As part of their ongoing national tour, developers of the self-titled apocalyptic MMO Fallen Earth announced a contest where their fans will have the opportunity to choose the final tour stop. The final stop is slated for May 2 at an undetermined location and will let fans the chance to meet the dev team, demo the game and collect a surprise in-game item.

The tour consisted of previous stops in Raleigh, N.C., Baltimore, M.D. and more, including the GDC in San Francisco.

“GDC provides us with an excellent opportunity to showcase the in-game elements we have been working on since we went into closed beta,” said Lee Hammock, lead game designer for Fallen Earth. “Our testing community has been instrumental in helping us develop a more compelling game environment and we are excited to give them the opportunity to choose the last destination on our national tour.”

Fallen Earth is currently in closed beta testing and is set to launch later this year.

Marvel is taking another stab at online multiplayer games, as the company has signed an exclusive 10-year deal with Lego Universe publisher Gazillion Entertainment to develop its comic book properties into MMOGs.

This report by Wall Street Journal says that the companies will share revenue of the games. They are expected to announce details on the partnership tomorrow.

The comic book publisher had a MMO in development dubbed Marvel Universe Online. It was being developed by Cryptic Studios for PC and Xbox 360 until its cancelation by publisher Microsoft over Blizzard’s dominance in the MMO market.

Cryptic Studios has confirmed that Champions Online, its upcoming super-powered MMO, will alunch on PC before it hits PS3 and Xbox 360.

"All I know is it’s coming out first on the PC," said design director and Flagship Studios veteran Bill Roper. "We really, really want to bring it out on console, the consoles are just hungry and perfect for an MMO, and we’ve done a lot of work to ensure that there’s nothing to prevent us from doing that… It’s an area beyond my control."

The game is set for release sometime this spring. It is to be published by Atari.

Some new screenshots from Star Trek Online have been released, showing off the Klingons and environments.

Moving on to another project, Blizzard’s Jeff Kaplan has left his post as the director of World of Warcraft in order to work on the company’s unannounced next-gen MMO.

"World of Warcraft has been such a central part of my life these past six and a half years, and it’s success would not have been possible without the tremendous community around it, so I wanted to say thank you to all our players who’ve shared this amazing experience with us so far," he wrote in a forum post.

Kaplan noted that he still plans to be involved in the MMO’s future, adding that Tom Chilton and J. Allen Brac will now handle day-to-day operations.

"When all is said and done, WoW is still my favorite game. I play it every day. None of that passion is gone," he concluded. "If anything, it fuels the challenge of making our next MMO even better. We know we have some big shoes to fill."

Three new screenshots from Star Trek Online have been released, showing off what players will find in the upcoming MMO.

Following up from news that Ubisoft has acquired Massive Entertainment, Kotaku carries a quote from Ubisoft president and CEO Yves Guillemot saying Massive will play a key role in the publisher’s MMO strategy. However, their efforts will be less than massive, noting that they will first focus on “light” MMOs that are very popular in Asia.

Said Guillemot: "We just bought it from them since those guys have Blizzard so they didn’t need that studio as much as we do, and those guys are extremely strong in RTS (real-time strategy), so they are going to help us also get closer to the MMO space. Our goal there is to go first with light MMOs…that have been extremely popular in China but are also coming in the U.S. and Europe and are generating lots of good revenue, so our goal is first to start with light MMOs, and then in the future also come with RPG and RTS, also in the MMO space."

From Big Download comes word that the North American launch of Huxley has been delayed until the first half of next year.

The subscription-free Unreal Engine 3-powered MMOFPS was previously supposed to launch this year. The extra time will be used to focus on localization issues.

There’s a developer update from Avatar Reality on Eurogamer which tells us that the studio’s “massively multiplayer virtual world” Blue Mars has been delayed.

The game is based on Crytek’s CryENGINE2, which powers Crysis and its expansion Crysis Warhead.

Reports suggest that beta testing will begin in January 2009 and is expected to last three months. A full launch is expected in April 2009.

A new trailer for Kingdom Under Fire II is now online, offering a look at the upcoming massively multiplayer online action real-time strategy game (did that make sense to you?).

The game is due out sometime in 2009 for PC and Xbox 360.

Beta signups for upcoming elite space combat MMO Jumpgate Evolution has been going well for Codemasters and NetDevil, who jointly announced that over 150,000 testers have signed up for the game. If you are interested, signups are still open.

The full game is set to go live sometime in 2009, with a closed beta due to go live soon.

Codemasters Online sends word that their popular subscription-free MMORPG ArchLord has opened a new hardcore PvP server to cope with increasing demand for the game.

The server will exclusively focus on PvP combat for both new and existing players alike. To celebrate the launch of “Cyripus”, the company is running a number of in-game events to challenge players. This includes various in-game leveling contests to being the actual ArchLord. Prizes will be given away, too.

Ed Relf, Director, Marketing, Codemasters Online commented, “This is a hugely significant development for ArchLord. The new server has been brought online to cope with the massively increasing demand for the game. We are still attracting tens of thousands of new players each week and with almost ¾ million players now registered, there’s never been a better time to play this great free-to-play MMO.”

Marking its development status, EA today announced that the open beta for BattleForge, an upcoming MMO, will begin on November 7. In development at Phenomic, the game has players trade virtual cards to build their army and waste their enemies.

”After three years in development, we are very excited to open the game to a mass audience and see how people play. It’s going to be a great process watching players experience the revolutionary concept of creating their own armies and teaming up on a massive scale in RTS,” said Volker Wertich, Creative Director.

BattleForge features both single-player and cooperative scenarios as well as PvP ranked duels. Coop battles can be played in terms of two or four; players can also take part in 12 player battles. It is due out early next year on PC.

MMO fans take note, as the 2009 MMO Calendar is now officially on sale. The calendar includes images from various popular games, including upcoming titles like The Agency and DC Universe Online.

If you aren’t interested yet, they are also running a contest where customers will be entered to win prizes for each game. This includes boxed copies, premium accounts, passes, beta accounts and more.

The official World of Warcraft website offers details on the upcoming Wrath of the Lich King expansion for the game. There is a new Death Knight gameplay information page, new gameplay features page and new wallpapers among other things.