Good times indeed.

MMO publisher Bigpoint announced the big news Monday that it will handle Battlestar Galactica Online, “a tactical space combat and adventure MMO game… [with] state of the art graphics that can be played directly in an Internet browser.”

In not so many words: an iPhone-capable pew-pew MMO.

I browsed through the list of browser games at MMO Hut and methinks BSG Online should play great, especially with the level of polish seen in other Bigpoint titles like DarkOrbit, SeaFight and Deepolis.

Focus on space combat, though, means iconic scenes like the Starbuck fight scene will be left out. But whatever happens, please please please let me control my very own Number Six. Even if it means having thousands of Abs-pollo characters hitting on me–I don’t care!

Now, now girls don’t hate on Number Six just cause she towers over you and can seduce a man to betray his whole race. She’s a Cylon you know, and it just comes with the whole package.

Anyway, for those of you near the sunny San Francisco area, you have until March 13 to visit the Games Developer Conference 2010 where BSG Online is being featured. We’ll give you game shots as soon as we get them as well, but until then, enjoy the next best thing to cheap STO energy credits–pouty pics of Number Six!

But all those fears were dispelled in the just concluded VanaFest 2010, an annual gathering for FFXI in Japan. Square Enix revealed new updates lined up for the eight-year old game–and not just minor hotfixes and a handful of new quests. Think 24 additional character levels, profession overhauls and three add-on scenarios!

We think raising the level cap from 75 to 99 is a cute nod to the Final Fantasy  tradition of keeping characters just shy of level 100.

But max-level players familiar with the difficult progression of FFXI (compared to World of Warcraft and other MMOs where gaining xp is “easier”) expressed reluctance in grinding two dozen more levels. But Square Enix promised the path to 99 will not be a grind with new quests being added to the Wings of the Goddess expansion and three lore-heavy add-on scenarios.

The official website for the three add-on scenarios is already up and appear to take place in the parallel world of Abyssea. Despite the new content that could attract old and new players to subscribe, Square Enix said server merges will be implemented in a March version update.

“To streamline server maintenance and provide our users with a more unified gaming environment, the March version update will see the merger and integration of certain low-population Worlds,” Square Enix said.

Click on the pic below for a handy roadmap of the game changes this year.

If you’re craving for the nitty gritty details on these updates, then head to the official VanaFest 2010 website. Seems like our Vana’diel adventures are far from over so save up on FFXI Gil, guys!

*slips Karate Kid II into the PS3*… what? I like part II!

Before we leave Star Trek Online for good this week, I’d like to leave you with this truly awesome trailer for the latest Borg-centric content pack, I mean look at it! If that doesn’t make you want to fire up the game and pilot a starship I don’t know what will. Actually, I think  that really should have been their launch trailer, it makes the game look stupendously impressive (it’s still fun, just not quite as action packed as that trailer might suggest). Whassis about new content I hear you ask? Why it’s the Borg you see, they’re coming… again.

What’s that I hear? Low bandwidth?Can’t be bothered to wait for a video to load? Fear not, here are some screenshots from the expansion to make you salivate, mmmmm….. Borrrrrrrrg!

A game as pretty as Aion lends itself rather nicely to the “printscreen” button, and its one-shots are among some of the most beautiful you’ll find on a site like Massively, which is why I was quietly pleased that NCsoft decided to hold a screenshot contest as part of their Valentines Day celebrations. You can find the winning entries here, d’awwwwww! ‘Ain’t that cuuuute? I wonder how many erm… NSFW entries they got though? I think I like one titled “Kiss, Kiss”, best of all, although the comic is pretty creative.

HULKAGEDDON News! Well, it’s not exactly riveting stuff, but I’ll take any opportunity I can get to write about HULKAGEDDON, and Massively have provided just that with the latest Eve Online Quarterly Economic Newsletter, which aims, in part, to show the effects of the notorious player created event (wherin pirates target mining barges called Hulks).

It would seem the gods at Sony Online Entertaiment have heard by silent plea, and have deemed us mere mortals fit to receive a second, totally awesome, and particularly heroic Q&A promo video for DC Universe Online. Hera be praised! Seriously though, I really am pleased with this, I like these fan driven videos and I’ve still got hope that DCUO will be a worthy addition to the MMO-verse and a great action MMORPG for gamers looking for something a bit more fast paced than WoW.

But enough talk, have at the video here! Erm, guys, how about some gameplay for the next vid?  And why, oh why does it seem that the more we find out about this game the less we know about it? And whatever happened to SOE’s The Agency anyway?

Don’t say I didn’t say it would happen, but it would appear that Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, the guys developing Stargate Worlds, have filed for bankruptcy. The writing’s been on the wall for a while now, what with CME seeming to have endless cash flow issues, and seemingly never making any progress on the game. Alarm bells went off about a month ago when they announced that they were going to put Stargate Worlds on the back burner while they worked on a stupendously lame looking first person shooter instead.

I guess this means the closes gamers will get to Worlds will probably have to be the sneak peek in the Stargate Universe pilot. Stargate’s a great license though, in fact it’s kind of a wonder there hasn’t been a decent game made using the IP yet. Perhaps well see a similar situation with what happened with Star Trek Online when Perpetual Entertainment went belly up and Cryptic came in with a bucket full of wow gold and bought the license. Of course, the sci-fi MMO space is getting a bit crowded, what with STO, Eve Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic on the way.

Come now, you didn’t think I’d finish up the post without mentioning that Blizzcast #13 is available! *right click, download and save file*

Okay, Danliel san’s about to take on Sato’s newphew at the temple, second best scene in the movie (after Daniel and Kumiko’s courtship in the storm) so I gotta get off here, jump around for a bit, put some coffee on the boil and maaaaybe eat a donut… or five.

Dessert:

- The Astounding Bloom Box (in case you’ve been living under a rock or something).

- Also, I realise I’m a little late with this, but holy mother of BROCK! Venture Bros. toys are coming!

Become an EpicToon fan so you can follow the trivia questions as they get posted on our Facebook wall. The questions are super easy and a simple comment on our Facebook site qualifies you for prizes.

Winners are chosen at random so recruit as many friends as you can to join the contest. This way, you’ll have a better chance of claiming those sweet 30-day Aion game time cards.

Two lucky guys have already won in the past few days, so go answer our trivia questions now at the EpicToon Facebook site.

Good luck and happy gaming!

Would you believe that when we finally get some concrete info on Bethesda’s Fallout: New Vegas, it comes not from IGN or Kotaku, but from… USA Today… whuh? We’ve heard rumors, but now we know some solid details regarding who you play, what you’re up to, and the state of Vegas. Apparently you’re a delivery boy who happens to get shot, buried just outside town, and left for dead, which explains why a friendly robot is helping to dig you out in the trailer. Apparently what you were carrying was pretty valuable, and the game’s plot revolves around you trying to figure out exactly what it was. Says Bethesda’s Pete Hines:

(Vegas provides) a brand new, fresh experience that has a familiar feel of Fallout, but otherwise it’s an entirely new game and a new look, with Joshua trees and tumbleweeds and blue skies. Vegas is up and running. It’s not a ghost town. It still exists and thrives. There are casinos, and you can go down onto the Strip. It will have a very different feel from that standpoint.

You will eventually hear a little bit about the events of (Fallout 3), but New Vegas is a self contained story. You don’t have to have played the previous games to have any clue what’s going on here.

It’s a massive game world that will take you hundreds of hours to explore every nook and cranny.

That last sentence right there? SOLD! Granted I’m still fifty hours and five expansions away from finishing Fallout 3, but you can never have too much Fallout, It’s like complaining that there’s too much ice cream and cake on your plate you know? People just look at you like you must be crazy.

You’ve spent wow gold on mounts, you’ve spent real cash on pets, prepare to spend more real cash on cute fluffy Warcraft stuffed toys. That’s right uber-fans, Warcraft plushies are here. Brace yourself though, these cute little fellas will cost you a fair bit more than a pandaren monk, personally I think they’re $10 more expensive than they should be, but I guess Blizzard can charge whatever the heck they want cus they know we’ll still pony up the cashola. It’s pretty cool though that the plushies come with an in-game companion, I guess that makes the high price somewhat easier to swallow. I’m partial to the Gryphon myself.

By the way, if you attended Blizzcon last year and are itching to get into the StarCraft II beta, just be a little patient, Blizzard are working on getting you your pass. Turns out there were so many attendees that they simply couldn’t get everyone in on the first wave of the beta.

You know, as cool as it is that WoW developed this awesome art style that’ll even allow play on a Commodore 64, I’m glad the guys at Funcom are pushing the graphical boundaries of MMO eye candy. Just have a look at these new Rise of the Godslayer screenshots, absolutely incredible.

If you’re looking for more RoG info, Funcom have been talking the expansion up recently, letting us know it’s a great value as it’s a huuuuuge expansion, with director Craig Morrison exclaiming that it’s the biggest production he’s ever lead. Most folks really appreciate what Morrison’s been able to do with AoC since he took the directors chair, so it’ll be interesting to see what he’s able to do with the game when he’s in control of content right out the gate. You get the feeling that the future of AoC rely on the success or failure of Rise of the Godslayer.

If you’re interested in RoG, or are just a bit Conan lore fan, you’ll want to check out CVG’s interview with Morrison, it’s a great piece and probably the best piece of PR I’ve seen for the expansion since it was announced. I’ve been worried that the shift in location wouldn’t really feel like Conan, but it certainly sounds like they’re making the most of the brief mention Kithai gets in Howard’s books.

Before I go, I want to take a moment to talk about the recent announcement of Eve Online: Tyrannis. Since Dominion I’ve wondered where they were going with the introduction of planetary vistas,  now things are falling into place. You can read all about Tyrannis here, though irritatingly we don’t get any screenshots or video of what the expansion offers. I have to say the promise of being able to survey and set up production facilities and mining areas on planets is all very cool. I’ve tried to get into Eve numerous times but I think it’s just a wee bit too complex for me, that doesn’t mean however, that I don’t find the game utterly intriguing.

Welp, I’m off to rummage for some food, the big fight scene between Takeshi Kaneshiro and Andy Lau is coming up, can’t miss that!

Dessert:

- Cus I’m in the mood. Jackie Chan vs. Benny Urquidez in Meals on Wheels.

It began with the launch of the random dungeon finder that made grouping for 5-man instances easy as pie. No more waiting  at a dungeon entrance while others made their way to you. Just a simple button press and servers now assemble your team automatically while you scan the auction house or do your daily quests.

Upcoming Patch 3.3.3 hopes to bring the same efficiency in PvP queuing with the creation of a random battlegrounds finder. And yes, I look forward to abusing it till I earn honor for a 300 resilience gear set!

Now, let me illustrate how this tool is a godsend. Every day, I try to finish the battleground daily to net additional WoW gold, experience and honor. When I get Warsong Gulch or Arathi Basin, it only takes ten minutes on average to get a match going.

But when I get Eye of the Storm or Strands of the Ancient, I can wait up to five hours and still not see the inside of a battleground! Lack of player interest in both battlegrounds stems from better honor gains–and fun!–in others like Alterac Valley, which can give 700-1,000 honor for every win at the level 70-79 bracket.

The random battlegrounds finder will allow players to spread out, with Blizzard doling out great incentives for doing so. Each random battlegrounds will yield bonus honor and 25 arena points, which can be spent on high-level PvP gear.

Blizzard has been mum though if each random will also award WoW Gold, hinting only at the possibility. I say shower us with coin so I can lay down fish feasts and crush Hordies with our well fed buff!

NCSoft reports that a multi-Legion group on Ariel server downed the three-headed dragon in one of its S rank attempts. Dark Poeta, the lair of Tahabata, is a level 50 zone and requires Daevas to purchase temporal stones before entering the instanced dungeon.

Forgiven, an Asmodian ranger who tanked for the successful six-man group, has posted a thread detailing their journey. It includes the full team list and  a couple of kill videos for those who want to learn the strats.

The ironic thing was Tahabata only dropped a blue-quality helm–underwhelming compared to the group’s effort, which included farming crafted fire resist gear and multiple kill attempts ending at ~5% remaining health.

Many expected far more epic loot, but I guess people just have to chock this up to the notoriously low drop rate in Aion. As more downings occur, NCSoft could bump up the drop rate of  gold-quality items to make it worth the effort. But until then, I’ll just leave the bragging rights to progression leets and just focus on getting a crafting proc for a sellable gold piece.

Aion Kinah for the win!

1 – I completely forgot Newman was in this.

2 – I completely forgot how awesome the first hour or so is, the sense of discovery, Jeff Goldblum bizarre line deliver, Sam Neil being Sam Neil… all great stuff, Spielberg at his wondrous best.

3 –  Also, wow… Sam Jackson was in Jurassic Park… weird.

4 – That theme music, so good.

I am of course taking a break from Star Trek Online, my march to earn enough sto energy credits to upgrade The USS Pax Magellanic continues endlessly on. It’s a funny thing, but during the open beta I hated, hated, hated ground combat, it was a chore. Now however, I actually prefer ground combat to ship combat. I’m really not sure what it is, maybe it’s been the gradual refinements to the ground based UI that make it easier to control your team-mates, but it seems a lot more tactical than the somewhat jumbled mess it was in open beta, which generally involved standing in one place and shooting till the other guy fell down.

I still haven’t worked up the steel to play a PvP match, I’m never big on PvP in MMO’s, I hear it’s a great way to earn energy credits, but… I just don’t like getting my butt kicked

Oi! PC Gamers! Yeah, you! 2K Games have announced Civilization V! I can’t pretend to be a long time fan of the series, the only Civ game I’ve ever played has been Civilisation Revolution on PlayStation 3, but good Lord that game stole hours of my life at a time. As I understand it Civ Rev was sort of a gateway drug to the Civ series, a simpler, more streamlined entry in the console space aimed at getting console players interested in the Civilisation franchise. If that’s true, it worked on me like a charm, because I have to admit I’m eager to see what Sid Meier has planned, I’m especially happy to hear that there are increased avenues for diplomatic gameplay, call me a pansy, but I’d rather talk my way out of a gunfight. If you’re interested in some screenshots, look no further.

Which brings me briefly to Fallout 3…  crikey it’s such an awesome game. I’m 35 hours after losing my first 100+ hour playthrough, and I can honestly say my second experience has been vastly different from the first.

Holy impending laswsuit, Batman! How fast do you think it’s going to take Activision Blizzard’s men in suits to catch on to World of LordCraft? I doubt hiding behind the “homage” or “fan game defense is going to do its developers much good at all, especially with this plastered on their homepage:

World of Warcraft is a classical game, we all love it. It gives us too much memory about Azeroth. But most of people can’t spend much time in WoW. Job and life things always take too much time, so World of Lordcraft is coming now.

Oh Lawd, more like World of LOLcraft, amIrite?

And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. Official StarCraft II beta system requirements, yes, the numbers leaked last month by Blizzard weren’t quite accurate, but they were close:

Minimum Requirements:

• Windows XP SP3/ Vista SP1/ Windows 7
• 2.2ghz Pentium IV or equivalent AMD Athlon Processor
• 1GB System Ram/ 1.5GB for Vista and Windows 7
• 128MB Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT/ ATI Radeon 9800 PRO video card
• 1024×768 minimum display resolution
• 4GB free hard drive space (beta)
• Broadband connection

And there you have it? Do you match up? I certainly hope so! To be fair these requirements are extremely low (which is to be expected for a Blizzard game).

Before I jet off into the sunset, I’d like to let y’all know that Age of Conan’s Return to Toth Amon, Update 6 is now live (le patch notes). It’s been a while since I logged into AoC, STO’s been keeping me busy, but this sounds like an intriguing update, I might consider re-upping just to have a look.

And with that lads and lassies, I’m off to fix a cup ‘a joe and rummage around for some day old donuts to warm in me microwave. Remember wastelanders, don’t feed the Yao Guai!

Dessert:

- An oldie but a goodie – Sho Nuff!

- This gesture by Blizzard makes me feel a lot better about them charging folks so much for digital pets. Really nice.

As for me, I’ve been on a self imposed break from STO over the weekend, I’m getting ever closer to Lt. Cmdr (I know, you can point and laugh at how slow I am).

I figured I was going to get my free month out of the way, then give Cryptic a month to get the game more stable, squash bugs are release a bit more content, but they’ve come flying out of the starting blocks, what with the recent news about the Borg content, and now we’re hearing they’ve apparently got concrete plans to open up more ship interiors.

Ship interiors would probably be a feature that most STO players would have wanted from the start, but the simple fact is that Cryptic hadn’t really expected to include them, and only included four mildly different Bridges in the final game (each costing about 1,000 energy credits). They’ve always maintained that if the community wanted them, we’d get them, and this interview with exec producer Craig Zinkievich, is pretty much the closest they’ve come to confirming ship interiors are coming:

“Anything we can do to make the game feel even more like Star Trek is something we want to do. So, definitely, we want to give people more of their ship. This is one of those things we want to get perfect before introducing it to players, though, it’s going to be an undertaking.”

Eagle eyed readers will notice the caveat in that last sentence, it’s basically Zinc saying, “don’t expect this next week”. I expect the challenge, apart from the creation of all the new assets, would be figuring out what to do with all this new game space. What sort of functionality will these interiors have? Right now the in-game bridges are… well they’re useless, I doubt folks will want to cough up thousands more in energy credits for purely cosmetic engine rooms, captain’s quarters, ten forwards etc. The bridge is officially listed by Cryptic as being a social place, but I’ve never really felt the need to invite someone onto my bridge, I mean that’s what ten forward is for, right?

If you’re still on the fence about Star Trek Online, you might want to check out this review-ish article that Gamepro has put up. I’ve been impressed with what John Davison’s done with Gamepro since taking over late last year, and this is probably one of the fairest, and most accurate reviews of STO I’ve come across.

Remember Richard Garriot? Remember Tabula Rasa? Stop laughing at the back! Well, if you remember them both, you might recall that back when Tabula Rasa was still um, operational, Richard Garriot embarked on a PR stunt that sent him into space, well, apparently there was a film crew of sorts that documented his trip, and we’ll be seeing the full video at South by Southwest, in the mean time, here’s a trailer. Wow. I guess nothing good came of Tabula Rasa after all.

*Random thought* I love Chrome, but it’s got so many weird quirks. Ctrl+B controls bookmarks but Ctrl+I still handles italics… really?

Oh! Oh! Oh! So I found this pretty cool episode of Gametrailer’s Bonus Round this weekend. It’s always a great show, but I’m linking to it specifically now because the panel involved, which includes Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter, Naughty Dog Co-Founder Jason Rubin, and Gametrailers EIC Shane Satterfield, are talking about how paying for games has got to change. It isn’t long before they’re talking about the free-to-play model, and then Rubin, the only developer of the bunch, comes across as a strong proponent of RMT. It’s just refreshing to see that some game developers get it. Rubin’s ideas are pretty progressive, and his idea of letting the gamer have the initial game for free, and then deciding how he wants to pay to play it… well, that’s revolutionary. Satterfield presents things from the average gamers perspective, and you can see he’s a little rattled by the idea that someone can come in and purchase for $1 what he’s worked 10 hours for, but like Rubin says, how does this unbalance the game in any way? It’s a great episode, and definitely one to be checked out.

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about Age of Conan, but considering STO’s shiny newness, can you blame me for being distracted? Anyway, the ever reliable MMORPG.com have conducted a Rise of the Godslayer-centric interview with Erling Elingsen (love that name). If you’re so inclined, you might want to check it out. I’m looking forward to RoG, but until we start to see more screenshots and more trailers, it still seems a long way away.

P.S. I’m not even going to talk about the new tile revealed on the WoW Battlecry mosaic. It’s TAKING TOO LONG!

Dessert:

- A Night At The Emirates – The best Arsenal FC video on Youtube!

- The greatest action scene of all time (featuring the power sliding horse)

In the words of the immortal Chris Farley, Oh my freakin’ gourd! It’s a full theatrical trailer for The Last Airbender! For three years or so my brother tried to get me to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender (no relation to the cinematic juggernaut currently ripping the box office a new one), but I refused, I thought (in my ignorance) it looked like a Dragonball Z redux… how wrong I was, it’s easily one of the best cartoons of the past decade, and the fact that there’s a movie coming, well, I’m tickled pink… a very manly shade of pink, mind you.

Back to Star Trek Online news for a moment, I bought TWO collectors editions for the game, one Digital Deluxe Edition from Steam to play, and the other from Amazon to hold and to have… at least until the price appreciated tenfold, Blizzard-style. I suppose I should give up any hopes of ever becoming a high powered financial advisor then, because the STO collectors edition is currently doing the exact opposite of appreciating in value. It’s now available for sixty five smackers, down from eighty just a couple of weeks ago. *Sigh*.

Speaking of the STO collectors edition, if you’re wondering whether it’s worth taking the plunge, Massively’s got an unboxing so you can see for yourself what it looks like. Personally, the only thing that really gets my blood pumping is the metal communicator badge, which looks like it’s well made. Aside from that, it’s probably one of the lamest physical collectors editions for a major MMO release, no holographic galaxy map? C’mon guys!

*runs off to put a pot of coffee on the boil*

Valentines Day creeps ever closer, which means lots of in-game events, which everyone loves because, well, they’re a change of pace for a normally static MMO environment. Safe to say Blizzard does ‘em best, but I’m curious what Cryptic have planned for STO (assuming they’ve got anything planned).

The guys at Fallen Earth certainly have something unique planned, they’re asking players to send them poetry, yes, I said poetry. Submit your entries up until February 14th, and the team will decide which warms their cockles the most, and award the burgeoning Tennyson with a T-shirt and a valentine from the team. Touching. I really wish Fallen Earth had a free trial, I kinda want to give the game a go.

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re not a WoW noob, but you might still be interested to hear that only 30% of World of Warcraft trial accounts make it past level 10. Now, everywhere I’ve seen, this story’s painted things in a negative light, combining the stat with the one that WoW’s subscriber  base seems to have plateaued in 2008, but isn’t turning three out of every ten demo trialists into a paying subscriber really good? Shows you what I know I suppose.

I’m not entirely sure how I missed this one, but it’s really cool. We saw with Fallen Earth a few weeks ago how the developers were giving the ol’ game engine a bit of a spit and polish, and we know CCP have been doing the same with Eve Online for years now, Age of Conan had the DX10 upgrade, and now NCsoft are giving City of Heroes‘ graphics an overhaul. It’s definitely a welcome trend, and one we’d like to see more of going forward.

We’ve heard rumors of this in the past, and it’s something franchise star developer Infinity Ward have moved to distance themselves from in the past, but Activision is apparently still trying to find a way to further monetise the Call of Duty franchise. And they’re looking at a subscription based model. Now, on it’s own this doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to see a Call of Duty MMO, but given the recent launch of MAG (which really should qualify as an MMO seeing as how it’s battles encompass a larger number of players than your average STO Fleet Action), you can’t help but wonder whether Activision is going to leverage some of the expertise of the guys at Blizzard to help them craft a COD MMO.

You have to wonder though, will this be the moment the franchise jumps the shark? Will gamers (console gamers especially) really be willing to pay a monthly fee to play Call of Duty? Or will they just move on to Medal of Honor or Battlefield: Bad Company?

Dessert:

- God of War II: Chaos Will Rise trailer.