Fallen Earth, a post-apocalyptic MMOG in development using the Icarus Studios Tools Suite platform, today announced it has reached the Alpha milestone and is now “Feature Complete.”

 Over the past six months, the Fallen Earth team has implemented new production processes which has allowed for improved product quality and a streamlined development schedule.

Colin Dwan, who was promoted from Lead Engineer to Project Manager, said, “Fallen Earth has great technology and tons of content, but we needed to put a stake in the ground about all the features that were absolutely necessary to ship with. Now that we’ve finalized that long list, we’ve been able to spend all of our time making those features really fun.”

The Fallen Earth Art Department focused on an in-depth upgrading of the game’s overall appearance, improving textures, animations, and enriching the overall “look” of the game. Human models have been completely revamped, and newly added creatures include giant genetically engineered super soldiers and vicious killer fungi. Volumetric fog has been added and many towns have been completely rebuilt to take advantage of new bui

Realtime Worlds today unveiled its plans to host a "full public beta of APB," its upcoming crime-based MMO due out on PC and Xbox 360. Helmed by Grand Theft Auto creator David Jones, the studio's first release was the open world title Crackdown (360).

The news and two new bits of character art were tucked away within the announcement of Chris 'Ulric' Dye as the game's community relations manager.

According to business manager Mario Rizzo, Dye's hiring "signals the start of a new phase for APB where we can interact more fluidly with both gaming sites, and our potential future player base. This is an important milestone for the game now that we are transitioning into Alpha and moving towards the full public beta of APB."

Alpha and beta tests are relatively common for massively mutliplayer online efforts, though they often occur within the confines of an closed, invite-only environment. No timeframe or platform details were provided for the public beta, though the game is expected to launch in 2009.

Via Shacknews

DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS TO GROUND-BREAKING ONLINE GAME APB FOLLOWING SECOND ROUND FUNDING

Realtime Worlds, Inc., a leading independent video game developer, today announced that it has regained the global distribution rights to All Points Bulletin (APB), the highly-anticipated urban-themed massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) under development in the company抯 Dundee studio.  The move follows Realtime Worlds?recent US$50 million second round funding and provides the company with the independence to push creative boundaries in the development of the game and to take a more active role in managing APB's global distribution strategy.

Konami has told Eurogamer that it will be announcing its European Metal Gear Online beta plans "shortly".

Its comments follow (at a safe and undetectable distance) word earlier that sign-ups to the MGO beta in Japan appear to be inaccessible to those of us with Western-originating IP addresses.

The full game is due out around the world alongside Metal Gear Solid 4 on 12th June, so Konami had better get its skates on.

click here to find more info at Euroganer : Europe will get Metal Gear Online beta

Metal Gear Online first Impressions

NCsoft and Epic Games have announced a deal that will allow the Korean MMO developer to develop two as yet unannounced MMOs using the Unreal 3 Engine. There is no word on specifically what games those will be.

NCsoft Announces Unreal Engine 3 License for Two Upcoming Projects

World-renowned online game developer expands on Unreal legacy

SEOUL, KOREA (March 25, 2008) - NCsoft® Corporation, the world's leading developer and publisher of online computer games, today announced that it has reinforced its relationship with Epic Games, Inc. by licensing Unreal Engine 3 to develop two unannounced, top-tier massively multiplayer online games. NCsoft has achieved spectacular results working with the Unreal Engine over the years, shipping the highly successful Lineage® II, and the soon to be released Exteel ™, using Unreal Engine 2.

"Unreal Engine 3 has a well structured rendering pipeline, and its graphical quality is superb thanks to advanced lighting and shadowing systems," said Young-muk Choi, lead programmer, Development Unit, NCsoft. "Tools within the Unreal Editor empower us to instantly produce and optimize our outputs, and we especially love how the engine enables

The Arena Net team, which makes the Guild Wars game, has announced their official stance on real money transactions and gold sales.

Real-Money Trading Policy

It is our goal to provide an enjoyable experience to every Guild Wars player. That's why we take the topic of real-money trading (buying and selling gold or in-game items for real-world money) very seriously. Every week, we ban thousands of accounts used by real-money trading companies, because those companies harm the game for other players by running large networks of bots to farm gold and items, spamming chat channels with their advertisements, and even attempting to steal login credentials from unsuspecting players.

How we deal with real-money traders

To help protect the Guild Wars community from the problems caused by real-money trading

LITTLEST PET SHOP VIPs
PlanetCazmo

Hasbro’s LITTLEST PET SHOP VIPs Deployed Globally; PlanetCazmo.com sees viral growth

Shelburne Falls, MA, -- March 3, 2008 – Pileated Pictures, an online entertainment studio with a focus on virtual worlds and casual massively multiplayer games (MMOs), released information about its first two launches for 2008: The first is a major update to Hasbro’s LITTLEST PET SHOP VIPs virtual world web site, which launched internationally in early February with new features in nine languages, making it one of the largest global rollouts of a virtual world to date.  The second is Pileated Pictures’ original creation, PLANETCAZMO.COM a virtual world for Teens and Tweens that has seen impressive viral growth in a short period, without any promotional efforts.

Pileated Delivers Multi-Language Virtual World for Hasbro

Hasbro's LITTLEST PET SHOP VIPs virtual world is now accessible in nine languages, with an expanded collection of new pets, online activities and games. Designed for young girls, LITTLEST PET SHOP VIPs are a collection of plush pets with codes that unlock access to an online virtual world where each pet comes to life as playful characters.  The new versio

Massively reports that the Sims Online was shut down and is now known as EA-Land.

The Sims might have been a huge hit with casual gamers worldwide. The virtual world built on the same property, The Sims Online, was unfortunately rather less so. Last year, three employees led by Luc Barthelet convinced EA that the whole TSO concept could be revitalized under a new platform and model.

Development ensued, apace until on Thursday, February 21 the last of The Sims Online cities shut down, and were bundled off. Say hello to EA-Land. It appears that some or all of the downed cities have been merged into the new EA-Land mixed-pay model.

EA-Land is apparently following a model more like that of Second Life, with free players and paying subscribers, a planned currency exchange for Simoleons (TSO's world currency, and now EA-Land's), multiple avatars per account, custom content uploads, user-run stores, and web-services integration, facebook apps. It's the whole virtual world nine yards, it seems.

read more details at Massively