It looks like Runes of Magic is getting in on the 4th of July MMO celebrations this weekend. Frogster America has announced that players can usher in Independence Day with bundles of fireworks (minus any fines or risk of bloody nubs), which they can pick up for 1 diamond in-game. They've also said the holiday celebration will bring specials in the item shop with prices on three Power Bundle slashed by 75%.

Frogster America also announced they'll launch a new PvE server tomorrow, "Reni", and there will be other summer activities that kick off on July 4th as well: a community screenshot contest; item and prize giveaways; and a leveling contest for players and guilds on Reni. Be sure to see their full announcement for more details on the Runes of Magic Independence Day contests and giveaways.

My American sources tell me this is a long weekend for you folks across the pond. Something about independence from Blighty a few hundred years ago. Essentially an excuse to let off fireworks, have BBQs, enjoy the fine weather and skive off work. Good on you. It seems like lots of MMOs are using it as an excuse to take the real celebrations in-game. For example, World of Warcraft has the Midsummer Fire Festival which concludes tomorrow with a bunch of snoozing goblin guards and a whopping fireworks display. Likewise, Lord of the Rings Online has one festival with four different names.

Given the fact the games are created by humans, it's no surprise the in-game festivals of all our favourite MMOs share a little in common with actual celebrations in real life. However they can also be handy for people too far away to meet up this 4th of July, most often troops on active duty or family members and friends separated by thousands of miles or even continents. So are any of you out there planning to eschew real celebrations in favour of meeting up with your guildies in-game? Are you going to travel around to see the fireworks or, if you play, WoW raid an enemy city. Do you prefer celebrating such events in-game? Do you mark them on your calendar and anticipate them as much as their real world counterparts? Do you wish the developers would expand world festivals to take account of more important holidays?

Some consider him a kook or an eccentric, while others think of him as a technological visionary. Either way, the accomplished Raymond Kurzweil will be taking the stage to keynote the Second Life Community Convention in San Francisco next month, a spot traditionally afforded to a Linden Lab executive.

Kurzweil, a famous futurist, author and inventor, is notable for his many inventions (from the first CCD-based flat-bed scanner to reading machines for the blind), his notions about transhumanism and technological singularities and a significant number of awards and honorary degrees. He has strong opinions on virtual environments, and it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

The Second Life Community Convention 2009 will happen in San Francisco, on August 13th - 16th, 2009 at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. Registration for the event is open and attendees can register at the convention's Web-site.

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	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

Some of the key members of the DC Universe Online team will speak at Game Developers Conference (GDC) Austin 2009, in a session titled "Why We Need Heroes and Villains in Games". The DC Universe Online team members on hand will include Jim Lee (executive creative director); Marv Wolfman (writer); Christopher Cao (studio creative director); and Jens Andersen (creative director).

The 'takeaway' from the session intro reads: "This philosophical lecture will give attendees insight into the challenges and issues game designers and writers face when making characters good and evil. More importantly, attendees will leave with a better understanding of why this tension between good and evil is so critical -- not only for telling a good story, but for making a video game."

This sounds interesting, and hopefully it's a sign of the emphasis they're putting on storytelling in DC Universe Online. GDC Austin will run from September 15-18, and we're hoping to bring you news from the event.

[Via GamesIndustry.biz]

Those attending Comic-Con 2009 will have a chance to get up close and personal with some of the developers of the upcoming Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the team has now filled in the details of their visit:

• Their panel will be called "Behind the Scenes: The making of Star Wars: The Old Republic", taking place in room 7AB on Friday the 24th of July, from 1:00PM to 2:00PM. This will feature the most SWTOR devs of the show.
  
• Signed "Threat of Peace" comics will be given away from Thursday through Saturday at the Lucasfilm booth (booth #2913) and Dark Horse Comics (booth 2615).
• The "Deceived" cinematic trailer will be shown at the Lucasfilm booth (booth #2913) on Saturday and Sunday, at 11am, 1pm, 3pm, and 5pm.
• The Star Wars Spectacular special event, hosted by Olivia Munn and Kevin Pereira from G4, will happen on Friday the 24th of July at 5:15PM to 6:15PM in Hall H. The show is about everything Star Wars, so it won't be entirely SWTOR, but it will definitely be included.

Comic-Con International goes from the 23rd of July through to the 26th. Although the show is currently sold out (and no passes will be sold at the door), you can find more information about the event at the official website.

Sony Online Entertainment Fan Faire 2009 is happening in Las Vegas, and of course they've had a number of things to unveil so far. SOE president John Smedley gave his community address last evening, and other speakers made an appearance as well. We've got a few highlights from SOE Fan Faire 2009 for you:


Smedley jumped right in by talking about the state of the SOE game lineup and some of the new directions they've explored with them in this past year. One of those new directions has been the introduction of Station Cash, and he talked about the growing adoption of Station Cash among SOE game subscribers in EverQuest and EverQuest II, as well as how it will soon be tied into new services and customization options. He announced a partnership with Hewlett-Packard which will allow players to purchase matte print images of art from the games using Station Cash. You'll be able to have your own character rendered in a high-quality art print, or even have your entire guild depicted and sent to you as a hardcopy art book.


On the topic of EverQuest, remember that mention we had of SOE trademarking new EQ properties? It turns out these are the new expansions: EverQuest: Underfoot and EverQuest II: Sentinel's Fate. Smedley kicked off the EQ announcements by reflecting back on 10 years of EverQuest and looking to where the IP is headed in the future. EverQuest II producer Alan "Brenlo" Crosby discussed the game's sixth expansion, Sentinel's Fate, where players will travel to the land of Odus and see what's happened there since The Shattering.

He dropped a few details about this next expansion, slated for a February 2010 launch, and the updates they plan to release between now and Sentinel's Fate. These updates will include the ability to downtier characters, allowing you to go back and replay older content, plus achievements are coming to EverQuest II. In addition, the EQ II level cap will increase by ten levels.

SOE hasn't forgotten about their long-term fans either, those who have stuck with the original EverQuest through the years. EverQuest producer Thomas Terrazas announced the sixteenth EQ expansion, Underfoot, which will launch in November 2009. Underfoot will feature 12-15 zones at launch, with bonus zones and additional content to release in April of 2010. Underfoot will have twice as many weapons as any of the previous 15 expansions, a new focus targeting window (allowing you to add specific targets to your list, monitor health of friends and foes), and achievement tracking that will help players remain aware of the objectives to be completed in their progression path. "In other words," Terrazas said, "you won't have to go looking online on somebody else's website so see what you need. It'll be in-game."

Fan Faire 2009 attendees will get both expansions for free.

It's Friday, and you know what that means! Well, lately it's meant that we at Massively are giving something away, and today is no exception. Today's key code giveaway will get you into the WonderKing closed beta, and we have a metric ton of these things to give away, courtesy of the fine folks at NDOORS. Of course you remember WonderKing from our recent interview with the game's developers, but now you'll have your chance to actually play the game.

To claim your code, simply leave a comment on this post telling us why you'd like to get into the closed beta. From there you'll get an email with the key code and instructions on how to redeem the code (so make sure your registered email is correct!). All comment entries must be in by Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 9am EST when eligibility will close. Only one prize per person. Good luck!

If you've made it this far and still haven't received one of our Runes of Magic in-game key codes, let us help you a bit with this post! Included after the jump below is another group of 100 codes for those wonderful Jade Warrior gloves, in addition to the codes we've been adding to our Facebook group page, giving away in-game and tweeting throughout the week.

We understand some of the feedback on our giveaway methods this time around aren't exactly all positive, but just know that we've been experimenting with a few different ideas. Some of these worked, some didn't, but we just hope it's been fun! Besides, wouldn't you rather say you worked to get your gloves, instead of simply clicking a button? Wait, don't answer that. There will be more varied opportunities as the week winds down, you can count on that.

On that note, don't forget to join us in-game tomorrow night for some more code giveaways! And now for some more codes!

CCP Games holds an annual EVE Online Alliance PvP Tournament where player organizations face off against one another, live, in a spectacle of explosions, cunning tactics, ... and occasionally betrayal. This year's Alliance PvP Tournament will mark the seventh annual event. CCP Games likes to get the players involved in ways beyond being tournament competitors, which is good news for the gamers themselves. Rather than having the developers comment with the play-by-play action, we've mentioned that CCP put out a call to the players, seeking PvP experts to be commentators. The final choices have been made and CCP announced the names of this year's Alliance Tournament commentators today, and it's clearly an accomplished roster of players.

Crovan (Dark-Rising), of The Drone Bay podcast fame, will be back again this year. As will Kil2 (coracao ardente), who did a great job last year, and who many players will know from the PvP videos he's released. Verone, arguably EVE's most well-known pirate, will apparently be enjoying the tournament as a viewer rather than commentator this year, but his Veto corpmate Ryas Nia will be on hand at Alliance Tournament VII. Ryas will be joined by two new commentators this year: TeaDaze from Agony Unleashed (a PvP training school in EVE) and Trzzbk from GoonFleet.

This looks like a great lineup of players chosen to speak during the matches. EVE Alliance Tournament VII will begin in early September, and will run for three weekends, culminating in the live video broadcast of the finals from Reykjavik.

Mark Jacobs, the former General Manager of Mythic Entertainment and Lead Designer of Warhammer Online, has left EA on 23rd June, the company announced today. This comes as part of restructuring plans within EA which includes both Mythic and BioWare and have culminated in the formation of a new, as-yet-unnamed, studio which will focus on RPGs and MMOs.

The new studio will be led by BioWare co-founder and General Manager Ray Muzyka, who will become Group General Manager. BioWare's other co-founder Greg Zeschuk will become Group Creative Officer while Rob Denton will succeed Jacobs as General Manager.

You can certainly expect more from us as this story develops.

[Via The Examiner]

There are always going to be times when, due to real life commitments, you can't play your favourite MMO, whether it's a month of exams or an important week at work. I started playing WoW in November 2006 and was on the cusp of getting the game when my first month ran out and I had to fly back to Norfolk from Exeter for Christmas. My mother doesn't have broadband and is a little scared by technology (it's taken me two years to show her how to use a DVD player) so I didn't bother bringing my laptop. This meant over a month without the internet or WoW. It was during this time that I realised how much the game had gotten its claws into me. When I got back, a couple of days before The Burning Crusade was released, I re-rolled to my current main and haven't looked back since.

During that month I started to take an interest in the game. I hit the library and devoured WoWWiki, I researched the lore of my chosen class and that of Azeroth itself. Then I started reading the novels and finally, I was reduced to watching YouTube videos to get a better idea of how the game had evolved as well as a peek at the endgame. So, constant readers, let's say something in real life has meant you can't play your MMO of choice for a couple of weeks, how do you cope? Do you do something totally different? Do you use other media about said MMO (like YouTube or novels) to get your fix?

Every year on the 26th of June, the world recognizes the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, a campaign begun by the United Nations and first held in 1988. The publishers of the Arabic version of Rappelz, Game Power 7, have issued a press release signifying their involvement in this year's campaign; there will be a one-week "education and awareness" event held in-game that mirrors the UN's sentiments for the day itself.

As displayed in the picture above, the international campaign slogans "Do drugs control your life?" and "Your life. Your community. No place for drugs" will be featured in Rappelz for the event. Virtual gifts will also be given away, presumably educational in some form. Game Power 7 stated that using their virtual world to promote good values in the community is part of the company's strategy, so future events of this kind might find their way into the game.

To find out more about the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, the best place to start is the UN's official page, which also features links to some nation-specific pages.

Yesterday's Runes of Magic item code giveaway seemed quite a success as the codes were swallowed up quicker than we had imagined. If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, you've seen even more codes distributed than on this front page. We gave away 460 codes in total yesterday, with 360 of them being through Twitter or Facebook.

Today is only day two of the giveaway as we still have about 9500 of these codes left! As you can imagine, once we get closer to the final days, we'll ramp up the coverage a bit until every last code has been given away. Be sure to also check out this RoM forum thread for more information on other sites throwing similar contests for other pieces of the Jade Warrior Armor set.

Click below to see today's new codes!

We know that CCP Games, creators of EVE Online, is going to announce a new project at GDC Europe in August. As CCP acquired White Wolf, creators of pen-and-paper RPG titles like Vampire, Mage, and Werewolf (the World of Darkness setting), we've known for some time that a World of Darkness MMO is in the works. Unfortunately, beyond the fact that the project exists at some stage of development, we know very little. But this mystery project announcement might not be about WoD at all. We're also aware that CCP Games has plans to release a first person shooter based on the EVE Online IP, which they hinted at during EVE Fanfest 2008.

The latest info we've found about a new project at CCP Games (via @crazykinux) is a job listing at CCP for a Senior Game Engineer. The successful applicant "will join a seasoned team based in Shanghai, China where they will work on original IP for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3." The listing also mentions development on the Unreal Engine.

Regardless of whether they're planning to unveil World of Darkness Online or an EVE Online first person shooter, you don't need to be an EVE player to appreciate how cool either of these releases could be. What game do you think CCP is going to announce at GDC Europe?