If you already play the Massively Multiplayer Game Star Wars Galaxies, you're undoubtedly already aware that the Jump to Lightspeed space expansion officially launched today. For the rest of us, there are some details on the developer side regarding the ramp up to release available on the official site. Details on the experience of the new expansion is available at Gamespot and PC.IGN. More ... colourful analysis can be found on Grimwell's boards, and N3rfed has a post discussing the fact that the rest of the world has to wait until November 5th for their space-goodies.

Daemon writes "Square Enix officially announced the fourth installment of Final Fantasy VII based media. The film Advent Children, the games Before Crisis, Dirge of Cerberus and now Crisis Core. This new RPG will for the Sony PSP and has been scheduled for release in 2006."

News regarding two new expansions to Massively Multiplayer Games today. Thanks to Gamespot for the fascinating news that Asheron's Call 2 will roll out a new expansion sometime in the future. This announcement was anticipated after Turbine's purchase of Asheron's Call 1 and 2 from Microsoft, but no firm details had yet to be announced. Meanwhile, Yahoo has the press release on Planetside: Aftershock's release today. The waning FPS massive game has finally been reduced to the reasonable price of $20. The new offering includes the core game, the first expansion, and a new expansion that incorporates mechs into the game.

Kethinov writes "The Chrono Ressurrection Project (previously mentioned on /. here), an attempted 3d remake of the popular 2d game Chrono Trigger, has been shut down by Squenix in the form of a cease and desist letter. Quoth their website, "it is with our deepest regrets in that we have to announce the closure of the Chrono Resurrection project. Square Enix Co., Ltd recently issued a Cease and Desist letter which will mean the project is closed indefinitely." The site retains two trailers and a number of screenshots."

Thanks to RPGFan for its post covering forthcoming U.S. PlayStation 2 RPG releases from Japan-based publisher Atlus, linking to a preview of Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, "big news for fans of the series, given that it typically doesn't see many releases outside of Japan." In addition, the site previews Digital Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner, "a brand new creation from the MegaTen creators" also coming to the States, and also looks at Phantom Brave, explaining that Atlus "had a hand in getting NIS America's (The North American division of Disgaea and La Pucelle: Tactics developer Nippon Ichi) [title] ready for prime time." Elsewhere, in more signs that the 'hardcore' Japanese RPG is making a U.S. comeback, NIS America have announced in-progress plans to bring Gust's Atelier Iris - Eternal Mana, "the sixth installment in a popular line of alchemy-based [RPGs]" to the States.

NeoCode writes "Gamespot is reporting that Warner Bros has bought the developer Monolith Productions. Monolith, in the past, has produced games like Tron 2.0, No One Lives Forever 1 and 2, Aliens vs. Predator 2 and Blood 1 and 2. Currently, Monolith is working on The Matrix Online (aka MxO), the WB-produced, Sega-published MMORPG which is undergoing Beta testing right now." We've previously reported on current WB game boss Jason Hall, who was formerly the CEO and co-founder of Monolith.

Rainier Wolfecastle writes "A couple weeks ago, we had the opportunity to visit Peter Molyneux and Simon and Dene Carter in Guildford, UK, for some hands-on time with Fable, their highly anticipated, finally ready for release Xbox action-RPG." Kikizo admits "Fable has been a long time coming, and for better or worse the media has elevated expectations considerably", but likes what it sees, calling the September 14th-due title "huge, gorgeous and a joy to play." Eurogamer also weighs in with impressions, expressing some reservations despite "feeling relatively upbeat" about the title, explaining: "As much as we enjoyed our time with it, it's the sort of game - typical of Peter Molyneux really - that we can't really assess piecemeal."

Costik writes "Paranoia XP, the new version of the cult tabletop RPG which first debuted in 1984, and in which a 'well-meaning but deranged Computer desperately protects the citizens of Alpha Complex, a vast underground city, from all sorts of real and imagined enemies', is done, and will appear at Gencon Indy later this month. The interesting aspect is that it was designed 'in public,' using a weblog, an online forum, and a Wiki, with enthusiastic support from the community. Fans of the game wrote text, debated rules, proofread, ran statistical analyses, and even wrote a computer simulator to test the game's paper-and-pencil rules. Allen, the game's designer, says 'We borrowed the tools and methods of open-source software development for a paper game, and it worked brilliantly.'"

thesp writes "We're all waiting for the releases of the next great games (naming no names) which have been mentioned over and over again here on Slashdot. No doubt they will look gorgeous and even be playable on not-too-unreasonable hardware. But there are some games that have an inherent capability to expand to take advantage of higher resolutions and improved rendering as the technology progressed. Would Slashdot like to suggest other titles that, although consigned to multipacks and bargain bins, have aged well and are even more beautiful in their old age, on modern systems, than they ever could be at the time of their release?" This may be subtly different to titles with "Olympian system requirements" at time of release, a category that definitely includes Ultima IX.

Thanks to Gamesindustry.biz for covering the news that Sega has announced Shenmue Online, a PC MMORPG, "being co-developed and co-published by Sega and Korean firm JC Entertainment", as part of "its new plans to enter the Chinese online gaming market." JC Entertainment are the Korean-based makers of Rush Online (formerly Priest) and the popular-in-Asia Redmoon, and the press release on Shenmue-Online.com states the game, part of the sometimes adored Dreamcast/Xbox franchise, will be a "MMO Action RPG in which tens of thousands of players will participate in the virtual world of Shenmue staged in China including Hong Kong in 1980's. Players, acting as militants, will use mysterious powers, kung-fu, Chinese weapons and Qigong in real-time fight-action."

StrikerObi writes "Over at Planet GameCube, we've posted an expanded list of Japanese-announced Nintendo DS titles currently in development for their new dual-screened handheld system. Highlights include a new 'Mana' game from Square-Enix and a new RPG from Game Arts, the makers of the Grandia series." GameSpot's Japanese correspondent provides the full list of games, including the games "previously announced at E3", and also comments: "Among the more interesting developments, Konami Japan will release a Boktai game, while Konami Tokyo will release a Castlevania game for the DS."

An anonymous reader writes "The No Mutants Allowed website has gotten hold of some screenshots of a post-apocalyptic RPG that was in development at Troika Games - the news story claims: 'Due to recent developments, [the prototype has] currently been put on hold.' Did the recent acquisition of the Fallout license by Bethesda kill chances of a Fallout 3 made by the game's original development team?" A recent messageboard post at the Troika-based Terra Arcanum fansite also suggests: "According to several unconfirmed rumors... Troika were also in the bidding for the license. In the end though... Troika were simply out-gunned."

Thanks to GameGossip for its story discussing Korea-originating MMO firm NCSoft's financial results for the first half of 2004. Along with an "operating profit [of] $23 million", specific sales/subscription numbers were announced, a rarity in the MMO world, as the company "reported that Lineage II and City Of Heroes are both doing well, with sales as of the end of June at 86,000 units (Lineage II) and 190,000 units (City Of Heroes) respectively. Meanwhile, as far as active players are concerned, NCsoft reported that Lineage II and [the soon to be cape-friendly] City Of Heroes have 76,000 and 170,000 active players respectively." However, delays to NCSoft's forthcoming titles were also announced, since "Guild Wars has been pushed from Q4 2004 to the first-half of 2005. Meanwhile, [recently re-organized Richard Garriott title] Tabula Rasa has fallen back from Q4 2004 to the second-half of 2005."

packratshow writes "Lost Levels has put up a story about the infamous NES prototype of classic RPG Earthbound. It includes an interview with Nintendo localization producer Phil Sandhop in which he verifies certain details about the alleged cartridges, sometimes considered to be fakes, and squashes most myths about its origin, explaining: 'EarthBound was not cancelled, it was just not produced... Sometimes these things sit for years before the studio feels its right. Nintendo had that luxury with games, especially NES games.'" We've previously mentioned the fanaticism of Earthbound fans.

Thanks to 1UP.com for its feature documenting what the writers consider to be the most boring videogames ever. The intro explains the criteria: "These ten games weren't necessarily bad or good -- they were just really, really dull", before pointing to titles like Donkey Kong 64 ("a mediocre platformer bogged down by forty hours of useless doodad-hunting"), King's Field ("It's kind of like an RPG, and it's kind of like an FPS, but mostly it's like falling asleep"), and Aquanaut's Holiday ("...doesn't really have a point -- it's a blocky, dithered simulation of what it's presumably like to go deep sea diving.") What would your pick be?

xCepheus writes "IGN has posted a new trailer for Xbox/PC RPG Knights Of The Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords. An interesting tidbit from the trailer notes that, as your character sways towards the light or dark side, so do the rest of the characters in your party." The original was my fav non Final Fantasy RPG in recent memory, so I can't wait for this one.

Thanks to Insert Credit for its brief news that Enterbrain's "RPG Maker XP has been released [for Japanese PC users]. Lots of features added, lots taken away. You can download the [Japanese-language] demo, or check what's new on Zepy's page, since he went into a bit of detail about it." An in-game screenshot and several example pages show a complex 2D RPG creation utilty, and Zepy elaborates: "This time you can finally have high resolution/full colour graphics! And Ogg sound! No limit to character and map chip sizes! You can directly program your own scripts... with the triple map layers, you can have cloud or fog overlays!" Although the console RPG Maker series has been released in the West by Agetec, the PC version has yet to be officially translated and released.

Thanks to IGN PS2 for its first look at the unlikely double-licensed Lego Star Wars videogame, which is, as it sounds, "a Star Wars game based on the LEGO license." Apparently, the Traveller's Tales-developed multi-platform title, due out in 2005, "recounts the events of the first three episodes in the Star Wars trilogy -- The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and of course, Revenge of the Sith" with Lego-based visuals, and 1UP.com has a few more details on the game, which "mixes and matches characters and vehicles from all three movies in the ongoing prequel trilogy -- Obi-Wan Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn from Episode I are the main characters, but it's possible to unlock many more characters from either side of the force and drop them into free-flowing action sequences." IGN PS2 also has hands-on Comic-Con impressions of X-Men Legends, the Raven-created squad-based console RPG with "4-player co-op... [and a] mixture of classic beat 'em up controls and RPG ideals."

Thanks to 1UP for its 'Freeloading' article discussing Falcom's freely downloadable PC tactical RPG Vantage Master Online. According to the author, the title "surprising balance and depth of play", even though it "took rather a while to make, and by the time things were nearing completion it was showing its age pretty badly and was practically unmarketable. The usual course of action in that situation is to just ditch the project and cut one's losses. In Falcom's case, they wrapped it up, put it up for free download at their own expense, and even went so far as to make an English (sort of) translation."

Thanks to 1UP for its feature discussing the still-declining state of the Japanese videogame industry, despite recent figures showing a small increase in sales for the first half of 2004. Nevertheless, it seems that "Japanese hardware and software revenues [were] down 11% in 2003 and nearly 40% since the peak of the PlayStation generation in 1997". The piece muses on reasons for the decline: "Complex, lengthy, story-driven [Japanese] games demand an awful lot of care and feeding these days, and often offer paradoxically little replay value... [whereas Western developer] DMA Design hit on a formula with Grand Theft Auto III that... offers activities suited to both long stretches of gameplay and short sittings of cruising or random action." In a similar vein, a OPM-reprinted column from Andrew Vestal suggests a solution: "One possible catalyst [for design change] is the upcoming Final Fantasy XII. In an interview, character designer Akihiko Yoshida readily admits that 'many team members are huge fans of non-Japanese games,' and... the game disposes of large parts of console-RPG design expectations." He concludes: "It's possible the game will act as a Trojan horse, introducing Western design philosophies to a wide swath of Japanese gamers and designers."