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The announcement was made recently that NCsoft developer HawkSteel has assembled his own unofficial Exteel tournament, without the official support of NCsoft. The idea behind this tournament is to get teams of players to battle each other in a round-robin style format to determine the overall winner by accumulating Tournament Points (TPs). Each team battles another team per round in three separate matches in the following battle modes: Capture the Flag, Team Deathmatch and Territory Control.

There are no prizes, as the tournament winners will only feed off of the prestige and honor of being the best of the best. Be sure to check out the extensively-detailed rules over at the official site for more information. May the best laser-gun-wielding-robot win!

Sometimes the tiny unannounced changes are the most fun. City of Heroes Issue 12: The Midnight Hour, currently in Open Beta, has sneaked a little extra feature in under the radar.

Ordinarily, characters in CoX who fall into the water simply splash about on the surface. You can swim around there, but diving has been impossible, with the tantalizing exception of one narrow shaft in Grandville. This had been the only place where characters could submerge completely, although there was no underwater swimming, just a very surprised Coralax on a coffee break.

Our friends over at Mmorpg.com have revealed an exclusive new video for CoX Issue 12: Midnight Hour!

The video tells the story of the Midnight Squad, the secret cabal of magicians and scholars whose home - the Midnighter Club - we recently visited here at Massively. The Midnighters are only now building their numbers back up again, after the invading Rikti dealt them heavy losses.

The video's narrator, Montague Castanella, is the contact who gives out the Midnighter mission arc to heroes, ultimately giving them access to the Club. Percy Winkley, besides being a specialist in abductions from the receiving end, is also well versed in the various origins of power and will help heroes gain a greater understanding of theirs.

The other Midnighter mentioned in the video, Ashley McKnight, will be found at the Cap Au Diable University over in the Rogue Isles. She serves as a villain contact, also giving eventual access to the club. As for the shadowy gentleman at the end, he can be found in Sharkhead Isle and goes by the name of Darrin Wade. His missions are strictly villain-only, and have one of the best (and most truly villainous) finales of any arc to date.

Watch the video here!

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Face down the forces of evil! Give good a quick jab to the jaw! Massively has all the CoX Issue 12 news you can handle. Make sure to check it out!

We've spoken previously about the unique-looking space-combat MMO Blackstar, being developed by Spacetime Studios -- how previous publisher NCsoft had chosen to cancel their connection with the title, and how Spacetime recently regained the IP, to continue development on their own. From the look and sound of everything that's been shown to the public so far, this game has the potential to be NCsoft's "one that got away".

Intrigued by the goings-on with the studio, we contacted Spacetime's President and Executive Producer Gary Gattis to see if he could give us a peek behind the curtains -- or photon displacement cascade, as the case may be -- at how development on Blackstar is progressing. Mr. Gattis not only graciously consented to the interview request, but also gave us 4 pieces of concept art to share with our readers; art that has only made us long even more for the game's eventual release. Read the full interview after the jump!

Well, it's certainly no surprise that NCsoft is pushing the membership program for Dungeon Runners, and this newest build shows this all too well. But to be honest, we think it's about time. Dungeon Runners has been in operation for almost a year now (which will be celebrated next week) and it has been available as a free download with no subscription fees for this entire time. Their optional upgraded membership program has many perks, but has never been necessary.

Well, now with the upcoming retail box release (and Bling Gnome!), NCsoft is providing even more incentive to switch to a membership account. Check out their official patch notes for Build 121 to see some of these membership perks, and the loads of other improvements they've made to the game, including our all-time favorite ode to Stand By Me: the Barf-O-Rama skill!

There's always a lot of discussion about what's going to be the next big thing in the MMOs industry. We all love to talk about the future and that's largely because it's a very interesting topic. So we just had to attend the "Online Games in 2013" panel at ION 08. This panel was actually introduced by Peter Freese, the ION Conference Director. It was easily one of the most packed panels I've been to thus far which is saying a lot since all the panels have been pretty well populated already.

The panel consisted of Erik Bethke (GoPets Ltd), Scott Jennings (NCsoft), Bridiget Agabra (Metaverse Roadmap) and Damion Schubert (BioWare). With a group of people like this I was expecting some varied and compelling conversation on the topic of MMOs in 2013. In the end we got just that and a quite a bit more.

NCsoft Europe announced that it has begun selling in the U.K. what it calls "starter packs" for some of its games - City of Heroes, City of Villains, Guild Wars, and Lineage II. Tabula Rasa will follow later in the year. The packs cost £1.99 at retail, and come with all game content plus a two week trial subscription period, encouraging players to return to buy the game at retail when the period ends.

This is essentially your standard 14-day trial -- a staple in the industry -- made available through retail for would-be subscribers who might not come across such opportunities on the web. NCsoft hopes that this move will net some new customers -- especially for its struggling properties.

"In an ever increasingly digitally orientated retail environment, encouraging players to return to retail is a win-win for both outlet and publisher," said an NCsoft rep. We had heard that the whole digital download thing could be the saving grace of the PC platform, but whatever!

NCsoft Europe was created in the wake of last year's deal with Sony to provide content for the PlayStation 3 platform. In an interview with the Develop magazine site, company creative director Marc D'Souza offers hope for future titles that don't simply "redress" World of Warcraft's gameplay. While the NCsoft developers greatly respect Blizzard's behemoth, they're looking to offer a very different alternative.

"To maximize your potential, you really need to work from first principles. If you only copy what other people are doing, then you're not going to understand the choices and compromises that were made from a design point of view." It's clear the company has a good grasp of what's 'in play' at the moment. Avoiding previous pitfall while charting new territory is what innovation is all about.

The interview also covers the social challenges to MMO developers in the form of griefing, as well as some thoughts on the art vs. graphics debate. Make sure to check it out.

He uses an electric razor on a frying pan for a space ship sound. He uses marbles in his mouth to sound like an alien. No, this isn't a low-budget director in a 1950's monster movie, this is the brilliant work of NCsoft's Audio Director Tracy Bush who uses everyday household items to create the unique sound effects we've heard in some of NCsoft's top games of the last 4 years.

If you've ever played Dungeon Runners, you know that along with the wonderful sense of humor in the game, the sound effects are equally as entertaining. The same goes for Tabula Rasa. The Bane drop ships and the horrifying whispers of "Kill them all!" are all part of this wonderfully immersive experience that is just as important as graphics, gameplay or anything else in the game.

So the next time you're playing a North American NCsoft title, listen closely to the sound effects and see if you can guess which household item was used in its creation.

Gamasutra is reporting that Vivox and NCsoft have signed an agreement to offer voice communication services across the entire NC games library. NCsoft joins the likes of Multiverse, Sony Online Entertainment, CCP, and Wizards of the Coast in using the Vivox tech to connect players over IP.

As with these other companies, Vivox will offer "voice fonts", voice mail, in-game transmissions to external phone and text services. There are no details as of yet whether this technology will be incorporated in any way to the NCLauncher the company uses to update its games. NCsoft, of course, is publisher responsible for MMO titles such as Lineage II, Guild Wars, Tabula Rasa, and City of Heroes.

Lineage 2 players love the PvP opportunities the game offers, but even the most hardened warriors must rest sometime. Where do they go to spend some money on leisure? Why, to Fantasy Isle, of course! This is the same island that hosted the Bunny Money event we covered previously, but there's more to the proceedings now.

The Underground Coliseum is an arena in which PvP team deathmatch events concerning two teams of at least seven players each occur. This type of PvP is new to Lineage 2 and should help invigorate players who might be tired of the same-old, same-old.

One look at the most recent Weekend Wrapup for Tabula Rasa and you'll see that the TR community is flourishing as strong as ever. Amid concerns from many early-adopters of the game, these community-run events seem to be popping up everywhere.

• PlanetTR's Hottest Armor Contest - The top seven winners of this glorified beauty contest are showcased and praised in the PlanetTR forums.
• Friday Night Fights - The FnF for May 16th will be the first time it will be done in the C.E.L.L.A.R., which is the brand new boxing ring still on the Public Test Server. So yes, this means the FnF itself will be on the test server as well. It's still not too late to sign up for this, but even if you don't participate in the fighting this week, it will certainly be worth watching!
• It's Raining Bane - This dev-supported event is basically a giant collection of players running around the Torden Mires killing stuff. Sounds great to us!
• PvP Singles Tournament - Sponsored by the Warlords of Exodus clan, this PvP tournament seems to be a well-organized event with some rare purple items as prizes, courtesy of the GMs.

City of Heroes Issue 12: Midnight Hour, now in Open Beta, brings with it a vast assortment of Quality of Life fixes and tweaks.

One small but highly significant fix slipped through the net and missed appearing in the first round of patch notes: the buildup of Brute Fury in PvP and against Archvillain and Giant Monster class enemies has finally been persuaded to work the way it should have. Brutes gain an additional 5 points of Fury when attacking these targets, which more than doubles their Fury building rate. The short version: a Brute can now kill you far faster than you'd expect, and can contribute more to drawn-out fights against the game's toughest enemies.

The Brute community has anticipated this change for a long time now. Without the fix, their viability in PvP was not much to write home about. Now, Castle the Powers Guy has made a lot of Brutes very happy.

Kaiserin tells the story best, with a one-shot painted comic strip.

In the spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.
-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

No matter where you go, there you are.
-- Buckaroo Banzai

Recently, in The Daily Grind, Brenda brought up the subject of taking up a new game in addition to, or instead of, one you currently play, and there were some very insightful responses in the comments. We here at TGI have been mulling over the same issue lately as well. There's apparently something in the air or water these days that leads to such ruminations. Not necessarily outright dalliances, per se, but as a gedankenexperiment into the merits of leaving our current realm or realms and striking out for greener fields.

There seems to be a generalized atmosphere swirling around this notion of changing games lately, but why? For some players, it's idle speculation; for others, serious contemplation. For developers, it's either cause for concern or Miller Time. Is it merely widespread anticipation of Warhammer Online and Age of Conan? Is it boredom with the current crop of MMO titles?

Or is everybody out there just playing Grand Theft Auto IV?