MMO news, guides, reviews, features, interviews and more at Ten Ton Hammer

You've been waiting for it. You've had anticipation like nobody's business. So much anticipation that you can't leave your home now for fear of missing any new news. It happens, it's ok. Just open the door, get in your car and go.

April 26, 2006 (BELLEVUE, WA) – ArenaNet®, developer of the award-winning online roleplaying game Guild Wars®, and NCsoft® Corporation, the world’s leading developer and publisher of online computer games, announce today that one of the year’s most-anticipated PC titles, Guild Wars Factions™, has officially shipped. For fans of the game that revolutionized online roleplaying, the wait is nearly over as Guild Wars Factions goes out today to retail stores worldwide.

Guild Wars Factions is the stand-alone follow-up to Guild Wars, the game that set new standards in online gaming with fresh design, innovative technology and no-subscription-fee pricing. With an expected retail price of $49.99, Guild Wars Factions will be available worldwide and servers supporting the new release will “go live” at 12:01 AM PDT /7:01 GMT on April 28, 2006.

Those who pre-ordered the game will be able to participate in the exclusive Guild Wars Factions Head Start Event beginning at 12:01 AM PDT/7:01 AM GMT on April 27, 2006. These lucky gamers will have access to the game for a total of 48 hours, including a full 24 hours before the game’s global release. During the first 24 hours of the Head Start Event, ArenaNet has planned an exclusive in-game event titled "Day of the Tengu," in which players will join one-day-only "Day of the Tengu" quests, and earn exclusive in-game rewards.

“New features in Guild Wars Factions such as guild scrimmages, alliance battles, ranked character titles, and some surprises still to come all resulted from our drive to create a truly unique gaming experience for existing and new fans of the Guild Wars universe,” says Mike O’Brien, co-founder of ArenaNet. “With a full year of development and a passionate design team, we think what we’ve created delivers on that and much, much more. Either played as a stand-alone game, or linked with your original Guild Wars account, Guild Wars Factions is a game we are thoroughly proud of—and still carries no subscription fee.”

Guild Wars Factions takes place on the Asian-inspired continent of Cantha, where players create a character from eight distinct professions—including the newly created Assassin and Ritualist—and join an epic quest that pits two warring factions, the Luxons and the Kurzicks, against an ancient evil, and against each other. As players become embroiled in this brutal war of conquest, new missions will provide both roleplaying fans and competitive PvP players the opportunity to help determine the fate of Cantha.

Guild Wars Factions is rated T for Teen. For more information, please visit www.guildwars.com.

Have tons of fun getting into this game.

Meanwhile, head over to our Guild Wars community.

More Guild Wars News.

CNN is Bioware aware.
CNN is reporting that Bioware will not be showing their in-development MMOG at E3 this year. That said, we are still on the case to get as much out of the devs as we can. Stay tuned.

"And, like many years, there will be some notable absences from the show. Acclaimed role-playing game maker Bioware will show neither "Dragon Age," which it debuted two years ago, but hasn't shown since, nor its in-development massively multiplayer game. id Software's new franchise, the first from the makers of "Doom" and "Quake" in 10 years, won't be there – but the company will have "Quake Wars: Enemy Territory" playable on the show floor."

Don't stop here! Read the entire article at CNN.

MMOs... bringing families together since 1997.

In an age where videogames are lambasted as psychoactive, profit-grubbing tools to turn kids into insular sociopaths, it's nice to see an article about how MMOs bring folks together. This, from TMCnet:

Game companies don't track how many families play online games together, but they say the trend helps drive their popularity. Some families play games to maintain contact from far-flung towns; some parents play online games with their kids in the next room as a way of bonding with them. Game designer Jack Emmert, at Guild Wars publisher NCsoft Corp., played his own game, City of Heroes, to stay in touch when his brother was serving in the Army and based in Korea.

Check out "Far-Flung Families Unite in Cyberspace -- And Kill Monsters" at TMCnet.

Virtual world economies examined

BusinessWeek Online interviews Edward Castronova, an economist who has become something of an authority of MMO / "virtual world" economies. He touches on World of Warcraft and Second Life, and it's always interesting to see knowledgable folks talk about the blurring line between reality and fantasy.

As if that's not enough, do you have other concerns about online games?

I'm also concerned that this commercial impulse could swallow up the separateness of these places. I would hate to see all that lost because of unregulated profit-seeking.

I would like there to be some kind of provision, like a wilderness preserve sort of law, for these places. We would need to have a law saying that if you promise you will seal off this world so people can't money-launder with it and can't liquidate the returns, we won't come in and tax all the transactions, and we won't subject you to child labor laws.

Check out this article on the macroeconomics of MMOs at BusinessWeek Online.