When SOE revealed the three mentors for Heroes in DC Universe Online, lines were immediately drawn. Gadget freaks sided with Batman, rodeo fanboys chose Wonder Woman, and everyone else signed up for the Superman show.

What makes Superman such a popular choice among gamers is his insane arsenal of superhero moves, arguably the strongest in the DC universe. He has titanic strength, blinding speed, freezing breath, heat vision, invulnerability, and flight. Plus there’s that square jaw that makes both girls and grown men weak-kneed.

DC Universe Online does nothing to diminish his legendary powers and form, as seen in the combat stills below.

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Hello dear adventurers. This week in Hyrkanian Insight we’ll be talking about getting to know your class while leveling your “toon” in Age of Conan; and doing that during the process of leveling up and getting to the maximum level, (rather than speeding up to 80 and then having to learn everything about the class while, probably, messing up pulls, heals, or aggro in groups doing an instance or maybe even a raid.)

So, let’s have a look at the possibilities, come with me to the tavern for a friendly chat…

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According to Wizard101, “Storm wizards are often impulsive, educated, creative, and independent. Famous Diviners are Benjamin Franklin, Lady Circe, and Galileo.” The school is in Ravenwood and the teacher is a frog named Halstron Balestrom. The school tree is named Torrence. He’s a bit of a drip!

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For weeks, we’ve been teased with a certain “anime-inspired MMO” from NGames that had a lot of Naruto and Bleach fans screaming “total rip-off!” While we don’t know whether lawsuits are a-coming, what we do know is that naming it Pockie Ninja is an amusing attempt to get the chibi-obsessed crowd on board.

NGames sent us some wallpapers that reveal just how Pockie Ninja is “poking fun at anime’s most infamous characters and paying homage to them at the same time.”

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Bioware has updated the Holonet section of the Star Wars: The Old Republic website, with the new biographies. I must say that the SWTOR website, is one of the best I’ve seen and, for a gamer looking for information about the game, is so useful.

This time, three new NPC characters are being revealed, with their own biographies, for every single fan to ease the thirst for new information about the game’s background and story, now the hype levels have gone insane, as the pre-release first game testing could start early this year. Supreme Chancellor Janarus, Darth Janus and Jewl’a Nightbringer, are the chosen NPCs added to the Holonet, revealing fascinating stories about these characters.

I strongly recommend every single SWTOR fan to get deep into the official website of this upcoming MMO, maybe destined to be one of the major ones in the future, getting Bioware, the legendary studio that brought so many good titles in the past, to be one of the best publishers in the MMO market. The Holonet, and all its sections are simply great and, probably, a must.

Enjoy the new SWTOR Biographies update and tell us here what you think about. Leave your comments.

This game’s development is alive and kicking. Masthead Studios has announced a new version of the beta client for its upcoming MMO Earthrise, planing to distribute additional invitations to many fans, in the next days.

“We are incredibly excited for our fans to experience firsthand the significant updates we have made to Earthrise over the past few months,” said Atanas Atanasov, producer of Earthrise and director of Masthead Studios.  “The development team has been working around the clock to continually add new gameplay functions and we are thrilled for our community of testers to become further immersed and share their thoughts with us.”

The new beta client version for Earthrise, features upgraded combat and tactic skills, crafting, teleports, insurance and better graphics and animations. Thousands of invitation keys will be released by Masthead, letting lots of new fans to explore the world of Enterra.

If you’re game for it, simply go to the official beta application section, on the Earthrise website, and pray the “MMO gods” for a beta key. If you want more information about this post-apocalyptic sci-fi MMO, go to the official website.

Mytheon, the action MMO with strategic gameplay, is going to be internally developed by UTV True Games in Beijing, integrating changes and player feedback from last year’s beta phase. Looks like this studio is fighting hard to bring the game to all potential players. For it, the studio has just announced a soon to come Closed Beta, in late January 2011, for North America.

"Moving the development of Mytheon to our internal studio is a very
positive move for the game because we have total creative control over
the title and we can tailor Mytheon's content to the preferences and
needs of the community that has already grown around it."

Some of the core elements of the game, UTV is focusing on right now, are : balance and usefulness of all stone types in the game, camera controls, server performance and guild functionality.

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Perfect World Entertainment comes, once more, with a new Dev Diary Video, featuring Jon Belliss (PWE Director of Marketing) who talks about several aspects of the upcoming Forsaken World.This is the first MMO set for the western market that PWE is preparing to launch, with an early 2011 Open Beta coming soon.

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Trion Worlds  is making the move, and has announced its MMO Rift: Planes of Telara will launch next March 1, 2011. Rejoice! A new game is coming, perhaps bringing fresh air to the genre. What we have seen, during the closed beta events, is a more dynamic MMO than the others we are used to, along with a quick and serious response to player feedback. Rift, apparently, takes good features from many MMOs, giving them its own touch.

Currently, this MMO is still under an intense testing program. Next weekend, the time for PvP comes… who knows what comes beyond? For now, we know when the game plans to launch, and Trion seems to be so happy about it:

“The launch of Rift is the culmination of our tireless efforts over the past several years to bring players the most complete, full-featured, and dynamic online game they’ve ever experienced,” said Lars Buttler, CEO of Trion Worlds. “Through the dedication, creativity, and incredible track record of our veteran development team, we’ve been able to create an exceptionally polished and immersive online world filled with adventure, surprise, and beauty. We can’t wait to share Rift with players around the world.”

Rift: Planes of Telara will be available through digital download and retail versions. The Standard, Digital Collector’s and Retail Collector’s Editions of the game, will cost $49.99, $59.99 and $79.99 USD, respectively. For a more detailed information on the different purchasable versions of the game, visit this section of the official site.

Subscription fees will vary, depending on the plan you choose. The normal monthly fee, costs the usual $14.99 USD/month, but if you choose other plans, the game could cost you a nice $9.99 USD/month fee. You can check all the subscription plans at the official page, as well.

Now that we know Rift: Planes of Telara comes out next March 1, 2011, we can begin wondering what class we’ll play, which side we’ll fight for and where this game will takes us all, avid gamers.

Last December, Icarus Studios began tweaking the math behind the combat of Fallen Earth to make the game more balanced and hospitable for various spec builds.

Part two of those combat changes take effect this February as developers try to update the various skill and mutation lines to the post-apocalyptic MMO. The February patch also rolls out the monster-in-a-bottle Scavenger boss system and possible component drop increases that will keep us busy until we make the leap over the Grainway Wall by mid-2011.

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