It's been almost a month since Square Enix relaunched their second MMO, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. While many of us are still making our way through the story and towards level 50, other players are already there and looking for more content. We've heard some discussion about the 2.1 update prior to launch, but recently at the Tokyo Game Show, producer Naoki Yoshida gave everyone a quick look at what we have to look forward to with ARR's first major update.

EverQuest II players have been waiting for more information regarding Heroic Characters since their announcement back in July at SOE Live. Earlier this afternoon, Holly "Windstalker" Longdale posted a Producer's Letter that dishes out the scoop on this feature. Some brief points of this include:

• A "full" Heroic Character is level 85 (current cap is 95) with 280 Alternate Advancement (AA) points (current cap is 320).
• Existing and new players may create one free Heroic Character between October 1 and October 15, 2013. Existing accounts created on or before September 22, 2013 may create one per account; accounts created on or after September 23, 2013 are limited to one per household.
• Existing characters can be "upgraded"
• After the free period of Oct 1 - Oct 15, the cost of this feature is 3500 Station Cash (SC; valued at $35USD)
• After the free period of Oct 1 - Oct 15, players can use a "free trial" which temporarily grants level 85 and 100 AAs. The trial lasts until you hit level 86 and may have other restrictions.
• All Destiny of Velious (DoV) content will become free for all players when Heroic Characters launch. This includes the content from the DoV launch, the addition of the Fortress of Drunder in Game Update 60: Children of War, access to the Fae, Arasai, and Freeblood flight quests and the Game Update 61: The War of Zek adventuring quests, the Withered Lands and Skyshrine zones added in Game Update 63: Skyshrine, and more recently the Cobalt Scar and Siren's Grotto zones that were added in Game Update 66: Scars of the Awakened. All associated tradeskill content unlocked by these updates should be available as well.
• The Age of Discovery and Chains of Eternity expansions and their associated content and features must still be purchased seperately.

Continue reading below for the full Producer's Letter and FAQ.

EverQuest Next team members Jeff Butler, Terry Michaels, and Omeed Dariani recently sat down to discuss a Round Table poll question: "Should all races have access to play all classes?"

Dragon's Prophet soars into the scene with its official launch (after some delay), announced by publishers Sony Online Entertainment (NA) and Infernum Productions (EU). The free-to-play MMO features dragons, dragons, and even more dragons. Players can capture a wide variety of unique dragons who can be brought out (one at a time!) to fight at your side.

A lengthy open beta, with characters created being carried over for launch, led to many features being overhauled, tweaked, and added to the game. New dungeons, a level cap increase, and a revamped starter zone are only a few of the improvements made that players of all levels can now enjoy. The game's action-oriented combat and end-game siege system will keep you locked in for hours of fun.

This afternoon Electronic Arts announced the first expansion pack for SimCity, Cities of Tomorrow, is currently in development for PC and Mac and will be released on November 12, 2013.

“Will the world of tomorrow be a utopia powered by clean energy or an industrial society consumed by mass commercialism?” said Patrick Buechner, General Manager, Maxis Emeryville. “With SimCity Cities of Tomorrow, players can build the future as they imagine it. Transport your Sims on MagLev, power your cities with fusion reactors or tidal wave generators, manufacture a legion of drones to serve your Sims and build massive MegaTowers that dwarf modern skyscrapers. We’re giving you plausible technologies to take your cities onto a journey 50 years into the future. What will you create?”

The Tokyo Game Show is underway and Square Enix has released a feast of Final Fantasy for fans. New trailers for Final Fantasy X/X-2 Remastered, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, and Final Fantasy XV have been making the rounds this morning. Readers who are interested in the Playstation 4, coming out this fall, can enjoy a look at some combat for Final Fantasy XV.

With convention season coming to a close, the Senior Producer of Everquest Next, Terry Michaels, comes center stage with details regarding the upcoming Everquest Next: Landmark. During the initial reveal of EQ Next it was hinted that Landmark would be an "extension" of sorts to the main game, where players would be free to roam the world and begin building terrain and structures from the ground up.

In this latest EQ Next Producer's Letter video, Terry talks a little about what details fans can expect to be unveiled in the coming months leading up to the EQ Next: Landmark beta.

“See this grin on my face? I love talking about this game!”

After spending an hour talking to David Williams about FireFall, it’s easy to see why. As one of the lead designers at Red 5 Studios, Williams spends much of his time adding to a post-apocalyptic vision of Earth. But his passion for the game runs deep, sprawling into eSports and beyond.

After I’d caught up with everything the team is planning for Stage 2 of open beta (and there’s a lot of it), he tells me about a recent Jetball final. Following on from all the work the team had poured in over the past year, with an impressive spectator mode, new game types and new PvP gear, I’d asked how the competitive scene was going.

 “The European team – Epsilon – they’re probably the top FireFall team right now. And they were up against a team that’s been surprising everyone recently. It went to the third round of the third match, and it was 3-0 to Epsilon. The other team, they were pushing and pushing, Epsilon was bunkered in and it was a done deal.”

“The other team did this crazy push with about 30 seconds to play, got in and dunked the ball for three, and tied it up. Everyone in the chat room is going berserk. ‘Oh my god, we’re going to extra time.’”

“Wait a second. Ball just respawned. Epsilon’s going for it.”

“Five. Four. Three. Two. He’s taking the shot.”

“One. Bank shot. Ball goes in. One second to play, Epsilon wins by a point. It was nuts. So yeah, to answer your question, it’s going pretty well.”

When I sat down with Chris Cook at Gamescom to find out about the latest from Wargaming, I was caught by surprise. I’d often thought of the World of Tanks developer as a young firm with an incredible success story. But, while the latter is undeniably true, the company was now celebrating 15 years of online strategic warfare.

Over the past year, Wargaming has continued to grow. Its 16^th office opened earlier that month in Austin, Texas, focusing on providing business intelligence and analytics that can be used to improve games even further. The developer also acquired Day 1 Studios – now Wargaming West – and Gas Powered Games.

Though Wargaming has grown from 1600 employees a year ago to roughly 2000 now, Cook described it as smart expansion. To him, it’s about making sure that newcomers to the team are a good fit with an internal culture that’s developed over time.

As I sat in a meeting room at Gamescom, I remember thinking: what does Jon Lander actually do? Since handing over the reins of EVE Online to Andie Nordgren and Kristoffer Touborg, CCP’s Executive Producer was heading off to do something in mobile.

It was only when we met up that I finally discovered the truth: Lander is a champion of great ideas. Case in point was EVE: VR, a project he greenlit to bring to EVE FanFest in April and then, buoyed by success, encouraged them to take it to E3.