As anyone who has been following Age of Conan for the last few months knows, Funcom is working hard to get their MMO back on the top of everyone's playlists. Launch-day bugs have been fixed and they're focusing on more incentives to get players back into their game.

With last month's Game Director's letter explaining a push towards more player feedback, we wanted to help along the process a bit with your questions. Do you have something you'd like to ask about the new content? How about something concerning their revised subscription options? Whatever it is, Funcom is ready. Email your questions to shawn AT massively DOT com by Thursday, November 12 at 8am ET, and we'll pick the best 10 to send along to Funcom. Questions left as comments to this post will not be considered. Once the answers get answered, we'll be sure to post them up right away.

CCP Games Chief Marketing Officer Ryan S. Dancey recently spoke with Gamasutra's Christian Nutt about the state of EVE Online and what makes the sci-fi title unique. EVE has traits that many MMOs don't, such as player governance, a dynamic virtual economy, and slow but continual subscription growth. CCP does face problems in tandem with that growth however, namely from RMT operations. There is also the issue of balancing developer control over aspects of the game's economy (mission rewards, salvage and loot drops, ISK sinks) with the ideal of allowing EVE's economy to be as player-driven as possible, explains Dancey.

Among other things discussed in the interview, Gamasutra asks how White Wolf has changed following the merger with CCP Games nearly three years ago. Dancey tells Gamasutra: "It's just an imprint... White Wolf used to have a fairly large staff. It doesn't anymore. It's focusing primarily on the World of Darkness RPG products. It's not doing some of the things it used to do; board games and other card games and things. The focus of the company [CCP] is on making MMOs and our legacy table top business is a legacy business."

Not many MMOs last a decade, and this week marks 10 years since the launch of Asheron's Call, the fantasy MMORPG by Turbine Entertainment. Releasing several months after EverQuest, the game held its own and found its way to becoming one of the top MMOs of its time, providing fond memories for many players.

"I'm very proud of Asheron's Call, even today," said former AC lead designer Toby Ragaini in an e-mail to Massively. "It really broke a lot of new ground and I still have people come up to me saying what a great time they had playing. That's a pretty wonderful compliment after 10 years."

Ragaini, who has since worked on Sony Online Entertainment's The Matrix Online and is now working on a casual web-based MMO called Faunasphere, reminisced about working on Asheron's Call and spoke about what it's like working in the MMO market after 14 years of being in the biz.

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.

Bill Roper is the Executive Producer and Design Director for Champions Online, and he sat down with Techulous this week for a talk about how things are going for the game so far and what he sees in its future.

He talked about about the players, their feedback, and what's been happening in Champions Online so far, then Techulous got down to the big question: what's next?

Champions Online has big plans for the next few months, including some new content for all levels of players. He mentioned the two brand new mission chains for levels 18-21, and promised different development paths for new heroes as well as more endgame content for higher level players in the future.

Roper wrapped up the interview with some interesting information on what to watch for in the future: "We have a lot of things in the pipeline, including a new Nemesis-centric lair in November, a Winter Event in December, and something really big in the first part of 2010."

It sounds like Cryptic isn't finished adding to Champions Online by a long shot - you can read the full interview here.

A couple days ago, we had a post detailing some speculation on what City of Heroes: Going Rogue meant for NCsoft West, City of Heroes, and the future of the entire branch of the company. Ryan James, director of corporate communications for NCsoft, took the time to issue a direct response to us regarding that post. We also got an opportunity to ask him a few questions regarding NCsoft's current and future direction, which helps provide some context and some behind-the-scenes information to offset the speculative nature of the aforementioned post.

The official response is as follows:

"We wanted to respond to your post from November 2 on City of Heroes and clarify a few points for you and your readers. In short, the piece offers a rather sensationalist view of NCsoft West and our success thus far.

We're very proud of what we've accomplished here in the West – we have several major MMO franchises, including City of Heroes, Lineage and Guild Wars. And our newest addition to the NCsoft portfolio, Aion, has just seen a very successful launch here in the West. As you point out, we have had to make some tough portfolio decisions, but this is very much par for the course for any major game publisher today. That being said, we remain extremely proud of the Paragon team's accomplishments with the City of Heroes franchise. City of Heroes is still the world's most popular super-powered hero MMO. Even with an increasingly crowded landscape, City of Heroes remains the gold standard for comic book-inspired MMOs – it has stood the test of time and we're excited to be bringing Going Rogue to players next year.

As you note, the author of Vicarious Existence is indeed 'alarmist' in his assessment of NCsoft West and our future. We couldn't agree more. On the contrary, we're optimistic about our future."

Following the statement, Mr. James took the opportunity to answer a few questions about the company's game portfolio and future plans. Take a look at the questions and responses after the break.

Mark Kingdon, Linden Lab's CEO, has been a bit of a mystery figure since his appointment about a year and a half ago. While he has not been uncommunicative, it's been hard to get a very good sense of the man at the helm of Linden Lab, his passions, interests and direction.

We were very pleased, therefore, when he took the time to sit down with us and answer a whole grab-bag of questions, about himself, about Linden Lab, and – of course – about Second Life. Bear with us, because we've got a lot of ground to cover.

In an interview with Hi-Rez Studio's executive producer Todd Harris, Ten Ton Hammer discusses Global Agenda's Assault class at considerable length. For those looking for a simple analog, the Assault is like a meaty tank class wielding huge weaponry such as mini-guns. The interview covers such topics as ammo concerns -- as the aforementioned mini-guns chew up ammo like a man on a desert island drinks fresh water -- and several other matters that dig deep into the earth center of the class. Then again, if blowing stuff up is your preference, that's offered as well.

Much of what we've seen of the Assault class tells us that it's going to be a favorite with players who generally enjoy inflicting damage in the most terrible of ways. And really, that's a whole lot of people; those who drool at rocket launchers and chain-fed ballistics weaponry.

After our Alganon Q&A fell flat on its face yesterday, we decided to lick our wounds and proceed with something we've been planning to do for developer interviews anyway: let you ask the questions! We ran the idea by the folks at Quest Online, and they're up to the challenge.

So if you have something you'd like to ask the Alganon developers, send an email to shawn AT massively DOT com by Friday, November 6th at 8am EDT with the subject line "Alganon questions." Questions asked as comments to this post will not be considered. We're going to pull 10 of the best questions from the bunch and toss them at the Quest Online team. We're looking for thought-provoking questions, not just general bashing or praising, so be constructive. Negative or positive, they are ready for what's on your mind.

Once the answers are back, we'll post them on the site as a reader-submitted pre-launch interview. So don't be shy! Get those questions in.

"Stop Venting" is the suggestion made by Blabbelon, the brand new, completely free voice chat service launching today. Blabbelon aims to revolutionize voice chat by offering a web-based client that will eliminate the problems and limitations of currently available setups.

"I come from a family of avid gamers, and we were all frustrated with our options for online voice chat." said Dr. Ed Ikeguchi, founder and CEO of Blabbelon. "I didn't understand why I couldn't just register once, click and talk and at the same time have the ability to easily invite people to join me, manage my various groups, and control my game through better quality communication. And so Blabbelon was born,"

We got a chance to sit down with Dr. Ikeguchi and talk about the issues that plague current voice chat programs -- like lag, complicated setup procedures and a lack of privacy and security -- and explore how Blabbelon aims to eliminate those issues. Read on to see what he had to say.

Sean "Dr. Aeon" McCann is the newest member of the City of Heroes team, having wowed Paragon with his recent outstanding work on Mission Architect. We got a chance to congratulate Dr. Aeon directly, and took the opportunity to talk with him about his new position. He gives us a look at how he made the leap from player to team member, how he's settling in to his new role, and all about the fun of working on Mission Architect.

Follow along after the jump for a look into the "greatest mind the world has ever known."

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.

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!

In all the hype over the new games being released these days, one might think that older MMOs would fall by the wayside as players scramble to snap up the latest offering on the market. Not so, says Tim Cotten in a recent interview with Gamasutra. The lead designer of Ultima Online says the game is still going strong.

Ultima Online has "got a very core player base, and not a small one", says Cotten. A good MMO will earn player loyalty no matter how long it's around, and Ultima Online is still enjoying that player base after twelve years. They recently invited former players to return for a couple of free weeks, and new content is still a feature -- the eighth expansion was just released in September. Cotten hints at lots more to come too: "UO itself, if you want to go for a historical timeline, we're only around Ultima VI; we've got tons more of content left to play with."

It looks like there's definitely something to be said for old favorites. Keep it up, UO!