Cryptic has announced that sometime in the first quarter of 2011, Champions Online will be going Free-To-Play! Divided into Gold and Silver plans, gold players (14.95 standard subscription) will get full access to all new content and adventure packs as they are released. Silver players (F2P) will be able to access all of the content, minus the adventure packs and certain class combinations. Fear not, they have a matrix that describes everything.

The free to play beta will begin on November 9th and , we can only speculate as to why the decision was made to go free-to-play. Then again, with the wildly popular success of Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, an Global Agenda, why wouldn’t they? It seems these days, any triple-A title having trouble just goes free-to-play and immediately becomes a hit. Stay tuned to MMOCrunch.com for information as it’s released.

Many expert roleplayers like to create their characters like a mere sheet full of numbers, but many others, when it comes to character creation, like to give them a good background. MMOs are not free of this dilemma, the old fight between pure function and story.

Looks like Star Wars: The Old Republic, is trying to give its NPCs a good background with the nice Biographies section of its website. It’s very important to know who is who in every story, and I think alive environments like MMOs really need this effort even more, as it’s not possible to have any player wonder about the story behind the NPC, if that story doesn’t exist. Bioware is famous for its awesome RPG videogames and stated that they want to make a different MMO, beyond what we all are used to. Maybe that’s why they’ve set the biographies section in its website, relating the story of several NPCs appearing in its upcoming game.

This time, the renegade ex-republic general Bouris Ulgo, the disillusioned Republic diplomat Diab Duin and the Imperial Spymaster known as “Keeper”, are added to Biographies, telling us some good and very interesting stories about them, I really recommend to read. For it, go to the official Biographies section in the SWTOR website.

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We all know superheroes are popular and mythical characters that have left their print in today’s modern culture. Starting their adventure in comics, they invaded the movie world and then videogames, like the upcoming DC Universe Online but, villains are so important as well. No superhero would be such a grand character without the nemesis pushing him towards the limits, making him feel he’s defeatable and never perfect. Villains are the salt and pepper of superhero stories and, sometimes, are the most important characters. SOE knows this, of course, giving Lex Luthor a main role in their game.

Now it’s Circe’s turn to come into the game, presented as a powerful witch opposing Wonder Woman, her archenemy. Circe is an ancient sorceress that ruled the island of Aeaea for centuries, luring men to it and turning them into beast men slaves. She made a pact with Hecate, the witch goddess, becoming more powerful in her desire for domination over men, but Hecate is an enemy of the Olympian gods seeking vengeance against them and that’s why Wonder Woman, gifted with her powers by the Olympian gods, is the eternal enemy of Circe.

Remember you can choose to be a superhero or a villain, when DC Universe Online releases so, what path would you follow? Would you support Circe or Wonder Woman?

For now, enjoy these cool new images, while you make up your mind.

Imagine you live in a world full of magic, dangers and mystery… maybe the average MMO world. In it, you’ll face many fights, solve problems, do a bunch of quests and all but, what if you add magic portals from where outer planes creatures appear, bringing fear and destruction to your beloved world?

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Wedding

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Gamania recently announced the impending North American launch of its ever-popular dating MMO: Lucent Heart.

Gamers in western MMOs have been finding ways to connect, hook up and pretty much just get jiggy in-game since the beginning, but the more romantic prospects of online gaming have never really been the focus of western game developers. However, thanks to some eastern game developers, the times they are a-changing, the most recent example being Lucent Heart.

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I’m sure many of you, like I, are eagerly awaiting the launch of Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) which we are told should be released in the spring of 2011. Overall, I am fairly happy with what I see from the game – but one thing still bothers me. Where are my flying body parts or droid limbs? SWTOR needs dismemberment to really capture the Star Wars experience! There has been a lot of discussion on this topic over on the SWTOR forums, and I think a lot of reasons that people give in defense of the apparent lack of dismemberment are silly if not just plain incorrect. So let’s take a look at the major arguments against:

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In a move that would be considered ambitious for even an A-list MMO, Dungeons and Dragons Online has today released the largest content update to date.  Turbine’s free-to-play MMORPG’s newest update introduces two new player races: the Half-orc and Half-elf, a new 12-player Raid, a major upgrade to the graphics engine and UI and adds a new free adventure pack: Deception in Stormreach.   These releases are also quickly followed by dozens of new items becoming available for purchase in the online DDO Store.

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Welcome once more to Other Worlds, the MMOCrunch window to the particular point of view of MMO gamers. This time we bring a pic sent by Nuno, taken in World of Warcraft, who was taking his bones up the bank, who knows why? Maybe he was trying to do a death-from-above, maybe he was just trying to get a nice pic and send it to Other Worlds. He writes:

“This one is mighty Ironforge, in world of warcraft, seen from up the bank (witch is not easy to get to, needed to climb the wall).”

Thanks Nuno, for the nice pic.

Go ahead and send your MMO screenshots to hecteron@gmail.com, we’ll check them all and publish the nice ones here, on Other Worlds.

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Turbine starts another season of in-game celebrations with this year’s Harvest Festival, in Lord of the Rings Online. I’ve played LOTRO for several years, getting quite deep into it and I can tell you that festivals really worth it. Special games, contests, events and so on, are always fun though, some of the costumes shown in the new batch of screenshots released are not exactly Tolkien-style-like.

This year, you’ll be able to participate in fun activities like Apple Bobbing and Pumpkin Picking, as well of getting a new skeleton horse mount and throw yourself into the depths of a new Haunted Burrow in The Shire.

Remember LOTRO is free in North America, so go ahead and enjoy the new festival in the MMO version of Middle Earth.

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Something is wrong in Telara. An evil ancient god is trying to recover the souls of his worshippers lost, deep in the world. For it, he forces portals into Telara from other planes. These portals are the Rifts, full of twisted magic, mystery and danger.

This time, Trion Worlds presents the Plane of Water, showing some gorgeous images of a water rift, for its upcoming MMO Rift: Planes of Telara. This plane is clearly influenced by H.P. Lovecraft and his Myths of Cthulhu, as shows itself with a deep touch of horror. One could even think of R’lyeh’s twisted and impossible geometry, when looks at the shape of the land of water, the crushing dark. For sure, we’ll all face terror, the unknown, abominations… things that should not be.

Where Lovecraft put Cthulhu, Rift: Planes of Telara puts Akylios the Abyssal. Some would think this is a mere copy, but I can only see a mere  tribute. If  Trion Worlds is capable of just getting close to Lovecraft’s ability to hook his fans, making then feel the thrill of mystery, this could be simply awesome. Will players be able to get into the Plane of Water to investigate the ancient and terrific cult of Akylios? If so, count me in.

Rift: Planes of Telara brings more content, in the form of a new plane and a new rift but, remember:  “Is not dead what forever lie… and with strange aeons even death may die.”

You have been warned.

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