Massively^™

Can you believe Tabula Rasa's one-year anniversary is soon approaching? While it's still a bit less than 2 months away, NCsoft decided to reveal the rewards for those veteran players who have stuck around for the entire year since the beginning.

First, we have the Resupply Beacon which teleports an AFS Resupply Bot to your character's location, allowing you and your entire squad to buy ammo, consumables and repair your equipment. Then there's a Dropship Extraction Beacon which acts as a portable dropship waypoint, allowing one-way access to the local dropship network for you and your squad. They've also added a new emote called Logos Greeting. This allows players to greet each other in the language of the Eloh with the /logosgreet emote. Finally, there's the new title "Special Forces" to help other players recognize you as a dedicated member of the veteran AFS special forces.

Check out the complete Feedback Friday for more information on what's in store on the Public Test Server and more!

With many players returning to EverQuest after SOE's Living Legacy promotion, there are probably a lot of people out there who are owed Veteran Rewards that are sitting unclaimed. A new guide has been posted at the EverQuest Players website which not only explains exactly what the rewards are and how they are earned, but more importantly, goes over all of the reward tiers and their effects. Be careful before you go "/claim"-happy though -- once a particular reward is claimed on one character, no amount of GM bribing can ever allow it to be moved.

The EverQuest Veteran Rewards offer some pretty neat effects, from experience and stat buffs, to a Bristlebane puppet, right up to a summonable robot merchant (if you've been around for 10 years!). Have a look at the guide to see what your loyalty will be rewarded with in the coming years.

The City of Heroes crew have finally announced the Veteran Rewards for players who've been subscribed for 51 and 54 months. Those who've been around for 51 months get the Tried and True badge, along with all the City of Villains pre-order helms: Red Wolfspider, Wolfspider, Mu Mystic, and Crab Spider.

At 54 months, along with the Allegiant badge, players can pick one of the permanent temporary powers they haven't already chosen: Sands of Mu, Ghost Slaying Axe, Nemesis Staff or Blackwand. The latter two of these can give a bonus dependent on your origin, so long as the appropriate one is chosen.

More rewards are always good, but we can't help but notice the reuse of content here. CoX already recycles quite a lot of former content as well as keeping the new stuff coming, so there will be those who roll their eyes at this news. Still, Natural origin characters will be happy, since they're the one origin that can get a bonus from both the Blackwand and the Nemesis Staff. Two hefty ranged attacks from Level 1 onwards is nothing to sneer at.

The Tabula Rasa weekend wrap-up offers the usual community news and Friday Night Fights review. But this was a special weekend for the men and women of the AFS: it's been just about six months since the game launched. (Hey, that means Massively is about half a year old too.) A new monthly milestone for an NCsoft game can mean only one thing: new veteran rewards! The six-month vet rewards are ladled atop the three-month Kirin mask, and the hilarious 1-month /jumpforjoy emote.

These newest rewards are downright goofy. Dedicated players will be getting access to three dance emotes (YMCA, breakdancing, and ballet), as well as a handful of costume props. These props include a green beret, a pair of brass Knuckles and (no, we're not kidding) a General British mask. Those Destination Games folks sure love their fictional military leader.

Time sure does fly when you play MMOs. The City of Heroes community team has officially unveiled the 48-month veteran rewards (yes, you read that right, that's four years!) for players who have been around since the beginning. In addition to a "Battle Hardened Badge," long-time players will get their choice of a summoned pet power. They can pick from a Light Fairy, Dark Fairy, Blue Wisp, Red Wisp, Shield Oscillator, Power Oscillator, Shield Drone, or Power Drone. Each kind of pet gives a specific bonus to the player and his team, so be extra careful which one you pick.

The existence of these pets was leaked last week (they're already up on the ParagonWiki, for instance), but it was widely believed that they were a hoax. According to players on the test server, the buffs they give can be substantial, and if you get a group of vets together, the group buffs stack. Granted, the pets have awful resistances and barely a drop of HP, but their buffs are strong enough that they seem to be getting the kind of proper reception you would hope to see for a four year veteran reward. The rewards should take effect after the live update this morning.

The next Vanguard content patch, Game Update 4, has now had it's features listed. Headlining the preview over at VGPlayers is the addition of flying mounts, and we get to see what they look like (that spiffy griffon pictured above, if you didn't guess). Also mention in the preview is the introduction of visible helmets -- while it's nice to see them in the game at last, it's hard to be too thrilled with visible helmets being a big feature in a patch for a game that's been out this long. GU4 will bring Veteran Rewards for older accounts to Vanguard as well, similar to what we have already in EverQuest II.

Over at the forums, there is an extensive list of the other things that GU4 will bring. Notable among these is a new overland raid target, Fengrot Foulbreath (designed for 18 well-geared high level players) and updates to the Druid, Necromancer, Shaman and Dread Knight classes. If you want to try out all the updates, the whole lot is already in place on the Test Server, so you can take to the skies with your fancy new helmet right now. We have the full list of changes for the patch posted after the break for your perusing.

If you're oldschool EverQuest II, and and by that I mean your account is oldschool, then some new rewards are coming your way. We learn from the EverQuest II Players site that four new veteran rewards will be available for those who created their accounts back in EQ2's earliest days.

Two of the rewards are standard fare, similar to past years, potions that increase the experience gained for either tradeskilling or adventuring, Draft of the Wise and Draft of the Skilled. You will receive a total of three of each of these. Slightly more exciting is the Treasure Hoard. Placing this pile of loot in your house will result in a 25% discount on your coin rent, which will prove handy for those currently paying an arm and a leg every week.

However, the last reward is probably the coolest of them all. Anyone who has visited Nektropos Castle (and if your account is old enough to be eligible for this reward, then you have) will recall the little dolls found there, in particular the one named Billy. Well, now you can transform into a Mystic Moppet Billy yourself. Apart from changing form, your size will also be reduced by 40%. Nothing screams "I'm a veteran!" like running around as a tiny moppet.

These tangible rewards are accompanied by a new title to show off -- you will be able to stick "The Zealous" on the end of your name just to make sure that no one mistakes you for a newbie. Not a bad haul when all is said and done. Even the experience potions will come in quite handy with the upcoming Rise of Kunark release.