Even Arnold Swartzenegger’s character knew going to Mars was a shitty idea, but apparently Avatar Reality Inc. backed by some of the biggest Execs in the gaming industry feel that the MMO market is just clamoring for a prettier version of Second Life.

They’ve also claimed the exclusive and coveted title of the first licensee of CryENGINE™2 for use in creating a MMVM (Massively Multiplayer Virtual World), although we’d figures there’s a few other MMO CryENGINE developers that’d probably dispute their PR wordplay.

If there’s a viable business model here we’re not seeing it. At least Sony’s HOME is a central virtual world within their PS3 community.

Avatar Reality, Inc. to Develop New Mars-based MMVW
Legendary Gaming Geniuses Unite to Form Avatar Reality;
Announce A New Virtual World

HONOLULU – March 5, 2007 – Looking for a new online community with a fresh
backdrop and bright perspective to help develop your alter ego? Avatar Reality, Inc., a
new development entity dedicated to the advancement of virtual community building,
today announced their plans to develop a new online massively multiplayer virtual world
(MMVW) featuring stunning graphics, realistic characters and endless social bonding
opportunities. Set in Terraformed Mars, Avatar Reality’s MMVW will allow players to live
their fantasy lives by creating personalized characters, or avatars.

“Our goal is to create an online virtual world that will feature the highest-level of fun,
imagination, romanticism and creative freedom,” said Avatar Reality, Inc. Mastermind
Henk Rogers. “A highly talented team of celebrated game and movie developers has
come together to share their knowledge in creating an online world that will quickly
become ‘the’ place to meet your friends.”

Earlier today we heard Perpetual Entertainment was being liquidated and aquired by a major indy game developer, only to later learn new investors were coming on board instead. As of about 8PM CST Chris McKibbin, Co-Founder of Perpetual released a statement and updated the official Gods & Heroes website with the following announcement.

Loyal and faithful community members and Beta testers, thank you for your support, help, and understanding during the Gods & Heroes: Rome Rising development process.

The development team established some very lofty and ambitious goals when the initial work was started on Gods & Heroes. Recently, we took a step back to evaluate the competitive landscape, the game’s current state, and the overall goals for our organization. And while we are truly proud of and pleased with what we have created in Gods & Heroes, we also realize that achieving the level of quality and polish that we are committed to will take a significant investment.

The Perpetual team is faced with a unique challenge of simultaneously developing both Gods & Heroes and Star Trek Online in addition to growing our Online Game Platform business. After assessing all of Perpetual’s opportunities, we have made the decision to put the development of Gods & Heroes on indefinite hold.

I want to express my overwhelming gratitude to the community, engineers, designers, artists, animators, and the game services team for the support and effort that has gone into Gods & Heroes.

Moving forward, we’re shifting our collective focus, resources and development efforts to Perpetual’s Platform Services division and Star Trek Online, thereby ensuring that the game lives up to the high level of expectation set by the dedicated Star Trek fan base.

Again, I would personally like to thank all of the Gods & Heroes supporters who have been with us from the beginning. Hopefully, your continued support will be as valuable to our future endeavors as it was with Gods & Heroes..

Vade in pace,
Chris McKibbin

In non-PR speak “indefinite hold” means CANCELLED, and never to see the light of day again. Frankly after seeing and playing the latest build of Gods & Heroes I can’t fault them or their investors for writing the game off, at worst they’ll have a nice tax deduction.

What does this mean for Perpetual Entertainment and Star Trek Online? Well the company will continue to exist with its current executive management and they’ll continue developing the Star Trek Online IP. What remains to be seen is whether the Star Trek Curse will rear its head and claim yet another game title or if they’ll pull off a miracle and be the 2nd Star Trek game title that didn’t suck.

If they weren’t already under enough pressure before to do STO justice with a very skeptical gaming community, the cancellation of their debut MMO and company reshuffling only casts even more doubt on their ability to pull Star Trek Online off as a company.

Flying Labs has finally announced the official launch date for their highly antipicated swashbuckling MMORPG as January 22nd 2008.

They’ve also let loose with the skinny on pre-order pack bonuses which will be:

• Exclusive in-game weapons
• In-game parrot that sits on your shoulder (No respectable pirate should leave port without it)
• Soundtrack CD
• 2-week head-start

Anyone that picks up the pre-order will also get an early 2-week head start in the game starting on January 7th. The pre-order box will be available from retailers on October 23rd.

The Producer John Scott Tynes dropped the last bit of info:

Yes, we will be doing a very large-scale beta when we’re closer to launch. Far more people will get a chance to play than ever have before. The NDA will go away and the world will get a real look at what we’ve been making. We aren’t ready to announce the details of this mega beta period, but look for more news later this fall.

Issue 11 for City of Heroes has been announced as the next free expansion to the super hero MMO. This upcoming expansion features time travel allowing players to go back in time to experience new or old missions and story arcs. It also adds the much awaited ability to dual wield swords, a new willpower set for melee classes, new inventions, and weapon customization for select powers.

Features include:

Ouroboros System:
Through the mysterious Menders of Ouroboros, players gain the ability to “Flashback”, that is to travel through time and relive major events from the history of Paragon City and the Rogue Isles.

Weapon Customization:
Sometimes an assault rifle just isn’t the right tool for the job, or character, especially when he or she should be using a sniper rifle instead. Players can now change their weapons in the same way that they change their costume parts! From within the costume creator and tailor screen players select the new “Weapons” region. A number of new options are now available for appropriate power sets. Current power sets that benefit from this upgrade include Assault Rifle, Mercenaries/Assault Rifle, Bow, Broadsword, Claws, Villain Claws, Dual Blades (see below), Katana, Ninja Blade, Mace, Robotics/Pulse Rifle, and Thugs/Dual Pistols.

Dual Blades:
With a flashing blade in each hand, the Stalker made quick work of the Coralax hybrids guarding the shipwreck.

Now Heroes and Villains can wield paired weapons to devastating effect! Use the new Weapon Customization interface to choose from several types of weapons. Dual Blades also uses a brutal new Combo system, where the order of your strikes can create new advantages for you to take down your foes! Dual Blades is available to Brutes, Scrappers, Stalkers and Tankers!

New Inventions:
Issue 11 brings with it new invention sets including “Very Rare” Purple sets, as well as brand new invention sets for Taunt, Buff and Debuff powers, among others.