‘Twas the night before Cata, and all through the flat
Not a creature was stirring, not even a rat.
While others were waiting outside in the cold,
I knew just after sleep, what sight I would behold

Okay, enough with that exercise. I am giddy with excitement at what is coming live to U.S. WoW servers in a little more than 8 hours. Many of you in the Pacific time zone may be waiting up tonight to get to play Cataclysm as soon as it hits, at midnight Pacific Standard Time, and play through the night — or at least until you can stay up no longer.

Other time zones in the U.S. are less fortunate, and my friends on the east coast must wait until 3 a.m. to log on.  On the flip side, that gives those of you in that situation plenty of time to get to any local midnight release parties, get your grubby hands on a copy of the expansion, get home and get your computer prepped for the coming onslaught of gaming goodness. Or perhaps you’ll take a brief rest and continue with the actual gameplay in the morning.

Living abroad (but still playing on a U.S. account) and 9 hours away from that magical Blizzard time zone, in this case, is a happy medium. Soon, I will go to my bed (while visions of Deathwing dance through my head). And in the morning, I will awaken fresh and prepared to take on a day that is sure to be epic.

Yes, this is how I am preparing for Cataclysm; by sleeping. As far as I can tell, EU players (with accounts that reflect that, unlike mine) already should have access to the game. In fact, as I write this, there are currently two midnight launch parties taking place in this small German city.

If you’re not one of the lucky ones already playing or attending a launch party, how are you spending the last few hours?

Happy Cataclysm to all, and to all a good-night!

Getting back into LOTRO about 2 weeks ago, I’ve been looking torwards to the next bid game update, Book 12. Aside from the usual bug fixes, new quests and character balancing, Book 12 actually has some things worth talking about. First up is the new outfit system. While not adding anything to the actual game play, I’m actually pretty excited about this. One of my big pet peeves in MMORPGs is that characters look way too similar, there are usually never enough options to make you feel as though your character is unique. With this new system in place they have added hundreds if not thousands of different outfit combos that you can now use to make you character distinct. While these new outfits provide absolutely no bonuses to your characters stats, they do make you look sexy :)

Second and more importantly Trubine has added a new area, The Delving of Fror, in the PvP zone of Ettenmoors. In an attempt to make PvP worth playing they have introduced “soul stones” which are dropped by mobs within this dwelling. These stones can be traded to item vendors for a number of armor, weapon and jewelry sets as well as consumables and crafting recipes. Creeps can also use these stones to purchase new corruptions, new skills, new traits, special sessions and new environmental mod.

Now the really interesting part is that in order to take control of the Delving of Fror, all other zones within Ettenmoors must be taken over. This now gives PvP players a reason to attack these other zones other then to get valor tokens, which are worthless. Another small but cool feature is that if your in the Delving of Fror when one of the zones is lost, the main doors shut close, trapping you withing the zone while mobs begin to flood in. In cases like this you need to either map out or use a special skill to flee before the enemy gets you.

I’ve been pretty harsh on LOTRO in the past, but it looks like there getting on the right track. Some more work on PvP and they might have a decent game on their hands.

Okay, so not really, but that movie immediately jumped into my mind after reading about a new Flash-based MMO by Creatrix Games, called Lila Dreams, that takes place inside the mind of an 11 year old girl. I have to say, I do not know whether to be intrigued or disturbed about this game. The game looks to be a step away from the usual elves and orcs fantasy games, and is trying to make an interesting spin on the MMO genre itself. Here is a basic description of the game from the developers blog:

You get to make a character, choose what to wear, fight exciting battles against a bestiary of insanely weird creatures from Lila’s mind, team up with friends and explore strange places, meet in towns and emote at each other, get to know helpful NPCs (non-player characters), grow items in your garden, and manage your character’s abilities and inventory. We’ll see how much more we can cram into the game before launch, but we also hope to keep building on it after launch to make it even better.

Only time will tell if this game will be successful, but for a Flash based game, even a fraction of the MMO market can make this game succeed. Apparently there will be a beta test coming in the months ahead, which I would love to take a look at. I will revisit this game when there is more concrete information. In the meantime, feel free to check out the developers website.

Thought I might introduce myself here as I am one of the new MMOCrunch writers. My name is Andrew and I am an avid gamer and MMO veteran. My first and favorite MMO is Anarchy Online and cannot wait for Age of Conan to launch. I have played just about every major MMO on the market and Beta tested quite a few. I work in Information Technology so look for some Tech related articles in the future. Hope you enjoy my first article!

For many years, video games have been used as educational and learning tools. Realistic flight simulators have been in use by the United States military for quite some time and even our National Champion LSU Tigers use a modified football video game to run offense and defensive playbooks, but how can online worlds bring education and video gaming together?

Second Life, an online multiplayer game, gives users free range to create whatever they can, using the 3D modeling tools provided. Large communities have been created and an entire virtual world emerged. Many educators saw this as an opportunity to create something unique. Several university and college campuses have been erected on private and public areas, where classes meet and students collaborate. Hospitals are created to educate medical students. Banks and businesses have started to follow suit, experimenting with virtualization of their storefront operations. Even a US Defense Department grant looks to takes video game education to a new level.

With a new SCORM compliant project, the US government takes education to new places, literally. Utilizing a team of programmers, 3D modelers, researchers, and educators, the US Department of Defense has begun building a virtual China within Second Life. Created on its own private island with the aid of photos and maps, the virtual world is being used as a supplement to current diplomatic training to educate US diplomats and other government employees about China’s history, geography, and even how to use Chinese ATM and Subway ticketing machines. More than just text books and slideshows, this training aims to ensure that government agents not only know China, but also how to function within China. If this virtual training succeeds, perhaps the scope of the project will grow to include more places, or even become a public learning tool. Why not model the entire world complete with historical landmarks, storefronts, and people? Learn to interact with people and machines from all around the world. Learn their customs, even their languages, all from this virtual world.

So where does this leave education in the future? Now that major universities and colleges have created there own campuses, can virtual education replace traditional online courses? With more virtual worlds in the works from Google and Sony, will virtual worlds start to become less of a game space and more of a living space? I just wonder how long the lines at the Virtual DMV will be.