The celebrations for Final Fantasy XI's eleventh year anniversary are continuing in epic fashion! Starting on May 27th, the Community Team will be doing their part too, with the "XI Years of Final Fantasy XI" contest! For eleven days, the Community Team will be creating threads on FFXI's official forums with certain tasks for players to perform and take a screenshot of them performing. Of course, prizes are definitely in store, such as the special Yovra Replica and several other in-game furniture pieces! So ready yourself for travel and adventure, for May 27th through June 6th will surely take you across all of Vana'diel!

Let us know what you think of this new contest over on the ZAM forums!

If you need to do some leveling up or AA'ing, this is a good weekend to do it!

It’s a Double XP Weekend! Starting Friday, May 24^th you’ll enjoy earning twice the XP as you adventure in Norrath. But don’t miss out! This bonus will go away Monday, May 27^th at 11:59 pm PDT.

Gamers love MMORPGs. And gamers love Minecraft. So what would happen if someone combined the two along with features from Monster Hunter, Eve Online, Animal Crossing and more? 

In each article of The Scrying Pool, I look at what is and what could be. After taking a look at what is present in Guild Wars 2 now, whether that be lore or game mechanics, I then ask What If? What if this happened in the lore or this feature was added in a future patch.

The gem store seems to really be working for Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet has just announced a permanent  cut in the box price for GW2, a testament to its confidence in the game not needing a drastic price cut as well as confidence in its gem store to continue to thrive.

One of the big real estate items in the gem store is Town Clothing. The town clothing however, doesn't seem to live up as the big ticket items that the gem store showcases them as.

If you haven't heard of Cryptozoic Entertainment's new TCGMMO, HEX, I recommend right now that you go watch its video on its Kickstarter page.  HEX, Shards of Fate is the next step in making MMOs outside of the traditional avenues.  Cryptozoic asked itself why no one has combined the Trading Card Game and MMO genres before and answered its own question with a new game that it took to Kickstarter on May 8, 2013.  This title quickly hit the front page of Kickstarter, and many gaming news sites.  However, the excitement didn’t stop there, with HEX skyrocketing beyond its original goal of $300,000, to over $500,000 in just a week; the money continues to flow long past the asking price. 

Holly "Windstalker" Longdale made this announcement:

Double XP weekend -- all types including guild XP - and Vault Sale starts tomorrow [Friday] at noon PDT and runs through Monday, 11:59pm PDT!

Enjoy doubled adventuring, alternate advancement, crafting, and guild experience. The bonus weekend will run from 12pm (noon) Pacific Time on Friday, May 24 and will conclude at 11:59pm Pacific Time on Monday, May 27.

Dungeons & Dragons Online is opening up pre-purchases in preparation for its latest expansion: Shadowfell Conspiracy. A dark presence looms over the prison city of Wheloon and evil lurks in the shadows. Prepare to go head to head with the evil Empire of Netheril as you uncover the mystery and danger in this next chapter of Dungeons & Dragons Online.

Anyone who hasn't made the plunge into the world of Defiance can catch up over the Memorial Day weekend. Lasting through 1:00pm PDT on Sunday, May 26th, players will be able to try out Defiance through Steam without having to pay the standard box price.

To top off the deal, Defiance will be on sale for those who want to buy the game and keep on playing after the free weekend is over. This sale includes 30% off both the standard and Digital Deluxe Editions as well as a sale on Bits, the in-game currency for Defiance.

Those who haven't been keeping up on the TV show will then have a chance to catch up on Monday, May 27th. From 4-11pm, SyFy will be hosting a marathon of the first six episodes (all episodes released to date). These episodes, as well as a season-to-date recap, will also be available for viewing throughout the weekend on the SyFy website.

Matt "Mattsta" Adams

Is it an MMO? Is it a glorified Co-op? When it looks this good do you really care?

The latest cinematic from Destiny features a bedside tale that I'm pretty sure would leave most kids a) confused and b) having nightmares about wolves.

This is it FFXIV fans! Finally, we know exactly when we can fully experience the rebirth of Eorzea thanks to news broken on the official Twitter account: