News items

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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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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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.

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.

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.

It's time for This Week in MMO, kids, and no, you don't need to adjust your televisions monitors. That is not Gary Gannon behind the mic this week, but it is Mike Schaffnit, and he's joined by Mike B. and Jason Winter for the customary MMO news roundtable.

Tops on the agenda is TERA, which went from announcing its launch date to having a potentially launch-affecting lawsuit leveled at it by NCsoft. As the week wore on things got a bit better thanks to pre-order announcements (and the associated closed beta invites), but there's still a bit of a cloud hanging over En Masse's maiden title that our trio discusses at length.

Other newsy bits include The Secret World's new trailer, World of Planes namechange, and the overbearing nanny-state that is South Korea. Check out the full show after the break.

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It seems as if the recent brouhaha over THQ's future was a bit overblown, as were concerns about the fate of the firm's Warhammer 40K: Dark Millennium Online MMO. Our sister site reports that DMO is on track for "fiscal 2014 and beyond" based on a THQ earnings report released today.

We consulted our corporate-speak decoder rings and determined that fiscal 2014 translates to April 2013, which puts the launch window slightly behind the original target date, according to Joystiq.

Last month THQ debunked a rumor tweeted by Kevin Dent that had the firm canceling its entire 2014 catalog and prepping for a firesale.

Gamespot, meanwhile, is reporting that THQ is actively seeking publishing partners for the game.

DC Universe Online's Game Update 9: Assemble For Battle is now live and operational, and it brings with it a few very interesting features, especially for players interested in group content. One of said features is the addition of role-optional alerts. As any MMO player knows, there's often a rather large population disparity between various roles. Generally, there's a ton of DPS with much lower numbers of tanks and healers, which can make finding a group a PITA if you're in the former camp.

As of this update, all alerts are considered role-optional, which means the longer a group waits in the group-finder for a certain role (such as a tank or a healer), the less picky the group-finder will be about filling that role. For instance, if a healer can't be found after a substantial period of time, the role will be filled by another available role. This is possible thanks to the team buff. Any time three or more group members are within range and line-of-sight of one another, the whole group will gain a buff to compensate for missing roles. For instance, a group missing a tank will get a damage mitigation buff, a group without a healer will get a health regeneration buff, and so forth. The official post notes that "the buffs are by no means a replacement for having the actual role in your group. But with some self-reliance, it will... allow you to complete the Alert successfully." For the full details on the new system, plus other features such as Novice Raids, click on through the link below to the official site.

It's official: As of yesterday, Star Wars: The Old Republic has 1.7 million active subscribers and has sold 2 million copies. That's good news for fans of the game, but it's also good news for both BioWare and Electronic Arts. Apparently, it's seen as very good news for Electronic Arts, as the company's stock has gone up by 6.1% in the announcement's wake. The stock closed on Wednesday at $18.44 a share and closed today at $19.56, an appreciable gain for the company and a sign of good health.

This is sharp contrast to some of the early analyst responses before subscriber numbers were released, as well as some suspicions that the game was falling after a few first-patch fumbles. Whether the game will rise further or stabilize where it is remains to be seen, but it's certainly making a strong showing out of the gate, and the financial sector is taking note.

[Thanks to Robert for the tip!]

It's been a while since we've featured a PlanetSide 2 lore update, mainly because more interesting gameplay info was on offer from Sony Online Entertainment. In the absence of new vehicle screens and Matt Higby Q&A's, though, we'll happily tell about the latest story-centric update to the official site (hey, some PS2 news is better than no PS2 news, amirite?).

Last night's blurb features one Tom Connery (presumably no relation to Sean, since it's the year 2640). Connery is prone to making holovid records of his life in the Terran Republic, and his latest is a somewhat harrowing account of a collapsing wormhole and the plight of the 40,000 colonists stuck on the wrong side of it. Click over to the official PS2 website for the full report.