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From Chiba, Japan, AP reports on Sony and Microsoft's upcoming avatar-based offerings at the annual Tokyo Game Show. Associated Press goes to great lengths to avoid spooking what they seem to feel are a parochial and hidebound audience with gems like, 'In the so-called "metaverse" in cyberspace, players manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, engaging in relationships, social gatherings and businesses.'

Of course, the notion of graphical avatars as a part of a wide variety of Internet services has persisted for most of the last two decades, but even the sense of this is backwards.To the casual and uninformed observer it might appear that the user manipulates this (ahem) 'digital image' to perform actions, but this is substantively not the case. The user moves or takes action through the virtual environment in relation to spaces and to other users, and the avatar represents the action to others.

It's just that sort of long-arm punditry that seems to make AP compare Sony's Home and Microsoft's Avatar service with Linden Lab's Second Life, despite Sony and Microsoft's respective services having about as much in common with Second Life, as they have with Mortal Kombat. 'The real-time interactive computer-graphic worlds are similar to Linden Lab's "Second Life,"' writes the AP correspondent, in a wondrously surreal moment.

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	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

City of Heroes Issue 13: Power and Responsibility has now been patched to the Test Server, where a small but dedicated group of people will be testing the hell out of it for a while before the gate is unlocked and Open Beta begins.

Leaking stuff from a Closed Beta is of course a major no-no, and we would not condone this from anyone. There is, however, a limited amount of access that anyone can get, simply by going through character creation. Although it's not possible to enter the game fully unless you're in the Closed Beta, costume pieces and new powersets can be examined in their current state. These are in testing, so it would be unwise to fixate on anything for now.

So far we've had a look at the Shields powerset, which is extremely cool and contains many surprises, and Pain Domination, which picks up the buffity-healy hero set Empathy, runs with it, and smashes its face into the wall repeatedly while laughing like some ice-girdled steel-toothed agony maiden from Hell's own surgical wing.

If you missed the first round of beta applications being accepted last year, now's your second chance for an early look at Raph Koster's Metaplace. According to an announcement today, their brand new temporary website is up to promote an expanded beta and their mailing list, both of which you can sign up for quite easily.

To sign up, simply go to the main webpage and click on the "Apply Now" button on the upper left-hand side. From there, you just enter your name and email address, and they will contact you when they're ready. It's as easy as that! Also, look for their newly-designed website to launch soon, as they prepare for what might just be the long-awaited final stages of Metaplace's development.

When Burning Crusade first came out, people at endgame started out in (generally) a pretty decently matched set of raiding or quested gear. Within a few levels, most looked like they'd been hitting Bob's Discount Armor and Party Supplies for gear. While it's not true of all quest armor that you pick up, Deadend sent in this screenshot to show that apparently Blizzard decided to go more towards a more uniform look in Wrath quest armor. Beats looking like an overblown pinata again, eh?

If you're in Wrath, if you're in regular World of Warcraft, or if you're playing another non-Blizzard MMO altogether, we'd love to see your screenshots. Just snag some and send them to us here at oneshots AT massively DOT com along with your name/server/group and a quick description of what we're seeing. We'll post it out here for everyone else to enjoy and give you the credit.

MTV Multiplayer blog contributor Stephen Totilo took a second look at Sony's Home -- a virtual world community for PlayStation 3 users. He had previously previewed the service at Kotaku and given it low marks. This time, though, he seemed a little more impressed. We're not really sure why he flipped, though. He wasn't very clear about it.

Home features several instanced locations where PS3 users may converse and play minigames such as bowling. There are game specific rooms, like, say, for Warhawk, where users can get tips and such. It's a virtual world, not an MMORPG, but there's something interesting stuff in that preview. Obviously, it's most pertinent if you're a PS3 owner.

During the demo, director Jack Buser suggested that the developers might eventually add non-human character models if the community demands it (but it's not part of the plan at the moment). Most of the preview is about how Home differs from its non-virtual-world competitor: Xbox Live. Buser said he hopes that Home will give users a place to meet other gamers in an environment that's more social than the games themselves. According to him, there hasn't been a good way to do that since the arcades of the 80s.

"Hahaha I pwnedz0rz j00!"
"You cheated. Your class is overpowered. If I had my [insert popular class here], you wouldn't have a chance"
"STFU newb, go play Hello Kitty Online"

It may have become the butt of as many jokes as Chuck Norris, but Hello Kitty Online might actually prove to be a major contender in the MMO space. Sure it probably won't compete on the same level with something like Warhammer Online, but in the ever-increasing niche MMO market, it has the possibility to become a hit online game.

On October 8th at 22:00 EST, the HKO Founder's Beta will begin, opening the game to many more players than the previous beta that's been going on for months. To find out more information on becoming a Founder (which operates much like a special pre-order program for when the game launches), you can check out the Founders FAQ or the game's FAQ itself. They even get bonus points for offering a Torrent version of their beta download!

Stargate Worlds is one of the hotter sci-fi MMOs in development based off a popular television and film IP. We've been following this title for a while now through its ups and downs, and other places on the web are taking notice of the game as well. Massively's sister site Big Download has received word that the Stargate Worlds closed beta is no longer pegged for an unconfirmed date, and is now slated to commence on October 15th.

If you haven't been selected for the closed beta from that pool of over 200,000 people who signed up, at the very least there's a gallery of new Stargate Worlds screenshots to check out over at Big Download. Open beta is still a long ways off though, so the Stargate Atlantis episodes will just have to keep you occupied until then.

While the fantasy MMO genre still has years of life left in it and millions of fans, there's an upcoming crop of new titles in the sci-fi and post-apocalyptic genres. Of that latter category, Fallen Earth is one of the most anticipated titles that's nearing test phases.

Tiggs, the Community Director at the official Fallen Earth forums, said, "After a nine-month schedule of intensive content development, we are happy to announce that we have reached the development landmark 'content complete.' The Fallen Earth team has met two critical development milestones on time within the past six months, including 'feature complete' in June." Her announcement to the Fallen Earth community breaks down the major accomplishments linked to the game's content complete status. Highlights include 50,000 lines of dialogue, well over 1000 new and motion-captured animations and emotes, and over 1000 square kilometers of explorable territory, but there's much more. See Tiggs' announcement at the Fallen Earth forums for more details on where the game is, although it seems that Beta testing is still some months away.

[Via WorthPlaying]

The folks at Realtime Worlds have begun what looks to be a series of monthly newsletters to the community, briefing fans looking forward to the based-on-real-life cops and criminals MMO All Points Bulletin. The September newsletter sets out the format by offering some general news from the game and the community, and (intriguingly) some insight into their development process. They lay out one design component that has already been implimented, one that's under consideration, and one they've decided won't make it into the game at launch.

This month they've announced that they've already put in an 'arrest' system, which seems logical given the cop component of the game. They're considering putting in a stealth system to APB, and they've decided not to implement individual classes. It sounds like play style will result in their 'class' being developed over time. Read on below the cut for the full newsletter, and tune in next month for more on this intriguing project.

As you may already know from the buzz back in April when the project kicked off (just prior to Kingdon's hiring as freshly minted CEO of Linden Lab), the global interactive design firm Vectorform was contracted by Linden Lab to undertake the Landmarks and Navigation project, essentially completely reworking the way landmarks (a kind of virtual-environment version of Web bookmarks/favorites) are handled in Second Life.

The project adds a new user-interface element to the screen that applies Web-style browsing semantics (forward/back/location) to virtual environment positions. Vectorform say that they recently submitted a beta of the modification to Linden Lab and are awaiting QA (Quality Assurance) feedback.

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	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

Publisher Acclaim Games has finally announced the North American release date of developer Spellborn International's action-oriented MMORPG The Chronicles of Spellborn. The game will go live in the United States and Canada on the 27th of November -- exactly the same day as the European release. Why Acclaim and European publisher Frogster didn't announce for all regions at once, we're not quite sure!

In the press release we received, Acclaim promised that a North American closed beta will begin soon, and directed would-be players to sign up at the official site. Expect fairly standard MMO gameplay, except for combat, which is a little different. You'll actually have to aim your attacks like you would in a third person shooter game.

Spellborn runs on "Unreal Engine 2.5" and features music by respected video game composer Jesper Kyd, who has contributed scoring to games like Assassin's Creed, Gears of War, and Unreal Tournament 3.

Over at WoW Insider the question seems to be hanging in the air: by pushing Lich King out the door on November 13th, is Blizzard giving short shrift to their legendary dedication to polish? Zach Yozon put up a post noting that the company plans to re-address the Hunter 41-point talent after the expansion ships. Players weighing in on comments note that there were minor issues like this going all the way back to World of Warcraft's initial launch. Others, like Zach, are concerned that this might indicate the company is feeling pressure to get the game's next expansion out the door.

November 18th is juuust slipping under the deadline that Blizzard set for themselves by saying 'an expansion a year'. While the company is well known for their design brilliance and storytelling capabilities, holding to a schedule has obviously never been something they excelled at. Given the recent launch of Warhammer Online and its apparent blockbuster success, could Mythic and their WAR be figuring into this equation? What's your take?

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	One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!

If you're the type of person who loves to watch (re: stalk) their friends and Twitter just isn't doing it for you, then check out the Raptr beta. This nifty social networking site focuses on gaming and will track your activity over a plethora of platforms and games such as Steam, Xbox Live, Spore and of course World of Warcraft. Now you can gloat about your blue "Pants of Sundering Sauce" even when you're out of the game! If you decide to install the Raptr client it will check on all your PC games and download new updates for them, which is wonderful as we love anything that makes updating our games easier.

With the recent addition of Spore updates to the service, we're hoping that Warhammer Online will get some love from the folks at Raptr as well. How cool would it be if Raptr updated your page as you won Scenarios or captured an enemy stronghold?

What happens when you take a fun, addictive and productivity-threatening game like World of Warcraft and combine it with another fun, addictive and productively-threatening game like Bejeweled? We're not sure, since everyone who's been tasked with playing it has never been heard from again. Still, we're sure there's not risk of losing friends, family, your job and your pet bunny SirHopsalot if you get this addon.

Our sister site WoW insider has a write-up of the beta version of the Bejeweled addon. While we're not sure how they managed to tear themselves away from Bejeweled in World of Warcraft to actually write the whole thing, we are duly impressed with what they have to report. This isn't just Bejeweled slapped into WoW. Popcap Games is working to integrate their game into WoW itself in clever ways. So, for example, whenever you hop onto a flight the game will instantly pop up with a timed mode play session for you to enjoy. There's also high-score boards that you, your friends and guildmates who've got the addon can all see. This is definitely the start of some kind of frakenddiction.

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	One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!