Weekly MMO news round-up: Halloween comes early, free trials and welcome backs

By Stephany Nunneley

Loads of MMOs are planning Halloween and fall festivities for users, but some have already launched tricky goodness.

You can find out more about those past the break, but while you are headed that way you will also learn other sorts of stuff  like: Legends of Norrath’s eighth expansion has launched, CrimeCraft is headed to iPhone and Facebook, and having gone free-to-play D&D Online is doing great, apparently.

Also, Star War Galaxies is overrun with zombies. That’s right. Zombies.

It’s all there kids. Enjoy.

• Travelers, the eighth Legends of Norrath release is live with new characters and storylines that send players to the Planes where you must stop the Voidmen from cutting the people of Norrath off from their Gods. There’s new cards, an all-new 200 card starter, and new loot. More information can be found here via the official site.

• Funcom has reintroduced the free trail program for Age of Conan. It offers seven days of the full game with restrictions only on forums, mail, chat, and trading. Head on through here for the full lowdown.

• Vogster has announced it’s working on CrimeCraft: Kingpin, which is way for Facebook and iPhone users to interface with the game through an application. No full details are available just yet, Vogster says “players will be able to complete missions, build gangs, buy weapons and equipment and develop rivalries in battles all while climbing up leaderboards”, reports Massively. The top player will earn the rank of Kingpin. More through the link.

• Turbine is holding a Welcome Back Week from now until October 22 for Lord of the Rings Online. During which, you can play your old characters for free and get a +25 percent XP Bonus. Hooray.

• Sony has released a patch for Star Wars Galaxies. With Update 14: Death Troopers, there’s new quests, a new gift, an Undead Rancor statuette, new paintings and the usual changes and improvements. Full patch notes are through here. Coolest thing about it? Zombies!!!!!!!!!

• Square has announced that theFinal Fantasy XI Ultimate Collection will be released on November 10 in North America. It has all the content created within the title’s history for $19.99 and will be available at retail for both PC and Xbox 360 as well as digitally. Cool.

• It looks as though Cheyenne Mountain is still having issues with getting funding for Stargate Worlds. “As for the Stargate Worlds game and Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment, Inc., our company has struggled in the current economic climate to raise the funding needed to successfully develop and publish our MMORPG. While there continues to be a lot of desire, enthusiasm and excitement about the project from our employees, investors and fans, we will not be able to provide any updates on the development of Stargate Worlds until sufficient funding is available.” Read an official statement given to Massively. Hopefully, the company will get the funding it needs.

• Turbine’s Dungeons and Dragons Online has seen a very successful relaunch since gong free-to-play. According to executive producer Fernando Paiz: “All aspects of our business are growing. Hundreds of thousands of new players in the world are playing for free, with a very high percentage using the store.” Also of note is the fact that monthly subscription numbers have increased 40 percent since it went live in September. More through Arstechnica.

• Earth Eternal, the browser-based animal MMO went into open Beta this week. There’s 22 player races raning from critters to mythical beasts and machines. Basically, you take on the role of an ancient beast that man descended from man and commence to fighting demons, dragons, fairies, gods, and titans. Anything allowing you to beat up on fairies is a good game in our book. Those little winged miscreants really piss us off. Anyway, our mean streak aside, the browser-based game’s free-to-play and you can try it out here.

• THQ has announced that Dragonica Online is live in North America. As part of the official game launch, a series of events and contests for all registered players are part of the celebrations and include: Emporia War Challenge, On Guard for Game Cards, Increased Rates, Around the World in 80 Hours, and the Kundaran Dungeon. Loads more is through here.

• Ryzom has been patched. Now you can check your mail both in-game and out of game along with get a few more tattoos, creation tools and the devs are also asking players to help create PHP tools for the website/game. There’s loads more in the patch notes that just that though. Read the full thing here.

• Two things for EverQuest this week. Both have to do with Underfoot, the expansion for the game. Ifyou are a player, you should check out both the developer diary and the video.

• 3000AD has announced that it’s space-based game Galactic Command will have 12 player races with 8 different careers with twitch-based combat and feature player owned bases, cities, ships and the like. Space battles will take place and there will be many to choose from. It’s due late 2010 into early 2011.

• Nexon America has reported a 36 percent increase in third quarter revenue year-on-year which can be attributed to increasing player numbers for Combat Arms, MapleStory, and Mabinogi, and in-game items. MapleStory has more than six million registered users in the US and 92 million worldwide. More through Edge.

• Speaking of Mabinogi, there be dragons! Red and Blue ones to be exact, which are at war with one another over control of the Golden Dragon. Meanwhile, playerscan fly hot air balloons through the warzone. No, they are silver ones complete with a 6-year old boy either. There’s loads more happening with the new update than just dragons. See for yourself.

• Wizards 101 went offline this week to patch a huge update. Those who play may have noticed new mounts, new shops, new crafting options, and so many more wonderful things we just don’t have room for them all right here. But, over here, there’s plenty of room for the patch notes.

• Last but not least here is a rundown of some the MMOs hosting Halloween events:Fallen Earth -Next week, the Days of the Dead will have players fighting off zombies; EverQuest II – The Nights of the Dead event is happening now until November 9 with decorations, special item drops and more.Pics; Free Realms – Super Spooktacular runs from October 14 – November 11th complete with decorations, trick or treating, seasonal mini-games, dance parties, new quests, and over 35 new costumes for players and pets to dress up in; City of Heroes – The unnamed Halloween event starts October 20 where heroes will face loads of enemies after destroying a Haunted Sigil.