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After several months of preparation, tons of screenshots, videos and more, Lord of the Rings Online's Book 14 has a set release date. According to the official site, the servers will be down on Tuesday, July 22nd from 6AM - 12PM Eastern time for the latest content update, Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion.

If you need a refresher course on Book 14's contents, be sure to check out Massively's exclusive tour from last week, as well as our screenshot gallery. The official patch notes for Book 14 are now live on the LotRO website, to give you a complete run-down of the changes and additions made with this content patch. Keep your eyes on Massively for more information on Book 14 once it goes live. Now, we look ahead towards Mines of Moria!

Lord of the Rings Online, Book 14: The Ring-forges of Eregion has just hit the preview server Roheryn, and the extensive patch notes are posted! To see the new content, you will need to download the Turbine Download Manager, which is currently in its second stage of beta itself, allowing new and current players much easier access into the preview content.

So let's get a glimpse into some of the biggest features of this new patch:

• Monster Play emotes are being introduced, complete with racial-specific emotes that can be achieved through deeds.
• Monster Play races have several improvements and balance measures, especially with the Weaver.
• New class improvements including several for the Burglar and Captain, plus the inclusion of varying instrument sounds and animations to correlate with the actual instruments being played by your Minstrel (not just the lute!)
• The Diminishing Returns system is set into place with vast improvements.
• Plus changes to Crafting, new dye, new outfits, new quests, UI fixes, new items and much, much more!

Check out the complete patch notes and take the rest of the day off to read through this monstrous list, you won't be sorry!

A few days ago I wrote about an article in the Korea Times that took aim at NCsoft's 2007 fiscal report by calling Tabula Rasa a "financial disaster." The ensuing explosion both here at Massively (the comments section) and abroad (a direct reply from the Korea Times writer himself) was akin to the Bane dropping a mortar round smack dab into the middle of our little virtual compound.

Other sites reported on the Korea Times article in the same manner. And Amy "Critters" Crider, TR's official Community Coordinator, even issued a public warning about said reporter and said article. But NCsoft didn't stop there. David Swofford, head of NCsoft's North American PR department, fired off a response via a statement given to the gang at Crispy Gamer. It's a doosey! Swofford said, "The Korea Times English edition story is full of inaccuracies... No one at NCsoft said the product is a financial disaster." He comments on a great may things, including the cost of the sci-fi MMO: "The TR development did not cost $100 million... I don't know where that came from."

Ah... justice is served. If you've been following this situation here you owe it to yourself to click on over to the Crispy Gamer site and check out their full article. It's got more searing rebuttal from Swofford (kudos to them for scoring this by the way). Then come on back here 'cuz we so want to hear what you have to say about this!

The WarCry Network is reporting this morning that Cryptic Studios (the original development company that created City of Heroes) has launched a new website and associated forums for their recently announced Champions Online superhero MMO. Additionally, Hero Games (creators of the tabletop RPG which the MMO is based on), will release a new (6th) edition to coincide with Champions Online.

Scanning through the website and screen shots (see the one above) - I'm loving the cell shaded look! Being a big time CoX fan myself -- I can't wait to give Champions a spin! Check out the site and then let us know if you think there's room for another superhero MMO. Do you like what you see (real time fighting!!)? Do you think they'll make their Spring '09 launch date? Let the speculation begin!

Earlier this morning we posted an article from The Korea Times that -- on the surface -- seemed to herald very bad times for NCsoft and Tabula Rasa. After talking with our contacts at NCsoft, things may not be nearly as dire as the writer of that article made it seem. The cliche "take things with a grain of salt" was coined for a reason, and as you'll see... this appears to be one of them.

According to what we were able to uncover this very same Korea Times staff writer has earned a reputation for writing sensationalized articles about NCsoft. In the last year he apparently has "reported" particulars from conferences that he never actually attended.

Here are a few nuggets of knowledge that Cho Jin-seo "forgot" to mention:

According to a report from The Korea Times, NCsoft's MMO Tabula Rasa has done so poor financially that it's causing the Austin Studio to be reshuffled.

The staff reporter on this piece (Cho Jin-seo) states that the Austin Studio "has inflicted a massive loss to the parent company by failing in a six-year blockbuster project." All of this seems to stem from NCsoft's 2007 fiscal report released on February 13. Jin-seo reports "the Tabula Rasa game has proven to be a financial disaster." During a conference call on February 14 NCsoft's CFO Lee Jae-ho stated that, "Because of this disappointing result, some downsizing in Austin is inevitable."

This is very, very bad news -- and sad news to me personally because I enjoy the game so much -- if it indeed turns out to be correct. We have passed this information along to our sources at NCsoft for further comment, and we'll report back to you the moment we hear anything further. Until then, be sure to read the entire article for the complete lowdown on this developing situation.

Thanks to one of our readers (JohnnyP) for making us aware of this news!

Virtual worlds and online gaming continue to grow in cultural importance, changing the outlook of commerce and entertainment almost daily. To make sense of these changes, Stanford University feels it's high time they convened a group of leading experts in the field to discuss what it all might mean, both today and reaching into the future. To this end, the Stanford University Humanities Lab is hosting the Metaverse U Conference, to take place on campus on February 16th and 17th.

Among the notable names speaking at this event are Raph Koster of Areae's Metaplace; Cory Ondrejka, formerly of Linden Lab; Howard Rheingold, author and critic, credited with coining the term 'virtual community', and many other guests. In fact, those three in particular will be speaking together in conversation on Saturday, an event I expect will be both illuminating and provocative.

I'll be attending with Massively's Barb Dybwad, so look for us and say hi! If you can't make it, however, don't despair -- the organizers have told us that "we are about to announce that the entire conference will be streamed for free into Second Life for anyone who wants to attend there."