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Stratics is going to play host to some more "House of Commons" IRC chats later in the week, for both EverQuest II and Pirates of the Burning Sea, giving fans a chance to pose some questions to the teams behind these two games. On Wednesday the 18th at 5PM PDT/8PM EDT, the PotBS chat will take place, and will feature producer Joe Ludwig, lead game designer Kevin Maginn, lead world designer Cory Herndon, community relations director Troy Hewitt and community specialist Tom Atkinson-Edwards. Full details on how to join in on this chat can be found here.

The EQII chat will take place a day later, on Thursday the 19th at the same time slot of 5PM PDT/8PM EDT. Representing the game in the chat will be Josh Kriegshauser and Greg Spence from EQII Engineering; Kyle Vallee, designer of "Runneye: The Gathering"; Nathan McCall, designer of the Void Storm quest series; and Tiffany Spence and Aaron Bisnett from the community relations team. You can find out how to join this chat at this page, and don't forget that we here at Massively will be speaking to the EQII team this week as well, so you can also drop any questions you might have in today's Daily Grind for us to bring to them.

The latest Lord of the Rings Online European developer chat has concluded, and the chat log is now available for viewing. Before any questions were asked, it was established that nothing about Book 14 or the Mines of Moria expansion could be answered, so everything we found out is either general stuff or related to Book 13. However, this didn't stop the fans from coming up with quite a few interesting questions to pose.

One of the things that the developers were able to confirm with certainty is that an upcoming Book will address issues with inventory space. We were told that bag space will not be increased, but other methods will be used to help improve the situation. Also, with the game's first anniversary coming up next month, the devs hinted that there will be some celebrations, and even competitions, to mark the occasion. Take a look at the transcript for more of the questions that the players managed to get through. The devs also reminded everyone that the Spring Festival will be ending on the 31st of this month, and if you haven't gotten involved yet, our guide to the event is a good place to start.

If you're a Lord of the Rings Online player, then be sure to check this one out if you've got the free time. Later today at 5pm Pacific (8pm Eastern) Allakhazam will be holding a developer chat with the LotRO team (in the #lotro channel) on their own IRC. The discussion will be focused on general topics, so we're not really sure what you can expect to get out of the dev-chat this time around. If you can't make it to the chat, there is bound to be a chat log released sometime afterwards. You can find more details on how to connect at the Allakhazam post over on their site.

Excited for Vanguard's Game Update 4? Then consider attending the upcoming developer chat which will take place at 8pm EST this Tuesday, the 12th of March, and will focus on this major update. MMORPG.com will play host to the event, and they invite anyone to come along with a question for the Vanguard devs about the upcoming patch, or the future of the game in general.

You can join in the chat by visiting MMORPG.com's live chat room, or by using an IRC client to go to the irc.coldfront.net server, and join the channel #mmorpg.

The Lord of the Rings Online Europe team have announced that they will be switching up the host of their regular developer chats, and moving the day to the last Wednesday of each month. The QuakeNET IRC servers that they have used until now have given them issues in the past, so the decision was made to move to the Stratics IRC channel, which already plays host to the US LotRO dev chats.

The first chat on Stratics IRC will take place this Wednesday, 27th February, from 8PM until 9PM GMT. If you've never used IRC before, Stratics has an FAQ to help you get started, or for those who just need the new details:

• irc.glowfish.de EU - Germany 6667 6668
  
• stratics.frws.com USA - Colorado 6667 6668 7000
  
• stratics.afraidyet.net USA - Texas 6667 6668
  
• irc.gamers-irc.org USA - Colorado 6667 6668 7000

The room the LOTRO chat will take place in is #straticshoc

There are two ways of getting your questions answered by the EQII team. The first is to join the IRC channel at the specified time and have your questions ready to ask personally. The other way is to send a private message to an EQII Allakhazam Administrator (as per this thread), and they will be able to bring the questions to the chat. We'll report back when the chat is over with any juicy details that the team feel like feeding us.

Last Monday there was a scheduled Lord of the Rings Online developer chat over at Stratics. Quite a lot was discussed, but there are some key things we took away from the Q&A session. The mention of a "Month of the Kinship" has us most excited, as that means that sometime in the (hopefully near) future LotRO will be receiving a book update to its guild features.

Right now players and Kinships can purchase their own housing, but kinship housing doesn't serve any functional purpose beyond a gathering place that can be decorated. We would love to see these housings become a place where members could come to store items or keep up to date with a schedule board.

Other subjects that were touched on during the dev chat were traits getting a review, including racial traits and a heavier focus on 12 man raids instead of the 24 man style. Unsurprisingly, the 12 man raids have been more popular with players. It's always easier to gather and maintain control over less people and 12 just seems to be the sweet spot for most LotRO players.

If you're a Lord of the Rings Online player interested in asking the developers as many questions as you can think up, then this should interest you greatly. An open topic developer chat is scheduled for this coming Monday, February 11th at 5pm Pacific (or 8pm Eastern). We're sure that there are plenty of you out there looking to fire your hot, molten questions at the LotRO developers. Information on how to get into the chat can be found over at Stratics -- where the chat is being hosted.

Usually when players are unleashed upon developers, many questions about future updates and content are asked. Maybe we'll get a juicy hint or two at possible things to expect from the next patch after Book 12. You never know, sometimes developers can be swayed by hordes of adoring players.

A big chunk of the Jumpgate Evolution team will be participating in a Stratics Central House of Commons chat this Wednesday, January 30th (that's tomorrow) at 5pm Pacific/8pm Eastern. In attendance will be Steve "Istvan" Hartmeyer, Hermann "Drakerr" Peterscheck, Michael "Zzeno" Rowland (from Codemasters), Nicole "Awen" Hamlett, and Grace "Binkies" Wong. The team will be answering questions about the game as well as the recently announced partnership with Codemasters Online.

The chat will take place in the #StraticsHoC channel on Stratics IRC. If you've never IRCed before, check out Stratics download page to start the fun.

If you're anticipating Hellgate: London amidst its recent controversy, and want to find out more about the game, why not just ask the developers? 1UP.com has posted news that Xfire is hosting a live chat with a team from Hellgate developer Flagship Studios. Listed on the Xfire site, the developers participating in the event will be:

• Bill Roper, CEO Flagship Studios
• Aletheia Simonson, Art Producer
• Bill Manegold, Game Programmer
• Amir Ebrahimi, Graphics Programmer
• Guy Somberg, Audio and Gameplay Programmer

To be in with a chance to talk to them, visit Xfire's website and enter your email address. If you're lucky enough to be selected, you'll receive an email from Xfire giving you the details of the chat. It is scheduled for 6pm EDT on October 31st, which as 1UP notes, is the actual release date of Hellgate: London, so chances are if you're a die-hard fan, you will have already been playing the game all day. Oh, and I guess October 31st is Halloween too.