Last week, we announced an upcoming closed beta test for Allods Online, with 500 keys to give out to the Massively readers. Since that went so well (the keys were gone in less than two hours!), we've been given 1k more to kick off the official CBT1, which starts at 2pm ET today. This first stage of closed beta covers levels 1-10 for both League and Empire sides, including all races, classes, and relevant zones. The beta test will run from November 10th through November 24th.

To grab your key, head on over to our giveaway page and follow the directions there. Remember, it doesn't start until 2pm ET today, so you have plenty of time to download and be ready!

Gamasutra is reporting that another 80 layoffs have hit Mythic Entertainment as well as several other Electronic Arts studios, although Mythic was the only MMO group to feel the sting of sudden unemployment. That would equate to 40% of the team, which would make for a brutal staff blow. Our best wishes go out to everyone finding themselves without a job and we sincerely hope they all find steady work as soon as possible.

What does this mean for Warhammer Online, exactly? In light of the new Endless Trial it seems like EA is doing everything it can to squeeze profit from the project, which began with a bang last year, but unfortunately fizzled out soon after Wrath of the Lich King hit. And now with Mythic assisting BioWare on Star Wars: The Old Republic, along with maintaining Dark Age of Camelot and Ultima Online, you would be forgiven for seeing dark clouds collecting in the skies above.

Nevertheless, there should be people still working on new content for Warhammer Online, at least in theory. So hopefully we'll hear something soon, such as a boxed expansion, which would raise spirits quite significantly at this point.

[Edit: This is no longer a rumor as it has been confirmed]

It looks like the rumors were true and Star Trek Online will indeed be hitting in early February, 2010. The dates are February 2nd in North America and February 5th in Europe, so start warming up your nacelles now because it won't be long before we'll all be warping into Cryptic's first non-superhero title.

With Trek's popularity on the rise due to the new J.J. Abrams movie -- and a second movie on the way at some point in the future -- there's no doubt that Star Trek Online represents a huge opportunity to Cryptic Studios, who've until now been known as "that superhero MMO developer" to anyone you might ask.

Since the release date is so very close at hand, there's no doubt that a flurry of new information (Klingons!) will soon become available. Be on the lookout for our weekly community Q&A sessions with the STO team, starting with this weeks' forthcoming feature focused on everything ships!

Those following the news surrounding development of sci-fi MMO Black Prophecy from Reakktor Media know there's been a significant hurdle to this title seeing the light of day -- the issue of insolvency. When parent company 10Tacle filed for insolvency, this adversely impacted subsidiary Reakktor Media and threatened continued development of Black Prophecy, which Reakktor addressed in an interview with Massively in April.

It was announced today that their restructuring plan has been successful, and that their insolvency plan saved the jobs of all 36 employees at the company. Even better, Black Prophecy is on track for a release next year, according to the press statement released by the HERMANN law firm which oversaw the insolvency proceedings.

According to Eurogamer, Cryptic has confirmed that Star Trek Online is set for a February 2nd, 2010 release date in the U.S., and a February 5th, 2010 release in Europe. This comes about a month after Cryptic previously confirmed that STO was set for a first quarter 2010 release.

STO is currently in closed beta, allowing those lucky select fans a chance to the game out. If you previously had purchased the Champions Online lifetime or six month subscription package, you will also be getting a chance to try the game out during the closed beta stage.

We'll be sitting down with the STO development team soon, and are looking to take all the questions you have about the ships of STO; so hurry up and get them in before 12 p.m. PST tomorrow!

[Edit: We contacted Cryptic to confirm Eurogamer's story, and they say that this is not the official release date, but they will be announcing it very soon.]

North American Closed Beta Test 1 is beginning on November 10th for Allods Online, and we're happy to throw a few keys out to our loyal readers. We have 500 to give out, thanks to our friends at gPotato, so they may go quickly. Simply head on over to our giveaway page and follow the directions there.

You can download the game from this link, but it won't be available until 2pm EDT today. You can also take a look at their main website to find out some interesting tidbits about the expansiveness of the game and its award-winning development team.

[Update: Make sure to only enter the numbers after the comma in the beta code you receive. Thanks!]

A number of EVE Online fans who've needed their podcast fix have been tuning in to Planet Risk in recent months, a great mix of music and commentary from players who spend most of their EVE time exploring the uncharted expanses of wormhole space. Planet Risk is a live show that airs on Split Infinity Radio on Wednesdays; hosts Luminus Aardokay and Quivering Palm make Planet Risk available as a podcast afterwards and we recommend you check it out if you haven't already. Today's show should be interesting as they will host a debate between four candidates for EVE's next Council of Stellar Management, the player-elected body that represents the wishes of the subscribers when dealing with CCP and how EVE Online is evolving.

We mentioned last week that the 4th CSM candidates have been announced but not everyone in the running had their positions on issues fleshed out in time for the CCP announcement. Since that day, more info about the 49 candidates is becoming available (thanks for pointing this out Darth Sith). Today's debate on Planet Risk will have CSM candidates TeaDaze (known to many for his commentary during the Alliance Tournament), Song Li (from the Missions Collide podcast), Helen Highwater and Mike Azariah.

Remember how we always tell you to remain vigilant against malicious programs that can compromise your MMO account's security? Well, it seems we now have more reason to remain vigilant.

Microsoft's latest security intelligence report covers the resurgence of worm type viruses and specifically mentions one that targets MMO players -- Taterf. As a worm, Taterf attempts to divine the user's account name and password through keystroke logging, reading the active memory, and even injecting itself into the game client. Either way, by the end of it, you end up naked and goldless. Hrm, we wonder if Taterf has been masquerading itself as our last girlfriend.

There's a new Star Trek Online trailer out from Cryptic, originally released through GameSpot. The trailer features some impressive gameplay footage that illustrates nicely a few aspects of STO we've been hearing about for a while.

There's both ground combat and space combat featured, with Klingon, Federation, and Borg ships taking part in the overall action. In one scene we see a fleet of ships attacking a single Borg cube in quite a nice display of firepower, including several (of what appear to be) quantum torpedoes.

One of the more impressive aspects of this gameplay footage that we picked up on right way was the tactical maneuvering of what appears to be a mid-range ship of Romulan design. A captured still of the scene is pictured above, and you can clearly see in the video that the ship is moving to direct hits against its "bottom side" after the port shields were taking a significant beating. Note that the two ships attacking the main ship with green phasers are Klingon Vor'Cha class, so we're assuming the ship demonstrating the tactical moves is of Romulan origin.

We also noticed that the ship pictured above bares some resemblance to the unidentified "classified" ship listed in the Ships of the Line articles at the official STO website. The above ship can be viewed more clearly in the HD trailer, however the unidentified ship on the STO website doesn't have a clear image -- only a blurry reconnaissance image. The warp nacelles both look similar (espeically if you take the image angles into consideration), both have the same general outline, and both have guns protruding from each wing. An interesting coincidence we wanted to point out.

The video after the break.

Linden Lab, the company behind the Second Life platform is launching the open beta of Project Nebraska today. Project Nebraska was the working title for what is now called Second Life Enterprise, a standalone Second Life solution for enterprise use.

This "Second Life in a box" solution, is actually in two boxes. It consists of a combined software and hardware bundle, including two 1RU rack-mount servers, prepackaged as an appliance and configured to provide virtual environment and voice services, ready to use with standard Second Life viewer software.

But that's not all.

In a crackdown against online gaming, China has put World of Warcraft under review again today, asking Chinese operator NetEase to stop collecting fees and suspend new account registration as the game is in violation of regulation agreements.

A regulator from the General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP) said today in an online statement that the game was in "gross violation" of Chinese regulations and they have returned the company's application to operate "The Burning Crusade" (Yep, that's right, they said The Burning Crusade and not Wrath of the Lich King) in China. NetEase has responded that they have not received official word from the governing body of their intent. As of this posting, Battle.net China is still accepting registrations for World of Warcraft.

It would seem that spandex hasn't gone out of style in the MMO world. Kotaku is reporting that Cryptic Studios told them that one million superheroes have been created in Champions Online to date. That's a lot of different heroic concepts, costumes, and back-stories! What's even more fun when you think about it? That means there are a million nemeses running around in there too. Cryptic has created a veritable cornucopia of comic-book evil.

In a quick survey of the team here at Massively, the average seems to be hovering at 4 characters per Champions Online account. If our completely unscientific average is anywhere near accurate, that would put Champions Online in the neighborhood of approximately 250,000 accounts, which certainly isn't bad for having launched recently. With all the crime still out there on Millennium City streets, though, we hope those heroes will get to work -- there are still a lot more bad guys to beat down!

Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard has indeed confirmed the cancellation of MechScape, although you wouldn't quite know it from his comments, which seem excited to be working on a different title with a new direction. This isn't the first time an in-development MMO has been rebooted in favor of a completely new direction, although Tabula Rasa at least kept its original name.

Why the sudden decision? According to Gerhard, MechScape wasn't able to avoid the same pitfalls of RuneScape. Of course, making such a move is going to cost Jagex millions, but their current financial success will be shouldering the weight. The new game -- known as Stellar Dawn -- should be coming in 2010 and will be based on the MechScape graphics engine.

The big changes planned for Stellar Dawn are content and combat focused, although no specifics were given by Gerhard. It's a bold move, no doubt, and sometimes this industry favors such decisions -- other times it punishes them significantly. Whether you look at this as stalled (Tabula Rasa) or prolonged (everything Blizzard) development, you have to admit it creates a notable amount of interest in Jagex's 2010 game.

Major EVE Online roleplaying alliance Curatores Veritatis Alliance (CVA) disbanded today, possibly the result of a traitor within their ranks, leaving a power vacuum in the Providence region they once held. It's possible for high-level directors of an alliance to disband the organization, and this is exactly what happened today to Curatores Veritatis Alliance. CVA was an alliance loyal to the game's NPC faction the Amarr Empire and had a long history of enforcing rule in lawless space and resisting rival player organizations of Minmatar freedom fighters -- notably Ushra'Khan -- who they branded as terrorists. In short, CVA has played a significant role in the player-driven setting of EVE Online.

At this point, speculation as to how CVA was disbanded is rampant. The concept of a mole using high-level access to destroy an alliance from within is not unprecedented in the game, although some players are asserting an account hack took place. EVE pilot "BULLETPROOF 50CENT" of the corporation Traceless Representatives of Anonymous Players (TRAP) has claimed credit for the disintegration of CVA. He stated: "I am known as bullet, just a small, relatively unknown member of a covert organization, created by and dedicated to the taking down of what we saw as the single largest evil in EVE -- CVA."