Amazon.com is always know for screaming deals on just about anything but what if we told you that you can grab some of today's best MMOs at prices that defy description? I stumbled across the sale today. It seems the Amazon team is preparing a new promotion called MAYhem that will allow MMO players to pick up TERA, Final Fantasy XI/XIV or Rift: Ashes of History at unbelievable prices. It's always a good thing to take advantage of overstock so be sure to head to Amazon to see all of the deals.

1. May 19^th and May 26^th – TERA Online – 50% off both Standard and Collector’s Edition (both come with 30 days playtime).
   1. Standard – $24.99
   2. Collector’s - $29.99
2. May 17-20 and May 26^th
   1. Final Fantasy XIV
   2. Final Fantasy XI: Ultimate Collection Abyssea Edition
3. May 18-20
   1. Need for Speed World Gold Starter Pack - $14.99
   2. Need for Speed World Silver Starter Pack - $11.24
   3. Need for Speed World Bronze Starter Pack - $7.49
4. May 24^th:
   1. Rift Ashes of History -  $11.99

GamesCampus has announced that it will be deploying some awesome updates to Asda 2 in celebration of the game's first anniversary. Among other things, guilds will receive some love from the team as well as a ton of events and contests.

The first year celebration doesn’t end there; a variety of all-new updates launch today featuring a guild update where players contribute points to level up their guild and earn special skills such as EXP and stat increases.  A new tutorial system will now help as players progress through the game along with a character creation update that lets player select between 20 different hair colors, six eye colors and preview classes and avatars! 

Lastly, it’s now easy to search for similar level players in a map, view party information or request to join others with the new party update.

Read more on the Asda 2 site.

The Frogster dev team is revving up to the forthcoming Runes of Magic update, Fires of the Shadowforge and has blown the cover off of the two new classes that will ship with the update: The Champion and the Warlock.

Champion:

One of the unique abilities of this class is its capacity to transform into a Runic Robot. This form allows for additional devastating magic and attacks that are particularly useful in melee combat, making the Champion very effective at soaking up damage.

Warlock:

The Warlock’s fighting style is characterised by long-range attacks and sapping enemy strength. Through exhaustive experimentation with the dark magic of the Shadowforge Dwarves, this class has developed techniques for harnessing spiritual energy in order to become powerful spellcasters. With this mystical power, Warlocks are capable of both tearing enemies to pieces and helping allies in need.

Read more on the Runes of Magic site.

The Pride of Taern is a new game with a retro look that will attract a lot of folks who wax nostalgic about the 90s. We've given The Pride of Taern a look and have a first preview for you. Check it out!

To help us remember just how "OMGAMAZE" the 1990s were, is The Pride of Taern: an isometric MMORPG with the tagline "I can't believe it's not Black Isle." This Polish creation is dripping in so much nostalgia, antiquated design, and end-of-the-millennium funk, that it will have everybody misty-eyed, wearing their cap sideways, and forever remember the glorious, heady days of the best decade "evur."

Read more of Adam Tingle's The Pride of Taern: Dripping with Nostalgia.

This just in from the "Ya Think?" files: According to a short report at GamesIndustry.biz, Blizzard has admitted that, despite twelve years in the making, its preparations for the launch of Diablo III "didn't go far enough".

"Despite very aggressive projections, our preparations for the launch of the game did not go far enough," it admitted.

"We're continuing to monitor performance globally and will be taking further measures as needed to ensure a positive experience for everyone. This includes some maintenance to implement additional improvements for each region."

Not everyone knows all things about all MMOs. Once in awhile, a rank amateur joins the legion fans surrounding the MMO-niverse. In our latest look at The Secret World, we check out the game through the eyes of a n00b. See what she thinks and then leave your thoughts in the comments.

My wife’s not what you would probably call a “gamer”. Sure enough she’s played games over the course of her life, and she’s once sported a healthy (but passing) interest in social games. She’s also fond of the sort of more active titles you’ll find on the Wii and Xbox Kinect. But MMORPGs? She leaves that stuff to her husband, and rightly so. I’d never wish her the sort of unhealthy obsession with virtual worlds I find myself making a living with. I’m nerd enough for the both of us, thank you. But that doesn’t mean she’s not interested in my passion. She’s gone to events with me, taken notes at panels, and last year even met Ragnar and the Funcom crew working on The Secret World while we were at New York Comic Con.

Read more of Bill Murphy's The Secret World: My Wife the Noob and TSW.

We've been messing around in Funcom's The Secret World for days now and have generally been having a great time. There is a lot to like in The Secret World but we have one small request: Make the game more visceral. See why we think that and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.

As I anticipated playing The Secret World this month, I was left all quivery feeling inside just at the thought of getting into an MMO that actually was going to make me think for a change. Knowing how awesome the quest system was purported to be only made me gleefully excited about every aspect of TSW.

But something happened along the way to Nirvana: My character actually had to fight monsters and zombies.

Read more of Suzie Ford's The Secret World: Make It Visceral Please.

MMORPG.com and Funcom have partnered up to give away 10 key codes good for four months of premium game time in Age of Conan. Funcom is celebrating the game's four year anniversary and we're excited to partner with them in this special edition of our Screenshot of the Week contest.

Participating in our Screenshot of the Week is pretty simple. All you need to do is post a screenshot of your favorite Age of Conan memory in the comments below (please use sensible dimensions and don't break the thread!) between now and Tuesday, May 22nd. We'll select our winners on Wednesday, May 23.. Make sure to tell us what we are looking at, too! A good story along with your screenshot will give you a better chance at winning!

Please only post a single screenshot. Duplicate entries will be disqualified.

We've pored over your awesome Ether Saga Odyssey screenshots and we're now ready to announce our three winner's for the Ether Saga Odyssey Screenshot of the Week contest!

Without further ado, your winners:

Variant77

luckigrrl

soul88swe

Our three winners have earned themselves the rare Korrigan champion pet! Congratulations!

Sony Online Entertainment has announced that three big names will reprise their roles in DC Universe Online with the Last Laugh downloadable content. Mark Hamill (The Joker), Adam Baldwin (Superman) and Arleen Sorkin (Harley Quinn) will make their return in the DLC.

DCUO's The Last Laugh DLC pack will be accessible for free for the game's Legendary members and available for purchase for Free and Premium players via the PlayStation®Network in-game Marketplace, and on the PC via the DCUniverseOnline.com website.   

Find out more on the DC Universe Online site.

In the first of a series of RTSGuru.com exclusive features from the team behind MechWarrior Tactics, Roadhouse Interactive Producer James Romanchuk takes us into the past and present of BattleTech & MechWarrior, and the future goals for MechWarrior Tactics. Check it out at RTSGuru.com!

Ragnarok Online players will want to head back into the game to check out the latest content expansion that brings Port Malaya online. Port Malaya brings new adventures for players of level 100+ with new quests, dungeons and monsters.

“Port Malaya is the largest town expansion update, both in sheer size and in features, providing both high level activities and challenges and is deservedly the most talked about expansion town update Ragnarok has ever had!“ Said Jason “Heimdallr” Koerperich, Ragnarok Online Producer at Gravity Interactive. “ We are happy to provide this update so far ahead of our community‘s expectations as a wonderful surprise to our loyal players!”

Read more about Port Malaya on the Ragnarok Online site.

Webzen has announced that the world championship tournament for C9, Continent of the Ninth Seal, will begin at the same time as the final closed beta test. The events will run from May 17th through May 31st.

Meanwhile, during the final closed beta test, a new character ‘Berserker’ will be revealed. As an advanced class of the fighter, the ‘Berserker’ has the most powerful physical attack power using its two handed sword. Users who participated in the Tournament Registration Test last April will be able to continuously play where they left off without creating a new character or enjoy the newly revealed ‘Berserker’.

Find out more about Continent of the Ninth Seal.

Som Pourfarzaneh and Ripper X discuss the recent The Secret World beta weekend on Game On Extra, a new show spotlighting specific games, news and topics in the MMO world. Check it out on our Game On Podcast page!

After 12 years was Diablo III worth it? That's far too loaded a question to answer in just a single piece, so we're putting together a review-in-progress series leading up to our final review. Today, we look at Diablo III's launch day and offer our take on our experience with the game so far.

Diablo III didn’t get off to a great start; in fact, it got off to a horrible start. As I write this article, the servers are down for maintenance, which is pretty much par for the course over the last 24 hours. I was hoping to finish Act I by the time I put this thing together, but alas, Battle.net isn’t feeling cooperative. A lot of readers like to point out that Diablo III isn’t an MMO whenever we post an article or news post about the game, but it looks like the game shares at least one thing in common with MMOs: crap launch days. They’ve gotten better over the years, sure, but Diablo III’s launch experience hearkens back to MMO launches of old due to the widespread instability and lack of service. That ‘always online’ bit? Not such a great idea after all, eh?

Read more of Michael Bitton's Diablo III: Review-in-Progress Part One.

Artix Entertainment has announced that it has partnered with ToysRUs to bring action figures from AdventureQuest Worlds to players everywhere. Two NPCs, Artix and Sepulchure, will be available beginning May 23rd.

In the game world of AdventureQuest Worlds, Artix and Sepulchure are mortal enemies. Artix is a paladin, a warrior of light who specializes in battling evil. Sepulchure is one of the world's most powerful and evil villains who commands a vast army of darkness monsters. To celebrate the release of these collector figures, AQWorlds is doing a series of updates to the Doomwood storyline that will culminate in a battle between Artix and Sepulchure... a battle that only one of them will be able to survive.

Check out the action figures in action in this stop-action trailer:

Hi-Rez Studios has announced that SMITE will officially kick off its closed beta phase of development on Thursday, May 31st. Players can also pre-order some starter packs to give them a proverbial leg up once the CBT gets going.

The SMITE Starter Pack includes immediate and permanent access to 10 playable gods, plus the 5 free gods, plus guaranteed access into Closed Beta for $19.99.

Beta countdown clock and pre-order information at SMITEgame.com.

Drakensang Online has slowly but surely garnering attention around the MMO and action-RPG space for awhile now, even drawing favorable comparisons to that other action RPG that launched this week. In our latest interview, we talk with Drakensang's Head of Development Bernd Beyreuther. See what we discovered and then leave us your thoughts in the comments.

MMORPG.com: How have you tackled the barriers or entry for players? It seems like the game is very quick to get in and play.

Bernd Beyreuther: We understand that not everyone has a beefy computer system, so we’ve made it possible for anyone to access Drakensang Online without compromising the graphical quality or gameplay. It’s a free-to-play browser-based game, so it’s very simple and easy for players to jump in and try the game. We’ve also gone to great lengths to ensure that the game’s first minutes are as smooth as possible to familiarize players with the gameplay. We constantly optimize the game, and have plans to make the first minutes of playtime even quicker and more comfortable for players.

Read more of Garrett Fuller's Drakensang Online: Bernd Beyreuther Talks Appealing to Fans.

How should BioWare handle the server population issues plaguing Star Wars: The Old Republic? We weigh a number of options in this week's SWTOR column.

EA Mythic made the grave mistake of opening too many servers too quickly in order to deal with player demand at launch with Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, and from communications coming out of BioWare during SWTOR’s Early Access I got the notion that the team were painfully aware of this history. The team appeared to be approaching the opening of new servers pretty carefully to avoid the same issue. Unfortunately, something fell apart somewhere and BioWare ended up putting out too many servers to spread out the population.

Read more of Michael Bitton's Star Wars: The Old Republic: Community Conundrum.