TERA Online recently announced that it will be at Comic-Con 2010 in San Diego this year and is welcoming all its fans to stop by their party.

Join developers En Masse on Thursday, July 22nd, Comic-Con’s first night, where En Masse will host a party at 923 Bar and Lounge from 7-9 PM (PST).

Why go? Well, surly gamer. “During the event, En Masse will make a special presentation of new, exclusive information about the game. Guests will also have the chance ..read the full article

The internet can be a cruel place. Nobody knows this better than Josh – the All Points Bulletin Human Avatar. “It’s sort of a mix of excitement and fear,” Josh says.

The votes are in from Stage 2 and Josh is getting the “Cyberpunk” hairdo. This would be a good haircut if Josh lived in a dystopian sci-fi future filled with robots and go-for-broke hackers. Unfortunetly, Josh has to live in our world, as does his hair style.

Josh is still on ..read the full article

Playdom, a social gaming developer and aggregate, has been on a spending spree lately with their most recent purchase being San Francisco-based gaming house Metaplace. Metaplace focused on Facebook games, and currently has over 1.2 million monthly active users on their two main products, My Vineyard and Island Life.

Playdom didn’t just acquire a couple of games and their users, however — along with Metaplace they also “bought” Raph Koster, famed MMO developer. Koster was the lead designer for ..read the full article

So with all this personal privacy, Real ID madness floating around – its ironic that one person, simply known as Josh, has completely given over not only his identity, but his actual appearance to the hands of game designers and their community.

All Points Bulletin is on the second stage of their Human Avatar program. As quoted on their website, “One person. Three weeks. Total transformation. Inspired by the APB customization engine, we’re taking a real person and over three weeks ..read the full article

Good news for East Coast gamers: The Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) East has been confirmed to be scheduled through 2013. According to The Massachusetts Convention Center Authority and Reed Exhibitions, an agreement was recently signed that will establish the gaming convention on the East Coast for the next three years.

The first PAX East was held in March of this year, and quickly sold out. Over 60,000 gamers and developers attended the event. PAX is a celebration of gaming of all ..read the full article

With the launch of World of Warcraft 3.3.5 patch players were let into the world of Real ID. Real ID offers the ability to put in more personal information that is available to all Battle.net users which includes anyone who plays Blizzard games online. Players can chat across different servers/games, create a friends list, message players and other social networking type add-ons.

Real ID has raised some concerns as of late. Based on the fact that you must input your personal ..read the full article

The folks at Realtime Worlds have finally gone off the deep end as they begin the APB Human Avatar experiment. To promote All Points Bulletin’s character customization system, somewhat amusingly dubbed the “innovative expression suite”, the Human Avatar experiment will see “an average Joe significantly altered in the real world into a San Paro celebrity!” The concept is that a real person, chosen out of two options by community voting, will then have various makeover stages voted on as well, ..read the full article

Pay attention, advertising departments — it turns out that the level of immersion a player experiences in a game can directly affect their in-game buying decisions. First Planet Company (the publishers of the real economy game Planet Calypso, one of the planets in Entropia Universe), Florida State University, and The Stockholm School of Economics teamed up earlier this year to study how immersion can affect buying habits in virtual worlds and the results show that the two are ..read the full article

The 2010 Blizzard Global Writing Contest has begun, allowing fans of the Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo game series to submit their stories set in those universes for the chance to win a trip to Blizzard Entertainment’s HQ in California. The rules are that the submission must be a short story set in one (or perhaps more – not specified) of the aforementioned worlds, it must be between 2500 and 7500 words, it must be written in English and it must ..read the full article

Beta Testing is not just a way to play a game for free. It gives players a chance to get a top down look at the way that MMORPGs are made and have a hand in their development. I’ve participated in many beta tests for all sorts of different games. Often, it’s very fun and rewarding; other times it may feel as if I am playing a broken game that needs another year or two in the cooker. ..read the full article

Blizzard Insider brings us this interview with WoW’s production director, in which he explains how the development team has changed since the game’s release, and what lessons he and Blizzard have learned since. J. Allen Brack joined Blizzard Entertainment in 2006 as a senior producer for the Burning Crusade expansion pack for World of Warcraft. He eventually became the lead producer on the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and now that the latest expansion, Cataclysm, is in the works, he ..read the full article

Paragon Studios has made some announcements about its City of Heroes Meet & Greet events, as well as what the team will be doing at San Diego Comic-Con this year. A couple of months ago, it was announced that the studio would be making five appearances throughout the year, at which fans could meet the development team. One of these, at PAX East, has already passed, and the fifth appearance had not been announced yet because the players themselves were ..read the full article

Josh Drescher, a producer at Mythic Entertainment (also known as EA Mythic and BioWare Mythic) who worked on Warhammer Online, was laid off today. This has sparked rumours of it being an indication of Warhammer Online suffering difficulties, or that there is trouble in Mythic’s future. This is coming despite Josh himself remarking that “WAR isn’t dying. The game is better now than ever before and more goodness is on the way.” It may be a simple reaction to the ..read the full article

Sony Online Entertainment is giving four fans of SOE games the chance to attend the SOE Fan Faire 2010 with platinum passes and the ability to post on the SOE Station Blog during the event. It’s called the Backstage Blogger Contest and here are the details:

From Wednesday, June 16, 2010, 12:00:01 a.m. PDT, through Thursday, July 1, 2010, 11:59 p.m. PDT, SOE will host the official SOE Fan Faire – Backstage Blogger Contest, in which bloggers can use video and ..read the full article

As the EVE Online Alliance Tournament VIII moves forward into the finals, CCP has published a teaser video to get players excited. I have to say it has got some potential but needs a few tweaks. One, lose the dude and put a pair of headphones on the lady. Show me some action in regards to a female getting involved with EVE-style PVP. EVE Online is a game that is noted for a few ..read the full article

Today at the E3 Convention in Los Angeles, CA the LEGO Group announced the release date for their MMOG LEGO Universe.   It is set for October 12th, 2010 for LEGO “founders.”  The Official launch will be October 26th, 2010.

LEGO Universe will also allow players to create their own content using a simple programming language. Fans or “Founders” of will be able to get into LEGO Universe before the official launch.  The game will be sold ..read the full article

This weekend, AdventureQuest Worlds is having a special event in honor of Game Master Cysero getting married. The free-to-play MMO developed by Artix Entertainment boasts over 15 million members world wide. To commemorate this special event with their expansive community, the developers have created bizarre quests in honor of the wedding. This special in-game event begins today!

Founder and CEO Adam Bohn stated, “We are not sure which will be more odd –  the in-game or real-life wedding.  I mean, the ..read the full article

Today, Funcom released an Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer Orchestral Soundtrack that features a key for a special in-game item (a Bone flute), the game trial client, and of course, tunes from the game. The game’s music was created by award winning composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen.

Along with the CD, buyers get a special DVD that includes the original 5.1 surround mix of the music with bonus tracks. Included in this DVD is a slide show that features concept ..read the full article