Do you hear that clicking sound? That’s what it sounds like when 11 million MMO subscribers repeatedly hit their “Check Email” button in the hopes of being one of the first players in the World of Warcraft Cataclysm Closed Beta.

In an announcement released just hours ago Blizzard Entertainment confirmed that they have begun inviting players to the closed beta. Players have been signing up for an early preview of Cataclysm over the last several months through their Battle.net accounts.

Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment, said about the testing, “Our focus with Cataclysm has been to build on the knowledge we’ve gained through the previous expansions to deliver the best, most compelling World of Warcraft content for our players to date. Gathering focused feedback during the beta test will go a long way in helping us reach that goal when we launch Cataclysm later this year.”

Cataclysm beta testers will get an early peek at the new expansion, help find bugs, and give suggestions on  balance issues and content. Cataclysm will be the third expansion for the incredibly popular World of Warcraft, and is expected to break sales records much like the previous two releases.

Are you one of the lucky first folks in the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Beta? Let MMOCrunch know what you think about the overhauled Azeroth!

A few weeks ago staff on the World of Warcraft official Story Forum asked players to post questions for the game’s Creative Development team. Today those questions finally received a response!

Bornakk and the community staff at Blizzard Entertainment posted as many answers as they felt they could, relying on well-known company lore masters Chris Metzen and Alex Afrasiabi for guidance. The questions ranged from “Do incubi exist?” to “What’s the story with goblin shamans?”, and the answers are a must-read for any WoW lore fan.

Most of the details are about previous events in Azeroth’s history, such as the death of Queen of Stormwind Tiffin Wrynn, but a few items give some hints about future content. Bornakk reveals, for example, that there is a nod to the addition of troll druids in Cataclysm during the upcoming “Zalazane’s Fall” event, and confirms that after the death of the Lich King Frostmourne was shattered and lost. (No return from the grave for Arthas!)

Bornakk said that many of the player-generated questions would be answered by upcoming patches and the Cataclysm expansion, as well as published novels. Blizzard Entertainment has been praised for its detailed and consistent storytelling and world-building over the fifteen years of the Warcraft franchise, and it’s nice to see the organization give some time to the lore-hungry fans of their work.

Ndoors Interactive, the publisher of Atlantica Online and WonderKing, announced today that they will be giving away more than $30,000 in cash and prizes to players over the course of two mega-events this summer. And yes, one of the prizes is a brand new Chevrolet Camaro.

Between now and August 31, 2010, players of Atlantica Online can enter to win the afore-mentioned car, as well as a Razer keyboard and mouse, a Bose speaker system, or even a coveted Alienware laptop. Peter Kang, the CEO of Ndoors, said about the giveaways, “These Summer Events serve as a ‘thank you’ to our community… We are looking forward to watching gamers compete for prizes and we can’t wait to award one lucky player with a brand-new car.”

Ndoors Interactive’s other MMO, WonderKing, will also be part of the festivities. Starting on July 7, players can enter raffles and collect special tokens to receive in-game items, experience bonuses, gift cards, and much more.

Both Atlantica Online and WonderKing are free-to-play. Atlantica Online is a strategic, turn-based MMO, while WonderKing is a 2D side-scrolling MMO. For more information on the Atlantica Online “Play, Win, Drive!” event, visit their contest website.

This morning Darkfall developer Tasos posted a number of details about the upcoming expansion to Aventurine SA’s popular MMO. He started off with the most important detail: the launch date! The Darkfall development team hopes to have the new content available to players by July 18th.

The expansion mostly addresses the PvE side of Darkfall, including new monster types, new tactics, and new spawns. The current dungeons will be overhauled and given new tie-in questlines. This expansion will also include new tutorial quests, treasure maps, and ship types.

Additionally the terrain and texture system will be completely updated, giving the world of Darkfall a new and improved look. The graphics updates were anticipated to be released in Darkfall 2010 (?), but the company has decided to instead release the changes as soon as they are done.

Tasos promises that more details on these features will be shared between now and July 18th. Keep an eye on MMOCrunch for further developments!

World of Tanks from Wargaming.net is happy to announce a new trailer with its launch of its community site.

Gamers can now explore a large variety of exclusive content including screenshots, artwork, trailers, fansite kits and loads of other World of Tanks stuff as well as get access to “Tankopedia” – “the ultimate resource for in-depth information on the models of fighting vehicles presented in the game.”

The new community site will be the base of the official game forums where World of Tanks fans will be able to address their questions to Wargaming.net® team, take part in contests and competitions and stay updated on all game news and community activities. The site will also become the main source for insider information unveiling the details of the development process in blogs and diaries.

Nick Katselapov, the game’s producer released the following statement: “The launch of the community and teaser sites reflects an important milestone in the development of World of Tanks. We’ve been working hard on putting all the information and game assets together and hope these two sites will become a good platform for the upcoming closed beta test. We are going to deepen the team’s cooperation with our growing community as we are looking forward to receiving direct feedback from our fans.”

Check out World of Tanks new trailer and community site, by clicking here.

Long weekends are a special occasion even in virtual worlds! Perfect World Entertainment announced today that Perfect World International and Battle of the Immortals will have double EXP during the Independence Day weekend.

Additionally, Battle of the Immortals will hold a second server-wide double EXP event this weekend which stacks with the July Fourth special. Along with the EXP bonus, players will also see double the usual number of drops.

This week Battle of the Immortals unveiled their Zodiac Gauntlet event. The Gauntlet was designed exclusively for a Western audience and has the popular Zodiac Pets as end bosses.

GamesCampus, a free-to-play games portal, has announced a Heroes in the Sky open beta beginning tomorrow, July 1, 2010. For those that don’t know, HIS is a World War Two “flight combat simulator” with the twist that it is a massively multiplayer game. It will feature both PvE and PvP, with up to 16 players competing in one session. Supposedly containing hundreds of war planes, and “some of the most exciting battles in history”, Heroes in the Sky has certainly set its sights high, if you’ll pardon the pun. Joining the beta may be your chance to see exactly how this concept translates into an MMO, as the entire game will apparently be represented.

To register for the Heroes in the Sky open beta, fly your way to the official site.

Tanadu by Can’t Stop Games which boasts 15 million users, mainly in German speaking countries, is looking to widen its audience and head over to American shores. Tanadu is available on the StudiVZ network, a social networking site. Tanadu is free-to-play.

Tomasz (what a cool name!) Wecki, PR Manager at Can’t Stop Games, had the following to say about Tanadu. “Tanadu is targeted primarily to young people, and StudiVZ is a place meant for students. We will get along perfectly. We certainly hope this will be a good entry on the German market – and we are definitely planning new ways to expand.”

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UPDATE:  The 50 keys are gone.  The game will launch July 6th on Steam, so stay tuned if you are interested.

MMOCrunch.com has 50 keys for the NASA game Moonbase Alpha. While not strictly an MMO, it should give us a good idea of where NASA is going with their MMO, Astronauts: Moon, Mars and Beyond. An official description of the game details:

Moonbase Alpha is a game with single and multiplayer options where players step into the role of an exploration team member in a futuristic 3-D lunar settlement. Their mission is to restore critical systems and oxygen flow after a nearby meteor strike cripples a solar array and life support equipment.

Technical specifications are:

Minimum System Requirements
• Win XP SP3
• 2.0+ GHZ Single Core Processor
• 2 GB of System RAM
• NVIDIA 7000-series or ATI Radeon X1900 Video Card
• 2 GB of Free Hard Drive Space
• DirectX 9.0c

Recommended System Requirements
• Win XP SP3 / Vista / Windows 7
• 2.4+ GHz Dual Core Processor
• 4+ GB of System RAM
• NVIDIA 9000+ or ATI Radeon 3600+ Video Card
• 5 GB of Free Hard Drive Space
• DirectX 9.0c for XP/Vista, DirectX 10 for Windows 7

The game will be available on Steam come July 6th for everyone, but in the meantime, the first 50 people to request the Moonbase Alpha beta through this link gets in! Happy clicking.

Earlier today the much anticipated Update 5 for Turbine’s Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited went live. This afternoon we’ve got our hands on a fresh video trailer for this fifth update (heavily featuring the guild airships) along with screenshots of the new hirelings and one of the new carnival quests.

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