Bullfrog's classic and sadistic PC strategy series Dungeon Keeper is being resurrected in the form of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game titled Dungeon Keeper Online, publisher EA and Chinese developer NetDragon Websoft announced today.

Though the developer specified its hopes for "remarkable results" internationally, the announcement only confirmed a release for the "Greater China region." It will be Netdragon's first 3D MMO, and the company will handle operation and distribution within the aforementioned "Greater China region." No release date was given.

"Capitalizing our strength to create a strong gaming experience, powerful operating platform and unmatched expertise within China's online game market, we are confident that Dungeon Keeper Online will not only become successful in the Greater China region but also achieve remarkable results overseas," said... Read more

Blizzard announced today that its second World of Warcraft expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, sold over 2.8 million copies during its first day on store shelves, causing the company to declare it "the fastest-selling PC game of all time."

According to Blizzard, that feat was previously held by the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, which launched in January 2007 and sold 2.4 million copies day one.

Adding the frozen continent of Northrend, the Death Knight Hero class, an increased level cap and other new content to the MMO, Lich King hit November 13.

Released in 2004, World of Warcraft currently has over 11 million subscribers.

Webzen's oft-delayed shooter MMO Huxley (PC), originally slated to hit in 2006 and most recently expected to hit North America in late 2008, has been delayed once again.

The North American release was delayed due to localization issues, publisher NHN USA informed Big Download, with the English version of the free-to-play game now expected to hit within the first half of 2009. The Korean version is currently in open beta.

No details were provided as to the Xbox 360 version, announced in 2005, though Webzen has long promised that it will follow the PC release.

Blizzard sees it as "a fact" that BioWare's Star Wars: The Old Republic (PC) will be a great game. From the house of the world's largest game, that's quite a compliment, but COO Paul Sams was quick to offer some advice to the Austin, TX, studio looking to become Blizzard's rival.

Sams warned that BioWare may not be expecting "players smacking them around"--no doubt in reference to an unforgiving Internet public--according to VideoGamer.com. The Blizzard executive also reminded BioWare of the online issues that plague MMO launches.

Star Wars: The Old Republic was finally announced in October

Thanks to the company's Battle.net service, "we had a level of experience that candidly no other game company had and so a lot of the bumps and bruises that we got would have been substantially, monumentally worse," said Sams of the experience of launching World of Warcraft.

Even for the accomplished BioWare, Sams implied that launching an MMO could still be an uphill battle. "You can have a great developer and you can have ... Read more

Blizzard used last night's launch of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King to do a little more teasing about its "next-gen MMO" in the works, adding "cool" and "new" to the list of words deemed appropriate to describe the project about which little is known.

"We want to create a great game," said Blizzard COO Paul Sams to VG247, adding, "Something that's cool, and new, and different, and kind of next generation in terms of look and feel and gameplay. That's a challenging endeavour."

Blizzard itself may not yet know how different its game will be. "When we're building a new game from the ground up, what happens is that it's slow going for the first bit, while the team goes round and round and round figuring out how it's going to look and feel, what the player experience is and what the differentiators are," Sams explained.

"The last thing we want to do is say, 'Hey we're doing this,' and everyone says, 'Oh cool,' and then we change things completely," commented the executive.

Not much is known about the next MMO from the company that pulled 11 million players into its first one. Blizzard would neither confirm or deny that the game would be set in a new universe, although the studio does not intend to use the new game as a replacement for World of Warcraft.

With Blizzard having confirmed that some sort of "paid character customization" will eventually be offered to it 11+ million World of Warcraft subscribers, the famed developer has offered a few new details on the controversial feature.

"When you create your character, often times you wish you'd done things differently. You wish you were on a different realm, you wish you'd had a different name or you wish you'd chosen a different look and feel," Blizzard's Paul Sams told Eurogamer.

"We want to give you the ability to do this, but we don't want you to do it all the time," added Blizzard's Lee Sparks. "The same thing goes for [the existing] paid character transfer, we don't want people bouncing back and forth."

Paid character customization will be more about modifying previous character design decisions instead of adding more customization options to the MMO, Sparks noted.

No specifics were offered, but Eurogamer suggests the paid customization could apply more to fundamental changes--facial features, skin color--over superficial things like haircuts, which were recently introduced to the game.

Sams noted his belief that paid character customization will be "a good value for customers," explaining that "it's not like we're going to go about pricing it in such a way that it's unfair or inappropriate."

The U.S. Army may use MMO games like World of Warcraft as simulation training for new artificial intelligence that would see use in holographic soldiers for training.

It sounds ridiculous, but it's straight from the mouth of John Parmentola, the director of research for the Army's science and technology office.

"We want to use the massively multi-player online game as an experimental laboratory to see if they're good enough to convince humans that they're actually human," said Parmentola according to military blog DoD Buzz, whose report was picked up by gadget blog Gizmodo.

"I actually interact with virtual humans in terms of asking them ... Read more

Blizzard's highly-successful 2004 MMO World of Warcraft (PC) has now amassed over 11 million subscribers worldwide, the developer proclaimed today.

The milestone comes roughly a month and a half after Blizzard announced the November 13 release of Wrath of the Lich King--the title's second expansion pack--and noted that the game had more than 10.9 million subscribers.

"It's been very rewarding to see gamers around the world continue to show such strong support for World of Warcraft," said Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime. "We remain fully committed to responding to that enthusiasm with a high-quality, constantly evolving game experience."

Although Blizzard has another MMO in development, the studio recently promised that the new title will be "different" and vowed that World of Warcraft will be supported "as long as people want us to support it." WoW is expected to net at least another 1 million subscribers across the next year, according to analyst predictions.

World of Warcraft's Subscriber Definition... Read more

Ending years of silence and rumors, BioWare and LucasArts today revealed that they have joined forces to produce a Star Wars massively multiplayer online game set in the Knights of the Old Republic Universe.

Dubbed Star Wars: The Old Republic, the title will allow players to choose between the Galactic Republic and Sith Empire factions, with each having unique classes and races. Only a PC version was confirmed in today's announcement.

No release date was given, with BioWare stressing that the game has no release window, though a past report suggested it would launch in 2009. The studio is "definitely planning" an open beta, BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk confirmed.

The story-based MMO will be set roughly 300 years after BioWare's 2004 single-player RPG Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (PC, Xbox) and the Obsidian-developed sequel, or 3500 years before the beloved film series.

"We're making KOTOR 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and beyond--this game is that big, it's got that much content in it," explained BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka. "It's very... Read more

Prior to Warhammer Online's recent launch, developer Mythic cut four classes and multiple capital cities out of the PC MMO. Two of those classes will be added back in December, but studio VP Mark Jacobs claims that one may be gone for good.

"One of [the remaining two] we hope to put back in," Jacobs told Eurogamer. "I can't tell you which yet, that's a surprise. We're probably going to be replacing one and putting in another class in its place. But we'll be talking about that in a few months."

With the Black Guard and Knight of the Blazing Sun classes due in a December patch, both the Dwarf Hammerer and Greenskin Choppa are still on the cutting room floor.

"There will still be four going back in, it just won't be necessarily the same four," Jacobs asserted. "We're not going to put it in just so we can go 'see guys, we put it back in.' If it's not great, it doesn't belong in the game."

Two of the classes cut from Warhammer Online prior to the PC MMO's release will be added in a major patch due out this December, developer Mythic has revealed.

Patch 1.1 will bring the Black Guard and Knight of the Blazing Sun classes along with free server transfers for over- and under-populated servers, "major additions to the chat system (item linking and more), as well as continued work on our targeting system," which includes the addition of Main Assist and Target of Target.

The title's RvR play will be revised as well--improved gear drops, increased drop rates, an RvR-influence system and "more incentive to engage in open RvR"--with other tweaks including 14 new quest chains, two new Lairs, more Tome of Knowledge unlocks, and changes to the nearly all of the game's careers.

"Almost every career is going to see some changes and love coming their way," Mythic VP Mark Jacobs explained in the first State of the Game letter. "There are very, very few changes that will be seen as reductions to a career's abilities."

World of Warcraft developer Blizzard is mostly keeping its mouth shut about its "next-gen MMO," but that hasn't stopped CEO Mike Morhaime from teasing fans.

"Let's just say it's going to be different and it's not going to be a sequel to World of Warcraft," Morhaime told Wired. "It will be different."

He explained that the studio is "not trying to replace World of Warcraft with this new MMO," but is instead trying to "create a different massively multiplayer experience, and hopefully World of Warcraft will still be going strong when that one is released."

Little more is known about the unannounced MMO--during another BlizzCon interview, Morhaime refused to confirm if it is set in a new universe--though the studio has hinted that that the project could end up on consoles in addition to PC.

"We definitely don't have a deadline where 'at this point we're not going to support World of Warcraft,'" Morhaime added. "We wanna support it as long as people want us to support it."

Over half of the World of Warcraft players that left the popular PC MMO for Mythic's recently launched Warhammer Online have since returned to Azeroth, Blizzard claims.

"We've seen a significant number of people, well over half, that cited Warhammer as their reason for leaving--they've already returned." Blizzard COO Paul Sams told GamesIndustry.biz. "It surprises me because Mythic is a very good company and it doesn't surprise me at the same time because it's really hard [to make an MMO]."

"I think Warhammer is best positioned to succeed out of the various products that have come out thus far since World of Warcraft has come out," he explained... Read more

City of Heroes and Star Trek Online developer Cryptic Studios today opened registration for the closed PC beta of its superpowered MMO Champions Online.

Those seeking to role-play the virtual life of a super hero can apply for beta access on the game's official site, with the PC-only beta slated to begin in mid-November.

"This closed beta is an exciting step in the evolution of Champions Online," said Cryptic creative officer Jack Emmert. "All of us here in the Cryptic offices have been playing the game for a while now, and we're excited to invite others in to have as much fun with Champions Online as we've been having internally."

Champions Online is scheduled to launch on PC and "current gen consoles" in spring.

Though the Fallout franchise is now mostly out of original designer Tim Cain's hands, that doesn't mean he's going to ignore what's going on with the post-apocalyptic role-playing franchise he helped spawn while at Black Isle Studios.

"The biggest problem...is that the original games were designed to make you feel like you were one of the last people left on Earth," he observed to Edge Online. "With Fallout 3 and the online version, I'm curious about how they'll handle making the game not feel too crowded--making it feel like there's not much life left out there after the war."

"I do like what I've seen about Fallout 3," Cain said of the Bethesda-developed sequel, which hits PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 on October 28. "It's their IP now and they've gone in a certain direction and it's very intriguing."

"It's not necessarily the direction I would've gone," he added, expressing... Read more

Acclaimed RPG developer BioWare will officially reveal its massively multiplayer Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game later this month, claims CVG.

The publication cites a recent column in UK newspaper The Daily Star, which stated the reporter would soon head off to San Francisco in order to "file an exclusive report on [BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic MMO.]"

After months of rumors, studio owner EA confirmed that BioWare Austin was indeed working on a massively-multiplayer effort set in the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic universe, which takes place 4000 years before the beloved film series. No platforms have been announced for the game.

The Knights of the Old Republic universe was popularized through two Xbox and PC RPGs--the first developed by BioWare, the second handled by Obsidian.

According to EA CEO John Riccitiello, the Star Wars MMO is one of the "two of the most compelling MMOs in the industry"--the other being EA Mythic's recently launched Warhammer Online (PC)--and is "quite possibly the most anticipated game, full stop, for the industry."

Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley has publicly opened up the possibility of MMO games for Sony's handheld PlayStation Portable.

At a panel conference on the future of MMO games, Smedley commented, "I think PSP is something that we're definitely looking at; 34 million [sold] worldwide really opens your eyes," according to MTV Multiplayer. "And they're all connected," he added.

"We're really starting to see a big push for PSP [within Sony Computer Entertainment]," Smedley continued. "We think it's a world-class device... In the future, we see full MMOs that are designed for the PSP."

Smedley's prediction doesn't have gamers playing World of Warcraft on the go anytime soon, however. In one example offered by the executive, "you could have a pet-training system that literally connects to our online gaming where you can mess around with your pet," specifically citing SOE's upcoming free-to-play MMO FreeRealms.

That concept could eventually find its way into a full-blown hand-held MMO that changes based on connectivity. "Another way to do it might be to give them mini-games that they can do [on the PSP] when sitting at a bus stop. You're sitting there leveling up your character, you log in at home when you're on Wi-Fi, and all of sudden your character has leveled up. We think those kinds of experiences are very possible," Smedley concluded.

Since the official launch of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning (PC) on September 18, more than half a million players have registered to play the Mythic-developed massively multiplayer role-playing game, the studio announced today.

According to the company, this makes Warhammer Online "the fastest-selling new MMO of all time," with studio VP Mark Jacobs adding that "the ranks of Order and Destruction are growing at a record-breaking pace for a new MMORPG."

The last high-profile PC MMO release, Funcom's Age of Conan, netted 400K players in the week following its May launch. Funcom later claimed that Conan was "the biggest MMO launch since World of Warcraft," a record that Mythic appears to be closing in on.

Interplay has relaunched its company website which notes, among other things, that the company's Fallout MMO is still in development.

Codenamed "Project V13", Interplay has opened an Orange County, CA office for development of the game. It has also hired Chris Taylor, who was part of the original Fallout team, to be the lead system designer for the new game. Taylor joins several other former Fallout development team members who had been hired by Interplay previously.

Though Interplay sold the rights to Fallout to Bethesda last year, it retained the possibility to develop an online Fallout game. Interplay does need to raise at least $30 million in funding for the project before April of 2009, and Bethesda is allowed to keep close tabs on development -- or the company loses the MMO license.

Age of Conan producer and game director Gaute Godager has left Funcom, the company announced today.

A sixteen year veteran at Funcom, and one of its original founders, Godager admits to issues with the MMO which launched back in May. "I have done my very best making this fabulous game, but I have concluded there are elements which I am dissatisfied with. I have decided to act on this, and as a result I have chosen to leave Funcom. It is time to get new, fresh eyes on Age of Conan," said Godager in a statement.

He added, "I have had a fantastic time these last 16 years, and I am very proud of the many things Funcom has achieved. Funcom and Conan will always be a big part of me, but as I now look to new ventures outside the gaming industry I am certain Age of Conan's future is in the best of hands."

Replacing Godager will be Craig Morrison, who served as producer and game director on Anarchy Online for the past few years. According to Morrison, "My main priority now is therefore to listen to, and act on, player concerns, while ensuring we add additional great content to the game."