MMO Roundup: Last week on Massively

Games Day '09 coverage
This last Saturday was Games Workshop's Games Day celebration, and Massively.com was on site to get you the latest Warhammer Online coverage straight from Mythic Entertainment. Want to know more about Ultima Online's Stygian Abyss expansion? Curious about Land of the Dead? Interested as to the future direction of Warhammer Online? Do your favorite devs play on order or destruction? Find all of these answers and more in our full coverage of the event starting tomorrow, including our hands-on impressions of the new mega-dungeon, Land of the Dead!

An overview of Warhammer Online's Land of the Dead
You've heard us talk about it, you've heard us discuss it, and it's now time for us to tell you exactly what it's all about. Land of the Dead is not your father's MMO dungeon -- it's a dungeon that is something more than just a dungeon. It's an entire zone filled with activities and sub-dungeons, all culminating in an epic instanced dungeon that features a face off with the first leader of the Tomb Kings himself, King Amenemhetum.

Massively Speaking Podcast Episode 52: Answering your Champions Online questions
Massively Speaking Episode 52 returns this week with Shawn and Contributing Editor Kyle Horner to answer your questions about Champions Online's recent NDA lift for press. Kyle gathered questions from a recent The Daily Grind post and answers a handful on the podcast.

Richard Garriott blasts NCsoft with $24 million lawsuit
When Tabula Rasa shut down in January, we thought we'd heard the last of NCsoft and Richard Garriott in the same sentence. Oh, how wrong we were. Yesterday, Kotaku broke the news that Garriott was suing his old pals at NCsoft to the tune of $24 million for fraud, and generally being a bunch of fetid arsebiscuits. Details were decidedly skimpy, however - why would Garriott go after the company so long after his departure? What had gone rotten in the state of Denmark?

Mortal Online presentation puts all you want to know in one place
As an introduction, here is what the Mortal Online team says their game is not: "There are no levels, no experience points, no starting classes, no quests, no 3rd person view, no NPCs with big exclamation marks over their heads, no global chat channels, no flashing numbers when you hit something, no respawning bosses, no instances, no pocketable mounts, no virtual restrictions for where you can go or not, no auto-loot, no predestined player path where it turns out you're The Chosen One, no automated auction house, no auto-respawn, no NPCs you "can't attack", no bears that drop gold coins or dragons that drop swords, and no loot bags impossible for other players to open." I think they've made their point.

Trion to reveal first MMO at E3: Heroes of Telara
One of the newer industry players in the MMO world is Trion World Network, which first came to our attention nearly a year ago with word of an MMO being made in partnership with the Sci-Fi Channel (soon to be rebranded as "Syfy"). Since then we've learned that there are multiple titles and publishing deals in the works at Trion.

Champions Online has no server shards
Nearly every MMO on the market has them: server shards. Whether they're named after game characters or places they all present the same problem -- limiting a player's options. Whenever a new MMO comes out, friends must discuss and agree upon which server to choose and it's not always the smoothest discussion. Enter Champions Online, who is going the way of Guild Wars: No servers, but instead a large list of all the current instances of the particular zone you're attempting to enter.

Second Life pwns Gordon Freeman, Warhammer Online, others
Wagner James Au at New World Notes is carrying some surprising data from ratings giant, Nielsen Media Research. From actual measurements of usage across over 180,000 homes in the USA, Linden Lab's Second Life (paradoxically measured under the 'PC games' category) rates the number two most played title, just behind World of Warcraft.