This weekend, MMOCrunch was lucky enough to receive another issue of The Armageddon Rag. The fourth installation of the Fallout Online newsletter brings us the tale of a young man who finds himself in the caught between beasts and raiders in the wasteland. Also on the tab is a quirky merchant listing for Crazy Ivan’s New and Used Guns, which boasts “more guns than Canada!”. I’ll be stopping by to get 10% off my next Chemblaster 3000, no doubt.

Finishing up the newsletter is the latest article chronicling the travels of an “unwanted correspondent”. The writers of the Rag are quick to remind us: “We’re not saying how we got this. Or where we got this. Or anything. And we’d appreciate notice if someone thinks Les is coming to ask us about it.”

Check out the full newsletter if you’d like the latest wasteland scoop!

Leading the pack into next-gen gaming, Frogster has announced its intentions to bring Runes of Magic to browsers around the world. By integrating the popular free-to-play title with the convenience of Facebook, Frogster hopes to bring RoM to a wider audience, eliminating the hassle of downloading and installing altogether. After finishing the final stages of testing and implementation, Frogster will demo the new platform at GDC in San Francisco from February 28th to March 4th.

With this move, Runes of Magic will step forward as one of the few AAA quality browser-based MMOs on the market. Accessibility has never been this easy, and Andreas Weidenhaupt, Chief Licensing Officer of Frogster Interactive Pictures AG shares his expectations:

“We are expecting to see a marked increase in the numbers of players for Runes of Magic through this cooperation with Kalydo. Powered by the impressive Kalydo technology the browser version will enable us to attract new target groups who previously have found the download, installation and registration process too complicated”

With a strong player base forming around it, UTV True Games’ Faxion Online is launching its second phase of beta testing, continuing the no-holds-barred PvP focus that it has become known for. The war rages on as new and current testers fill the ranks of Good and Evil, fighting for control over the more ambiguous Seven Deadly Sins.

Among other updates, the polishing of the multi-class and skill progression systems will make a big difference in acclimating new players to the game while providing a more intuitive setup for veterans. As users invest more skills in secondary and tertiary levels, they will be more aware of how their new/upgraded arsenal will behave and affect other skills. Additional content such as new maps and teleportation stones have been added in an effort to bring a more fluid in-game experience for players as well.

The first Faxion beta test phase has gone over swimmingly, according to Frank Lucero, Studio Head at UTV True Games:

“The responses to the first closed beta have been incredible in helping us determine updates for this second phase,”

“Our community has provided invaluable feedback and we are looking forward to their response to the latest
content in the second closed beta patch.”

This week, 11-year industry vet Blaine Christine provides a glimpse into the life of a Live Producer at Bioware. Christine’s job keeps him in pace with the development team, assuring that QA testing meets the needs of designers and frees the game of any major bugs. When he’s not participating in LARPing parties every night, Christine is overseeing the recently initiated external testing phase that introduced some select players to the current stages of the game.

On the overall, player response is widely positive with a focus on strong quest dialogue and immersion. Here’s what they had to say:

“As one of those people who didn’t really care about story in an MMO, after playing Star Wars: The Old Republic I can’t imagine playing another MMO unless it has as much focus on story as TOR does.” – PA

“I’ve been waiting years and years and years for an MMORPG experience like this. The combat is incredible and never gets old. The grind is gone. I am so happy the grind is gone (so, so very happy). The stories are fantastic, well written, well acted, well animated, incredibly immersive, and the inclusion of choice takes it into territory that other MMOs have only dreamed of. Lastly, this game makes you feel like a bad***. The entire time. And I love that.” – JA

“This is the Jedi game to end all Jedi games. If you’re a gamer and you don’t throw your hands up in triumph when you get your first lightsaber, you’re not really alive. This game is, bar none, the best interactive Star Wars experience ever.” – VI

“I suppose my only major complaint was that when I jumped into the sarlaac’s belly on Tatooine, I did not find a new definition of pain and suffering from being slowly digested over a thousand years. It is still early though. I’m sure they will fix that before release.” – CL

With new offices in Georgia, CCP is increasing its presence across the pond, reinforcing its dedication to US players in addition to the EU crowd. To clarify, CCP previously had North American headquarters over at Gwinnett County; this move is to the City of Decatur in DeKalb County. Today’s CCP PR states, “This move is expected to create 150 new jobs over three years, bringing the company’s U.S. staff total to 300 by 2013.”

Georgian Governor Nathan Deal was very excited about EvE Online developer’s latest decision:

“For digital entertainment companies, Georgia brings to bear a competitive set of resources for this industry that makes our state a strategic home for game developers like CCP,”

“It is also encouraging to see an existing Georgia company expand and take full advantage of our state’s progressive business atmosphere, and enhance its commitment to Georgia.”

Over at CCP, the company’s President Mike Tinney explained the motive behind this big move,

“Decatur offers the perfect blend of big city accessibility with a hometown feel that we were looking for,”

“Georgia’s financial climate combined with Decatur’s social climate provide the ideal conditions for continued growth.”

I can almost feel the atmosphere of excitement and tension over at the Trion Worlds offices as Rift’s official servers went up today, initiating the Head Start week for players who pre-ordered the high-profile fantasy MMO. Running in the same vein as World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, Rift offers players an intricate “soul” progression system, dynamic zone-wide events, and of course, Rifts — all in a traditional MMO setting.

Jump past the cut for the official server list!

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Starting today, players can now try out Mortal Online for free for 14 days.   However trial accounts are restricted to 600 skill points and the maximum for all skills is capped at 60.

I played a bit of Mortal Online during the beta and was not impressed, however that was also a year ago and beta, so perhaps I’ll give this game another go.  I really want to like this game, I’m just hope they fixed all the issues with it over the past year and added some content which it was sorely lacking.

Below we have a promo video for the new free trial.  You can signup to the free trial here.

Today Wargaming.net announced that World of Tanks has broken the Guinness World Record for most players online simultaneously on one MMO server.   The official record is now 91,311 players online at the same time. This breaks the old record set by Second Life when they hit around the 88,000 mark for users online in early 2009.  Eve Online has also been moving up the list, their last record was set a few months ago with 60,453 users online simultaneously.

World of Tanks also announced they expect to beat this record in only a few weeks and are aiming at 120,000 users online simultaneously.

However, with the population of the game growing steadily another week or two would let us report a more impressive record as the current PCCU number surpasses 120,000 players.

Fans of the MMO and RTS genres have been blessed with a growing developer interest in combining the two game styles. Along with Trion Worlds’ (yup, the same guys behind Rift) End of Nations, gamigo has formally unveiled their contribution to the cutting-edge MMORTS genre. gamigo’s Elements of War Online is set in a dystopian American future wherein Russia and Europe have joined forces in staging a full-scale invasion of the free world. As a result, the United States have been torn and ravaged into raging battle zones. Most interestingly, guns and steel have long ago been cast aside in favor of ultra-futuristic “elemental” weaponry, namely artificial tornadoes, storms, earthquakes, and more.

Continue past the cut for the official feature list…

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In part one of Playing it Safe I talked about ways of keeping your personal information and accounts safe when you’re signing up for new games and websites, as well as understanding what the bad guys want to get from you.  For this article I want to talk more about staying safe while playing online games and taking part in social websites.

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