The Penny Arcade Expo has become an important convention for Red 5 Studios. The team officially unveiled Firefall at PAX Prime in September 2010, and they just showed off the first playable demo at PAX East over the weekend. I stopped by the massive booth to get my hands on the free-to-play multiplayer online shooter, and it's safe to say that fans of the genre should give it a try when it launches later this year.

Just to make it clear, this game is going to be free-to-play. It will be supported by an item shop, but Lead Designer Scott Youngblood emphasized that the team doesn't want players to be able to “buy power.” Once we had the pricing model details out of the way, it was time for me to get an overview of the game and dive into some combat.

At PAX East I had a chance to sit down with Fred Howard, the vice president of marketing for Wizard101, who was excited to talk about the new Wintertusk zone that's coming to the game. Players will get to explore a whole new zone, new quests, new spells and much more. Read on to see what Howard has to say about the future of Wizard101.

Nexon unveiled the new hands-on demo for its upcoming free-to-play action MMO Dragon Nest at PAX East. The game is developed by Eyedentity Games and is scheduled to launch this summer in North America. It combines fast-paced action with a distinct art style to create a fun to play fantasy game. Global Marketing Assistant Moon Kim was excited to walk me through the new demo and showcase the game's real-time instant gameplay.

"The strength of Dragon Nest is that everything happens in fast action. All the actions you take are real-time actions. So you dodge in real time and you attack in real time. Even if you have only one hit point left, you can dodge and attack to stay alive and still have a chance to defeat your enemies," said Kim.

If you were on the floor at PAX East over the weekend, you couldn't help but notice the massive Star Wars: The Old Republic booth. Players lined up for hours to get their hands on the Taral V Flashpoint demo, while others crowded near the stage to watch various presentations and take pictures with Darth Vader, stormtroopers and some Jedi.

Luckily, I had the opportunity to try out the demo from the perspective of a Trooper Vanguard. This meant I was jumping into the instance as a level 32 tank and just learning my abilities for the first time. No pressure, right?

The San Francisco Children's Museum may seem like an innocent location, but dark forces were at work behind its walls during the Game Developers Conference. It was at this venue that I had the opportunity to watch a live demo of The Secret World, Funcom's highly anticipated modern day horror MMO.

“Today we're going to showcase The Secret World,” said Ragnar Tornquist, senior producer and game director, as the lights dimmed. “It's currently in alpha, which means it's running on live servers in Europe. We're going into closed beta in two months. We're entering the final phase of development.”

And with that comment, a video began playing on the screen that set the stage for this world full of secret societies, urban legends and unspeakable evil.

Last month, members of the ZAM team were given an opportunity to visit Big Huge Games' Maryland studio to get a first look at Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. There are a few reasons why this single-player action RPG is glowing brightly on our radar. First and foremost, it's being made by a dream team: Curt Schilling, a three-time World Series champion and the founder and owner of 38 Studios; Todd McFarlane, a comic book artist who happens to be the creator of Spawn and owner of a successful toy company; R.A. Salvatore, a best-selling author who is best known for his Forgotten Realms novels; and Ken Rolston, a renowned designer who played a big part in The Elder Scrolls series of games.

And if that's not enough reason to keep an eye on the game, it's also our first glimpse into the original fantasy universe that will act as the setting for an upcoming MMO, as well comic books, novels, toys and additional games.

During our time at Big Huge Games, we listened to the team talk about the massive project and toured the studio to get a behind-the-scenes look at the game. We kicked things off by watching a live demo of the RPG, so keep reading after the jump for our first look at Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.

During my visit to the Game Developers Conference, I had the opportunity to get my hands on a new TERA demo and play through a portion of the Smuggler's Hideout instance with Producer Chris Hager and Associate Producer Stefan Ramirez. With these two guys playing as the main tank and healer, it's safe to say we took down one of the dungeon's huge bosses and emerged victorious. Of course, I like to think my damage-dealing skills helped out a little bit.

Before we dove into the demo, however, the producers took a moment to discuss the depth of TERA's combat. They explained how the team has focused on the enemy AI, the user interface, the combo system and “big ass monsters” to make TERA's skill-based action combat stand out among a sea of other MMOs.

It turns out that this week's Game Developers Conference is a highly newsworthy event for Guild Wars 2 fans. During an NCsoft presentation, I had the opportunity to watch a live demo of the Norn starting area and witness the reveal of the thief profession. I also learned how ArenaNet is striving to set Guild Wars 2 apart from other MMOs by focusing on innovation in the questing mechanic, dynamic combat and the character's personal story.

When it comes to gauging the success of specific MMORPGs, while most tend to focus on opening week sales and subscription numbers, for me, the sign of a really great MMO lies in how the game evolves over the years. On that note, probably one of the best examples of an MMO that knows how to continue evolving is Turbine's Dungeons & Dragons Online, and this year seems like it will be no different. I met with DDO's Executive Producer, Fernando Paiz, and DDO's Producer, Eric Boyer, for an in-game tour, to check out DDO's big plans for their 5th anniversary celebrations.

At around 11 a.m. during our Gamer Day visit to the Trion Worlds offices in Redwood City, California, the fan site and press site folks parted ways temporarily. The fan site crowd went on a tour of the offices and met with the development team, while members of the press were led to a room with a long line of computer consoles. Taking seats around the table, we found Rift accounts with several level 50 characters waiting for us. My own computer had two Defiants and two Guardians, one of each calling. Since I primarily played a mage in the beta events, I took control of one 20 levels above what I was used to and logged in.

The zone we entered was snowy and placed us right outside an instance. “This,” the representative told us, “is the Abyssal Precipice instance. Have fun!” I looked around the room at my fellow news folks. Given level 50 characters pre-made and set up with tier 2 gear and the best spells would make it a blast, right? Right?