Funcom has announced that Age of Conan is to be released in Korea. It's the first deal to bring the fantasy MMO to the crucial Asian market. Age of Conan launched in the US and Europe back in May to strong sales, but quickly gained a reputation for unfinished content in the later stages.

"We are very excited to introduce the world-class large-scale MMORPG Age of Conan with its popularity and great reputation in the industry," said Neowiz boss Choi Gwan-ho.

"This will be the first large-scale MMORPG for Neowiz Games and both companies will also work tightly together to adapt and implement a fully localised game for Korean users," he added.

"Bringing Age of Conan to Korea is something we have wanted to do for a long time now," said Funcom chief Trond Arne Aas. "This is a very exciting and highly dynamic market, and we know that Korean gamers are amongst the most active online gamers in the world."

For more info ,please check it here .

Games-masters.com today confirmed that the eagerly anticipated open beta of its massively multiplayer online game, Perfect World, will begin now for its International English, German and Spanish versions. Having successfully completed several stages of closed testing, the game will be made available to millions of players across the globe, giving thousands the chance to experience what many have labelled as the leader in the free-to-play online games market.

"We would like to thank all those who have helped with the early phases of testing" stated Howard Lee, President of Games-Masters.com. "We have been blown away by the early response and look forward to finally meeting the hundreds of thousands of players who have already shown their interest in this fantastic game."

        "Perfect World II" is a vast online role-playing game set in a fantasy world with many extra features such as character customization to an unprecedented in game level with self built characters. In addition the fighting experience is taken to literally a new level with extensive fighting whilst in flight to offer the gamer a truly unique 3D exp

Bandai Namco announced that Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London MMO will remain free and operating till January 31, 2009:

NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced that they will continue to support customers of PC game Hellgate™: London with online server support and play through January 31, 2009 despite the closure of Flagship Studios. In a further gesture of support, Namco Bandai Games will provide this server support free of charge to all fans and players of the game up until the shut down date.

NAMCO BANDAI Games appreciate the enthusiasm of all the Hellgate: London players and looks forward to providing them with future entertainment products.

For questions regarding the shut down or additional information about Hellgate: London, please visit the game’s official website at www.hellgatelondon.com.

NDOORS Interactive has announced it has signed a deal with Gamania to release in Taiwan Atlantica Online, a MMO using a turn-based combat system, offering players the chance to strategically plan every move of the nine characters in their group. Players can form teams of three to bring 27 controllable characters into combat. For simple fights, players can also preset each character/mercenary’s skill set and let the auto-battle system resolve the fight. The mercenary system gives players the chance to manage multiple characters' development simultaneously.

Original from Gamershell.com

Atlantica Online Feature

Reviews

According to Blizzard's COO Paul Sams, more than half of the players who left World of Warcraft for Warhammer Online have come back to the game they once loved.

    "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. "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."

Now keep in mind this is only out of the number of people who told Blizzard they left WoW for WAR. This in no way means that half of the 750,000 Warhammer subscribers are leaving for WoW. That's a totally different number.

For more information on the return to WoW, please check here.

ANKAMA have announced that DOFUS has reached the 10 million player mark, including 1.5 million paying subscribers:

"DOFUS, the leading massively multiplayer online game in France now counts 10 million players, including 1.5 million subscribers, throughout the world.

DOFUS, the 1st massively multiplayer role-playing game (MMORPG) in Flash, created by the ANKAMA Group, has gathered 10 million players, including 1.5 million subscribers since its release. Its principal appeal lies in its manga-inspired graphics and gripping tactical gameplay which have seduced players of all ages and backgrounds.

Ever since its release in September 2004, the number of players has steadily increased both in France and around the world: 30% of the players are non French-speakers. Today DOFUS is played in 150 countries and will soon be available in 10 different languages.

The English-language international version, launched in 2005, has attracted thousands of players from Spain, the UK, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Canada, Brazil and the US. As DOFUS had such great success, German and Spanish versions of the game were released in 2007. Italian, Dutch and Portuguese versions of the game are now also av

After 2 years of speculations and rumors, the much-talked about Halo MMO is now officially canceled.

The news hit the web following Microsoft's announcement that Ensemble Studios will be closed after the completion of Halo Wars, and the subsequent cancellation of another unannounced MMO project -which turned out to be Halo.

Microsoft has decided to close Ensemble Studios following the completion of Halo Wars. After the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new studio and has agreed to provide ongoing support for Halo Wars as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios.

The team at Ensemble has made invaluable contributions to the games industry with their Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games and with the highly anticipated release of Halo Wars. This decision does not reflect at all on Ensemble's talent or the quality of Halo Wars. in fact, many people who have had a chance to test drive Halo Wars agree that it is on track to being a fantastic game.

This was a fiscally-rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to

Jumpgate Evolution has added new information and artwork depicting the spaceships players will pilot in their upcoming MMO. With options abounding for both combat and commercial ships, players will have a bevy of ships to pick. In addition to the later level ships, the website provides a glimpse into the early vessels we will be piloting:

    “The first ship any rookie pilot gains experience with is a trainer of some sort. These spacecraft are usually classed as "shuttle trainers", but within the Octavian Empire it is conventional to refer to their training ships as "patrol trainers". Universally, trainers are inexpensive light-duty utility ships meant for use by inexperienced pilots. They tend to possess outstanding handling characteristics and can mount light weaponry, but are only capable of mounting minimal extra equipment."

You can go and check the Spacecraft section of the Jumpgate Evolution website  ,enjoy :)

BioWare's upcoming PC RPG Dragon Age will, like Neverwinter Nights, come with a toolset to allow players to create their own adventures. Those of us sufficiently nerdy enough to be subscribers to the BioWare World Builders Newsletter just received an e-mail announcing that videos of the toolset are now available at the company's website. You'll need an account for the forums to access them, but I imagine you already have one if you're interested in this sort of thing.

These two demo videos debuted at PAX but have finally been posted on the Net for the first time. There's also a few screenshots of the toolset, on display at the bottom of this article. As you might expect, the Dragon Age toolset is actually very similar to the Neverwinter Nights or Neverwinter Nights 2 toolsets, which should ease the learning curve substantially. Most of my time on NWN building was spent fiddling with the character conversation editor and to my eyes, it looks exactly the same in the Dragon Age toolset.

Click here for more infoabout Dragon Ages .

Ryzom, the fusion of fantasy and sci-fi is not only back, it is free. Yes free and free to everyone, not just those with previous accounts.

Dear Atysians,

Recently we opened the game to every single account for free and removed all restrictions on Unlimited Free Trial accounts making them truly "unlimited". Since then everyone who ever had an account and wasn't banned has been able to come and play and we've been very gratified to see so many people enjoying themselves on Atys.

Of course we've not failed to notice the large number of people who have just learnt about Ryzom recently and can't wait to sign up and join everyone else. Starting right now we have opened account creation for a limited number of free accounts! If you don't have a Ryzom account already, hurry and sign up; this will only be possible for a short time because there's a limited number of accounts to be created across all three communities! If you already play and know some people who don't then tell them to come sign up and join you absolutely free.

Time may to get in may be short though as they are only allowing a limited number of accounts to sign up and play across the three communities so hurry