MMO Roundup: Last week on Massively

Preview of character creation in Final Fantasy XIV
The start of the beta signups for Final Fantasy XIV was certainly good news for the many people anticipating the game next year, but it didn't exactly pierce the fog surrounding the game. Square-Enix, of course, has always played their cards close to their chest when handing out previews, but there's still so much more to learn about the game and a number of curious people.

Hands-on with Klingons and PvP in Star Trek Online
If there's one thing that's almost more synonymous with Star Trek than classic catch phrases, it's the Klingons. They are the Captain Hook to the Federation's Peter Pan and thus it's important to several potential players that Star Trek Online do them justice.

Metaplace announces January 1st shutdown
The Metaplace development team made the announcement today that no fan of a game likes to hear: "Today we have unfortunate news to share with the Metaplace community. We will be closing down our service on January 1, 2010 at 11:59pm Pacific." The bottom line to the reasoning behind the decision is that Metaplace simply is not making enough headway to be a viable (read: profitable) product.

Vanguard paints a rocky road to come in the year ahead
In a recent announcement to the Vanguard community, the team has decided to be as frank as possible and outline the road map for the game in the year ahead. Due to limited resources and a new focus on bug elimination over ambitious content releases, some of the game's anticipated updates are being shelved indefinitely. Those features include the Halls of Shattered Souls, Pankhor Zhi, Nexus, and the anticipated "alternate advancement" system.

BioWare on developing the Dark Side of SWTOR
Would you like to know more about BioWare's lengthy effort of creating the dark side classes in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Well, of course you would! We mean, who wouldn't really? Well, probably Jedi, but nobody really listens to those guys anyhow. Except maybe for angst-ridden youth who've just recently discovered their father is a dark lord of the Sith. Oh, wait, nevermind.

What happened to Stargate Worlds?
Fans have been waiting for the Stargate:Worlds MMO for what feels like forever, and a few weeks ago got a surprise in the form of a Stargate shooter instead of any more news on the MMO. We got a brief explanation on the reasoning behind this, but Cheyenne Mountain Entertainment covered things in a bit more detail yesterday. The CME team took some time to discuss Stargate:Resistance with fansite GateWorld, and also talked quite a bit about the decision to shelf Stargate:Worlds for the time being.

EverQuest II reveals The Sundered Frontier
Who likes sexy screenshots? We all do! It's lucky for us that the The Sundered Frontier, one of the two new zones in EverQuest II: Sentinel's Fate is so darn beautiful. Who doesn't like floating islands, awesome armors, and pandas? How can you turn down pandas?! Easy answer: You can't turn down pandas. You just can't.

Mr. Freeze joins DC Universe Online cast
We've been hearing more from Sony Online Entertainment this year about the upcoming MMO DC Universe Online, and while news of a beta or even an alpha would thrill us, we're more than happy with what we've been receiving this fall. The folks at Sony Online Entertainment have been treating us to a parade of new characters as the months progressed, and they're getting the fans in on the creation process with an animation contest.

Aion's December community address looks to the future
NCsoft had a big year on the Aion front: the months leading up to launch are just as crazy as the months immediately following launch, so the community team is more than ready for a little vacation. Not without one final community address, however. The Aion community team is leaving us until January fourth, taking a well-earned rest while we enjoy the Solorius festival. Good things are promised when they return in 2010, and this final address for the year gave us a hint of things to come.

Making the most of the free trial period
The whole point of a free trial is to get you to buy the game. This is a fact of the genre, and we all know it. Correspondingly, we don't usually sign up for the free trial unless we're relatively certain we'd like to try the game in the first place. But all too often, we try the game for one session, and then we miss the rest of the free trial period and never really form a cohesive opinion about the game. So the company doesn't get your money, you don't get to try the game, and your characters languish forever in the waiting room.