Scott "Lum the Mad" Jennings, well-known blogosphere participant and game designer, has recently been working on a game that is now sadly canceled. This is bad both for the natural sadness of a game having been canceled and the voyeuristic MMO fan impulse to ask, "Well, what was it going to be?" We don't know. The only reference made was to the cryptic in-joke name of John Deere Online. In his own words: "As a condition of my severance I can't discuss a great deal, and anything I say here will most likely be picked up by the MMO news sites (wave, wave!)."

Well, he's right about that last part. But neither waiting for him to change his mind nor camping outside his front door has yielded any new information, so perhaps we can take a look at more pieces of information and speculate? After all, we know of at least two of his co-workers. From them and from the little which Scott Jennings himself has said, we can derive the following bits of information: that they were working for 2K Games, developing an MMO based on an existing franchise, that the game would have been strategy-based, and that it might possibly have had something to do with tractors.

Considering that Jon Jones mentions on his LinkedIn page that he "created a series of low polygon highly optimized building models with a small set of textures that can be reused across that nation's entire series of buildings appropriate to that age," it's difficult to argue with the conclusion that the team was working on a Civilization MMO. But 2K Games also could mean Elder Scrolls projects... which might be pertinent, as both Jon Jones and Matthew Weigel have been working on Dungeon Runners. It's all idle speculation, sadly, and for all we know the game really would have been a massively multiplayer tractor simulator. (In which case it might even be for the best - lawnmowers would probably have been totally overpowered against seeders in PvP.)

So we've talked about BattleSwarm: Field of Honor in the past, but here's a little refresher for everyone. It's a game that features two sides, bugs and humans, and plays like a RTS (Bugs) or FPS (Humans) depending on what side you take. It's like Starship Troopers, only a video game... and not the Starship Troopers video game...

Anyway, this Sunday, October 2nd, is a huge tournament for the game, and it's featuring real prizes! Starting at 10 AM Pacific (1 PM Eastern), all accounts are going to be wiped (as this game is still in beta) and all set to the same place, except for chips/genes (modification items) for all players. Then, at Noon Pacific (3 PM Eastern) the tournament will begin and run until 9 PM Pacific (Midnight Eastern.)

Serve me now, my lord!

Blogger Bruce Everiss, author of the website BruceOnGames.com, has been sued by Evony LLC, the company behind the notorious online webgame Evony, formerly Civony. The suit stems from Bruce's Evony coverage and critical stance towards the game, including his assertions that Evony LLC is a company under the WoWmine.org network (a site that is allegedly part of a World of Warcraft gold farming network), his statements concerning the company being based in China, and that their game has infringed on other game IPs, including Civilization and Age of Empires.

Evony usually comes under fire for their very transparent marketing strategy, which is usually slapping a hot woman (who has nothing to do with their civilization/empire building MMORTS) onto an ad to entice gamers to click. However, as we posted prior, some bloggers have found some content that was directly ripped off from Civilization and Age of Empires, however the Age of Empires assets have been removed from the current iteration of the game.

One of the upcoming MMORTS games on the horizon is Mytheon, in development at Petroglyph Games. The new title will offer a twist on the standard fantasy setting. Rather than basing the game on a purely fictional world, they're basing Mytheon off of real world myths, beginning with Greece and Egypt.

Mytheon will be a free-to-play title, with game mechanics that center around power stones which will fuel the various in-game effects players can employ against each other. We don't have any further info about Mytheon's lore or its game mechanics quite yet, but Petroglyph has released some new screenshots for the title. If you're an MMORTS fan and want to see more of this game, have a look through our Mytheon gallery and let us know if it's caught your interest.

If you've been on the internet for longer than five minutes then you've probably run into ads for Evony, an online free-to-play browser real-time strategy game. The game is a medieval MMORTS, but you probably wouldn't be able to figure that out from some of their recent advertisements, most of which center around lingerie and women.

The game's unorthodox marketing strategy has been a target of the blogosphere for some time, starting back when they were still called Civony instead of their current title. During that time the company was caught by bloggers for stealing images without permission from other sites and using them for their game's marketing. Since then, the name has changed and new advertising has appeared, including an overuse of blog comment spam.

Interestingly enough, the company has denounced the use of spam amongst their users of the iEvony codes, calling it a "unethical" and "abusive."

The company may have more to worry about than just poor taste in marketing, as many sites are also noting that the game's art assets and writing assets have been ripped from other real-time strategy games. Things such as text from Civilization 4 to the castle sprites from Age of Empires have been found in the game, creating the feeling for some users that this developer, whoever it is, is not entirely on the legitimate side.

As we look back at the past several years of the MMO scene, we see a genre that has gone through significant evolutionary leaps. With those pioneering days of text MUDs and blocky graphics behind us, today we enjoy professionally developed games with impressive development teams and massive budgets behind them. The genre's depths have been thoroughly explored and we've even categorised the features we've come to love and expect from our favourite online retreats. Every part of the genre, from the types of gameplay available to the terminology we use, has been routinely evolving and redefining itself over time.

With professional MMO development soaring and a whole new generation of promising titles on the way, we stand on the cusp of what could be the next big evolutionary leap for online gaming. In the coming weeks and months, Massively will be examining how the MMO genre has been redefined during the current generation of games and where it's headed in the next. If you have something important to say on the topic, feel free to post a comment on page 2 or even write your own "Redefining MMOs" blog post and leave a comment with the URL.

In this introductory article, I ask why we use the terminology we do when talking about MMOs and if perhaps it's starting to change.

Mytheon from Petroglyph Games is a title we've mentioned in the past, as it's a different take on the type of games we cover at Massively. Essentially it's an MMORTS, and as such may be comparable to titles like Dreamlords the Reawakening or even Atlantica Online. As its name implies, Mytheon is rooted in ancient world myths, which could be a nice departure from the numerous pure fantasy games on the market. At launch Mytheon will have content based in ancient world Greece and Egypt.

The game mechanics seem to be heavily tied in to power stones, which provide different benefits to the game's three classes. According to Petroglyph: "The collection and casting of Power Stones is the backbone of Mytheon. Power Stones initiate every in-game effect possible, from summoning minions and structures that fight for the player, to conjuring fireballs and lightning bolts and healing a party." Mytheon can be played solo, but will also have group and PvP gameplay options. The game's first trailer might give you a better idea of what to expect. It's embedded on the new game site, and offers some of the first glimpses at Mytheon's gameplay as well as the setting of Hades.

Being a king will soon be as easy as logging into a game and doing what needs to get done, as Firefly Studios has announced Stronghold Kingdoms, a 2010 dated castle and kingdom MMO. Although they don't currently have a publisher, the Stronghold series is well, for lack of a better term, strong -- we have no doubt it'll find a happy publishing deal in the coming months.

The game itself will be very familiar to fans of Firefly's previous works, with lots of besieging, battling and pillaging -- after the proper bankrolling of course. We'll warn the faint of heart now: delve into the official website at your own risk, this is not a casual game of "Let's build castles and play armies!" that Firefly creates. On the contrary, this looks to be a game with enough depth to drown a giraffe twice over.

Post-apocalyptic fans rejoice! Yet another game in your favorite science fiction genre is moving ahead with development, as free-to-play title 2029 goes into alpha testing as of Monday, May 25th. Unsure of how the game plays? You can find a newbie guide here that'll give you a pretty thorough rundown of all the MMORTS features designed into the game.

It looks to be an interesting blend of sci-fi and real-time strategy, with a dash of fantasy as well. We also saw some screenshots with a definite hint of Halo and StarCraft. So if you enjoy those settings, it couldn't hurt to give this a look even if you're vaguely interested. After registering an account for the game, you can go for a direct download or a torrent version of the game client -- always a nice option to have.

We've been seeing a number of new options in online gaming, some clearly definable as being 'massively multiplayer', others less so. One of those game categories that blurs the line a bit is the MMORTS (massively multiplayer online real-time strategy) game... we'll probably just stick with the acronym from now on. But we've wondered, what exactly can we expect from RTS titles as they adopt more features traditionally associated with MMOs?

Steven Crews from The MMO Gamer spoke with Petroglyph Games general manager and executive producer Chuck Kroegel about their upcoming title Mytheon. The game is a free-to-play, downloadable title that will be supported by microtransactions and focuses on the myths, heroes, and monsters of the world's ancient cultures. Crews asks the questions we think are on a lot of people's minds when they hear "MMORTS" -- "Why bring strategy games into the MMO space? What do you get from a persistent universe that you couldn't get out of something like Battle.net?"

Yes, now you too can take on all of the Chinese speaking players of a single game as one great nation of English speaking players. Except, of course, until the barrage of lolcats quotes and internet memes in the global faction channel drive you out of your mind.

Either way, Galaxy Online, igg.com's massively multiplayer free-to-play sci-fi RTS, will be opening up a brand new server that has the sole responsibility of housing a battle between the Chinese version and the English version of their game. The winning faction will recieve all of the spoils, which have yet to be announced but are promised to be a pretty decent prize. Oh, and the winners will also get the bragging rights, of course.

The battle is open to anyone interested, and the call will soon be put out on the Galaxy Online forums.

Ever since Ubisoft purchased the Tom Clancy property we've known that an MMO was in the works. Now, with news that the Clancy teams all talking amongst one another in order to work towards a cohesive world, we've got a little more information on how it's all going to happen. The whole cohesive deal is apparently starting with the "extreme" sounding H.A.W.X., but would ideally continue into other titles. On top of that Ubisoft acquired Massive Entertainment last November, who are best known for creating World in Conflict.

So how does all this fit together? Well, Ubisoft is most definitely interested in enterting the MMO space. They wasted no time in tapping Massive Entertainment for MMO projects, and these guys certainly have experience with Clancy-like worlds thanks to their time spent on developing World in Conflict. The whole affair has us just oozing with intrigue about what's in the works for the near and slightly-less-so future.

For a lot of people, the MMO/RTS hybrid has been an unwieldy beast at times. That's not to say there aren't interesting titles to check out, such as Dreamlords, Atlantica and SAGA. However, nobody has quite made a huge splash with an MMORTS just yet. So could the recently announced Mytheon be the first game to catch a lot of people's attention? Well, why don't you see for yourself in this 1UP interview with the game's developer, Petroglyph -- whose previous games include Universe at War and Star Wars: Empire at War.

Since there haven't been any screens -- and probably won't be for a while -- it's hard to make too many judgments at this point. The interview promises some interesting, if not vague, features. So you can bet we'll be on the lookout for any future information about Mytheon in the coming months.

"So I've got a great idea!" says executive Bob at Electronic Arts, "Lets license out the Dungeon Keeper property for an MMORPG!" John, who happens to be a puppet on Bob's hand, says, "That's a brilliant idea, old chap!" The apparently British imaginary friend makes an awkward smile. Bob continues, "We'll give it to a Chinese developer who can release it all over the Asian markets." John the British puppet responds, "Wonderful, will you bring it to Western markets?" Bob replies with, "Who cares?" and they both laugh -- at least in Bob's twisted mind.

This is honestly the only sequence of events that, in our minds, makes sense when considering the fact that Electronic Arts has licensed out the Dungeon Keeper property as an MMO to Chinese-based developer NetDragon Websoft with the intent to eventually bring it overseas. While we're sure it'll do fine in the eastern markets, it just baffles the mind to think that EA is taking an RTS title originally designed for the west -- the original game was steeped in British humor -- and having an eastern developer create an MMO out of it that will more than likely appeal primarily to easterners only.

The MMO genre is more than World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online. Here's what's going on in the rest of the world.

Nanoverse Online lets you experience life an a micro scale
Duplex Systems has announced its second MMO, Nanoverse Online, which takes place in a world "unique physics". While their website show photos of insects, the description of gameplay delineates more of a mechanically-oriented playerbase. "It is not the visual power that counts, but compelling and exciting gameplay," says Marko Dieckmann, Managing Director, Duplex Systems. "Nanoverse Online will bring the fun back to MMOs, a genre full of cliches, copied over and over again." There is no official release date for Nanoverse Online, but screenshots are expected to hit their website soon.

NDOORS partners with Nexon to bring Atlantica Online to Japan
Nexon Japan has recently signed a publishing agreement with NDOORS to let Japanese players into the turn-based strategy world of Atlantica Online. "We are fortunate and thrilled that Atlantica's unique action and fun can be shared and enjoyed by many players throughout the world," said Cho Sung Won, NDOORS' CEO. With a player base of over one million users, Atlantica Online stands poised to make a huge showing with its new global presence.