It's the holiday you might hate or appreciate, but either way - it's got some of the goofiest gags brought to us. Assembled here are some of my favorites this year.

Nothing quite makes a game look old than a decade, and watching this Planetside 2 alpha footage - yes, as in it's not even close to being finished - is making me realize just how old Planetside is. Wide, sweeping shots of the maps, the bases, user interface for foot and vehicle combat, tanks and jets, and more. And my god, is this game going to be pretty. 

I'm just gonna let Wowhead's own Ashelia speak for me here:

"In short, Ragefire Chasm is redone. Trogg corpses litter the molten floors of the instance--they aren't the enemies anymore. Instead it's a new cult, former members of the Horde called the Dark Shaman. Garrosh has ordered you to clear out Ragefire before they can become another Twilight's Hammer and it's a pretty obvious lore point calling to Garrosh's eventual overthrow."

Completely new bosses and trash mobs and a much more trimmed overall Chasm? Count me in. 

Uh, wow, this is something I really didn't expect to see in The Old Republic - legacies.

You know how the Skywalkers had an entire family, including Mara Jade and all of their kids? That's something Bioware thought would be cool to implement into this game, so they did. You can now link your characters across a single server, which opens up new options and abilities. That is so cool.

See the video after the jump.

After Continent of the Ninth, the upcoming action MMORPG, had a successful closed testing, WEBZEN is going to enter an open beta in April. But they will also be preparing for much bigger news, too - a tournament. 

There's few solid details on what the rewards are, but this is a great way for the action MMO to get started. On April 12th, it will be only to the media, but after that it becomes a mad dash between the 15th to May 6th to complete the missions. If you fill the requirements, you are entered into the tournament. The closed beta coming up also features more content than the first time around! 

May the best MMO player win!

It's not much of a video, but Turbine left the announcement to the frontpage - the Druid, a long overlooked DND class, is joining Dungeons and Dragons Online.

The Menace of the Underdark expansion is on its way, and with it comes the Druid. Those who pre-order the anticipated expansion get in-game cosmetic bonuses, like a helmet, a wolf cub pet or - in a subtle shoutout to fan-favorite Drizzt Do'Urden - an onyx panther Figurine of Wondrous Power and an onyx panther cub. Sure, it's not Faerun in Dungeons and Dragons Online, but at least Drizzt doesn't make an appearance! 

Menace of the Underdark launches June 25th. 

This one requires a little bit of backstory, most of which Todd himself explains in the video, but I'll recap - Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, the action-RPG sandbox game released recently, was originally aimed to be a stand-alone game not tied with the Amalur universe. However, when Big Huge Games changed hands from THQ to 38 Studios, Curt Schilling and his merry gang of troops (including Spawn artist Todd McFarlane and fantasy writer R.A. Salvatore) decided that releasing a single-played RPG set in the Amalur universe would be beneficial to introducing players to 38 Studios' Amalur-set MMORPG, codenamed "Copernicus." Thus, we saw the release of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. The MMO followup is still in development, and in an interview, McFarlane lets slip the game is slated for "later this year."

Wait, what?

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning has been met with good to mixed reviews thus far, and it would be beneficial for a follow-up to take place, but in 2012? Even if it comes out late year, we've heard very little about the game, and this is the biggest news to land in some time. This also puts it - depending on Blizzard's timing - in direct competition with World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria. This is a perplexing development, but is it just an off-the-cuff inaccurate comment made by McFarlane? We'll have to see.

Patch day for Rusty Hearts players! The upcoming content update adds "Expeditions," which are essentially eight-man raids, as well as a brand new dungeon, the Dead Man's Valley. Dead Man's Valley promises unseen challenges in the labyrinthine maze, as well as the hardest boss ever seen in Rusty Hearts, the Bone Dragon. I would have preferred to call him a dracolich, but we all have our flavors. 

The new character, Edgar Grosvenor, plays identical to the game's poster girl Angela, using either a scythe or a magic sword. But Edgar is faster. As he is her avatar (the Rusty Hearts term for opposite-gender character), this was likely an intentional move. 

Rusty Heart's patch lands March 22nd. 

To those of you who couldn't make it to the Game Developer's Conference 2012, En Masse Entertainment just released a one-two content combo for TERA. The video above shows off their new Temple of Temerity, which plays like an MMO survival mode where you defend a relic from an onslaught of enemies. Difficulty is said to be high, but the reward is as well.

Also coupled with the trailer's release is a short novelette ebook which fleshes out more of TERA's expansive lore, written by independent publisher and writer Bridget McKenna. The Amarathine Heart deals with Madoc, a former soldier, saddled with guarding a caravan, only to have the mission go all wrong. As a longtime gamer, I can truly understand his pain at having to deal with an escort mission. 

The Amarathine Heart is out right now, and is $0.99 at the Amazon.com store.

ArchlordX, the sequel set 100 years after the original Archlord, just entered its second closed beta test, and with it comes a snazzy new video, showing off much of the new game's monsters, characters, and spell effects. NHN and Codemasters Online Gaming are putting a lot of effort to making the new game look updated while retaining the original Archlord's feel, and the video shows it, even featuring the original game's music. 

The game's release date is yet to be set, but it can't be too far away. We'll keep an eye on it as more develops.