“Experience all the sights and sounds of fabulous New Vegas, brought to you by Vault-Tec, America’s First Choice in Post Nuclear Simulation. Explore the treacherous wastes of the Great Southwest from the safety and comfort of your very own vault: Meet new people, confront terrifying creatures, and arm yourself with the latest high-tech weaponry as you make a name for yourself on a thrilling new journey across the Mojave wasteland. A word of warning, however - while Vault-Tec engineers have prepared for every contingency,* in Vegas, fortunes can change in an instant. Enjoy your stay.

* Should not be construed as a legally-binding claim.”

Red 5 Studios have laid off workers and restructured. As a result, we may never see (here in the US at least) what the company has been working on in secret for FIVE YEARS! Kind of ironic. Red 5 at 5 years old basically cancels their game for North America. I’m disappointed. I’ve been paying attention for half a decade. Although it’s hard to feel too beat up when I never actually knew what it was I was looking forward to.

WONDERKING ONLINE, a free-to-play fantasy title from Ndoors, has launched this week.

GLOBAL AGENDA and STAR TREK ONLINE open for service in a few days. Early adopters are already busy leveling up.

Blizzard has revealed Season 8 Arena armor for WORLD OF WARCRAFT.

and BATTLEFIELD HEROES has added Vampires and Werewolves (watch below).

In non-MMO news; the fantastic MASS EFFECT 2 has already sold 2 million copies in the few days it’s been available and RED DEAD REDEMPTION has another must-watch trailer online. Have a great weekend!

“Dragonica Online’s newest end-game dungeon invites brave heroes of the Dragon Fellowship who have reached level 60 and above to venture past the iron gate and explore the very bowels of the labyrinthine mansion. Fight terrifying monsters and your own mounting fear as you face off against the forbidding GateKeeper, the menacing Rahnoff the Werewolf, and Count Van Cliff himself.”

1. APB (ALL POINTS BULLETIN) claims a release date of “March, 2010″. It is now nearing the end of January, 2010. We are conceivably six weeks away from the launch of the game. So far, there is no news of an Open Beta, Collector’s Edition box or of Pre-Oder bonuses, etc. We normally see info of this type when close to a game’s supposed release date. Any day now we should hear important news from Realtime Worlds regarding the APB release or latest launch delay.

2. The following MMOs are still under development and presumably heading for eventual release, despite having been in production for 5 to 10 years; ADELLION, ATRIARCH, GOON WORLD and HERO’S JOURNEY. Guys, please. Can you just cancel or release something already? I’m tired of caring. Especially you, HERO’S JOURNEY. Don’t tease me like that…anymore…for six years.

3. There are no known MMOs, available or in development, based on these potentially lucrative IPs; Harry Potter, Warner Bros. cartoons, POKEMON, GRAND THEFT AUTO.

That’s enough Deep Thoughts for one day. My brain hurts.

“APB Beta FAQ: Yes, there is a beta…We’re starting small but we’ll be adding more people to the program as time goes on. If you’re not selected at the start of the program, don’t despair, we’ll keep your details and we’ll invite much bigger numbers into our beta as we approach release.”

“This is the launch trailer for Mass Effect 2. Watch Commander Shepard, Tali, Garrus, Grunt, Thane, Miranda, Jacob and the rest of your squad get ready to try to survive against the Collectors with the fate of humanity in the galaxy at stake!”

If rumors are to be believed, ZeniMax Media, Bethesda’s parent company, have been working on an ELDER SCROLLS MMO since “late 2006″, have spent “tens and tens of millions of dollars” and have nearly 100 devs slaving away on the project. This could be good. Investigate the links above for more!

“D&C Quote: At this point, we know that Zenimax Media, Bethesda’s parent company, opened up an MMO division headed by Dark Age of Camelot’s Matt Firor and have been working on an unannounced game. What we didn’t know was that Bethesda let slip some information in the court case against Interplay, and now they have filed to redact those statements so their competitors can’t find out about it.”

“Hi-Rez Studios is the largest independent video game development studio in Georgia. Established in 2005 with the mission to create exceptional online interactive entertainment, Hi-Rez’s first project and debut title is Global Agenda, a fast-paced, action-oriented massive multiplayer online game set in the Earth’s near future — a spy-fi world of technology and player-driven conflict.”

And now - a selection of arbitrary song lyrics about cities; “In the city there’s a thousand things I wanna say to you.” “Rock, rock…Clash City Rockers!”, and “Intoxicated by a quarter to ten. Lost and naked in the city again.” Thank you, goodnight.

“The game’s optional online features and services will let gamers create interconnected cities on virtual and persistent planets. By combining a fantastic single-player game with the social and multiplayer aspects of an MMO, CITIES XL™ will shape the future of the genre by offering more variety, bigger cities and multiple gameplay layers.”

Below we have a handful of new screenshots (which made their media debut at CES) and after you soak those up, you can hop over to the official LEGO UNIVERSE web site. The site is now fully-featured and bulging with images and details. All they need to do now is actually release the thing. Maybe that will happen one day. Beta sign-ups and hands-on demos at CES bode well.

“The first MMOG – massively-multiplayer online game – based on the LEGO play experience, LEGO Universe will launch on the PC during the second half of 2010…Developed by The LEGO Group and NetDevil, LEGO Universe is a family-friendly online game, appropriate for players aged eight and above. The LEGO brick lies at the center of the experience, and several levels of building are available, from simple gameplay-oriented challenges all the way up to sophisticated brick-by-brick building.”

Although we must take all rumors with a hearty pinch or three of salt - I’m going to put my bottom on the line and say I believe we will indeed see both of these IPs as massively multiplayer titles in the near future. It’s not really a big stretch is it? Both CALL OF DUTY and HALO have proven themselves to be major money makers time and time again. Adding a monthly fee for fans is a no-brainer for Activision and Microsoft.

Curiously, we already learned that Ensemble were developing a now-canceled Halo MMO as far back as 2006. That one could have been interesting.

Hit IncGamers, Destructoid and Blues for more.

“Destructoid CoD Quote: We’ve gotten word that IW is hiring people from Sony Online Entertainment, one of which may be the lead designer of EverQuest II, and that a member of Blizzard employees may also be involved to help Infinity Ward get this new title off the ground. Our Intel seems to indicate that Call of Duty will continue as an annual franchise while IW runs this MMO alongside it.”