The first strip in the brand-new webcomic Grinders is live on the Massively.com site! Webcomic artist Lem has teamed up with the MMO-happy crew to create a new weekly series based on the stories and characters of real MMO players. It sounds like a fantastic idea, and I’m really hopeful it takes off. Go submit your MMO stories to Lemmy and see them archived in ink!

There’s a lot I could say, enough to fill many additional posts and bore the crap out of you. Suffice it to say, my life is changing and it’s all a bit surprising.

This month will mark the end of my tenure as managing editor for Massively.com, and a conclusion to my career as a games journalist. I have been offered, and accepted, a position as a game designer at the SOE-Austin studio. I’ll be working on the DC Universe Online project.

As a result of this new position my wife and I will be moving to Austin, Texas at the end of the month. We’ll be there in about two weeks, actually.

I sat in on the Gamers With Jobs Conference Call for this week, and talked a bit about this newness there too. Feel free to listen in.

Please be aware: Massively is not closing. This isn’t the result of a cutback, I haven’t been fired, the site is 100% awesome. In fact, Shawn Schuster is going to be taking over as the Managing Editor of the site. As a reader of the site as well as a blogger there, I’m super pumped about Shawn running the show. He’s a top-notch professional and a fantastic writer. I’m really looking forward to see what he does for the site.

So what does this mean? Well, I’m going to be stepping away from MMOG Nation for a few months while I completely reorient my life. There’s no reason I can’t keep blogging here, just have to aim for a civil tone and probably not do a lot of talking about specific games. Though I offer no guarantees I’m not going to gush over Free Realms.

And of course, I won’t be done podcasting. I won’t be on Massively Speaking every week, but I’ll try to drop in on SUWT and GWJCC if they’ll have me.

Feel free to drop questions in the comments, I’ll try to answer as best I can. And thanks, as always, for reading.

Brooke Pilley, probably better known to you as Snafzg over at the Greenskin blog, is the latest addition to the Massively.com blogging family. Brooke has signed on as a full-on blogger, and he’ll be touching on everything under the MMO sun … not just Warhammer. That said, his in-depth knowledge of Mythic’s flagship product is going to see heavy use on the site. I’m really pleased to have him aboard. Make sure to go give him a welcome at his announcement post:

If you want to look for the brightest spot in all this, consider that you now have an “inside man” on one of the biggest MMORPG news sites with Warhammer Online as his primary agenda. I’m really excited to try my hand at writing “newsy” pieces about games other than WAR as well. Actually, I’m just excited all around. Part of that is that I now get to learn about certain details like tomorrow’s big 1-29-09 announcement in advance. All I can really say is that it’s going to knock your socks off!

Seeing as I actually got a lot of the presents I asked for this year, I can’t help but pitch in and ask Santa for some more goodies next year. Every year, around the world, we secularly ask ‘Saint Nick’ for loot under the Christmas tree. I’ll try not to buck the trend. As I’ve put out for the last two years, here is what I want to see under the MMO industry tree figuratively for the next twelve months. Come on, MMO industry: gimme some pretty packages!

Here’s what I want for my 2009 year in MMOs:

• Mega-quantities of awesome from SOE. Agency, Free Realms, and DC Universe Online are all very near the top of my awesomedar. I am really looking forward to the Free Realms Beta, and my hope is that Agency will go into Beta at some point near the end of the year. I don’t imagine we’ll be seeing much of DCUO publicly, but at least one more chance to play that kickass demo would be much appreciated.
• An ongoing stream of content from BioWare about The Old Republic. Not only am I personally really thrilled that we’re finally getting something, professionally I can’t get enough of that SWTOR.
• The lads at 38 have told us that we should see real news on Copernicus sometime in early summer. I want their kickoff to be a huge splash, their content to be incredibly well-received, and their design to be absolutely inspired. I’ll be straight: I think they’ve got a long haul ahead of them. The fantasy genre is going to be hell and a half to enter as a direct competitor to WoW. But if they want to give it a try, who am I to stand in their way or do anything but cheerlead from the sidelines?
• After one of my favorite interviews of the year with two gents from Red 5, I have been obsessed about getting more details on their game. I would absolutely love to know what the hell they’re doing down there. More than any other ‘dark’ company right now, Red 5 is making the game that I’m desperate to explore. Here’s hoping they give us a bit more insight on their plans thiscoming year.
• I’m greedy, I know, but I really want a look at Guild Wars 2 as well. It’s been more than a year since Arena.net put out Eye of the North, and GW2 was well along in development back in that point. While I completely understand why it’s not out yet, the tomb-like silence that we’ve seen from the company on the topic of their sequel to their groundbreaking title has been a bit unnerving. I really hope Arena will finally be able to throw back the curtain and give us a look at the goods.
• Tons of success to my fellow MMO bloggers and podcasters, be they industry paragons like Scott or enthusiast juggernauts like Tim (Van Hemlock). While I know I don’t contribute a lot from this domain much any more, I’d like to think that the MMOblogosphere is a pretty darn special place to be hanging your hat. Here’s hoping it continues in 2009.
• Continued good gaming vibes and personal connections between myself and my guilds! A year ago I was a boring-as-hell soloer, and now I have a community in all three of my primary MMOs! I hope that 2009 finds me growing even closer to the Podcasters of Bree, Revelry and Honor, and What Would Thrall Do.
• The will, intelligence, writing skill, and patience required to run Massively.com. I’ll be honest, a year ago I never in a million years would have imagined I’d be running an MMO news site. It’s exactly, precisely what I’ve been working towards for the last few years and I feel incredibly lucky to be here. It’s hard, it’s challenging, it’s stressful, and to be honest it doesn’t pay that well. But it’s Massively, and I’ve got lots and lots of love.
• The energy to recommit to doing the MMOG Nation Broadcast … a podcast that should be returning soon!
• And, of course, the dedication to keep the feed alive here at MMOG Nation.

Feel free to drop in what presents you want from the industry next year in the comments.

First commented on by Scott and now a subject of some discussion in twitter over a whole other sort of ad, Massively’s RSS feed has been a subject of much facepalmery on my part in the last week. As a commercial site Massively is beholden to elements over which we are just not in control. The RSS feed, how its ultimately used, and what elements of it we can tweak, are one of those things.

Let me make this clear:

• Massively does not in any way support gold farming or gold farmers.
• Massively does not advocate for or against any political argument, candidate, or point of view. It’s as neutral a place as we can make it, given the fact that everybody is biased one way or another.
• All ads on the RSS feed will be removed as soon as we can arrange it, but the reality of the situation is that after 7:30pm ET on a weeknight (when I found out about this) is not a time when much can be done one way or the other.

As lead blogger I sincerely and honestly apologize for any frustration or annoyance this has caused the MMO blogging community. Please always feel free to get in touch with me if you have a concern about Massively.com.

Thanks.

Read below the cut for something far less serious that helped me get through the headdesking and facepalming.
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Not sure if it’s something you’d particularly inclined to enjoy, but kind of had a ‘big deal’ post go up on Massively today: A World of Warcraft player’s guide to Warhammer Online.

Whether or not you see many similarities between Blizzard’s epically popular title and Mythic’s Warhammer Online, the reality is that World of Warcraft players are going to feel very comfortable in the brand-new game. Much of the framework that has made the world of Azeroth so successful over the last four years is in full force within Warhammer. Questing as a central component to leveling, an intuitive user interface, and combat very much like that found in Warcraft are all going to be great handrails to incoming players.

Yes! I kid you not! There’s a Buffy MMO in the works, and the Firefly game is delayed. More’s the pity.

In an announcement to press today about the keynote address to this year’s Virtual Worlds Conference in Los Angeles, the folks at Multiverse have announced a trio of new and interesting projects … The third is, apparently, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer massively multiplayer game. Multiverse, if you’ll recall, is also the company that holds the license to develop an MMO based on the Firefly television show, another Joss Whedon fan favorite. While the Firefly title has now apparently been ‘delayed’, it sounds as though the Buffy title is already in development. From the announcement: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer: A massively multiplayer online game based on the critically-acclaimed Joss Whedon television series. Currently under development at Multiverse, ‘Buffy’ exemplifies a new era of game design, allowing consumers to play it either as a fully immersive 3D environment or as a Flash-based 2D game.”

Update: We’ve got an interview with Multiverse’s Corey Bridges, who explains what that 2D/3D thing is about, and says the Firefly game has actually been worked on in the past. Without me! Wonder of wonders and shock of the ages.