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MMO portal Aeria Games has acquired a new game called Cronous, which was originally developed by Lizard Interactive. Cronous' gameplay is similar to that of Diablo, Mythos, or Dungeon Runners. That makes it somewhat unique in Aeria's library, which is otherwise made up mostly of games of a different character such as Dream of Mirror Online and Shaiya.

The game's info page lists most of the usual action-RPG features, plus "nonlinear storytelling" with regards to quests, guild castle building and management, and siege warfare. We don't fully understand the nonlinear storytelling bit, although it's included in the press release as one of the major selling points of the game. It sounds cool up front though.

Sign-ups are already underway for a closed beta test, so if you want to give the game a try, that's probably your best bet.

[Via Ten Ton Hammer]

Lockpick Entertainment announced today that they have signed an exclusive agreement to distribute their MMORTS game Dreamlords -- the Reawakening in North America. Aeria Games, publishers of Stone Age 2, Dream of Mirror Online and many, many more free-to-play MMOs, will have Dreamlords in beta in July, looking forward to an August release.

Spencer Chi, producer at Aeria Games, called Dreamlords an answer to gamers' demand for a fun MMORTS (massively-multiplayer online real-time strategy) game. Dreamlords players will be able to buy in-game items and equipment with the Aeria Points currency common to all Aeria's games. Interested and want to know more? Then turn back to our extensive coverage of Dreamlord's path to publication.

Wanna bash stuff up good? Wanna capture little dinosaurs, train them up right and then send them into battle? When you see a broken tree branch with leaves on it, do you think "oooooh, a new club and a snack!"? If any (or all) of these sound like you, then you owe it to yourself to try out Aeria Games' latest prehistoric-themed MMO, Stone Age 2. Thump stuff good, collect baby dinosaurs from all over the world that will forever think of you as "Mum", and make the world safe for yourself and your tribe.

Our sister site, Big Download, has the client ready to download. The Stone Age 2 team has brought the servers up and open beta has begun. If you signed up in advance with Aeria, you may be finding a surprise in your in-box. For a complete list of the exclusive open beta goodies -- and a warning from the devs -- you can just go ahead and click on the break.

Pi Story, a 2D side scrolling MMO in the style of Maple Story, has announced a new round of their closed beta test. The beta is currently limited to previous beta testers for Aeria Games' lineup of import MMOs, or those quick enough to snag one of the closed beta keys they are giving away. If you'd like to get in on the casual MMO goodness that flows from Aeria Games, why not head over and sign up? From Pi Story to the incredibly popular Dream of Mirror Online to the pet collecting and raising game Stone Age 2 to the massively kung-fu game Twelve Sky (and many others), you'll find a game there you'll enjoy. And they are all free to play.

Pi Story tells the tale of a perfect world -- Pi -- that was torn apart by this very desire for perfection. Now the world is broken into shards, and your job is to bring these shards back together by finding all the pieces of Pi. Mmm. Pi. Pi Story features casual play, a very easy grouping system, instanced adventure areas, a strategy-based guild activity system and housing, an apartment of your own you can decorate as you wish, a built in web diary and browser, and built-in message boards.

Want to see more? Check out the gameplay video after the break.

Joining the English Stone Age 2 closed beta that we saw earlier in the month, a German version of the prehistoric free-to-play MMOG now also has a registration page for a closed beta. The registration can be completed at a newly launched German website for the game -- which is being handled by company Frogster Interactive in this territory, as opposed to Aeria Games -- where you can also find a community forum and a desktop wallpaper.

At this stage it doesn't look as though there will be any significant differences between the German and English versions of SA2 -- well, apart from that really obvious one (duh) and the fact that they seem to prefer to leave out the spaces in the German title, making it StoneAge2.

Gametribe, the European carrier of Dream of Mirror Online (run in North America by Aeria Games), announced a new game update this weekend. The update will go live on the 25th, and it will add a new class to DoMO -- the Merchant. The Merchant "uses money to fight and create powerful attacks." Sounds cool, but expensive!

The update will also feature a handful of new quests, including a couple new steps to the main quest. The item mall will see the addition of greedy inventory bags. Unsurprisingly, those will increase a character's maximum inventory. Some new visual character customization options will be added as well.

We've given kudos to DoMO for its art style in the past. Brenda Holloway (one of the staff bloggers here at Massively) even wrote that it's better than World of Warcraft. Don't scoff until you've tried it! If you have an aversion to microtransactions, though, maybe you should just take our word for it and move on.

We talked about Aeria Games' Stone Age 2 before, with its interesting pet system, access to pet information via cell phone, and possibility of viewing in-game events through fixed video cameras, and now it's time to see if any of those things made the cut. SA2 has hit closed beta, and our sister site Big Download is hosting the client!

To get into the beta, point your browser to the game site to register, then hie thee to the host page to get the client. C'mon, who wouldn't love a cute, cuddly-wuddly li'l dino following them around? Well, except people made of meat, which we all are ... hmm. Note to self: first train dino to become a vegetarian.

How would one make an expansion to a game called Last Chaos? Second-to-Last Chaos? We-lied-there's-more-Chaos? What would you do? Seems like pigeonholing to me. The title of Aeria Games' free-to-play MMO, Last Chaos, might seem a bit misleading. There is plenty of the usual fare running around: knights, mages, rogues and ... purple horses? While it may not be chaotic, Last Chaos is certainly a little different and by different, I mean in the way that your distant cousin is a little "different". You know the one.

Last Chaos may not be grabbing any big headlines lately but that doesn't mean there isn't a game here. The people at Aeria Games know what they're doing. They've certainly done it enough and while Last Chaos might not sweep you off your feet, the game is worth taking for a spin. Especially if you've ever said to yourself "I'd really prefer to run through this dungeon in a leather miniskirt and some fishnet stockings." If that's the case, Last Chaos is for you.

Let's enter the last chaos you'll ever enter ... again.

We here at Massively are pretty fond of Dream of Mirror Online and its delightful graphics. We even think its superior to World of Warcraft in some respects -- plus also (duh!): Free -- and now? A new server!

If you, like us have been feeling the squeeze on Aeria Games' very popular (and honestly rather crowded) Onyx server for Dream of Mirror Online, you'll likely be pleased to hear that there's now a pristine new server available.

Starting right now, you can create fresh characters on Aeria Games' new DOMO server, Sapphire. If you've built up a group and would like to play and level together on a quieter, and less crowded server, Sapphire might just be the thing for you.

Perhaps you play World of Warcraft just for fun? A casual game that you appreciate for its low system requirements and ability to either group or solo as the whim takes you? A game fun for you but as fun for your kids, one everyone can enjoy? One with some pretty unusual game mechanics and a very unique art style? WoW does all these things pretty well – but Aeria's Dream of Mirror Online does them better. Plus, it's free.

DOMO is built around stories – and you're in one, someone brought from our world to the Mirror World along with many others to save the realm from dissolution. Are you the One who will save it? The Mirror people are willing to take a chance on you. You will meet Mirror Kings of every description to help you on your way; you can battle monsters or befriend them; you can fly around on swords; you can have quests with full cinematics and if you want friends to come along, then they can.

If you don't want to grind your way to uberness, you can buy helpful items in their shops for cash or in the dozens of player-created shops for game currency. Instead of killing monsters, you can capture them and release them later as pets under your control. And the graphics! Some people consider WoW's strong art style one of its greatest features. Well, you haven't seen DOMO yet. Playing DOMO is like being the main character of your own anime. If you play WoW because you enjoy a casual, colorful game with the emphasis on fun all the time, exploring strange worlds, and being the star of your own story... you should give Dream of Mirror Online a shot.

World of Warcraft is an excellent game, but its very success is something of a prison. They have ten million players to please. They can't try anything radically new. Smaller games are freer to try things that are very new and go to places WoW cannot follow. You've played WoW. Is it time to give something new a chance? No matter what you like best, there's a game that does it better, and all of them are filled with fantastically helpful people who welcome new players. These games can be a little overwhelming to begin with; but you probably felt that way the first time you stepped into the world of Azeroth, too.

We don't expect everyone to agree with our particular choices. Have some better ones? Or is WoW truly the best game no matter what you like to do best? Let us know in the comments!

Late last month, we wrote about anguish among players of Dream of Mirror Online at a move by GameTribe to block IP addresses outside of Europe, and to have competing operator Aeria Games to block European addresses from their servers.

All in all, it's been quite a tangle of he-said/she-said - assorted forum posts, threads and interviews are no longer accessible, making it even harder to pin down what's going on, but we've put together a bit of a timeline, and there has been a new development that may make players saddened by the split rather happier.

Aeria Games and Entertainment, one of the regional publishers/operators of Softstar's new free-to-play MMO Dream of Mirror Online, has announced that it is reluctantly going to have to IP block European users from the service from the commencement of the upcoming open beta.

Aeria Games is so reluctant, in fact, that they've started up a petition, and are encouraging DOMO players who take issue with the change to contact MMO developer Softstar. [Correction: Apparently these initiatives were started by the forum moderators who are volunteers and not employees of Aeria games]

Aeria Games and Entertainment has launched the open beta of their new MMO Twelve Sky on 12 October. During the Open Beta, Aeria will be running special events, giveaways, promotions and competitions.