You want quickies, I want to tell you about MMOGs. The Star Trek Online MMOG is moving forward with a new site for the Paramount online world. So far it is light on the details, but they assure us they'll have more in the near future. I probably don't need to tell you, but World of Warcraft rolled out a new patch earlier this week, adding in a high level raid dungeon and making it easier to get into the Battlegrounds. My guildies were having trouble getting past the first room in Blackwing's Lair last night, so my assumption is that Blizz has really come up with something special here. Speaking of fantasy MMOGs, the Everquest II Desert of Flames expansion pack is fast approaching, and both IGN and Gamespot have news and movies from the sandy, hot, new area. City of Villains will be opening up into Beta later this year, and to whet your appetite Voodoo Extreme has a bevy of CoV screens. Finally, Final Fantasy XI is adding in some interesting new stuff in the next couple of patches. A title selector, a summonable buddy, and changes to experience acquisition are all in the pipeline for the popular MMOG.

Enigma23 writes "White Wolf, Inc. has decided to enforce a licensing system upon those who run their games in their World of Darkness. Here is the full text of the license. The Licensing process will force those who have not already joined the Camarilla, White Wolf's official fan club, to pay a yearly $20 fee. They're not going to go after games that don't charge money for the event, but the wording is such that they can legally sue those who don't comply even if they only charge enough money to cover costs. The practical upshot is that technically the WW Stormtroopers could raid your house merely if everyone chips in a few quid for pizza. This is evidently doubly so if anyone in your gaming group is under the age of 18, which is against the membership policy of The Camarilla. There is a further discussion on RPG.net about the various issues involved." The BoingBoing discussion is interesting, as well.

1up.com has a piece looking at the changing variable of game length, and current gamer tastes when it comes to time investment. From the article: "For better or worse, one of the main ways gamers size up a game's value is by length. After all, an RPG that promises 40 hours of gameplay must be superior to one that offers a mere 20, right? Not quite. The fallacies here are obvious enough. For example, what good is 40 hours of content if only 20 are worth paying attention to? Or what if a game takes ten hours to run through, but is eminently replayable? Despite these and other valid arguments, many gamers, especially in recent years, have subscribed to the 'longer is better' school of thought, without really considering what 'longer' actually means."

An anonymous reader writes "The Passion of the Christ brought in $370 million at the box office. The Left Behind book series have sold over 63 million copies. And Christian Rock is growing more and more popular. But the video game industry has so far ignored the topic of religion. CNN/Money's Game Over column talked with game developers (including id Software CEO Todd Hollenshead and Diablo co-creator Bill Roper) about the reasons behind this - and asked them what sort of game they would make if they were creating one with a religious theme. The answers ranged from a Moses RPG to a faith-based MMO."

wikinerd writes "BBC recently published the results of an Elspa white paper on women in gaming, revealing that women prefer RPG, adventures, easy driving sims, puzzles, Tetris, and life simulations like The Sims. I suppose that the Slashdot crowd knows much more about this topic than Elspa, so I ask you: What games do women like most and are they experienced players? What would be the difference if your opponent in a game is male or female? How does the gender of other gamers or chatters affect your on-line behavior, especially when the physical distance means you may never really meet face-to-face."

Gamingreport.com has the list of this year's Origins Awards winners. Best RPG went to Ars Magica: 5th Edition by Atlas, Best RPG Supplement went to The Eberron Campaign Setting by WotC, and Best Board Game went to Ticket To Ride by Days of Wonder.

Well thought out games blog Lost Garden has a design analysis of Nintendogs. In his estimation, gamers who are shrugging this off as "another Nintendo toy" are doing themselves a disservice. From the article: "There is nothing on that market that compares to Nintendogs. If you dig into the game mechanics at an abstract level, it has surprisingly more in common with a RPG than most virtual pet games. Yet hardcore gamers make a snap judgement and instantly assume it must be a Tamagotchi-style game. This is an unfortunate mistake that limits our understanding of the game design."

Garthilk writes "In the last two weeks since E3 I've read at least three gushing reviews about an upcoming game by Simutronics, called Hero's Journey. MMORPG.com gave it their E3 best of show award. CorpNews said it blew their pants off. IGN even had a good interview with the CEO of Simutronics. Warcry even goes so far as to say that it will turn gaming world upside down. The question still lingers though, can a company who has focused on text based roleplaying games cut it in the graphical world?" From the MMORPG.com article: "In a year full of big budget, big company titles, Hero's Journey offered graphics on par with all the major players and an extremely exciting look at their game play. E3 2005 marked a show where several high profile games were touting very similar features (state based combat), and in swept Hero's Journey with their innovative group combat, highly cinematic missions, interactive environments and hands down the best character creation ever put into an MMORPG."

HunterD writes "PCGen, the premier Open Source D20 RPG character generation application has released it's new 5.8 version. The 5.8 release of PCGen comes from over a year of hard work adding new features such as the ability to preview characters, a new plugin system, and the ability to use pcgen to run games over the internet via the new networking plugin. Eleven new datasets in this release mean that there are now almost 100 free data sets for Pcgen, which represents a substantial percentage of the available D20 books on the market. Usability has increased dramatically, as countless bugs have been fixed to increase stability and application speed."

Hellgate: London and The Elder Scrolls IV are two hotly anticipated roleplaying titles coming at us in the upcoming year. Hands-On examinations of Hellgate are available at Gamespot, 1up.com and IGN. The Elder Scrolls is examined at Gamespot and IGN. From the 1up article: "'Since we're building an RPG, even though it's primarily played from the first-person perspective, we don't want it to be a twitch-fest,' he says. 'We're doing things that have soft-targeting, or area effects, or auto-locking, to make it where your success in the game isn't determined on your physical reflexes, or the dexterity of a fourteen year old. It's all about building up a character: your level, your stats, your skills, your equipment, your items -- it's the classic RPG in that sense.'"

The ever churning E3 information mill has revealed details on several upcoming Massive game titles. MMORPG.com has details on Ring of Ryzom, the first expansion for Nevraxs' massive game. Gamespot has details on NCSoft's Tabula Rasa and Cryptic Studios' City of Villains, as well as the new Everquest II content Spirit of Splitpaw and Desert of Flames. Update: 05/20 14:52 GMT by Z : Age of Conan and The Lord of the Rings Online have also been shown off on the expo floor.

Hironobu Sakaguchi elaborated for an issue of Famitsu, and Gamespot reports, on the two upcoming 360 titles that he's been involved with. He discusses details on Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, cluing already interested fans into the bad news that it will be quite a while before they get a chance to take the titles home. From the article: "Sakaguchi revealed that one of the two role-playing games is slated for release within a year from the console's launch, and the other is scheduled to follow within two years. However, he didn't disclose which game would be coming out first."

Square-Enix has released a New Advent Children Trailer for E3, dutifully hosted by Gamespot, and it is by far the most coherent and beautiful so far. You can finally get a sense of the story they're going to be telling, and can catch a glimpse of nearly every character from the game. From the article: "While the end of the trailer displays a date for the North American release, we've been told by Square Enix that they're still in talks with Sony Pictures Entertainment in regards to a release date outside of Japan. However, the release should be close to Japan's September date, so fans in the United States shouldn't have to endure for too much longer to get their Final Fantasy goodness."

IGN reports on a recent interview with Square-Enix president Wada, where it's revealed that the RPG crafting company is considering heavily supporting the Nintendo Revolution. From the article: "One area that Wada seems to be impressed with is a particularly controversial side of Nintendo's Online plan. In his comments posted at Impress Game Watch yesterday, Iwata states that Nintendo is going through with the idea of letting players connect only to players whom they've met in real life. While it's unclear how strict Nintendo plans to be with this idea (Animal Crossing DS is reported to allow for play amongst strangers), Wada applauds the move in his comments today, stating 'It gives the image of taking the real world seamlessly into the virtual world.'"

Nintendo President Iwata further discussed the realities of the DS wireless initiative, Gamasutra reports. At the press conference he also revealed that, indeed, the next-generation console will utilize a wireless link-up to connect to the DS. From the article: "One particularly interesting piece of news is that, though Nintendo will not charge for the new online service, other publishers will be able to with relation to particular software titles - an option that is likely to please third-party publishers who may want to launch more complex online-capable RPG games or other information-retrieval services and then charge a monthly fee for them. Iwata makes it clear that any charges will be obviously signposted, however."

hapycamper writes "Role playing games are evaluated from the perspective of a concerned parent in the latest two editions of the GamerDad Unplugged column. The articles discuss some of the finer points of table-top gaming from a parental perspective, with the first article discussing just what an RPG is and the second addressing some of the main concerns that a parent might have about their child playing an RPG." From the article:"So, the most important things a parent should be concerned about in a role playing game are the game players. Who is your child playing with? As mentioned, these types of games come straight out of the imagination of the players, especially the GM..."

Neverwinter Nights introduced a new generation of gamers to D&D style roleplaying. When Knights of the Old Republic was released it was arguably the best Star Wars tale told since the end of the original trilogy. Given the chance to create their own world, Bioware has produced an immersive action/RPG with a compelling plot, memorable characters, and entertaining gameplay. Jade Empire is a most worthy addition to Bioware's library of games. Read on for my take on one of the most original RPG's in recent memory.

mandrake*rpgdx writes "I'm looking into downloading/purchasing some map making software for my Table Top RPG group. I've heard about the free (GPL'd) AutoRealms and wondered if anyone with experience can compare it to commercial products like Campaign Cartographer, and if there is any Linux based map-maker I can grab?" The one I've been most impressed with, and might pick up at Gen Con this year, is Dundjinni. Anyone else have any software favorites?

Guild Wars, the first offering from NCSoft subsidiary ArenaNet, has gone gold. A preview of the game based on the last weekend of the Beta is available at 1up.com. From the article: "Once the wonder started to wear off, a creeping hangover of disorientation replaced it. Still standing there slack-jawed, the bustle of people going here and there with purpose made us suddenly aware of how clueless we were. Gathering our senses we fell into the familiar pattern of talking to the residents and picking up the quests of the day." Guild Wars is a unique MMOG offering, as it will not require a subscription cost, has almost no grind, and will focus on organized PvP. The game releases next Thursday, the 28th of April.

Based on Robert Howard's classic Conan the Barbarian series, The Age of Conan: Hyborean Adventures is in production by Anarchy Online developer Funcom. On top of the setting, Funcom apparently plans to shake up the traditional massive formula. From the article: "Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures will be a PC 'online action RPG' that will be a mix of 'story-driven single-player experience and a massive and brutal multiplayer endgame.' According to Funcom game director Gaute Godager, it will begin as a single-player RPG adventure, and when that portion's story is complete, it will let players bring their characters into an MMORPG universe."