There are many tales in Dungeons and Dragons Online. In Return to Gianthold, the 17th expansion for Turbine’s veteran MMO, it starts with a betrayal between two powerful races.

Long ago, a dragon leader known as The Truthful One slew the Stormreaver, leader of the giants. Seizing the moment, he transformed himself into an undead dracolich, sundering the giants’ civilization. Though several ages have passed, the Stormreaver has returned, thirsting for vengeance on The Truthful one and seeking adventurers to lend their aid.

Last week, during their WildStar Wednesday blog post, Carbine mentioned some press events they’d organized to share some new information about the game as well as show off one of their latest builds. I flew out to try the game in San Francisco, while Gareth “Gazimoff” Harmer went to check out the game at Brighton in the UK. This was my first opportunity to try out the game since PAX Prime 2011 and I was excited to see firsthand what had changed in the last few years. We’ll be sharing some of the details we picked up during our trips at a later date, but I can share with you my thoughts about what I’ve played so far.

The Action-RPG (ARPG) genre is exploding with the massive success of League of Legends and the release of Diablo III and Torchlight II, two pioneers of the genre. We've got Kickstarter campaigns promising an “evolution” of the genre and now our very own free-to-play Diablo II in Path of Exile. 

That brings me to the latest offering from Rumble Entertainment and KingsRoad their browser-based free-to-play ARPG which I've been playing lately and had the joy of meeting Rumble Customer Experience Manager, Brett Bates.  

Not everyone’s cut out to be an Ark Hunter. For some, the idea of working for the likes of Von Bach is too much to stomach. Like working for The Man, and there are plenty folks round here who’ve had their fill. Others, well, they wouldn’t last ten minutes outside of town.

The world has changed. I’m not sure what history you’ve been watching, but the Arkfall, the wars and the terraforming changed everything. Now we’ve got aliens, both friendly and not, giant bugs, and who knows what else out there. Not exactly an easy place to make some scrip.

Me? I’ve never been too worried about where I get my scrip from, and at least Von Bach is paying for my time. It’s why I went through all that Ark Hunter Induction business, where they sign you up and jab you full of needles. Sure, it looks mighty pretty on the outside, but that place is full of sharps.

Forge's goal was simple – bringing the experience of MMORPG PvP to its own game, without the grind or the open world or the leveling up or raids, or any of that. Having spent quite a few hours in it, I can safely say they have definitely done something like that. It's not exactly MMORPG PvP, and it's not exactly a third-person shooter but, instead, comes together like an oddly fascinating, confusing, but very good hybrid.

I’m honestly surprised. I’ve seen Google Chrome pull clever stunts, like music videos rendered in 3D using HTML5, or multi-player Facebook games powered with Flash; but a full-fledged MMO? I’d argue that it couldn’t be done.

It’s taken Mechanist Games to prove me wrong. Their current endeavor, City of Steam, looks and behaves just like any other MMORPG I’ve played. Sure, the character models are a little simplistic and the color palette is a little brown, but it works. The beauty is in accessibility; I can be logged in and exploring this industrial-era fantasy world in under ten seconds.

As the introductory cinematic explained how the World Machine is built from continent-sized cogs and gears, Communications Manager Gabriel Laforge agreed to guide me through the first few stages of City of Steam’s Closed Beta. 

Mech combat has a broad palette of destruction to offer. At one extreme lies the city-wide carnage of skyscraper-sized robots, coated in sleek armor and bristling in laser cannon. The other holds the more personal combat of power-assisted exoskeletons, combatants glaring as they lunge with arms of steel and titanium. Both Neon Genesis Evangelion and Aliens hold dear places in the annals of explosive combat. But in a stark contrast, Hawken looks to offer a new form of machine-based mayhem.

The first title from indie developer Adhesive Games and publisher Meteor Entertainment, Hawken is placed in a bleak future where humanity’s grasp for the stars resulted in an overreach. Heavy over-industrialization has wrought havoc on a distant colony planet, causing society to crumble inward. Amid the remains of decaying cities and gutted factories, the remaining population is forced to scavenge for what few resources remain. 

Our anticipation for Hawken has steadily grown since first going eyes-on, which makes this first closed beta weekend incredibly welcome. With a launch date of December 12th already announced, this free-to-play first-person shooter is steadily edging closer to the wire. That said, beta is beta and a game can change significantly before launch. While this is our first hands-on preview, we’ll be reporting in regularly as Hawken develops further.

It started with news of storms to the east. Torrential rain hammered the coastline; wind picked up the sand and etched away at your skin. No-one but the foolish and desperate would dare to sail in such treacherous weather, and yet someone did. A shipwrecked vessel, said to be indescribably alien in design, landed off the coast of Freemarch. Who would captain this craft through such a terrible storm, and why? 

So began my foray into the second beta weekend for Rift: Storm Legion, the first expansion for Trion’s fantasy MMO. Since first hearing about it on the E3 Stream and going eyes-on at Gamescom, I was eager to find out if the team would meet its earlier grand vision. Would the developer create a roaring hurricane, or would it be a storm in a teacup? While it’s important to remember that this is still beta, Trion does seem on-course to deliver a strong update to its flagship game.

Even with the second beta event finished and a third one approaching, the live game refuses to stand still. What started as a simple harvest festival has shifted to an autumnal storm, as Crucia’s minions from the plane of air assault cities across Telara. It is under this dark cloud that Queen Miela Aurentis set sail from the eastern Kingdom of Pelladane, to warn both Guardians and Defiant of the impending Storm Legion threat. 

From September 20-23, select players with beta keys were able to test out the newest F2P “cops-and-robbers” FPS online game, District 187: Sin Streets, published by CJ Games Global. Technically, the game is already out (in Korea), but now American servers are opening up with some limited testing. The American team has said there are three goals for this test: that it is A. Fun, B. Stable and C. Balanced. Has the game kept these goals in its sights, or has it missed the target? Read on for our review!

If traditional sci-fi and fantasy MMOs are getting stale for you, why not get out there and smell the steam? City of Steam (CoS) finished up this last Alpha test weekend on August 19th, and ZAM was along for the ride. Andrew Woodruff, the marketing manager of Mechanist Games, pulled 20 hour days during the weekend and still had time to show us around. He didn’t drift too far off topic, and his tour and our own playing gave us a chance to check out this surprisingly fleshed-out browser based MMO! Put on your goggles and get ready to dive into this steampunk adventure.