Mythos Official Website Now Live + Screenshots

Mythos is an upcoming hack n slash action MMORPG from Frogster. The game utilizes 3D graphics and a lovely, comic book esque art style. The game will be free to play and features all of the aspects of MMORPGs you’ve grown accustomed to like PvP battles and guilds.

There is also a beta scheduled for the game, which you can learn more about at its official website. The game will launch officially early next year. To learn more about Mythos and check out the new screens, hit the break.

New Aion Expansion Fly-Through – Gelkmaros

Last week we brought you the fly-through trailer for a zone on the Elyos side of things, from the upcoming Aion expansion, Assault on Balaurea. This week NCSoft is back with another trailer along those same lines. This time, however, it is showing off a predominently Asmodian zone, Gelkmaros. So, for those of you who like the arguably darker and lesser-played side of things, you might want to hit the jump to check out this week’s fly-through video.

Aion: Assault on Balaurea releases in just one week, on September 7, 2010. It’s a pretty sweet MMO, from my time with it, at least. In a way I want to go back, but I don’t have the heart to give up WoW….

Might & Magic Heroes Kingdoms Released

Yesterday, Ubisoft officially launched its first MMO, Might & Magic Heroes Kingdoms. The game is free to play and requires no install – it runs right in your browser. There are four factions to choose from: Necropolis, Haven, Inferno, and Academy, each with different strengths and weaknesses. The game universe progresses through a series of seasons, where each season ends once an alliance reaches the victory condition.

So if you love MMOs or you just have a lot of free time to kill, go to the game’s official website to try it out today.

Final Fantasy XIV NA Pre-release Trailer & Theme Song

Final Fantasy XIV comes out in about a month, and today Square-Enix released a pretty lengthy trailer for the title. Along with the awesomely gorgeous cut scenes, they’ve thrown in a few shots of actual game play, as well as the first time the English theme song has been heard. The theme song – “Answers” – is performed by award-winning singer Susan Calloway. She apparently fell into the good graces of Nobuo Uematsu, who is the musical composer for the game (and for many past Final Fantasy titles), appearing with him on the “Distant World” tours.

Of special note is that, if you purchase the collector’s edition of the game, which itself got its own trailer a couple days ago, you’ll be able to get early access to play, starting September 22, 2010. Final Fantasy XIV officially releases for the PC only on September 30, 2010, with a PlayStation 3 releases coming up in the early part of next year. Hit the jump to check out the trailer. Your eyes will thank you.

Thank You Square Enix, FFXIV Fatigue System Rocks

Many people on the internet have been rage-writing lately about a little-understood feature for Final Fantasy XIV called the fatigue system. While Square Enix may be vague, misleading, and sometimes even downright confusing while explaining how this system works, the basics are plain to see. The amount of experience a player can gain will be limited by the fatigue system. Now before we get into the convoluted details, let’s talk about some reasons why this is not necessarily a bad thing. I can understand some people might not like this proposition, especially as one who has played MMO-RPGs for days on end at times without break. However, I believe this concept is rock solid even if the implementation may be a little bit risqué. Just think about being able to play an MMO without the obligation of ‘no-life’ing’ whenever you can just to keep up with the progress of your friends (and enemies). A higher level of balance than seen in previous MMO-RPGs will be achieved with this system.

Aion: Assault on Balaurea New Zone Fly-Through Trailer

Today NCSoft released a new trailer of their upcoming Assault on Balaurea expansion for Aion, where they are nice enough to do a fly-through of one of the new zones, Inggison. This zone is outside of Atreia, where the entire game takes place up until this point. In fact, the lands of Atreia are on the interior of the planet. Inggison, however, is on the exterior, so we’ll see all sorts of different wildlife, monsters and all sorts of nifty things. Perhaps it’ll be like the difference between Azeroth and Outland, right? Oh, wait, sorry…I brought World of Warcraft into this post, my bad.

Hit the jump to check out the fly-through trailer. Assault on Balaurea is set to release on September 7, 2010, so just a couple short weeks from now.

Final Fantasy XIV’s Collector’s Edition Gets its Own Trailer

In a little over a month, those who are looking forward to Square-Enix’s latest MMO effort will be deeply rewarded. This is especially so for those of you looking to pick up the collector’s edition of FFXIV, which includes a whole lot of awesome goodies. In fact, this collector’s edition is so special that it was given its very own trailer. Hit the jump to check it out. It’s pretty short, but it gives another overview of what is in the collector’s edition.

The Bible Online MMO in the Works

Many have said of the bible and its fantastic ancient settings and characters that it would be a relatively good piece of inspiration for a video game. In fact, there have been video games based on the telling in the good book being released as far back as the NES.

It is arguable then that the new game from German developer FiAA GmbH is the very first massively multiplayer game to be based on the tome. Revealed today, the Bible Online is

“Developed for players of all ages to easily get closer to the Bible, while enjoying the game,”

President of FiAA GmbH, Dr. Alan Kim, continued saying

“We plan to service the game in most of the European languages by the end of the year. We will also develop following chapters to cover all the stories of the Bible.”

Accordingly, the MMO will cover several “chapters” each one recounting certain parts of the bible’s story. The first of these chapters is named The Bible Online: Chapter 1 and is based on the book of Genesis. Players will take control of characters including Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. While there is no release date, a beta is planned for September 6th.

The BlizzCon 2010 Vanity Pet Is…

This little guy! He’s hot from the inside out and named Deathy. That is, honestly, pretty lame. I expected more, Blizzard! But, the little dude is still pretty hot – pun intended. If you either attend BlizzCon 2010 in person, or order the live stream via DirectTV, you’ll receive this lovable, yet not very cuddly, little murloc friend to follow you around during your exploits in Azeroth after the Cataclysm. What do you think? How does he stack up to BlizzCon murlocs of the past?

Blizzard had this to say about this adorable little fella:

“Death will rise from the tide!” Level 80 Elite Tauren Chieftain once warned — and at BlizzCon 2010, the band’s dire musical prophecy will finally come to pass. Everyone who attends this year’s BlizzCon or purchases the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket will receive an exclusive set of murlocalyptic in-game items for World of Warcraft and StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty. World of Warcraft players will be joined by Deathy, a murloc companion decked out as Deathwing and doing his best to strike fear into the hearts of Azeroth’s crustacean population. You’ll also be able to display your tidal pride in StarCraft II with a Murloc Marine character portrait and a pair of deep-sea decals to emblazon on your units, each with a different terran, protoss, and zerg design.”

Allods Online Takes Fan Feedback and Releases Region-Specific Patch

MMORPG players are very vocal. Just take a jaunt over to the sesspool that is the World of Warcraft forums. Or, maybe this just goes for gamers in general. Either way, if there is something they don’t like about their preferred game, they make it known. Instead of waiting for that to happen, the team behind the free-to-play MMO Allods Online went out and contacted players and guilds to find out exactly what changes should be made to the game they all enjoy.

After the feedback was received, they compiled a list of changes and have put them live in a region-specific patch, only affecting North American and European servers. The patch includes a lot of things that – surprise, surprise – make the game less of a pain in the groin. Here’s a list of the major changes in patch 1.1.0:

• The Astral is being revamped! Astral isles will be much easier to find, astral Demons will not be as difficult, and the quantity of Astral drops will increase.
• More tradable items! The Rough Dragon Hide Backpack and Small Deposit Box will now be tradable.
• More daily quests! A new daily quest will allow players to receive the Incense blessing and another daily quest will give players an opportunity to earn an XP Scroll (Scroll of Knowledge).
• Extended item lifespan! The expiration date on items acquired from the Item Shop will be increased to 30 days.

Also mentioned in the press release is that they are hard at work on another major content patch making its way to you this fall.

GamesCom 2010: Cause for Final Fantasy XIV PS3 Holdup Re-iterated

The answer is relatively simple. “Memory Restrictions” were the words uttered by Hiromichi Tanaka, producer, at Gamescom last week. According to Vg247, Tanaka said, through a translator:

“The main reason was the memory, On the PC, they have enormous memory. For PS3, there’s a restriction. They are adjusting the memory size and customizing it; it took longer then we were expecting. But we’re really working hard to bring it out as soon as possible.”

Tanaka was then asked whether this memory limitation should be attributed to the Blu-ray disc or the PS3’s HDD, to which Tanaka responded “memory” and with no help from his translator. So much for nailing down the specifics.

Final Fantasy XIV launches September 30th for the PC. The PS3 version will be available at sometime in March of 2011. An open beta for the game will begin next month.

New Hello Kitty MMO Launches Today

Have you ever heard of Hello Kitty? It was originally a Japanese cartoon released in the nineties that sometime in the new millennium became a trending fad among wealthy young socialites. If you have heard of her, I doubt you’d consider her likeliness prime estate for a Massively Multiplayer Online game.

Well clearly, SANRIO DIGITAL disagrees with that. Today is the retail launch of Hello Kitty Online which is, as you guessed, an MMO. Within the game you’ll encounter a host of Kitty’s friends from the show (assuming you’ve ever seen it) like Badtz-Maru and Keroppi. Players will travel to locations around the globe and adventure with their friends.

Even more bizarre, they’ve taken the luxury of crafting a premium limited edition of the game for the true Hello Kitty fans; probably those rich Hollywood socialites I mentioned earlier. It includes an in-game cash card, a virtual pet and a postcard set. For all intents and purposes, Hello Kitty Online is available now.