MMO players come in all shapes and sizes and boast a variety of personality traits. Picking a race, class, and faction combination in your favorite MMO can sometimes give an insightful look at the player behind the keyboard. At least, Paul Barnett thinks so: "Most of the people I've met who like Dwarfs basically look like Dwarfs."

That may be true because I'm a pretty tall and lean person and I hate playing Dwarves. Then again, my MMO history includes playing a number of Kobolds in Dark Age of Camelot and Goblins in Warhammer Online, so I could just be really strange.

While browsing the Aion community forums, we came across an interesting post. One of the board members has written up a quick and quirky guide for choosing one of the game's eight classes based on one's personality. Obviously, numbers and stats play a huge factor in making class decisions for many players, but this could be a more healthy approach.

At the very least, you will gain a better understanding of the kinds of people playing these classes, which could give you a strategic advantage when you run into them on the battlefield.

The folks over at Ten Ton Hammer have been cranking out a number of features that examine the various class archetypes and specialty classes of Aion. So far, they've produced two game guides showcasing the Priest and Mage archetypes and had four interviews with NCsoft discussing the Gladiator, Templar, Ranger, and Assassin specialty classes.

When creating a character in Aion, you must initially choose one of four available archetypes. Anyone who has played a fantasy MMO or RPG in the past decade or so will find them quite familiar. They are the Warrior, Scout, Priest, and Mage.

Once you reach level 9, you're sent on a quest to discover your true identity and ascend to daevahood. The quest is like Red Bull - it gives you wings. At this point you must choose a specialty class defined by your original archetype. Warriors become Gladiators or Templars. Scouts become Rangers or Assassins. Priests become Clerics or Chanters. Mages become Sorcerers(esses) or Spiritmasters.

By our count, TTH has covered half the archetypes and specialty classes so far, so keep your eyes peeled for the second half coming soon. We'll also bring you our own impressions of these classes when beta permits. So far, we've been limited to testing some pretty low level characters.

Well, we can't say we exactly saw this one coming. Turbine has pulled back the curtain on some details for Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, namely the new class being added with the major business model shift. Although, we've also learned there'll be new combat updates and a return of Stormreach's marketplace, which was destroyed last year.

As for the new class, it's been revealed to be the Favored Soul. According to Turbine's press release, "Favored souls draw on divine magic to both heal and destroy. Like clerics, favored souls have access to powerful healing spells, but they are also more skilled with weapons than any other spell caster. Like sorcerers, they get a larger number of spell points than other spell casters and cannot freely switch spells at taverns or rest shrines." So it sounds like we're dealing with a cross between a Cleric and a Sorcerer, which is pretty awesome actually. What sorts of weapons -- and screens of the class itself -- remains to be seen, sadly.

Still, we should have even more details in the coming weeks and hopefully Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited will launch sometime this summer.

The fifth major update to Age of Conan,"Gangs of Tarantia", has gone live. The update adds the Tarantia Commons District, a high level area with both single player and group dungeons, as well as a revamped RPG system. There are substantial system changes that have gone into effect in Update 5, which impact every class in Age of Conan, covering everything from itemization changes to feat trees, as well as abilities, spells, and combos. Plus Funcom has rolled out a complete overhaul of the gem crafting system and introduced new rewards tied in with guild cities. Any in-depth look at the sweeping changes made to Age of Conan with Update 5 is beyond the scope of this post, but are summarized in the patch notes.

In the June letter from the game director, Craig Morrison explains how Gangs of Tarantia is the most significant update made to the game thus far. Morrison also drops some hints about the directions Funcom plans to take Age of Conan with future game updates. He writes that the next update to Age of Conan will focus on three main areas: improving guild gameplay; new high level content in the House of Crom; and more goals and objectives with Border Kingdom PvP.

Beyond the letter from the game director, Funcom has grouped together a ton of information related to Gangs of Tarantia and AoC in general, which can be found in Issue #23 of the Age of Conan newsletter.

Global Agenda is coming right along nicely -- we last saw the game in action at GDC, and today at E3, executive producer Todd Harris was nice enough to sit down and show us a never-before-seen part of the game: PvE gameplay.

We started off by checking out the character creator, which has come along quite a bit. They've built a very in-depth face creator -- there are about eight or ten different factors to switch between (eyes, mouth, and so on), and for each one, there are seven or eight sliders to adjust and tweak. Which allows for quite a few different variations, as you might imagine. Hair and skin color can also be edited, but Harris told us that body shape will generally be determined by the armor you wear (which is more or less determined by the class you choose).

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Massively is on the ground in Los Angeles this week and covering all the latest E3 MMO news coming from the convention. Check out our breaking coverage (or all the Joystiq network E3 reporting) and keep your eye on Massively's front page for the latest developments.

As if we weren't all busy enough keeping up with E3 news, the biggest fish in the MMO sea has chosen this hectic time in the games industry to change things in their popular game world. Our newly renamed sister-site WoW.com has gotten word that World of Warcraft will be updated with Patch 3.1.3 during the scheduled maintenance for June 2nd, and their sources combined with MMO-Champion's reporting of the same thing mean that this is probably quite accurate. Keep in mind that this isn't the Call of the Crusade patch we learned about recently, and is more about class balancing than anything else. We've got the patch notes posted after the break.

We love magazines, because they sometimes feature interviews which reveal information before it's actually released online -- it does happen! Kotaku has discovered that Edge Magazine's newest issue contains an interview with James Ohlem, director for Star Wars: The Old Republic, and within said interview he reveals the Smuggler classes' existence. Giving the scanned image featured above, we can only assume Smugglers are a Republic class -- that there's a Trooper standing next to him.

According to the Ohlem, via the scanned image, "Ord Mantell is a war-torn world and it's where the Smuggler starts off, when his ship gets stolen. He's pretty angry; imagine what Han Solo would've been like if the Millennium Falcon got taken." Sounds like a good place to start for the law-bending, blaster toting class.

Chances are good this will be a part of next week's E3 2009 news, so keep a lookout for more official details when that time comes. Until then, we'll be dreaming of blockades ran and witty lines read.

One of the upcoming free-to-play titles that Massively had a chance to see this month is Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent from Atlus. Our hands-on gallery feature is a good introduction to the look and feel of the game world, but now that Neo Steam is in open beta, we're expecting more info about the game to be forthcoming.

We came across a ZAM interview with Neo Steam: The Shattered Continent lead editor Jason Ruper, conducted by Andrew "Tamat" Beegle. Ruper gives some background on the game's setting and lore, saying, "The game has a lush, fantasy-steampunk setting, and everything -- from the machine wasteyards and polluted rivers to the rickety vehicles and the ancient ruins from before the shattering -- contributes to this setting and reminds you that your nation is in a state of reconstruction as well as in the middle of a cold war."

Massively's sister site WoW.com pointed out a community initiative underway at Blizzard. The company has attracted the subscription dollars of millions of World of Warcraft players over the years, so much so that the company is pretty much at the top of the MMO world. Despite this popularity, the game does have its issues, and the collective din of 11.5 million players can get pretty loud when players feel their classes are in need of some improvements, or simply when they don't understand why class changes are (or aren't being) made.

Nethaera from Blizzard has posted that they want to communicate with the playerbase better. To that end, Blizzard is seeking questions from World of Warcraft players about the game's classes, to be used in a community question and answer series for each WoW class. They're presently looking for your feedback on the game's classes in their respective class forums, so this would be an ideal time to make your voice heard.

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	One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!

Stealth bombers were originally advanced frigates aimed at an ambush predator role. They launched cruise missiles at foes from a distance and dealt very high damage to small ships like cruisers and other frigates. With the changes in the recent EVE Online expansion, they've been re-focused into an anti-battleship role. They now fling massive torpedoes that deal impressive damage to large targets but poor damage to smaller ships. In addition, they were switched from an ambush predator role intended to use normal cloaking devices to a pack hunter role able to warp while cloaked using a covert ops cloaking device.

It's all very well to speculate, but how well do the new stealth bombers actually perform? I took a gang of stealth bomber pilots out on the town for a tense PvP test drive. In this gallery article, I show a visual record of our adventure and go on to give my opinion on the new stealth bombers after a night of EVE PvP.

The fourth Star Wars: The Old Republic class has been revealed today, and it's the Republic Trooper. An initial pang of worry struck our minds at the name until we began perusing the official class page, then saw the image above. Oh, and let's not forget the videos depicting three glorious special attacks. Weapon butts? Sticky Grenades? High-Powered Rifle Grenades? Sold.

Reading through the class description provides further clarification as to why a player would consider this career over a Jedi. These aren't just cannon fodder soldiers, but highly trained and specialized men and women not to be trifled with -- which gives us pause. Why are these people so impressive, but not named in a way that lets you know this verifiable truth?

It seems as though, considering the severity of their battle prowess presented on the official website, naming this class simply "Trooper" is a bit of a misnomer. We're sure there has been plenty of internal debate over at BioWare concerning this matter, and we'd just like to take this moment to point out that the incorrect side seems to have won the argument. Still, at least the class looks quite awesome.

If you've been disappointed by the lack of information in regards to Magic origin characters for Champions Online, you're in luck! Cryptic has released a tantalizing new video that we're sure will those who have plans for creating a magic-based character. In this new video titled Sorcery, we're treated to a first look of some of the magic-based powers in play - and they look sweet! Like we really needed a reason to be any more excited about Champions Online, eh?

If you're curious, the video is behind the cut for your shiny viewing pleasure. Now if you'll pardon us, we've got some magic super-hero backstory brainstorming to do!

In a recent dev journal at MMORPG.com, the magic classes of the Free-2-Play Ether Saga Online are explained in greater detail for those players who may want more from their casters. Although there are six classes available to the three races in the game, this dev blog focuses on the Conjurer, the Mystic and the Shaman.

According to this journal, the Mystic is the healing class of the three, depending more on defensive magic for beneficial buffs or debuffs. The Conjurer is the damage-dealing magic-user, using offensive and manipulation magic to cause the most damage to their enemies. The Shaman is considered the hybrid class of Ether Saga Online, functioning both as a spellcaster and a tank. If you'd be interested in learning more about these classes, check out the dev journal for a complete description of each.

In a recent interview over at IGN, SOE's Senior Game Designer for Free Realms, Luke Sigmund, explained more about how the job system works in the game. As we inch towards the retail release of the game later this year, many are excited about what Free Realms may offer to those looking for something with a more open-ended experience.

According to Sigmund, these jobs act just like classes in more traditional MMOs, yet you can have an unlimited amount on one character. At launch there will be 15 jobs available, with more to come in the future. These jobs include Brawler, Ninja, Chef, Miner, Demolition Derby Driver, Kart Racer, Card Duelist, Postman, Pet Trainer and Adventurer. On paid subscriptions, five more jobs are unlocked: Blacksmith, Archer, Medic, Warrior and Wizard. "The coolest thing about Free Realms is that you can really be any class you want any time," Luke says. "So if today I wake up and I want to be a Postman, I can be one. If I want to be a Wizard, I can do that too. It's also really great for grouping. In normal MMOs, you can't do a dungeon without a healer. So here, you can always have whatever group setup you want." Check out the complete interview for more on the jobs of Free Realms.

While Warcraft's original dual-spec system, which required a lexicon of power to be present to change specs, had the same restriction, the final system removed that restriction. Now, players will lose all energy/mana when changing specs, and they also can't do it in battlegrounds, arenas, or in combat, they can still switch while in instances and in world PvP.

If Blizzard believes that a 5 second cast time and a loss of all mana/rage/energy is enough of a detriment to prevent people from abusing the system, then they are pretty wrong. Already, as a paladin, I could easily switch specs, switch weapons with short cuts on my hotbars, use divine plea to gain back 25% of my mana, and rush right back into combat. Rogues regenerate energy back at a quick pace, giving them the ability to switch between combat when they feel confident and subtlety when they feel they might lose a fight. As long as you can gain a breather and have the gear on you, you can switch.

"Why take the hunter when you have a paladin who can do protection and retribution and has the gear to outclass the hunter in both cases?"

I feel quite certain that players will find ways to abuse the new system when in instances as well. Groups will find that they can do dungeon easier with less people, as players will be able to switch across multiple roles. This means pure classes, such as the mage, priest, and hunter will also have a tougher time finding groups. Why take the hunter when you have a paladin who can do protection and retribution and has the gear to outclass the hunter in both cases? Certainly it's bad now, but it can get even worse because now the paladin can fulfill both roles while in the dungeon, when the hunter cannot.

My personal opinion is to have left the requirement to be with a lexicon of power in place. This would have allowed the system to function in the capacity it was designed for -- ease of talent changes. Now the system may have a potential impact on the PvE and world PvP side of the game, one that I and the developers may not be able to guess.

And the news that's in the middle

It really does seem like Warcraft has completely forgotten about rewarding gameplay in favor of tangible asset rewards, but that's something the game has been doing for a long, long time. While the leveling game is more focused on exploring the world and solving problems, the endgame comes down to number crunching and gameplay theory.

Is this good or bad? I'm going to clarify that it's neither, and simply the direction that Warcraft wishes to take at this current time. This is the part that comes down to player preference -- if the player doesn't enjoy what Warcraft wishes the player to do, then just don't play.

Are dual specs going to destroy the game? No, probably not. Will they complicate things and cause new areas of stress for the player culture? Oh, absolutely. As to what those stresses may be, we'll only find out once the system is fully introduced and the impacts on each server can be witnessed.

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Colin Brennan is the weekly writer of Anti-Aliased who is taking a "wait and see" attitude towards dual-specs. When he's not writing here for Massively, he's rambling on his personal blog, The Experience Curve. If you want to message him, send him an e-mail at colin.brennan AT weblogsinc DOT com. You can also follow him on Twitter through Massively, or through his personal feed.