Today the free-to-play MMORTS, Stronghold Kingdoms, expanded into France by launching a new French World server. Stronghold Kingdoms, which is developed by indie developer Firefly Studios, is a online strategy game based on the single players RTS game series Stronghold.

Stronghold Kingdoms, which reminds me a bit of Lord of the Realms PC series from the mid 90′s, puts players on a gigantic world map that’s based on real world geography. Players start off with a small village that they must build into a kingdom if they wish to rule the surrounding lands.

I played one of the Strongholds back in the day, I think either the original or SH2 and it was pretty good. I might have to check this out if I can pull myself away from Black Prophecy.

Since Black Prophecy launched in North America about 2 weeks ago, I’ve been slowly leveling up my pilot, currently level 11, but realized a few days ago that I totally f*@ked him up. I ended up putting five skill points into two separate skills I’ve now realized my build doesn’t need.

As with any builds, you never want to waste points, otherwise you char will never reach it’s full potential.  So it’s clear to me now that something needs to be done and I have three options.

1. I can re-roll and just start over
2. I can just continue playing and accept the fact my character won’t be as good as it should be
3. Or I can buy the stat reset item in the item store

For me and any game with a stat reset item, the choice is pretty simple, pay the few bucks, reset your stats and save yourself hours of replay time.  However as with many non-F2P MMOs, there is no stat reset option.  Some games, I think Tabula Rasa, had a one time stat reset gift for players, but for most there is no reset possibility.

So what would you do, re-roll or continue?

I think the answer comes down to the type of player you are.  I’m not one for having alt characters and have never created more than one for any MMO I’ve ever played because I don’t like replaying the game more than once. Obviously some games have different quest and starting locations based on what race you choose, but it’s still basically the same.

The only time I re-rolled a new character was with Warhammer Online when I switched from a healer to tank, but only because my healer was on a non-RvR server and I was only at lev 11. I don’t remember why I would ever select a non-PvP server, but I did and since transfers weren’t available yet, I had to re-roll.

With Black Prophecy, the game’s timer has me at about 16 hrs, so there’s no way I would re-roll and start over. If anything I would probably just quit if I felt my character was completely messed up, but good thing I don’t have to. Thank god for stat reset items.

Dragon Nest, Nexon’s newest action mmorpg, launches its open beta today at noon, PST – will anyone be joining me in trying to crash the servers? I’ll be giving the Sorceress a whirl, although it was a tough call between her and the arrow flinging Archer. Alright, I’ll admit it, I’m an altoholic. If the game is as interesting as it looks, I’ll end up making at least one of every class. Either way, I’ll be writing a preview of my experiences in beta, so if you’re interested in such things, stay tuned!

Nexon seems to be very excited about this one; they’re giving away thousands of Scales (the Dragon Nest shop currency) to everyone who plays, just for showing up, and that doesn’t include the cash shop items they’ll be giving away during the beta events. Want 5,000 free Scales? Simply log in today and play. Want more? You’ll get 1,000 every day just for logging in. Want a permanent set of cash shop wings at launch? Complete 3 dungeons every day of the beta. I love events, especially when I’m rewarded just for showing up.

Interested in seeing more? Here’s a collection of links with official information:

• Open beta events.

• Dragon Nest Wiki Event.

• Class Guide.

Riot Games today released some pretty interesting numbers about their player base, the biggest being that 15 millions players have registered for League of Legends. On top of that they stated 4 million people log into the game each month and about 1.4 million log in on any given day.  On busy days, League of Legends can hit 500k players in NA and Europe at the same time with 10 games starting every second.  Those are some big ass numbers.

League of Legends launched less than 2 years ago and is no doubt the king of the MOBA genre with those stats and it’s only going to get bigger.  League of Legends is planning to expand into the Asian market over the next year and if it has similar success as it does in the western market, it’s going to get a lot bigger.

It’s that time of the summer again and Final Fantasy XI’s Sunbreeze Festival is about to kick off another year.  The summer event will being on Aug 2nd at 1:00 am PST and run until Aug 16th.

A total of 19 Sunbreeze Festival venues will join in for fireworks displays, dances and other festivities planed throughout the two week event. Other events and services are also planned such as the Superheroine Stage Show, Fun and Frolic games, Encouragement Emporium, Piscine Pursuits, Moogle Teleportation Service and plenty of item vendors.

For a full list of planned events head over the the FFXI site.

Clans can rejoice as their floating fortresses have finally arrived in the form of Clan Citadels. Runescape players can head out to Avalani, where at least five clan members must meet to create a Clan Citadel. Once your citadel has been created, you can portal to it from the Clan Camp, sorry free players, no entrance for you.

Once there, you can start customizing and building up for Clan Citadel. One new bonus announced today was the clan dragon reward.  For those clans who upgrade their Citadel all the way up to tier 7, they will be rewarded with a clan dragon mascot, who perches itself on your castle or flies above it.

You can check out our previous Clan Citadels post that details many of the customization, areas and features or head over to the RS site for patch notes and information.

ABC News recently reported on a young Chinese couple that sold all three of their children so they could keep playing online games.  The couple, who met in 2007 at an internet cafe and are both under 21, first sold their second child, a girl, and then decided to sell their first born son.

They they proceeded to have a third child, another boy, for the sole reason of selling him to fund their gaming habit.  They received RMB 3,000 (less than $500) for the girl and about RMB 30,000, or about $4600, for each boy.

The couple was finally turned into authorities by the boy’s mother when she found out what her son and girlfriend were doing.  When the couple was asked if they missed their children they stated, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money“.  The couple claims they didn’t know selling your children was illegal.

WoW, I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that they sold their 3 children or they didn’t realizing selling human beings was illegal. What’s even crazier is the fact they sold these kids for almost nothing. Is human trafficking so common in China that a girl is worth less than $500? This whole story is insane.

The latest content update for Shaiya, the free MMORPG from Aeria Games, was released today bringing with it new armors, updated capes and the return of the Cryptic One Dungeon, which is actually 6 new mini-dungeons. The patch details are below.

• Enhanced Armor With 25% More Protection, New Properties and Elements – Included in the latest expansion is the most advanced armor ever released. This armor is a guaranteed drop from the new instanced dungeon, available to all players who are able to defeat its guardians.
• Cape Updates – The latest update enhances the previously-limited utility of capes, granting them the power to add additional bonuses to their wearer. Existing capes have their attributes rerolled, so if a player has already acquired a cape, their power will dramatically increase.
• Return of Cryptic One Dungeon – The return of the Cryptic One Dungeon features six new mini-dungeons, each with new mini-bosses and challenges. These monsters provide the most difficult challenge to date in Shaiya. Successful exploration of the Cryptic One Dungeon will require the largest of parties to be equipped with the best of existing items.

Today UK developer Eutechnyx announced that Auto Club Revolution, the upcoming online racing sim, is heading into its Closed Beta Testing Phase. Players with closed beta access can login starting today and jump into the drivers seat. This first phase of CBT will end on July 31st with more phases being announced over the next few weeks and months.

Product manager Jason Collins stated that eight tracks will be available during the closed beta phase as well as 14 cars, with more being added in future phases.

The closing date for beta key applications is midnight on July 31st, so you have until then to submit your application.  To signup just head over to the official ACR site.

While I might not be pre-ordering SWTOR myself, MMOCrunch has teamed up with MMORaid.com, a new social MMO gaming news site, to give MMOCrunch readers a chance at a free copy of Star Wars: The Old Republic Collectors Edition.  Below are the giveaway rules.

SWTOR Collectors Edition Giveaway Guidelines

• Go to MMORaid.com to register an account
• Submit an article, comment or just vote for your favorites
• One lucky member from the Top User list (top 25) will be randomly selected to receive the prize

Details and Rules

• The winner will be selected on August 27th and announced on MMOCrunch
• When registering, please use an email address you regularly check as this will be how the winner is contacted.
• Users abusing the system will be disqualified and or banned.
• The winner will receive the pre-order code so they can participate in Sept’s beta test weekends and will receive the actual CE box once it is released.*
• The top two users will not be included in the drawing as they are MMORaid staff.

Good luck to everyone.

* Bioware is selecting players at random for Sept’s beta weekends, so this is not guaranteed as part of the prize