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We've been talking about this game for months now, and Requiem: Bloodymare is finally available to play. Hailed as the first horror MMO, there are definitely aspects of R:B that are pretty gruesome. Whether or not they freak you out is between you and the game. I will say that, having played the beta, Gravity Interactive has made leaps and bounds in turning this title into something that I could spend a great deal of time playing.

What you behold is our First Impressions for Requiem: Bloodymare, a feature meant to give you some idea of what gameplay will be like once you've signed up for an account. Keep in mind: this is not a guide, there is no insider knowledge here. This post merely details the experiences playing this title for the first few hours; your mileage may vary. Up, up, and away!

Earlier this month we had the chance to take a tour of the free-to-play Joymax title Silkroad Online. A unique fantasy game, this microtransaction-supported offering transports players back to the time of high adventure along the trade routes between Europae and China. The game offers players the option to play either as a Chinese character, with a mix of magic and might, or a European character with a more traditional MMO role. Alongside the usual leveling and killing of monsters, the game features a one-of-a-kind trade run system, that pits players against each other in groups and against NPC brigands in a nuanced blending of PvP and PvE.

Today we have for you a screenshot and video-heavy tour of the game, offering insights into what it's like to try out this singular title. For our video offerings click on through below the cut to see combat in action, character creation, and a taste of what the trade run experience is like. For more information on the game, and to see far more of the unique character customization elements like the lady on the tiger above, click through to our extensive exploratory gallery. Either way, stay for a second and investigate the blending of East meets West that is Silkroad Online.

Lockpick Entertainment has been hard at work on the relaunch of their fantasy MMORTS Dreamlords the Reawakening, and their efforts have not been in vain. This title is just as rich and complex a game as you'd hope for. If you're the type of gamer who likes getting your hands dirty, the level of micromanagement alone will please you. As for the rest of you, you'll have to decide for yourselves whether DtR is your cup of tea.

To help you with that decision, we've put together this First Impressions post. Keep in mind that this is not a guide -- we have no insider knowledge to report. This is merely a record of our opinions and experience playing this game for the first few hours. As always, you can click on the pictures for their hi-res versions. Onward!

Every few months Square/Enix lets loose a report from the anti-RMT squad they have on the Final Fantasy XI staff. These individuals are purposed with one goal: to keep the paths and streets of Vana'diel clear of monster-farming TOS-breaking gil-sellers. It's a thankless job, and even here on the site we've had people complain that it's not working. Still the reports come out, and still we see the company release word that they've dropped the banhammer on another few hundreds of individuals. It's a never-ending race, with the rats always one step ahead of the cat.

The most recent report seems to indicate their previous actions against farmers who focused on fishing have been somewhat successful. The also make mention of some anti-farming techniques implimented in the May update, with further techniques added in this most recent June update. Between these two they're hopeful named monster hunting will continue to decrease. They've also released some numbers on recent bannings, trying to give us a sense of how active the team has been. Movement enhancers look to be the most-affected group, with 400 cheaters kicked in the first month of June alone.

Gametribe, the European carrier of Dream of Mirror Online (run in North America by Aeria Games), announced a new game update this weekend. The update will go live on the 25th, and it will add a new class to DoMO -- the Merchant. The Merchant "uses money to fight and create powerful attacks." Sounds cool, but expensive!

The update will also feature a handful of new quests, including a couple new steps to the main quest. The item mall will see the addition of greedy inventory bags. Unsurprisingly, those will increase a character's maximum inventory. Some new visual character customization options will be added as well.

We've given kudos to DoMO for its art style in the past. Brenda Holloway (one of the staff bloggers here at Massively) even wrote that it's better than World of Warcraft. Don't scoff until you've tried it! If you have an aversion to microtransactions, though, maybe you should just take our word for it and move on.

Friday the 13th: An inauspicious day for the superstitious crowd, but a great day for attendees of the Social Gaming Summit, held in San Francisco. The day saw a schedule full of great panels, populated by some of the industry's finest movers and shakers, among them representatives from Gaia Online, Nexon, Three Rings, and Gamasutra, among others too numerous to list here.

A particular highlight of the conference for this blogger was the panel entitled "Casual MMOs and Immersive Worlds", which provided a lively discussion on what it means to create a virtual social space, how to monetize free-to-play content, and what exactly is a casual MMO? Trying to divide attention between listening raptly and taking notes is difficult; here is the result, along with the panelists, after the jump.

Let's say you're responsible for an MMO that's steadily losing players. Without being able to pinpoint why, you head to the forums and listen in: "PvP sucks!" "Classes under/overpowered!" "Not enough kittens!" Making the tough choices is your job, and you realize you can't address all of these concerns in time to keep a huge number of paying players from quitting forever. What do you do?

Do you offer to make the game free? If your model depends on monthly fee revenue, switching to an ad-supported model or microtransactions is no trivial matter and won't happen quickly enough. Do you grant 5x experience for a month? People won't want to level up more quickly in a game they don't like enough to keep around. What's a good solution? If your favorite MMO were to make you angry enough to leave, what would keep you?

Readers of PC Gamer get a special gift in the July issue (currently on the stands): an exclusive Age of Conan item called the Totem of Origins, which lets the player teleport back to their home city once every 24 hours. This will probably make the July 2008 issue the best-selling issue of the year.

How do you feel about in-game items being distributed this way? Isn't it just a form of microtransactions? Would you like to see Age of Conan adopt an item mall scheme?

[Thanks, Yaisha!]

Red Herring has named Live Gamer, a virtual items trading company, as one of the top 100 privately held companies in North America in 2008. The annual Red Herring 100 North America Awards are given to companies identified as the most promising tech startups.

Love it or hate it, RMT is not going away. The virtual trading economy, which includes avatars, items and in-game currencies, is estimated to be a market worth more than USD 1.8 billion. Much of this trading takes place on the black market, exposing buyers and sellers alike to potential fraud. Live Gamer aims to remove the sketchiness from virtual item trades, enabling secure player-to-player trading while taking business away from some of the banes of the MMO world: virtual item thieves.

There's always a lot of discussion about what's going to be the next big thing in the MMOs industry. We all love to talk about the future and that's largely because it's a very interesting topic. So we just had to attend the "Online Games in 2013" panel at ION 08. This panel was actually introduced by Peter Freese, the ION Conference Director. It was easily one of the most packed panels I've been to thus far which is saying a lot since all the panels have been pretty well populated already.

The panel consisted of Erik Bethke (GoPets Ltd), Scott Jennings (NCsoft), Bridiget Agabra (Metaverse Roadmap) and Damion Schubert (BioWare). With a group of people like this I was expecting some varied and compelling conversation on the topic of MMOs in 2013. In the end we got just that and a quite a bit more.

Gamasutra carries word that Sony Online Entertainment has announced their intentions to offer RMT services for both Free Realms and The Agency when they're released. These services will be offered through the third party company Live Gamer, likely in a similar arrangement to the company's current model on the EverQuest 2 title. This news comes just a day after the announcement that Live Gamer will be working with Petrogryph Games on their upcoming free to play MMO.

Both The Agency and Free Realms have been recognized as possible RMT/Free to play titles since they were announced by SOE last year. The Agency will feature a card-based system which puts human assets at the players fingertips. Called Operatives, this living loot will most likely be tradeable via Live Gamer's managed RMT service. Similarly, Free Realms will offer purchasing options to players in the form of outfits, pets, and special items. Tradeable items might include collection compontents. Tentative plans also call for Free Realms to offer 'event tickets' to free players that would allow them to participate in subscriber-only services.

The full release is after the break. Stay with us for future coverage of this announcement, as we've contacted both SOE and Live Gamer for comment.

Acclaim Games, producers of 2Moons, have announced their new partnership with TrialPay, a service that offers people something they really want in exchange for buying a different item. Here's how it works: Companies will make money from TrialPay by offering their customers something for free -- in this case, Acclaim Coins, which can be used to purchase items in-game. If the customers purchase goods or services from TrialPay's advertisers -- for instance, a delivery of FTD flowers, or a Blockbuster membership -- the advertiser then pays the full value of what the original company is offering its customers.

It seems a little convoluted, and somewhat sketchy -- wouldn't it just be easier to stick with the pay-for-money option, which is already in place? Either way, money is leaving the hands of the consumer, so it isn't clear what benefit is obtained. If you must buy something, go straight to the source, we always say!

theMIX agency and RoomFullofPeople just recently announced plans to host InterPlay, a one-day event that will explore the overlap of online games and social networks that has nothing to do with that other Interplay. The conference is planned for May 22nd and will take place at the Kabuki Hotel in San Francisco.

If you happen to attend you can expect to see speakers from companies such as Bebo, DoubleFusion and Electronic Arts. Their will also be a strong showing of venture capitalists to offer their own perspectives on several subjects. The panels being offered seem like they'll vary, some of the included examples are "Micro-Transactions and Virtual Goods", "Funding the Social Gaming Sphere "and "Advertising and Marketing on Social Games".

Sounds like a fairly well-rounded event and being that it's only one day it should be full of interesting discussions for those interested in either social networks or virtual worlds.

Have you been pining away for a great golf MMO? We have, too! Look, even if you haven't, let's just go along with this, okay? Albatross 18 is an engaging, colorful, whimsical game that doesn't disappoint. When one considers golf, there really isn't too much to it -- hit the ball into the hole, rinse, repeat. The beauty of its simplicity is that a developer can go crazy with that concept and add all sorts of madness to it, and it can only improve the game.

And that's exactly what's going on with Albatross 18: beautiful environments, useful power-ups, crazy caddies, mascots, costumes -- this game is hilarious. Will you like it? Let's find out. As always, we remind you that this is not meant to be a full review of everything in the game; these are the first impressions we got after spending an hour or so playing. Excelsior!

High seas sailing Bounty Bay Online just recently began releasing their client free of charge, and dropped a brand new island into the Atlantic. Developer Frogster is still changing things up, with the announcement that they're opening a brand new free-to-play server for the game. Despite the free client, the older servers require a subscription fee, and have no microtransaction component. This new game shard, named the "Mary Read", will require no regular fee and offers players several unique items via an in-game item store.

The store charges 3 cents and upwards for a variety of items, including potions, figureheads, and treasure maps. Players can buy points, which they can then exchange for in-game items. They are also selling items that will boost your level and character power, allowing you to purchase your way to a level of power comparable with your friends. BBO players on the older "William Blight" server should remain unaffected by this new game addition; items bought in the store are only available on Mary Read.