MMO Roundup: Massively's week in review

Species and advanced careers unleashed in Star Wars: The Old Republic
Okay fans, you can finally sit back and quit wearing out the the edge of your seat. Star Wars: The Old Republic has revealed its first species. That's right! In an exclusive play session with TheGalacticStruggle.com Bioware revealed the first non-human species whose story you will be able to tell: Rattataki.

Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer reveals new information about questing and content
In Guild Wars, we're all familiar with the quest system and the giant green exclamation point. In such an immersive and beautiful world, it's admittedly a bit jarring when an NPC has that strange floaty thing that sticks out like a sore thumb -- or like a giant lime-green exclamation point. Filling your field of vision with a big black rectangle with a few paragraphs of text and a "check yes or no" acceptance option didn't exactly alleviate the problem.

DDO jumps to third-most-popular spot in MMO survey
Several interesting changes have come about in the past year: former World of Warcraft players are turning to different games than they have in the past, the subscription model is a lot less popular these days, and Dungeons and Dragons Online has knocked Guild Wars out of the comfy #3 spot it enjoyed for the two previous years.

Examining the Peregrine: Do we need another Power Glove?
At first glance, this glove looks like something you'd wear to batting practice or to tee off on the 9th hole, but it really is a fascinating piece of comfortable electronics. However, is it something that we, as MMO gamers, would need or even want?

A look into the future of Star Trek Online
Hello again, everyone! Welcome to another installment of Captain's Log, our weekly dose of Star Trek Online goodness. I trust you all had a fine time with Captain Trout last week, learning about the Klingon beginner's experience. While you were gone, the lovely engineers on the U.S.S. Bob Wiley have installed a brandy new graphics processor, so we're back up and running!

Marvel Super Hero Squad Online revealed
Marvel fans, rejoice, your one shining MMORPG moment has been officially announced. Gazillion Entertainment today unveiled Super Hero Squad Online, which gives players the ability to master the talents of Marvel universe notables including Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk, Iron Man, War Machine, and more.

Our talk with Warhammer Online's Carrie Gouskos
It's been a tumultuous time for Warhammer Online of late, but the new executive producer Carrie Gouskos seems to be well-suited to weathering the storm. She's been overseeing the development of the game since February, and under her direction it's moved more and more steadily into an RvR focus. We recently were lucky enough to get a chance to talk with Ms. Gouskos about her involvement with the game, her opinion on the game's state, and what she could let us know about its future.

Star Wars: The Old Republic not planned for fiscal year 2011
If you're eagerly awaiting the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic, even with the release window of April 2011 being thrown around, you could be forgiven for holding out hope that the game might get a slightly earlier release. (If you're sick of hearing about it, you might be hoping for an early release too, just so everyone will shut up.) But your hopes will not be borne out, it seems -- and the game might even come a bit later than we'd expected. John Riccitiello, CEO of Electronic Arts, has stated again that the game is not expected to ship during fiscal year '11.

LEGO Universe pre-orders coming soon
With the closed beta humming along very well, the team at NetDevil have finally given us a pre-order date for the upcoming family-friendly MMO of awesome, LEGO Universe! For those who want to jump on and get your orders in, you'll be able to do so starting this Friday, May 14th. While there's currently no information on pricing available, we do know it will be on a monthly subscription model.

Palladium Books sues Trion Worlds over "Rifts" title
Back at the end of April, we heard a fair amount of news from Trion Worlds, including the name change of Heroes of Telara. The name change came about during testing and development as the game's portals or "rifts" emerged as a central feature of the game, inspiring the new name Rift: Planes of Telara.