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MMORPGLand 1: Don’t Call it a Comeback

By Heath | March 1, 2010 at 6:49 am

Once upon a time I founded an MMORPG column and wrote it faithfully for like a year. I’m out of retirement, baby.

As it’s been a couple of years and I’m now working in a new format, forgive my keeping this simple and my lack of flashy layout.

Pirates of the Burning Sea: Return for Free
Act quickly if interested in this next bit, because it’s only gonna last till March 5. In the wake of server mergers, former players of swashbucking MMORPG Pirates of the Burning Sea can return for free. It started last month, and I for one am interested to see how it goes for Flying Lab Software. There seem to be some technical burps showing up, but overall the community seems slightly bolstered. If anyone’s got some official numbers, I’d love to see ’em.

Final Fantasy XI to get three more mini-expansions, greatest hits CD this year
abyssea
Recent rumors claiming that Final Fantasy XI would end in 2010 are looking pretty shady now, as revelation has just surfaced that the game will see three more named updates this year. To quote Square Enix, “The first of these three battle area add-on content packages, Vision of Abyssea, is scheduled to launch early in the summer of 2010, and will be followed by two additional releases, Scars of Abyssea and Heroes of Abyssea. These content packages will be available via the PlayOnline Viewer, at the price of $9.99 each, with content available immediately upon purchase.” Learn more at the official PlayOnline site.

Also related to the world of Vana’diel is news that a “best of” CD will be released on May 12 in Japan called Final Fantasy XI 8th Anniversary: Memories of Dusk and Dawn and can be tracked here. Ah, those tracks from other albums below sure bring back memories both good and bad.

It’s a Magazine, Minus the Magazine
NCsoft will soon start a monthly (well, every four weeks) digital publication about Aion, simply titled Aion: The Magazine. For like $4 a pop, players can read new stuff about Aion and get exclusive in-game items. Buying in bulk saves a few cents per issue and a few in-game bonuses as well. Also in the world of Aion, the newest Letter From the Producer went up recently, promising an update in the second quarter of 2010 which will focus on giving lower-level characters more content and better quest rewards and drop rates. Read up.

You Should See the Colosseum, Spaniard
Roma Victor, one of the games that launched during my time writing MMORPGamer (now renamed MMORPGLand because I am totally the most creative man in game journalism), now reminds us all of how times change; the ol’ girl is being put to sleep. Its official website notes, “As of 5th May 2010 RedBedlam will block purchases of new Roma Victor accounts. Six months later we’ll stop taking any RV payments or donations and no further sesterces will be made available. Six months after that we’ll shut the servers down and the original Roma Victor will close for good.”

It goes on to say that Roma Victor 2 is still in development, however, and the devs clearly hope fans don’t give up on it. Perhaps we shall be hearing more about it in this very column some time down the road.

Mythic Merges Player Bases
As of Feb. 17, Dark Age of Camelot‘s North American servers merged with those of Europe. Many European members of the community have been pretty excited about this move. Check your account status right here.

“Patch notes” or “quick, one-line news updates” (Some of these have been on our index.)

-The official site of the upcoming (and free) Champions Online expansion has gone live.
-The official Darkfall forums show a preview of the game’s upcoming upgrades.
Dungeon Bandits in now in open beta, meaning basically anyone can sign up and play.
Dungeons and Dragons Online has made an awesome turnaround since September.
-CCP recently revealed an EVE Online expansion and then showed a redesigned Scorpion for it.

It feels good to be hunting down stuff about MMORPGs and busting out this column again. I feel like this first run of the new era might be a tad rushed, but it does the job of informing that it should. In the future, I want to implement things I did before, such as reader screenshots, answering letters, and so on. So if you’ve got any questions about MMORPGs, kickass stories to share, or screens you’d like to show to your fellow readers, hit me up at nr@rpgland.com. I’m looking forward to making this column great again.

Eventually I’ll take questions and stuff via our Facebook and Twitter pages as well.

Topics: MMORPGLand