Last year, I had the opportunity to meander around Xsyon for Choose My Adventure. Then, the game was still at the end of its beta phase. Now, with some time under its belt since release, the game continues to grow. And January has seen quite the growth spurt.

I won't complain if the momentum that Xsyon has shown in the last month keeps up. Announcing multiple events and an architecture contest? Not to mention introducing new goodies? You go, game! Though it's small and indie, I am totally rooting for this title to succeed. Why? The main reason is that the game is reliant on player generated content: Instead of developers designing every aspect of the game, they built the world as a foundation and gave players the tools to go from there. This game is one of the few out there that offers many avenues for players to generate their own content and have a visible and lasting impact on the world around them.

And just how is post-apocalyptic Earth shaping up with the players at the helm? This week, Some Assembly Required explores the once-ravaged land to highlight some of that generated content, from events (both player-run and developer sponsored) to small- and large-scale construction.

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I thoroughly enjoy reading your comments, especially when the discussion turns to game design or suggestions for development. I decided it was high time that I sat down and experienced, even if just a little, how the design process goes. I've had plenty of peeks at different studios, but I wanted to know what it is like to actually make a game from basically beginning to end.

So for the next four weeks, I will be doing something special. I invited indie developer Dave Toulouse, maker of Golemizer and Star Corsairs, to help me in this journey. If you'd like to find out more about Dave, you can visit his official website, follow him on Twitter, or even read an interview I did with him a while ago. He really is the epitome of the indie spirit, and I am so thankful that he volunteered to do this with me.

The goal is to start with a basic idea and framework, and using input from our discussions and from reader comments, assemble a very basic working mobile MMO. So let's get started!

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If you're an avid player of Perfect World International, February 15th will be the day that it all goes down. That's the launch date for the game's latest expansion, Descent, which brings along a variety of improvements and upgrades to the game. Despite the low implications of the name, the expansion will be focusing on high-level conflict, with a new zone open to players of level 95 and up to explore. Said zone includes new quest hubs, two new dungeons, and of course several new pieces of equipment.

Progress through the zone will also bring characters into contact with the three Orders, forcing players to choose between the Orders for special character perks and improvements. Even without membership, however, each class will be gaining some new and unique skills that should alter the current distribution of abilities rather than reinforce existing roles. If this sounds right up your alley, check out the full expansion trailer just past the cut, and mark your calendar in advance.

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This week, TERA revealed the details of its North American and European pre-orders and associated closed beta tests. WAKFU, still in beta but launching at the end of February, likewise unveiled its subscription plans, and Mythos Global officially entered open beta. Again.

Finally, Brick-Force, a Minecraft-inspired sandbox-shooter pseudo-MMO (say that 10 times fast) from German publisher Infernum, joined our open beta list.

Read on for the entire Betawatch roundup.

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"What an amazing year it has been," begins Scott Hartsman in his one-year state of the game report for RIFT. Citing Trion Worlds' ability to "think about MMOs a little bit differently than everyone else," Hartsman recalls the mountain of accomplishments of the previous year, including the seven major content updates leading up to the recent Update 1.7 and the RIFT Lite service.

The best part? "We're just getting started," he exults.

Hartsman identifies the "key themes" of the team's 2012 focus, including playing with other people, improving the soul system, leaping forward in PvP, coming up with new ways to interact with the game world, and expanding RIFT's endgame. The interactions theme is intriguing, especially considering his phrasing: "When we say interact, we mean both interacting with the game in non-combat ways, and interacting from out of game entirely."

The letter dives into more specifics with each of these themes before culminating in a promise of even more surprises to come later this year.

Bringing someone new into the world of an MMORPG can be a difficult task. BioWare is trying to make it easy for MMO newcomers to get into Star Wars: The Old Republic, and to that end the team has launched the first of a series of video guides to playing the game. The first video, narrated by Social Media Coordinator Eric Musco, covers starting fresh in the game, creating a character, and taking part in your first conversations.

Of course, you might be an old hand at playing the game by now. (If not, the video is embedded just past the cut.) For those players not in need of a helping hand, BioWare has also announced the launch of two weekly features -- a blog post rounding up all developer posts to the forums over the prior week, and a Q&A session that will pull 10 questions from a community thread to be answered each week. So even if you don't need help getting into the game, you can have a little extra guidance about what's going on behind the scenes.

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You! Yeah, you! You still haven't played Global Agenda, have you? I know, I know, you're going to get around to it, it's on your list, blah blah and etc. While you've been dilly-dallying about, Hi-Rez Studios' sci-fi shooter has gone and turned two years old!

That's OK, though, because the game has more options, more content, and more pew-pew than at any time in its history, and thanks to a gaggle of anniversary events, now is the perfect time to saddle up.

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Victory was originally picked up to be published by GamersFirst, but after three years of deliberation, Vae Victis decided to self-publish the title "to best fulfill each particular need it will have and finally create the best possible product for our beloved players." The official post goes on to announce the initiation of Victory Beta 1, which is "a new version of the game that offers dozens of new features and fixes," such as the addition of a matchmaking system, achievements, new game modes, the Pro class for experienced players, and much more. For the full details, head on over to Vae Victis' blog, and then click on over to the game's official site to get behind the wheel.

As the groundhog pops up to see his shadow, so too do the devs of Champions Online pop up with their monthly UNTIL Field Report, dishing out the plans and proposed future updates for the game. This month's report is rather lengthy and kicks off with a promise about upcoming "ambitious" re-itemization of all items and rewards in Champions.

Currently in testing and on deck for the near future is a '90s Iron Age costume set, alerts, zone balancing, and a look at why them women folk walk so dang funny (apparently arms and legs are moving out of sync on female characters). Players also have a new travel power -- Distortion Acrobatics -- and specialization trees to look forward to.

There's also some good information in the report as to why some features and concerns have yet to move from low to high priority, such as the "lukewarm" feedback of team duels and the difficulties of balancing XP gifting.

As the next update for Champions Online nears, Cryptic promises a more in-depth series of dev diaries detailing the changes.

Do you consider yourself a rock star within your MMO? Do men and women swoon upon your approach? Does a soundtrack ring out exalting your triumphs with every step you take? Do you carry a Sharpie around at all times to autograph body parts? Then you probably have an ego problem or something.

For everyone else, A Casual Stroll to Mordor is calling on creative talents to come up with fun "I am a rockstar" videos for Lord of the Rings Online -- and the site is willing to pay handsomely for the best efforts. Players are tasked with making a rock star-themed commercial, which can be any shade of serious or funny, and submitting it for a chance to win in-game store cash. Two Turbine Point cards, valued at 2500 and 1500 TP, are up for the first and second place winners.

Entries for the contest are due by February 17th. There are several rules for prospective video-makers, so head on over to CSTM for the full details.

We here at Massively always have a soft spot in our otherwise cold and calculating hearts for players who take the initiative to help a fellow gamer out in a fun and creative way. So we couldn't let a story slip by about how a group of EverQuest II vets are planning to shower newbies with gifts and goodies in the hopes of fostering a better server community.

Jayne on EQII's Freeport server is helping to organize the return of the Pay It Forward player event, an activity that apparently got a lot of great responses the last two times around. What is Pay It Forward?

It's a day when adventurers and crafters come together to donate crafted goods, items rotting away in your bank, plat, rares, masters... you name it... to young adventurers, asking only that they perform some random good deed for a complete stranger in return.

He's asking that interested participants meet at the crafting area on the Isle of Mara tomorrow, February 4th, at 4:00 pm EST with gifts to hand out to low-level players.

Leave it to Conan O'Brien to offer up the funniest take on Star Wars: The Old Republic's same-sex relationship controversy (which, incidentally, isn't that much of a controversy until it's actually in the game!).

The late-night talk show host treated viewers to some "exclusive footage" -- apparently authorized by George Lucas himself (wink, nudge) -- that pairs up Star Wars icons like Darth Vader and Boba Fett and Yoda and Galen Marek (also known as Starkiller). Oh, and wait until the Family Research Council gets a load of Han Solo and Chewbacca. Check it out after the break.

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Bigpoint has let us know that it's about to kick off what it calls "space trials" for some new carrier-class ships in Battlestar Galactica Online. The craft will be visible on the Kobol beta server today in both Colonial and Cylon variants.

Carriers function as support and supply vessels and can also serve as mobile outposts with repair and recharge capabilities.

What's that? You say you want to pilot one of these shiny new vessels? Well, this is Bigpoint, so you'll need to enter a lottery via the community forum for your chance to jump in the cockpit of BSGO's latest and greatest. If you're not up for that, the ships will be available to all players on all servers after the completion of the trial period at the end of this month. You'll need to be level 40 (and in possession of nearly 500,000 in-game cubits) to get one for yourself.

When CCP Games laid off 20% of its worldwide staff back in October of last year, the World of Darkness dev team bore the brunt of the cuts while DUST 514 continued on course for its launch later this year. In an interview over at TenTonHammer today, CCP's new Chief Marketing Officer, David Reid, joined CEO Hilmar Petursson to discuss the development of both games. Hilmar reveals that a team of 60 developers are currently working on WoD, and that DUST 514 will be playable at this year's EVE Online fanfest event in March.

Despite acknowledging that the entire PlayStation Network comprises a total of 60 million users, Reid asserts that DUST will bring "tens of millions of people that play shooters on PSN into the New Eden universe," going on to make the bold statement that "EVE could be the biggest game in the world at the end of 2012" as a result. Reid also claims that "EVE Online is the only game in the West that has shown consecutive growth year after year," a statement that's sure to upset RuneScape developer Jagex and others. The statement also comes with a slightly bitter note as this year EVE may have lost its record of continual subscription growth during the summer drama.

A couple of weeks back, I wrote an article about dealing with a major ongoing storyline in an MMO. For those of you who neither read the article nor can spare the time to click the link and read it now: It talked about the problems presented by having a storyline and offered a few different solutions for handling such inconsistencies. Of course, as I noted, very few of these problems apply to open-world sandbox games that have no sort of ongoing developer-run story for you to stumble around.

No, those games have issues entirely their own, starting with the very nature of player-run stories.

A completely player-driven story has the advantage of not having several issues that can crop up when dealing with an ongoing in-game story, but it also still has some serious problems. There are still issues that you're going to have to have answers for when you're in a game that lets you craft the world to match your whims, and unfortunately the methods for doing so aren't quite as straightforward as the methods for dealing with an in-game storyline.

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Casey Schreiner returns with this week's MMO Report, G4TV's weekly newscast about all things massively multiplayer. First up is a shout-out to the newly free-to-play EverQuest, though Ultima Online, Meridian 59, and The Realm players might dispute Casey's notion that EQ "started it all."

Funcom's new Blue Mountain trailer for The Secret World also gets a mention, as does the Family Research Council's facepalm-inducing reaction to the prospect of same-sex snogging in Star Wars: The Old Republic. TERA's legal troubles are next, and Uncle Casey's mailbag rounds out this week's show. Head past the break to watch it in full.

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With WAKFU's launch rapidly approaching later this month, the information is pouring forth fast and furious from this free-to-play title. One of the biggest questions that players have at this stage is just how a game is going to make its money, and in the case of WAKFU, Ankama is certainly hoping that the experience is fun enough to warrant a regular subscription.

If you're already on board with the WAKFU philosophy and wish to subscribe for a premium membership, then Ankama has a few great pre-launch offers for you. By signing up for three, six, or 12-month plans, you can net yourself plenty of in-game items as well as the esteemed title of "WAKFU Pioneer."

Ankama has also published a helpful chart illustrating the differences between the F2P and subscription plans -- such as whether or not you can become an eco-terrorist (we kid you not). Other differences include the ability to own a home vs. set up an in-game shop, how many professions you can master (six vs. 16), and whether or not you can run for office.

[Thanks to Derek for the tip!]

Despite the fact that video game addiction lacks both a definition and a diagnosis, "researchers around the world continue to investigate methods of determining, treating, and preventing" it, according to Gamespot.

The American Psychiatric Association recently rejected a movement to incorporate game addiction into its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but that hasn't stopped folks at the National Development and Research Institute from publishing the findings from a survey conducted with 3,380 adult gamers.

The study found that five percent of participants reported "moderate to extreme problem game-playing." Commonly reported problem titles included Call of Duty, the Grand Theft Auto series, online poker games, and World of Warcraft. The team concluded that "there is evidence to suggest that problem game-playing is linked to particular kinds of game genres" and that further research is needed.