MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh took Square Enix's new fantasy MMORPG Fantasy Earth Zero for a test drive in this latest hands on preview focused on the game's combat gameplay.

Ever been dropped into a world not quite knowing what to expect? That happens rather often in media tours, especially early previews of games where the official site is only a teaser site, and the server is only going to come up for the tour. You download, install, patch and hope it gets done before the tour, while doing what research you can on the game. The media tour of Fantasy Earth Zero was little different. It was fast, quick impressions, perhaps a little chaotic and you know what? That’s how they are describing their battles.

Read the full article here.

MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller spoke to Portalarium CEO Fred Schmidt and Chairman Dallas Snell about their partnership with gaming visionary Richard Garriott, as well as their plans for Portalarium in the social networking game space in this latest interview.

Any time Richard Garriott makes an announcement it instantly becomes MMO news. The Lord British who gave us Ultima still remains one of the biggest influences in gaming. This decade, Garriott had some tough times with the game called Tabula Rasa. While it had some very innovative game ideas, it never took off among fans and was closed down. So, moving into the next decade Garriott has started working with a company named Portalarium. He is reunited with some of his old Origins team and has targeted social networks as a platform for new game ideas. Now, Facebook games are nothing new, however, Portalarium is looking to bring depth into social networks where they hope to bridge the gap between hardcore games and social games into one medium.

We spoke with Dallas Snell, Chairman, Fred Schmidt, CEO, and Stephen Nichols about the approach Portalarium will take in bringing games to the world.

Read the full interview here.

Those of you picking up your copy of Final Fantasy XIII for the PS3 today should be excited by the latest revelation to come out of the US PlayStation blog. Every copy of the PS3 version of Final Fantasy XIII will come with an exclusive in-game item for Final Fantasy XIV, as well as the ability "to enter for a potential opportunity to become a beta tester for FINAL FANTASY XIV for PS3."

We're not sure if the beta bonus is really an additional avenue towards getting into the Final Fantasy XIV beta, or simply a link to the beta sign up page.

Let us know when you pick up your copies (mine hasn't arrived yet!)

The original blog post can be viewed here.

MMORPG.com columnist Justin Webb writes this latest article on how the appropriate use of "beats" makes for a good story, and how MMOG developers just don't seem to get that, or care!

You see, I’ve always been interested in scriptwriting and how a movie narrative is constructed. Luckily, there are many many books on the subject, many geared at teaching the basics to budding screenwriters. The most famous is probably Syd Fields’ Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, which is a superb stylish exploration of the three-act format, but which focuses (to me) a bit too much on the “art” of writing a script. I’m more interested in understanding the nuts ‘n’ bolts of the process, and at looking at screenwriting mechanically from the outside.

My favorite book on the subject is Save The Cat! by Blake Snyder. If you have any interest at all in story design, I urge you to check it out. Despite the attention-catching title, the basic premise of the book is that all movies essentially share the same three-act structure and that they all have the same fifteen story “beats”. (Blake’s “Beat Sheet” can be found here.) This isn’t a unique concept – many screenwriting books have trod this ground before. The book then gives a lot of really good advice about understanding what beats mean in the context of putting a script together.

Read Webb: When Beats Go Wrong.

The LA Times is reporting that Bigpoint Games, which is co-owned by SyFy parent company NBC Universal, is developing a new MMOG based on the "Battlestar Galactica" IP.  Based on the LA Times report, the game is said to be a free-to-play (item mall supported) browser-based MMOG, with a launch date set for August or September.

Image Credit: The LA Times

Read the full story here.

MMORPG.com Staff Writer Bill Murphy gives us a rundown of six absolute must-haves for a zombie-themed MMO in this latest edition of The List.

Back in November of last year, Undead Labs announced their formation and the production of something a lot of folks are probably hungering for (pun intended). A zombie-apocalypse themed MMO is in development at the newly founded studio, exclusively for consoles. My friend Adam and I were sitting around chatting about the potential such a title carries. Thanks to a resurgence of popularity in for the undead, there have been a slew of movies, games and other media all about zombies in recent years. Possibly more so than Edward Cullen and his sparkly vampire cousins, zombies are mainstreaming pretty hard these days.

Read The List: Six Must-haves for a Zombie MMO.

As the trickle of information from this year's Game Developers Conference begins to come in, we've learned that 38 Studios has partnered with Electronic Arts Partners to publish "Project Mercury," which is a singleplayer RPG introduction to the Copernicus universe, which has been co-created by bestselling fantasy author R.A. Salvatore and renowned artist and creator of Spawn Todd McFarlane. Copernicus, of course, is the secretive MMOG that has been in development at 38 Studios for some time now.

Project Mercury is being developed  by Big Huge Games, and will available on the PC, XBOX 360, and PlayStation 3.

View the original press release here.

Today marks the first anniversary of service for Frogster Interactive's free-to-play fantasy MMORPG Runes of Magic. To celebrate this milestone, Frogster has announced a week long event consisting of daily contests on Facebook, a number of shop promotions, and double XP (quests and mobs) and TP (mobs only).

A new partnership between Runewalker Entertainment and Vivox to bring in-game voice chat to Runes of Magic was also announced today, and is already live on the game's Taiwan servers, though no date has been provided with regards to the service's availability on North American and European servers.

For details on this week's festivities, go here.

Aion Community Manager Andrew "Tamat" Beegle has posted this month's Eye on Community letter, where he answers a question regarding the differences between the 1.9 vs. 2.0 game updates with regards to the Western version of Aion.

Read the Q&A below:

“Seeing chatter about two patches, 1.9 and 2.0, at the same time confuses me. What’s the difference between the two, and will there be a difference between their release here and in Korea?”

Aion in Korea is always a bit ahead of Aion here in the West in terms of game version. Sometimes we get updates more quickly, and other times, they take us longer to roll out because we have to do more work behind the scenes to implement them. If an update contains a large amount of content that requires localization into English, French, and German, it takes longer to implement the update.

We are fairly on-par in game version with other territories right now since all regions are currently running version 1.5 of Aion. Aion was recently updated to 1.9 on the Korean Public Test Server, but aside from that, there hasn’t been an announced date for when 1.9 will go live across all servers in Korea. Likewise, we haven’t announced when we will be implementing 1.9 on our North American and European servers, but we are currently working on the localization of 1.9. We are very excited and want to get update 1.9 in the hands of players as soon as it is ready. Version 2.0 refers to a future update that Korea has announced in name only. There are no solid dates for any territories for version 2.0 at this time.

Read the full Eye on Community letter here.

MMORPG.com has been give 1000 more beta keys for Mytheon. Get them while they last!

GET YOUR BETA KEY HERE!

IGG has announced that the Alpha test for their upcoming free-to-play MMOG Tales of Fantasy will kick off this Tuesday, March 9th at 8PM.

Established guilds have been invited to the Alpha test, with a number of incentives in the form of rewards to be provided to all members of qualified guilds who participate. What counts as a qualified guild? Your guild must consist of 15+ players, must achieve an average level of 15 by the end of the Alpha Test, and must include a link to Tales of Fantasy on your guild's website.

All qualified guilds will receive 2,000 Platinum, and each member will receive a Gift Pack for use later on when the Closed Beta launches.

For more information on Tales of Fantasy, or to sign up for the Alpha Test, go here.

MMORPG.com's Free Zone writer Richard Aihoshi examines the history of Allods Online's development, as well as the recent brouhaha surrounding the release of the game's item shop in this latest article.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." Although many people probably recognize these opening words from famed author Charles Dickens' classic novel A Tale of Two Cities, I suspect relatively few realize they aren't meant to stand alone as a single sentence. Rather, they begin a lengthy one that touches on a range of feelings associated with life and the human condition in the Victorian age.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Read A Tale of Two Allods.

Sony Online Entertainment has announced a bevy of new pets and mounts for Free Realms. The new pets include owls and groundhogs, while the new mounts (which are members only) consist of a T-Rex and Scaled Dragon.

The owls are available in seven different colors, while the Groundhogs are only available in six. Both new mounts are available in six different colors.

Read more here.

MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller writes this latest article on the five things the upcoming Warhammer 40k MMOG by Vigil Games needs to get right.

Anyone following MMOs knows that there has been talk of Vigil Games's Warhammer 40k MMO for some time. The game has remained shrouded in mystery and few have seen any real concrete news about its development. Then, a few weeks ago, THQ mentions the game in their investor call and how important the game will be for revenue. With that we learn that the game will be shown at E3 this year, and 40K fans suddenly looked up from their gaming tables and heard the call.

In theorizing about the game there are certain elements that Vigil has to consider when making a 40K MMO. We thought it would be fun to put a list together of five areas that are critical to the game in table top form and what makes the IP so popular around the world. Here is a list of areas we feel need to be handled well for the game to appeal to 40k fans whether you play Space Marines or Orks.

Read Five Things the Warhammer 40K MMO Needs to Get Right.

Last week Cryptic Studios introduced the Engineering Reports feature to keep players in the loop on what the Star Trek Online developer team is focused on. Today, we've learned that Cryptic Studios has now also unveiled a "Release Calendar" feature, which works just as it sounds. The calendar makes note of important upcoming release date events, such as patches or major game updates.

Currently listed dates are available below:

MARCH 4

• STF: The Infected

MARCH 18-24

• STF: The Cure

MARCH 18-31

• Update 1 (Title TBD)

APRIL 1-7

• STF: Khitomer Accord

APRIL 8-14

• STF: Undine: Terradome

APRIL 22-28

• STF: Children of Khan

From the above dates it looks like all the currently announced Special Task Forces should be released by the end of April, while Update 1 has been given a release window of March 18-31st.

Check out the Release Calendar here.

[Thanks PyrateLV for the tip!]

MMORPG.com members are now able to submit nominations for the MMO Developer Awards through a strategic partnership with the Looking For Group Expo. The top 5 games with the most votes across all voting locations will go in front of the LFGX awards committee and the winners will receive their MDA at the VIP award show at LFGX in June.

This is YOUR chance to vote for the nominees in eight of the above categories. The following pages will describe the category and what you should think about when choosing what game you feel should win that award. The top five games with the most votes across all voting locations will go in front of the LFGX awards committee and the winners will receive their MDA at the VIP award show at LFGX in June. Voting will remain open through April 30th and the winners will be announced at the end of May.

Get started by submitting your nominations here.

MMORPG.com has been given 1000 closed beta keys for Black Shot - a new tactical MMOFPS game by TwoWar! Get your key now while supplies last!

About Black Shot

We are proud to present to you Black Shot! Black Shot is a tactical MMOFPS which plays in a distant future and let you join an end world scenario which is scaring! You can take over the role of one of the mercenaries who is working for the biggest mercenary cooperation “Black Shot”. Those mercenary are hired by other cooperation’s or military fractions to fight for their interest!

GET YOUR BETA ACCESS KEY AT THIS LINK!

StarCraft II Beta testers are reporting their video cards or computers have been dying following an installation of NVIDIA's latest driver version 196.75, according to a report over at IncGamers.

Image Credit: IncGamers

Blizzard has investigated and responded to these claims, discovering that the fan controls in the driver are faulty and are causing overheating issues, and has warned users not to install them or roll back to earlier drivers if they have already installed them.

Below is Blizzard Tech Support Datth's response:

We're getting reports where users are getting intermittent low FPS after installing these drivers. It seems that it is related to the fan control included in these drivers not working correctly and is causing the video card to overheat on 3D applications. This will affect Warcraft 3, World of Warcraft and StarCraft 2 Beta. Please uninstall the drivers and revert back to the older ones.

Windows XP: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp_196.21_whql.html
Windows XP 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/winxp64_196.21_whql.html
Windows Vista/7 32-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_32bit_196.21_whql.html
Windows Vista/7 64-bit: http://www.nvidia.com/object/win7_winvista_64bit_196.21_whql.html

More information can be found on threads such as these:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=161525
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=161503

IncGamers got in touch with NVIDIA for comment on the story, and were told that NVIDIA has since taken the drivers down pending an investigation of the reported issues.

You can read the full story here.

Long story short: If you've installed the 196.75 drivers already, uninstall them and roll back to 196.21. 

Hi-Rez Studios has announced the "Fill Your Friends List" weekend sale event. The sale, which runs between March 5-8, offers Global Agenda at a reduced price, with additional discounts for multi-pack purchases.

Pricing breaks down as follows:

One Pack: $39.99

Two Pack: $69.99

Four Pack: $119.99

Be advised that there is a limit of 4 total keys per purchase.

View the original announcement here, or get your wallet out and go here to snag a copy (or two, or four)!