How much of an MMO is button smashing and how much involves actual skill? This installment is an investigation of how armor choices and shield employment can yield more combat decisions.

Ryzom players with a creative role-playing bent now have a new place to show off their work. The new Ryzom portal, Ryzom: The Chronicles of Atys, features French, German and English areas in which players can post stories, read the lore of Ryzom,chat with game artists, etc. Check it out!

The Ryzom team has announced that the latest patch, set to go live on Monday, June 8th, will bring a host of new changes in the form of balance issues, interface and added missions. Find out what else is coming by clicking below.

I like stats as much as the next person (probably more), but when warfare is boiled down to raw probabilities, battlefield skill disappears. The building of the best stat base becomes much more important than any sort of tactical competency. Instead of seeking a skill based work-around, games come up with new statistical probabilities.

In this installment, Jonathan Steinhauer looks at the last MMO class archetypes, the Healer, and why this role at least is solidly developed.

Ryzom, the recently resurrected MMORPG by Cyprus based company Winch Gate Property Ltd, is back with a new billing system, a clean slate for all previous subscribers and a two week free play time. Details after the jump!

The archetypal concept of the tank assumes that PvE opponents have the mental capacity of cattle. Instead of a monster intelligently attacking what would make his enemy most vulnerable (the Healer) or what is the greatest actual threat (the DPS), it attacks the one opponent that isthe smallest real threat and the hardest to kill: the Rodeo Clown... er Tank.

In this week's RoleCraft, Jim Moreno looks at the issue of player housing in MMOGs and how it can shape one's roleplay experience.

Starting a new series on the archetypal MMO classes, Jonathan Steinhauer begins by looking at DPS and the issue of hitting versus damaging.