Weekly MMO news round-up: EQII Brewday, adult Second Life content, no MMO for Zork

By Stephany Nunneley

This week wasn’t too eventful in the way of MMO news, other than Warhammer consolidating server populations and luring gamers back with some goodies. But we already touched on that, it’s, like, old.

Today, news reached us that Second Life is trying to deal with all of the adult content in the game, Zork is no longer going to be an MMO, and EverQuest II players are currently inebriated with Brewday. Who wouldn’t look forward to Brewday?

Hit the break for all you need to know about the goings-on in the land of MMOS this week.

• If you have ever played Second Life it’s not too much of a shock to so see a fully naked man or woman run past you somewhere out in the vast world. Apparently, this is bothersome to certain players though, and Linden Lab is currently addressing the issue. One thing being considered is an area for adult content only. Best thing for it.
• Grab yer ale and yer favorite dwarf! It’s time for Brewday! The EverQuest II event started on March 12 and will run until March 19. All quests from Brewdays will be active to relive past drunken celebrations, as well as a few new rewards — one is a choice of four new plushies. You’ll be doing a good deed for a dwarf named Gilin Rockbreath this year, so saddle up, Norrathers, and go drink some ale.
• Legends of Zork is not an MMO after all, folks. Apparently, it’s a casual adventure game you can play for 20 minutes at a time. Original press release stated it was “designed to provide gamers with a casual MMO game they can play on their laptop, desktop or Apple iPhone.” More details and a trial are expected soon. Thanks, Shack!
• Lord of the Rings Online: Mines of Moria keeps preparing itself for Book 7: The Leaves of Lorien , which is expected to go live this coming Tuesday on March 17. Don’t expect to be able to get into your game until after 12.00pm EST — when finished, it should patch for you.
• Some female character changes are occurring over at Pirates of the Burning Sea, most notably a softening of the facial features, texturization, color saturation being fixed to match the main palette, and some new clothing options being on the way.
• MMORPG has a interview posted with Black Prophecy’s Kirk Lenke. It’s an interesting read. The game promises real-time combat and a space setting, with equal amount of PvE and PvP content that can be experienced without investing excessive amounts of time — so it’s aimed at both the causal and hardcore player. There’s a screen through there as well.
• Free Realms will launch next month, and a beta is also expected soon. In the meantime, Sony has released information regarding optional subscription fees, which at $4.99 a month is really cheap. If you do decide to go that route, you will get five extra jobs, rankings on leaderboards, three character slots and 400 extra items and quests over non-paying players.
• Ether Saga Online has a dev journal on pets up — how to use them, keep them happy, capture them, game mechanics and whatnot. Based on the Chinese literary classic, Journey to the West, the game is a story-driven, free-to-play MMO loaded with anime style art. MMOsite has a post featuring it’s top 10 favorite pets from the game, and to say they’re interesting-looking is a bit mild. Open beta starts March 17.
• Rohan: Blood Feud has been invaded by giants. Seriously, it has — and they’re celebrating with contests, prizes and all other sorts of neat stuff.

That’s all folks. See ya next week.