Most people would consider the MMORPG genre to have begun with EverQuest, in 1999. Networked and Internet games existed beforehand, but the MMO is, by most accounts, a 21^st-century (and very late 20^th-century) innovation. So what kind of MMO profile would certain historical figures have cut? If you think that one guy in your guild always ninjas all the good loot, imagine how tough it would be with a real ninja in your party?

We're giving away a brand new Star Trek Online game to three lucky Massive Online Gamer readers! For your chance to win, please send your name, age, address, phone number, and e-mail to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject "STAR TREK ONLINE Contest #24." One entry per person. Entries due by June 1, 2010. Three winners will be randomly selected from all completed entry forms.

Last week: Ragefire Chasm. This week: The world!

OK, so maybe not quite the world, but I did delve into the Wailing Caverns with my Tauren druid in WoW over the weekend. I set aside a good chunk of time, as the entry for Wailing Caverns in the WoW Wiki says the instance takes “a minimum of 180 minutes (three hours).” Turns out, you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet (shocking, I know).

Big details on the Cataclysm expansion

Blizzard recently started a trend by conducting developer chats using Twitter to update fans on the status and development of World of Warcraft. The chat is not as interactive as we'd like it to be, because Twitter has a 140-character limitation, so the team takes questions posted on Twitter with the #BlizzChat hash tag during the time of the "chat" and developers answer them on a forum thread.

There are six categories of crafting in Aion: alchemy, armor smithing, cooking, handicrafting, tailoring, and weapon smithing. Today, I’ll talk a little bit about each one and what they're used for. Each player is allowed to learn as many or as few of the crafting professions as they want but you can only master one of the skills – that means you can get all of them to 399 skill level, but only one can go to 450. The ranks are: