Weekly MMO news round-up: Guild Wars 2, Star Trek Online, Fallen Earth

By Stephany Nunneley

It’s that time of the week again, kiddos. Time for the MMO news round-up for the week.

Unfortunately, this week the pickings were slightly slim. We blame TGS.

However, past the break there is news concerning the artbook for Guild Wars 2, a massive update to Bounty Bay Online, a round-up of news concerning the launch of Fallen Earth, and your chance to score a Star Trek Online Beta key from IncGamers.

Go ahead. Hit the jump.

• EQII’s newest update, The Shards of Destiny is live. “The mysterious disappearance of the famed Erollisi Marr, the goddess of love has cast a dark cloud over Norrath and it is up to the players to travel to the Shard of Love and defeat the creatures they encounter to determine the fate of Erollisi Marr. In addition to the new storyline, players can also enjoy new features such as Chronomagic, housing additions and the all new achievement system.” Cool. More through here.

• Dungeons & Dragons Online: Unlimited is offering the Ruins of Threnal adventure pack for characters level 8 and above. The adventure pack is available for purchase now in the DDO store.

• Fallen Earth launched last week, and Massively has a nice round up of the events leading up to it. There’s some game guides, a FAQ and posts from the developer diary series from the summer. You should seriously have a look if you have been planning on playing this.

• Bounty Bay Online’s getting a new series of individual in-game events ranging from pirate attacks on harbors and towns through to scavenger hunts back and forth across the oceans. Freebooters are threatening to break out of prison, and plague epidemics are also set to appear, as ships with highly infected crews sail into towns, and wild animals are set to rage out of control as a mishap in their transportation to the royal zoo sets them loose. Whole towns can become overrun with all manner of fierce creatures in the course of the events. Another scenario revolves around the indigenous people of more exotic game regions, who now and then require fresh virgins for their sacrificial ceremonies. Who doesn’t? In all of these in-game events, players’ active cooperation is in constant demand. It is only through the use of combined forces that the community will be able to bring the situation on their server back under control. Neato. For more on this along with news on the Beyond the Horizon expansion set to hit this winter, head on over to the official site.

• That lovely Guild Wars 2 artbook full of art from and inspired from the game is now available for purchase. North American fans can shop for it on the Penny Arcade Store for $30, Europe can order directly from NCsoft for £20.00/€25.00.

• IncGamers is handing out Star Trek Online Beta keys. It’s a caption contest running between now and Wednesday Sept. 30. Head on through the link for more details.

• Meanwhile, in other Star Trek Online news, the Discovery is posted all over the official website, talking about how grand the science vessel is, and who are we to argue? Plus, it’s customizable, which makes it even better.

• In the mood for a rather good read? Then head on over to Massively and check out the site’s “Redefining MMOs: Developers Way-in” piece. In it, the question of how the term “MMO” has changed over the course of the genre’s lifetime. You will hear options from Cryptic (Bill Roper), Metaplace (Raph Koster), Mythic (Paul Barnett), Nexon America (Min Kim), Sony Online (Laralyn McWilliams), Turbine (Jeffrey Steefel) and quite a few others. Go on over.