ArenaNet has big changes in store for the Guild Wars 2 World versus World system in the coming weeks and months. In today's column, we take a look at a few of the already-announced changes and offer our analysis. Let us know what you think in the comments.

I’ve played my fair share of WvW, so I know how some of the strategies are planned and executed.  Some members of my guild however don’t see the strategic moves that players and commanders make.  One of my guildies asked, and I quote, “So you just move along with a herd running past enemies hoping you hit someone?”  All they could see was the large masses of players running from tower to tower.  WvW veterans know these groups as zergs.

Read more of David North's Guild Wars 2: Changing WvW.

Maybe we will finally get to see some Charr battle tanks in action!

Blizzard has dropped a few really juicy hints about features and improvements coming with the v5.4 patch for World of Warcraft. In today's WoW Factor, we take a look at some of them. See what we have to say before joining the conversation in the comments.

Surprise! The next content patch is well on its way and it’s hitting the test realm soon. Blizzard has released a partial list of notes for the next chapter in the Mists of Pandaria campaign. While the patch notes are not complete, a fair amount of content has been data-mined and some of this content I would consider to be spoiler heavy. Don’t worry, I will avoid any potential spoilers for those of you wanting some surprises come patch day.

Read more of Reza Lackey's The WoW Factor: A Peek at Patch 5.4.

The Wind of Luck team has posted a short update about the game's progress towards release. The plan is to release WoL in two parts, first the WoL Arena followed by the rest of the project pending funding sources.

As for WoL:Arena - Ships will be partially upgradeable, with equipment and crew, and there will be some progression from smallest boats to 1-rate ships. players will earn fame and money in each battle and spend it to research and buy new ships, cannons and equipment. I.e. in "Asian" tree there will be like 9 tiers of ships starting from Hokulea and finishing in some really huge vessels like legendary Treasure Ship of Zheng He fleet. Yes, it means that we will need to completely rebalance ships for WoL: Arena but it seems like the only way to make the game finally live.

Read the full post on the Wind of Luck site.

Even the developers of Ubisoft's Tom Clancy's The Division are asking players to check out a petition to bring the MMOFPS to PC as well as to next generation consoles. During a videotaped conversation at E3, the team encouraged PC players to make their voices heard.

That petition has already received over 50,000 signatures.

The big question: What are Ubisoft up to? Do they genuinely need an indication of the potential audience for the game, despite the lack of correlation between sales and internet signatures? (No.) Is this just a marketing tactic that simultaneously promotes the game while stymieing potential friction from the lack of an official announcement? (Yes.)

Read more at PC Gamer.

During E3 last week, we managed to get one of the first-ever views of Pearl Abyss's Black Desert. Check out our preview and then let us know what you think in the comments.

One of the titles that has been on the radar out of Korea is Pearl Abyss's game Black Desert. The game was hidden away on the show floor because they are still working on launching closed beta testing in Korea. However we got a short sneak peek at the game and it made a strong impression. Even though the preview is short we will be following up this coverage soon with an interview to go in depth with much more information. Also the game is looking at North American publishers and Pearl Abyss hopes to have more news on that by the end of the year.

Read more of Garrett Fuller's Black Desert: E3 2013 - Our First Look.

Paradox Interactive has announced that Seatribe, a two-man development team, will take over full ownership and management of Salem, the Crafting MMO. According to GamesIndustry.biz, the transition will allow the game to "mature" and reach its potential to increase its odds for longevity.

"Our conclusion is that the game is active and much potential still lies in the game and its community, but that the concept still needs time and development to mature. To ensure longevity of this title and to have a set up that will allow Seatribe to work with this game for many months/years to come we have therefore decided to take some steps to optimize how the game is managed today and the costs of running it.

Read the full article at the link above.

The Final Fantasy XIV team posted a brand new video to show off a new class and jobs. The video features the Scholar, Arcanist and Summoner that will arrive with Final Fantasy XIV when it is released in late August. Enjoy!

Thanks to Coolit for the tip!

Now that E3 2013 has come and gone, it's time to present our annual "Best of" awards. Click through to find out who took Most Innovative, Best Hybrid, Rising Star, Most Anticipated and, of course, our Best in Show. Leave your thoughts in the comments about the results.

Another year, another show has come and gone.  It was a strange E3 for MMORPGs, mainly because two of the best games we saw were not really present on the show floor.  We also saw some amazing proof of concept games like EVE-VR: CCP’s little Occulus Rift experiment that puts you quite literally in the cockpit of a fighter and sends you out against an opposing team in a virtual reality setting.  More will be coming from us on this one next week, but if it were more of an MMO it could have easily won our most innovative.  Then there’s the likes of TERA, FFXIV, Black Gold, and more that all equally impressed but didn’t quite do enough to steal the thunder from the following titles.  Without further ado, here are MMORPG’s Best of E3 2013 Awards.

Read more of Bill Murphy's MMORPG.com's E3 2013 Awards.

The Repopulation's site has been updated with a trio of articles to shine the spotlight on what the team has been working on through the month of May, resource extraction and general harvesting.

A lot of effort went into improving the Rogue features of the game this month. Thievery saw a number of improvements, and we introduced several new mission templates that center around Pick Pocketing NPCs or stealing from shops. We also introduced a new locked container system. These containers or inventory items require Hacking skill to unlock. The mission system also received a significant number of improvements. This includes improved mission chaining, generated mission selection, mail event notifications and prop interaction features. It also includes several new types of generated mission templates. We also made headway on the Work Order system which we expect to go live next month.

Read more on The Repopulation's site.

Nexon has announced that MapleStory will be updated later this month with a new patch called "Unleashed". The update features an improved and overhauled UI as well as the addition of several new dungeons. The team has released a brand new trailer to show off the new features. Enjoy!

The Conquer Online team has announced that the next expansion to the game will arrive later in June. Called "Jiang Hu", the expansion will bring open world PvP to the game. 

With CO’s next expansion coming in June, Conquer Online is going to enter the Jiang Hu Age and will bring a new taste of battle! A new open world PvP gameplay will be added, encouraging players to challenge opponents of similar strength. Once you defeat an opponent, you will not only upgrade your status in Jiang Hu, but you can also gather spiritual energy from them and use it to enhance your own inner strength training!

Find out more on the Conquer Online site.

Join Mist League and MMORPG.com for today's Guild Wars 2 tournament slated to begin at 11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT. We've got all the details in one spot for your handy reference.

11:00 – 11:30 – intro – Chat with Aussie about Mist League – What is Mist League + Q&A
11:30 – 12:15 – Made In Meta [MiM] vs The Civilized Gentalman [TCG]
12:15 – 12:30 – Giveaways + Team Chat TBA
12:30 – 01:15 – We Are Extremly [ugly] Vs Team Paradigm [TP]
01:15 – 01:45 – Giveaways + Chat + Stream Swap to NA – Top 3 Montage Competition Winner Videos
01:45 – 02:30 – Team Doesn’t Matter [TDM] – Sittingonacouch [SOAC]
02:30 – 02:45 – Giveaways + Team Chat with Absolute legends [aL]
02:45 – 03:30 – We go to jail [bam] Vs TBA

Head to the Mist League site to find out all the nitty gritty and then join us on our Stream Page the appointed hour for all the action.

Pop culture defines much of our daily life, from the music we hear to the TV shows we watch to the games we play. But do games adequately represent pop culture? Find out what we think in today's Fair Game. Head to the comments to continue the discussion.

Pop, (that is to say, popular) culture is not a new phenomenon, nor is it a byproduct of the technology age. Throughout human history, ideas (memes) have taken hold of public consciousness, often ruling the day in which they developed. Harry Potter’s trials and tribulations may have been a formative experience for an entire modern generation, but the fictional lives (and fates) of Dickens’ characters were no less compelling for the real people crowding New York Harbor in 1840-41, demanding of incoming ships, “What happens to Little Nell?”

Read more of Lisa Jonte's Fair Game: Pop Culture in World Building.

At this year's E3, it was announced that Elder Scrolls Online would be coming to the major consoles of Xbox One and PS4 next year, and that the main PC version of the game would be pushed back to Spring 2014 as well. We caught up with PVP Lead Brian Wheeler to talk about all of this, but more importantly, how the Alliance vs. Alliance warfare is coming along.

Today's MMOs seem to fall into one of two categories: Games seeking a long-term audience that require long-term commitment on the part of developers and games seeking to entertain millions for short periods of time that require short bursts of development. In today's Devil's Advocate, we look at the way games seem to be getting developed these days. Read on and then leave your thoughts in the comments.

The demographic among gamers who play online has shifted. Instead of a few thousand people playing Everquest, you now have a couple of million people spread across a ton of online games.  This means that the original targets that existed to maintain a game’s “safe” status have shifted, as new games get a burst of players following launch, and is then followed by a decline of players over time due to a variety of other factors, such as boredom with a game or more games popping up, until a game settles into its realistic set of general numbers of people playing and paying subscriptions. 

Read more of Victor Barreiro Jr.'s The Devil's Advocate: Game Vision and Paying for It.

Feast your eyes on the first ever footage and build of the localized English client for ArcheAge Online courtesy of XLGAMES and Trion Worlds. Guided by Trion's own Victoria Voss.

Check it out!

As today's Final Fantasy XIV Beta Phase 3 begins, PlayStation 3 players will be able to get in to try out the game. PC and PS3 players will game side-by-side due to cross-platform compatibility.

Beta phase 3 introduces the PlayStation®3 version of the game into the mix for the very first time and PlayStation®3 gamers will be able to experience the captivating world of Eorzea alongside PC players due to the game’s cross-platform functionality. Beta phase 3 testers will also gain access to a huge amount of new content, including the introduction of the city states of Ul’dah and Limsa Lominsa.

It's not too late to sign up for testing on the Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn site.

Snail Games has been coming on strong in 2013, first with the release of Age of Wushu and now with the announcement that steampunk-high fantasy hybrid Black Gold is on the way. At E3 this year, we managed some quality time with Black Gold and have a terrific preview to share. Read on and then leave your thoughts in the comments.

Most MMOs tend to fit into a certain theme, but Black Gold mixes two. You’ll find both steampunk and fantasy themes in the game and it’s these themes that are representative of Black Gold’s two factions. On one side, you have the steam-powered Isenhorst, and on the other, the fantasy-based Erlandirs. While these two factions are different in many ways, they are similar in their desire to secure control over the vital resource of ‘Black Gold’. With only so much of this stuff to go around, it shouldn’t come to anyone’s surprise that these two factions are locked in conflict over the resource and it’s this conflict that serves as the focus of the game. 

Read more of Mike Bitton's Black Gold E3 2013 Preview.

For many players, the choice of the role into which they will fall in any MMO is as crucial as what their character looks like. In today's column, Genese Davis takes a look at three roles as defined in a recently released player survey. See what they are, how they play and which you are and then talk to us in the comments.

Gaming personality types are generally multifaceted and the dominance of one facet over the other is often situational. However, there are quite a few tests and quizzes out there that place player preferences and gaming personality types into different categories. In the Exploring MMOtivation column we took a close look at Dr. Bartle’s explorer gaming type, and mentioned how his test can determine whether a player falls into the explorer, killer, achiever or socializer category. 

Read more Genese Davis: RPG Personality Traits.