Thank you all who attended the 10th Anniversary Developers Chat earlier today. For those of you who missed it, our crack team of log monkeys have been hard at work to bring you a full log of the chat. We'd like to give the members of Sony Online Entertainment in attendance a special THANK YOU! Without you, none of this is possible. You'll find said log after the jump. Here's to another ten years of EverQuest!

It seems to be a popular belief that all of the original ideas for an MMO have already been used in some fashion. Of course, this kind of small, defeatist thinking is fuel for the originality fire that seems to be raging over at NCsoft, as demonstrated in City of Heroes' new Architect system.

The Architect system gives players the ability to design their own missions and story arcs to share with the entire City of Heroes community. In yesterday's press release, NCsoft outlined some of the additions that players will see with the architect system. "Using an intuitive interface, players can browse through other player created missions and create their own missions from the ground up. Players will determine details ranging from environments, mission objectives, and enemies, to written fiction and character dialogue; giving their stories nearly infinite depth and personalization."

Admittedly I haven't always been a Star Trek fan. To that extent, I've only begun to explore the Star Trek final frontier in the last eight months. I find it amusing that something as non-direct as Cryptic licensing an intellectual property could actually introduce me to a new lifestyle. What's more, a lifestyle I’ve always been out of the loop about from within my circle of friends. I love Star Trek, but the biggest question I continue to ask myself is, "Will I love Star Trek Online?"

Sitting down with Craig Zinkievich at New York Comic Con, was a genuine pleasure. Even though we had spoken with Craig back in October, there was a lot of new, exciting stuff to go over; namely the character customization that was shown in a trailer at the Con, as well as the differentiation between space and ground combat. For the sake of structure, I'm going to start with character customization.

Earlier in the week Sony Online Entertainment announced that famed comic book writer Marv Wolfman was joining the DC Universe Online team as the third major talent from the comic book industry. Fortunately for you, we were in New York for Comic Con and had the chance to ambush an unsuspecting Marv, talking him into sitting down with us and even answering a few questions. During the interview we discovered how much of a gamer Marv really is. Calico Vision for the win my friends!

Tamat : To start, welcome to the DCUO team. It's a cool project to be on, I'm sure.

Marv Wolfman : Yeah, I've been waiting for it to happen, because I've known about it for a while. But, now it's finally at the stage that I can come in.

Togikagi : To start off, how long ago were you approached with this?

As Knights of the Old Republic fans know, BioWare has always done an amazing job of telling unique stories that embody the Star Wars Universe. Star Wars: The Old Republic, a new MMO in development by BioWare Austin, is likely to keep that traditional method of storytelling, but the team has decided to try something new: a web comic series that will build the lore leading up to where the game starts.

BioWare writer Rob Chestney is working with Dark Horse Comics to create this bi-monthly, three-page treasure that will find its way to the game's official website later this month. We sat down with Rob at New York Comic Con to talk with him about the overall purpose and direction of the comic titled "Threat of Peace." It's important to note that famed editor Dave Marshall and seasoned artist Alex Sanchez will be joining Rob to give fans exactly what they've been waiting for, which is a deeper look into The Old Republic.

It seems to me that most of the MMOs in development in past years have been mostly clones of their competition. This is extremely frustrating when one of the requirements of your job is to play as many of these games as possible. One of the reasons I'm excited about Jumpgate Evolution is because it seems to break that stale mold that has flooded the genre with redundantly repetitive products. Fortunately, during our first demonstration and live gameplay session at New York Comic Con, I learned this to be true. What's more, it’s more enjoyable than I previously thought it would be.

Our meeting with the Jumpgate Evolution team started with a bang when we realized Scott Brown, the President of NetDevil, would be giving us our tour. One of the first things he said to draw us in was about the kind of game JGE is striving to be. "What we're working on is both a full PvP and PvE MMO. You can play whichever way you want. One of the things we're trying to do is to not make you decide that you only want to do PvP or PvE. There are different parts of the game that have different rulesets, but both of which are complete games," said Brown.

Last week in an Interview with Lead Designer, Salim "Silius" Grant, we got the inside scoop about a series of massive content updates that is going to essentially be a 'free expansion' for Vanguard. We had the opportunity to talk with Jason "Ikik" Weimann, a Programmer on Vanguard, about some of the changes that he's made to the game's tools as well as some of his secret projects on the side. Ikik has been active in the games community by helping facilitate gameplay test sessions, as well as his well known personality during Vanguards beta back in 2006 that led to his original position at Sigil, and now with Sony Online Entertainment.

Tamat : You've been working on Vanguard for nearly two years now. How did you come to work on the game?

Jason : I started working on the game back in April of 2007.  Back in the day, I used to play a ton of the original EverQuest.  One of my server’s GMs ended up becoming the QA manager on Vanguard and one day I got a message from him while I was playing.  He asked me if I wanted to play the Vanguard beta, and I jumped on the opportunity.  After playing the beta for a year or so, he offered me a job doing QA & tools for the QA dept.  Then, after the SOE buyout of Sigil, the QA team got all changed up, and I switched off of there and started doing design tools.  From there, I got into gameplay code, and now I do a mix of gameplay, tools, db, and other stuff.

Tamat : You’ve also been responsible for some of the monumental additions and changes to Vanguard that your average player may not be aware of. In your mind which of those has been the most significant?

One of the clichés or stereotypes that has been commonly pinned on gamers is that, if you're a gamer, you must be a complete social reject or a nerd. This has always bugged me, mostly because that hasn't ever truly been the case. Over the years, the public's perception has changed drastically because of the attention that celebrities (read "influential people") and the media have given gaming. Additionally, the industry as a whole has grown up quite a bit since the "King's Quest" days. Not only has this changed the stereotype, but it's brought social groups together that in the past, wouldn't have been likely to associate with one another. 'Online Gaming' is something I'm passionate about because of what it does for diversity. Race, Religion, Occupation, Political View. None of that holds any relevance in a game. Instead of Black and White, you have Horde and Alliance. I think you get the point that I'm trying to make here.

Mia Rose is one of those closet gamers who at first glance, you'd never in a millions years assume has an 80 Warlock, and in a guild that has Malygos in farm status. However, that's the reality. She's an easy on the eyes gamer who speaks the language and would rather be at home raiding, then out at a party.

We had the opportunity to meet up with her at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) earlier in the month to get an idea as to just how big a gamer she really is. What we uncovered in the interview, might surprise you, excite you, and possibly even make you fall in love. If you thought Mia Rose was hot before, wait until you see her talk about World of Warcraft.

Make sure to watch our video interview with Mia Rose, after the jump.

There are a few MMOs out there that hold a special place in my heart; one of which doesn’t have the best reputation, but is an extremely fun and innovative game nonetheless. Of course I'm talking about Vanguard, which had a rough launch and hasn't quite recovered from the players that canceled shortly thereafter. But now it seems that there's hope. As we mentioned over the weekend, Sony Online Entertainment has added a few of their titles to Steam in an attempt to bring new players into the game. In addition, old accounts in good standing were reactivated until January 31st to give former players the opportunity to return to Telon.

The development team has also been working on an amazing amount of free content that is unlike anything SOE has done before. The team is raising the level cap, adding AA's (Alternative Advancement) and implementing new raids and revamps to existing group content. We sat down with Salim "Silius" Grant, Lead Designer of Vanguard, to talk about all of the new 'expansion like' content that will be making its way to the live game soon.

Tamat : Hey Salim, thanks for sitting down with us to talk about Vanguard.

Salim : Thanks for the opportunity Andrew!

Tamat : Vanguard has been live for nearly two years now but unfortunately the 'buzz' in the community has died off quite a bit. What is the games current state?

We had an amazing time at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, as hopefully made obvious by our coverage. My single greatest regret was leaving the camera at our hotel when the Allakhazam team placed 2nd in the SanDisk Rock Band 2 tournament. Fortunately for you, you don't have to listen to me sing. That said, we still have a few videos that haven't been released quite yet. Namely the one you're about to see and our exclusive interview with Mia Rose (who's also an avid World of Warcraft player) which will be available for your viewing pleasure on Friday.

In the following video, we took a break from CES to pay a quick visit to the world famous AVN/AEE (Adult Entertainment Expo). While I can't convince you that gorgeous women wearing next to nothing wasn't a factor in our decision to make this video; my honest goal was to find gorgeous women wearing next to nothing that play video games! I'm happy to report that the mission was a success. To my dismay however, we weren't able to find any WoW players, but we did discover that Jesse Jane, Jenny Hendrix and Sinn Sage all play video games. I'll settle for that.

Check out the video where we ask "Do You Play Video Games", right after the jump.