With headsets rapidly becoming the standard accessory in eSports ie. Shooting games (FPS), role playing games (MMORPG) and real-time strategy games (RTS) - consumers will be looking to Tt eSPORTS for the most extreme gaming gears. Headsets equipped with a microphone can open up a whole new world of multiplayer gaming. The ability to taunt your enemies and strategize with your teammates all becomes possible as Tt eSPORTS unveils its newest product the SHOCK headset. Unlike many headsets out on the market, the Shock headset covers the ear entirely. This attention to detail makes a very big difference when it comes to comfort and noise cancellation giving players the satisfaction of knowing that Tt eSPORTS designs with their consumers in mind.

Gaming hardware specialist Razer announced two products designed for the MMORPG crowd. The Naga MMO mouse, and the extra-large Megasome mouse-pad to go with it. To begin with, Naga boards of a 12-button thumb-pad that lets you assign as many as 12 macros apart from this, the upper thumb are has two buttons next to the mouse's main buttons, and four-way scroll-wheel. Under its hood is a 5600 dpi 3.5g Laser sensor. With the Ultrapolling feature, the mouse ensures a high polling rate for its USB interface, boosting accuracy, with a response time of 1 ms. The mouse lets you use game-specific addon packs (that probably come with pre-defined button profiles that work well for most players). The software allows you to store unlimited character profiles. Measuring approximately 116L x 69W x 41.6H mm, Naga is an upper-mid-sized mouse. Razer will start selling these for around US $80 soon.

As its sidekick is the Megasome white gaming mouse-pad. It comes in an extra-large size of 350 x 230 x 2 mm, and makes use of a silicone mat for just the right traction. The surface is white fluorescent for an ambient glow. It is expected to be priced at $50. Videos related to the two products titled Razer Naga key binding and add ons in-game configuration, and Razer Naga Introduction Video can be watched on YouTube.

EVGA has announced that it would be giving away free 21-day trials of the popular MMORPG, EVE Online. Owners of EVGA graphics cards and motherboards (products listed below) are eligible for the offer. To activate the 21 day trial, EVGA products must be registered. Users must proceed to My Products page to get your CD-Key. After that, visit the EVGA EVE Online link and input the CD-Key.The list of Eligible EVGA products is as follows:

Today sees the release of Blizzard's last World of Warcraft installment, the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. This is the second expansion to date, making the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) game by far the largest in the world. World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King features a massive new continent called Northrend, the brand-new death knight Hero class, unique dungeons, an open-world PvP zone with siege vehicles and destructible buildings, and hundreds of brand-new quests. The expansion is available in both a standard and Collector's Edition. The Collector's edition includes the original game DVD, a 208-page book featuring never-before-seen images from the game, an exclusive in-game pet, a behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, a soundtrack CD with 21 songs, and an exclusive mouse pad with a map of the newly opened continent of Northrend. The game should already be available everywhere, have fun playing it.

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that the subscribership for World of Warcraft, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), now exceeds 11 million players worldwide. This milestone was reached as the beta test for Wrath of the Lich King, World of Warcraft's second expansion, nears completion. Wrath of the Lich King will launch in several regions around the world starting on November 13.

And now some good news for over 10 million World of WarCraft online players. Blizzard Entertainment announced today that World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, the second expansion for its award-winning subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), will arrive in stores on November 13th in North America, Europe, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Russia, and November 14th in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. The expansion will be available in Korea and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau on November 18th. The new expansion pack takes all World of Warcraft players to the cold, forbidding continent of Northrend, where the fearsome Lich King Arthas Menethil, last seen in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne, works from his secluded citadel to bring all of Azeroth under his twisted dominion. Players will battle the Lich King's undead army from the shores of Howling Fjord and Borean Tundra to the seat of his unholy power in Icecrown Glacier. In addition, players will be able to advance characters to level 80 and gain powerful new abilities while exploring several new zones and dungeons. The expansion also introduces a number of exciting new features, including an achievement system, expanded player-vs.-player combat options such as siege weapons and destructible buildings, and the game's first Hero class - the necromantic death knight. Available for Mac and Windows players, the expansion pack will come in two packages - a standard edition that costs $39.99, and a Collector's Edition priced at $69.99. The Collector's Edition includes an art book, an exclusive in-game pet, a behind-the-scenes DVD, a soundtrack CD, a mousepad featuring a map of Northrend and two starter decks for the World of Warcraft trading card game March of the Legion. Retailers in North America are currently taking pre-orders for the game, reserve your copy now online here.

World of Warcraft (WoW), the largest MMORPG, is fun. People have gone lengths and breadths to achieve higher in the game. Those endless hours of playing it comes at a cost, the WoW subscription. But once you reach a high level (say 70), and own lot of gold, and basically have all achievements under your belt, your inclination to play the game retards. The fact that you have to pay to keep your subscription alive only makes it worse. For you, it means that you're bored, WoW isn't fun anymore, and so you could join another MMORPG. For Blizzard (now Activision-Blizzard), it means losing revenue. Not that they're short of it, but no company would want to lose it.

In what can be seen as a bid to woo such players and maintain their patronage, new achievement levels have been added to the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King Expansion pack. Similar to the achievements you have with console gaming, players will now be awarded titles, gear, bragging rights for several tasks, serious thru trivial. They can be as serious as defeating scores and scores of enemies or as trivial as getting a hair-cut done. Custom animations and sounds would accompany each achievement earned and in-game pets, special clothing and titles will also be awarded. According to Blizzard, these rewards will be "purely cosmetic" and won't affect actual gameplay.

It would seem as though World of Warcraft finally has some competition when it comes to the very lucrative and addicting MMORPG enterprise. Since last Tuesday, over 400,000 MMORPG gamers have signed up for Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, nearly half of which come from North America. This is quite significant for a game that's been on "the development backburner" for quite some time now. Even more interesting is that this game is pay-to-play, much like Blizzard competitor World of Warcraft. Whether or not this "savage, sexy and brutal MMO(RPG)" will be a long-term contender is yet to be seen. Whether or not the very strong Age of Conan fanbase comes through with a World of Warcraft killer, only time will tell. We'll keep you posted.

I just want to bring to your attention that there is the second part of Richard Garriotts interview online over at GamesIndustry.biz. This time he speaks about development boundaries mainly related to the difference between the Eastern and Western market and another focus is the risks you are faced with when developing Massively Multiplayer Online Games.

The development time for a big MMO is multiple years, and the teams are very large, so you are investing tens of millions of dollars prior to launch. ... If you fail to not only ship the game but fail to have a hit, the repercussions are substantial.

Don't miss the first part which you can find over here.

You might know of Richard Garriott from his superb Ultima game series in the 1980s and 1990s and from the good old days of Origin Systems, his own publishing company. In 1992 he sold Origin Systems to Electronic Arts and coproduced some more Ultima's with them, but towards the end of the century it didn't went well with Lord British, he turned his back towards the game industry and left the company he once created. In the year 2000 he came back when founding Destination Games and later teamed up with the game publisher NCsoft to develop MMORPGs.
NCsoft today announced the start of the closed beta testing of Tabula Rasa, Garriot's actual PC game project. In Tabula Rasa you will take part in an epic, intergalactic science-fiction story on alien worlds with fast-paced action and role-playing aspects combined. The player enters the game as a rebel soldier faced with a huge war between his comrades and a xenophobic alien race.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs for short) have recently gained a lot of momentum. Games such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars continue to suck in subscribers, who enjoy the games so much they sometimes lose almost all traces of a social life to play these games. The maker of Guild Wars has shown interest in getting their MMORPG onto consoles, which would greatly expand their market. However, one of the makers of Guild Wars also says that their current focus is for the PC platform, and they currently have no plans on getting the original Guild Wars onto a console. Perhaps the sequel will find it's way onto Microsoft and Sony gaming consoles.

Regardless of whether or not Guild Wars actually follows through, they do show a market trend of moving games towards consoles to tap their rather large market share.

In case you haven't heard, there have been various rumors about some kind of PS3 network. Sony has finally let out some details as to what this Home thing is. Basically, take Second Life, stick it on the PS3, add cops, and make everything cost something. Every PS3 owner will have their own house, with various forms of decorations. PS3 owners can then make/maintain their avatar, walk around public places, and visit other PS3 owner's houses. They can communicate with other people via various chat clients (instant messaging and voice chat clients are feasible). Sony Home will allow users to block other users, if they must, and also has police to watch over this community. All the goodies in the game need to be bought with some form of points, which can be acquired either through gaming or actually buying them (sound like Xbox Live points, anyone?). This service is available for anyone with a PS3, all they have to do is register in the online community.

You don't like fantasy role playing games like World Of Warcraft and the graphical impression Second Life (say hello to 1992 vector graphics) gives is not to your taste? Then maybe you should get a picture of Outback Online which is not possible at the very moment because of missing screenshots or even a playable version. But the fuss it's creators at Yoick.com low down at Australia are generating at the written and online press is immense.

"We believe what Second Life did was great, but it's time for 'virtual worlds 2.0' . . . unlimited, open, scalable worlds."

The Age

Anyway, if you like to you can sign up for a beta account over here.

Los Angeles (February 23, 2007) - Acclaim Games and video game industry superstar David Perry have partnered to present the ground-breaking "Top Secret" project. In this project, players actually get an opportunity to participate in the entire video game development process from start to finish.

During the last week already Blizzard Entertainment and Vivendi Games filed against Michael Donnelly, creator of WoW Glider. WoW Glider is a so called Bot which acts for you and controls your character while you are away. Blizzard respectively Vivendi, who are known for banning thousands of players because of using such 3rd party software, accused Donelly of violating their rights associated with "World of Warcraft", of infringing copyrights owned by them, violating the DMCA and so on.
A fairly one-sided and biased presentation of what happened can be found at MarkeeDragon.

If you are interested in more forensic details you can read a few documents regarding the claims and counterclaims over here.

The Fairtrade Foundation, which was funded by the World Development Movement (WDM), placed a very interesting billboard in the game Second Life.While it is not easily seen, at the bottom of the billboard is a very interesting counter. It counts how many preventable child deaths occur while people game away in virtual environments such as Second Life (one every three seconds). WDM's Peter Taylor said:

Millions of people are now spending more and more of their time in Second Life or similar virtual environments. We are here to remind them that they can't escape the problems of the real world.

The WDM founded the Fairtrade Foundation, which aims to help eliminate poverty and debt. The WDM is asking Second Life "residents" to remember reality and donate.