make for a better gaming experience. We recently caught up with president and co-founder, David Allen, for an interview, so feel free to give it a read while you wait until next Wednesday.

After a newly-announced launch delay, we now have just under a month before Quest Online's Alganon releases to the public. Now in its beta stage, Alganon has enjoyed mixed reviews since the NDA was lifted two weeks ago. We thought we'd take this opportunity to ask some of the questions floating around about this new fantasy MMO, and how it sets itself apart from existing fantasy MMOs.

Quest Online's president and co-founder, David Allen, was kind enough to answer our questions, which include everything from those of PvP content to his thoughts on being compared to World of Warcraft. Keep reading below for the complete interview.

We still don't know nearly as much about Mortal Online as we would like, but the slow deployment of information we've been getting is certainly appealing. With promises of open PvP, long-term repercussions of actions rather than the usual respawns and resets, a crafting system encompassing nearly every item in the game... suffice to say it aims at being a niche game that knows its place and its peers. Unfortunately, as it's in beta and under an NDA, information is slow to be released. The October newsletter for the game has mercifully given us a few more bits of information, most importantly the next features being brought out in testing.

November 1st (that's today!) will see the release of the next beta build, which carries with it the opportunity to start taming and harnessing mounts as well as building houses. The newsletter specifically mentions that building materials -- most likely the type of wood -- will be integral to the home's quality, keeping with the very detail-oriented approach the game has taken so far. There's also an in-game event promised for the patch, which should certainly be a nice bonus for the players lucky enough to take part. For those of us not yet in the testing, however, there's a promise that there are more lore and developer updates coming to the site in the near future. You can currently get into the beta by pre-ordering the game, which might be a bit of a risk for some players... but for the niche Mortal Online is aiming for, it might well be the sort of thing you can't get anywhere else.

With beta now beginning, we shot some relevant questions at Cryptic's Craig Zinkievich, executive producer on Star Trek Online. He gave us his insight on what the team's goals are during beta and what some of their toughest challenges were from their point of view. Plus, we even got him to spill the beans on when Klingons would be entering the fray for beta testers -- hopefully the rest of us get to see and hear more about the warrior race soon thereafter.

It's a short interview, mostly because we kept our questions on topic and well, also because we didn't want to distract Craig from working on his game for very long. Someone's got to work on fulfilling our childhood fantasies!

As we've said before, we got to see many, many people at GameX 2009 this year. But one of the main reasons we went to the expo was to catch up once again with the team from Hi-Rez Studios and ask them some more questions on their "spy-fi" MMOFPS, Global Agenda.

On the top of our burning question list was what exactly made Global Agenda into an MMO, so we set out to ask associate producer Michal Adam all about what made their AvA and persistent world battles so special. Along the way, we also inquired as to what their PvE content will hold, and what rewards players could expect to find from participating in Global Agenda: Conquest.

For our full video interview with Michal, look no further than after the break!

Welcome to Betawatch, Massively's weekly report on the state of MMO betas. In each installment, we'll report everything from the latest open betas, closed betas and even alphas in one convenient place. Plus, we'll make sure to include as much info on each game's current status, including projected release dates (if known) and links to the sign-up forms to get yourself into that beta you've been seeking.

Lots of changes this week: Ys Online announced that they'll be leaving the open beta list, but not to go live. They'll be going out of service November 30th. Alganon will be staying in closed beta a while longer, having pushed their launch date to December 1st. The latest closed beta phase for Karos Online has ended. Bright Shadow and Galaxy Online make the leap to open beta, and Soul of the Ultimate Nation leaves the list to go live.

Follow along after the jump for the complete list.

Are you excited about Alganon? Excited enough, perhaps, that you might have chosen to take a couple days off from work in anticipation of its scheduled launch on October 31st? If so, we've got some kind of bad news for you. It's not coming out then after all. As a matter of fact, it isn't going to release until December 1st, according to community manager Tork at the official site.

What's the reason for the delay? The official post is shy of concrete reasons, but it mentions that the decision was reached in order to test on a larger scale as well as refine the game further. It also mentions that they're looking forward to running more contests and improving their visibility -- both excellent aims. Community response has been surprisingly positive and moderate, which might be a good sign in advance. If you are one of the people who pre-ordered, however, the announcement isn't just bad news -- everyone who pre-ordered the game by October 31st will get a free month in compensation. Actually playing Alganon will have to wait for a little while, but an extra month certainly helps take the edge off.