Dragonica Granting One $10,000 Wish

To celebrate new content coming this year to the free-to-play MMO game Dragonica Online, THQ and THQ*ICE have launched the ‘Wish Big for 2010 Sweepstakes’. What’s the grand prize for one lucky person? $10,000. That buys you a pretty big wish. Entering is easy: Visit the Wish Big for 2010 Sweepstakes home page and register for a free Passport ID, then submit your wish worth up to $10,000. (This isn’t limited to new players, of course.) THQ*ICE will randomly select one wish to fulfill when a total of 10,000 fans are following Dragonica Online on Twitter or have become a fan of Dragonica Online on Facebook. And after that, you can take your brand-new Passport ID and actually play Dragonica Online – or go back to it, as the case may be. What would you wish for?

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“Free Realms” Gets Its 8 Millionth Player, Starts Month-Long Festival of Hearts

Sony Online Entertainment today announced that more than eight million unique users have registered to play Free Realms, its free-to-play massively-multiplayer online video game (recently nominated for Best New Social/Online Game at the Game Developers Choice Awards). That's approaching 75% of the World of Warcraft userbase in less than a year, people.

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Age of Conan awarded “Most Improved Game of 2009″

MMORPG.com has announced Funcom’s ‘‘Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures’’ their ‘Most Improved Game of 2009’ award for the work done to expand and enhance its massively multiplayer online game since launch. The website chose ‘Age of Conan’ over titles such as ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘Lord of the Rings Online’, pointing to the additions of brand new content and features as reasons why the game received the prestigious award. Funcom has launched over five free updates to ‘Age of Conan’ since its launch in 2008. These updates have added new world regions, dungeons, features and technology enhancements. Through the free updates players have been able to explore legendary locations such as Ymir’s Pass and Tarantia Commons, not to mention dungeons such as Xibaluku, The Amphitheatre and The Iron Tower. Funcom also introduced a new item and RPG system, new PvP features. “Everyone on the team is very proud of how

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Play Age of Conan Free – Forever*

Funcom announced today that Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures will be available to play for free for anyone that downloads and installs, and registers their game before January 1st, 2010.  Players will be able to enjoy all of the first 20 levels – the entire Island of Tortage experience – without ever having to upgrade to a paid account.  The Unlimited Free Trial is only going to be available as a special holiday offer until January 1st. If you haven’t had a chance to check out Age of Conan before, now is definitely your chance to take this unique MMO for a spin.

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Preparing for patch 3.3 in WoW

If you haven’t heard the rumors yet, Patch 3.3 may be hitting servers tomorrow in WoW. This patch will finally let players into Icecrown Citadel to battle against the Lich King and his remaining trusted elite. I previously talked about the 5-man dungeons in a preview as well as once we got some more details. Now that the PTR has been out for awhile many players have had the chance to check out these dungeons and get an idea on what these encounters will be like. I know that after I rolled a premade I enjoyed playing around in the new instances and was quite impressed. This patch will also bring to close the story of the Lich King for all of the Lore fans. I know that I’m excited to see how everything plays out both on the Horde side as well as Alliance as heroes going through the

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SIEGE 2009

Nestled in metro Atlanta, this year’s Southern Interactive Entertainment & Game Expo (lovingly known as SIEGE) was my first of many experiences to come with Georgia’s booming gaming industry. This year, the overall theme of the weekend was connections – meeting like-minded individuals, having discussions after the panels have ended, making new friends and opening up to the rest of the community. SIEGE is very much an industry event. It is put on every year by the Georgia Game Developers Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to the growth and development of the electronic and video gaming businesses and professionals in the state. Local studios such as Hi-Rez, CCP/White Wolf, Silly Monkey and Tripwire attended this year, as did representatives from the several local colleges and universities which offer game design or related industry courses. Over a 48 hour period, beginning Friday afternoon and ending Sunday afternoon, several panels and round-tables

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Happy Birthday World of Warcraft!

Today we celebrate five years of World of Warcraft. WoW first came onto the scene during a time when MMO players were the hardcore gamers, but Blizzard developed a game that would bring in the more casual player along with the hardcore.  Since Nov 23, 2004 there have been many patches, raid bosses, gear, dailies and faction grinds and WoW is just as popular as ever. Granted I started playing during the Burning Crusade expansion, my guildmates who have been around since the beginning have told me about the “old days” and what it was like trying to do one of the 40-man raids. How much different leveling was back then, and how “kids these days have it easy!” I was interested in it back when it first came out, but after hearing about that $15/month subscription and how much time had to be put into the game, well my

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Undead Labs to create console-based Zombie MMO

Zombies are kindof a big deal. It seems that any book, movie, or video game that features zombies is an instant hit. Well that is what industry Veteran Jeff Strain is banking on with his new development studio, Undead Labs in Seattle. The studio’s sole focus will be on creating a massively multiplayer online zombie game for console gamers. Strain knows the mmo space as he left NCsoft last summer to create Undead Labs. He also worked at Blizzard Entertainment on Starcraft and Diablo. “Every time I see a good zombie movie with friends, we spend days debating our strategies for surviving the zombie apocalypse,” said Strain. “The police station, or the supermarket? Garden rake, or staple gun? Bach, or the White Stripes? I’m a game developer, so I’d probably be useless for anything other than ghoul bait, but I’m excited to have the opportunity to build an MMOZ that

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MMORPG Holiday Guide

Some may think it hard to figure out what to get that MMO fan in their life. Would they want cases of energy drinks? Maybe a grill so they can cook while raiding like Vork from The Guild? Well never fear as I’ve compiled a list of gifts that you can get for that MMO fan, and I’m not just talking about World of Warcraft! In this MMORPG Holiday Guide we also have ideas for gamers playing Aion, Lord of the Rings Online, Guildwars, Warhammer Online and Age of Conan. I’ll also go into some peripherals that any MMO gamer would love to have. To start off, I’ll focus on some of the other popular MMOs and gifts that you can snag for your friends or family. An easy start is to get them something new to play! Aion ($46.99) is the newest MMO to be released and has been getting

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DC Universe Online animation Contest on Facebook this December

Sony Online Entertainment is teaming up with Mass Animation for the DC Universe Online Animation Contest. The contest is using the Mass Animation Facebook application and will give DC Comics fans a chance to animate heroes and villains from DCUO. The contest launches on December 7, 2009. “The DCUO/Mass Animation contest takes a part of the game out of the development studio and puts it in the hands of fans, an empowering opportunity for our community,” said John Smedley, president of SOE. “Players will have a chance through qualified contest submissions to be involved with the game’s development at a deeper level than ever before by animating actions for in-game heroes and villains.” All the tools will be available for the contest and animators can upload their contest submission for friends to vote on. Each week, contest winners will be eligible for cash or other prizes. Here is the Mass

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