Have you been waiting for Faxion Online to launch its Closed Beta? Wait no longer. Today, UTV True Games has announced the launch of the closed beta of this Heaven vs. Hell PvP focused MMO, where an eternal battle in the seven deadly sins themed areas will take place.

Hell Freezes Over is the official title of the launching event, and the first batch of invites are being sent to the lucky chosen players that pre-registered. If you’re interested, you’re still in time to apply for the beta on the official website.

As stated on the press release, you’ll start your adventure in a war-torn limbo:

Upon entering the world of Faxion, players will find themselves in
war-torn limbo as they start their journey in the afterlife.  The
Seven Deadly Sins represent physical locations in the game, each with
its own immoral theme, and players will have the opportunity to
explore and discover the locations as they immerse themselves in
intense battle for the armies of Heaven or Hell.  Through each
manifestation of the Sins, players will encounter the people that
represent them. From the Gluttonous enjoying an eternal feast, to the
Prideful Atlans building their Tower into the skies, players must face
off against other inhabitants of the afterlife, limbo and the deadly
sins while vying for control of each deadly zone!

Faxion, internally developed by UTV True Games by a team of veterans of the industry, offers a PvP focused experience and a territory control system. A comical twist has been added to the formula, creating a quite unique game in its concept. Fighting other players endlessly is fun, but can be so repetitive. Adding a  good sense of humor to it, can be the key to making this game fun enough to succeed, while they polish it before final release.

Are you planning to give this game a try? Would you be good or bad? Now that Faxion Online launched Closed Beta and Hell freezes over, I wonder if the PvP focused MMO world will change. Stay tuned, we’ll tell you soon.

Bioware has recently revealed Flashpoints for Star Wars: The Old Republic. That’s the name for group missions in this game and the devs promise those missions will be challenging, being worth the run, as players will get nice loot and rewards, if they succeed.

We all know missions, quests or whatever the game calls them, are the leveling core of the current MMOs. Some of them, like Flashpoints, are designed for groups, pushing them towards difficult goals and tough enemies. What I wonder is how difficult these missions are going to be. Nowadays, with the exception of very few ones, MMOs are easy and require more planning than ability. If Bioware plans to provide real hard challenges, avid gamers, then this looks great.

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Hey, avid gamers. I hope your gaming week has gone well enough to let you rest for a while and read this week’s MMOries of a Gamer. Today, I would love to tell you about something I really love in practically every MMO I’ve played: landscapes.

I use to say that MMOs are beautiful like no other games are. The tremendous design effort this type of game needs and the huge worlds created, so players can explore and play for years, result in fantastic virtual worlds, full of wonderful or terrifying places; but always gorgeous.

Come with me after the jump, and let me tell you of several awesome landscapes I’ve stumbled across while playing my favorite MMOs.

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The title of this article is a bit misleading for, as I have found through extensive research on my Pyromancer, there is no way to perfect playing Fire school other than achieving this one pure goal: Have fun with it.

That being said, Pyromancers have a significant common point with Diviners: low base accuracy when casting spells. So while the high damage rates of all spells is empowering, if those spells fizzle consistently your Pyromancer will be executing the Spiral Head Roll more often than the coveted Victory Dance.

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Hello again. As you may know, last week, in the first part of The Art of Healing, we were talking about the different healer classes in Age of Conan and their particularities, differences and resemblances. Today, we’ll continue our examination of the healing process and explain the work of those devoting their time to keep their comrades alive.

Understanding how healing works is not only important for the gamers playing a healer, but also for those playing other classes, if only to make the healing job a bit easier and let them know what to expect from them. So follow me after the jump and let me tell of you of the days of mending. *winks*

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Tired of questing in Hyboria but don’t have the time or patience to join raids? Well, Funcom is giving you an alternative by introducing several new solo instances in Age of Conan, which are part of the 2.1 content patch due out in the next few months.

Funcom game designers divulged the secrets of these solo instances in the latest Age of Conan development update, starting with designer Peter Lavoie Massicotte who described how the Refuge of the Apostate will give all level 80 players a rewarding and repeatable challenge. Meanwhile, designer Tim Gottschalk talked about the two auto content generation dungeons that will be scalable in difficult for level 40 to 80 players.

Read on for more spoilers on the difficulty, lockouts and loot found in each solo instance.

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“Traditional Character Classes can go to Hell!” is the strong and shocking statement UTV True Games made recently, showing the gaming world how different this company wants Faxion Online to be. A breeze of fresh air is always good, as long as what you’re making has a sense, and that’s what this company seems to be doing. Later this month, the game is going into closed beta, pushing players beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell into a ferocious but promising to be fun endless divine war.

In Faxion, players can create a character with a base class, determining the basic skills set. Afterwards, a second line of abilities can be trained and later, if the player wants to, a third. This gives the players a deep customization system for their characters, with regard what they can do and how they do it. Mixing different classes skills and abilities is always fun and is the kind of choice freedom that modern MMOs seems to be offering in the future.

Have a look at the classes, after the jump.

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This week, the guys over at Trion Worlds have unleashed their most ambitious cinematic to date. Rift’s newest cinematic, created by the digital studio known as Plastic Wax, offers a level of detail that completely trumps any of the Rift videos that we’ve seen so far. Rift: Planes of Telara has been gaining significant momentum in the last months, thanks in no small part to Trion’s marketing department.

The vivid trailer depicts a scene wherein a lone Guardian Ranger is being hunted by a pair of unrelenting Defiants. Setting off towards a planar tear – an unstable pocket of energy – the Guardian attempts to distance himself from his pursuers. What follows is an eye-catching display of combat and scenery, as well as the dramatic opening of a “lush and violent” Life Rift.

Sit back, and enjoy!

ARGO Online, the Hybrid MMORPG developed by burda:ic, is offering now more details about the Steampunk World it features. A world marked by the constant need of Earthdium, the most precious mineral in the universe, will hold all the players, once the game comes out.

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Will the Stormwind park destroyed by Deathwing be rebuilt? Are there any blood elf druids roaming about in Azeroth? How will the Pandarens be introduced to the game if and when they become a playable race?

No need to ponder these questions on World of Warcraft lore by your lonesome self. Blizzard just might answer one of them during the “Ask Creative Development” forum event, a follow-up to a previous survey that saw more than 1,000 questions submitted.

Like before, official lorekeeper Chris Metzen and the rest of his creative development team will be the ones to whip up the answers. But according to community manager Bashiok, questions that receive a “Highly Rated” status care of upvotes from registered forum readers will be the ones “most likely to receive answers.”

This voting system has one obvious flaw: Most readers will only parse through the first couple of pages and then skip the rest, giving a distinct advantage to those who submitted earlier than later. As proof, 14 of the 19 submission on the initial forum page have been upvoted to “Highly Rated” status with a noticeable dwindling as one goes deeper into the 45-page long thread.

Despite the obvious disadvantage for late posters, it’s still not hopeless that your WoW lore questions will be answered. Just be sure to conscript your guildies to help with the upvoting, if you really want to know what happened in Tol Barad that badly.