MMOGChart has updated its graphs to show the sub figures for some of 2007’s releases:

At long last, the new version of my charts and analysis is now online! I don’t have numbers for every game, but there are quite a few updates, most notably to World of Warcraft, RuneScape, Dofus, Tibia, and NCSoft’s various titles. Also included are preliminary numbers for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online, and Tabula Rasa.

See the charts and wonder how Tabula Rasa got it so wrong despite the Garriott name HereSource: MMOGChart

The BBC has published one of its rather generalist articles about gold selling and micro-transactions:

Life can be tough for the novice characters that players create in games such as World of Warcraft, Runescape and Tabula Rasa because they are unskilled and poor.

While skills will improve as monsters are slaughtered and quests are completed, the scarcity of cash can be a brake on progress for many gamers.

Many fix the problem by turning to a gold seller and buying a chunk of in-game cash, using real world money, to fund their advancement. This is despite the fact that the terms and conditions of many games ban the buying and selling of in-game gear for real money.

You can read it HereSource: The BBC

World of Warcraft Vault has posted word that Peons 4Hire is gone from WoW, as well as new WoW wallpapers and more.

World of Warcraft Vault has posted word that free migrations from several servers to underpopulated servers will soon happen for European WoW players, available from January 30 to February 5.

IGN has some hot new concept art showing off Wrath of the Lich King, the next addon for World of Warcraft.

Voodoo Extreme points out that Blizzard has launched a bestiary for Wrath of the Lich King, the upcoming addon for World of Warcraft.

Good news for Blizzard:

IRVINE, Calif. — January 22, 2008 — Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. announced today that subscribership for World of Warcraft®, its award-winning massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), has continued to climb, recently passing 10 million worldwide. Interest in the game has remained high in all regions, with thousands of new and returning players signing up through the holiday season. World of Warcraft now hosts more than 2 million subscribers in Europe, more than 2.5 million in North America, and approximately 5.5 million in Asia.

“It’s very gratifying to see gamers around the world continuing to show such enthusiasm and support for World of Warcraft,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “We’re always pleased to welcome new players to the game, and we’re looking forward to sharing the next major content update with the entire community in the months ahead.”

Since debuting in North America on November 23, 2004, World of Warcraft has become the most popular MMORPG around the world. It was the bestselling PC game of 2005 and 2006 worldwide, and finished behind only World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade®, the first expansion pack for the game, in 2007.* In addition to being the bestselling PC game of 2007 in both North America and Europe, The Burning Crusade holds the record for fastest-selling PC game of all time, with nearly 2.4 million copies sold in its first 24 hours of availability and approximately 3.5 million in its first month.* Development is underway on World of Warcraft’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King™, which was unveiled at the company’s BlizzCon™ gaming festival in August 2007.

World of Warcraft is currently available in seven languages, with a Russian version in development and scheduled for release later this year. In addition to North America and Europe, World of Warcraft is played in mainland China, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.

For further information on World of Warcraft, The Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King, please visit the official website at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com

Link

IGN has some new and hot looking screens from Wrath of the Lich King, the upcoming addon to World of Warcraft.

World of Warcraft Vault has the latest Sprawl’s Scrawl, where he talks about an optimum healing setup.

World of Warcraft Vault reports that Blizzard is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Burning Crusade expansion with a free trial allowing you to test out the content from the addon.

RPS settled down for a chat with the founder and president of Area, Ralph Koster, about the future of the genre and all things MMOish:

RPS: So the problem with games, or at least MMOs, from your perspective, is that they’re being made by the people who want to make MMOs? The people whose influences come from the Dungeon & Dragons culture…

Koster: It’s a factor. But they’re /played/ by that group of people, despite WoW having expanded that by getting so many people playing it. There’s a heritage there that’s hard to get away from. There are gameplay reasons why the elves and fantasy stuff seems to work – and it’s part of this self-fulfilling prophecy – if you look at what we have now it’s all based on Lord Of The Rings. You have a good and a bad side, and a party-based story. Lord Of The Rings is a classed-based narrative, with a party structure, fighter, elf wizard. If you started making games within a different tradition, even a different fantasy tradition, would you really end up with the same kind of game? Where are the Hindu mythologies, the old Celtic mythologies? Would these traditions lead to a class-based system? I think maybe they wouldn’t.

Read the whole interview