In my last post I was talking about the MPG site ‘ Aeria games’ http://www.aeriagames.com/. This is a review on the game ‘Last Chaos’ which is one of there downloadable MPRPG’s.

Last Chaos which you can find here http://lastchaos.aeriagames.com/ is your classic RPG, In that it does not offer anything different in terms of game-play, from your standard RPG.

However its the online environment, and its unique take on crucial online interaction and pet companion’s in order to succeed in the game. That make ‘Last Chaos’ particularly addictive.

The members area for ‘Last Chaos’ also has daily events, completion of which can earn you ‘Aeria points’ which enable you to upgrade your characters faster than if you just upgrade their skills through battle.

More after the jump!
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Be Imba! is a new site that allows you to evaluate and improve your World of Warcraft characters using WoW Armory data. The site will suggest ways in which your talent points could be spent more wisely and point out specific problems with your current gear, including any improper enchantments or radically lacking stats. Be sure to check out what the site has to say about my shadow priest. Be gentle, though; I haven’t logged on for nearly a year.

The site only focuses on World of Warcraft at the moment, but hopefully we’ll see it branch out to other popular MMOs in the future. Whether you think you’re already an imbalanced pro or an inexperienced noob, chances are the site can still show you a few pointers.

According to Gender Swapping And Socializing In Cyberspace: An Exploratory Study, 68% of female MMO players and 54% of male players played characters of the opposite gender. This isn’t exactly new information, but it’s nice to have the cold, unflinching numbers of science to backup what most of us already knew. While participants in the study gave differing reasons on why they chose to play a character that differed from their real life gender, most of the answers reflected the desire to see the world – even a virtual one – from a different perspective.

As Wired’s Game|Life blog is quick to point out, this study is hardly conclusive, finding fault with the study’s small sample size (just 115 participants) and the fact that it only polled users from popular enthusiast sites such as (Allakhazam, Everquest Vault, White Wolf , and Women Gamers.

Still, the issue of how we define gender in the inherently genderless space of virtual worlds remains an interesting topic facing our digital age.

The GGL Wire is reporting that Activision plans to tap Blizzard Entertainment to bring Guitar Hero to “roughly 300,000 game rooms between China and Korea.” Clearly, Activision hopes to cash in on Blizzard’s extreme success in Asia, especially in South Korea, where StarCraft is essentially the national pastime.

Readers with especially good memories will recall Activision CEO Robert Kotick’s comment that a Guitar Hero MMO seemed like a logical move for the franchise in November of last year. Given Blizzard’s unending stranglehold on the MMO market with World of Warcraft, is Activision getting Blizzard acquainted with the Guitar Hero franchise with bigger projects planned in the future? One can only hope.

Think your MMO can take down World of Warcraft? Seriously?

Then you’re either Bill Gates or your bank just gave you the most generous loan in the history of banking.

Activision’s CEO admitted in an investor’s meeting that anyone who tried to compete should have a solid billion dollars laying around before trying anything. He cites examples of failed attempts (all of them in reality) to beat out the competition. It’s impossible to argue with the guy as this point. They seem to have a stronger hold on that section of the market than EA does with the NFL license, and EA owns the entire thing.

The question then becomes how long before someone tries a bogus lawsuit claiming Blizzard has a monopoly on their hands?

There are a great many free MMORPGs out there on the interwebs, and let’s face it: most of them are garbage. How are you supposed to know which of them are worth your hard-earned cash hard drive space and which ones aren’t worth the webspace they’re stored on?

In the first of a series of posts that will no doubt lead to long-term emotional scaring, I’ll be braving the not-so-wonderful world of free MMORPGs and reporting on the horrors (and occasional diamonds in the rough) I find there. Today I’ll be taking a look at two of the biggest free MMORPGs out of South Korea: Fly For Fun and Silkroad Online.

Hit the jump to find out just how they stack up against their larger, pay-to-play brethren.

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Cryptic Studios, the developers behind City of Heroes, promises to categorically outdo their freshman super hero MMORPG with Champions Online. Based on the pen-and-paper RPG of the same name, Champions Online will offer a previously unseen level of customization when it launches for the PC and Xbox 360. Players will be able to customize not only their hero’s appearance and moveset, but design their very own super villian archenemy as well. Cryptic is remaining, well, cryptic as to when we might see the game on store shelves, but don’t count on playing City of Heroes’ spiritual sequel before 2009 at the earliest.

This announcement comes hot on the heels of Microsoft’s own announcement regarding their plans to scrap Marvel Online Universe, the Marvel-themed MMO that was being developed by Cryptic Studios for the Xbox 360 and PC. While it’s doubtful Cryptic’s work on Champions Online was affecting their Marvel MMO in any way, the company’s focus on only a single next-gen super hero MMO will no doubt improve the quality of the final product just the same. City of Heroes is still one of the most interesting and unique MMORPGs on the market today, and we expect Champions Online to have just as much staying power.

Users of Halifax bank in the UK who use their account to pay Activision Blizzard for the chance to play Warcraft have a surprise waiting for them. They can’t pay.

Halifax has blamed the situation on the high number of stolen credit cards used to play the game. Simply put, any attempt to pay your bill is blocked by the bank, and every situation needs to be discussed with the bank personally. Some customer service reps are about to have a crash course in the players of World of Warcraft.

On a side note, if you’re going to steal a credit card, why would you use it for a few $10 transactions? Then again, if you’re dumb enough to do it in the first place, it must not be obvious that you could be buying a new plasma.

If you’ve ever spent any time playing World of Warcraft, you’re familiar with Peons4Hire, even if you don’t know them by name. The company, owned by In Game Dollar, was responsible for chat spamming players with advertisements for buying in-game gold and items. Peons4Hire were good at what they did, creating characters with names consisting of random strings of characters (see: Hrysocpoff, Thhvspoq, Xjoimlkzwwp), whisper spamming players using the game’s /who feature, and logging off before you had a chance to report them.

In a shining example of a Victory For The Good Guys, Wired’s Game|Life blog is reporting that Blizzard has won an injunction against In Game Dollar, preventing them from continuing their shady dealings for WoW’s entire lifespan. Clearly, this is good news for everyone in Azeroth. Virtually Blind has all the details, including all relevant court documents.

A new documentary is focusing on the lives (and loves, and lost jobs) of MMO fanatics. The seven profiled players are a mix of styles, from the hopelessly addicted, gold farmers, those who have moved on, and the casual players. Thankfully, from the trailer, it doesn’t look like it’s condemning the players even though it has an obvious comedic hook. Instead, the trailer delivers a sharp first look at this piece with interviews from all sides (except the “experts” as posted on the website, and that link is down as well). While it might not fight with King of Kong for best documentary, this one still looks like a fine piece of filmmaking.

The website offers all of the links you’ll need. For a quick trailer, a YouTube video can handle that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPOxuOCGi9I&eurl=http://kotaku.com/

Funcom’s official Anarchy Online community site has the first details on the game’s new tiered pricing scheme. The basic sci-fi MMORPG remains free from level 1-200, but players can now opt to subscribe to just Shadowlands, the game’s first expansion, for 5 USD/EUR a month before taking the plunge and subscribing to the game’s other expansions (Alien Invasion and Lost Eden) for the full 14.95 USD/EUR.

Wired’s Game|Life blog points out that this deal benefits American players the most, saying:

While this is excellent news for AO players in the United States, thanks to the relatively weak dollar, European players who pay the 5 EUR per month would actually be paying almost 50% more than their US counterparts (5 EUR = 7.25 USD).

Regardless of unfortunate European inequalities, these sort of tiered MMO pricing schemes are definitely something we’d like to see more of going forward. How about instead of just offering cheaper subscriptions that only cover specific expansions, we start seeing lower rate plans that offer casual-friendly time limits? With the MMO market continuing to grow, it would be a fantastic way to continue playing multiple games without having to work overtime.

Hellgate London’s official site has information concerning the first post-release content for the game, called The Stonehenge Chronicles. The update, which will finally bring Hellgate up to version 1.0, nearly three months after its initial release, will introduce Stonehenge and a batch of new quests, areas, weapons, and monsters with it. In addition to a handful of bug fixes and more balance changes than you can shake your soggy fish and chips at, The Stonehenge Chronicles will also include the game’s first group dungeons. Of course, all of this new content will only be available to subscribers.

But really, is any one even playing Hellgate: London any more, let alone paying for it? The game was riddled with development problems, with the final version playing more like a very buggy, very underdeveloped beta than a retail release. Truthfully, Flagship Studios has made great strides towards righting the wrong of Hellgate’s early release, releasing three major patches in the the three months since its Halloween release date, but all the band-aids and duct tape in the world isn’t going to be enough to redeem this lesson in wasted potential, we’re afraid. Cut the cord, Bill Roper, and bring us The Next Big Thing.