World of Warcraft‘s patch 3.3.5 is in the process of rolling out worldwide, and it brings with it the latest endgame content; the Ruby Sanctum raid. This bastion of the red dragonflight, allies of heroes of both of Azeroth’s factions, has been assaulted by vengeful members of the black and twilight dragonflights, and the heroes must now protect the red dragons from their jealous kin.

Anyone who has participated in WoW‘s earlier Obsidian Sanctum raid will know what to expect here, several dragon mini-bosses before a main boss, this time Halion, the Twilight Destroyer (pictured above). Unlike the Obsidian Sanctum, however, none of the Ruby Sanctum mini-bosses can be optionally ignored to make the final battle more difficult.

For more information on the story behind the new raid dungeon, located beneath the Wyrmrest Temple in Northrend, visit the official site.

Michael Knudson, a new member of the Dark Age of Camelot development team, announced today in a developer diary that Dark Age of Camelot is overhauling its classic world drops. This follows a pattern we’ve seen recently with older MMOs revisiting original segments of the game in order to, as Knudson puts it, “breathe new life” into them.

Probably the most famous current revitalisation project is World of Warcraft‘s Cataclysm expansion, but it appears to be something MMOs of a certain age have to go through. Knudson himself mentioned that many of the items in DAoC’s classic world are now completely obsolete, and the same is true of most games that expand on their existing world – the older content is forgotten for all but those just now levelling up. I think maintaining interest in the entire game is a vital step in keeping a game’s population happy and active, so I expect only good things of this news.

For more information, visit the Camelot Herald site.

City of Heroes creators NC Soft and Paragon Studios just released a statement about its latest expansion – Going Rogue – offering up a release date of August 17th 2010. Here’s to hoping it has nothing to do with Sarah Palin.

The update will allow players to walk the line between the two factions of heroes and villains in the game. This second paid expansion will have the players’ moral choices effect game play for the first time. “Heroes can fall from grace to become Villains, while Villains can redeem themselves to become Heroes.”

In addition to this game play mechanic, players can now enter the alternative game universe of Praetoria. New missions, zones, costumes, enemies and power sets including: Demon Summoning, Dual Pistols, Electric Control and Kinetic Melee will be available.

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Champions Online, developed by Cryptic Studios and Atari, recently released a new in-depth video to help hype its Serpent Lantern Expansion Pack out now.

The Serpent Lantern Expansion Pack features new weapons and armor, new dungeons and bosses to tackle and many more upgrades to the game. The expansion moves the story of battling the villainous Vipers ahead with the unleashing of the evil Serpent Lantern, asking players, will you be able to stop the Great Spirit Serpent?

To check out the video and sign up for a free trial, head on over to the Champions Online official website.

Matthew Medina describes his position at ArenaNet as content designer of Guild Wars 2 as one of the people that “creates cool stuff for players to do.” Not a bad job. Medina recently wrote an article describing all him and his team are doing to give players this “cool stuff.”

Medina’s article focused on the written languages of Tyria (GW2′s game world) and how they will be used in-game. Medina took on this venture because he feels that the deep implementation of lore and storytelling that has gone into GW2 is something that deserved to be singled out.

“The writing systems in Guild Wars 2 have deep roots in the original Guild Wars and its subsequent campaigns,” writes Medina. Looking back at one neat aspect he placed in GW’s – Medina crafted a simple “runic cipher script” for a map he created for the post-searing Ascalon. To his surprise, dedicated gamers found the map and translated the runes (based on ancient Phoenician) and “discovered” the alphabet. Inspired by this, Medina started hiding other alphabets in the game that fans took to immediately.

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Blizzard Insider brings us this interview with WoW’s production director, in which he explains how the development team has changed since the game’s release, and what lessons he and Blizzard have learned since. J. Allen Brack joined Blizzard Entertainment in 2006 as a senior producer for the Burning Crusade expansion pack for World of Warcraft. He eventually became the lead producer on the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and now that the latest expansion, Cataclysm, is in the works, he is the production director.

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The family friendly, kung-fu brawler Fists of Fu will be entering its closed Beta Wednesday, June 23rd. Fists of Fu is a “2.5D” beat-em-up MMORPG with an anime style look. One cool thing about Fu is that it offers player-killing for rare items – a rather cut throat way of handling the action for what looks like a kid-centric game.

To check out what Fists of Fu looks like, and get a jump on the action by downloading the Fist of Fu client free from their website, click here.

To help push gamers to play Fu, Outspark will be also be running a series of weekly comic strips. Check out this week’s below. (Click to enhance).

If you are anything like me at all, you can’t wait to get your hands on All Points Bulletin. The game is launching on June 29th in North America, but anyone who pre-orders gets a 3-day head start. Pre-orders get 10 hours of gameplay in the action district with which to play in those 3 days. Any unused time in that ten hours will roll over to the launch event (which the box comes with 50 hours), so play or not, you won’t lose! It also comes with unlimited social district gameplay.

In addition to getting to play early, All Points Bulletin pre-orders get 7 exclusive items to be used in the game. These include two special emotes, cars, outfits and a Pioneer decal. You can pre-order the game through the official site, Steam or Direct2Drive, as well as other retailers.

If you missed our previews, be sure to check out the All Points Bulletin Preview Part 1 and All Points Bulleting Preview Part 2.

Entropia Universe (and for the old-school out there, formerly known as Project Entropia) is a unique beast. It allows players to use real money transactions (RMT) to both buy and sell items. Players can sell something for in-game currency and then convert that currency into cash dollars. Pretty sweet, right?

MindArk has been hugely successful. Recently, at LOGIN, a conference that focuses on online gaming held in Seattle in May, John Bates, who works with Strategic Marketing on the game, had a lecture where he talked about how they’ve sold in-game areas for as much as $330,000. It’s all very interesting, to say the least.

Today, word comes out that the Entropia Universe is getting vehicles. Players will be able to customize their color and texture and even do some basic PvP in them, using a mounted weapon. The vehicles won’t take collision damage, but will take damage from other players in PvP zones and from creatures everywhere. There are plans to offer even more customization down the road, as well as offering boats for over water travel.

Check out the patch notes to get the full details on everything vehicular.

World of Warcraft’s Midsummer Festival is arriving soon, starting today (June 21^st) through July 4^th occurring all through out Azeroth and Outland.

“Brilliant bonfires” have been lit throughout the land in honor of the festival. The choosen FlameKeepers are setting warriors to delve into dungeons and other perils in hopes of appeasing their Gods and will reward players with items and “enlightenment.”

Every major city also has a Fire Festival camp where players can pick up quests for both high and low level characters. “By doing the quests and visiting the flames around the world, characters will earn gold, experience, and perhaps participate in some World PvP and exploration. In addition, groups of maximum level characters can summon a new boss with epic rewards for the duration of the event. Characters of all levels can turn in Burning Blossoms for unique Fire Festival rewards.”

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