From junior high until I graduated from college, I was fortunate enough to be able to participate on football (American-style, of course) teams of varying degrees of success. Organized competition has always captivated me, and I was certainly intrigued when BioWare announced one of their organized PvP modes - “Huttball” - at Gamescom this past month. Although many of us, myself included, wondered why they opted to go with a seemingly new branch on the Star Wars IP rather than do something closer to canon, it was exciting to see that Star Wars: The Old Republic wasn't going to be ignoring its competitive gamers.

So during my short time at PAX, I took some time to hop in front of a PC and take a turn at this feature of BioWare's upcoming MMO. Each side featured eight combatants, and one participant, as you've probably seen from BioWare's Huttball video, picks up a glowing sphere and attempts to run it to the other side of the arena. He or she can pass the “ball” from person to person, or have their teammates rip them a hole through the opposing forces.

Want to know more about my play session? Then keep reading after the jump!

There's a palpable sense around the MMO industry (or at least the ZAM virtual offices) that Guild Wars 2 is going to be something special. Even with the fantasy genre beginning to feel a little long in the tooth, everyone always includes the game in their “ones to watch” list. Everything that we've seen has had exceptionally high production quality so far, and I was interested to get my hands on the game at PAX Prime and see what had changed since my last play session nearly six months ago.

The changes were significant. For the first time in North America, all of the races were playable and nearly all of the classes were free to choose (if you were starting a character). So, at long last, I was able to kick off my weak, human trappings and don the larger, fiercer visage of the Norn. Even though I almost always play as a “larger” character in my MMOs, I wanted to try out a profession that might not fit the stereotype for my Norn character, so I opted for a gun-toting Engineer.

The War of Zek (Game Update 61) went live today and is packed full of a variety of content and a massive reitemization effort for levels 20-80. Several issues did crop up in regards to the Alternate Advancement reset and unattuning of gear. These problems are expected to be resolved in a hotfix tomorrow.

An Alternate Advancement revamp restructured some trees while several classes saw changes, removals or replacements of existing AA abilities. A new Tradeskill AA tree was added, sharing the same AA experience pool asadventuring advancements. The full changes to this system, including class breakdowns, are available in the GU61 patch notes.

Adventurers may be pleased to revisit new takes on older Desert of Flames era zones: the Palace of Sabaron and Silent City: The Delving Dead. Both are new dynamic dungeons, which feature different population sets and are expected to have extra bonuses if visited via the upcoming Dungeon Finder system. The Eastern Wastes were augmented with two new quest series, continuing the stories of the Thrael'Gorr Clan and Stormfeather's Pride.

Continue after the jump for more on Game Update 61's content and features!

Beastlords disappeared from Norrath as the Truespirit, powerful spirit guides, retreated along with the gods. Since the Age of Cataclysm, their power has been slowly re-entering the world, but their very existence is in danger from a corruption called the Blight.

Some spiritually attuned persons have been investigating an emergence of spiritual energies in both Antonica and the Commonlands. Both good and evil aligned players will be taken on a unique adventure to help the Truespirit cleanse the corruption. Discover the remnants of the Cult of Sellok and assist the wise spirits Ilfanul and Ravinus with a ritual that will herald the New Awakening.

The first half of the Beastlord Prelude Event will be available when Game Update 61 goes live on Thursday, August 25th. The prelude's conclusion is anticipated to be released around halfway between GU61 and the Age of Discovery.

Expert rifts are designed for a group of five or more Ascended.  The six expert rfits, one for each element, are similar in difficulty to a tier one expert level dungeon. Learn about the opening and closing of expert rifts and where to find the related daily quests in our handy guide! You'll also find links to strategies for all known expert rifts.

Please enjoy our Expert Rifts Guide!

For many adventurers in Velious, the Eastern Wastes has seemed like a short venture for questing. With the most recent update this zone will be augmented by two more quest series, which continue the stories of the Goahmari Stormfeather's Pride and the Thrael'Gorr Clan of orcs.

Stormfeather's Legacy begins in Great Divide and is available to adventurers who have completed their gryphon mount quests. Players learn that the Goahmari want to introduce some of their gryphons to the Eastern Wastes and quickly move on to there to assist with the efforts. The wild griffons of the region must be figured out and even helped before adventurers can secure the future of the pride.

Rise of the Thrael'Gorr continues the story left off when the pale barbarian, Ragebourne, disappeared. The Thrael'Gorr orcs are prepared to establish a home of their own but must remain hidden from the prying eyes of Kael Drakkel. Adventurers will speak to their contact in the Ry'Gorr Keep and assist the Thrael'Gorr with the ancient awakened beings, ettin spies and more before becoming a champion to their cause.

These two quest series will be available when Game Update 61 goes live, with an expected release date of Thursday, August 25th.

Since the introduction of floor tiles to the Moonlight Enchantments and City Festival events, Carpenters have been asking for tile recipes of their own. At Fan Faire this request for stone dividers was presented and got a positive response from developers. Also revealed were house signs, which allow players to modify the text to create a custom message for visitors.

Carpenters got their desires and more. Five new crafted dividers will be available, four of which are stone and one with a Halasian-themed wood grain. These recipes were added into the Carpenter Essentials books between levels 3 - 83 and players who have already scribed them will automatically have those added to their recipe book.

Continue after the jump for more on new Carpenter recipes and the Housing Directory.

Velious. With the rediscovery of this icy lost land Norrathians got Public Quests, Prestige Housing and a wealth of goodies including...  flight. Mounts that soar above the lands and speeds never before experienced. Everyone got the opportunity to fly - even the vampires got trained bats.

And Norrath's winged residents cried out: "HEY! What about us? See these flappy things on our backs? Have the gods forsaken us?"

The answer to that is no, the faefolk had to simply look deeper into the power of flight. In the upcoming update, all Arasai and Fae who are level 85+ in adventuring or crafting will be able to learn how to fly. In the snowy peaks above the Goahmari Village Rookery seek out an inquisitive faefolk who has realized that harnessing the Goddess of Air's power may unlock the secrets of flight.

This journey into discovering why Arasai and Fae could not fly and receiving the ultimate blessing of soaring through the skies will be available when Game Update 61 releases, expected on Thursday, August 25th.

Two new Dynamic Dungeons, originally announced at Fan Faire, take popular older zones from Desert of Flames and give a new take on them. These dungeons scale from levels 60 through 90 and are intended to be fun group content.

The concept behind dynamic dungeons is that their population may change each trip. An example given in Podcast #115 was that the Silent City dynamic dungeon has 15 different "population sets". These dungeons were designed to be defeated by a group of average geared players.

The Palace of Sabaron is a take on the Djinn Masters Prism raid zone. It is accessible through a genie lamp near the entrance to Silent City. Skeletal cobras and prismatic defenders populated our brief run through this instance with the mummy boss General Dal'Zark pulling out all the stops and halting our trip.

We visited Silent City: The Delving Dead twice and witnessed two different population sets for it. The first was gnolls and gelatinous cubes and the second trip had spectral warriors and oozes. Deeper in the instance we encountered walking bonepiles, gazers and gnolls. A total of five boss mobs are in this dungeon, each with some interesting tricks up its sleeve. Several quests in this zone also give an alternate way to earn a few Primal Velium Shards.

Dynamic dungeons breathe new life into older content and allow more players to enjoy them with the scaling levels. They can also be a fun way to equip younger characters as we saw several legendary armor piece drops due to the new reitemization being done this update. These dungeons will be available when Game Update 61 releases, expected on Thursday, August 25th.

In Game Update 61 the Alternate Advancement system is being revamped and a new AA tab will be added. As a result of the revamp, every character will have all of their AA points reset. Several classes will also see changes, removals or replacements of existing AA abilities, which will be further detailed when the final Live patch notes are released.

The Class, Subclass and new Tradeskill trees are available at level 10. The Subclass tree was reorganized, placing the available Advancements in rows which are unlocked as you spend AA points in the tree. The final AA is available after spending 80 points in the Subclass tree.

A change to the Shadows tab is that it will now be locked until level 50. This was perhaps the most controversial topic on the Test forum as the General AA line in that tree is beneficial to all characters regardless of level.

Continue after the jump for more on the revamp and new tree.