MMO News Round-Up: Monday 27th Feb 2012

I can kiss goodbye to any spare time from the 28th of February – NCSoft have confirmed the release date for Aion Free-to-Play and I’m all anticipation. The beta went well, as is evidenced by there being only a week between close and official launch. Having expected to be only mildly interested in Aion it’s nice to feel a sense of “ooooohcan’twaittoplay” and I’ll be shunning all domestic duties for most of March. Alongside the release is confirmation that v 3.0 will be coming to Europe and if the initial PTS patch notes from Korea are any indication this update might bring us housing and fast-travel mounts.

Finally a release date for The Secret World has been announced. We can look forward to joining secret societies from the 19th June 2012 with Funcom already boasting over 750,000 sign-ups to their beta testing rounds. The games’ classless system is explained here alongside information about doing tasks for your Society to unlock unique uniforms. I say!

RedBedlam Ltd have announced that The Missing Ink is now in open-alpha for anyone that signs up on the website. I’ve been messing around with house building this morning and it’s not at all bad although I can’t work out how to finish my roof. The site describes the game as: “The Missing Ink, when fully launched will ‘probably’ be the world’s first MMORPG with a fully integrated sandbox 3D virtual world for every player. And we’re very confident it will be the first MMORPG & combined virtual world on iOS & Android devices in 2012 – watch this space!”

Fans of World of Tanks will be looking forward to seeing what World of Warplanes has to offer since Wargaming.net announced their feature-packed website. Nick got an early look back in 2011 and thinks “the potential for another blockbuster MMO is there”. We’ve also interviewed the developers to get more details on what will be available at launch. If you’re interested in helping with feedback for this game then why not sign up to the Global Alpha Test?

Can’t bear to be away from your tanks for long? Don’t worry, Wargaming.net have released a World of Tanks app which (amongst other more useful things) allows you to “Share triumph with your friends via E-mail and social networks” .. judging by the amount of grumbling about losing that goes on in my house it won’t get much use!

Update 6 is on the way for Lord of the Rings Online including a new region and an update to the Instance Finder. Apparently you’ll need to “push back the Easterlings, dangerous brigands and an ancient enemy of Rohan, as they gather for an attack on Rohan and Lórien” not to mention “explore seven new areas along the upper Anduin including the green plains of Parth Celebrant where treacherous shades roam, unable to rest.” As long as there aren’t any big, stampy trees I might take a look.

Fallen Earth has become free to play via Steam this week, I’ll admit the game hasn’t really been on my radar as one to try but I like free as much as the next person so it’s downloading as I type. GamersFirst describe it as “Fallen Earth is a Free2Play post-apocalyptic MMO set near the Grand Canyon in 2156. A hybrid third-person shooter and role-playing game, Fallen Earth features real-time twitch-based combat, six factions, a classless advancement system and a powerful crafting system in which players can make 95 percent of in-game items.” That’s making me think Fallout but with crafting, mmm crafting.

Normally I would champion any MMO trying to do something a bit different but Guns of Icarus Online proved to be my cut-off point. Maybe I’m just not getting it but why would you want to play a game based around “multiplayer airship combat“? I’m sure there’s more to it than that and the trailer looks interesting, I’m just struggling on this one!