ArenaNet has announced that after eight years, active development on its flagship title, Guild Wars, has officially ended. From here on out, the Automated Tournament System will kick in, as well as an automated map rotation system.

You've already seen changes to support automation rolled out to our festival content, but to recap, major festivals now use tokens that players can redeem for one of the special items the event offers. Players are only allowed to choose one, but the choice allows newer players a chance to get items they otherwise never would have been able to and allows longtime players the opportunity to complete their collections. We'll be making changes along these lines to our remaining celebrations, so that the entire year's worth of festivals will run seamlessly.

In conjunction with this, we've also changed the distribution of birthday presents. Characters celebrating eight or more years in Tyria now get a token that they can then trade in for one of the gift boxes from any of the previous years. The distribution rates for the miniatures remain the same, but players can now target their favorite era every time a new year rolls around.

With these changes, Guild Wars will be more streamlined and self-supporting than ever, traits that will enable the game to be enjoyed for years to come.             

Read the full post on the Guild Wars site.

ArenaNet has released a brand new Guild Wars 2 video that features and in-depth look at The Consortium and how its own brand of licentiousness will lead to big trouble on Southsun Cove later this month. Enjoy!

UPDATE: According to information we have received from Trion Worlds, no employees were "escorted out" of the building and all executives are receiving severance packages.

Update from IGN: Trion tells us these numbers are "exaggerated," and we've reached out for more information regarding the extent of the layoffs.)

IGN is reporting that Trion employees have been laid off, primarily from the Defiance San Diego team. 

A Trion representative confirmed the layoffs and provided the following statement to IGN:

"To best position Trion in a rapidly changing industry, we have reorganized our teams and are expanding our free to play offering. With Defiance, we delivered a great game that more than one million gamers registered to play and continue to enjoy. As we progress from launch to ongoing development of the game, we are adjusting our staffing levels to deliver new content and improved features. RIFT, and our other titles in development, were unaffected by these changes. We are very much looking forward to the free to play release of RIFT and are excited by the other new titles currently in development."

Read more at IGN.

Mail.ru and Obsidian Entertainment have announced that they have signed a development agreement to bring the Skyforge MMO to life. According to the announcement, the team that created Allods Online will work with Obsidian to bring Skyforge to release in 2014.

"Skyforge is very interesting and promising project and I am glad that Obsidian Entertainment is involved in working on this game." Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart said, "I am confident that the cooperation with the Allods Team will be a great experience for all of us."

The Skyforge site is online.

Gazillion Entertainment has released the first episode in a four-part motion comic that will usher in the release of Marvel Heroes Online. The comic lets players in on the backstory behind Dr. Doom's rise to power.

WeGame USA has updated Lost Saga with a huge new patch that includes new a premium character, game map, and game mode. In additon, the Free Pass Community Event has been announced.

Currently in progress, the Free Pass event gives players GP, useful items, and an Event Ticket to claim Legendary Gear from the Event Shop. Logging in on certain days will gain bonus items, and weekend play on the weekends of May 18 and May 25 will garner a 50% boost to GP and EXP.

Find out more at the link above.

The Final Fantasy XIV blog has been updated with a bunch of new screenshots showing off changes in the character customization / creation process based on feedback from the last beta test. 

We've received a two-tonze truckload of feedback on character creation since the alpha test, and from what I saw in today's build, much has changed since then. If you thought there were a lot of options before, wait until you see all the new ways to customize your avatar, including...

An extended hair color palette, plus a plethora of playful tattoos.

Check them all out on the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

In this week's Devil's Advocate, Victor takes a look at the recent F2P announcement from Trion Worlds' Rift and why it's a good thing all around for everyone.

Trion Worlds has to be one of the most outstanding companies in the MMO world today in terms of treating customers right, however, so while I expected RIFT to shift its revenue model eventually due to market forces and feedback, I didn't expect the degree of clarity to which they maintained a particular vision for their revenue model shift.

Read the rest of Victor's The Devil's Advocate: Loving RIFT's Shift.

In this week's Fair Game, Lisa Jonte takes a look at the relationship between someone who games and loves the pasttime and someone who just doesn't get it. Read her tips for survival in that sort of scenario, and be sure to offer your own thoughts in the comments.

You’ve heard it all before, the complaints, the concerns, the dismissal of your preferred pastime as a pointless waste of time. Despite the rise on casual gaming, both online and via consoles, there are still plenty of people out there who are convinced that gaming is at best, childish, and at worst, a rabbit hole from which you might never escape. The fact that many of those detractors are friends and family just makes it that much harder.

Read the rest of Fair Game: Gamer vs. Non-Gamer.

For the past several weeks, we've been delving into Darkfall: Unholy Wars, and after along week spent experiencing the clan warfare, and more "hardcore" aspects of DFUW, we're ready to put a final stamp on our critique.  Read on to see what conclusion we've come to in our official review.

Read the rest of our official Darkfall: Unholy Wars Review.

MapleStory is a colorful 2-D role-playing experience that gives players access to wild adventures in a growing world filled with distinctive lands, dangerous monsters and a setting where players easily socialize and grow their circle of in-game friends.

During the life of the game, Nexon has added large chunks of content, including this year’s addition of Japanese-themed characters, Kanna and Hayato. The feature-packed content updates and nearly limitless character customization options have contributed to the creation of a faithful fan base where nearly ten percent of the North American gamers playing the game for six years or more.

“We have a dedicated and engaged group of players, and we appreciate the loyalty and passion they have for MapleStory,” said Teddy Kim, Nexon America’s producer of MapleStory. “We are committed to continuing to deliver the best content to our players to keep the adventures rolling.”

To celebrate its eighth anniversary, MapleStory will host events giving players the opportunity to earn special eighth anniversary celebration boxes dropping from defeated monsters, which include valuable in-game items. Players level 10 and above can collect eighth anniversary coin giveaways every day, while all players can count on hot-days and EXP bonus events throughout the month.

Check out Maplestory here.

We're bringing back The List, with a video twist.  And to start things off, we're counting down the best MMOs of 2013 so far.  The honored games can be both new and old titles, so read on to see our picks, and be sure to add your own!

We’re going to countdown the top seven MMOs of the year, through the first several months. At the end of 2013, we’ll look back at this list and see just how well our picks fared and whether we need to change our minds and pick different games for our annual Best of the Year Awards.  The list will include titles new to the industry this year, and past titles that have been doing “all the right stuff” so far... essentially it’ll be a recount of the games we think are hitting all the right notes in 2013.

Read on and watch The List: The Best MMOs of 2013... So Far.

Trailers are an integral and important part of game development any more and often times help 'sell' the game to millions of players. In her latest column, Genese Davis takes a look at the importance of the trailer. Read on!

This year marks the 100 year anniversary since the first trailer debuted in a U.S. film theater in November 1913. In the past century movie trailers have become what we expect to see before deciding yea or nay on a seeing a film. But they have also become what we can look forward to seeing from other media platforms as well like video games and books. 

Read more of Genese Davis's The Trailer.

RuneScape is one of the oldest and most revered of MMOs in the genre today with a still-active and vibrant community. We took a few minutes to chat with Mark Ogilvie about RuneScape and about MMO design in general. See what he's got to say before continuing the discussion in the comments.

Massively multiplayer online games are hugely popular, but what happened to that last part? The final piece of acronym puzzle that invoked wizard hats, billowing silk robes, and dice beyond count? We caught up with RuneScape lead designer, Mark Ogilvie, to discuss his influences and why the RPG factor is hugely important to Jagex's game.

Read more of Adam Tingle's RuneScape: Mark Ogilvie Talks MMORPG Design.

Hot on the heals of the Closed Beta 2 announcement, WildStar's Jeremy Gaffney is stopping by MMORPG.com again TONIGHT (5/16) to chat with our own Garrett Fuller about the game, its progress, and its ultimate design goals.  Be sure to head to our stream page at 7:30pm ET, 4:30pm PT, and 12:30am (5/17) GMT.

Don't miss a moment of the conversation, watch it LIVE on our Stream Page.

The folks behind free-to-play MMORPG Remnant Knights introduced revamped Owl and Dragon School starting zones as well as an improved UI in the latest update to hit the game. Remnant Knights is now also available in a cloud-baser browser version on MiniClip.

Learn more about Remnant Knights.

Wargaming is celebrating their 15 year anniversary with the announcement of an international tournament for World of Tanks. The winning team will be rewarded with an all-expenses paid trip to the World of Tanks studio in Minsk, Belarus. Second and third place winners will instead win a 'massive' bounty of in-game gold.

Players will be competing from the following regions:

• Europe
• North America
• Russia
• South Korea
• Southeast Asia
• China
• Vietnam

Egyptian-goddess of Magic, Isis, has entered the battleground of SMITE in a new update deployed to servers yesterday. The update also adds a special Vulcan sentry skin for Global Agenda players, new voice packs, and the ability to earn "Worshipers" through the leveling process.

Learn more at the official SMITE website.

Now that Camelot Unchained is funded, we're catching up with Mark Jacobs on what comes next for the ambitious RvR MMO. Tune in to our Stream Page today (5/16) at 2pm ET, 11am PT, and yes... 7pm GMT.

Feel free to put any questions you want Rob Lashley to ask Mark, right here in the comments!