In an effort to grow its player count, Mythic has released a new free trial for Warhammer Online — and this one never expires.

While most MMORPGs are offering limited 10- or 14-day trials, Warhammer Online is allowing new and returning players to enjoy their online world indefinitely without paying a dime. Of course, there’s a catch. The trial caps your characters at level 10, so if you’d ever like to advance beyond the low-level quests of the game, you’ll have to become a paid subscriber.

Still, there are plenty of things to do in those early levels, and you can play more than one character — with as many jobs as you’d like, so you can try out the first ten levels of each character class. Mythic is betting you’ll get enough of a feel of what Warhammer Online is all about to sign up and break the cap. They’re also hoping that older players will return to try the game out, and experience some of the recent enhancements they’ve made.

Warhammer Online has also introduced a new streaming client, which allows players to install a somewhat smaller version of the game and have world environments load in as you explore the world. This new client allows quicker access to the game.

Those interested in taking Mythic up on their offer can sign up for the trial online.

Square Enix’s president and CEO, Yoichi Wada again confirmed that his company plans to release Final Fantasy XIII to North America and Europe next spring.

Wada gave a brief comment on the game’s localization progress, saying that it is coming along well, and that the company should be able to release FF13 to international markets by the end of its fiscal year, in April 2010. This is more-or-less on par with the schedule laid forth back in January, when Wada said that April would be the earliest we would see Final Fantasy XIII outside of Japan.

The Japanese version of Final Fantasy XIII is now being completed for a December launch in its native country. The Japanese FF13 will be exclusive to the Sony PS3, while North America and Europe will have a choice between PS3 and Xbox 360 versions.

The upcoming MMORPG Star Trek Online has been given a release date. The game will be launched on February 2 in North America, and February 5 in Europe.

Star Trek Online will allow players to captain a starship in either Starfleet or the Klingon Empire. The game is currently in beta, with Cryptic working on ironing out the details for next week’s release. The game will be published by Atari.

Square Enix has revealed the method of character growth in Final Fantasy XIII. Instead of a traditional level-up system, FFXIII will introduce the Crystalium System.

Those familiar with the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X won’t have too much trouble adapting to this new system. In Final Fantasy XIII, characters will earn Crystalium Points, or CP, from battles — instead of the traditional Experience Points. The CP can then be used to unlock nodes on a grid, which grant character traits and abilities. Unlocking a node allows you to progress your abilities further down that area of the grid, enabling abilities beyond that node to be unlocked.

The Crystalium System places character growth on an expanding grid, allowing earned CP
to unlock nodes and create a path to desired traits, magic and abilities.

Magic upgrades will work in the same way, allowing the familiar progression through the tiers of Final Fantasy spells, such as from Fire, to Fira, to Firaga.

Presumably, players will have to choose which abilities they want their characters to unlock to make them most useful in battle.

Final Fantasy XIII will be out in Japan on December 17, with the English translation due to hit North America and Europe in Spring or early Summer of 2010.

Here’s the English version of the Final Fantasy XIV trailer shown at the Tokyo Game Show last week. Most of the content matches earlier trailers and screens, but it gives you a good feel of the FFXIV world atmosphere.

Final Fantasy XIV is due out sometime next year.

Speaking with Famitsu magazine, Square Enix’s Tetsuya Nomura, the creator of Kingdom Hearts, dropped a hint about the contents of Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep, and the possibility of a third main Kingdom Hearts title.

When asked about the replay value of Birth By Sleep, Nomura answered:

“I think there are a lot of puzzling elements, so maybe they’ll want to play the next game… And there’ll be a secret movie too.”

When asked to clarify whether or not “the next game” meant Kingdom Hearts III, Nomaru simply replied, with laughter:

“The next game will be the next game.”

Of course, it may be some time before we get full details about this “next game”, but in the meantime Birth By Sleep will be out this December in Japan, and presumably sometime next year in other territories.

Blizzard’s success in the MMO market makes other games claiming to be “massively multiplayer” look like schoolyard clubs.  Its online game, World of Warcraft, boasts 11.5 million subscribers worldwide.

That’s made some people wonder about Blizzard’s strategy for keeping those subscribers, and about their next MMO which has been secretly in development.  Wired sat down with Paul Sams, Blizzard’s COO for an interview, and to get some information about the game.

What they were able to learn is that the game is significantly different than World of Warcraft. Sams explains, “you’re not going to feel like they’re one and the same resulting in that you have to pick or choose” between WoW and the next game, though he recognizes that they may “lose” some WoW subscribers to their new game.

As for the nature of the MMO, all we know is that it’s not based on Warcraft or Starcraft, Blizzard’s obvious choices for a new game.

“… what I could tell you is that we’re intending to create a game experience that is unlike anything that has ever been done before. Something that I think takes things far beyond what anyone has imagined and certainly anything anyone has executed.”

Of course, World of Warcraft isn’t going anywhere. The next expansion, Cataclysm, is in the works, and Sams assures us that Blizzard is close to delivering on its annual expansion promises.

Some new details have emerged about the upcoming MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV (FFXIV).

One interesting detail is that surnames, or last names, may appear in FFXIV.  The idea came out of the attempts to allow players to keep their names from Final Fantasy XI.  Final Fantasy XIV producer Hiromichi Tanaka explains:

“… for Final Fantasy XI we had 32 worlds, and each character had to have a unique name in each world, so if they move to XIV there might be a conflict, so what we’re trying to introduce is surnames for the characters so people can keep their original names but add something else to it to make it more unique.”

This reminds me a bit of the now-past Tabula Rasa, in which you could also choose a last name that would apply to all of your characters.

Also, the world of Final Fantasy XIV, Eorzea, will have its own religion.  Now, I’ve already heard some opinions on this matter, but nobody should be surprised.

Religion plays a significant role in Final Fantasy XI, given the fact that much of the storyline has to do with various dieties in the fictional land of Vana’diel. Consider the fact that Wings of the Goddess refers to Altana, the apparently-supreme diety of Vana’diel, and that all Campaign forces are named after her. Similarly, Promathia of the second expansion has a divine status as a devil-like figure.  Final Fantasy games almost always have some kind of mythology, which is essentially religion, whether or not the characters seem to participate in a religious experience.

So, naturally, the world of Eorzea will be no different, although the attention it’s getting may indicate that religion plays a more important role, and that the characters in the game’s story are more dedicated to their faith.  It may also suggest that the gods are less apparent.  Although Altana never appears in FFXI, Promathia and several supposed demi-gods do, making the religions of that world less like the major religions of Earth.

A final detail is that Nobuo Uematsu has confirmed that he will be composing the entire musical score for FFXIV.  The development team was unsure if he’d be able to do that, given his current work with a wide number of other games, but the composer has signed on to complete the whole soundtrack.

Final Fantasy XIV is tagged with a 2010 release date.  Final Fantasy XI still has about a year of planned additions as well, and Square Enix promises that the games will run simultaneously for some time.

Square Enix has mentioned that it will not be showing Final Fantasy Versus XIII at the upcoming Tokyo Game Show.

The company says it will not be including any trailers or previews of upcoming games, but will instead focus on games coming out in the next year, for which it has actual gameplay demos available.  This also means that FF Agito XIII and the next Parasite Eve shouldn’t be expected.

A new demo of Final Fantasy XIII, however, will be shown.  That game is still due out this year in Japan, and next Spring elsewhere, while the other games in the FF13 project do not have release dates.

The Tokyo Game Show takes place in late September.

Today, the developers of Two Worlds have announced a sequel to their role-playing game.  Two Worlds II will be released this winter for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 (PS3), Windows and Mac platforms.  The game takes palce two years after the events in Two Worlds.

Two Worlds is a large-scale open-world RPG in the style of The Elder Scrolls or Gothic 3.  The game made its debut in 2007 and was fairly successful.  However, bugs in the game, including glitched achievements on the Xbox 360 version, brought a number of complaints from those who would have otherwise enjoyed the title.

Two Worlds II promises to correct these problems with a new game engine.  The announcement explains:

“Two Worlds II” presents a totally new gamer experience, one in which 2 years of intensive development has enabled quantum leaps in all spheres: completely overhauled AI and balancing standards, experienced authors, the active combat system and the brand-new engine all combine to provide an unforgettable experience where excitement, sheer enjoyment and graphics rule.

The game will be out this winter.  More on Two Worlds II as it comes.