Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising is a very promising upcoming MMO published by Perpetual Entertainment. Warcry is carrying an interview with Perpetual's co-founder, Chris McKibbin, who announced that the game would be delayed from an anticipated fall launch to a launch in early '08. McKibbin also announced that he's laying off 30-40 people on his development team, and gives a number of explanations as to what's going on. The interview gets kinda wierd, folks.

McKibbin explains that, while G&H is "content complete", the delay is to add polish to the game and maximize it's overall quality at launch. Fair enough, say the goblins.

McKibbin then goes on to explain the need to lay off up to 40 of his development staff, while reassigning others. It's hard to follow his explanation, quite frankly. He describes the need to "switch focus to a less specialized development team that he believes will be able to act with more agility on the feedback of the player base". McKibbin also says that, "the current marketplace demands high-quality, huge MMOGs and to achieve that they required many specialists who performed very specific functions." McKibbin's ongoing explanation of the layoffs focuses on the

Ah yes, the shared birthday of everyone's two favorite hobbits is being celebrated in Lord of the Rings Online. There's a quest associated with the birthday which, when completed, gives you a nice musical little trophy. It starts in Rivendell, and and it's a nice touch.

"I don't know half of you half as well as I should like. And I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve."

One of the great things about LOTRO is that it incorporates as much lore from Tokien's books into the game as is possible. (In the books, Frodo and Bilbo's birthday is actually September 22nd.) This is but one amusing example among oh-so-many others of the devs being on top of the nuances of Tolkien lore and background.

Some quest details can be found here.

Beginning October 23rd, at participating North American retailers, you can Pre-Order PotBS and receive game access 15 days prior to land-lubbing lag-behinders. You’ll also receive an in-game parrot (well, of course!), a special in-game weapon and a soundtrack CD. Early adopters will keep their plundered booty and characters (up to level 20) when the game launches.

*Note: By my calculations, if Pre-Orders begin Oct. 23rd and allow 15 days of early access - we won’t see a PotBS release date until at least November 7th. Me smart, huh?

“Players who pre-order the game will receive the following:

• An invitation to the ‘Pre-Boarding Party’ allowing them access to the live game up to 15 days prior to launch, and the ability to keep their characters, skills and equipment after launch with purchase of game and paid subscription (characters will have a level cap of 20 during the pre-boarding party)

• Captain’s Best Friend – a blue and yellow parrot

• Mighty Blades - Swedish Rapier, Old World Steel or Musketeer’s Matching Blades (depen

Specifically, writer, Daemon Hatfield takes a female, Empire Witch Hunter out for a test drive in the latest WAR build. Hatfield reports that the Witch Hunter “…was dressed like a medieval (and feminine) Indiana Jones and carried a pistol in one hand and a sword in the other,” and that “Playing as a Witch Hunter is about 10,000 times more enjoyable than watching the movie Van Helsing”. Hop over for the world of witchcraft.

“Different attacks can be selected from the attack menu along the bottom of the screen, tailored for close- and long-range weapons. Some gun attacks can only be used from a distance, while others are meant to be a shot in the face at close range. Our action options were heavily weighted towards the offensive, as Witch Hunters believe defense is for weenies.”

Hit your boosters with extreme haste and fly over for your shot at battling rambunctious robots in the distant future - both literally and figuratively. If you don’t have one already, you’ll need to get yourself a free, PlayNC account. Go go ‘Teel magnolias!

“Not everyone is guaranteed to get into beta, but we’ll send out as many invites as we possibly can. Odds on receiving a beta invitation depend on the total amount of applications received. If you were already an Exteel beta tester, then there will be no need to sign up a second time for testing. You should have already been re-invited.”

The upcoming MMO Fury features fast action and some of the ol' ultra-violence.  This game is fun to play, and it's so over the top it's hilarious.  Best of all, the developers have a sense of humor that's not to be missed.

Gamebunny's hosting an outstanding Fury video right here, which allows you to get a feel for the game.  It includes a number of brutal finishing moves and, for reasons we don't fully understand, a lot of scenes of players getting kicked across the room, down the hall, and 40 yards down the street.  It's worth a look, that's for sure! 

We've all seen MMO accounts bought and sold over the years. Generally, these go for a few hundred dollars and these transactions have become such an everyday event that it just isn't news to anyone who plays online RPGs.

Well, today it seems a particularly well-geared rogue has sold his World of Warcraft account for close to ten thousand dollars. He's got both blades of Azzinoth, could probably solo Illidan, and he practically bleeds purple, so he's got lots and lots of good gear, but ten grand? That's obscene.

The story, of course, gets better. Apparently, both the buyer and seller discussed this sale openly on their server forums. While there was lively debate about the sale, it appears that both of these geniuses (or is it genii?) forgot that selling an account is against the Blizzard TOS for the game. Did they think Blizz might hear about it, especially since they were chatting it up on the official forums? Nahhh.

In a move that surprised absolutely nobody except the buyer and seller, Blizzard heard about it and banned the account. We goblins aren't math wizards, but we're pretty sure that a banned account is no

Aeria Games, a Silicon Valley-based company is releasing their title, Twelve Sky, for open beta on September 18 to all you lucky Americans out there.

Twelve Sky is a martial arts MMORPG full of monsters, quests and tons of authentic looking martial arts weapons. There's also an advanced PvP system that allows players to join a side in order to engage in massive battles -- this sounds pretty interesting.

They even have a Sacred Animal System that allows players to have cool pets to help benefit them. That's insanity sauce I tell you!  (Any game that allows me to have a cool animal sidekick is a good game, in this humble gamer's opinion!)

Sign up for the beta requires an Aeria Games account, so make sure you have one before you decide to download. Twelve Sky is a free-to-play game so go have some fun kicking some karate homie's butt!!!

Age of Conan has a couple of things going for it that perpetually keep us goblins entertained: this upcoming MMO just oozes personality, and it's funny. Take, for example, this story: Funcom has announced that if you join the Clan of Conan (the game's official fan club) prior to the game's launch, you get a "Drinking Cape" that allows you to have free drinks for life. Here's how they put it:

Drinking is not only a fun way to get to know your friends and pick up wenches (or man-wenches, if that's your thing), it also is a key component in the Drunken Brawling PvP minigame.

The best part of this story? There's a drunken brawling PvP minigame! Wooooot!

Leopard spots with gold trim? Deeelicious!

In the goblin's humble opinion, Age of Conan just stole the show at E3 '06, and we're really looking forward to this brutal, bloody MMO. You can read more about your drinking cape at the official site here.