For as many Asian MMOs that get imported overseas, it's good to see a little love heading back that way as well. South Korean players anxious to get their hands on RIFT will now have that opportunity. Trion Worlds announced that it signed a multi-year agreement with CJ E&M Games to publish a localized version in the country.

This is good news for RIFT, as it will expand outside of its current North American and European markets. Trion's Lars Buttler sees South Korea as ripe for a few dynamic invasions: "We take the Korean market very seriously as it is driven by innovation and growth in the online gaming space. By working with CJ E&M we are able to bring deep, immersive online gaming experiences to the east, and continue delivering quality games to gamers worldwide."

RIF

Interesting news, FBI raids University of Michigan apartment over possible WoW fraud

The FBI raided the apartment of two University of Michigan students on March 30th to investigate potentially fraudulent sales or purchases of virtual currency that people use to advance in the popular online role-playing game World of Warcraft.

The two students who share the apartment claim that they do not play WoW and are confident that they are innocent. One of the unnamed students commented: "They thought we were involved in some kind of fraud. I'm pretty sure they have the wrong people, but they took all my stuff."

Federal Court records show that the FBI is investigating gold farming and its apparent connection to terrorism. In this case, agents were looking for online transaction records ass

If you're one of those looking forward to playing a Charr in Guild Wars 2, this is your week. ArenaNet is focusing on the Charr for the next five days, beginning in the most logical place: the Charr starting area.

Content designer Devon Carver gives his take on the creation of this zone in today's ArenaNet blog post: "First impressions are lasting impressions, and the first area you'll encounter as a new Charr player is the Village of Smokestead. We know that it has to be reflective of who the Charr are and that it has to set the stage for the Charr perspective on life."

Carver goes on to cover many details of the area both big and small -- everything from the overall layout of the village to the problem of how to feed the citizens every day. You can check out the full entry at

A new boss in Firelands : Lord Anthricyst, who went into exile in the Firelands after seeing his name mispelled way too many times.

Patch 4.2 models with what seems to be a new trash mob, the overfiend! It comes in multiple recolors but the only one you will see for the moment is probably the fire version.

Kung Fu Master

Force Master

Destroyer

Blade Master

Blade & Soul  will rise to the surface and perform its first CBT from April 27th to May 1st for 5 days.

Players, who wish to have a try, can visit Blade & Soul's official site and submit applications from April 15th to 19th. The application results are scheduled to be announced on April 22nd

In the upcoming CBT, game content ranging from Level 1 to Level 20 will be playable, including the oriental-style movement system, gorgeous skills, group system and much more elements. Testers will get the chance to have a firsthand taste of such things.

The marketing director from NCsoft expressed, "Thank all players for their attention to Blade & Soul during the preparation period. Blade & Soul will bring players varying content through this CBT. Please wait patiently."

Q: When will achievements finally be awarded account-wide? – Larosh (Europe [German]), Eneia & Payasos (Europe [Spanish]), Rageudder & Kellgros (Europe [English]), Деадхил (Europe [Russian]), Nyn (North America/ANZ), 기사는아무나 (Korea)

A: Making achievements Battle.net account-wide is something we'd like to do, but it's not a goal we could provide a current timetable for. All of the original World of Warcraft coding was done with the expectation that the data on every realm would always be independent. Now that we are trying to make as many things as possible account-wide, we’re having to rebuild all of those systems. It is absolutely something we want to do, but it will take a lot of time away from other features.

Q: Will we ever be able to spend our achievement points on something? Or will there be a feature where it will be required to have x amount of points? – Nordicberry (Europe [English]), Hogosha & Wulkuhr (Europe [German]), Neroth (Europe [French]), K

Tired of the same old same old in your favorite MMO? Looking for something else to do? Well, if you're one of a particular breed of players, you might try out setting some self-imposed limitations on your leveling. In World of Warcraft, several players have tried their hands at different methods. Gutrot from the EU leveled to 70 wearing only a loincloth. Gweryc decided to run his hunter as a melee-only character. Noor the Pacifist then decided to level his character to 70 by not killing any mobs at all, and he only did quests that involved non-violent criteria (like FedEx quests).

Now we hear that another player has upped the alternative-leveling ante by not questing at all. Everbloom, level 85 Night Elf Restoration Druid from the Feathermoon server, leveled all the way to 85 by grinding e

Hi,guys! Mark your calendars! Tickets for BlizzCon 2011 will go on sale at on Saturday, May 21 at 10 a.m. PDT and on Wednesday, May 25 at 7 p.m. PDT through the official BlizzCon website (www.blizzcon.com). In addition, a limited number of tickets to an exclusive pre-BlizzCon Benefit Dinner will go on sale Saturday, May 28 at 10 a.m. PDT. BlizzCon tickets will be available at $175 USD each, while tickets to the BlizzCon Benefit Dinner (which include admission to the show) will be priced at $500 each, with proceeds going to benefit Children's Hospital of Orange County. Tickets to previous BlizzCon shows have sold out within minutes, so be sure to synchronize your hourglasses.

If you can't make it to the show in person, the BlizzCon Virtual Ticket will once again allow you to watch the event live from the comfort of your own home. The Virtual Ticket will be available as multi-channel Internet stream around the world and also via DIRECTV in the United States.