Sony has announced that they are opening up a pair of server transfer opportunities in the near future:

Vanguard's excited to announce that we're offering two opportunities for server transfers to new and existing Vanguard players! Originally, we had offered one transfer per character created before the server merges, but due to a large amount of old friends coming back to the game, we've decided to do away with all those rules, and open up the server transfers to anyone - regardless of their creation date or prior move history.

We're hoping this opportunity will let people come back to the game, and easily find a home on a server where their friends are playing.

The first round of transfers will be happening on Tuesday, May 13th. The second will come sometime the following week. Requesting a move is simple, and only requires logging into the game and using the /petition command. Players will need to include the names of all the characters on their account they would like to have moved, along with the server they would like to be transferred to.

Things to keep in mind:

Players cannot transfer to the Sartok (PvP) server, but are free to move to any other server.

All broker items should be packed up before the move, tombstones and house items collected. Players do not need to tear down their homes.

Don't let this opportunity slip by!

After months and months of waiting, we will finally start seeing more of the storyline of the newest expansion "Wings of the Goddess" starting next month.

Today we have the chance of learning a little more about what's coming around the corner. So here's the sneak peek from the official site.

As they wander the battlefields of the Crystal War, adventurers will encounter Lilisette, an eccentric dancer who is shadowing the mysterious Cait Sith. Her unprecedented actions will slowly but surely warp the very fabric of the age...

Gamespot's Australian bureau recently got their hooks into senior systems designer Andrew Griffin and picked his brain about AoC's 'wrap activities'. Here's a snip:

GS AU: Another common complaint of MMOs is grind. How will you go about making sure that monotony is out of the game?

AG: We have a relatively fast leveling speed--it's not slow, and it's more in the WoW type speed. We do give out a significant amount of XP via quests. So pure grinding with monsters isn't the most efficient way to level up. If you get a quest which takes a certain amount of time, you'll get the same amount of XP if you were just pure grinding at 100 percent efficiency for the same amount of time. You won't be sitting there just doing mindless grinds--you'll be doing interesting quests.

There's lots more so head over to the link above.

The latest NWN Podcast is out and available for listening pleasure. Featuring an interview with "FFBJ", the 'cast focuses on bringing worlds to life:

Hoist the anchor and hold onto the rail... There be pirates aboard the podcast! Dave, left defenseless at the helm, is unable to stop Skunkeen's mutiny... so he joins in... will the podcast ever be the same?

Bob aka FFBJ is subjected to Dave's rambling interviewing techniques which have been deemed torture by numberous human-rights organizations. Rest assured Bob weathers the storm and delivers an intimate look into making a world come alive.

Modders in particular will want to lend an ear.

According to a tersely worded article, Chinese WoW gold farmers were arrested:

Chengdu's Shuangliu county has arrested two virtual item and currency traders, surnamed Li and Zhang, focused on tapping out The9's (Nasdaq: NCTY) licensed MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW), reports Chengdu Evening News. Police arrested the pair after Li reported Zhang for unfair revenue distribution. Going into business last August, the gold miners accumulated more than 20 employees with 20 computers to generate RMB 1.6 million in seven months of dealing.

It remains to be seen if this was done at the behest of Blizzard but it's a positive step in the right direction.

Eurogamer has posted a article about their visit to Blizzard and a chance at Wrath of the Lich King. It's all summed up like this:

If Burning Crusade was a wild explosion of ideas, then Lich King is shaping up to be a smoothly orchestrated crescendo of them. It brings to mind the elegance, coherence and sense of direction of the Blood Elf starting areas - perhaps the jewel in Burning Crusade's crown - only achieved across an entire continent.

"Northrend's been kind of a coming home," lead designer Jeff Kaplan told us. Despite the fact that Blizzard has been working on WOW non-stop for some eight years now, he maintains that his team is currently "in love with it". As surprising as that it is, we don't doubt it for a second. In every aspect of Wrath of the Lich King, it shows.

The article is a lengthy one and worth reading. It's also accompanied by several screenshots. Enjoy!

A new screenshot gallery for the Isle of Quel'Danas has been created. This area was added in the recent Fury of the Sunwell patch.

We're constantly on the lookout for eye-catching World of Warcraft screenshots. If you'd like to contribute, you can check our current collection topics and submit your screenshots via our Screenshot Submission page.

You can view the 40 or so screens here.

New Zaishen rewards have been announced for the May 2008 Automated Tournament. The list of rewards can be found at the official site.

Zaishen Title Track

When you use a Zaishen Key on a Zaishen Chest, you get 5 Zaishen Reputation Points. The Zaishen Reputation points are applied to a brand new account-based title track, the Zaishen Title. You can buy a Zaishen Key from Tolkano for either 5000 Balthazar Faction or 5 Tournament Reward Points. Additionally, Monthly Tournament Reward Points have been increased. GvG went from 300 to 4500 and 1v1 went from 100 to 1500.

New Zaishen Chest Rewards

There will be a different, brand new, Transmogrifier Tonic each month, including super rare, infinite use versions of the new Tonics. All infinite use Transmogrifier Tonics will be green items, including existing Everlasting Transmogrifier Tonics. Unlike the single-use versions, the everlasting Transmogrifier Tonics never run out, so you can use them again and again!

There's also a great video of new emotes that can be won so head over to the link above.

Exteel devs have posted their fourth developer diary at Stratics. The diary covers several topics: The Rushnik Mechanaught, its weaponry highlights, and the Dreadnaught battle map.

The Dreadnaught Battle Map

Dreadnaught is one of the more unique battle maps available to players in Exteel. Mechanaughts battle atop a massive space cruiser as well as various winding corridors within the ship. The ship is also engaged in a great battle against other spaceships in the background, which provides an interesting backdrop to the immediate battle at hand.

The outline of the map is mostly rectangular, with a long playing surface across deck of the ship, bisected lengthwise by a squat row of open bays and communications tower. One end of the map features a raised platform in front of bridge superstructure, and various Mechanaught launching bays line the sides of the playing arena. Various tunnels also lead further down to two sets of corridors and rooms that also run the length of the ship.

Dreadnaught is one of two maps in Exteel that feature low-gravity environments, meaning normal non-boosted jumps can reach quite high (Hint: at the apex of the jump, hit your boosters to jump even higher). The Dreadnaught map is currently available for play in Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Territory Control, and Last Stand battle modes. Territory Control matches can be rather tricky, with usually one Aerogate on the top deck and the other four nestled in rooms set at the four corners of the map. Approaches to these rooms are narrow and pilots contest each Aerogate viciously.

Exteel is a free-to-play MMOFPS from NC Soft.

In an unsurprising, and honestly overdue, move, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ) has thrown Atari off their stock listings. Atari had been warned for the last year or so that the move was 'imminent' but had fought the delisting. The merger with Infogrames apparently came too late:

NEW YORK, May 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Atari, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATAR), an interactive entertainment company, announced today that on May 7, 2008 it received a letter from The Nasdaq Stock Market stating that a Nasdaq Listing Qualifications Panel has determined to delist Atari, Inc.'s securities from the Nasdaq Global Market and will suspend trading of Atari, Inc.'s shares effective on the opening of business on May 9, 2008. Atari, Inc. plans to request a review from the Nasdaq Listing and Hearing Review Council, which could alter or dismiss the Panel's determination. However, such a request will not delay the suspension of trading. Atari, Inc. now expects to be quoted on the Pink Sheets, an electronic quotation service maintained by Pink Sheets LLC. The Pink Sheets allow continued trading of securities of delisted companies. Atari, Inc. expects its common stock to be traded on the Pink Sheets under the symbol "ATAR" or "ATAR.PK". Atari, Inc.'s common stock may also be quoted on the OTC Bulletin Board(R), a regulated quotation service for over-the-counter securities, provided one or more market makers apply to quote Atari, Inc.'s securities.

Read the rest of the Atari press release after the jump.