Whether you're a current Pirates of the Burning Sea player or someone who's considered trying out the game, we have some exciting information to share with you. We got the chance to speak with Associate Producer Janice Vonitter and Game Designer Greg Hanefeld at the Penny Arcade Expo and they gave us all sorts of details on "Power and Prestige," the upcoming free expansion that should be released in 2010. Keep an eye out for the full interview on ZAM.com tomorrow, but until then here's a sneak peek at some of the features the expansion will add to the game.

According to Vonitter, the expansion is "centered on influence and control over the Caribbean, and parts in it." Players will be able to run to be a governor of a port and be elected to the position if they garner enough support. Governors will actually be able to affect the performance of a port; for example, they can adjust the tax rates for each nation or adjust the port defenses. Stay tuned for our interview to find out many more details on the governor system, including how players will be able to kick a governor out of office.

As for some of the other features of the expansion, the level cap will remain the same. New faction rewards and content will be added and players will be able to specialize in the brawler skill line. "Power and Prestige" will be given free to anyone with a subscription, so new players will be able to jump right in. Read our interview tomorrow for more details!

Hack-and-slashers rejoice:  Diablo 3 is still a long way off, but a little game called Torchlight might make you not even care.  Seattle-based Runic Games has produced one of the most fun and polished titles showcased at PAX '09.  Development is headed by none other than ex-Flagship Studios' Travis Baldree, Max Schaefer and Erich Schaefer – who've previously lent design credits to Diablo, Diablo 2, Fate, and the unfinished Mythos (an IP which is now owned by HanbitSoft).

The game is set in the town Torchlight, where enterprising miners have hit the strike of the arbitrary-game-related-time-unit.  The precious resource is called Ember, useful for its magic-y awesomeness, but could ultimately spell cataclysmic doom for the poor shack-dwelling harvesters who would seek to control it.  In fact, you'll find the ruins of plenty of other unfortunate civilizations buried in the mines as you boldly smite your way toward the end of the game.

Last week at PAX we had our first look at the latest project being developed by Funcom, "The Secret World". Words cannot express how we already feel about this game. Funcom has created one of the coolest premises for an MMO that we've seen to date and combined it with years of experience and an enhanced Age of Conan game engine. Enjoy our interview and stay tuned for an upcoming article with even more information!

Ragnar Tormquisc: My name is Ragnar Tormquisc and I'm the Producer Director on The Secret World.

Martin Bruusgaard: I'm Martin Bruusgaard, and I'm the Lead Designer.

ZAM: First one I'm going to ask; can you tell us a little bit about the individual persistent elements that will exist in the game?

Martin: The important thing to mention is that we don't have classes and we don't have levels. We have a very... linear progression, very result-based. It's all about gathering items and equipment, and also different powers. It's all about playing how you want to play and gathering the powers that matter to you, that let you play how you want to play. If you want to be a healer, then you gather the healer powers, and if you want to be a tank, you can gather the tank powers. You can also create hybrids. It's also important to say that you can design different powers to work with different powers, so you and your buddy can create specs that work well with each other, that feed each other. So, in that way, you can become very good at something very quickly, but to be able to master all of the powers and have a 'spec' for every situation - that will take a long time. So it's quick to get into the game and excel at something, but to be able to have all the tools, that will take a long time. So it's a very open progression in that way.

Last week CCP announced the 11th expansion for Eve Online, Dominion will be making its way into players hands this winter. Of course, inquiring minds wanted to know more so we caught up with Lead Content Designer, Scott Holden at PAX to do just that.

ZAM: What is Dominion all about and where is it taking EVE Online?

Scott Holden: Well, we have changes to sovereignty coming in; the first stage of a series of introduced steps on sovereignty should probably happen over the course of the next year and half—it's a long-term project. We [also] have some new balancing for capital ships, more epic mission content coming and the cosmos, which is essentially a new communications platform inside the game. It's basically taking the email system the way it is now—chat channels will still exist, as far as I know at this point—but basically making it much easier for people inside the game to communicate with other people. You can kind of think of it like Facebook inside EVE.

ZAM: What about some of the pirate epic mission arcs, can you tell us about those?

Back in May we broke the news that Jumpgate Evolution had been officially delayed and since then, further developments have been few and far between. During our time at PAX we had the chance to talk with NetDevil President, Scott Brown about what the team has been doing, where they're at and when players can expect to play the retail version of the game. Unfortunately Scott mentioned that it's probably impossible to ship in 2009, but rather early 2010.

In addition to the fore mentioned topics in our interview, Scott mentioned their commitment to work with the UI modding community to make sure that JGE players will have plenty of choices when it comes to their user interface. Someone remind me to inform Dolby of our sister site, MMOUI.

ZAM: What is the biggest reason you decided to delay the game and go back to the drawing board?

Scott Brown: It's all based on player feedback. We started our focus testing with a few hundred friends and family testers. They came back with a lot of stuff they really liked, like the game ran well and it looked really good, but there were just some certain things about it that weren't immersive; the game didn't feel epic. Of course, epic was really our goal, so we went back to the drawing board on mission systems, special effects, A.I. especially - did a lot of work there - to really bring the level of immersion up.

ZAM: What are some of the things that you improved? I saw that the A.I. had been redone. What specifically did you redo?

Now that some of the dust has settled since the BlizzCon announcement of World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, we wanted to dig a little deeper into the mysteries that encompass the next expansion. Unfortunately, we didn't get much, but at this point, we take what we can get. Enjoy!

The recently revamped All Points Bulletin Web site has been lacking regular updates for the past month, which is most likely due to the game's presence at conventions during this hectic season. But despite the lack of updates, a comment made to a Eurogamer staff member at the Penny Arcade Expo regarding the upcoming closed beta test shows the team is still hard at work putting the finishing touches on APB, which is tentatively scheduled to launch "early" next year.

According to Eurogamer, community officer Chris Collins said the team is "weeks rather than months away from starting closed beta." The comment was made following a presentation of an extensive APB demo. If you're interested in participating in the beta, you can still register by filling out this application.

According to Kotaku, PAX officials have confirmed a case of the H1N1 flu virus (more commonly known as "Swine Flu") at PAX. Due to the size of the event and the sheer nature of shoulder to shoulder walking traffic at conventions, it's entirely possible that this years Penny Arcade Expo was in fact a breeding ground for the virus.

Moments ago, Penny Arcade's Robert Khoo advise anyone who attended PAX that now has a confirmed case of Swine Flu to email him with your flight information. It's important to understand that while we refuse to jump on the "Swine Flu will turn us into Zombies" bandwagon, this can be a serious ailment for some and it's our responsibility to get the information out there. If you were at PAX over the weekend and have any symptoms, which include fever, cough, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue -- please seek medical advice/attention immediately.

Update (9/08/09 @ 19:45): We've just been getting reports all day about #paxflu sicknesses but we've just received notification that Matt Lefferts of Runic Games has tested positive for the virus. According to our source at Runic, the infected employee feels worse than he ever has before and started feeling sick on Sunday.

The future isn't all shining, magical and fantastic, but that doesn't mean it can't kick serious ass.  In Fallen Earth, developed by Fallen Earth LLC and Icarus Studios, players will find themselves immersed in the post-apocalyptic hell of Arizona's Grand Canyon, circa 2156.  Nuclear war has ravaged the world and, in the aftermath, people have discovered that chivalry doesn't pay off as well as a couple of shotguns and an awesome motorcycle.  Get ready to don your best Mad Max Mohawk and Clint Eastwood snarl.

Perhaps the most impressive feature of Fallen Earth is the setting itself.  The development team has accurately recreated the entire Grand Canyon, based on satellite topography, and over 1000 square miles of unforgiving, non-instanced desert is available to explore.  The harsh landscape is populated by 70 towns, plus 10 non-instanced player-controllable PvP settlements.  Much of the game is focused around vehicles and mounts, but even driving a relatively speedy ATV we're told it will take around three hours of real-time to make it from one end of the game world to the other.  If you plan on hoofing it between locations you might want to stash a healthy supply of straight whiskey and cigars within arms reach of your keyboard, because the mutant monsters don't take kindly to non-grizzled adventurers.

One of the prevailing themes at PAX this year was free-to-play, persistent-world games that are not only highly innovative but also easily accessible to casual gamers. Among the stand-outs is Dragon Nest, being developed by Eyedentity and published by Nexon.  We had the chance to play-test a localized demo of the game and chat with assistant producer Matthew McCullough from Nexon.
   
Dragon Nest is an action-combat MMORPG with gameplay reminiscent of Devil May Cry, although charmingly colorful and less macabre.  Players can group to form four-person parties and battle their way through fast-paced dungeons complete with challenging boss fights.  Items and gold are dropped throughout the dungeon, but the real loot is awarded based on each player's combat acumen at the end of a boss encounter.  The game scores players with a familiar letter-grade system that takes into account style and combo points.