Last week, Staff Writer Paul "LockeColeMA" Cleveland had the chance to attend NCSoft's Aion 2.5 event in San Francisco. The team briefly discussed the history of Aion up to this point before diving into a hands-on experience with the new content that's coming in the Empyrean Calling update on May 25. Read on to find out more!

It seems like around every corner there's a DotA-inspired game just waiting to happen, but the latest DotA-related announcement may have come as a surprise to some people. Hi-Rez Studios, the creators of the third-person shooter Global Agenda and developers of the next Tribes game, have thrown their hat into the DotA ring with the announcement of SMITE.

Of course, It simply wouldn't be Hi-Rez if they didn't bring something new to the table, and so they've promised a new take on the DotA concept, most notably being the addition of third-person action with a mythical gods motif. Of course, with such an announcement coming out of nowhere, we decided to catch up with Hi-Rez Studios COO Todd Harris to find out more about SMITE and what it means for the rest of the Hi-Rez family.

Do you ever get the urge to nibble piggies? How about to milk a butterfly after a long massage? Perhaps get insulted by a talking magical rock? If therapy seems like too difficult a choice, I highly recommend signing up for Tiny Speck's new browser-based MMO, Glitch. Spear-headed by four members who formerly worked on or started Flickr, Glitch offers a unique game experience that seems to combine gameplay aspects of Civilization and EVE Online, with a hefty dose of humor similar to that of Kingdom of Loathing. I recently dove into the beta and had a chance to talk to Stewart Butterfield, president and co-founder of Tiny Speck, about the game overall.

We recently had the chance to participate in a roundtable interview with EverQuest II Executive Producer Dave Georgeson to discuss “The Children of War” Game Update 60 that's scheduled to launch on May 17. This is the first update in the Age's End Prophecy saga, which was introduced in the Destiny of Velious expansion. Of course, we also asked some general EverQuest II questions that touch on various aspects of the game's future.

Georgeson explains that the bulk of GU60 focuses on PvP and battlegrounds. He gives details on the update's new battleground map and game type, as well as a new lobby system. He also confirms that there will be a new expansion next year that has nothing to do with Velious, and he hints that players will soon be able to enjoy some new transport mechanisms at levels 30 and 60.

Keep reading after the jump for the full Q&A!

UPDATE May 15, 2011: This Game Update has been delayed since the original posting of this article and is expected to hit Live servers in late May or early June.

UPDATE: Trion Worlds just let us know that the launch date for Update 1.2 has been pushed back to May 10.

Rift's Update 1.2 is scheduled to launch on May 4 May 10, and we had the chance to sit down with Trion Worlds CCO and Rift Executive Producer Scott Hartsman to get details on a wide variety of features that will soon be added to the game.

We seriously cover a lot of ground in this interview. Hartsman talks with us at length about the upcoming Looking for Group tool, the wardrobe feature and some new zone events. He also explains that the new slivers system allows Trion to introduce 10-player raids that are focused on alternate realities or timelines. Lore fans should definitely keep an eye on the intriguing stories that can be told through slivers.

In addition, Hartsman told us that players can likely expect to see Facebook integration in Update 1.2, continuing Trion's push to connect Rift to all sorts of social networking sites. He even gave us some details on the new Refer-a-Friend program, and you may be surprised how long it will tie you to your friend in-game.

Hartsman also asked us to remind all players to log in and grab their River of Souls Event Reward Pack from their mailbox as soon as possible. You need to spend your Otherworldly Sourcestone before the vendor items disappear with the launch of Update 1.2, so buy some epic gear or other rewards before it's too late.

Keep reading after the jump for in-depth details on all of these topics and more!

In MMO years, four years is quite the distance to travel. For many MMOs, four years marks the twilight of their community population, left with only the most adamant of fans; for others, four years is a milestone they'll never hit, as we've seen with the numerous first-year meltdowns. In reality, coming out of four years of MMO development with ideas still on the plate is quite the accomplishment, but only a few MMOs out there can truly claim that they have a lot more gas left in the tank after such a length of time. Turbine's Lord of the Rings Online is certainly one of those elite few.

In honor of LOTRO's fourth anniversary, I sat down for a quick chat with Turbine's Aaron Campbell and Adam Mersky to talk about their summer plans and why LOTRO will never stop innovating for the years to come.

Hi-Rez Studios recently announced that Global Agenda will be going free-to-play with the launch of the Free Agent update, which is expected to launch in mid-April. Since the game currently does not require a subscription to play, this switch mainly removes the one-time purchase barrier that may have kept players from trying out the sci-fi shooter MMO.

UPDATE: Global Agenda's free-to-play update launched on April 14, officially making the game free-to-play.

We decided to go straight to Hi-Rez Studios COO Todd Harris to find out exactly what this free-to-play shift means for Global Agenda. He talks about the upcoming micro-transactions store, the differences between Free Agents and Elite Agents, Hi-Rez's upcoming Tribes: Ascend and Tribes Universe games and more.

Keep reading after the jump for the full interview!

During our time at Fanfest, we noticed a strong focus on the future of the EVE Universe. Developers emphasized that "EVE is real," and the Future Vision trailer demonstrated how EVE Online and DUST 514 can fuse two different genres into an entirely new experience.

Keeping EVE's exciting new direction in mind, we had the chance to sit down with Executive Producer Nathan Richardsson to talk about both the present and future of EVE Online. We discussed the possibility of walking around with our new avatars, gambling our ships away, "physically" meeting with warring factions to host peace talks, and much more.

Keep reading after the jump for Richardsson's thoughts on the changing face of EVE Online.

Rift's first worldwide, fully dynamic event is scheduled to kick off tomorrow, March 30 (update: at 8 a.m. PDT), which is less than one month after the game's March 1 launch. This ambitious event will last for about a week and contain something for everyone; players of all levels will be able to fight invasions of the undead army in every zone to ultimately unlock a permanent level 50 20-player raid zone and bring the fight directly to Alsbeth the Discordant, the right hand of Regulos the Destroyer.

As part of Update 1.1, this event kicks off a brand new scale for Rift's dynamic content. Editor-in-Chief Darryl "Togikagi" Gangloff had the chance to sit down with Trion Worlds CCO and Rift Executive Producer Scott Hartsman to discuss the event and what it means for the future of the game.

Keep reading after the jump for the full interview and to watch the River of Souls event trailer! Also, check out some new screenshots in our gallery.

For the past two weeks, the RIFT community has been rocked by a seemingly endless onslaught of accounts being compromised. Account security is an incredibly touchy subject with MMO players, and once it became apparent that this was an epidemic rather than a handful of occurrences, fansites like ZAM were blamed as part of, as Trion put it, a “witch hunt” by some members of the community.

The culprit behind a portion of the account debacle was tracked down by a member of the RIFT community that ignored all of the speculation going on around him and put real effort into making RIFT a safer place to play. Known only as ManWitDaPlan on the RIFT forums (and Webmaka on ZAM’s own forums), he exposed the flaw with the aid of several other committed RIFTers. Trion quickly found his post, contacted him directly, and within hours had the exploit fixed. The entire community, including all of us at ZAM, breathed a huge sigh of relief.

UPDATE: Trion speaks out and clears the air about ManWitDaPlan's find.

Over the last few hours, we’ve managed to reach out to MaWitDaPlan and get his side of the story, find out what his background is, and see what he thinks of the future of RIFT. We hope you enjoy this exclusive interview!