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.

MMOs are a big business these days. This hasn't always been the case -- Ultima Online might have been the first real game of the genre, but it didn't make everyone want to build a competitor. It was the success of World of Warcraft that really opened up the idea that there was a huge amount of money to be made from the genre, and that in turn has brought almost everyone to the table in a rush to build a game, find a method that works, and try to hook as many subscribers as possible. The only problem is that we might find ourselves with an industry drifting toward what MMOSH refers to, quite fairly, as The Bad Place.

We've all found ourselves buying new games, playing them only until the trial is up, and then never picking them up again. Sometimes we don't even give them the full month. And some developers seem to be adopting this mentality as well -- there are rumors here and there about the future of Champions Online after its first month, and both publishers and players are treating it as if the first month is everything. (Their recent free trial seems to tie into this -- you could argue that where MMOs once got new players by word of mouth, they seem to be in love with constant trial offers to entice players now.) And that's just the tip of the problem, really -- the post goes into further detail about the cycle of hype, release, and abandonment. As it says, gone are the days when we should stick with the game that we had and wait for it to improve -- and that might ultimately be far more harmful than whatever holes in the game lead us to leave so quickly.

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.)

Last week, as you might recall, we covered a tale that really caught people's interests, and warmed the hearts of many a Second Life content-creator; That Linden Lab had run a bit of a sting, which neatly suckered a bunch of copyright infringers, resulting in their banning.

In the wake of that, a number of readers (indeed quite a lot of you) wrote in to tell us that you had heard that the bans of most or all of the those involved had been reversed within a day or so. While people do indeed circulate all manner of rumors, that would certainly be quite an interesting turn of events, so we got some legwork done to see if we could get to the bottom of it.

It's ironic that just as the GDC in Shanghai is getting into motion, the Chinese government is making some moves regarding the future of online games in China. It's a sweeping change, at that -- the General Administration of Press and Publication, the regulator of games in China, made a declaration officially preventing any foreign companies from operating a game in China, through joint ventures or otherwise. The move is fairly clearly intended to prevent any foreign companies from muscling in on China's lucrative online gaming market, but it's possible that liberal interpretations of "investors" might even include foreign players on Chinese servers.

However, the GAPP's declaration isn't the end of the story. As it turns out, the Chinese Ministry of Culture is at odds with this announcement, claiming that the authority to make such decisions passed to them on the seventh of September. Tuo Zu Hai, the vice director of the Ministry of Culture's Market Department, said he was "shocked to hear the news", indicating that there was a communication lapse between the two agencies and the ultimate resolution is still up in the air. It's unsure of how much impact this will have on NetEase, whose recent acquisition of World of Warcraft was a major coup for the company and who would be directly affected if Blizzard was blocked from interacting with them.

[ via GamePolitics ]

Bioware might have tipped their hand accidentally today as they briefly updated the Star Wars: The Old Republic website with a call for testers for the highly anticipated MMO. The announcement only lasted a few minutes before being taken down off of the site, indicating an accidental posting.

While the news announcement has been removed from the website, some screenshot happy community members have snapped pictures of their RSS feeds, which still show the call for testers. This has, of course, sent the community into an uproar of anticipation for the intended date of the announcement.

Update: The intended date of the closed beta signups is today! We have all of the details over in this post!

Last year, the news that a Halo MMO was once in development left us all wondering "what if?". The game was being made by Ensemble Studios, who put out the Xbox 360 RTS Halo Wars. The screenshot that was plastered over most stories about the cancellation looked decidedly World of Warcraft-y, and an Ensemble representative later said that the more advanced versions of the game fit the Halo theme much better. Perhaps it looked a bit like this. Some internet sleuthery on fansite Halo.Bungie.Org has uncovered this gallery of concept art from former Ensemble Studios artist Dylan Cole. The art doesn't appear to be from Halo Wars, and our friends at Joystiq raised the question: could this be from the canceled Halo MMO?

The art is marked as being from the "Halo Universe", which may simply be referring to the general Halo world -- but maybe it isn't. At the moment it's all speculation, and Joystiq has contacted Dylan Cole to see if anything can be cleared up. Whatever it was for, it's some fine work and well worth checking out, particularly for Halo fans (of which we hear there are a few). Start at page one of the gallery here.

We're chalking this one up as a rumor for now, but word has it that Sony Online Entertainment is developing another Star Wars MMO property, a casual browser game specifically based on the Clone Wars IP. The info comes from Ten Ton Hammer's Cody Bye, who writes:

"Ten Ton Hammer has learned from an inside source that Sony Online Entertainment has once again partnered with LucasArts to do another Star Wars MMO. While we have not yet learned the title of the upcoming game, it sounds like SOE is planning to use the browser-based Free Realms engine to power the game, and the game's setting will be the Clone Wars."

Massively has not heard anything yet to corroborate this as fact, but let's face it -- this was just too juicy to ignore. If we hear more on this while we're at PAX and Dragon*Con, we'll be sure to let you know.

[Via Shacknews]

According to an anonymous source, the new virtual world game on the block, Blue Mars, might be entering into open beta on September 2nd. What does this mean for you? Well, it means that another CryEngine 2 MMO might be making an appearance soon to do battle with Planet Calypso.

Currently we are unable to confirm the exact time of the opening of the Blue Mars open beta, but we can confirm that the game has been shut down and is being prepared for the "public beta" according to posts on the forums.

Blue Mars is the middle ground between Second Life and Planet Calypso. Where Planet Calypso acts as a game with a real money economy and Second Life allows all users to create content and change the world to their preferences, Blue Mars signs up and approves select developers to create content for their world. Standard users will have the ability to open up small shops and/or purchase living quarters (at the developer's preference) as well as interact with the games and events the ruling developer sets up for their players.

Player housing seems to be an oft requested feature for generally any MMO, but the last place we expected to hear rumors about it was for Star Wars: The Old Republic. Granted, this rumor stems from a BioWare employee at Gamescom being a little too tired and letting "housing" slip as one of the many features of the game. Of course, it's also just as likely that said person was so tired they simply misspoke.

Rumors have a way of digging into the brain, though, and this one is no different. If you think back to KOTOR and Mass Effect, both games had a kind of home base for the game's main characters. Wouldn't housing be pretty much the same thing? Yeah, we just went there.

What does "DUST 514" have to do with EVE Online? That's something we're very curious to know at Massively. A recent trademark filing from CCP Games for DUST 514, submitted by Atlanta-based attorney Steven M. Kushner, is described as providing 'entertainment services' and an 'on-line computer game'.

If you look at the logo of a gas mask above a striped pattern, it bears more than a passing resemblance to the EVE Online logo. The trademark filing description reads: "The mark consists of a masked face with white sunken eyes and a round opening at the mouth. There are two parallel thick lines on either side of the jaw of the face which are a parallel to a third line which runs across the bottom of the face and dips into a V at the center." Definitely not a coincidence.

My first writings here at Massively were a look back at the last ten years of MMO gaming, much of which I'd taken some small part in, and a comparison of how early MMOs had been then, against how they seem to have shaped up today. I expect if I was going to grow out of these things it would have already happened by now, so am fully expecting to be playing an MMO of some description in 2019.

Much of the year 2019 is already known to us, and detailed extensively in the documentaries 'Bladerunner', 'The Running Man' and 'Akira', but what will MMOs be like, a decade from now? Join me as I charge up the flux capacitors, spin the big brass and crystal whirley thing with no obvious purpose and hop in my little blue box in a bid to divine...the future!

It's been two months since the Square-Enix authentication tokens sold out, and still there has been no word on when the item will be returning to the online store.

The Square-Enix authentication tokens were SE's answer to the Blizzard authenticator -- an item that generates a constantly changing numerical code that needs to be entered along with your password to gain access to your game. The tokens added an extra layer of security to your Final Fantasy XI account, further protecting it from hackers who would seek to steal your luxurious items and gil.

The tokens came with the highly loved Mog Satchel -- an in-game item that would essentially double your inventory space, no matter how big it was. The satchel will also become larger when your inventory is expanded by the completion of a "Gobbie Bag" quest. However, the satchel is only available through the purchase of a security token. With no tokens being sold, no Mog Satchels are being handed out either.

Have the authenticator sales come to an end, or is it simply taking this long to make more and restock the device? We'll do some digging for you to find out.

[Via PlayNoEvil]

Stargate fans have long since been left wondering what's been going on with Stargate Worlds, but come August 1st -- or sometime soon thereafter -- their wait may finally be over. The rumor stems from a claim made by a recently departed employee who claims MGM has given Firesky until the beginning of next month to acquire funding or face having the licensed pulled.

Apparently a group of doctors who could potentially invest up to $8 million are the game's last hope. However, the same ex-employee says there's little chance the deal will actually go through by the deadline. Shane Hensley, Firesky's director of new business development, has said that they're continuing to speak with investors -- including the doctors. While he also says they've never considered scrapping the project, he doesn't deny the claim, either.

Ultimately, Hensley has hope but seems to be realistic about the situation, saying, "I doubt this will last much longer, but those who are here currently are amazingly dedicated and continue to make progress on our projects despite the circumstances." We'll keep you updated on any new progress, and hopefully there's a happy ending to all of this, even though our instincts are currently warning us to think otherwise.

Our friend Ravious at Kill Ten Rats is at it again with some pretty impressive detective work on the current state of Guild Wars 2. To be fair, Ravious is simply gathering the info he finds on the various Guild Wars forums from others who are doing the actual detective work, but it still makes our jobs a whole lot easier. Some of this was already known, some of it is new, but it's all interesting.

In his most recent GW2 post, we get word of a forum member named 4thVariety who has been following the trademark licensing and domain registration habits of ArenaNet's trademark lawyer, Mr. Peter J. Willsey. When GW2 was first announced, Mr. Willsey trademarked BlightedEmpires.com, and has since renewed the domain on March 12th of this year. Speculation, of course, centers around the fact that this may or may not be the name of the highly successful game's sequel.