Magic: The Gathering Tactics announced

Sony Online Entertainment and Wizards of the Coast are working together on a new strategy game for the PC based on Wizard’s popular collectible trading card game Magic: The Gathering. The game is being billed an online, 3D turn-based strategy that uses core elements from the Magic: The Gathering trading card game. It is being developed by SOE’s Denver studio.

Magic: The Gathering - Tactics will let players command 3D figures and spell cards from the CTCG with the promises of a single-player campaign, multiplayer and even PVP. Other plans include regular content updates, achievements and rankings, and - no doubt - plenty of collectible cards and decks.

Magic: The Gathering - Tactics will be released in early 2010 for PC, with a PS3 version to be released “sometime after.” For more information about the game check out www.magicthegatheringtactics.com.

Legends of Norrath: Travelers released

Sony Online Entertainment has launched Travelers, the eighth add-on to the Legends of Norrath online collectible trading card game based in the EverQuest universe. Travelers introduces all new challenges for players, complete with new characters and storylines that send players to the Planes themselves. Travelers Features new cards, an all-new 200 card starter that can be used to create four different starter decks, new loot cards including exclusive new encounters in EverQuest and EverQuest II that open all-new chambers and rewards of loot and XP and -In EQII - players can combine several key cloaks to create the game’s first wearable - a visible backpack, while In EQ three new collection items will grant players the Frozen Skull of the Cursed which equates to a unique mercenary.

Find out more about it by visiting www.legendsofnorrath.station.sony.com.

Free Realms now supports five languages

Sony Online Entertainment announced this week that Free Realms now supports five fully-localized and supported languages: French, German, Spanish (Castilian), Spanish (Latin American) and English (UK). Originally launched in English (US) on April 28, 2009, Free Realms is a free-to-play, family-friendly online video game that has more than four million registered players enjoying its virtual world.

All existing and new players can play in any of the supported languages on any Free Realms server, according to SOE, who calls this a “first” for any of its MMO products. Players can begin playing Free Realms in their language of choice by visiting the localized versions of www.FreeRealms.com where a server with the highest population of players playing in their preferred language will be recommended. Chat and profanity filters that support all languages have also been implemented. All languages have full customer service and community team support as well.

Find out more at www.FreeRealms.com.

John Smedley to keynote GDC Austin

 John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment, will deliver a keynote address Game Developers Conference Austin (GDC Austin. Smedley’s keynote, “From Dragons and Daggers to Kart Racing, Cooking and Concerts…It’s a Whole New MMO World,” describes in detail how SOE’s freely available tween and teen title Free Realms has worked to expand the base of players coming together in online worlds. Smedley’s keynote will inform attendees about the challenges and lessons learned when creating a full-blown MMO for younger audiences including the challenges and opportunity of creating connected games.

GDC Austin features three days of main conference content focused on connected games, online games, virtual worlds, and social networking game play - along with four two-day summits including the Game Writers, Game Audio, iPhone Games and Independent Games Summits. The event takes place at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas September 15-18, 2009. Early registration discounts for the event will end on August 13. Find out more at www.GDCAustin.com

The final days of The Matrix Online

Time is running out for players of Warner Bros. movie-based MMO, The Matrix Online. The game is set to shut down on July 31, 2009 for good. A note a The Matrix Online community manager has some slightly good news for those former subscribers that couldn’t get into the game for its last hurrahs; you’ll have your chance after all:

THE MATRIX ONLINE has always been a place where friends get together and have fun, be it in a club dancing to your favorite DJ’s tunes or adventuring and taking on seemingly insurmountable odds. We understand that some of your friends might not have had the opportunity to hop back into the game before the June 1st cutoff date.

We’ve heard your call and wanted to help oblige THE MATRIX ONLINE players both past and present so they can log in and have the opportunity to reminisce with old friends and participate in the final days of the game.

If you are a former player of THE MATRIX ONLINE with an inactive account, and your account was in good standing (e.g., you are not suspended or banned from playing) when you last logged in, you will now be able to log in and play THE MATRIX ONLINE for no subscription fee until the game’s closure on July 31st, 2009.

We look forward to taking Mega City down in style…together!

Please note that this opportunity to return to THE MATRIX ONLINE does not include any trial offers provided to players who had active accounts in good standing prior to June 1, 2009.

If you are a former player that wants to enjoy that last moments of this game, now is the time to do so, because soon it will be gone.. forever.

Free Realms hits 3 millionth user mark

Sony Online Entertainment announced that more than three million unique users have registered for Free Realms,since its launch on April 28, 2009. Recently awarded recognition by Guinness World Records for conducting the first concert to take place simultaneously in the real world and a virtual space during E3 in Los Angeles last week, Free Realms continues to prove that free-to-play games are serious business.

To celebrate the rapidly growing community of players, SOE will grant its first three million Free Realms registrants the “3M Pet Party Pack,” filled with goodies for use with their virtual pets, both cats and dogs. From the in-game Marketplace, players can choose from more than 20 different types of dogs and cats to train, feed, groom and dress up. Players have until Friday June 19, 2009 (11:59 PM PDT) to redeem the “3M Pet Party Pack”.

Free Realms also features 14 other fun jobs to master, as well as the Free Realms Trading Card Game: a full-featured trading card game, playable both digitally within the Free Realms online game and offline via physical card decks sold wherever you buy trading cards.

Free Realms hits two million user mark

Sony Online Entertainment’s free-to-play, family friendly MMO game, Free Realms continues to surprise everyone - including its developers. In its first month of service the game has managed to attract over two million registered users. That’s a pretty incredible number, given what Free Realms is: an MMO that the whole family can play together.

According to internal data from SOE, 75 percent of those users are under the age of 17. Can you say pay dirt? I believe that it won’t be a fancy multi-million dollar MMO that will topple World of Warcraft - it will be a myriad of free-to-play MMO games like Runes of Magic and Free realms. On the other hand,  perhaps this is all just a phase. We’ll let you know in a month how both of those games hold up.