Well well, it looks like the future second most popular MMO has been cleared to launch, with LucasArts and Bioware announcing today that Star Wars: The Old Republic will release on December 20, 2011 here in North America and December 22, 2011 in Europe. Bioware founder Ray Muzyka had this to say:

“This is an incredible moment for everyone at BioWare and our partners at LucasArts who have dedicated their lives to build this extraordinary game. We appreciate the patience from the millions of fans who have been waiting for the game’s release.”

It was also announced that each copy of the game will come with 30 days of subscription time, after which users will have the option to pay $14.99 for one month, $41.97 for three months, or $77.94 for six months.

A $15 a month price tag certainly seems a little steep to me, and with many games jumping on the free-to-play ship, it’s certainly an interesting move.

South Korea’s XLGames and Take Two Interactive have signed a deal that will see XL develop an MMO based on one of Take Two’s existing properties. That probably sends your heart and mind racing asking what property could it be?? But I think you need to slow down and consider the possibility that this game never leaves the Asian market. If you look at it that way it could be ANY of Take Two’s properties. Who knows what kind of crazy Pachinko-kart-racer MMO XLGames could be cooking it up. It could literally be Mafia themed Pachinko boards.

Now if this game is going worldwide, then I think we can all safely assume that this is the much rumored BioShock MMO. Right, we can assume that? I’m going to assume that. What property do you think Take Two is turning into an MMO and don’t say Grand Theft Auto because that’s not it.

Remember a little while back when an ex-temp at Bungie spilled the beans to Kotaku that Bungie’s next game was a sci-fi MMO called Destiny? And everyone was like nuh-uh. Well yeah-huh, because the folks over at Halo.Bungie.Org (its a fan site) uncovered a trademark for Destiny owned by a company called Podophobia Entertainment. That company is owned by Bungie president Harold Ryan and music maestro Martin O’Donnell.

To make things even more suspicious a NeoGaf user noticed that on last week’s episode of Penny Arcade TV the fine folks from Penny Arcade went to play ping pong against Bungie and someone on the Bungie team was wearing a weird shirt and HEY THERE’S THAT SYMBOL AGAIN!! Its all making sense now. Right? Does it make sense?

The bad news? Atari is looking to sell MMO studio Cryptic, makers of Champions Online and Star Trek Online. The studio lost 7.5 million last year and Atari has decided that it’s time to let the studio go. The good news? Atari will continue to support both MMOs while the company looks for interested parties. Work also continues on the new Neverwinter Nights game.

Via Gamasutra

Bungie cleared up the confusion on their weekly update saying it was “playfully riffing off of the recent rumors.” So who is to blame for all this misled excitement? Is it Bungie and their failure to properly deliver a joke, or is it people who couldn’t distinguish jokes for sincerity when they got less blood flow to their brain after the thought of a Halo MMO made their nether regions swell? Finally, do you think this statement completely rules out the idea that Bungie is working on or plans to work on an MMO?

Like all impressions, go ahead and ignore the rating tag…we’ll fix that one of these days.

Intro Music: Flobots-Superhero

Outro Music: Metallica-Disposable Heroes

Wait. What? EA is going to co-publish ANOTHER MMO? The same EA that published APB, Hellgate: London, and The Sims Online? Good Luck with your sci-fi, conspiracy theory MMO Funcom you may have just doomed it for all eternity. No release date was announced for the MMO, but you can get caught up in the viral madness for the game and choose your side www.darkdaysarecoming.com

GamersFirst’s main priority at the moment is just getting APB: Reloaded up and running again and sending out a patch that was never released. They are also trying to extend the market to other regions, such as South America. It’s good to see life get brought back to the game because everyone deserves a second chance, right? Hopefully this attempt will last a little longer.

Source: Joystiq

Sony Online Entertainment REALLY wants you to beta test their upcoming MMO DC Universe Online. So much so that they have given us dozens of codes to give away for the PS3 beta test. Here’s how you can score a code. Follow us on Twitter, retweet the tweet with the hashtag #4PCDCU, and if we have any left, BOOM you get a code. We will update this post when we run out of codes so if you want in, hurry!

UPDATE: Here’s some codes, comment if you use one.

5HQ8-E8NE-HCPB
39MM-8NNH-Q2KP
96TT-KAN6-N8H2
PHAH-NLNG-CTGA
JBE8-8BNC-NQ76

UPDATE: We still have codes, email contest at fourplayercoop dot com if you want one.