Rob Lashley continues his series for MMORPG.com that is based around Neverwinter. Called Foundry Focus, Rob shines the spotlight on a specific Foundry quest each week. In this week's article, Rob takes a look at "Torment and the Catastrophe". Check it out and then tell us about your favorite Foundry quests in the comments.

We start off on our adventure by contacting Alrica Fenta in the merchant district. Alrica directs us to seek out a noblewoman who entrusted a note with Alrica for us. Right off the bat you are provided a note from the NPC. While we could have been left just to assume we had received the note Drakedge2 takes the time to make sure that we actually get an item to enhance our immersion. You will also receive a few other items in the first quest such as the Spirit Anchor which allows us to travel through the portals and back to Neverwinter.

Read more of Rob Lashley's Neverwinter Foundry Focus: Torment and the Catastrophe.

Something tells me we aren’t in Kansas anymore.

In our final beta diary before the official review, we take a look at Neverwinter's Crown Jewel, The Foundry. In addition, we examine the Catursday nightmare and offer a few random "etcetera" thoughts about the game that defy categorization. Read on and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.

The journey through Cryptic’s Neverwinter has been a fun and entertaining one over the past four weeks. Whether visiting character creation or questing or the Neverwinter store, the trip has been a blast. We have, however, left one aspect of the game untouched until today, namely the Neverwinter Foundry, arguably the crown jewel. We’ll spend a bit of time talking about the Foundry before jumping to a few “Etc.” thoughts and then wrap up our series waiting for the time to post our official review.

As Deckard Cain always says, “Stay awhile and listen.”

Read more of Suzie Ford's Neverwinter Beta Diary #4.

RTSGuru.com has been given a 1500-use beta key for the upcoming MOBA Dawngate, whose closed beta begins this weekend. Head to RTSGuru.com and grab one, quick!

The latest Letter from the Producer has been published along with the announcement that Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn will officially be released on August 27, 2013! This should twitterpate players around the globe who have been eagerly waiting for the re-released version.

Today’s announcement is accompanied by a slew of information. We have samples of the box art, brand-new illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano, the contents of the collector’s edition, and info on pricing as well as preorder bonuses.

We wanted to make sure everyone has the opportunity to explore Eorzea, and so we've done our best to make the game as affordable as possible. Having said that, a lot of work went into the collector's edition, so if you enjoy memorabilia, you won't be disappointed (but even this will be offered at barely cost price). Those of you who played Version 1.0 or are planning to play on PlayStation 3, make sure to read the Lodestone for more details(US/EU) before preordering.

Read the full letter on the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn forum.

In a new video interview with Jeremy Gaffney, he reveals that the WildStar payment model is not "unknown" and that it is a "hybrid model". You can check it out for yourself at 16:14 of the Game Breaker Nation interview.

Thanks so much to DARKHOLME for posting the thread in the WildStar forums!

Aion players will have the opportunity to head back to the dreaded Shugo Tomb with the arrival of the in-game event that is slated to run from May 22nd through June 12th. Players can score some pretty awesome stuff by participating.

The Shugo Imperial Tomb is back and just as you remember it! While inside, you are transformed into a Shugo with special abilities only available inside the instance. Protect the ancient towers from the waves of looters that will try to destroy them. Use special items found off of the spirit enemies that appear in-between waves for an easier time. When the boss monsters appear, defeat them to earn map pieces, keys, and Tags into one of the three treasure rooms!

Read more on the Aion site.

The Pathfinder Online team has posted a long and very detailed blog article about how the alignment system will work in the game on release. According to the post, alignment has been one of the most keenly debated topics on the forums.

During character creation, you can select your character's core alignment. This is basic standard of behavior your character strives to maintain at all times. In fact, the game assumes that your character routinely thinks, acts, and behaves in a way that supports this core belief—there are countless minor events and interactions every day that the game can't detect that provide your character with the opportunity to act his or her alignment. While you may deviate from this standard, over time your natural tendencies assert themselves, and you slowly return to this core alignment. You can change your core alignment at any time, but you can only change to a new core alignment that matches your active alignment.

Read the full post on the Pathfinder Online site.

Hunted Cow has released the patch notes for the second round of closed beta testing for Eldevin. The team is planning to roll out new content and features for testers to try out. In addition, several significant improvements have been made to existing features based on player feedback.

• Crystal Cutting Profession.
• Jewelry Profession.
• Added vanity layer for vanity items on the character sheet and buttons to toggle between them.
• Map and Mini map zoom buttons.
• Improved Ambient Sound Effects across the entire game.
• Added context sensitive mouse cursors for crafting, gathering and more!
• Added the 'Silver Hawk' tavern to see your character in a much closer view.

Read the full patch notes on the Eldevin site.

The Canadian iTunes store is featuring Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar. The game is released officially there, other countries to come soon. Rejoice, Canada!

Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar is the latest entry in the beloved Ultima series, transforming a classic into the definitive RPG experience on mobile.

The world of Britannia is slowly being engulfed by the Black Weep, a faceless plague that's infecting the land and her inhabitants. It's up to heroes like you to help save the world before it is consumed by the endless dark. 

Sometimes our favorite MMOs are closed down in a move beyond our control. But once in awhile, we find ourselves involved in an MMO that simply needs to close, to retire into the great beyond. In today's Tingle's Touchy Subjects, we offer a few thoughts about when that should happen. Read on and then leave some of your ideas in the comments.

As time marches on, things get old and eventually die. It is the depressing and ever present truth about life. So as we are now in the all too futuristic sounding 2013, it seems as good a time as any to ask: when do we finally put old timer MMORPGs to bed, and turn out the light for the final time?

EverQuest, Ultima Online, Anarchy Online, Asheron's Call, and I could go on and on. The games list on this site is overflowing with the new, but also the very, very old.

Read more of Adam Tingle's Tingle's Touchy Subjects: When Should MMORPGs Retire?

Guilds are an integral part of most MMOs yet the tools for running them are often lacking. In her latest column, Genese Davis makes a few suggestions about how to make management and usefulness of guilds more effective. Read on and then leave your guild management suggestions in the comments. 

By now many of us have been playing MMOs for more than a decade, and over the years we’ve tallied up a number of ideas on how to improve various functions in MMOs. One area of discussion revolves around organized groups, aka: clans, guilds, player associations, corporations, supergroups, linkshells, etc. I’ll use the term guilds as a global term to reference these as a whole. Guilds hold a special place in my heart. My first guild experience was a linkshell in Final Fantasy XI where I met the best kind of friends anyone could ask for. Without my linkshell, learning to navigate FFXI would not only have taken ages, but also wouldn’t have been nearly as fun. I always seem to gravitate toward group-play when I game.

Read more Genese Davis: A Guild Management Suggestion Box.

Ecol Browser is what we call an "in between game" for many reasons. We have played Ecol Tactics quite a bit recently and have some thoughts to share about how it fits in the MMO space. See why we call it 'browser candy' before heading to the comments.

The artwork and graphics are adorable in that JRPG/anime way. The look harkens back to some of the Japanese import platform games I had from back in the day; no camera control, always the same ¾ view from above, but it does the job. The attack animations are pretty good considering the limited nature of the 2-D rendering, and the music is bubbly and pleasant.

Read more of Lisa Jonte's Ecol Tactics Online: Browser Candy.

Originally posted by expresso
So much QQ - By any and all accounts D3 was and still is a massive success suck it up and move on ppl.

On my personal note here: I totally agree with you. I still have great fun in D3. :)

The Blizzard team has produced an awesome graphical look back at the past year in Diablo III. If you're a fan of numbers, this is a fantastic representation of the activity in D3 over the last 365 days. Check it out!

Click for the HUGE version!

Bill Fisher has posted a new developer diary on the official Rift site to lay out the details for the upcoming Loyalty Rewards program that will arrive with the game's F2P iteration. Philosophically, the program is very similary to Veteran's Rewards but tailored for the new version of Rift.

You gain Loyalty by:

• Purchasing or Spending Credits
• Subscribing as a Patron
• Consuming REX

The last one is the important loop hole to note – while REX is initially purchased with real money, it can be traded or auctioned by players for in-game currency before it is consumed and converted to Credits. This means you can gain Loyalty without ever spending real money at the RIFT Store. (We’ll talk more about REX in another post)

Read more on the Rift site.

In our latest Wayback Wednesday, we take a look at perennial favorite, Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. We've got a terrific in-game video, members of the dev team on hand and some thoughts about the game itself. Check it out and then tell us about your experiences with Vanguard in the comments.

We started the evening off talking about one of my favorite topics in MMORPGs: Crafting. While not entirely unique, Vanguard has a very robust crafting system. It is so in-depth that it is almost a game unto itself. There are multiple stages to crafting to Vanguard and at each stage you are provided an opportunity to increase the quality of your output. You harvest materials, refine the materials, and then finish your item. While you are adventuring through the world, you can have fellow adventurers assist you in harvesting a node and increase the amount of materials that you receive and increase the chance you will receive a high quality item. While you are forging your base materials to create a finished item you can add components that will add resists or stats to your items as well as increase the quality of the item. During the finishing process you will again be presented the opportunity to increase the quality of your output. 

Read more of Rob Lashley's Wayback Wednesday: Vanguard Saga of Heroes.

Turbine has revealed the first details about the forthcoming Dungeons & Dragons Online expansion, Shadowfell Conspiracy. The expansion is available in two packages, each containing various in-game items and perks. The Collector's Edition will run $49.99 and the Standard Edition is available for $29.99.

An unnatural darkness looms over the prison city of Wheloon and shadows spread across the land. Uncover the sinister Shar plot that threatens to destroy Cormyr from within and face the full might of the Empire Of Netheril in Dungeons & Dragons Online™: Shadowfell Conspiracy!

Check out the expansion details on the Dungeons & Dragons Online site.

Turbine recently invited us to check out some of the new content in Update 18: Disciples of Shadow and the upcoming Shadowfell Conspiracy expansion. Learn more below and share your thoughts with us in the comments!

We jumped into our tour as one of the new Bladeforged Iconic Heroes included in the upcoming Shadowfell Conspiracy expansion. Players who pre-order the expansion will get to start playing the Bladeforged immediately. For those who haven’t been keeping track, Iconic Heroes give players a chance to jump into the game right at the beginning of the Forgotten Realms content at level 15. Each Iconic Hero represents the paragons of their respective races, and the Bladeforged is essentially a super Warforged.

Read more of Michael Bitton's Dungeons & Dragons Online: A Tour of Update 18 & Shadowfell Conspiracy.

Slot canyons and steep valleys will be the perfect hiding spots for stealthy mechs with the deployment of the new Canyon Network map. Ambush will become the rule of the day. In addition, new mechs, paints, patterns and more have been included in the update.

 Bordered by a metropolis on one side and a drop ship base on the other, the Canyon Network is essentially a rare green space in an otherwise arid landscape that doubles as a landfill.  The maglev route that bisects the canyon is the most efficient means to transport supplies and personnel across the expanse and is therefore more valuable captured than destroyed.  The Canyon Network is primed for snipers, surprise attacks and quick getaways.

Keep an eye on the MechWarrior Online site for more information.

To celebrate five years of Age of Conan, Funcom will be unleashing five days worth of epic boss monsters invading Hyboria. The event is scheduled to kick off on Thursday, May 23rd. In addition, membership benefits are being improved.

But the in-game event is just one part of the anniversary celebration. Membership in Age of Conan: Unchained is getting greatly improved. All characters on Member accounts will now receive the Blessing of Asura item, which doubles experience points from killing monsters for one hour per day. They also earn one Alternate Advancement point, which can be spent at level 80 to learn handy abilities, for each level they gain. In addition Members more than triple the amount of Bonus Points they receive each month, which can be spent in the Item Shop, and still of course retain all previous benefits Membership entailed.

Read more about the celebration on the Age of Conan Unchained site.