Oh hey, guys and gals, did you know that it was just Friday the 13th? Yes, it was. Don't worry; you'll have nothing but good luck on this week's recap of livestream goodness. If you missed a stream that you really wanted to see, or if you've never tuned in to check out what we do, head on over to our Twitch.tv page and keep an eye out. Be sure to bookmark the livestream guide as well so you can keep up with the current schedule. We have a lot of variety in our line-up, so it's always good to check back!

This week we had some great stuff! MJ has been streaming like her life depends on it lately, first jumping into EverQuest II, then spending some time in Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. She had to pay some attention Aion, of course, and there, she showed off some player housing and took a trip on an airlink. Mike was back in EVE Online avoiding death-rays and spacemen and later found himself dead in RIFT... again. The Mists of Pandaria have tempted Richie once again, and thankfully our cameras were there to capture it. Meanwhile, I spent some time boating in Second Life and gave a first look at Stronghold Kingdoms.

Just look at that lineup, will you? We're proud! Now click past the cut and get to viewing!

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There are three responses to every patch released by every game, no matter what the patch does or doesn't contain. There will be people who decry the patch as something horrible, those who act indifferent, and those who enthusiastically gush about how wonderful it is. But there are some patches that stand out as being real game-changers, from Star Trek Online's enormous Season patches to the various content-and-system upgrades doled out regularly for World of Warcraft.

If you've been playing long enough, you can reflect on the patch history for your favorite game. What was the best patch that you can think of in terms of its individual impact? Was it one of the major overhauls introduced to Final Fantasy XIV? One of the story updates for Lord of the Rings Online? Or some of the large epilogues added to Guild Wars? What has your nod as the best patch ever, and why?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Ever played an MMORPG and thought that you could do a better job making it than the developers? PlaneShift is more or less completely built around that idea. It's an open-source, community-developed game that's still not at full "release" status but does allow players and developers alike plenty of participation in the process. While the development cycle is slow by necessity, the game has just recently released its 0.5.9 patch, bringing with it a large variety of improvements and refinements for the engine and the game itself.

The game's art has received several sweeping overhauls; the biggest changes have been aimed at the game's engine in the form of fixing bugs and improving support for a variety of graphics cards. There are also updates to the game's AI scripting, allowing NPCs to act in a more organic and unified fashion. If you're an old hand at the game, the patch is no doubt worth checking out -- and if you've never heard of it, perhaps this is enough to pique your interest.

Final Fantasy XIV has changed a lot since launch. That's kind of the thing you say about every game, but usually you can see most of the telltale signs of where the game had been. That's not quite the case with the huge, sweeping changes that Eorzea has undergone. You can see some of the comparisons, but a lot of mechanics have been widely overhauled and altered so that it barely even feels like the same game.

This, of course, is not stuff you catch as a casual observer. Heck, there are things I don't notice because I'm knee-deep in Final Fantasy XIV and have gotten more accustomed to the changed version over the new version. So I thought this would be a good week to try taking a step back and looking at all of the things that have changed in the game since launch... or at least the major points that you might not have caught.

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For those gamers who have been patiently waiting to hear about GU63, the past few weeks have been a treat. We've shown off a few trailers on Massively, the official site has hosted a couple of team interviews, and even the SOE Twitch TV channel has been focused on EverQuest II. In fact, the recent webcast was the second part of a featured series on the update, and this one took a closer look Skyshrine and also answered a few fan questions. EQII Producer Holly "Windstalker" Longdale, Lead Designer Akil "Lyndro" Hooper, and SOE Executive Producer Dave "SmokeJumper" Georgeson sat down to preview what's coming to a server near you. In this week's Tattered Notebook, we'll look at the highlights and analyze what it means to both new players and old. Read on for the skinny!

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Part of the allure of Lord of the Rings Online is its surprising depth and complexity, particularly for those who like to get the best performance out of their characters. Part of the frustration of LotRO is its obtuse or absent explanations behind the many systems in the game.

One of these systems remained on the outer edges of my attention span until one day I gave it my full focus. This was the field of weapon damage types, a subject I was vaguely aware of yet assumed I didn't have to know much about it to get along in the game. After some examination, I realized that while you don't need to understand weapon damage types to have an enjoyable play experience, it does affect the game in a small but important way.

So if you've ever wondered what "Beleriand" or "Westernesse" in your weapon tooltip was all about, today's column is here to help you navigate the somewhat confusing area of damage types.

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Thursday evening was Yuri's Night, an evening celebrating the flight of Yuri Gagarin, the first human being in space. Our younger readers may not realize this, but outer space is a dangerous place that people used to dream about, and human beings developed a great deal of technology to explore that dangerous frontier. Then someone realized that it was much easier to develop technology to show videos of cats jumping into boxes on portable phones. But as a big fan of the space program and humanity's efforts to expand beyond our planet, I like to honor Mr. Gagarin for his brave flight into the unknown.

This week's WRUP, however, has nothing to do with the unknown. It does have a bit to do with space, depending on what games the Massively staffers are playing over the weekend. And it also talks about when a game is dying, which really doesn't have any ties to the header once again. Still, bravely venture past the break and let us know what you'll be up to in the comments.

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A few months ago, we asked whether you prefer studios to assign vet rewards and similar bonuses to your accounts or your characters. But we've never asked whether you think games should grant out-of-game rewards to players whose accounts have characters of a certain level of power, and that's because it's so rare. In fact, I can't think of a game that's done so other than Star Wars: The Old Republic, which stunned just about everyone this week by announcing a free month of playtime to players who just so happened to have reached level 50, a plan amended yesterday to require instead a certain tier of legacy experience.

Cynical readers suggest that such a move panders to those most likely to leave (thus affecting subscription tallies) and betrays the loyalty of day-one veterans who play several lowbie characters rather than focus their attention on a single toon. After all, why should it matter how far your characters have progressed when you're paying the same monthly sub as everyone else?

What do you think -- do you want to see other studios dole out playtime and other rewards based on your character's level or gear or other arbitrary measurements of success and achievement?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Just as in real life, player characters in MMOs have more than one set of clothing for different situations. Sure, I don't divide my actual clothes up in usual MMO categories ("well, those are my PvP pants"), but I have things I wear around the house that I wouldn't wear out in public or when attending a funeral, for instance. But even that doesn't compare to a high-level roleplaying character, who has not only PvP gear and PvE gear and solo gear tand the like but also funeral gear and casual gear and so forth. It's all the joy of assembling a real wardrobe alongside the joy of stat comparisons.

Roleplaying outfits are universally important. Even if your character is in a game without visible gear (such as City of Heroes), you probably have different outfits for different circumstances (civilian clothes, for instance). But there's an art to putting together a good roleplaying ensemble, and it's not just as simple as equipping the same equipment you wore 10 levels ago and calling it a day. You want to create a distinct impression, and that takes a little more doing. So how do you assemble a good roleplaying outfit?

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Betawatch bids farewell to Tribes: Ascend this week; it's officially launched and shiny, and even better, it's F2P, so go get your pew on! If you're that one guy who just doesn't dig jetpacks, maybe try a free beta key for UFO Online, currently still in closed beta.

Meanwhile, fantasy MMO heavyweights Guild Wars 2 and TERA have been ramping up their beta hype with sneak-peeks, open beta plans, and pre-purchase kickoffs. If you're more into vampires, you'll be pleased to learn that Dark Legends has also rolled out to Android phones and Chrome. And finally, we've gotten another update from the Glitch folks about that game's impending housing revamp.

Enjoy the full Betawatch roundup!

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If the news of yesterday's Star Wars: The Old Republic promotion to give level 50 players a month of free game time rubbed some members -- the non-50s, specifically -- the wrong way, then BioWare's on the scene to make amends. The studio announced that it's expanding its Legacy promotion to include a wider range of players.

In addition to applying to any player who's reached level 50, the 30 days of free game time will now be applied to the account of anyone who has reached Legacy Level 6 in the game. This condition requires that a player has unlocked his or her Legacy at the end of Chapter 1 and then achieved six levels across any number of toons (Legacy XP is shared across an account).

Another change to this promotion is that players have over a week to hit either one of these goals. Players now have until 1:00 p.m. EDT on April 22nd to achieve either level 50 on a character or Legacy Level 6 on an account to receive the free month of play.

Following news of yesterday's Legacy promotion, the SWTOR forums exploded with discussion over the topic, with the main discussion thread reaching over 250 pages on the subject.

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Dude, there was a ton of big shooter news this week!

I mean, this isn't terribly unusual, particularly since the genre is expanding at a rapid rate, but when I've got to cut interesting items out of this column for length reasons, you know it's been an eventful few days.

Join me after the break for a recap on everything from Firefall to Defiance to John Romero and beyond.

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It's been a month or so since we've heard from the folks working on Fallen Earth. Today, that news drought ends courtesy of a dev blog by one Ninjanomics.

The update is all about the changes in store for the town of Haven. Given the fact that the town is one of the more prominent features of the Northfields area, and given that it "had a confusing layout, was cruelly prohibitive to framerate, and didn't well reflect the serenity of the Lightbearers as a faction," the devs thought it was time for an extreme makeover.

Ninjanomics (also known as GamersFirst's art ninja) walks us through the rebuild process and details both the stylistic and the layout changes to the town. The original design had "no logical flow to speak of," which led G1 artists to divide Haven into two sections: the town proper and a grove area. As a result, the new Haven experience is markedly smoother for weary wasteland wanderers and fans of Fallen Earth's free-to-play sandpark ambiance.

If you haven't had a chance to make your purchase in Wizard101's Mount-a-Palooza sale going on right now, fear not! We're giving you a chance to get the five rarest mounts in the game in one set, all for free!

KingsIsle Entertainment was kind enough to send us 25 codes for these rare mount sets, which we'll be giving away through our Twitter page, our Facebook page, and a random drawing.

Each rare mount set contains: Swift Gryphon, Bone Dragon, Great Hornocerous (2 person), Nightmare, and Blood Raven (2-person). For a chance at your own set, simply send an email to shawn@massively.com with the subject line "Gimme My Wizard101 Mount Code!" before Sunday, April 15th, at 8 p.m. EDT. On Monday, we'll present 15 random winners their very own code. Be sure to copy and paste those exact words into the subject line of your email, or it won't get filtered properly. The remaining 10 codes will be randomly released on our Twitter and/or Facebook pages throughout this entire weekend, so keep your eyes open!

Also be sure to check past the cut below for images of three of the mounts in the package.

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Much has been written about Aion's humongous 3.0 patch (and there's much more to come courtesy of Massively's Wings Over Atreia column). One thing that hasn't gotten a lot of attention, though, is the game's new cartography feature.

In a nutshell, NCsoft's new update lets players draw on Aion's in-game map in four different colors, the better to plan out PvP attacks, strategize for PvE, or even show a newb exactly where to go.

What's that? This isn't some ground-breaking new MMO feature, you say? Well, you're right. It's pretty cool, though, and we'll also point out that unlike the similar functionality in Guild Wars and third-party World of Warcraft mods, your Atreian cartographic masterworks may be saved, loaded, and passed around amongst members of your group, legion (which is Aion-speak for guild), or alliance.

There's been a big buzz for the latest update to Champions Online. The entire game is undergoing a significant overhaul for the newest expansion, On Alert, which has just gone live today. The developers are adding in talent trees for player heroes as well as a dramatic overhaul of the way equipment works.

We sat down with Rob Overmeyer, executive producer for Champions, and asked him a few questions about the update and what it will mean for Millennium City's superhero population. Naturally, he had a lot to say!

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It's not often that we use this space for news recaps. Generally MJ and I have a particular topic (or game) in mind for Some Assembly Required's biweekly rotation. This time, though, I figured we should highlight some of the recent goings-on with a couple of pertinent sandbox titles simply because Massively news posts don't offer enough space to expound on anything other than the basics.

Join me after the break, then, for a rundown on what's new with Darkfall and The Repopulation.

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According to the official Star Wars: The Old Republic Twitter feed, all servers will be offline until about 7 p.m. EDT following an emergency maintenance.

Yesterday, Update 1.2: Legacy dropped to live servers with next to no hiccups. But this morning, BioWare brought down the servers for a very minor patch. In fact, the patch notes contain only two lines. However, several players began claiming that they were unable to access their characters when the servers were restored at about 9 a.m. EDT. Other players reported quest givers and even the new guild bank were missing. At approximately 10:30 a.m. EDT, BioWare shut down the servers for emergency maintenance, explaining the situation on the forums as follows:

During last night's maintenance, some areas of the game were reverted to pre-Game Update 1.2 status. Some areas were 'missing' and characters that were in those areas would be unavailable. We took the live servers offline at approx 9:30AM CDT (Austin time).

Our server and deployment teams are now working to rebuild assets for the live servers, but this is unfortunately not a quick process. We currently estimate that our downtime could be up to eight hours, but that time may be extended.

Look for updates on this article if the maintenance time happens to be extended or if more information surfaces.

[Update: BioWare has informed us that it will compensate everyone with a day of game time because of these issues.]