It's been over three years since Blizzard first launched their massively successful fantasy MMO World of Warcraft. One of the reasons for its popularity is the fact that the game has relatively light system requirements. Of course this comes at the expense of leaving out some advanced in-game graphics and effects. But a new chat with a Blizzard team member at Eurogamer indicates that the game could someday get a graphical overall.

In fact when the upcoming expansion pack Wrath of the Lich King is released it will add some optional high-end graphical effects to the game. But according to Blizzard producer J. Allen Brack a complete graphical overhaul of the game was considered as well for this expansion and could be considered for a future expansion pack. However, Brack points out that some players might still play the original World of Warcraft client for a variety of reasons and as he states, " . . .the idea that we would spend so much time and energy on something and have people go, 'meh, that's not really for me,' that's not very exciting." So don't hold your breath for any DirectX10.1 upgrade anytime soon.

Dungeon Runners, the heavily satirical hack-'n-slash free-to-play MMO, has gotten even more chunky and delicious with the release of the third "Chunk". The chunk, which is a major content update (in the same fashion that NCSoft's own City of Heroes does Issues) includes all sorts of improvements and benefits for free members and paying members alike. There's a balancing of the PvP system, added membership benefits, new quests and NPCs (of course), and a variety of quality of life enhancements. Overall, it's a very solid addition to the game, and if you play Dungeon Runners, you'll be delighted with all the new stuff.

Electronic Arts couldn't get a in-house MMO to successfully launch so a couple of years ago it bought Mythic Entertainment and brought in their fantasy title Warhammer Online. The game is now scheduled for release this fall (after several delays) and now EA has announced that folks in Australia, New Zealand and Southeast Asia will be able not just have the game ship to their shores at the same time as the North American and European launches but they will also be able to log onto a local Australian server

It's rare that an MMO title will begin its life in so many territories at once and having a server close to home will likely make it easier for those Aussies to enjoy the game without a ton of latency issues. Oh, and we have a boatload of new screenshots from the game to show off. There's a lot of visual goodness in this batch (depending on whether or not you like big huge monsters who show their guts . . .literally).

City of Heroes and City of Villains scribe Shane Lacy Hensley has been tapped by publisher FireSky to head Superstition Studios. Hensley, who is famously known for creating such pen and paper RPGs as Deadlands, will lead development of a new MMORPG that has yet to be detailed.

Prior to the promotion, Hensley was the creative director of Superstition where his vision and key hiring decisions made him the "perfect" candidate for the promotion, according to FireSky senior vice president of product development Rod Nakamoto. "With Shane's leadership, success is a given for Superstition Studios."

Without giving specifics on Superstition's mysterious upcoming release Hensley explained his work with the studio is helping to fulfill a career-long dream. "FireSky and Superstition Studios have given me the creative freedom to build the game I've been dreaming of since I entered the video game industry back in 1992."

Currently FireSky is developing Stargate Worlds, based on the long running science fiction series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, which is now accepting beta sign-ups.

Korean based MMO publisher NCsoft has revealed its latest financial results for the first quarter of 2008 and it's a bit of a mixed bag. Revenue for the quarter was $84.3 million, up 4 percent from the same period a year ago. However, the publisher's net profit was $7.7 billion which is down 43 percent from the same period a year ago.

In terms of the higher revenue NCsoft stated that one of the reasons was the continued high sales of its fantasy MMO Lineage II which had "record high sales" in the last quarter compared to its launch way back in 2003. Continued high sales of Guild Wars and City of Heroes and a reduction of costs like advertising also helped with the revenues. The company's lower profit was hit by a one time reduction of costs because of NCsoft's decision to break ties with Spacetime Studios and not publish their upcoming sci-fi MMO Blackstar (Spacetime recently announced it had reacquired the Blackstar IP from NCsoft and is continuing to develop the game).

NCsoft's major new release for 2008 seems to be the title Aion which is currently scheduled to be released in Korea later this year A line of casual titles is also in the works to be released this year as well. One interesting item of note is the breakdown of sales from individual NCsoft games. Lineage, Lineage II, City of Heroes/Villains, and Guild Wars were all but not Tabula Rasa which indicates that sales of that recently release game have yet to significantly impact the company's results.

On Tuesday NCsoft announced a strategic partnership with voice chat technology provider Vivox to add voice support across its library of titles. The partnership creates an NCsoft-branded communications portal between all games in the NCsoft library and will include a robust feature-set, including: voice mail and communication via regular phones and text messages.

"We will be able to offer our players a commanding set of communication tools that will simplify communications amongst the player base with far reaching options," said Peter Jarvis, vice president of operations for NCsoft North America. "We anticipate a successful integration and long-term relationship [with Vivox]."

No estimated date of implementation for the tech was announced.

[via Develop Mag]

One of the big selling points of getting a pre-order for an MMO is the possibility of getting early access to the game before the general public. Funcom promoted that with its pre-order offer for its fantasy title Age of Conan. If you paid in full for the game prior to its release on May 20, you could download the full client and play the game three days beforehand.

At least that was the theory. The cold reality came crashing hard on the game's official forums this week as Funcom has now said that it has now "sold out" of registrations for its early access time period. The developer tried to explain that this was something they had planned on doing all along. However, they added, "That the registrations would reach that set limit as fast as they did we didn't quite expect but that doesn't change the fact that the number was limited." On the one hand that means sales of the game prior to its release have been high. On the other hand, you have to think this doesn't make the game's customer service system look very good.

Comic fans and gamers often overlap. We've seen a lot of game-related comics over the years, from Halo to World of Warcraft, and now we can add Warhammer to the mix. BOOM! Studios, who tend to make quite a lot of comics based on nerdy IP like Blood Bowl and Gears of Wars, have released issue 1 of their Warhammer comic. While this is news for any comic fan, the real deal is that it comes with a beta key to Warhammer Online. You heard us correctly. Buying this comic will give you access to the WAR beta. You can pick it up off their website or at your local comic store (hopefully).

For those unfamiliar with the term, RMT, or Real Money Trading, is the practice of converting real-world dollars into in-game cash, predominantly in virtual worlds such as Second Life. It's a controversial phenomenon, accused by some of ruining virtual economies and supporting illegal sweat shop-like activity in foreign countries. However, there are a few legitimate, publisher-supported RMT trading houses, among them Live Gamer.

Already providing RMT services for players of Sony Online Entertainment's MMO EverQuest 2, Live Gamer has announced the expansion of its services to SOE's upcoming MMOs The Agency and Free Realms. This is welcome news, as it confirms the likelihood of the two titles' free-to-play nature, as opposed to a subscription-based model. For a little more in-depth look at this announcement, check out our sister site, Massively.

Vivendi Games, owners of the World of Warcraft franchise, have released their earnings statement for the first quarter of 2008, stating it was a 'Very Good First Quarter'. Specific financial information follows, including the admission of €5.3 billion in revenue, an increase of 5.2% compared to the same time last year.

However, in an almost casually-mentioned fashion, the press release states "Blizzard Entertainment's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, is scheduled to be released in the second half of 2008." This appears before Blizzard has made any official announcement of the expansion's release date.

The Vivendi-Activision merger is still scheduled to be completed by the end of June.

In much the same vein as the Megami Tensei RPG series, Requiem: Bloodymare is meant to be a horror-fueled post-apocalyptic look at demons and technology. With its massive amounts of gore and giblet physics, Bloodymare definitely sets itself apart, at least graphically, from the horde of World of Warcraft lookalikes.

For those antsy to dip their hands into the gallons of blood present in Bloodymare, good news for you. The game has entered open beta, allowing anyone to sign up and play the full game for free. While the game will be free later on, it won't have all content available to those playing it for free once it hits the release version. So give it a whirl now! You can sign up for and download the beta at the official site.

World of Warcraft is a cultural phenomenon like no other. The continued patches from Blizzard, many of which add new content and improve the game overall, have only reaffirmed it each time as the king of MMOs. While the two-digit patches don't come all that often, the three digit patches do arrive with decent regularity, which is where 2.4.2 comes in.

Featuring a host of balancing changes and bugfixes that accompany any patch, 2.4.2 also changes how arena ratings work and changes profession cooldowns. The full patch notes, as always, can be found on Blizzard's site. You can snag the patch through our downloads section. But, of course, you already knew that.

Flying Lab Software's MMO Pirates of the Burning Sea has been online for a few months now but very soon players in the game will be able to choose what type of pirate he or she can play in the game. The upcoming 1.4 update will actually split the current Pirate nation faction into two groups.

One group is the Cutthroat; they are basically the typical nasty and dirty types that have been promoted in so many movies; they will steal ships and engage in combat quickly. The other type of pirate is the Buccaneer. They are being designed as more of a suave type of character who can help others out rather than just be a loner. They are also being designed as being more of an advanced type of character with a recommendation that they be played by experienced players of the game. The 1.4 update will also include new missions, skills and other new content. It's currently in testing but there's no word on a release date.

While Funcom prepares for the launch of Age of Conan next week, it's also working on its next MMO titles. Revealed at last year's GDC, The Secret World is supposed to take place on Earth in the present day but be full of conspiracies and, yes, secrets. In Funcom's latest financial report the developer states that four of the game's playfields are "well underway towards completion". Some of the development team for the game were pulled to help finish off Age of Conan before its launch May 20.

Funcom also announced that is working on a new booster pack and a new rendering engine for its long running sci-fi MMO Anarchy Online. It is also starting up development of a casual MMO team which is now in its "technology development phase". No other info on this new department was revealed.

Funcom's release of their long awaited MMO Age of Conan is finally coming in about a week's time but the developer behind the game realizes there are some big risks that they will have to deal with in the weeks ahead. The company's just released first quarter financial report (in PDF format) revealed that it had a earnings of $919,000 compared to a loss of $223,000 for the same period a year ago. More importantly, the company has cash reserves of nearly $47 million which should keep the company afloat as it prepares for the Age of Conan launch.

Funcom knows that Age of Conan is one of the biggest MMO launches of 2008. The game's official web site had 725,000 unique visitors in the first week of May and it had over 1 million people sign up to be beta testers. it also knows that hype can quickly turn sour. It admits that high pre-orders numbers for the game "may not necessarily lead to to high sub numbers". Unforeseen technical issues during and after launch could also affect sales and subscription numbers as well. It's going to be a very interesting week next week.