Cities XL is nearing the end of their first month post-launch and beginning to look toward what the future holds for the game.

Their first step is the release of their very first content pack, and Cities XL promises more to come on a regular basis. All Cities XL players will now have a new farm model, a high school, and a Ford dealership to add to their growing towns, with even more new content exclusive to Planet Offer players.

The content pack for Planet Offer subscribers will also include an eye-catching Old England building pack, three new maps (Want to live in a crater? You can now.), and three new megastructures. You can gather the resources to build the megastructures, but Cities XL also offers up an interesting addition to their overview: "Check your profile out on a regular basis to see if you are the lucky winner of an Alcatraz prison, a Tokyo Imperial Palace or a 30 St Mary Axe office building!"

The new content is automatically downloaded and installed through the launcher, so you won't need to do anything extra to receive it.

Today is the European launch of Cities XL, while tomorrow is the North American launch of the game. We've enjoyed playing the game throughout beta, and have given some hefty coverage along the way. Check out our best Cities XL posts and articles below, preparing you for getting started easily.

	Massively hands-on with Cities XL As the Cities XL closed beta continues to run strong, we got word that the beta's NDA has lifted [Edit: for press] and we can spill the beans on our first impressions of the game so far. Now, two very important points to be made here include the fact that this is not a review (MMO reviews are bad, mmkay), and this is still in early closed beta stage.
	E3 2009: A chat with Cities XL's Alexandre Zambeaux Last week at E3, we had a chance to sit down with Alexandre Zambeaux, Marketing Director for Cities XL developer Monte Cristo Games, for some more info on the current state of the game, and what MMO gamers can expect from such a project. You may remember a pre-beta Q&A we did with the Monte Cristo team a few months ago, and as the game hasn't hit an open beta just yet, it will later this year.
	Cities XL closed beta Q&A Monte Cristo was founded in 1995, and has mostly been very focused on simulation games. In recent years we have shifted our efforts to the city builder genre, especially with our latest game City Life. We currently employ over 80 people in two studios in Paris and Kiev, and we have been increasing in size a lot (and still are) for Cities XL.
	Cities XL Limited Edition box contents revealed Monte Cristo and Namco-Bandai have recently announced the contents of their Limited Edition box for the upcoming city-builder MMO, Cities XL. These Limited Edition boxes, as well as the Standard Edition boxes, are available in Europe on October 8th.

As we mentioned last week, Cities XL has been launching their own demo version of the game for several different languages. The German and French version went up last week, but today marks the official launch for the English version.

Partnering up with Namco Bandai for this English version, the developers at Monte Cristo seem pleased that their city-building MMO is right on track for an October release. This demo for the game can be downloaded at our sister site, Big Download, and is playable throughout the month of September.

The Monte Cristo team has just released a new sample video depicting some of the major choices you can make in their city-building MMO, set to release on October 8th (EU) and 9th (US). This trailer is out now to prepare us for the new demo version of the game. While the German and French versions have released this week, the English version will release on September 8th.

What exactly is the demo and how is it different from an open beta? Well, the demo is a true demo in the classic sense of the word. You can try out cities, but only build them to 22k citizens (the full version of the game lets you create megalopolises of millions of citizens). You'll have access to 3 maps, while the single player mode will give 25 maps on launch, and the MMO Planet Mode will give you 50 maps. This is Monte Cristo's way of opening the game up to all players, considering their unique business model with a single-player and multi-player modes. Check out our previous coverage and their newly-revamped website for more details.

[EDIT: You can now get the demo here.]

This year's October seems like a busy month for gaming, and if you're into city building games it just got a little more crowded. Monte Cristo Multimedia has announced that Cities XL will be released in North America on October 9th and that it will come in two formats. You can either get it through a digital download or by mail order in case you prefer a boxed copy, and shipping is free. Both options will be available through the official website, but it's also possible to get the digital version from Steam, Direct2Drive, Trygames, Impulse Driven and Gametap.

We're sure plenty of you are excited to hear this news, or at least the small legion of you who've been building (or have wanted to be building) massive cities for the past several months.

As the days of fall tick by, many people who just can't wait to get their massive city-building sim on are looking for more details on Monte Cristo's upcoming game, Cities XL. This ambitious project will offer players the ability to build their very own detailed cities (or slap together cities, if you're more interested in seeing what kind of havoc you can wreak by doing it wrong on purpose) and attract residents. With a variety of tools and some interesting twists, this title is raising the bar by adding MMO elements and making city building on persistent worlds an option.

While it's cool to see the cities build up, some of the avatars in this video look like they got hit in the face with a toaster. But to be fair, if you're playing a city building sim, avatar looks really shouldn't matter that much anyway. At the end of the day it's all about making the toaster-faceries drop some of that hard-earned sim cash so you can build more cool buildings. (Perhaps a plastic surgeon's office would kill two birds with one stone?)

If lording over your own online sim-pire is right up there on your list of fun game ideas, be sure to check out the Cities XL "Build your dream cities" trailer behind the break for a quick nibble of things to come.

Monte Cristo and Namco-Bandai have recently announced the contents of their Limited Edition box for the upcoming city-builder MMO, Cities XL. These Limited Edition boxes, as well as the Standard Edition boxes, are available in Europe on October 8th. The North American launch has yet to be announced.

The game's Standard Edition includes the game DVD, two instruction manuals, a 7-day trial key for the MMO part of the game, and a trial key for a friend. A pre-order is said to be available in the coming days, but no definite info has been announced yet. Follow along after the jump for the complete content of the Limited Edition.

Just think about that title for a second. Of all the games genres you've played, isn't it MMOs that feel most like carbon copies of one another? Level systems, the character creation process and class archetypes are nearly universal, with hundreds of games sharing the same characteristics. Don't you sometimes wish that MMO developers would step back and reassess the genre they have collectively created? This week, as part of Massively's "Redefining MMOs" series, it's my turn to muse on a topic and I've chosen to look as whether it's time the MMO mould (or mold, as my American editors would say) should be broken and re-examined.

It seems 2009 is the Summer of Betas. There certainly are a lot going on at the moment: Aion, Cities XL and Champions Online are just three of the most popular currently going on but the sheer concept of beta testing is a bit of a bug-bear amongst players. There are basically two camps: those who lap up a beta and treat it is a chance to explore the newest games (and seems to include most of Team Massively) or the latest content months before anyone else. Camp number two is a little more pragmatic. For these folks, betas (while fun and exciting) are just an excuse for Company X to save some money by getting a few million free and eager quality assurance monkeys. After all they ask for detailed bug reports and the same kind of information that is asked of professionals who get paid minimum wage to play games for hours.

So, readers, as you mull over your coffee and cereal this morning, I'm eager to know to which camp you see yourself belonging? Are betas just a cheap ploy to get a few thousand fresh pairs of eyes or a genuine attempt to gauge a new game? Drop your thoughts in the box below.

We're pleased to announce yet another round of giveaways for the Cities XL closed beta, but this time it's even easier to get your hands on one! If you remember our previous two giveaways, a comment was needed on the post and a code would be sent to you later in the day or the week. Now, it's as easy as following this link and clicking a button. No comment needed! We have 300 to give away this time, and if the last contests were any indication, these will go quickly.

So head on over to our giveaway page to claim your very own code and follow the instructions there to set up an account and get into the beta. If you'd be interested in learning about these giveaways earlier, you can also join our Facebook fan page for exclusive announcements before we put them up on our main site.

A few weeks ago, we at Massively started the weekly "Redefining MMOs" series, a collection of articles examining how the MMO genre has been redefined during the current generation of games and where it's headed in the next. So far, we've looked at the terminology we use to refer to MMOs, how the art of storytelling has changed over the years, and the rise of the "massively singleplayer" online game. In this week's article, I examine what happens when players are given the reigns of an MMO or have a hand in part of its development. If you have something important to say on the topic, feel free to post a comment on page 3 or even write your own "Redefining MMOs" blog post and leave a comment with the URL.

Traditionally, all content for an MMO is designed by the game's development studio and players have no direct influence on its creation. The idea of handing the reigns of an MMO to its players is considered heresy and we shudder to think of what horrible quests and areas players would construct if given a chance. But is our aversion justified or is it something developers should strive to overcome? Certainly Second Life has successfully capitalised on letting players develop almost every aspect of its virtual world but could successful mainstream MMOs make use of it too? City of Heroes, EVE Online and even World of Warcraft are prime examples which suggest they can. All three of these games have handed at least some part of the game's development over to players, with incredibly promising results.

In this article, I look at these three successful examples of players being allowed to develop aspects of an MMO. I then go on to explain why this works and how the next generation of MMOs could learn from these pioneering feats.

It looks like our European readers are going to have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on Cities XL, a new title that will bring MMO elements to a city-building game. Cities XL developer Monte Cristo Multimedia announced today that they're pushing back that September launch date to early October.

The game will release on October 8th for these European countries: France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Austria. The French and German language versions of the game will be distributed by Focus and Flashpoint. October 8th will mark the Australian and New Zealand launches as well, with Namco Bandai Partners distributing the English language version of Cities XL. The English version will also launch the following day, October 9th, in the UK, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Spain, and Italy.

Fresh off their merger and complete with a new-ish name, Namco Bandai has announced a UK publishing deal for urban management MMO Cities XL. More specifically, the publisher is set to distribute the Monte Cristo developed title in the UK, Italy, Nordic countries, Iberica, New Zealand and Australia. Distribution elsewhere will be handled by Monte Cristo themselves.

If you're looking for more information on Cities XL, we've got a detailed hands-on preview written by our very own Shawn Schuster. Plus, we're still offering the opportunity to win a shiny beta key so you can try the game out for yourself. It's a good time to be both an MMO and city builder fan, which is strange to write but feels oh-so-good.

If you missed out on our whirlwind giveaway from the last set of Cities XL closed beta keys, you'll be pleased to hear that we're doing it again today. That's right, we're giving away another set of beta keys for the newest closed testing phase, and you have a chance to win!

To participate, all you need to do is leave a comment to this post telling us what Cities XL feature you're looking forward to the most. All participants will then be contacted by Monte Cristo with their unique key and instructions on downloading the client. Eligibility for this giveaway will close on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 at 8pm EST or when all keys have been given away. If you'd like to find out more on our impressions of the game, check out our latest coverage and a hands-on with the closed beta. Good luck!

[Update: Thank you to all who commented! Eligibility is now closed and you can expect your keys to arrive within the next few days.]

As the Cities XL closed beta continues to run strong, we got word that the beta's NDA has lifted [Edit: for press] and we can spill the beans on our first impressions of the game so far. Now, two very important points to be made here include the fact that this is not a review (MMO reviews are bad, mmkay), and this is still in early closed beta stage.

With that in mind, we're here to give you some facts on how the game stands now, with a bit of healthy opinion thrown in for good measure. If you're at all curious about how this city-builder MMO can possibly work, follow along below.