Massively^™

Free to play, community-developed fantasy MMO PlaneShift today announces their latest release, version 0.4.01. PlaneShift runs well on Windows, Mac OS/X and Linux, and wouldn't it be nice if more MMOs followed that wonderful example? PlaneShift boasts 500,000 registered users, a fully immersive 3D world, quests, monsters, and so many features that they're having to cut some out. This newest version of PlaneShift comes with more changes than we can list here, but you can find the entire change log on their site.

What would a high fantasy MMO be without an accompanying orchestral soundtrack? The themes to EverQuest, World of Warcraft, Dark Age of Camelot and so on bring weight and importance to the adventure, and nobody can listen to the theme to the game they loved without having all the memories of close calls and fun times immediately come to mind.

Runes of Magic publisher Frogster has asked renowned German soundtrack composers Dynamedion to compose just such a soundtrack for their upcoming free-to-play fantasy MMO. Managing Director Pierre Langer (pictured) says about the soundtrack, "We see Runes of Magic as an amazing challenge. It is [...] our first Fantasy-MMO, one of our preferred genres." Dynamedion has contributed music to games such as Spellforce, John Woo's Stranglehold, Anno 1701, Drakensang and Die Siedler V & VI, and movies such as 10.000 B.C. and The Bourne Ultimatum.

We've set the pictures from yesterday's peek into the starting zone, to some of the newly-composed music to Runes of Magic, after the break.

Laugh while you can, Luclin. In five hundred years, you and your whole frickin' moon get blowed up. All the Akhevans who worship you, all those bubble-headed Centi alien creatures, all those weird red-skinned cavemen, those mana-sucking mind worms, it all goes kablooey. But you know all about that, don't you? Because when that world-enveloping storm, the Maiden's Scar, swept through this old Akhevan city of Ka Vethan, and left behind the Akheva Ruins we know today, and all your four-armed, sexless minions ran off in terror to Vex Thal, you just stopped caring. Let it all blow up, you screamed in your dark joy. Let them all die.

The Akheva Ruins, that old stronghold of the Akheva made of crystallized shadow, a once-living shrine to their mistress and creator, the Dark Maiden Luclin, is in shambles. Though seen today mainly as the level 50 to 55 hot zone, it's still a place of dark mystery and lore, explored in EQPlayer's latest entry in its "Into the Depths" series exploring the lore behind EverQuest zones. One thing they don't mention? How great Centi Toes taste in stew!

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and in Runes of Magic (AKA Radiant Arcana), Runewaker Entertainment has taken all they loved about Ultima Online and World of Warcraft, combined that with elements from EverQuest, EverQuest II and Final Fantasy XI Online to make a free-to-play MMORPG combining all the elements of both Western and Eastern games. It's like a highly-concentrated booster shot of high fantasy goodness -- and it's free!

Runes of Magic will include a dual class system, where you will choose a primary and a secondary class, armor dying, player housing, crafting, an auction house, unique mounts, a fully customizable user interface and either click-to-move or WASD controls.

The starter zone of Taborea has a deep and rich lore, a colony struggling to stave off the darkness, with your help. You'll need a PDF reader to read that, but we have some of the highlights in our gallery. Can a free-to-play homage to some of the Western world's greatest MMOs succeed on in North America? Distributor Frogster is looking for a US publisher to take that chance.

The game play video from the Chinese open beta (you can find that after the break) shows clearly the developers at Runewaker loved World of Warcraft perhaps more than is really healthy. Still, a free-to-play WoW clone may be exactly what players want, and Runes of Magic may just be different enough to make it interesting.

Lockpick Entertainment announced today that they have signed an exclusive agreement to distribute their MMORTS game Dreamlords -- the Reawakening in North America. Aeria Games, publishers of Stone Age 2, Dream of Mirror Online and many, many more free-to-play MMOs, will have Dreamlords in beta in July, looking forward to an August release.

Spencer Chi, producer at Aeria Games, called Dreamlords an answer to gamers' demand for a fun MMORTS (massively-multiplayer online real-time strategy) game. Dreamlords players will be able to buy in-game items and equipment with the Aeria Points currency common to all Aeria's games. Interested and want to know more? Then turn back to our extensive coverage of Dreamlord's path to publication.

Wanna bash stuff up good? Wanna capture little dinosaurs, train them up right and then send them into battle? When you see a broken tree branch with leaves on it, do you think "oooooh, a new club and a snack!"? If any (or all) of these sound like you, then you owe it to yourself to try out Aeria Games' latest prehistoric-themed MMO, Stone Age 2. Thump stuff good, collect baby dinosaurs from all over the world that will forever think of you as "Mum", and make the world safe for yourself and your tribe.

Our sister site, Big Download, has the client ready to download. The Stone Age 2 team has brought the servers up and open beta has begun. If you signed up in advance with Aeria, you may be finding a surprise in your in-box. For a complete list of the exclusive open beta goodies -- and a warning from the devs -- you can just go ahead and click on the break.

The Lineage II team is hard at work on the next expansion, the first of three dealing with the dark land to the west of Aden, Gracia. This dire land, infected by the evil summoned forth to balance the calling of the Kamael by the goddess Eva, is wild, wide, and scarcely ever explored. Now, Gracia's evil is creeping beyond its shores, and the fate of the entire world is at stake.

In advance of the formal announcement of the expansion in August, NCsoft has let slip some of the lore behind Gracia, Part 1. You can read the entire thing, right here, after the break -- and check out the screen shots as well.

EverQuest players love the Legends of Norrath: Oathbreaker cards that change the look of their weapons into weird and unique styles -- like the ornament at the right that takes any one-handed slashing weapon, and turns it into the fiery blade carried by creatures in Riftseeker's Sanctum. But the players have not loved so much the fact that the ornament takes up a valuable augmentation slot, which often means the weapon must be drastically reduced in power, just to look cool.

Since that's a trade-off few people really want to make, they've added ornamentations into the game. Ornamentations are single-use containers that take the weapon and permanently change the look of the weapon, but do not grant the weapon any of the stats or procs of the ornament. However, all the augmentation slots remain usable. Magus Alaria in the Guild Lobby will, starting Wednesday, July 9th, sell players a mutation device, for a small fee, that will turn an ornament into an ornamentation. We have a feeling she is going to be pretty busy that week.

Interested in KingsIsle Entertainment's forthcoming Wizard101? Do you have a deep desire to learn to cast spells and summon monsters in order to save your universe -- all universes -- from the evil machinations of one rogue wizard? Do you pore through Harry Potter books taking notes on the correct way to flick the wand when casting Oculus Repairus?

Yeah, we do, too. If you're lucky enough to be in the Wizard101 beta, you probably are busy dressing up your homonculous and decorating your cauldron, but for those of us still waiting to crack the ol' spell book, KingsIsle has released the documentary "The Making of Wizard 101", in four parts. We have magically gathered them together for you -- after the break. Enjoy!

Started in 1999, Neopets was one of the first kid-friendly online virtual worlds on the web, and is still fantastically popular today. Hoping to bring their success with Neopets into the MMO world, founders Adam Powell and Donna Williams started Meteor Games in 2007 to make a game targeted at a slightly higher age bracket than Neopets. Their still-unnamed MMO, due to be shown at this year's Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), will be a seamless, 3D world with elements drawn from today's top MMOs -- World of Warcraft is specifically mentioned.

Their new game will be a drastic departure from Neopets. Not only will it be a 3D world instead of a collection of minigames, but it won't be free to play. The founders believe they need a subscription in order to produce the highest quality game, but the price will be less than WoW, and there will be an item shop of some sort where new outfits, furniture and other non-unbalancing items may be bought. Meteor Games is also looking into ways to integrate cellphones into their game. Due out in some fashion in 2009, their MMO will enter a market already dominated by Runescape and will be competing directly with SOE's Free Realms, which promises to be free to play and run also on the Playstation 3.

Neopets is famous for its huge amount of content, involvement with players and accessibility. Can Meteor Games grab that same sort of success with a more traditional MMO? CEO Adam Powell explains their strategy in this interview with Gamasutra.

EverQuest and EverQuest II are getting the lion's share of the attention in SOE's Living Legacy promotion. But they are reserving something special for their massively collectible card game, Legends of Norrath. Win the Living Legacy Photo Contest, and not only will you get your picture painted, in character by artist Kieran Yanner for use on a Legends of Norrath card, but you'll be flown to the SOE Fan Faire this August. If you're an EverQuest player, your image will be made into a statue and placed into the guild halls of every guild in Norrath. If you are an EverQuest II player, your card will be made into a painting that can be hung in a place of honor in your apartment. All you need to do is to send them a picture that shows your passion for EverQuest. Find the complete rules on the Legends of Norrath web site. And good luck!

If it's Tuesday, it must be time for more news of Flagship Studios' upcoming free-to-play MMO, Mythos. Lead developer Travis Baldree tells German fan site Online Welten more about their plans for Mythos' future, Coming up are another class and another race. Travis also explains what sorts of things you'll be able to get with their RMT system, such as more slots for your "stash", and the ability to share your stash among other characters. Mounts are coming soon -- hope they're more unique than (yawn) boring horses. Information about new guilds, puzzle boxes, wedding rings and naked foot-races -- it's all there, in elegant English or glorious German -- your choice.

In his latest "Almost-a-blog", Travis also talks about their first epic quest-triggered Overworld boss. Everyone who helps take it down gets loot, similar to Warhammer Online's public quests. There's news about particle effects, Zone 2 progress, the consignment house and crafting. There also seems to be a lot of talk about open beta on the forums.

That's right Vana'diel adventurers, the numbers you've been waiting for are finally here! The mogs, under the strict supervision of Square-Enix, have drawn the winning numbers for the first ever Mog Bonanza lottery in Final Fantasy XI!

If you want to check the numbers, just log in and check out the message of the day that will appear for your server. If you miss it for some reason, you can always type in /smes into the control panel to see it again. It's important to check your marbles though, because you can only redeem your prizes until August 1st. If you have a winning marble, simply take it to your nearest Bonanza Moogle at a city port (Port Bastok, Port San d'Oria, Port Windurst) or the Chocobo Circuit and they'll redeem your marble for your prize!

The good gentlemen over at Pet Food Alpha have put together exactly how many winners there have been for your viewing pleasure. Over 837,000 marbles have won the rank 5 prize, Miratete's Memoirs, alone! That's a lot of marbles, kupo!

[Thanks, Fusionx!]

Pi Story, a 2D side scrolling MMO in the style of Maple Story, has announced a new round of their closed beta test. The beta is currently limited to previous beta testers for Aeria Games' lineup of import MMOs, or those quick enough to snag one of the closed beta keys they are giving away. If you'd like to get in on the casual MMO goodness that flows from Aeria Games, why not head over and sign up? From Pi Story to the incredibly popular Dream of Mirror Online to the pet collecting and raising game Stone Age 2 to the massively kung-fu game Twelve Sky (and many others), you'll find a game there you'll enjoy. And they are all free to play.

Pi Story tells the tale of a perfect world -- Pi -- that was torn apart by this very desire for perfection. Now the world is broken into shards, and your job is to bring these shards back together by finding all the pieces of Pi. Mmm. Pi. Pi Story features casual play, a very easy grouping system, instanced adventure areas, a strategy-based guild activity system and housing, an apartment of your own you can decorate as you wish, a built in web diary and browser, and built-in message boards.

Want to see more? Check out the gameplay video after the break.

There's news and views aplenty in the latest dispatch of helpful information and answered questions in this week's Camelot Herald! Each week, the enigmatic oracles in EA Mythic's stone fortress come down from their golden throne rooms to answer questions. This week's cover druid maces -- that look like hammers. That can't be right (and isn't!). Also mentioned -- how to invite people into invitation-only battering rams, how to open your house to all guild members of a certain rank, and how to find a certain very shy pig.

The Camelot Road Trip hits San Diego on July 26th, so if you would like your Dark Age of Camelot questions answered in person -- and you can get to San Diego -- RSVP so they know you're coming.