Warhammer Online's latest character classes - the Dwarf Slayer and the Orc Choppa - have been available for a few weeks now, so we thought it was time we caught up with one of them to find out what all the fuss is about. We managed to convince Morbav - one of the latest Choppas to join the battle - to speak to us about his character class.

ZAM: Thanks for taking some time out of your busy schedule of maiming and killing in order to talk to us.

Morbav: No problem. Da boss said dis be good for rek-root-ment. Whatever dat means…

ZAM: Please could you describe your job for us? What's the Choppa's role in the war against the Dwarves?

We recently reported that Blizzard Entertainment has formalized design and distribution guidelines for addons. There were a number of changes, including the fact that developers can no longer sell their addons. Since that time a great majority of the community have voiced their concerns with these new changes, so we decided to talk with a lawyer who's well-versed in such things. Connie Mableson played a role in the now famous MDY vs. Blizzard case and she has some interesting theories about what Blizzard is intending to do now that third party addon authors cannot sell their creations. "Based on all the changes Blizzard is making, I believe the Blizzard business model is to "Monetize" UI Mods/add-ons by developing them in house and offering them for sale to players " said Connie. Unfortunately when we approached Blizzard about this theory, they had no comment.

ZAM: Hello Connie, thank you for taking some time away from your practice to answer our questions about some of the legalities involved in Blizzard's most recent addon policy changes. I understand you're something of a WoW player yourself!

Connie Mableson: Yes, I play WoW almost daily.  Probably too much .  I use add-ons particularly for raiding, keeping track of players in raid, and for DKP.  Our guild's main raid leader has over 100 mods he uses from time to time.

ZAM: Let's start by talking about the new policy that was announced by Blizzard Entertainment on Friday.  Coming from a legal standpoint, what do you think of the policy overall?

Welcome back for the second part of our play session / interview we had with the Lord of the Rings Online developers over at Turbine. In Part 1 of this interview, we mostly covered topics pertaining to their new free content update. During the interview, however, we also spent a good deal of time asking them questions about the general development of LOTRO and some of their thoughts about what it's like to transform Tolkien's literary work into a graphical masterpiece. Thanks again to Aaron Campbell and Adam Mersky for their enthusiasm and dedication to this wonderful medium. Away we go!

How do you think it would feel if ten years from now, your EverQuest character was on the cover of one of the most successful games of all time? For Tony Garcia, the scenario posed by this question is a reality. Better known in the community as Vhalen, one of his characters from his childhood D&D campaign was Lucan D'Lere himself. What's more, many locations from the world we call Norrath, was directly inspired by that same campaign.

We sat down to talk with Tony "Vhalen" Garcia about his work on EverQuest, EverQuest II and all the things in between. Join us as we explore the unknown inspiration, of the world of EverQuest.

ZAM: Hey Tony! It's a great pleasure to be talking with you again about EverQuest. You're definitely missed in the EQ/EQ2 community. How are things going for you on your new project?

Tony Garcia: Hey Tamat! Things are going great on my new project. I am the Senior Content Designer for Trion World Network.  I am busy doing what I do best, dreaming up worlds. I work alongside some of the most talented people in the video game industry, some of whom are also old friends. One of the most exciting aspects of this project is that it will see life as a video game and a SyFy Channel television project. Unfortunately, I can't comment further about it, but stay tuned. It's going to be great!

I can say that I miss the EQ community a lot. The EverQuest franchise has always had a strong lore community. These lore enthusiasts were always a pleasure to interact with on the boards, in-person and even in-game. They can often have a rivalry between projects, such as EQ lore vs. EQ2 lore, but they have all displayed investigative skills that could challenge Sherlock Holmes, Batman and even the devs who created the lore.

This week we've been extremely busy stalking members of the EverQuest team, both new and old. As the week  comes to a close we're still going strong and ready to continue the celebration. That said, we'd love to hear your ruleset choice for the next EverQuest server. If you haven't already voiced your opinion, please do so!

Today we had a talk with EverQuest Product Manager, Harvey Burgess; who's been with the team since 2000!

ZAM: Hey Harvey! Thanks for celebrating EverQuest with us!

Harvey Burgess: No problem at all.

ZAM: How long have you been working on EverQuest and how did you get started?

With the huge economic changes that have been galloping across the globe, a lot of our focus has been on which MMO companies have been hit the hardest. Today, however, we managed to catch up with Age of Conan's Producer / Director, Craig Morrison to chat about FunCom's hardcore M-rated MMO. For those of you who aren't really paying attention to the MMO sphere, Age of Conan launched about 9 months ago to a WotLK starved audience who were eager to sample AoC's 'real combat' system and hardcore PVP. In fact, AoC received so much hype that within the first few weeks of launching, they managed to sell almost 500,000 copies. This number would later expand to an announced 700,000 subscribers. So what happened? Numbers being thrown around today note that there are no more than 100,000 subscribers in Age of Conan's rich environment, and Funcom's shares have been dropping faster than... well... something that drops fast (terminal velocity aside...). While I haven't played AoC myself, I was certainly very curious as to how something as well received as Age of Conan could tank itself so fast. Not only that, but does the game still have the same problems that dissuaded it's early players? Thanks once more to Craig Morrison for taking the time to answer my questions. Onward!

This week we've been extremely busy stalking members of the EverQuest team, both new and old. Join us all week as we celebrate ten years of EverQuest and if you missed the official Developers Chat on Tuesday, we've published a log so you can see what you missed!

Today we had a talk with Game Designer, Ed "Aristo" Hardin; who's been with the team since the November of 2006.

ZAM: Hey Aristo! Thanks for celebrating EverQuest with us!

Aristo: Thanks for having me!

ZAM: How long have you been working on EverQuest and how did you get started?

PlayOnline has been a wealth of information lately with details about April's version update, the new security tokens (find out how you can win one for free! ), a new equipment enhancement system, and a sale date for "A Crystalline Prophecy," the first of three mini-expansions set to be released via PlayOnline this year.

While monitoring the community's reaction to this plethora of news, the Community Relations team at Square Enix has noticed two questions popping up with frequency. In an effort to give the community some reassurance on these two issues, the team has released a response to these questions.

Thank you all who attended the 10th Anniversary Developers Chat earlier today. For those of you who missed it, our crack team of log monkeys have been hard at work to bring you a full log of the chat. We'd like to give the members of Sony Online Entertainment in attendance a special THANK YOU! Without you, none of this is possible. You'll find said log after the jump. Here's to another ten years of EverQuest!

It's not just every day an MMO turns ten years old. In fact, it's somewhat of a new thing. This week we're going to be extremely busy stalking members of the EverQuest team, both new and old. Join us all week as we celebrate ten years of EverQuest and please don't forget to join us later today as we celebrate ten years of EverQuest at the official developers chat.

Our next victim is Game Designer, Adam "Ngreth" Bell; who's been with the team since the September of 2005.

ZAM: Hello there! Thanks for celebrating EverQuest with us!

Adam Bell: Thank you.  It is great to be here on the 10th anniversary of the game that got me into MMO's.

ZAM: How long have you been working on EverQuest and how did you get started?