MMO News Wrap-Up

09 Apr 2010 at 13:23:07 by Bill Vaughan

So it's time for another complication of all the big MMO updates, gossip and general goings-on from the past week, which this time includes news on City of Heroes, Runes of Magic, Aion, World of Warcraft, Dungeon Fighter Online, Battle of the Immortals, TERA, Dungeons and Dragons Online and TLBB.

Possibly the most intriguing bit of info this week was that NCsoft has registered the trademark for City of Heroes 2. The current version of the game is six years old, just a few months older then Blizzard's World of Warcraft, and NCsoft is still adding new content and features to it regularly. However, the registration indicates NCsoft's interest in extending the franchise, and while it may not be definitive proof of a sequel to CoH in the works, it looks promising for fans of the game. We contacted NCsoft for a comment but, unsurprisingly, the rep wouldn't give us any clues. He did take the opportunity to remind us that the City of Heroes expansion, Going Rogue, is due out in July though. If you haven't seen the trailer, put a couple of minutes aside to do so.

En Masse Entertainment released a comprehensive FAQ about the upcoming second Focus Test Group for its highly anticipated MMO, TERA. Anyone hoping to take part in what is essentially a closed beta test still has time, the invites will be sent out from Monday, so be sure to check your inboxes and spam folders if you're hoping to try out this action-packed good looking MMO.

Dungeons and Dragons Online received Update 4 on Wednesday, adding heaps of new content to the game. The new adventure pack 'Sentinels' sees blood-thirsty pirates appear from the seas and, if that wasn't bad enough, these pirates can come back as zombies once you've taken care of them the first time. Players must battle this new threat in various ways; fight them on their ships, assault their lair, identify pirate spies and finally kill off the pirate leader himself, Captain Tew. You can check out the full patch notes, which also list several bug fixes and other small additions, here.

From one free to play MMO to another; We were lucky enough to get some time out with Jörg Koonen, the English Community Manager for Runes of Magic, who answered a bunch of questions we had about next month's Chapter III. Jörg was very keen to tell us all about the update which opens up the Kingdom of Dalanis, the new zone layout, the new skill system, guilds and their siege weapons and the new marriage feature, along with the introduction of instance difficulty levels. Be sure to check out the interview, which not only gives you a good idea of what to expect in the update, but gives you just a hint of how massive and intricate this game actually is. For a free to download game that costs nothing to play, Runes of Magic is quite remarkable.

Another double XP weekend in Aion starts from today (Friday) through until Monday morning, so if you've got a character or two that needs levelling, now's the time to plough in those extra hours. Find out the exact start times on the various servers in our earlier article.

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