Stratics joins the rest of the MMO community in mourning the loss of Laura 'Taera' Genender. Laura, well known around the MMO community through MMORPG.com, had recently joined CCP Games as an Associate Community Manager. Laura passed away August 13th - she will be truly missed. Our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Ms. Genender.

We invite you to join others from around our community in paying tribute to Laura by visiting a very touching article on MMORPG.com, The Laura Genender Memorial.

Jack Emmertt and the rest of the Star Trek Online team were at the yearly Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas. Razor, STO's community representative, recently published a report of how it all went down:

Cryptic Studios was at The Official Star Trek Las Vegas Convention held August 6 – 10 this year and it was an amazing experience. We were there to promote Star Trek Online and give Trek fans in attendance a chance to see the game that would allow them to be a part of the Star Trek universe. Over the course of the convention, we →

The following PR hit our desks just a short while ago:

LEGACY OF EVERQUEST® FRANCHISE CONTINUES WITH ANNOUNCEMENT OF EverQuest® AND EverQuest® II EXPANSIONS AT FAN FAIRE

All attendees to Receive Both Expansions for Free as Part of Living Legacy Program!

LAS VEGAS, NEV. – Aug. 15, 2008 – Thousands of video game enthusiasts are in Las Vegas for the annual Sony Online Entertainment Fan Faire where the upcoming expansions for the online role-playing games EverQuest® (EQ) and EverQuest® II (EQII) were just announced. EverQuest® Seeds of Destruction™ is scheduled to be available on Oct.21, and

EverQuest® II →

New locations, content and features to be revealed for both press and consumers at the show - Thousands of exclusive give-aways, including free trial accounts and limited edition game DVD



Durham, USA - August 15th, 2008 - Conan is invading this year's Games Convention in Leipzig, Germany. Funcom and Eidos invites everyone to come join the festivities at his majesty's outpost located at stand B10 in Hall 5. Behind the tall walls of the King's fortress press and gamers alike can play the game, meet and chat with the developers, collect amazing give-aways and observe live stage →

We reported earlier today that we were seeing signs of some of the rumors that have been around the past day or two coming to fruition over at NCsoft.

I'm happy to report that it appears the "worst case" rumors were exactly that. NCsoft has layed off some developers (21 of them) who were working on undisclosed projects. But, it seems now that it should not affect the current games being supported by the NCsoft Austin Offices.

Our best wishes go out to those that did lose their jobs. But we are indeed relived to hear that it is not as →

Yesterday rumors started flying around about the possible layoff of many of the Developers in NCsoft's Austin Studio.

NCsoft Austin, home to the Richard Garriott-lead title Tabula Rasa and the free-to-play romp Dungeon Runners, may be in a precarious position today.

The rumor posted at Massively and Joystick appeared to be just that until you examine news from the Korean Times from a few months ago.

The company's chief financial officer Lee Jae-ho said last week that it was inevitable to reduce staff levels at the Texas subsidiary as the "Tabula Rasa" game has proven to →

Cryptic has released three new Star Trek Online screenshots! These screenshots, from the actual game trailer, can be seen below!

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CARY, NC - August 12, 2008 - Post apocalyptic MMOG Fallen Earth announced today it will officially begin Alpha testing on Thursday, August 14, 2008.  The test is scheduled to run through early 2009, immediately followed by Beta testing to begin in 1Q09.

Fallen Earth Project Manager Colin Dwan said, "During the Alpha test phase, testers will be focused into specific towns so we can have miniature stress tests each week.  They will be able to experience all of our game systems including missions, combat, crafting, scavenging, economy, and vehicles.  We are extremely excited to move from general content creation to game balance and bug fixing."

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A reminder that our fourth House of Commons chat with Masthead Studios, makers of Earthrise, is tomorrow at 1pm PST/4pm EST/9pm GMT in the #straticshoc channel on Stratics IRC. Join us as our guests Atanas Atanasov, CEO of Masthead Studios, and Lead Game Designer Apostol Aposolov answer more of your questions about this upcoming title!

You can connect to one of our IRC servers through the use of your favorite IRC client or you can visit our downloads section to choose a client. Connect to irc.stratics.com port 6668 or choose a server listed below that is closest to you:

• stratics.frws.com USA - Colorado 6667 6668 7000
• irc.glowfish.de EU - Germany 6667 6668
• stratics.afraidyet.net USA - Texas 6667 6668
• irc.gamers-irc.org USA - Colorado 6667 6668 7000

Once connected, join the #straticshoc channel and you'll be able to submit your questions to the chats assigned Question Taker [QT]. You can also join us any time in the official Earthrise channel (#earthrise) on Stratics IRC for general chat about Earthrise.

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Winners have been announced in the AoC Stratics Guild Recruitment Poster contest! Ten winners plus one Grand Prize Winner have been chosen and will be receiving some great prizes! For a list of the winners and to see the winning entries, please follow this link!

The fourth thread has been posted for people to enter the WoW Stratics Gold Medal Challenge.

Today's question: You're in charge of putting together a bobsled team to represent Booty Bay - who are the 4 team members you select from that area to give you the best chance at qualifying and become the first Booty Bay Bobsled Team?

To enter, all you do is simply go here and post your response. You get one entry per thread (but feel free to post multiple times). We'll be doing 7 of these so you can have 7 total chances to win. At the end of the week we'll put them all together for the final drawing toward winning one of 20 WWI cards.

Also don't forget to enter our contest to win 1 of 5 beta keys. You simply just need to create a piece of work that is Olympic related in the World of Warcraft. You can check out the entries so far and then submit your own.

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The Warhammer Online Herald has announced the September 18th, 2008 release date for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning!

The storm comes September 18th 2008!

The day you have all been waiting for is nearly here, so prepare yourselves for WAR. This morning we released a press release detailing the date of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckonings release and subscription details, hit the jump for all the information.

WAAAGH!!!

Along with the release date, subscription fees were also announced. You can read the press release in its entirety HERE. →

UO Stratics was at the Ultima Online Town Hall in San Diego and managed to catch up with Jeremy Dahlberg, Ultima Online Community Coordinator and chat a bit about herself, Ultima Online, and the passion that keeps this game new. 

Q. How old were you when you played your first game and what was it?
A. I was 5 or 6, Kindergarten; one of my friends got an Atari and we used to hang out for hours playing. I don't even remember what games he had but we played that thing as much as our parents would let us. I was so impressed I started saving all my pennies and when I had enough money I got my dad to take me and my jar of pennies to buy my first Nintendo. I think I remember my dad took me to the bank first to change my pennies into dollars so we didn't piss off the guy at the game store.

Follow this link to read the complete interview!

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We had a little extra time on our hands at the San Diego Comic Con, so we thought to ourselves "what Developer could we harass repeatedly?"

So, we made our way towards Josh Drescher and decided to ask some real questions this time. And, being the upstanding guy that he is, he indulged us. Enjoy!


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Turbine Inc. has announced it will partner with Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment for distribution of The Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria, the first expansion for the award-winning title which recently celebrated it's first anniversary. In conjunction with this announcement, Turbine also unveiled its fall product lineup including two titles to be available at retail and a digital-only title for existing subscribers.

Read more for newly released concept art and the complete press release.

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The Stratics crew managed to catch up with Age of Conan at the San Diego Comic Con. Check out answer to the state of the game, pvp and the shocking carebear admission! A big thanks to Joe McDoug, who worked the Comic Con floor to bring us this video interview!

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For those of you who did not get a chance to see Paul Barnett's presentation at the San Diego Comic Con we have the full 45 minutes including the approximatly 10 minutes prior to the presentation. It is not necessarily Warhammer related, but it really does give a great look into the mind of Paul and what level of crazy it takes to want to get into the video game industry.

The video is after the jump, Click Read More to watch.

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The Stratics crew managed to catch up with Josh Drescher at the San Diego Comic Con. And the resulting interview is what happens when you turn fans of the game, who just happen to be press, loose on the devs.

Follow the Read More link below to view the video.

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Purchasing and playing NCSoft titles such as City of Heroes, Tabula Rasa, and Exteel just got easier. Teaming up with InComm, a technology firm that develops markets and distributes stored-value gift and prepaid products. Target, Best Buy and Rite-Aid will be the first stores to carry cards.

Purchasing a card doesn’t just give you game time either, but will give purchasers access to special in-game items!

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Every year tens of thousands of fans descend on San Diego for 4 days to experience the most anticipated event of the summer, Comic Con. For the third year in a row, Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) opened their doors on Saturday and welcomed the public (not just Comic Con attendees) to tour their offices.

Read what fans were treated to and catch some glimpses of the event here!

Just when it seems like Comic-Con can't get any better, the legends start to emerge and walk amongst the fanbase!

Last night, Actor Mark Hamill, better known as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars triology, and legendary comic book artist Jim Lee attended the Sony Online Entertainment's fan party at San Diego Comic-Con. Star Wars and comic book fans alike flocked to get a chance to meet these two gods of gamer godhood.

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Champions Online has published a new 'Meet the Team' spotlight on Community Relations Manager Victor Wachter.

Victor, a self proclaimed "world-class contender in the field of hanging out and not doing much", has answered some interesting questions both about his involvment with the Champions Online title, as well as his experiences in the industry.

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For those who are lucky enough to be attending Comic-Con, there is a chance to sit in on a presentation from Mythic Entertainment's own Paul Barnett about Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning's challenges in development.

Paul Barnett, creative director for Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, is giving a talk on the game during Comic-Con International. The presentation is this Saturday, July 26 at the San Diego Convention Center, and full details are below.

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Gametribe.com, the premier destination for Free-to-Play games today announced the details for its latest content update for Dream of Mirror Online (DOMO).

Platinum Weapons make their first appearance in-game through the shops’ new Goodie Bag, these upgradable weapons level alongside your character and give you stronger attack powers. This Goodie Bag is only available for a limited time so you’ll need to be quick to be in with a chance of collecting one of these incredible weapons.

Also in the update comes a huge brand new level map, the much anticipated Dragons Den, and with it 2 amazing new quests →

As if the nightmares were not already terrifying enough, Requiem: Bloodymare have two new Possession Beasts joining gameplay.

The Giont and Rebria like to play. They don’t come out that often, so when they do, it’s always a fun time.

Possession Beasts are powerful beings that can take the most horrific of monsters and make it beg for its life… Until it has a mouth, that is.

Starting at level 23, players can take the Forgotten Relics quest and obtain their first Possession Beast at the end of the quest-chain. Another way to obtain a Possession Beast is by →