Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of journals and galleries here on the site. Then, as our two months is up, we'll do it all over again in a new game!

With a new Adventure Pack to explore, the Critical Mass guild faced their newest challenge head-on. Your votes last week chose the Sorrowdusk Isle Adventure Pack (400 Turbine Points) for us, and in this installment of Choose my Adventure, I'm happy to report back on my impressions.

Follow along after the jump for those impressions, Fahryn Brygo's in-character journal, another poll for next week and more!

Her ascension has come, her name is well-known -- Shantotto is blessed both afar and at home. Final Fantasy XI's resident genius has long been admired as clever and devious. Not so very long hence, you'd recall our report that a contest was held, an artistic sport. After all, who could deny that true inspiration would come from a lady of such reputation? That contest is over, the judging all done, now look through the images to see who has won!

Three pages of entries await to be seen, a collection of art unrivaled on one's screen. The portrait above, while quite suited for framing, was not the first winner in the contest we're naming. That image must indeed be seen and admired, but all of the portraits should meet one's desires. At the top of the tier, there's more than just rotes, for each entry is graced with the professor's own notes! View all of the entries, we gladly suggest, for Shantotto as subject is quite hard to best.

All Points Bulletin is definitely on the radar for a number of fans of urban crime games seeking a deeper multiplayer environment. While many of us would enjoy a perpetual cascade of felonies (or arrests), Realtime Worlds wants players to have a sense of San Paro as a fleshed out urban setting where they can create their own stories. Realtime Worlds Lead Creative Designer Stephen Hewitt (aka 'KitKat') discusses the stories that will run throughout All Points Bulletin in the latest video podcast and introduces viewers to the criminal organizations players will tangle with at some point.

We get a look at the G-Kings gang, who are essentially punks clawing their way up the criminal hierarchy of San Paro. Hewitt also gives us a glimpse at the Blood Roses, an organization comprised of trust fund club kids dipping their toes into a life of crime just for the thrills. Stick with us after the jump for the latest All Points Bulletin video podcast, The Organizations of San Paro.

Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of journals and galleries here on the site. Then, as the ultimate goal is reached, we'll do it all over again in a new game!

Last week, you voted for two things: the Critical Mass guild to hit House of Deneith first, and for me to start using my accrued Turbine Points in the DDO store. We annihilated House of Deneith, but I still haven't found something good to spend my points on.

So this week, as we continue our journey through level 5 and beyond, the poll will seek answers to that pressing concern: How should I spend my money?! Keep reading below for the in-character journal of the adventures, my continued impressions of the game so far, and the polls for this week.

Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of journals and galleries here on the site. Then, as the ultimate goal is reached, we'll do it all over again in a new game!

Oh, what a productive week we've had in Dungeons and Dragons Online. After arriving in Stormreach, we made it through the Harbor quests with no problem. And when I say we made it through the Harbor quests, I mean we made it through all of the Harbor quests.

Fahryn is now level 3 and ready for some new challenges, so follow along after the cut for his in-character journal, my impressions of our adventures so far and your chance to let us know where our path should lead us next

We all go into autopilot sometimes. So, you know, we're on a marathon session to level up, and we're mostly just sort of clicking by instinct. You belatedly realize, however, that you were in the middle of a quest chain. The reason you realize this, sadly, is because you're at the penultimate stage of said quest chain, and the questgiver is making references to all the work that you've been doing to reach this point... when you don't really remember most of what you've been doing up until now. There might have been something with fish men? Or the other fish men. It's all kind of a blur, really.

Lore is important, and few people would argue that, but when have you managed to completely miss every bit of what's supposed to be going on? Did you not read up the backstory in the manual and therefore not know that the person you're fighting unleashed horrors on his own people? Did you forget about an NPC that is actually kind of important in retrospect? Or did you just steamroll through things and only find out later that there was an overarching reason for all of this?

Whether you love EVE Online or hate it, there's one thing people tend to agree on - it makes for some great screenshots. EVE has a history of players producing some amazing videos, screenshots, artwork and fiction. YouTube is filled with intense PvP action videos and over four hundred players write the stories of their travels on personal blogs. People have even created some incredible papercraft ship models. Because we all love eye candy, screenshots from EVE even make a regular appearance in Krystalle's daily MMO screenshot column "One Shots".

EVE's Official magazine EON runs a regular feature called "Postcards from the Edge" where players write in with a screenshot and a short story about it. As a tribute to EON, who I wrote for before coming to Massively, this week and next I present galleries full of postcards from my own travels in EVE. They're all high-resolution shots suitable to be used as widescreen backgrounds, feel free to save them out from your browser to get them at full resolution.

One of the things we like about the lead up to the Star Wars: The Old Republic launch is BioWare's series of timeline videos that explains the political and military background of the upcoming MMO. The fifth holorecord from the Jedi Archive is The Battle of Bothawui which recounts a major Republic victory against the Sith. It also chronicles the last stand of a heroic group of Jedi knights and Republic troopers, who became martyrs in the struggle against the Sith Empire.

If you're following along with the lore of Star Wars: The Old Republic you'll want to watch "The Battle of Bothawui" on the game's official site.

One of the games we've seen a lot of reader interest in at Massively is The Secret World, in development at Funcom. One of the key people behind the upcoming horror MMO is Ragnar Tørnquist, Producer and Director of The Secret World. Tørnquist recently sat down for an interview with Vladimir "Evoker" Georgiev from UGDB.com to discuss what will set The Secret World apart from other MMOs we've played.

One of the refreshing aspects of the game is there are no levels or classes in TSW. Tørnquist tells UGDB, "Our goal is to make sure that players can sit down and play this game and enjoy themselves from the very beginning. You don't start out fighting rats with a rusty sword. You get cool firearms, black magic, occult weapons from the outset -- and you're fighting demons and the undead, not wild boar or petty criminals."

To be or not to be, that is the question -- whether 'tis nobler in Allods Online to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous aggro, or to take up arms against a sea of mobs, and by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep -- to sleep, perchance to enter Purgatory. Aye, there's the rub -- for in that sleep of death what penalties may come when we have shuffled off this mortal server must give us pause.

The most recent bit of news out of Astrum Nival's upcoming free-to-play MMO Allods Online concerns the nature of death, and what better way to discuss that then touching upon Hamlet? Well, perhaps actually talking about it. The short version, however, is that the inhabitants of the game consider death as a fairly irrelevant situation altogether. Elves, for instance, view it as an opportunity to create a particularly beautiful moment of their lives. Orcs take it in stride, much like losing a match of goblinoball, in the sense that there will always be another match. The reason for this rather lackadaisical attitude toward that undiscovered country from which no traveler returns is detailed in the latest bit of news, as well as gameplay effects of passing on in the game. Though reading more is not an enterprise of great pitch and moment, lose not the name of action and take the time to read it.

Join me as I brave my way through lands unknown in an adventure dictated entirely by you, the Massively readers! Vote for everything from game played to character creation to ultimate goal and watch it unfold in a series of journals and galleries here on the site. Then, as the ultimate goal is reached, we'll do it all over again in a new game!

Being the first week with Massively readers in Dungeons and Dragons Online, I'd say we were fairly productive. In the first 15 minutes, we formed the guild -- aptly named "Critical Mass" -- and began the butt-kicking.

With last week's comments focusing on our completion of Korthos Island, we made quick work of that, finishing the main quests and arriving in Stormreach on our third night together. Now we patiently wait for our next adventure as you read through my impressions of the game so far, just after the jump!

BioWare Producer Blaine Christine recently sat down for a Star Wars: The Old Republic interview with Steven Crews at The MMO Gamer. The interview hits on a number of facets of SWTOR's gameplay and the process of creating the title. They also discuss how BioWare is designing the game to dissuade everyone from (only) running around wielding lightsabers through the unique strengths of each class, but their talk really focuses on the game's story.

Blaine discusses how the story for SWTOR players, whether they choose to be good or evil, will always be more than kill ten rats or "collect ten boxes for some random vendor." That story you play through fits the role you've chosen for yourself. Blaine likens a player's story progression to Knights of the Old Republic. He tells The MMO Gamer, "If you look at KOTOR and how that worked out, if you played light side versus dark side, there were distinct differences in the story, and distinct differences in how your character developed. It's going to be very similar to that."

Like it or not, Star Wars: the Old Republic is not so dissimilar from its source materials -- its planets universally have themes. There's the city planet, of course, and we all know there's going to be the desert planet. And, as it stands, we're now poised to have the weapons planet -- which promises to be as explosive as such a title would suggest. The game has recently unveiled Balmorra, the site of an ongoing struggle between the Republic and the Sith Empire, where the victor claims the preeminent weapons manufacturer in the Core Worlds. The planet started as an ally of the Republic, but during the long war with the Sith Empire the Republic was forced to scale back its efforts to help perserve the planet's independence, culminating in a full withdrawal of its reinforcements to the world.

The Sith quickly claimed the planet in force, with only an underground resistance left with some Republic support to fight back against the invaders and do what damage was possible. Of course, when you're on the most deadly weapon-making planet in the area, you can do quite a bit of damage. The rejuvenated Republic is now returning its troop presence to the planet's surface in hopes that it can wrest the world back after the brief lull of peace, but the Balmorrans haven't exactly forgiven and forgotten the earlier abandonment. For more information on what promises to be one of the most explosive areas in Star Wars: the Old Republic, take a look at the official page containing more pictures and information.

It's National Boss Day today, which means you should probably be doing something nice for your boss (which might include not browsing the web while you're at work, but that's not our call). However, if you're a frequent player of MMOs -- or video games in general, at that -- you have a very different definition of boss. And after years of playing MMOs -- or even for a few months -- there are certain bosses who hold a soft spot in your heart for whatever reason.

Perhaps they were a truly challenging fight the first time you faced them, maybe they just looked impressive and they stuck in your mind, or it could even be something as simple as getting exactly wanted from them the first time you went through the encounter. In honor of National Boss Day, we're asking you what boss holds the nearest and dearest spot in your memories. If you were sending a missive to one of your personal favorite bosses, who would it be? What would you say? Would you thank them for being generous in their drops when you fought them, or would you offer consolation at how easy they are to kill these days? And if you want to get creative and phrase it like a greeting card, on this day, it's certainly appropriate. Just take a moment to give thanks to the bosses... before you go back to killing them for loot, anyway.

Let's see a show of hands for those of you who love zombies. They might come in all shapes and sizes, but we all have our favorites. Are you more a fan of the slow-moving George Romero zombies, or the leaping-over-cars infected zombies? Perhaps you're more of a vampire-zombie aficionado. Regardless of your preference, it's still fun to smash a few in the head, am I right?

There are already several types of Infected in Fallen Earth, but starting next week, there's about to be a whole lot more. The folks at Fallen Earth have announced their Halloween event -- aptly named Days of the Dead -- where you will have a chance to kill throngs of Infected as they pour from the Lifenet pods into the wasteland. Of course you'll need some back-up for this, so we'll also have 2,000 15-day trial keys to give away to your zombie-hunter buddies. In addition to this, we'll have our own in-game events in association with Post Apoc Radio to be held during Days of the Dead. The giveaway and our in-game events won't start until next week, but we're getting you prepared for the onslaught now. Follow along after the jump for complete information on the Days of the Dead event.