The lifespan of the MMO genre is still fairly short when you take general gaming into consideration. Fifteen years ago, most of us wouldn't have dreamed of what's available online today, thanks to the innovators who brought together graphical roleplaying games and the MUDs of the day. People like Richard Garriott, Raph Koster, Starr Long, J. Todd Coleman, and a handful of others helped create what we know today as MMORPGs.

But who will be the innovators and trend-setters of tomorrow's MMOs? We see a lot of innovation these days, but ascribing those ideas to one person isn't as easy (or applicable) as it was in the early days of five-man studios. Still, there are geniuses in these modern studios making some much-needed improvements that will carry on for many years.

So if you're a player and you know of someone who will be known for his or her innovation in the future, let us know. If you're a developer who wants to call out a co-worker for something he or she has done to change the genre, get that name out there!

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Like many MMOs, Champions Online is at its heart a game of numbers. Your character type focuses on certain stats, and you want to make those stats go higher. But sometimes the way those stats work together is a bit less than intuitive in the live game, hence some recent changes to Super Stats and regular stats on the test servers. The biggest change assigns one primary and two secondary, rather than two Super Stats, to players, which alleviates the current problems with Super Stats (certain pairs of Super Stats work poorly together and are poorly represented in itemization).

Individual stats have also seen some tweaks: Strength is no longer hard-capped for melee damage, Presence has had its threat component removed and a soft-cap introduced, Ego is now solely a ranged stat, and Dexterity has seen improvements to its critical benefits. Roles are also being balanced differently, giving more consistent stat benefits that are more in line with what players in a given role will actually need to do. It's a pretty sweeping set of changes, but the end goal is to give Champions Online players a more straightforward numbers game to play.

Happy Friday, Betawatchers! Reader Mason tipped us off to the fact that sandbox Salem Online is now accepting signups for closed alpha testing. The team is hoping to launch said closed alpha in the next few weeks.

Tribes: Ascend and SteelWar Online have moved to our open beta list, while the closed beta list gets two new additions: steampunk pseudo-MMO Guns of Icarus and cutesy Divina. World of Warplanes and The Missing Ink, meanwhile, join our resurrected alpha category.

We also say farewell to Wakfu, whose global open beta period has come to a close. The game will be launching next week on February 29th.

And who could forget Guild Wars 2's two-day beta signup window earlier this week? If you missed it, our hands-on impressions and crafting guide might cheer you up.

Enjoy the full Betawatch roundup after the break!

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It's been two months since Star Wars: The Old Republic launched, and players have some questions. So it's a good thing that the development team is still hosting a weekly question-and-answer session for the community, with the latest installment addressing several new concerns about future updates. Among the answers are new features that will be coming with the second major patch, including animation adjustments for cross-faction parity and tweaks to docking at planets with orbital stations such as Tython and Korriban.

There are also plans for players to gain the ability to roll on equipment specifically for companions; the Need option will be disabled unless the item in question is designed for your advanced class. Amidst all of the good news, however, there is some bad in the sense that new ship models and customization are apparently on the table -- but for much further in the future. Take a look at the full list of answers if you're interested in seeing what players can expect for new features in the near future and the slightly further future.

The most recent tempest in a Diablo III-shaped teapot has been community manager Bashiok making a statement to fans urging them to lower their expectations for the game. Director Jay Wilson decided that this was worth a direct reply and stated in a recent open letter to the community that Bashiok's statements were "obviously sarcastic" and that the team does want fan expectations to remain high. The letter stresses that the development staff is quite happy with the game as it continues development and the current internally tested build in a better state than the beta.

Wilson goes on to claim that fans can expect a release date announcement in the near future, avoiding the dreaded Blizzard incarnation of "soon." Given his appraisal of the beta state, we suspect that the game will be heading for a retail edition before too long, at which point players will be able to decide for themselves whether or not their expectations were met.

It happens. Maybe you got sidetracked with an alt and another alt wound up gathering dust. Maybe you had real-life obligations pulling you away from a certain game for a while (like, say, a job that more or less relies upon a variety of game experiences coupled with apartment hunting). Or maybe one thing led to another and you just didn't think to log in for a while. Whatever the case, you've got characters who have been involved in roleplaying for a while but just dropped off the radar.

Of course, much like video game franchises, old roleplaying characters never really go away; they just go for longer period of inactivity. Unfortunately, diving back into a character you haven't played for a while prompts its own string of problems, namely the fact that from a story perspective said character apparently fell off the face of the planet for a while. So let's start small and lead your character back into the action, starting by figuring out where he or she has been for the past several weeks or months or years.

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While TERA's second closed beta event is in full swing right this very second, plenty of potential testers are raging at the heavens because the online store won't complete pre-order purchases and deliver the codes. Pre-ordering the title was the guaranteed path to beta, so it's understandable that players who had hoped to be giving this title a test drive are disappointed.

En Masse responded with an explanation and solution for the store snafu. According to the studio, the store provider experienced a "massive systems failure" yesterday, which caused the issues with saving purchases to the hard drives. The vendor is attempting to fix it, but there is no ETA on when the task might be completed.

The good news is that En Masse is watching the purchase logs and will be sending out game codes manually every two hours to pre-order customers. The studio assures everyone that his purchase will be recognized when the system is fixed and that if anyone accidentally purchased more than one copy by accident, the additional copies will be fully refunded.

This week's post illuminates three major systems on which the team is working to make Agon a more approachable world. With Darkfall 2.0, new players will start out in a safe training zone that is designed to teach the fundamentals of the game without the risk of imminent ganking. Plus, the devs promise "a nice adventure with an epic ending" to boot.

The other two systems are coming up with a way to protect mount theft and to encourage the player economy. Mounts in 2.0 will remember their owners for a time, and any thief will have to contend with being branded a criminal and coming under fire by guard NPCs. Finally, new markets will appear in all major cities and allow players to buy, sell, and place orders for others to fill. There is one catch to shopping, however: If you buy an item from another city's market, you have to either travel there personally to get it or pay a surcharge for delivery.

Skiing! Jetpacks! Pew pew!

Yes, kids, Tribes: Ascend is officially in open beta, and that means you no longer have an excuse. Hi-Rez Studios threw open the doors this morning, and despite the fact that the game's closed beta exceeded all expectations and hosted over 300,000 players since its November kickoff, there's always room for more.

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If you're in the mood for another glance behind the scenes at Sony Online Entertainment's art department, we've got a new PlanetSide 2 video that you'll want to watch.

SOE senior artist Roel Jovellanos walks us through the creation process on a Nanite Systems anti-aircraft gun. The Sky Lance starts out as a greyscale Photoshop sketch, moves to a Maya 3-D model, and goes through various stages of artistic wizardry to arrive at the final image shown above.

PlanetSide 2 is an open-world sci-fi MMOFPS featuring three factions and thousand-player battles that include infantry, ground vehicles, and aircraft.

[Source: SOE press release]

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Star Wars: The Old Republic players are consuming game content in four- to six-hour sessions on average, according to Kotaku and BioWare bigwig Greg Zeschuk. "When they play, their sessions are absurd," he said recently.

Zeschuk goes on to say both that the retention is a sign of the title's addictive "just-one-more" gameplay and that the firm is pulling an "intense amount of analytics and telemetry" from the title.

Finally, he hints at the theory that most SWTOR players are happy due to a general drop in forum tomfoolery. "You can tell when things are going really well in the game," Zeschuk explains. "The amount of forum chatter drops. People don't go to forums. They just play."

Take that as you will, and let us know how long your average SWTOR session lasts.

So here we are at the last part of a four-part mini-series in which Dave Toulouse, indie developer of games like Golemizer and Star Corsairs, and I have attempted to make a working mobile MMO. I started the series with the hopes of fostering discussion over design as well, and we have gotten some great conversations going in the comments section! I think many MMO gamers dream about game design at some point, and some go beyond that point and actually create a game. It can be tough, as this series has shown, just to get the basics down.

Well, here we are at the last. I wanted to go over some of the best ideas the readers had, cover what we were able to do with the actual game, and debate how much further it would need to go to be considered officially "done."

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Netmarble really, really wants you to play Uncharted Waters Online -- and it's not ashamed of a little bribery to make that happen. To tempt players into giving this nautical MMO a try, Netmarble is giving every new sailor a gift pack for the next month. The pack includes basic supplies, a skill handbook, an "anti-natural disaster item," and, er, LifeSavers. Probably not the candy, though.

In addition to the novice pack, players can earn up to three additional gift packs by leveling up. If a player hits level 20 in all three main skills, he or she will even be gifted a fine new sea vessel of his or her very own.

The giveaway goes through March 21st, so if you've been eying Uncharted Waters Online, you might want to make your move sooner rather than later to get in on this deal.

[Source: Netmarble press release]

Guild Wars has long been a source of mild frustration for me because not all of the game's achievements are account-wide. While aspects of the Hall of Monuments are based on your account's accomplishments and skill unlocks are accessible by alts, the game nevertheless discourages me from devoting time to my secondary toons, not when there are factions and titles still to grind on my main.

I'm intrigued by games that offer parallel power tracks that show your overall investment in the game, not just in one character. Lord of the Rings Online's Destiny and Star Wars: The Old Republic's Legacy systems do just that: They reward you for playing multiple characters by allotting you currency that can be spent on special rewards.

So today we ask you: Are you a fan of account-wide rewards like Destiny and Legacy points? Or do you think they unduly reward scattered play rather than specialization in one character and class in the game?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Funcom recently held another special hands-on event for The Secret World at its Montreal, Canada offices, where we sent freelancer François Blondin to cover all the exciting details. Enjoy his latest preview of the game!

Last weekend, I nabbed a second look at Funcom's upcoming MMO The Secret World, now scheduled for a June 19th release. I was going in with high expectations, having been blown away by my first playtest of this modern-world-based MMO, and I'll say that this second visit managed to convince me that this game is on the right track to impress gamers with fresh gameplay, vicious puzzles, an ability wheel full of synergies, and new elite abilities at the top tiers of weapon specializations.

I spent wasted a lot of time during my first visit testing out different builds, but I missed out on some content while doing that, and I realized that abilities and builds are something you'll come to naturally as you progress through the game as you earn ability points, choose where you want to go, and decide how you want to specialize. This time around, I got to spend more time exploring the game world, trying out missions, and blowing things up.

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The gulf between sparse previews of an MMO and actually getting your hands on it is wide indeed, but the makers of PlanetSide 2 have an idea. If they can't allow you in the game yet or show you a hands-on, why not describe how a battle scenario might go from start to finish? Creative Director Matt Higby did just that for fans, conjuring up an imaginary skirmish between two forces over the fate of a base, and in doing so highlighted how such PvP fights might occur in the game.

In this scenario, he envisions a base being attacked; that attack is then repulsed by its defenders. The former defenders proceed to launch aircraft to continue the rout until the attackers have retreated into their own base. Attack aircraft and air transports, he says, will be the first responders on the scene, as they're the quickest to get anywhere. From that point, he imagines the attackers rallying support to go on the offensive once more, with vehicles leading the way and ground troops following, swarming the base and capturing it for good.

Higby says that the tug-of-war between bases will be anything but dull and simple: "Now, distracting that tug of war is all the other regions that are all around here... There's lots of little strategic decisions and options that you can do in there that radically change the balance of the big battle that's happening."