Developer BioWare and partner LucasArts today opened beta signups for their anticipated massively multiplayer online role-playing game Star Wars: The Old Republic.

For a chance at testing the PC MMO before its as-yet-undated launch, those interested will need to register at the game's official site, select the pre-release testing option from their account page, then fill in the necessary details and "submit a system scan."

"Testing will be an ongoing process, and spots are limited, so people need to sign up early to give them the best possible chance of getting selected," wrote LucasArts.

Publisher Gazillion today announced that David Brevik, best known for helping create Blizzard's popular Diablo series, will lead development of its upcoming Marvel MMO.

Brevik will serve as director of Gazillion's "Gargantuan" development studio, which is handling the Marvel Universe MMO currently in the works for PC and consoles.

During his years as president of Blizzard North, Brevik's roles included project lead, design lead, and lead programmer on Diablo I and II. He also assisted in the launch of Battle.net, and served as a director at now-defunct Hellgate: London dev Flagship.

"Gazillion's mission to bring MMOs to the mainstream while maintaining the depth in gameplay that enthusiast gamers demand is something that deeply resonates with me," Brevik said while noting his love of comic books. "Marvel is a perfect fit for this mission."

Blizzard is preparing "a new service" that will allow World of Warcraft players to change their character's faction from Alliance to Horde or vice versa, the developer has revealed.

"The basic idea is that players will be able to use the service to transform an existing character into a roughly equivalent character of the opposing faction on the same realm," the studio wrote, noting "there's still much work to do and many details to iron out."

"Players who ended up creating and leveling up characters on the opposite factions from their friends have been asking for this type of functionality for some time, and we're pleased to be getting closer to being able to deliver it," Blizzard added, explaining:

As with all of the features and services we offer, we intend to incorporate the faction-change service in a way that won't disrupt the gameplay experience on the realms, and there will be some rules... Read more

Sony Online has now launched Free Realms on PC, a free-to-play MMO bristling with surprisingly fun minigames, aimed at teenagers--oldies are still welcome, of course.

Free Realms's minigames are divided by profession--brawler, adventurer, chef, ninja, pet trainer, postman and so on--which can be focused on or switched between at will.

Please install Flash to view this Shackvideo

Shackvideo users can use the HD Stream.

You and your chums can crawl dungeons, race carts and enjoy other... Read more

It wasn't all mistakes and regrets for former World of Warcraft director Jeffery Kaplan during today's "The Cruise Director of Azeroth" panel at GDC.

The jam-packed presentation also saw the release of many World of Warcraft statistics, including the average number of quests completed daily, and the circumstances that led to the extremely popular MMO sporting, at last count, some 7650 different quests.

• Between 6/30/2007 and 3/5/2009, some 8,570,222,436 quests were completed in the World of Warcraft.
• Daily average of quests completed: 16,641,209

Kaplan, now working on Blizzard's next MMO, talked about designing the original release of World of Warcraft, saying that the first total quest target was 600. This number was a result of needing to compete with EverQuest's estimated 1200 quests... Read more

With a scant 40 minutes to address the gathered masses, former World of Warcraft director Jeffery Kaplan had a lot to cover in his "The Cruise Director of Azeroth" lecture.

The presentation saw an extremely candid Kaplan, now working on Blizzard's next-gen MMO, recognize and address the nine major problems with World of Warcraft.

But before getting into the nitty-gritty details, Kaplan made one thing abundantly clear: the WoW team is aware of the problems, and is actively working to fix them.

1. "The Christmas Tree Effect"

What this means, and this is kind of a weird one, but you show up to a quest hub, and your minimap is lit up like a Christmas tree... Read more

Former World of Warcraft lead designer and current next-gen Blizzard MMO director Jeffrey Kaplan today detailed a behind-the-scenes system of drop percentages secretly added in the WoW expansion Wrath of the Lich King.

The system, called "progressive percentages," was cribbed directly from Blizzard's own Warcraft 3, which used it for critical hit mechanics. It relates to how and when quest items drop from creatures--an important issue to all WoW players.

Originally, Blizzard settled on a standard WoW quest item drop rate of around 35%, with no system in place that would tweak the percentage as players killed more enemies.

"We found that this had a lot of problems where players would run into streaks, and they only remembered the shitty streaks," said Kaplan. "So what we decided... Read more

Cryptic Studios has confirmed that it recruited players for the now-underway Champions Online closed beta from super-powered rival City of Heroes and other PC MMOs.

Rumors of such practices emerged via Massively earlier this week, after the official City of Heroes website warned players and forum-goers of solicitations from "another game company trying to lure you to their competing product."

While Cryptic Studios was initially involved in the creation and upkeep of City of Heroes, the company later sold its stake in the franchise to publisher NCsoft. Cryptic then revealed Champions Online a few months later, and was later bought by Atari.

"I'm certain this wasn't meant to be a malicious attack on a competing product, nor did anyone intend to steal players, violate user agreements, kill babies... Read more

Following yesterday's surprise revelation of a ten-year MMO licensing agreement between comic publisher Marvel and relatively unknown game publisher Gazillion, the two companies have announced the first two MMOs to be made under the deal.

The first game, Marvel Super Hero Squad, is a casual MMO aimed at younger folk.

The second, Marvel Universe, is in development for PC and consoles. Gazillion will develop and publish the game, with more details to arrive in the coming months.

City of Heroes developer Cryptic Studios previously worked on an MMO titled Marvel Universe Online, though it was later cancelled due to World of Warcraft-related fears.

According to today's announcement, Gazillion has been "operating in stealth mode" under the name NR2B Research. The publisher has four wholly-owned MMO development studios: Amazing Society (Super Hero Squad), Gargantuan (Marvel Universe), NetDevil (LEGO Universe, Jumpgate Evolution), and id co-founder John Romero's Slipgate studio, which is working on an original MMO.

Lego Universe publisher Gazillion Entertainment has signed an exclusive 10-year deal with Marvel to develop its comic book properties into multiplayer online games.

Gazillion and Marvel will share revenue of the games, according to an early report by the Wall Street Journal. The two companies will reportedly announce more details on the venture tomorrow.

An MMO based on the Marvel properties, Marvel Universe Online, was announced in 2006. The game was being developed by City of Heroes developer Cryptic Studios for the Xbox 360 and PC, until it was abruptly cancelled early last year, partly due to concern by publisher Microsoft over World of Warcraft's dominance in the MMO market.

Nearly two years after the game was first announced, Age of Conan and The Longest Journey developer Funcom is ready to be "a little less secret" about The Secret World.

The studio has revealed that it will begin "to lift the veil" by showing the MMO behind closed doors at this year's Game Developers Conference, which runs from March 23-27. Director Ragnar Tornquist--creator of the The Longest Journey series-- will be on hand to discuss the title and provide new details.

Unlike most massively multiplayer online role-playing games, the PC and Xbox 360 title is set in the present day, with the stated goal "to create a detailed world where players feel empowered and part of something big, something mystical and epic."

Blizzard's Jeff Kaplan has left his post as the director of the popular PC MMO World of Warcraft in order to help out with the company's unannounced "next-gen MMO."

"World of Warcraft has been such a central part of my life these past six and a half years, and it's success would not have been possible without the tremendous community around it, so I wanted to say thank you to all our players who've shared this amazing experience with us so far," he wrote in a forum post noticed by WoW Insider.

Kaplan noted that he still plans to be involved in World of Warcraft's future, adding that "partners in crime" Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brac will now handle day to day operations.

"When all is said and done, WoW is still my favorite game. I play it every day. None of that passion is gone," he concluded. "If anything, it fuels the challenge of making our next MMO even better. We know we have some big shoes to fill."

As of late December, World of Warcraft had 11.5 million active subscribers worldwide.

In what may be the most significant case of in-game espionage in history, one of the largest guild of players in CCP's spaceship MMO EVE Online, Band of Brothers (BoB), was entirely disbanded today when a BoB director defected to the SomethingAwful-derived Goonfleet.

In a story that only EVE Online could spawn, Goonfleet Intelligence Agency (GSA) leader The Mittani and his league of spies managed to "encourage" a Band of Brothers director to turn coat, transferring trillions of BoB's in-game ISK currency to the Goons before nullifying BoB's control over all of its territory.

"A director with full access to BoB alliance controls defected to Goonfleet and The Mittani was happy to accept his conditions," writes Shacknews tipster Frylock, who noted that while BoB can reform, the name "Band of Brothers" is now permanently owned by Goonfleet.

Shacknews readers may remember The Mittani from our 2007 article series on his expansive, fascinating spy network. At the time, Band of Brothers was already the Goons' larger, more powerful arch-rivals. Now the Goons, long the underdogs in their fight for universal dominance, are gloating over a massive victory. Meanwhile, The Mittani himself was the first to deliver the news to EVE Online's official forum.

"Today we destroyed BoB," said The Mittani. "Thanks for the free capfleet towers and isk."

The Mittani added that the defection also produced a copy of the Band of Brothers director forum, which Goonfleet plans to publish in full.

"Tonight was one of the most historic and epic nights in EVE history," added Frylock. "The universe will no longer be the same."

Band of Brothers was the primary target in The Great War, in which many of EVE's larger corporations formed a coalition in order to oust BoB from its territory. After a long and bloody struggle, BoB eventually retained much of its space, with Goonsfleet being the last member of the coalition to eventually withdraw.

Capcom today announced that it will publish an unannounced multi-platform title from massively multiplayer online game developer Monumental Games later this year.

And... that's all the details that Capcom provided. It was a very short press release. However, Monumnetal's website offers the following tease of its first console game:

We can't reveal the franchise as yet, but we can say we're both proud and excited to be working on it. As you would expect given our core technology, there's a substantial online element, but the gameplay focus is pure adrenalin.

Monumental has released one game thus far, the free-to-play PC soccer MMO Football Superstars, with a hunting MMO, Hunter's World, early in development. The company recently bought half of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand developer Swordfish Studios.

Sad that you haven't been eaten by a grue lately? Then I've got some (maybe) good news for you.

Zork, the classic PC adventure series, will return as a casual web-based MMO dubbed Legends of Zork. Jolt Online Gaming will be publishing, with the developer not yet specified.

Playable through any internet browser, including the iPhone, the game will put players in the role of a "recently laid-off salesman and part-time loot-gatherer" that is exploring the fallen Great Underground Empire after its economy and stock market collapsed.

Zork officially debuted in 1980, when Infocom published the humorous text-adventure game designed by MIT students Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, some of which helped form the now-defunct publisher.

Numerous sequels and books followed, with the last major release hitting in 1997: Activision's full-fledged point-and-click graphical adventure Zork: Grand Inquisitor.

Made in agreement with license holder Activision, Legends of Zork will eventually be playable at LegendsofZork.com. A description of the setting follows... Read more

Self-described pioneer in "3D virtual communities and rich immersive environments" Worlds has sued MMO publisher and developer NCsoft for infringing on a Worlds-held patent titled "System and Method for Enabling Users to Interact in a Virtual Space."

The lawsuit claims that by developing and selling massively multiplayer online games--including City of Heroes, Dungeon Runners, Tablua Rasa, Lineage, Lineage II, and Guild Wars--NCsoft "directly and/or contributorily infringed" on Worlds' patent.

Filed in 2000 and granted in 2007, the broadly-worded patent "provides a highly scalable architecture for a three-dimensional graphical, multi-user, interactive virtual world system" that uses a "central server" to compute the positional data that allows avatars to interact with each other as well as the environment.

Curiously, one of the titles listed in the lawsuit--Lineage--was initially released in 1998, almost two years before Worlds filed for the patent that the game supposedly violates.

Furthermore, the patent could be theoretically applied to just about any online game ever, prompting speculation that NCsoft is only the first up against the wall. Blizzard is a likely target, given the success and 11.5 million subscribers of World of Warcraft.

A specific sum was not named in the suit, which was obtained and distributed by Virtual Worlds News. Instead, Worlds is simply demanding that its patent be found "valid and enforceable" so that it can get a "permanent injunction" against NCsoft and receive unspecified compensation for the damages it has suffered.

Following a recent EverQuest II survey that suggested MMO players were sad but not overweight, another study has found that females and bisexuality may be more prevalent in the game than one may expect.

After tallying the results of over 2,400 completed web-based surveys, researchers told BBC News that females make up roughly 40% of the EverQuest II "gaming population."

Furthermore, those women were found to display "an unusually high level of bisexuality," beating out the rate of "general population" bisexuality by more than five times.

The study suggests that men and women play online games for different reasons, with men wanting to win and women wanting to socialize. In fact, a "high proportion" of women claimed to play EverQuest II with a romantic partner.

"These are not people who are following strict gender stereotypes... Read more

While some studies have found that players of massively multiplayer games are instilled with business leadership skills, some job recruiters are allegedly being told to avoid recommending players of Blizzard's ultra-successful MMO World of Warcraft.

After meeting with one such recruiter, f13.net forumite Tale relayed his experience:

He replied that employers specifically instruct him not to send them World of Warcraft players. He said there is a belief that WoW players cannot give 100% because their focus is elsewhere, their sleeping patterns are often not great, etc. I mentioned that some people have written about MMOG leadership experience as a career positive or a way to learn project management skills, and he shook his head. He has been specifically asked to avoid WoW players.

The recruiter in question was apparently working within the "online media industry," though no details were mentioned as to which employers he works with.

In the past, some have felt so strongly about the benefits of MMO experience that they've suggested players list that experience on a resume for applicable companies.

Thanks to Boing Boing and Raph Koster for the heads up.

Bullfrog's classic and sadistic PC strategy series Dungeon Keeper is being resurrected in the form of a massively multiplayer online role-playing game titled Dungeon Keeper Online, publisher EA and Chinese developer NetDragon Websoft announced today.

Though the developer specified its hopes for "remarkable results" internationally, the announcement only confirmed a release for the "Greater China region." It will be Netdragon's first 3D MMO, and the company will handle operation and distribution within the aforementioned "Greater China region." No release date was given.

"Capitalizing our strength to create a strong gaming experience, powerful operating platform and unmatched expertise within China's online game market, we are confident that Dungeon Keeper Online will not only become successful in the Greater China region but also achieve remarkable results overseas," said... Read more

Blizzard announced today that its second World of Warcraft expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, sold over 2.8 million copies during its first day on store shelves, causing the company to declare it "the fastest-selling PC game of all time."

According to Blizzard, that feat was previously held by the first expansion, The Burning Crusade, which launched in January 2007 and sold 2.4 million copies day one.

Adding the frozen continent of Northrend, the Death Knight Hero class, an increased level cap and other new content to the MMO, Lich King hit November 13.

Released in 2004, World of Warcraft currently has over 11 million subscribers.