There are a few MMOs out there that hold a special place in my heart; one of which doesn’t have the best reputation, but is an extremely fun and innovative game nonetheless. Of course I'm talking about Vanguard, which had a rough launch and hasn't quite recovered from the players that canceled shortly thereafter. But now it seems that there's hope. As we mentioned over the weekend, Sony Online Entertainment has added a few of their titles to Steam in an attempt to bring new players into the game. In addition, old accounts in good standing were reactivated until January 31st to give former players the opportunity to return to Telon.

The development team has also been working on an amazing amount of free content that is unlike anything SOE has done before. The team is raising the level cap, adding AA's (Alternative Advancement) and implementing new raids and revamps to existing group content. We sat down with Salim "Silius" Grant, Lead Designer of Vanguard, to talk about all of the new 'expansion like' content that will be making its way to the live game soon.

Tamat : Hey Salim, thanks for sitting down with us to talk about Vanguard.

Salim : Thanks for the opportunity Andrew!

Tamat : Vanguard has been live for nearly two years now but unfortunately the 'buzz' in the community has died off quite a bit. What is the games current state?

We had an amazing time at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, as hopefully made obvious by our coverage. My single greatest regret was leaving the camera at our hotel when the Allakhazam team placed 2nd in the SanDisk Rock Band 2 tournament. Fortunately for you, you don't have to listen to me sing. That said, we still have a few videos that haven't been released quite yet. Namely the one you're about to see and our exclusive interview with Mia Rose (who's also an avid World of Warcraft player) which will be available for your viewing pleasure on Friday.

In the following video, we took a break from CES to pay a quick visit to the world famous AVN/AEE (Adult Entertainment Expo). While I can't convince you that gorgeous women wearing next to nothing wasn't a factor in our decision to make this video; my honest goal was to find gorgeous women wearing next to nothing that play video games! I'm happy to report that the mission was a success. To my dismay however, we weren't able to find any WoW players, but we did discover that Jesse Jane, Jenny Hendrix and Sinn Sage all play video games. I'll settle for that.

Check out the video where we ask "Do You Play Video Games", right after the jump.

Some of you may remember a recent editorial that was published here at Allakhazam about my concerns with Station Cash. Obviously, there were people at Sony Online Entertainment who disagreed with me. During my time at CES last week I had the opportunity to sit down with John Smedley to let him know why I decided to write the piece and our conversation quickly turned into an interview opportunity. Mr. Smedley was both rational and receptive during our off the record talks and clearly understood my opinions, regardless of his own. He even went out on a limb to let me know that he'd like to take some of the concerns that I had back to the EverQuest II development team. You don't have to have a very big imagination to know that those remarks put a smile on my face.

During the interview, which is nearly ten minutes in length, we talked about Station Cash, Free Realms, EverQuest's ten year anniversary, and the EverQuest movie which has been rumored for years.  I have to admit, some of the Station Cash products that Sony Online Entertainment is going to be rolling out are exciting. I even found myself saying 'I'd buy that' during the interview. As far as my opinions of Station Cash are concerned, as long as the experience potions available for purchase are where they draw the line, I'm willing to co-exist.

'Imagine being able to open up a book with every member of your guild, and have that physically mailed to you as a part of station cash. Our goal is to be able to buy both in game items, and those kinds of items, but be able to do that among all of our games in the future.'

Please check out our interview with John Smedley which we've transcribed for those of you who don't want to see John Smedley and me stare into each other's eyes for ten minutes. Also, please tell us what you think about the interview, Station Cash, the EverQuest movie and anything else that comes to mind, in the comment box below.

Recently we had the chance to interview Sebastian Strzalkowski, the Associate Art Director on Free Realms. There was a ludicrous amount of features discussed in a limited amount of time. We barely get any time to take a breath with all the new information flowing in. In fact, there was no way for us to be able to include everything that we were shown, Free Realms looks like it's ready to go!

The levels of customization are intense and elaborate. The interface is quite clean and streamlined, and the combat system is equally usable. The artwork is one-of-a-kind and the concept itself is completely unique to Free Realms. From Racing to the custom clothing, Free Realms looks like they are putting together quite the amazing free game for all, and we’re sure that they will make something truly special. Sebastian even drops hints as to what's next for this development from Sony Online Entertainment. Sounds like we all have something we are going to have to try out when it’s finally available later this year! Make sure to check out the video available after the jump and let us know what you think.

If you've ever played a FPS (First Person Shooter), chances are you've heard the name Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel at least a few times. Widely regarded as the most successful professional gamer around, he's won twelve World Championships over five different games. We caught up with him at CES to talk about something you wouldn't suspect, World of Warcraft.

During the interview he made it clear that he's going to keep his WoW life casual, but pursue it in a business perspective by actively seeking out and possibly sponsoring World of Warcraft professionals. In my mind this is great news for would be professionals that just need a little help breaking into the space.

I think I'm going to keep it more casual but I think I'm going to go about it the professional way by finding the best players and sponsor them to travel around underneath the Fatal1ty brand and support our product line with Creative. I'm really looking forward to sponsoring some guys.

Check out our exclusive interview with Fatal1ty after the jump.

I recently got the chance to talk to Myndflame's Clint Hackleman about machinima, composing music and switching between a Druid, Priest and Death Knight in World of Warcraft. While Clint kept quiet on Myndflame's future projects, he was very open with his thoughts on the machinima genre and even supplied some advice for aspiring artists. To get in the mood, I suggest you go watch "Defias Mightiest," a Myndflame production featuring Clint's original song from VanCleef's perspective in World of Warcraft. Then you can read on to find out what truly makes Clint's creativity tick (hint: it involves alpha gorillas and feces).

Togikagi: Before we get into the questions, could you supply our readers with your background in Machinima and a list of the movies you've worked on? Also, could you give us some background on the Myndflame team?

Clint: There are two of us that work on productions at Myndflame ; myself (Clint Hackleman), and my brother D.W. Hackleman. Using the power of our jewel shards, we've created many Machinima videos, but we're most well known for "Illegal Danish: Super Snacks " and our short videos like "Epic Flight Form " and "Learn 2 Play ". Some of our more recent work includes "A Hallow's End Special ", "Fruit of Elune – Underpants for Night Elves ", and the "Slim Jim WoW Machinima ". D.W. leads the visuals (video director, editing, special effects), and I do sound and music as well as many of the voice acting roles. Prominent local voice actors are Kris Haughey, Kevin Haughey, and Amanda Baker.

DC Universe Online is a game that we’ve been paying a lot of attention to lately for a number of reasons. The biggest that comes to mind is Jim Lee, whom we did an interview with in December. When the Allakhazam team saw DC Universe last, there were mixed opinions as to whether or not the game would amount to anything. After our meeting with Sony Online Entertainment on Thursday, we’re singing a different tune all together.

The game looks like a lot of fun; which is something that a few of us wouldn’t have said when we saw it in 2008 at the San Diego Comic-con. The most exciting new aspect of the game that was shown was the Cases/Capers system. ‘Cases are essentially missions that you work on that are a lot like quests. Heroes have Cases and Villains have Capers.’

As you’ll see in the demonstration we were given, the game still needs work. I’m still not completely happy with the controls and camera angles, but the good news is -- neither is the development team. SOE is taking a new approach with DC Universe, and I believe that they understand this is a game can’t be anything less than 100% ready when they launch.

Please make sure to check out our look at DC Universe Online after the jump.

Some of the Allakhazam team are in Las Vegas this week covering CES (Consumer Electronics Show) . We had the opportunity to catch up with Brett Close, the President and CEO of 38 Studios to see if we could get any details about the project simply known as Copernicus. Unfortunately, Brett wasn't able to give any new details about the  other game than the announcement that the studio will be bunking down to continue the already 'ahead of schedule' development process. It's refreshing to see a company with so many opportunities to hype their game (because of the huge names involved: Curt Schilling, Todd MacFarlane, R.A. Salvatore), announce that their going to go mostly silent for an entire year.

We're actually ahead of where we want to be and things are going so well that we're going to turtle ourselves in and just keep focused on development. There's not much to say for '09; we just want to continue making the solid process that we're making and I think it's not only fair to us but I think it's even more fair to the fans out there that want to see something.

We were extremely excited to see more concept art like was given to us during Comic-con but we're just going to have to wait until 2010. Make sure to check out our interview with Brett Close after the jump.

For as long as I've been playing World of Warcraft, I've always wondered what it would be like to be given the opportunity to interview one of the most popular characters within the game. This week I had that very opportunity and found myself scratching my head in confusion. Thrall wasn't what I expected at all.

Tamat : Hey Thrall! Thank you for allowing me into your private quarters to have a small chat. ....Why are you looking at the ceiling?

Thrall :  Lok'tar human!  As Warchief of the Horde I struggle daily to maintain a balance between our shamanistic ancestry and modern fashion trends.  Do you think "Clefthide Brown" or "Zhevra Gray" would look better in here?

Tamat : Ummm, I don't know. I'm here to interview you, not answer questions about skinned hides! Anyway, what are your thoughts on the semi recent re-discovery of Northrend?

Like most of you, we've been waiting patiently for information about ArenaNet's (mostly) announced Guild Wars 2 project. Unfortunately, despite all of our efforts, we've still been unable to get anything definitive. Having said that, Guild Wars has an amazingly unique art style that made the opportunity to sit down with Daniel Dociu, Creative Director at ArenaNet, so appealing to us. During the interview we talked about the work he did on Guild Wars, the future look of MMOs, his role in Valve's Half-Life 2 and of course, my failed attempt to get information about Guild Wars 2.

Tamat : Hey Daniel, thank you so much for sitting down with me today to talk about Guild Wars.

Daniel : Hello! My pleasure.

Tamat : First of all, can you just talk a little bit about your history in the industry?

Daniel : Well I got into games around 1993 if I recall correctly. My first job was with Squaresoft as an art director, back in the days when they had a studio in the Seattle area. Then I moved on to EA for a couple of years. The next one was Zipper Interactive which is currently owned by Sony. I was there for about four years. I then went back to EA for a couple of years and then I did freelancing for a few months in-between EA and ArenaNet. I've been here at ArenaNet for a little over five years now.