Marrying education with gaming is always a difficult concept to comprehend, but it's something that NASA has been aiming to do for quite some time. After their incredibly successful kickstarter drive, which managed to raise over $45,000 in starter funds, this team is ready to get cracking on their educational MMORPG, called "Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond." Shortened to simply AMMB, ZAM sat down with the people behind AMMB to hear more about what this space exploration game has to offer.

So if being an astronaut was always in your hopes and dreams, you should look forward to Astronaut: Moon, Mars and Beyond as your gateway game to space! Read on for the interview!

Today, October 12, is the day that Fallen Earth goes free-to-play! The two-year-old post-apocalyptic MMO is making the transition under GamersFirst, the company that recently brought APB: Reloaded back to life as a free-to-play title. Players will be able to choose from four pricing tiers, ranging from the free Scavenger membership to the $29.99/month Commander membership that includes a ton of perks.

We had the opportunity to speak with GamersFirst Associate Game Director Joseph Willmon and Fallen Earth Lead Designer Marie Croall to get more information on the free-to-play launch. Keep reading after the jump for the full interview!

UPDATE: Extra Life is over and gamers around the world raised more than $1.1 million! The Trion Worlds team raised more than $34,000.

On Saturday, October 15, gamers across the world will participate in the Extra Life 24-hour marathon event to raise money to help kids at Children's Miracle Network Hospitals. Sounds like a great cause, right? Trion Worlds agreed, which is why they'll be giving out Rift awards like titles and items to players who register for the event and venture into Telara this weekend alongside members of Trion's community and development teams!

Cindy "Abigale" Bowens, Trion's director of community for North America, was kind enough to talk with us about the Rift Extra Life event that kicks off on October 15 at 8 a.m. PDT. You can read the full interview after the jump. If you'd like to join the 2,500 Rift players who have already signed up to help children by playing the game (including yours truly), head over to the Extra Life site and register!

A couple days ago, I wrote about my initial hands-on time with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, noting just how excited I was that a new competitor was coming to the action RPG genre. Overall, my experiences with Reckoning were well beyond any expectations, but what surprised me even more was just how enthusiastic this team was about their game. Throughout the course of the press event at Big Huge Games' studio in Baltimore, we had crowds of developers watching our every move, but instead of pushing us to explore the "best parts" of the game, they simply wanted to see what we would do, even if that meant running in a straight line across the continent for two hours, or blazing through all the dialogue options because we wanted to hit level 10 (sorry!).

While most of my time in Baltimore was spent getting as much out of Reckoning as I could, I did manage to squeeze in an interview with Tim Coman, the studio project art director at Big Huge Games, and the man responsible for Reckoning's day to day artistic vision. In addition to talking about the visual direction of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, we also spoke about the overarching Amalur universe and what it's like to work with Todd McFarlane, an artistic visionary who has no preconceptions about developing video games. Read on for the interview!

In the world of online gaming, no issue has divided the populace more cleanly than the concept of virtual goods and their relationship to real world values. To some, virtual goods are little bits of code, tucked away on some distant server, ready to be changed, rebalanced or even made obsolete at the whim of a bored content designer. To others, however, virtual goods can be just as tangible as any other real-world purchase, as the utility and entertainment a virtual purchase might bring in game can be equated to any real world hobby that requires some sort of monetary upkeep.

Regardless of where you or I stand on this issue, it's clear that the online gaming industry is on the move, as evidenced by the big free-to-play microtransaction shift that has swept the North American MMORPG industry, or Blizzard's recent announcement that Diablo III will feature a real money auction house for players to sell items, gold and even character accounts.

With all of these new monetization models being explored in online gaming, discussion on the topic has become more important than ever before, and this is why GDC Online (Oct. 10-13) is hosting a Virtual Items Summit to explore the ways virtual goods can help studios around the world. Recently, I sat down with GDC Advisory Board Member Gordon Walton, who is also a VP and Executive Producer at Playdom (previously the VP and co-general manager at BioWare), to talk about the monetization of social games, virtual goods, and MMORPGs.

City of Heroes Freedom officially launched yesterday, which means all players can now try out the 7-year-old superhero MMO for free. As if that wasn't enough, Paragon Studios also released Issue 21: Convergence at the same time to add a ton of new content to the game.

We had the opportunity to sit down with Executive Producer Brian Clayton to talk about the beginning of a new era for this veteran MMO. Keep reading after the jump to learn all about City of Heroes Freedom and Paragon's ambitious update schedule.

As someone who went to school to study the more traditional narrative mediums (screenplays, novels, print journalism), the industry of video game writing has always been a fascinating topic for me. Novelists, journalists and even screenwriters (well, the writer-directors) can craft their narratives with great authority, knowing that the product and reality that they want to present will usually be the one they write down.

With video game writers, however, the experience is never purely their own, as game writers often need to make their voices heard over dozens of other contributors, some of whom believe that a large axe is a valid substitution for character motivation (and they may be right!). Of course, should you be a part of a team where sensible plots are appreciated, trying to present a meaningful story alongside an enjoyable game is still a huge challenge that even the best development teams in the world struggle with.

But this industry is not all gloomy for aspiring game writers, as long as we have fantastic events like this year's Game Narrative Summit, taking place at GDC Online in Austin, Texas, from October 10-13. It's been recently announced that award-winning writer Neal Stephenson will keynote this year's Game Narrative Summit, with the summit itself featuring sessions and lectures from some huge industry names like Valve writers Eric Wolpaw, Marc Laidlaw, Chet Faliszek and Jay Pinkerton, as well as BioWare's Wynn McLaughlin, Blake Rebouche and Hall Hood, in addition to Telltale Games' Dave Grossman. To find out more about this growing narrative industry, I sat down with Game Narrative Summit Advisory Board member Tom Abernathy, who is also a narrative designer at Microsoft Studios (and formerly Pandemic Studios).

Nexon America just announced that Dragon Nest will officially launch next week on September 28. The launch update will introduce a ton of new content to the game, including a new level cap, a new town, new skills, 10 new dungeons, more than 500 new quests and over 250 new achievements!

We wanted to learn more about the features that are being added to the game next week, so we went straight to Producer Davy Garaix to discuss Dragon Nest's official launch and beyond. Keep reading after the jump for our in-depth interview!

Once you're done reading about all of the content that's coming next week, be sure to check out our Dragon Nest Armory to help you progress through the final days of open beta and prepare for the official release. We'll be sure to update our databases and tools to coincide with the launch, which will help you reach the new level cap and battle your way through the new dungeons!

Rift Update 1.5: Ashes of History is scheduled to launch next week (no, there's not an official date yet), and we had the opportunity to attend a press conference with Executive Producer Scott Hartsman and Design Producer Hal Hanlin to learn all about the new features that are being added to the six-month-old MMO.

The duo began the press conference by outlining the major features of Update 1.5. “For Ashes of History, we are beginning to herald the rumored area that's over the water. Part of that will be a world event where we start rebuilding some traveling stones,” Hanlin said. To be clear, the event won't start next week with the launch of the update. He then mentioned that the new Chronicles duo instances have everyone buzzing, as well as the solo Chronicles of Attunement. As Hartsman put it, that's the ceremony that “takes you from a level 50 to making you a super Ascended.”

Of course, there's more to the Ashes of History update than the world event and the Chronicles. They both mentioned the Planar Attunement post-50 advancement feature, the new Library of the Runemasters Warfront, Veteran Rewards, the Master Dungeon mode and the beginning of AddOns. Keep reading after the jump for all of the details on the patch!

During his time at PAX Prime, Director of Content Cody Bye got the chance to sit down with EVE Online Lead Designer Kristoffer Touborg (aka CCP Soundwave) talk talk about a variety of topics, such as the null-sec revamp and the community's current reaction to Incarna and the Captain's Quarters. He even touches on the future of EVE, including the addition of player-run Establishments and alcohol. Lots of alcohol.

Keep reading after the jump for the full interview!