This past Tuesday Square Enix finally brought players one of the most teased features of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. From some of the pre-launch promotional info to the E3 trailers and developer posts, they've told us all about how we would be able to buy plots of land in neighborhoods with our fellow players, customize the interior and exterior to match our wishes and even get bonuses to things like crafting and gathering if we used certain decorations. Now we knew patch 2.1 would be Free Company (FFXIV's guilds) housing, so we all kind of assumed that they might be a little more expensive, but even smaller FCs would be able to pool  their funds and purchase a decent-sized bungalow for everyone to call home. Well... not so much.

Last week I had a chance to sit down with Devon Carver and Jon Peters of ArenaNet to talk about the new World vs. World (WvW) map in Guild Wars 2, Edge of the Mists. What makes this new map so special is that it is the first WvW map that will create overflows when the population reaches the cap instead of lining players up in a queue like the current maps.

The staff at ZAM has spent many hours debating which games we’ve played over the past year were most deserving of an award. In several cases the votes were neck-and-neck while others had an overwhelming victory. We had so much love to spread around that we expanded our voting categories from six to twelve this year.

Congratulations to the first six winners and runners up of 2013!

The Dark Elves have it! The results of the two First Round matchups in EverQuest's hunt for a new Race/Class combination:

• Dark Elf Ranger vs. Vah Shir Druid, with the winner: Dark Elf Ranger
• Dark Elf Bard vs. Erudite Rogue, with the winner: Dark Elf Bard

These two combinations will face off in the semi-finals at a later date; likewise for the winners of the Second Round, voting for which continues through Wednesday, December 18.

For more information, check out the official EverQuest site and the voting page.

Can't wait to see more of Black Gold Online? Well, you're in luck today because we have 14 exclusive pictures to share! Click any of the thumbnails below to enlarge the image.

All across Telara, wreaths, presents and mead have been prepared for the return of Fae Yule!

You'll be able to embrace your inner werewolf in a Very Merry Warfront, tour Telara’s holiday Dimensions, and celebrate with festive zone events, Instant Adventures, rifts, footholds, special gifts and more.

The season of giving and cheer has arrived in EverQuest II! Frostfell will begin following the downtime on Thursday, December 12, and this year brings about a festive season of change.

This year Frostfell introduces one new quest, A Deepice Mystery, which explores the altered Frostfell Wonderland Village and must be completed before several older quests may be obtained. Many new craftables are available to tradeskillers this year, resulting in items such as Gingerbread Plushies and a Glacier building block set. Several returning quests have new reward choices or tokens added to them.

Players with extra "gifties" from the Gigglegibber Gifty Storehouse can exchange them for Frozen Tokens of E'ci on the Enchanted Lands dock. Santa Glug can be found with his bag of goodies inside the Frostfell Wonderland Village for players to receive their daily presents. Crafters can finally rejoice as they obtain the first ever Permanent Frostfell Crafting Stations!

ZAM is pleased to offer alt-a-holics an updated Frostfell Quest Tracker. Print it out and chart up to 15 of your characters' progress. We also have an image gallery of the new zone which you can see by clicking on the image below. Happy Frostfell!

Sony Online Entertainment has announced the date and location of their annual event: SOE Live 2014 will take place at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas on Aug. 14 – Aug. 17, 2014. So save the date!  You wont want to miss the chance to meet your guildies, hang out with an SOE developer or two, and play in the tournaments (cash prizes!!). Oh, and you just might hear some news about your favorite games.

So join the Facebook event page and then check out the exciiting announcement video below!

It's been nearly four months (moreso when you factor in Open Beta) since players first logged into Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. In that time dungeons have been cleared, primals slain and the schemes of the Garleans thwarted. Quite a few of you out there have even delved into the Binding Coil of Bahamut, FFXIV's only current end-game raid dungeon. Others like myself have mined/fished/logged the riches Eorzea has to offer and/or crafted our way to fortune and glory. After all those months though, you do start to get into a routine and look for something new to try. Next week should hopefully bring that change as FFXIV's first major update, Patch 2.1 A Realm Awoken, is scheduled for release on Tuesday December 17th.

Hello and welcome to the third edition of the Eorzea Examiner, our new column about Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Last month we talked about FFXIV's interpretation of gathering classes and discussed ways to improve upon the design for Disciples of the Land. Logically the next step here would be to follow the materials from gatherer to crafter and discuss Disciples of the Hand next. Unfortunately, fellow crafters, that column will have to wait a few weeks as we have something a bit more timely to discuss.

Early Monday morning we saw the end of Eorzea's most recent world event, Lightning Strikes, starring the heroine of SE's Final Fantasy XIII and the upcoming title, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII. It's been over three weeks since players first encountered the pink-haired adventurer roaming Eorzea. We've fought at her side and received our rewards, but now she's left our land for further adventurers (or till the North American release of her game in February). Looking back on the event as a whole, how did it stack up to the other FFXIV world events or to those in other MMOs?