Some people will jump on any good reason to celebrate, and we love them for it -- especially when "party" equals "giveaway". Runes of Magic is celebrating a milestone: 10,000 fans on their Facebook page.

They're celebrating by sending fans on a scavenger hunt. Runes of Magic wants you to take a look around their social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, and find four gold coins that they've hidden. The coins spell out a word when put together. Find the word, head over to the contest page to enter it, and you've got a chance at winning. Ten people will be drawn from the pool of correct entries, with the first prize winner receiving a Leadtek Winfast GeForce GTX 275 graphics card. RoM t-shirts and mugs are up for grabs for nine more people.

To see the list of sites to visit, check the list on the official site, and good luck!

This question is an old one, but it's always one that brings out some interesting opinions. As technology becomes more and more connected, people continue to move their games into connectivity further and further, we have to ask -- what's an MMO, precisely? The recent release of Borderlands has brought the question into the forefront for many people, as it features a rather steady and all but required online mode... but it's not absolutely required, and there's no world persistence. Does that qualify, or is it just an offline game with some MMO elements?

You can certainly argue that they're only distantly related, or you can argue that they're both part of the same genre. By the same token, you can make the case for or against the now-ubiquitous Facebook games -- which are persistent and spread across several players, after all. Today, we ask our readers where they draw the line between MMO and a game that just happens to have an online component. Where do you draw the line, and if you're so inclined, what's your reasoning? Persistence of world? Depth of play? Or is it a knee-jerk reaction where you might not be able to define an MMO, but you know it when you see it?

Civilization Network may not exactly be an MMO, but it's the closest a new game in the series has ever come to the concept. The announcement isn't too surprising as we've heard rumors in the past of a potential persistent version of the game being developed. Frankly, it's nice to finally know the pioneering developer's next game.

Meier himself explains the general design goal of Civilization Network on the official Facebook page, and it's more or less all about cooperation with friends and family. That's not to say there's no competition either, but the biggest edge a social networking game has is similar to an MMO -- cooperation with other players.

We'll be watching this project closely, as the blending of MMO qualities with a series like Civilization is by far abnormal. The next piece of the puzzle is the game's business model, but as of yet there's been no announcement of how Firaxis plans on making any money with the game. You can watch for beta news on the game's official Facebook page, and we highly suggest it.

We're not entirely sure how this one slipped under our radar. Perhaps it was a quiet launch, or perhaps it was a flash based massively multiplayer game, but we somehow failed to mention Sacred Seasons.

So now we're going to take the time to correct that error -- enter Sacred Seasons, an MMO that runs entirely in flash and entirely in your internet browser. The game tells the story of the Heartlands, a world that's much like ours except in hyperbole, where the seasons dominate so strongly that they resonate in humanity itself. The people of the world have broken off into four separate tribes, one each dedicated to one of the seasons. All of them ally together, however, to fight a plague spreading across the world -- the growing corruption of the badlands, areas of nothingness.

There's no doubt CrimeCraft has been seeing some tough times since its launch. Nevertheless, that's not stopping Vogster Entertainment from paving new development paths. They're currently working on CrimeCraft: Kingpin, which is essentially a way to interface with the game through Facebook or the iPhone application.

While details aren't clear at this point, Vogster is saying players will be able to complete missions, build gangs, buy weapons and equipment and develop rivalries in battles all while climbing up leaderboards. The top player will of course earn the rank of -- you guessed it -- Kingpin.

Integration into the PC game offers CrimeCraft: Kingpin an opportunity to stand out amongst the ever-growing crowd of Facebook and iPhone apps. Leveraging that advantage will go a long way to getting people interested in the newly free-to-play model of the game.

Are you disappointed you couldn't attend EVE Fanfest 2009 in Reykjavik this week? If so, there's some good news. CCP Games announced today that they're going to stream live video of the Fanfest presentations on Saturday, October 3rd, from 12:00 - 17:00 GMT. The live video stream can be viewed at the EVE Fanfest 2009 site and will feature keynotes on the future of CCP Games and EVE Online -- namely DUST 514 -- and Senior Producer Torfi Frans Ólafsson's keynote on the Dominion expansion (recorded Friday evening). CCP Games will also stream video of the finals from this year's Fanfest PvP tournament with its free-for-all and Tech III matches.

If you're unable to view the video stream, you can also listen in on the keynotes through the EVE Online Facebook page thanks to Vivox. Information will be made available on the EVE Facebook page tomorrow, and this audio will stream from 15:00 - 17:00 GMT.

COSMOS is the social network for EVE Online slated to arrive with this winter's Dominion expansion, which CCP Games describes as "EVE away from EVE". Ultimately, it's a way to extend the game experience into new platforms such as web and mobile, along with voice integration -- but this is the long-term plan. In the short term, they've announced a delay with rolling out some of the previously mentioned features when Dominion launches. The initial release will focus on the new in-game mail system being tied into COSMOS and laying the groundwork for other features to come in early 2010.

EVE Online developer CCP Caedmon explained the reasons behind this delay: "We think that this delay for the web application is the right move because we have always had our sights set on the long game for COSMOS. The first release, while crammed with good stuff, was always intended to lay the basis for the ground-breaking innovations to come. Rushing COSMOS out with less polish didn't make sense in this context, we want to impress from day one."

So you pre-ordered Aion and you're super excited to jump into the game during the headstart release that's going on right now. You've set aside a whole block of time for your game play, you have your snacks at your side and your DVR ready to play some great entertainment while you grind your night away. You type in your username and password, accept the EULA, select the server that you made your character on during the pre-selection annnndd.....

...you get slapped in the face with a 2 hour wait time.

Don't worry, we've been there. Trust us on that. But here at Massively, we're not going to let you down in your moment of need. We've compiled a great list of fun things to do while you wait for that server queue to drop. Follow along after the break, and we'll be happy to show you the golden road to boredom elimination.

As ArenaNet has already warned us, their social networking resources will be utilized much more often in the near future. Earlier today, we saw evidence of this on the official Guild Wars 2 Facebook page as four new pieces of concept art for Guild Wars 2 have been released.

Now these aren't leaked shots or rumored from a friend of a friend, these are officially the first real pieces of confirmed concept art from the sequel to the highly successful Guild Wars. Follow along in our Guild Wars 2 concept art gallery below to see these images and stay tuned as we continue to bring you more as they're released, including the latest news as it trickles out of GamesCom.

One of the interesting things we at Massively find about statistics and surveys is how people react to surveys and research results about games, virtual environments and MMOGs. Unexpected results automatically attract criticism of every aspect of the report and data no matter how the results were obtained, from the political leanings of the researchers, to the way the charts are drawn. On the other hand, when the results of surveys or research agree with our expectations, people rarely question the results, again, no matter how they were obtained.

Therefore, we wonder what you all might make of this report, that 12% of Americans have purchased at least one virtual item in the last item within the last 12 months, and almost half (46%) of MMO gamers/virtual world users have done so within the same period. Obviously, that would include assorted free-to-play games, so-called 'freemium' games and environments, Facebook and all-sorts.

The survey was commissioned by global payment solutions provider, PlaySpan. The results are only available in summary, but we're interested in your reaction. Are the results what you expect, or not? And either way, do you dispute or accept the data?

[via GigaOm]

Today seems to be a day of contests! First we have the DDO stress test contest that's going to be occuring tonight, and now we have another one for Second Life! A contest of summer style, no less! Who's up for some virtual modeling?

It's the summer, and Linden Lab is interested in seeing everyone's summer attire -- like swimwear, bright colors, and the things you generally wear on the beach. So interested, in fact, that they're willing to lay L$10,000 on the whole deal via an Xstreet shopping spree.

GigaOM has posted up a fascinating feature by Wagner James Au which claims that World of Warcraft and Second Life, the two best known of the MMO major players, are not the be all and end all of virtual worlds. Far from it. The post was Inspired by the release of a report by Engage Digital which claims investors 'poured $237 million into virtual world-related start ups and payment systems last quarter'. That's quite a large number and not actually that surprising given the number of new MMOs and virtual worlds which have been popping up on the internet.

The post goes on to explain that an MMO's success does not depend entirely on vast subscriber numbers or players. Rather, it's more to do with the platforms. Au cites examples of MMO and virtual worlds only available on specific platforms or social networks including Facebook and MySpace which are just as popular as either WoW or SL, they just might not be as well known. Regardless, the post is quite a surprising read and definitely worth a peek if you need reminding that Azeroth and Second Life are not the only virtual worlds out there in cyberspace.

User-generated content is a contentious topic that puts developers, publishers, investors and ultimately users at odds with each-other. Investors and publishers often react with frank disbelief at the idea of allowing users to create their own content, but setups like Facebook and Second Life enjoy considerable commercial success.

Facebook's 2008 revenue was estimated to be somewhat in excess of US$200 million for 2008, while Second Life is estimated to have achieved somewhere between 100-200 million USD in the same period. User-generated content (UGC) can be highly profitable, but whether getting into those profitable situations, and moreover sustaining them is a whole other issue.

The first July 2009 State of the Game for Champions Online is out and it sure came with an interesting surprise. Namely, the addition of Twitter to the in-game feature set. Now we're sure some of you will scoff at this idea, but sit there for a moment while we paint you a mental picture.

You're inside a rather challenging instance, only moments away from the big fight. Your party is getting ready, resting up, etc and so you take a moment to hammer out a short message to your friends on Twitter. "Oh man, about to take on my Nemesis, Big Bad Boss Man, wish us luck!" you say, netting you a few encouraging replies. Then you engage and the ensuing carnage is nigh legendary. The party just takes a serious beating and is torn limb from heroic limb by your Nemesis. You decide to share this with the world, only to see your buddies instantly share their empathetic thoughts on your embarrassing defeat.

We think it's got some substantially fun possibilities. Plus, if Cryptic can work in Twitter support to their games, what else could they do? Facebook seems like the next step, but there's also Pandora and Last.FM support to consider, too.

If you're a fan of this website -- and I mean seriously, who isn't? -- then we have a special new group for you. Our brand new Facebook fan page has been created, and we want you to be a part of it!

Why should you join this group? Simple: free stuff and exclusives! As a fan of our Facebook page (not to be confused with our Facebook group), you'll get special beta keys, in-game item codes and other offers earlier than anyone else! We'll also be able to alert you to special exclusives and discussions aside from what goes on in the comments of this website.

Head on over to this link to join the fan page and thanks for being a fan!