In this day and age of MMOverflow (I just made that up!), MMOs need a way to stand apart from one another, especially since most MMOs (EVE Online and Dungeons & Dragons Online excluded) and  get stuck in the same routine of killing or collecting X of Y, leveling to the max level, then killing bosses that drop good equipment, so you can harder kill bosses that drop better equipment, so you can kill even harder bosses that drop even better equipment. Trion Worlds is looking to separate their MMO RIFT from the rest of the pack, not with gameplay mechanics, but by attempting to set a Guinness World Record. Which one, you ask? The most virtual marriages in a 24-hour period, of course!

Yes, every single MMO nowadays has an array of dancing animations, but BioWare’s venture into the kill-ten-rats arena, Star Wars: The Old Republic, is the only MMO where that simple, intended-to-be-benign dancing animation prevents a whole bunch of damage by consistently interrupting an enemy’s casting. Not working as intended, as you may have guessed, and BioWare was rumored to be handing out bans for those caught abusing the exploit, but BioWare has responded to those claims saying that no, they aren’t banning anyone.

Korean developer Ntreev is bringing the world a Power Rangers MMO, with its first closed beta only a few days away on November 3. The beta will be Korean only, however, and will last until November 9, hosting 5,000 players. Designed as a side-scroller, the MMO is based on the Mystic Force series, a series that began only five years ago in 2006, long after we were young enough to enjoy Power Rangers. Players will make their own character, as is the MMO M.O., choosing the class cleverly disguised as a “color,” the iconic Power Ranger differentiations. As players level up, they’ll be able to divert from the standard tight-bodysuit-and-biker-helmet motif, and gather other equipment that is probably as funny-looking.

The beta currently sports two acts with fourteen stages, and tells the story via comic book style scenes. Head on past the break for some mighty morphin’ screenshots and a trailer that hosts some pretty generic guitar solos.

What BioWare hopes to be the next big thing in MMO land, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has finally received an official release date and price. Announced at the Eurogamer Expo in London, the game will see release on December 20, 2011 in North America, and December 22, 2011 in European launch territories. For those in Australia and New Zealand, those launch dates have not been set as of yet, though BioWare isn’t planning on region locking the game, but players outside of launch territories may experience lag when attempting to play a version of the game that has not officially released in their territory.

Each purchase of SW:TOR will come with 30 free days of subscription time, with a one month subscription costing $14.99 (£8.99/€12.99); pretty standard fare for MMO territory. The game also offers a three month subscription for $13.99 per month, or a one time charge of $41.97 (£25.17/€35.97), and a six month subscription for $12.99 per month, or a one time charge of $77.94 (£46.14/€65.94). Those who pre-ordered the game can head on over to the game’s site and enter in their pre-order code to be eligible for Early Access, which doesn’t yet have a date for when it will begin, though BioWare assures everyone that there will be multiple days of Early Access. So, only a few months until everyone can play the MMO version of Knights of the Old Republic, only one of BioWare’s best games.

(via Massively)

By all accounts, it seems either television writers are lazy with their fact checking, or deliberately want to bother gamers. This sort of thing tends to happen. This time around, NCIS writers flex either their gamer-trolling muscles, or showcase that they just don’t care to see if what they write is a thing.

A commenter on this Reddit thread claims that he worked as a writer for one of the shows that tend to do this to gamers, and that these scenes are intentionally designed to enrage younger viewers with their inaccuracy, rather than made out of a simple lack of awareness. He also claims there’s an “unwritten coldwar” between drama writers to out troll each other, which actually turns these apparent gaffes into amazing, clever trollings.

(reddit via Geeks are Sexy)

For those of you that weren’t aware, there’s a browser-based free-to-play Bible MMO, and judging by the contest The Bible Online is having, most of you probably weren’t aware. You see, the developers claim the actual name of the game is “too general” and that “it is difficult to optimize for search engines such as Google.”

Entropia Universe, an MMORPG that uses an economy with cash that can be withdrawn as real-life money, has set a record for the most expensive virtual item ever sold, at $335,000, for a zone named Club NEVERDIE. Read on for details.

Cool Dudes Talk About H.P. Lovecraft (Comic Book Resources)

They’re Making a Petz MMO?! (Massively)

This is What Happens When You Go Out To Eat With Jim Lee (Twitpic)

The Marvel Universe Goes Speed Dating (Comics Alliance)

Emma Stone is Mary Jane? (Bleeding Cool)

Fractal Cupcakes, Mmmmm (Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)

Who is the Swedish Chef’s Wife? (ToughPigs)

(pic is P. Craig Russel‘s alternate cover to Action Comics #894 (you know, the one with Death), via Paul Cornell, click to embiggen.)

CCPGames, the makers of Eve Online, have announced their next MMO project, and it’s one that’s going to make a lot of my college buddies simultaneously very happy and very worried about their future productivity. That’s because their next project, World of Darkness, is going to be set in the universe of White Wolf‘s Vampire: The Masquerade, and it’s going to “focus on player politics and social interaction.”

The teaser trailer (below) gives us no hints yet on whether the game will involve rock-paper-scissors.

There have been many effects of Eve Online‘s decision to deal a large blow to the black market for their in-game currency by essentially making it purchasable for real money. The one that we like the most, however, is that it is now really easy to quantify actions in Eve Online to people who don’t play the game. Case in point:

In-game business machinations have lead to a player known as Bad Bobby walking away from a gutted in-game corporation with items worth $45,000. And it was all game legal.