Runic Games recently Twittered that they uhhh, well you see Runic doesn’t actually know what they twittered and neither does anyone else.  Their latest post reads “Things have been so busy lately, we have not been able to figure out what this is… any ideas?”  Within that posted sentence was the word “this”, which ended up being a link that lead to a mysterious picture.  Whatever this image is, we don’t know.  Hopefully things relating to this mysterious picture will come to light in the near future.  Perhaps new details on the possible Torchlight MMO?  You be the judge and click here to see the strange drawing for yourself.

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A Tale in the Desert 4 has ended, and so they must elect a leader to usher in the 5th Tale and govern its history.

Only (very little) time will tell the outcome of the election held by Sami and Wahim to determine who may take their father’s place as Pharaoh. Each candidate has their positions – one for progress, and the other for reform. All concerned citizens should expect to know the results by 12:00 Noon on Sunday August 1st, 2010 – EDT (GMT-0400).

After the formal proceedings, the traditional end-of-tale “Amnesty” party starts, where “revealing any secret plot played out during the Tale is fair game!” Read more about the intricate and morally challenging backstory of ATitD4′s final election here.

Customers’ mixed feelings towards Aion have the guys at NCSoft between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they could charge for the upcoming Aion: Assault on Balaurea and risk giving the impression that they are nickel-and-diming the playerbase. On the other hand, they could release the expansion for free and forego any revenue in favor of customer goodwill.

Kris Graft at Gamasutra.com has recently explored the topic with Aion’s lead producer Chris Hager. Hager explains, “I think what it came down to was that we felt it offered good player value, to give it to players for free, and we just wanted to make sure that if in the future we ever do charge for anything, we make sure it’s a good amount of content. We don’t want to nickel and dime players.”

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Nothing sets a social mood more in game than cool animated emotes! “/cheer”

NCsoft recently released a new emotes trailer for Lineage 2, where they feature a slew of brand new animated emotes. The trailer keeps it light showing avatars do new curtseys, boogie down with new dances and even do synchronized high fives (Right on!).

For more information on Lineage 2 you can visit their official website. To “/watch” all the trailers and videos for MMO’s you care about, subscribe to us on YouTube.

Welcome to the crime ring, kid. Star Wars: The Old Republic has announced the addition of Nar Shaddaa into the game universe.

Hutta, a planet that once lived up to it’s name of “Glorious Jewel”, has become slowly desecrated by the presence of the greedy Hutts and their careless pursuits. Since the beginning of the Star Wars series, we have come to know first-hand the insatiable lust for wealth and power that defines the Hutta species. It is no surprise, then, that Hutta’s nearby moon has earned a somewhat similar reputation. Nar Shaddaa, “where Hutt Gangsters go to relax”, sees a constant stream of corruption, mischief, fickle loyalties, and other dirty business.

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A mysterious e-mail from Atlus Online was just sent out to all its newsletter subscribers.  There was next to nothing included in this e-mail except for one image.  The image above seems to tease a new Atlus MMO.  Just by the looks of the poster and the faint screenshots in the background, this game looks very edgy, and it may even be real time combat oriented!  This is only my speculation and prayers.  Anyways I hope you all enjoy the teaser image, and keep your eyes out for future info on this mystery game!

For all your MMO news and more, keep up to date with us at mmocrunch.com

When we last saw Richard Garriott, he was sitting in a space shuttle with a smile on his face and a hard drive containing Tabula Rasa in his hands.  As of now he is sitting at home instead of a shuttle, and holding 28 million dollars instead of a hard drive.  Now how on earth did that happen?

Well you see, when Richard and NCsoft ended up parting ways after the failure of Tabula Rasa last year, they each left behind some unwanted aggression towards the other.  This resulted in Richard suing NCsoft for a whopping 47 million dollars over things such as fraud and breaching contracts.  Richards stock options with NCsoft had been effected upon him leaving the company, which is why the whole dispute started in the first place.  Now that the whole thing has finally been put to rest, Richard ended up beating a whole 28 million out of NCsoft’s pocket.  This isn’t even close to the original 47 million he was looking for, but Richard states “I am extremely pleased with the Jury’s decision.”

Hurray! Now we can all celebrate because Richard got the money he deserved!…….but wait a minute, where’s my money out of all this?! Oh that’s right, I don’t get any and neither do you, so we can all stop caring about this right…..about…..NOW!

For all your MMO news and more, keep up to date with us at mmocrunch.com

Sherwood Dungeon is definitely one of those “little MMOs that could”. The game started out as a hobby project for its creator, Gene Endrody and his company Maid Marian, and in 2010 celebrated its sixth anniversary with over 1.5 million players around the world. This week the indie favorite brought in some major updates to the game, including a new weapon class!

Players can gain access to bows at level 21, and have two new equipment spots to accommodate the unique weapon and ammo. Improved magic ammunition with Fire, Ice, Poison, or Night enchants are available at in-game vendors.

The recent update included a number of other changes to the AI, economy, and items. Additionally, old dunegon maps were replaced with newer versions, keeping players on their toes.

Sherwood Dungeon is a free (not free-to-play!), browser-based game set in a 3D world with heavy fantasy influences. It has a vibrant player community, many of whom contributed to the design and testing of this latest update.

As has been noted here previously, one of the many changes coming to Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online this Fall is that old instances will scale according to the level of the group. For example, the Great Barrow instance zone is currently appropriate for levels 20-30, but after the impending update it will have monsters and upgrades for every party from level 20-65. So how will the new system work? Developer Joe Barrow gives us some details in the latest Developer Diary.

Barrow explains that instead of having to create items for every level bracket in every scaling instance, these classic areas will instead adopt the Skirmish token system. All bosses in a scaled instance will drop Skirmish tokens instead of items, and the tokens can then be turned in for level-appropriate gear. Have your heart set on one of the current items? They’ll still be available via a new Classic vendor who accepts tokens.

For players who feel that “just” winning tokens is less exciting than actual items, there are a few surprises in the new scaled instances. End-bosses will drop random Legendary Items, and there is a small chance that players will see a random Tome that will permanently increase their character stats.

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TERA’s intermittent screenshot postings have led us on an impressive tour of the lands of the game. The fun doesn’t end here, though. With the eleventh batch of shots up on the official website, we can observe how truly diverse the creatures and locales of TERA are shaping up to be. En Masse Entertainment and Bluehole Studios have seen fit to give us a glimpse into the desert labyrinth of southern Shara. While the steep plateaus and sweeping valleys may appear inviting, you will certainly not be greeted with sugar and spice. The Valley of Nihil stands waiting for our arrival, playing host to such disconcerting lifeforms as the Malachai Necromancer (pictured above) and the Drifting Exile. Did I mention the Drifting Exile has two mouths – one on either end of it’s body? How does it digest it’s meals? …One can only guess…