I would have figured SOE would have gone from cats and dogs to something like hamsters or potbellied pigs, but instead they go and pull this huge pet update, with mythical and prehistorical beasts of all shapes and sizes now available. This means you can now be a fairy riding a unicorn, which I believe counts as winning the internet, according to the official rules.

Player housing is a feature players have been clamoring for since the game launched, and SOE delivers, with free apartments for everyone. Non-paying customers get a one bedroom layout, while paying subscribers get a free 2-bedroom apartment, with an option to buy a 3-bedroom condo in the game's marketplace.

A new fishing mini-game has also been added to the game, giving players 20 job levels to hook any of 30 different species of fish.

Finally, the Snow Days events are SOE's way of saying that they appreciate Christmas but don't want to commit to it in name in case someone gets offended. Expect candy, sweets, presents, and snowball fights - you know, Christmas things. Christmas. Say it with me.

You can check out all the new updates by heading over to http://www.freerealms.com/ and playing the damn game already. OR you can just live vicariously through other players with these Kotaku-exclusive screenshots. Your choice!

I thought DC Universe Online was going to try and coincide with the storylines currently happening in the comics, but apparently that isn't the case. See, in the comics, Bruce Wayne is dead (sort of), with his skull spitting out Black Lantern rings left and right as part of the Blackest Night zombie event currently tearing its way through the DC Universe. Dick Grayson, AKA Nightwing, is now Batman, and Robin is Damian Wayne, Bruce's son with Talia al Ghul.

Perhaps they'll work this all out by the time DC Universe Online launches for the PC and PlayStation 3. Grayson makes a fine Batman, but I miss me some Bruce.

The Chronicle Master system works much like City of Heroes Mission Architect, allowing players to use in-game tools to create their own missions and share them with the community. Since Sony Online Entertainment implemented the feature last month, players have been sharing the hell out of some missions. SOE cites one player who has already created more than 6,000 playable quests, all by himself. That's relatively insane.

It's even more insane when you take into account estimated subscription numbers for the game. MMO Data has Star Wars Galaxies' subscriber list estimated at around 50,000 players. Even if they were off by half and it was 100k, that's still 30 user-created quests per player. I suppose it helps that completing player-made quests earns you special in-game loot, but still, that's a pretty impressive ratio.

It just goes to show that players who've stuck with Star Wars Galaxies this long are really, really into Star Wars.

SOE's fascination with card games finally comes full circle. After years of creating collectible card games based on their popular MMO properties like EverQuest and Star Wars Galaxies, now the company's Denver studio is creating a strategy game based on the inspirations for those games - Magic: The Gathering.

Magic: The Gathering - Tactics draws on the Planeswalkers lore of Magic, putting players in control of 3D figures and spells from the popular CCG. The game will include both single player scenarios and online PVP multiplayer. As with any Magic-related product, fans can expect regular content expansions and strong tournament support, along with achievements and rankings.

"By collaborating with Wizards of the Coast, we're able to combine the strengths of both companies to develop an innovative, online, 3D game based on an extremely popular IP," said John Smedley, president, Sony Online Entertainment. "We're going to be taking the Magic: The Gathering Multiverse places players have never seen."

I still prefer the Xbox Live Arcade Magic game myself, as it's the straight-up card game and not a strategy derivative, but it's nice to see the PlayStation 3 getting a little Magic loving either way.

Look for Magic: The Gathering - Tactics to hit the PC in early 2010, with a PlayStation 3 release coming soon after.

Free Realms' Super Spooktacular runs from October 14th through November 11th, at which point everyone will give up and start playing Modern Warfare 2. The spooktacular features decorations, daily trick or treating, special seasonal mini-games, new quests, and more than 35 new costumes for players and pets to dress up in. You gotta love a game that comes with animal costumes. Take that, World of Warcraft!

"We are celebrating the first Halloween in Free Realms, with weeks of spooky activities and festive live events," said Andy Sites, senior producer at Sony Online Entertainment. "After a night of trick-or-treating the fun doesn't have to end. Dressed as a chicken, mummy, witch or any of the other crazy costumes available, kids can explore virtual neighborhoods with millions of friends from the safety of their own home."

Those of you who've been following the site for a few years may remember my irrational love affair with the word spooktacular. This is why Free Realms' celebration gets mentioned. For celebration plans for the rest of SOE's MMO lineup, feel free to hunt for each individual website. Don't search for 'spooktacular.'

To me, Planetside Next means we get a chance to take the essence of everything that was fun in Planetside and make it a lot better. Massive battles on a scale no other FPS will touch. None of this 64 player stuff. REALLY MASSIVE. With much better organization, and a tight focus on making sure the action is always going on, with awesome graphics.

No official title has been given - heck, the project has not even been officially announced - making Smedley's use of Next rather curious. And its deliberate capitalization suggests that is at least the working title of this game.

I have emailed the press contact for SOE to ask if this is indeed the new game's title. If I hear anything back, I'll put it here.

What Planetside Next Means to Me [Smed's Blog, via Joystiq]

Soccer comes to Free Realms in a big way with today's Goal Time update, which unlocks the various playing fields scattered across the land, allowing players to begin progressing in the Soccer Star job class. The update brings 20 new quests for the soccer aficionado, with new gear and equipment aimed at making the best of your footy career. Special skills and powerups will grant you an advantage on the playing field, as you test your skills against several AI teams or go 3-on-3 with a group of friends.

The Soccer Star job is available to free players up to level 5, with paying customers able to take their skills all the way up to the level 20 cap.

Oliver "Ollie" Queen, that is, known as much for his ad choice of kid sidekicks as he is for his signature weapons. His first kid sidekick, Speedy, once became a heroin addict. The current one has HIV. In other words, if Oliver Queen asks to take you under his wing, just say no. It isn't worth the hassle.

The email sought help from "loyal player(s) and experienced shooter fan(s)" in designing this next game. "Don't worry about the original PlanetSide, it isn't going anywhere," the mail assures.

The independent site Planetside Universe found the Web site registration, and also reports that it reached John Smedley, the CEO of SOE, who said only, "PlanetSide fans will be happy We have big things planned in the next 12 months. We're working on something new that's really cool."

I have emailed the press contact for SOE to ask if they'd like to shed any more light on this. Should we get a response, I'll update with it here.

Not sure that I really see a theme here running between all five screenshots. There's S.T.A.R. Labs in two or possibly three of the shots, but then there's the picture of the hospital in Metropolis and those guys fighting with the Green Lantern. Perhaps I'm just not up on my DC lore, being a born and bred Marvel fan, to really understand the connection here. Help me out here, comments section!

The Duelist on Demand Program allows players to turn their Free Realms character into a personalized card for use in the physical version of the tie-in trading card game. The Free Realms Trading Card Game Duelist On Demand pack retails for $12, and contains 10 cards complete with codes that allow them to be added to the online version of the game as well. Using Topps' print-on-demand technology, players will be able to create and share themselves with friends in a distinctively family-friendly way.

"This print-on-demand option gives Free Realms players an entirely new way to immerse themselves into the game, with a unique, physical Topps trading card," said Scott Martins, Director of Development, SOE Denver. "Imagine creating a trading card based on your in-game character and then trading it with your friends for their personalized card. It's as if you are passing out your very own Free Realms business cards."

Head over to the Free Realms website to give the card-creating a go.

More than just an art book, this large, hard-bound special edition tome is filled from cover-to-cover with the history of the EverQuest franchise, from the original release to the coming of EverQuest 2. You'll find developer interviews, box art, concept art, and developer commentary that will have a lapsed player itching to get back into the fray.

Or at least it had this lapsed player itching. SOE delivered a copy of the book to me late last week, and I've had a hard time putting it down. It's been years since I traveled Norrath, but half a decade of my life is contained in those pages, and the reminiscing is fine.

You can purchase the book for $34.99 directly from SOE by clicking the link I cleverly hid in this sentence.

Eurogamer reports that producer Matt Wilson, art director Corey Dangel, and producer John Smith have all defected from SOE and The Agency, setting up their own studio, Detonator Games. Eurogamer also writes of a rumored "reboot" and "rethink" of the PlayStation 3 and PC bound MMO, speculation that SOE reps flatly deny.

We heard a little loose talk at Comic-Con that the game may have been having some development issues, probably related to the departure of key Agency staffers.

The game is tentatively scheduled to hit in 2010.

"No reboot" to The Agency as staff leave News [CVG]

Playing along side the likes of The Joker and Harley Quinn, Yanagi uses his super evil character to freeze enemies into blocks of ice, which he then picks up and throws at other enemies. Another neat power: Creating a sort of vortex around yourself that pulls nearby items and flings them around the room.

I was already impressed with the ability to tear light poles out of the ground and bat people with them, but enemy ice cubes? That takes the cake.

The Playstation 3 and PC game is in pre-Alpha, so still no release date, unfortunately.

DC Universe Online Comic-Con Walkthrough

Lee and Wolfman talked about the challenges of squeezing the 75-year-old DC Universe into the game, focusing on "the coolest characters, the coolest content" for DCUO, which is still in a pre-alpha state. Geoff Johns was the one on the DC Comics side responsible for the overarching story in DCUO, with Wolfman fleshing out the story concepts appropriate for the game.

"If you think about a building, Geoff created the entire structure, the beams, now I'm filling in the individual rooms, the plastering," Wolfman said. "We're all coming up with story concepts that fit within the DC universe. They'll take up a paragraph I've marked up, and the developer turns it into 60 missions. It passes through us a second time to make sure it fits in the universe."

Those on the DC side sounded enthusiastic to be able to work within the broader confines of DC Universe Online, with Wolfman relishing the chance to write for the player who chooses to side with DC's villains.

"In DCUO sometimes the hero loses," he said, noting that DC writers are "trained to have it the other way."

Lee joked that it was challenging on the artistic side, making the transition from 2D comic book panel to 3D multiplayer online video game, bemoaning that "Drawing the other side of buildings was tough."

"There is no map of Metropolis," adds Johns, one of two main locations that DCUO is focusing on for its initial release. But Andersson pointed out the depth of the game's interiors, particularly S.T.A.R. Labs in Gotham City and the thrill of "cleaning up all the disasters that happen there."

"There's just too much cool stuff to put in the game at launch," Lee said, explaining SOE and DC's focus on two main cities. That obviously doesn't rule out other famous DC Universe locations in future expansions and patches, but considering the MMO is dated for "2000-something" right now, don't expect to hear anything about a Central City expansion any time soon.

Lee did joke that the bottle city of Kandor, miniaturized by Braniac, would probably be the easiest, quickest to download city expansion.

Sony Online Entertainment says the game is due to hit an alpha milestone "soon," but still has no release date to announce.

Upon getting word of the layoffs from IndustryGamers, we contacted our SOE rep to see if we could glean any more information regarding the layoffs, which have eliminated 41 full-time employees. SOE quickly shot back the same official statement the other site received.

In a move to increase operational efficiency and reduce costs, Sony Online Entertainment has eliminated 5% of its full-time workforce, equaling 41 people. SOE looks forward to continuing its leadership role in the online games industry as it celebrates the highly successful launch of Free Realms, the 10-year commemoration of its ground-breaking EverQuest franchise, and the continued performance of the company's other games.

And that's all they wrote. The layoffs should not affect the operation of any existing SOE titles, or the development of games like The Agency and DCU. We wish the 41 recently-unemployed industry professionals the best of luck.

Sony Online Entertainment Hit With Layoffs [IndustryGamers]

This teaser image popped up on the DC Universe Online MySpace page yesterday, along with a bit of overly-obvious teaser text: "I just saw the poster that we're giving out at San Diego Comic-Con and people will be "clawing" to get it." Subtle.

I'll be sure to have McWhertor add this poster to the annual list of Comic-Con exclusive merchandise he forgets to pick up for me.

DC Universe Online [MySpace via MMORPG.com]

Sony Online Entertainment today finally launches a guild system for Free Realms, allowing friends and like-minded players to unite under a single chat channel and head tag. Any two people can form a guild, as long as the leader has reached at least level 15 in any one job. Once another player is invited to the guild and accepts, the name you pick is sent in for review and you are assigned a temporary one in the meantime, just like it works for character creation. They are generally pretty fast with approvals, so your witty pun name should be showing up within a couple of days of submission.

This is probably the one aspect of Free Realms I won't be exploring. First, the only friend I regularly played with is now dead to me, and second, I really don't want to wind up acting as a babysitter in a family-friendly online game. I've got too much mining to do.

And more celebration gear is indeed on the way. Following the free t-shirt and Sony Station Cash given to players at the 1 million milestone and the party pack delivered upon reaching 2 million, the big 3-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh has SOE passing out a "3M Pet Party Pack", which features all sorts of goodies your cats and dogs can wear in the game. John Smedley once again has words to mark the occasion.

"SOE worked diligently over the past four years to ensure that Free Realms would take the online space by storm," said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment. "We are pleased to be able to provide such a vast, in-depth and, most importantly, fun world to an average of 500,000 new gamers per week."

And with that, I propose we stop following these announcements until they reach 10 million. Thoughts?

While I find the story of EverQuest's origin interesting enough without Jace's particular brand of humor, perhaps the attendees at the SOE Fan Faire in Las Vegas on June 25th through the 28th don't. That makes sense. I mean, they're only trekking halfway around the country in many cases to pay homage to the game and possibly get a little Wood Elf action.

"EverQuest was such an influential title; many people don't realize just how daunting of a task it was to create," said Jace Hall, President of HD Films. "With this documentary we were able to tell the epic story of the game and the people behind it while incorporating the light-hearted signature of the Jace Hall Show."

How do you folks feel about Hall's light-hearted signature?