Promotions

Reaching the nine-year mark is quite an accomplishment in the MMO world, and Conquer Online plans to celebrate this milestone in style with a number of special events, bonuses, and gifts both in-game and out. From now through May 31st, players can enjoy a variety of festivities and goodies:

• Ongoing special events like Crazy Lotto, Naughty Bunny, and Crazy Invasion.
• Special discounts on offers in the shopping mall, including a four-hour event on +3 stones from May 26th to 27th.
• A chance to prove which server is truly best in the cross-server Capture the Flag battle.
• A Nurture Pack with useful healing and XP items to welcome newcomers.
• VIP gifts.
• Special upgrades to certain event rewards.

Oh, but that's not all!

• The pièce de résistance: Three lucky current Conquer Online players will win a free trip to China to take in the sights of Beijing and visit the TQ headquarters.

To enter the drawing, players must credit at least one $15.99 or one $29.99 TQ Point Card during the period between May 15th and June 30th (the more you credit, the more chances you have), have at least one level 50+ character, and be at least 18 years of age. For full details, check out the contest rules.

[Source: Press release]

Spiral Knights seems to be doing pretty well for itself. The latest official dispatch proudly states that the game currently has three million registered accounts in total, which is certainly a sign of good health. To celebrate, the development team is running a small promotion: all Elevators will cost no energy to use from now until Saturday at 5 p.m. EDT. Players under the effects of an Elevator Pass will see the two free days added on, so all players who want to take advantage of this will be able to.

The dispatch also reveals that the team is hard at work on developing new features for the next year, including new missions, more accessible DLC, and improvements to both combat and guild systems. All in all, if you're one of the three million account holders, it sounds like the game is going to provide you with more fun stuff to do in the future... and if not, well, you can always start the road toward four.

MindArk has given new meaning to the term phat lewt with its latest update for Entropia Universe. Players may now acquire one of a thousand Planet Calypso land deeds simply by hunting, mining, or crafting while in game.

Each land deed carries a real-world value of $100 (and deeds are often sold for much more on the open market), according to a MindArk press release. The deeds also provide revenue sharing through the game's citizenship program. Deeds began dropping yesterday, and MindArk says that they will continue to do so throughout 2012.

Planet Calypso is the oldest planetary playfield in Entropia Universe. The game boasts more than one million registered accounts and over $400 million in annual user-to-user transactions.

[Source: MindArk press release]

Star Wars: The Old Republic tire-kickers, this weekend's for you. BioWare is putting on another of its free Weekend Pass shindigs, and you're invited if you haven't availed yourself of a previous pass yet. The festivities kick off on Thursday, May 17th, and run through Monday, May 21st.

As with the preceding promotions, no credit card is required. Your characters will carry over should you choose to convert to a full account, and you'll be able to experience SWTOR's first 15 levels as well as all the character classes and origin worlds. PvP warzones and flashpoints are yours for the taking too, so head to the official website to learn more and get started.

Notorious Games is working overtime to highlight all of the changes it's made to its Xsyon sandbox. The company ran a 10-day welcome back promotion late last month, and it's doing so again starting this Friday. Previous subscribers will receive a free 10-day pass, while current players will get two additional weeks of game time on the house.

The dates for the 10-day passes vary, according to Notorious' latest press release. If you're a previous subscriber, check your email over the next few days to see where your game time falls within the larger five-week promotional window.

Also noteworthy for dedicated Xsyon players is the fact that the game's totem system will enter something called a decay phase once these trial periods are over. Totems represent land claimed by a particular guild, and those without any actively subscribed players will become abandoned in short order. Abandoned totems will then decay and free up the land for other players, while also leaving any buildings, resources, and containers free for the taking.

[Source: Notorious Games press release]

As Vanguard straddles the line between its old subscriber-only business model and this summer's free-to-play transition, the team is still plugging away at minor updates to the game. Today's patch brings a smattering of updates and fixes as well as the May loyalty rewards for current subscribers.

Active players will get to haul away five goodies from SOE, including a brown sloop ship, unique tack and barding, and a "Kamelott Overland Onslaught Life-Sustaining Exo-Skeleton" mount. Players can also pick up free supply crates and veteran's caches (the latter are available only for level 50+ characters) every 44 hours.

The update also fixed a few small issues with quests, retweaked some skills for Rogues and Bards, and changed a couple of items to make them work properly.

SOE will continue to dish out loyalty rewards until Vanguard goes F2P.

The Make-A-Wish foundation is a charity that helps make seriously ill children's dreams come true. Several months ago, Riot Games worked with the foundation to bring 17-year-old League of Legends fan and cancer sufferer Joe up to the studio where his favourite game is made. Riot was so inspired by Joe's visit that developers decided to give back to the Make-A-Wish in any way they could to make more children's dreams come true.

Following on from the success of community donations to the Red Cross during Japan's earthquake and tsunami, this week Riot announced a new donation drive in support of the Make-A-Wish foundation.

"From now, May 4, until 10:30 a.m. PT on May 18, 2012, Riot Games will donate 100 percent of the RP sale price for Joe's favorite champion, Jax, and his Jaximus skin to Make-A-Wish. To make it easier to help, we'll also be lowering the price of both the champion and skin by 50% during this period."

A recent listener of the Massively Speaking podcast sparked a lively debate about the mobile authenticators that MMO companies are so fond of asking us to use as an extra layer of security for our accounts. He suggested that companies that encourage authenticators are doing so less for our security than for their own financial interests or responsibility -- after all, if I'm using an authenticator, they can save money on support and security staff. Our listener also pointed out that authenticators are annoying to the point that MMO studios sometimes have to bribe us with minipets and other goodies to get us to enroll, which suggests that maybe more people than we'd think avoid that extra tier of security.

What about you -- do you use mobile authenticators when they are available, and if not, how do you and the games you play safeguard your accounts?

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!

Aion is incentivizing PvP in a big way this month thanks to a new promotion called A Broken Alliance. The bloodshed runs through May 16th as NCsoft is opening rifting portals and removing faction protection buffs from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. EDT each day.

Players who rift into enemy territory will receive reward items, as will those who log at least one PvP kill. Three players per faction will be selected to receive a special Cirruspeed mount prize (though it's worth noting that said mount expires after 30 days).

Finally, the devs will be spawning legendary raid monsters on Sundays. Full details on the promo events are on the Aion website.

Synergy and cross-promotion are what make the corporate world go 'round, so try not to boggle too much as you read the following sentences. Perfect World and Runic Games have teamed up to give you a unique way to access the Neverwinter beta. All you need to do is to pre-order Torchlight II.

The closed beta access comes with a couple provisions. You'll have to specifically pre-order through Perfect World to get beta access, as a Steam pre-order won't reap the same results. Also, it's important to note that Runic Games says that the "exact date of [beta] access will vary."

Runic Games is a subsidiary of Perfect Worlds, which also owns Cryptic Studios.

We found ourselves incredibly impressed with Neverwinter after getting our hands on it at PAX East, so it's great to have a guaranteed path into the beta. Make sure to read up on our impressions of this upcoming title from Cryptic.

[Thanks to Jay for the tip!]

Did you play the sandbox title Xsyon in the past year but you've let your subscription slip? Notorious Games wants your patronage back, and it's willing to meet you halfway with 10 days of free game time to check out all of the new additions and developments in the game.

Any former subscriber to Xsyon will receive a 10-day pass to the game sometime after May 18th. This time will be used over the course of five weeks. Eligible players will be notified by email when their 10-day slot is scheduled.

Xsyon recently celebrated its first anniversary and since launch has seen explosive growth of both player-created structures and the wildlife population. Other improvements that Notorious Games is proud of include a better crafting system, an overhauled UI, and tweaked visuals.