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In another of Funcom's E3 interviews (this time with MMORPG.com) Erling Ellingsen and Senior Marketing Manager Rick Reynolds discussed a new edition of Age of Conan which they hope to release in time for the holidays. For now they could not say what else this version might entail besides a fancy box (Keaira with a big candy cane?), but it may be something along the lines of a unique piece of gear -- undoubtedly it won't have any must-have function after the Totem of Origins debacle.

A lot of the rest of the interview runs similar to what we've seen already, but there is a brief mention of the Kingship system. We don't really find out anything that wasn't mentioned in the newsletter which announced the system back in June, although Ellingsen and Reynolds commented that graphics engine improvements currently being made should allow "hundreds" more players to participate in massive PvP without issues.

The last section of the interview covers the Xbox 360 version of AoC, which is slated for a release at the end of 2009. These uber-latecomers will be able to choose between mixed platform servers, or a console-only affair.

Rejoice, Azerothians everywhere! Yet another outstanding in-game holiday is upon us, as the World of Warcraft continues to change before our eyes. The Midsummer Fire Festival is rolling out today, with numerous changes incorporated into this year's festivities. Unlike the lackluster event of years past, Fire Fest '08 incorporates some of the best elements of Brewfest, the Lunar Festival, and the last overhauled holiday: Hallow's End.

Players can participate in a number of holiday-themed activities. These include: frolicking around a fire pole, visiting a number of bonfires scattered around the world, torch tossing, and a boss encounter deep in the heart of the slave pens. Taking part will earn a special event currency, called Burning Blossoms. Blossoms can be turned in at merchants for special seasonal rewards. The rewards range from some simple particle effects all the way up to a mini-pet, the Spirit of Summer. The fest should already be in full swing, so get yourself into town and light that fire!

In the United States today it's Memorial Day, a holiday designed generally to remind the average citizen of the military's role in the union. As it's a government holiday, this means a lot of people in the states have the day off of work. There's not likely to be a ton of breaking news today as a result. Here at Massively we'll keep the MMO-newsfires burning just in case you need a break from barbecuing or relatives.

It does beg the question, though: what are you doing today? Stepping AFK to have a burger or brat with loved ones? Camping, maybe, or attending a parade? Or are you celebrating the way we do every holiday, Pinky? By jumping online and touching base with friends in a massively multiplayer game? Give us a shout-out.

We'd like to take this morning to /salute the gaming moms (and grandmas) out there. From some members of our staff who have gaming moms, to other members of the staff who are gaming moms, they are becoming more and more common in the MMOG/VW landscape. We know moms who run guilds in EverQuest, raids in World of Warcraft, create beautiful virtual world content in Second Life, mod large gaming forums, theorycraft, and everything in between!

Today, we'd love to hear about any gaming moms you know; friends, guildmates or family! Do the gaming moms in your circle rock the arena? Are they the awesome guild moms who help new players out? Perhaps you are a mom who can tell us about your gaming life as a mom. Whatever the flavor, we here at Massively hope all the moms out there enjoy a day full of epic loot, good times, and lots of pampering! (Also, if you forgot it was Mother's Day in the US and Canada, you still have time to get to the store and get a card!)

It's always fun to talk about in-game MMO holidays. Christmas events give you a chance to get into the holiday spirit even if real life isn't that jolly. Trick-or-treating in-game is more rewarding that walking around in the cold and dark on October 31st, and won't make you feel as foolish. And most games have implemented at least one holiday that's all about drinking - hard to argue with that!

This weekend World of Warcraft's top-drawer holiday events roll on with the original event Children's Week. This event, which began on May 1st and will run through May 7th, gives Horde and Alliance warriors alike the chance to step back from questing and PvP. There's a kid in an orphanage that really just wants to get out and see the world, and you're their ticket to fresh air and good time. Our sister site WoW Insider has a pair of gallery guides up that will lead you through the quests in Shattrath City. They're lucrative and fun, each netting about 50 gold and almost 2000 Lower City faction. The quests for Orgrimmar and Stormwind are still up, of course, and you can earn some factional rep that way as well. Both questlines result in one of three unique pets - a tough choice but one well worth making.

Gallery: Children's Week: Shattrath City -- Horde

For those not paying attention to their calendars, Easter is nearly upon us (it's early this year!) and that means another year of Noblegarden for the WoW-faithful. Last year's event left a little something to be desired, as Noblegarden wasn't given the same decorative fanfare as some of the more "major" holidays like Halloween or Christmas. It was a one day event and players had to travel all the way back to the starter areas to join in the hunt for multi-colored eggs, and the rewards, usually just a piece of chocolate or a couple copper, were hardly worth the effort.

While we've gotten no promises that things have changed substantially this year, Noblegarden is back again and once more we are diving into it hoping that Blizzard has seen the error of their ways and made the event both more festive and rewarding for players. About the only change we noticed in the description on the official page was that eggs would be scattered around the major cities this time around, so it should be interesting to see if foot-traffic picks up. If nothing else, we're hoping we can at least get our hands on one of the holiday costumes (an Easter Dress or pieces of a Tuxedo) without searching through eggs for half the day.

Today we have a wild screenshot from the Lunar Festival in World of Warcraft from Edward. (No character name given, but we know he's on Bronzebeard.) Apparently people were dragging Omen (the large two-headed dog) onto the lower-level players teleporting into Moonglade -- and having a great time watching Omen eat them. Here's what Edward had to say:

This was my first experience at the Lunar Festival in Moonglade. That's Omen coming down the path, raining one hit death on my poor Mage (not pictured). I'm on Bronzebeard, but I'm sure other servers looked similar. I wish I'd caught an earlier picture of the carnage. It was easily four times this many skeletons littering the ground. Fantastic.

Having been in similar situations where big nasty things ate our face, we can certainly sympathize. How about you? Do you have any screenshots of massive carnage and mayhem that you'd like to share with the rest of the world? Send those puppies (no pun intended) to us here at oneshots@massively.com. Your picture could be the next one we feature!

Perhaps you remember our holiday postcard contest -- where we asked you send us holiday-themed postcard images from your favorite games. It may not be the holiday season anymore, but here at Massively we like to think there's room for delicious eggnog holiday cheer every day of the week! After extensive deliberation, our team of judges found enough time away from their favorite MMOs to look through the entries managed to come to a decision on the winners. Thanks to everyone who participated, and congrats to our winners: Durinthal, Cyn Vandeverre, Emerson, and Kevin, who are all walking away with some cool computer accessories, including Plantronics headsets, Logitech G15 gaming keyboards, and Logitech G9 laser mice.

And for those of you more interested in our 12 days of holiday giveaways, we've got winners for them as well! Congrats go out to Andy, Andrew, Dermit, jgodden, Speedmonkay, Curious George, trevrd, Auriea, DC Flyer, Dragnipurake, Shinagani, and celeron450 who each picked up a first place prize of a game time card of their choice. While they didn't get any game time, our second place winners did get some delicious candy: Paul, Ryan, Ryan (different people, same name!), Speedmonkay (one lucky guy), onetrueping, Moopcow, NCteacher, crispy, Fuzakeya, Quejebo, Animagnum, and Girricane!

Our top two postcard winners are included after the jump for your viewing pleasure!

The post from New Year's week about 'vacationing' in the world of Guild Wars got me to thinking ... wouldn't some places in Massive games make great holiday hot-spots? I don't know about you, but I already use online games as a cheap and affordable vacation destination; hopping online is a great way to relax and get away from the workaday world.

But what if you could actually book a trip with a travel agent to Ferelas, or hire a guide to let you see the sights in Paragon City? For me it would depend on the purpose of the trip, you know? If it was a trip with just my wife, I think we'd want somewhere beautiful and relaxing ... somewhere in the Shire, maybe? If I was going with friends, I'd probably be looking for someplace a bit more lively, like the Mos Eisley cantina or Shattrath City. I bet Shat has some great bars. Think of the drinking contests! And if I were going by myself, I'd definitely want to head somewhere I could have the chance to learn something, a place where I could have some quiet time. The Shing Jea Monastary jumps to mind immediately, as does the Plane of Knowledge. Yeah I know ... I'm a nerd.

But that's me. Where would you go if you could take a vacation in your favorite MMOG?

Hopefully you all like rodents, because if you happen to log into Final Fantasy XI anytime before January 14th you'll be greeted to the mysterious rodent-like beastman of Vana'diel. Said beasties could be "divine disciples" or "unsavory swindlers" and the only way to find out seems to be to brave the wide world. Ending their announcement with a wish of good fortune, the team behind FFXI don't seem to have the desire to divulge any more information beyond that. Seems pretty cryptic to us, but when you're basing your entire new years concept on the Chinese zodiac I suppose that it calls for a little exotic flavor.

I'd like to think that these rodents are kind creatures sent to give us all cooking advice, but I suppose not all of them are going to be friendly. Would it be too much to hope for a Master Splinter-type of rodent to train players? It might not be, considering that the year of the rat is just around the corner anyhow. Our only word of advice is to bring along a big chunk of cheese with a nice, strong aroma.

[Via Ten Ton Hammer]

You won't need your binoculars to spy on the neighbours this time around, as citizens of Norrath have opened their doors to the public to let everyone take a gander at Frostfell's unique decorations being put to use. Even before the holiday furniture and decorations had been made live on regular EverQuest II servers, we were able to see what it all looked like courtesy of EQ2 Traders on Test, but this collection of shots at EQ2 Players shows off the different ways in which people have arranged and designed their festive displays in their own in-game housing.

Each stunning setup is accompanied by the responsible player's name and server, and there are 28 shots available for browsing. If checking out these screenshots leaves you wanting to pimp out your own crib, it's worth nothing that EQ2 Traders have updated their list of Frostfell furniture to help you decide what belongs in your own holiday-themed exhibit.

Steve sends in this festive Guild Wars Wintersday shot taken in Lion's Arch. What this holiday tree lacks in foliege, it certainly makes up for with the beautifully wrapped gifts below. (Could anyone in-game check if there's a package addressed to us? We're just sure that NCsoft must care enough to give us something!)

Do you have any good shots of holiday celebrations in your favorite game? Send 'em our way (or dress them up a bit and submit them to our holiday postcard contest!), so we can feature your screenshot and story for tomorrow's One Shots! It's easy to participate -- just send your screenshots and stories to oneshots@massively.com.

You must have seen our holiday postcard contest by now, yes? If you have, what are you doing still reading this? Get in-game to grab holiday screenshots to share with us! (For a chance to win some great hardware to complete your gaming arsenal: headsets, G15 keyboards, and laser mice.) And if you haven't, go check it out! But either way, that's not the only thing we're doing to celebrate the holidays on Massively! For those of you who feel you have limited artistic talent (but how much talent do you need to take a screenshot?), we're doing daily giveaways for the duration of the contest. Entering is simple -- just leave a comment on this post between now and 5:00 PM EST tomorrow (that's Tuesday, December 25th). To be eligible you must be age 18 or older and a resident of the United States: please read our official rules for full details. You can enter once in each of our contests -- so if you don't win this one, check back tomorrow at 5:00 PM for another chance to win!

We'll pick two winners: first place will receive their choice of game-related goodies (your options are: 60 days of WoW, 60 days of any NCsoft game, 30 days of EverQuest/EverQuest II/Planetside, 50 days of EVE Online, 60 days of Lord of the Rings Online, or 7500 Lindens) and second place will receive a caffeine candy sampler (for those late-night gaming sessions!) from ThinkGeek.

Reader Steven shows us what Wintersday in Guild Wars is really like with this shot from Wintersday 2006. Though you really have to see the larger version of this shot to fully appreciate it (just click on the image for a full-size version), even at this scale you can see that the ground is littered with presents, presents everywhere!

Do you have any good shots of holiday celebrations in your favorite game? Send 'em our way (or dress them up a bit and submit them to our holiday postcard contest!), so we can feature your screenshot and story for tomorrow's One Shots! It's easy to participate -- just send your screenshots and stories to oneshots@massively.com.