Hi-Rez Studios just updated their Answer Center with new Global Agenda beta information. The game is expected to move to a Closed Beta phase this July. Global Agenda has been in Alpha testing for a number of months now.

It looks like they're sub-phasing their Closed Beta Test as well (e.g., CBT-1, CBT-2, etc.), an approach that seems more common in MMOs these days. Warhammer Online did a series of closed beta phases, and more currently, Aion is doing the same. Each phase focuses on a different area of the MMO that needs testing and each successive phase usually brings more testers to the mix.

There are pros and cons when taking this phased approach. On one hand you really get to hammer down on your areas of concern but on the other you're only testing the individual parts and not the whole. Players always seem to play a game differently when unleashed upon the full experience.

In the end though, it probably won't matter to all the people who want a taste of what Global Agenda has to offer. Winning E3 Editor's Choice awards like "Best of Show 2009" is definitely building anticipation and raising expectations for this title.

Things were very quiet on the All Points Bulletin front for quite some time, but now we're seeing why. Realtime Worlds has been busy, and since E3 2009 the APB team at Realtime Worlds has revealed a ton of info about their upcoming game. Massively interviewed APB lead designer EJ Moreland who gave us some perspective on what the title will be like, but we're always looking out for more info. On that note, the All Points Bulletin game site revamp was accompanied by a new series of video podcasts, the second of which is now out.

This second All Points Bulletin video podcast "E3 and Beyond" has Chris "Deum" Collins from the APB community team speaking with lead gameplay designer Jesse Knapp about the game's extensive customization options, and is in two parts. Actually it's largely a montage of the E3 customization videos with commentary from the APB devs, where they answer questions posed to them by the game's fans. It's a great look at what's possible in the game and we highly recommend you give it a look. However, if that's not enough to get you to check it out, we've got two words for you: Suicide Girls.

We've got YouTube embeds of both parts for you below the cut. Have a look:

Back in April we were starting to worry about APB because we hadn't seen or heard anything new about the game in a while. Thankfully, the information is starting to flow again due to E3 and an impending "early 2010" release date. GamesIndustry recently caught up with Realtime Worlds' Creative Director, David Jones and he had a lot of interesting things to say.

You won't learn anything earth-shattering about APB, but this interview gives us a good look at one of the leading forces behind the MMO (darn that pesky label). Given the global economic downturn, David feels his studio needs to focus now more than ever because there's not much chance of raising more venture capital. He's also very happy about the publishing partnership with EA because he feels they'll be able to help build APB a strong marketing presence at retail. Maybe the loaning of Paul Barnett is icing on the cake?

For all of you hoping for closed beta, you might be waiting a little longer since APB is still in an internal testing phase. For all of you worrying about a F2P/RMT business model, your fears can probably be eased since David feels that an online distribution strategy is "maybe pushing the envelope too far" for APB.

Massively Speaking Episode 56 is back after a brief hiatus while we spent last week at E3. To compensate, Shawn is joined by WoW.com's Mike Schramm for a recap of the best and brightest from the convention. Which game did they like best? Why does it seem like every game will release in 2010? Check out the podcast to find out!

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot us an email to podcast AT massively DOT com. Maybe we'll read your letter on the air!

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Giant Bomb has been pumping out some great videos from E3 2009, but we of course took immediate notice of this interview with two Star Wars: The Old Republic developers from BioWare. Most of the conversation revolves around information we already know, until one of the devs reveals, "we have literally thousands of roles which are voiced in our game, which are done by many, many hundreds of voice actors." We knew there was going to be a lot of people, but, okay we didn't expect that many!

Hundreds.

Much of the Massively crew agreed that Star Wars: The Old Republic's classes would be limited to four or five on each side, due to the fully-voiced announcement. Now we're thinking differently with thousands of roles filled by many hundreds of voice actors. Suddenly, six or seven per side doesn't seem like a far away fever dream.

If you'd like to see how it ends when you ask a BioWare dev about SWTOR's release date, check out the full video after the break.

E3 2009 has come and gone, with it came new information on Star Wars: The Old Republic -- and fresh concerns. To call BioWare ambitious would be an understatement of vast proportions. Every NPC receiving full voice acting ratcheted up my curiosity as much as it did my eyebrows. We may need a new word to describe the depths of this game's ambition.

As if the voice acting news wasn't enough, BioWare revealed a cinematic trailer that reminded me how powerful this property can truly be, in the right hands. The excitement was so immediately potent that it caused some people to cry "over-hyped!" in the few short minutes between the trailer's beginning and ending.

I think it's time to asses the current situation, and maybe ponder a few things about Star Wars and BioWare.

Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009 proved to be a significant event for the gaming industry once again, with a fair amount of news and announcements related to MMOs. Massively was there on the ground for E3 this year and we've been putting up breaking announcements, interviews, and hands-on previews throughout.

Given how much info came out of E3 on Massively, here's a roundup of our coverage, day-by-day. Be sure to check out the rest after the jump as there's plenty more content, plus you'll find E3 galleries for these games as you click through. To cap it all off, we've also put together an E3 2009 wrapup video for you at the end of this post. Read on to see where the MMO industry is headed in the next year and beyond!

• Star Wars: The Old Republic world's first fully-voiced MMO

• Final Fantasy XIV announced

• Jumpgate Evolution releases E3 trailer

• EA to publish All Points Bulletin in 2010

• PlayStation Home hits 6.5 million accounts

• Trion World Network unveils Heroes of Telara

• Massively's day 1 video from the E3 floor

All Points Bulletin wasn't the only crime-themed MMO I saw at E3 last week. I also got to check out Vogster Entertainment's CrimeCraft. Just before the conference, the developer announced an August 25 release date, a monthly subscription as their business model and an exclusive deal with Best Buy.

On the floor, associate producer Aaron Krasnov laid down what's new in the game, how it's different from APB, the help he got from former Warhammer Online developers and how CrimeCraft is a natural progression for players of Halo and Call of Duty.

Last week at E3, we had a chance to sit down with Alexandre Zambeaux, Marketing Director for Cities XL developer Monte Cristo Games, for some more info on the current state of the game, and what MMO gamers can expect from such a project. You may remember a pre-beta Q&A we did with the Monte Cristo team a few months ago, and as the game hasn't hit an open beta just yet, it will later this year. The info we got from that initial interview helped carve an idea in our heads of what this whole city-building MMO could possibly be, but now we're happy to offer a few more details.

Even though this meeting was very informal, we took some great info away from Alexandre to relay to you, the readers. Follow along after the jump to find out more about the business model, expandability, gameplay and more.

Are you one of the folks who has leveled your classes all the way to max in Free Realms and are kind of wondering what now? Well, if you're the type who loves progression and really building your character up to be better, you're in luck. The folks at SOE are planning to introduce Prestige classes (much like the aforementioned racing ones) that will allow players to level their jobs to 20, and improve them through further play.

Along with this interesting development, they are adding in some new jobs to the game, like the Pro Racing class - and perhaps a new class to go with the Soccer game (Soccer player? Footballer?) since SOE has let us know that they are finally bringing those fenced-off soccer fields into play. Added to these new tidbits will be further expansion on the backstory of Free Realms, which will explain a bit more about the lands and inhabitants of this crazy fun casual MMO, as well as opening up more story-driven quests for players. Sounds like a bunch of exciting news coming in the next few months! We can't wait.

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Massively was on the ground in Los Angeles last week and covering all the latest E3 MMO news coming from the convention. Check out our breaking coverage (or all the Joystiq network E3 reporting) and keep your eye on Massively's front page for the latest developments.

We had the chance to sit down and catch up with the guys from Frogster Interactive as well as a few of the Runewaker Entertainment developers at E3. While we knew Elves were coming to Runes of Magic, we didn't have too many details of just precisely how they'd be implemented into the game. As part of our talk, they let me check out the never-before-seen area that the elves will be a part of, as well as showing off some of the new instance content and guild buildings that they're adding to the game.

This next chapter - The Elven Prophecy - will give players the option of playing the elven race (surprise) which starts out in a strange and wonderous new area. Beyond that, they're also working on PvP arenas, destructible guild buildings, and some new epic powers. Along with this sweeping update, the game is being updated with several graphic improvements including updates to things like water, and adding in some incidental sounds and music to start to help close the gap in regards to the dearth of sound issue many have decried Runes of Magic for. If you'd like a preview into some of these areas, be sure to check the gallery below, as well as the newly-released trailer showing off the Elven Prophecy, coming to Runes of Magic this September!

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Massively was on the ground in Los Angeles last week and covering all the latest E3 MMO news coming from the convention. Check out our breaking coverage (or all the Joystiq network E3 reporting) and keep your eye on Massively's front page for the latest developments.

It's a post-apocalyptic world. Civilization has completely collapsed. You find yourself scavenging for food and supplies on a barren American frontier. And the thing you're looking for? Clean water. Just watch out for giant mutants along the way.

No, I didn't just describe a Fallout game. Well, actually I did, but I'm also loosely describing the plot of Fallen Earth. Developed by North Carolina-based studio Fallen Earth LLC, the MMO shooter takes place during the near future in America's Grand Canyon and allows players to switch between third- and first-person views. The game promises over 600 hours of play, extensive character customization, no fixed classes but six factions, and plenty of everything that good MMOs have to offer: an epic, immersive story, voice-over in missions as well as tons of equipment, weapons, vehicles, crafting and PvP.

However, besides all that, there was one main idea that lead designer Lee Hammock wanted me to take away from our demo session at E3: Fallen Earth is not the Fallout MMO. See his explanation why.

While the recent heads-up that we'll be able to add people to our friends list is definitely a welcome bit of Free Realms news, we were even more excited to hear that guilds are soon coming to this casual MMO. That's right - now you'll be able to add your friends and family to a special guild group! From what we were told, guilds will be given their own in-game chat channel so you can chat back and forth without having to worry about others intruding into your private chatter.

Another nice thing that will be coming is the option for guilds to create their own guild halls to spend time together. While we heard a bit about player housing, the specific details on guild halls are still largely under wraps for now - or perhaps Sony Online Entertainment is holding on to the details to give players an overview at their upcoming Fan Faire in Las Vegas. Whatever the case may be, we're glad to see all the new things coming to Free Realms.

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Massively was on the ground in Los Angeles last week and covering all the latest E3 MMO news coming from the convention. Check out our breaking coverage (or all the Joystiq network E3 reporting) and keep your eye on Massively's front page for the latest developments.

Now that Free Realms is live - and by anyone's standards, tremendously successful - SOE's Free Realms team (at around 100 people) is busy working on new features and improvements. In September (or October, perhaps) they plan to add in player housing for everyone to enjoy. For those of you who have been pelting them on the forums for a home of your own - your request has been heard! A nice, shiny home in Free Realms should be yours in time for the holidays.

You'll be able to select land, size, and style of house; then really dig in and modify it to make it all your own. The plan is also to create new mini-games involving maintaining your house as well - we're guessing something along the lines of time-management games, perhaps? According to what we've heard, the garage coming out in July will be attached to your house, so you can show off your cars to friends. Neighborhoods will be instanced (currently planned for three buildings per personal plot with no word on neighborhood size) but they expect this will give players a new place to hang out and enjoy their time in Free Realms. There's currently no specifics on what will be available for F2P and paid members, so we'll have to wait and see.

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Massively was on the ground in Los Angeles last week and covering all the latest E3 MMO news coming from the convention. Check out our breaking coverage (or all the Joystiq network E3 reporting) and keep your eye on Massively's front page for the latest developments.

To be honest, when the Heroes of Telara trailer first released, much of what we heard was "been there done that" from readers and friends. "Fantasy has been done to death" was another. That's why we were glad to see the game actually in play behind closed doors this last week at the Trion World Network space at E3. While we only saw a pre-alpha copy of the game (and would point out that it's what they used for the trailer) it's certainly raised our interest over the initial impression we had.

In motion, Heroes of Telara actually made some of us of think of an updated, shinier version of Guild Wars in terms of very pretty and highly-detailed stylized (yet somewhat realistic) graphics. As was explained to us by Chris Mancil, the Director of Community Management for Trion, one of the largest things that they feel will set Heroes of Telara apart from many others is that they are working to keep the game server-based. Their plan is to attempt to keep most of the "action" server side as is possible so that they can add new events into the game without having to send along enormous patches to players all the time. All assets will still reside client side, but they'll be able to manipulate game-play by telling the client to modify where things spawn, how things interact, and the like. From little things like different vendors having sales to large zone-wide events, it will allow them to change anything and everything on the fly and make Heroes of Telara feel more like it's taking place in a living, breathing, dynamic world that players will want to "live in, explore, and play."