Welcome to MMORPGamer.

Happy New Year to one and all. Everybody's back at work, slowly carrying out their jobs while nursing hangovers. For the first week of the new year, I've got some news about the rising free-to-play phenomenon and a few extra tidbits of actual news from the previous week of holiday.

On January 1st at 8:30PM on World of Warcraft's Whisperwind server, the RP Revolution held a march from Ironforge through Stormwind to Westfall in support of the presidential candidate Ron Paul. Over 200 people joined together to support the candidate, causing the denizens of the server to rant, rave, and throw snowballs.

I think it's great that WoW is getting the attention of people that wouldn't ordinarily play video games. At the same time, the idea of such RL happenings in a fictional game world makes the roleplayer in me shudder. This is acceptable in virtual worlds like Second Life, but not in the place where many of us go to escape the real world and its politics.

Gamasutra recently met with David Perry, co-creator of Earthworm Jim and MMO consultant for Acclaim, to talk about his work with MMOs and opinions on the industry's future. Perry loves the free-to-play model, likening it to Netflix.

Perry says that the large market for free-to-play MMOs that he aims for is "people who consider themselves gamers who also love the idea of not having to pay for them." He's currently working on the Acclaim Top Secret project, as well as two free-to-play MMOs, one a music game and the other a sports game. The full interview features more information on his work and his opinions.

NCSoft has officially switched their billing time zone from Eastern Standard (EST) to Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is the same as Greenwich Mean (GMT). The developer didn't mention any reason for the change, and also advised everyone that though they may see a change in their listed billing date, "technically speaking, you're actually not gaining any extra time."

I don't understand this at all and can only stare at the screen as I try to wrap my head around the time change and how traveling into the future actually gives you no time. In the meantime, I suggest everyone just keep playing City of Heroes.

The Sci-Fi Channel is getting behind Stargate Worlds by promoting it through episodes of Stargate Atlantis. Tomorrow's Stargate Atlantis episode will feature the premiere of the first Stargate Worlds trailer.

Also, each episode after tomorrow will have "gate codes" in them, which will let viewers get a chance to get into the game by, according to Sci-Fi, having their "image or likeness incorporated into" the game. Stargate is a huge franchise, and it's great to see the game featured so heavily with the show and Sci-Fi Channel.

The drought for letters continues this week, but I'm still holding out hope for those of you that have hangovers preventing you from writing in. Feel free to drop me a line about anything, preferably MMO-related.

The next few weeks will see some improvements to the MMORPGamer format, as well as a new archives page, new sections in the column, and a redesign to the way things look and feel here at MMORPGamer. For now, I've got to get back to my priest. I've got heal my way to 60 before I get back to school. I swear it's going to happen.

Until then,
Jake Miller (mail me)