One of the most common questions asked regarding Star Wars: The Old Republic and the easily accessible Jedi is, "Who's going to take on an army of Jedi?" We've long since had the answer tucked away here at Massively, but now BioWare has been kind enough to illustrate it for us in their latest timeline update, which features the fearsome Mandalorians.

The nomadic Mandalorians are strikingly unique and much like the Jedi and Sith in that sense they're not an actual species; yet war is their singular goal in life. Their mantra is that strength is not merely good, it is great, it brings honor through battle. Thus, it's no surprise that Mandalorians are generally opposed to the Jedi and get along better with the power hungry Sith. At this point, the Republic Trooper's coutnerpart is pretty obvious. That powerful Jedi army doesn't seem so intimidating against legions of Sith, Bounty Hunters and bred-for-war Mandies, now does it?

We highly recommend you check out the timeline video. It's not only informative, but quite entertaining if you've got even the slightest amount of interest in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

It began as a rumor but was confirmed at SOE Fan Faire 2009 -- EverQuest's 16th expansion will be called Underfoot and is coming in November of this year. We've mentioned some of the features that Underfoot will bring to the game, like the expansion progress window and new zones, and Sony Online Entertainment is also updating the game's lore.

The lore update explains the subterranean Plane of Underfoot and some of its notable inhabitants, namely Brell Serilis, the Duke of Below. But mostly it provides EverQuest lore fans with a history of Underfoot, from the time it was shaped by the gods to the creation of Norrath's races. It's all part of the official EverQuest Underfoot announcement over at EverQuest Players.

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!

When last we saw our Guild Wars heroine, she had just finished exploring every city in Kryta and was off to do the same in the Maguuma Jungle. According to your votes, Moira Zonk the Necromancer headed off to unlock each of the eight cities in the Jungle and ultimately reach the Amnoon Oasis in the Crystal Desert.

Now that she sits at the Oasis, recovering from her travels, she's ready to head off in whatever direction you'd like. Keep reading below for more on her travels and the newest poll where you can vote on where she ventures next.

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]

A post-apocalyptic setting can open up fantastic opportunities for storytelling. After all, it's the end of society as we know it. All our institutions are gone, our belief systems either torn away or seriously challenged. That resulting vacuum would no doubt be filled by new outlooks on the world and on life triggered by the apocalypse -- in rare cases optimistic, but more often utterly deranged. Then again, some survivors might seek to rectify the mistakes made by too many generations before the burn or plague wiped out humanity, and aim to rebuild a better world. There are so many possibilities, and these are some of the avenues that will be explored in the upcoming post-apocalyptic MMO Fallen Earth. Of course, this presents some real challenges for the game designers as well -- what is the best way to integrate these themes into the gameplay experience?

Storytelling in Fallen Earth is the focus of a recent interview with lead designer Lee Hammock, who spoke with The MMO Gamer's Steven Crews about where story and gameplay will meet in the upcoming title.

This weekend begets the final chapter for Star Wars: The Old Republic's ongoing Threat of Peace free online webcomic. If you haven't seen many -- or any -- now would be the perfect time to read through the entire series, as the story should feel much more cohesive without being cut off every four pages.

We'd just like to mention that it would be very cool if the Sith Empire droid Espee continues to make regular appearances in forthcoming issues. We love Espee, almost solely because he's a quirky and strangely well meaning Sith Empire droid.

With the end of chapter one, we're curious to see whether future chapters continue with the same schedule and page count. It's also possible that the comic's creator seats could rotate, much like traditional comic books. Nothing has been announced or clairified yet, of course, so this is pure pie-in-the-sky pondering on our part. Still, it'd be nice if BioWare kept things fresh and experimented a little to find out what works best.

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!

You voted and I listened, as this week's adventure took me through every town and outpost in the entire Krytan area. Eight cities later, I'm here to beg for more!

I found it very interesting that the readers wanted me to stay in Kryta and finish out the exploration of this area. It either means that you want me to take my time and do things the right way (although I did run down to Sanctum Cay and Riverside Province from Temple of the Ages), or you simply want my time in Guild Wars to last a bit longer. Either way, I'm here to do your bidding! Speaking of that, it's time to vote for next week's goal! Click through after the jump and let me know what will be next for our beloved Moira Zonk. Also be sure to check out her ongoing in-character journal and gallery, starting this week as she leaves Lion's Arch.

Lore is the keystone of every good MMO, it crafts the raid instances and pushes the game to new heights in the form of expansions and patches. For many it is the lure of the lore -- and by extension the playable races -- which pulls them into the game. When I was a little younger than I am now, I studied classics and religious studies and theology at a uni in London for almost four years. I dig religion, I adore translations of ancient texts and I really, really like mythology. As a result fantasy games are especially fascinating for me to me. When everyone else sees Titans, I see a mishmash of the actual Titans and the Olympians given new life, where you see Anubisath I see the ancient Egyptian protector of the dead. Where you see Val'kyr, I see Odin's barmaidens.

So come on readers, how important is lore to you? Do you dig finding all the references in game? Does the lore make a game more rich and appealing? Does it make it feel more real? Do you not give a fig? Are you more interested in just killing things? Do you play titles like AoC or LotRO just because of the books they were inspired by?

EVE Online's in-game economy has been the subject of intense study over the years. The markets of EVE react very effectively to accomplish goals with the same economic laws that apply to many real-life marketplaces. The game's developers CCP even hired a professional economist to analyse the in-game economy, advise them on problem issues and deliver interesting quarterly reports. The driving force behind EVE's markets is often assumed to be basic supply and demand but this isn't always the most potent component. In the hyper-capitalistic universe of New Eden, all bets are off and the only rules are those players enforce themselves with an iron fist. Cartels, market manipulation and theft run rife in EVE, with far-reaching consequences.

In this succinct article, I examine the hidden forces pushing and pulling EVE's markets and show that EVE's economic sandbox comes complete with quicksand and land mines.

While the term 'unlikely hero' is pretty familiar to most, it's not often we think of unlikely villains. But this is the case with the latest 'big bad' that Cryptic Studios has revealed for Champions Online -- "Gigaton". His story begins as Tim Colton, a perfect and loyal soldier and thus an equally perfect candidate for Project Sunburst, ostensibly a military war game involving nuclear strike scenarios. It was more than theoretical, however, and Colton became the military's unwitting guinea pig in actual nuclear tests. While most other test subjects died as a result of the tests, Colton developed superhuman abilities after being bombarded with radiation. Although he remained in perfect physical condition, requiring neither food nor water, he was inexplicably comatose.

Despite the slight drawback of being perpetually unconscious, Colton's bio-nuclear powers were off the chart. This came to the attention of a major villain in the Champions Online setting, Doctor Destroyer, who had Colton 'liberated' from the army's facilities. Colton was revived and given a new purpose in life by his villainous benefactor, to join forces with Doctor Destroyer's organization, the only real option open to Colton after being betrayed by the army. From that point on, Colton became Gigaton, and is thus the latest villain announced in the Champions Online lineup. Cryptic has put together a villain profile for Gigaton outlining the character's past, and of course his superhuman abilities.

Massively is proud to host a brand new five-part developer journal from the Fallen Earth team which will explore various levels in Fallen Earth, their storylines and how they make the player experience richer. This fourth one takes us through New Flagstaff University, and was written by Wes Platt, Content Team Lead for Fallen Earth.

Higher education's never been quite so deadly as it is in New Flagstaff University.

The campus was established by GlobalTech in the Northfields section of the Grand Canyon Province soon after the megacorp took over the national park from the federal government. A prominent and well-funded university, NFU provided top-notch scientific research and experimentation programs. In the century since the Fall, the school-like the great city that yielded its name-has crumbled into disrepair. However, it still contains equipment that's useful for scientific tinkering.

Star Wars: The Old Republic's free online comic, Threat of Peace, has reached issue number eight and finally introduced one of those lovable droids. It's safe to say that so far throughout this storyline, many of the prominent characters and their prospective races featured in this comic have the potential to be in-game racial options. Humans, Twi'leks and Wookiees have all been popular thus far, and now it looks like droids may in fact be a possibility. It's positively delightful!

Of course, races that have seen the limelight in Threat of Peace aren't the only signs of things to come. Bounty Hunters and Troopers both received notable attention. Whether or not this sets any kind of reasonable precedent is something we'll leave up to you, however.

The GOA Team at Warhammer Online updated the game's lore this week with "The Origin of the Elves". Love 'em or hate 'em, they came from somewhere. But even the Elves themselves aren't sure of their true origins, which have been lost with the passage of thousands of years. The Origin of the Elves walks the reader from the early, peaceful days of the Elves on the Isle of Ulthuan to when the Old Ones' Warp Gates collapsed, and the forces of Chaos flooded in. The struggle to resist Chaos changed the Elves, forcing them to become increasingly war-like in order to survive.

The Warhammer Online lore update tells the tale of the key figures in the history of the Elves and the parts they've played leading up to The Sundering, the cataclysm that shattered Nagarythe and further divided their once-harmonious race. You can find "The Origins of the Elves" over at The Warhammer Herald.

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	The sands of the Tomb Kings are coming as the final release in the Call to Arms live expansion, the Land of the Dead approaches! Massively has your back with coverage from Mythic Entertainment at Games Day '09, so get your WAAGGGHHH ready for RvR mayhem as Massively re-arms for WAR!

Massively is proud to host a brand new five-part developer journal from the Fallen Earth team which will explore various levels in Fallen Earth, their storylines and how they make the player experience richer. This third dev journal from Grace Hagood leads us into Sunset Cemetery, the lair of The Cult of the Dead.

There is no peace for the dead at Sunset Cemetery. Vile cultists have desecrated the graves, while their vampiric masters lurk in the dank mausoleums. Beware, stranger, or you may join the mouldering corpses there.

Sunset Cemetery, also known as the Cult of the Dead lair, is a small instance available to players in the Northfields area of Fallen Earth. Unlike the massive Old Kingman Prison instance or the sprawling Hoffa Bunker level, the Cult of the Dead lair provides a linear experience. The tone of the story and instance design represents a departure from earlier gameplay.