Sony Online Entertainment announced today, EverQuest II Extended, which is a new free adventure service coming to players around the world. The critically acclaimed PC franchises now absolutely free!

EverQuest II Extended will offer players a subscription-free business model, and also operate in parallel with the subscription based game, for the first time in the MMO industry.

“As the digital entertainment market evolves, SOE is focused on continued innovation in content delivery that best fit the needs of the growing consumer base,” said Sony Online Entertainment President, John Smedley.

The world’s premier publisher and developer of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, NCSoft, revealed the official release date for the free expansion pack for Aion entitled Aion: Assault on Balaurea.

Aion: Assault on Balaurea is going to provide another exciting chapter in the world of Aion, which will immerse players into a rich and unique storyline.

The free expansion pack will be available digitally to players, who already have a purchased copy of Aion in North America and Europe on the 7th of September, 2010.

Perfect World Entertainment announced that their first Historical MMORPG entitled Heroes of Three Kingdoms is going to launch its closed-beta testing phase on the 13th of July, 2010.

Heroes of Three Kingdoms is based on the one of the greatest battles in history, in which players will be able to participate and change the course of history that helped shaped China as we know it today.

“Heroes of Three Kingdoms is one of our most anticipated games to date and we’re very excited to be launching the closed beta in North America in less than two weeks,”

The closed-beta test for the highly-anticipated World of Warcraft: Cataclysm has just begun, as announced by Blizzard Entertainment.

Blizzard Entertainment has already started approving invitations of players who participated through their Battle.net accounts. The beta testers will be able to enjoy an early look at the game and also provide feedback which will be valuable to the balance issues of the game.

CEO and co-founder of Blizzard Entertainment, Mike Morhaime, said that their focus with Cataclysm has been to build on the knowledge that they have gained through the previous expansions to deliver the best and most compelling World of Warcraft content for their players to date.

The leading provider of multi platform online game engines and services, Exit Games,  announced today that Photon, which is its network engine, is selected by Bigpoint to power the online features of The Mummy Online. The Mummy Online is a MMO based on the film franchise “The Mummy”.

The Mummy Online Massively Multiplayer Online Game is developed by a studio led by Jesse Schell, Schell Games, with Unity Technology.

“Bigpoint is quickly becoming one of the leading publishers of licensed games, enjoyed by over 130 million users around the world.

Omniverse Games announced that their new sports free-to-play Massively Multiplayer Online game entitled Beach Volleyball Online will start its open beta testing phase on the 24th of June, 2010.

CEO of Omniverse Games, Jonathan Seidenfeld, explained that they love hearing from their fans, and that they take their suggestions very seriously, and try to act on them as often as possible. That is why the open beta of the game has been optimized for speed and includes many of the suggestions that were received from players during the closed-beta test. The Open Beta will also feature a beach shop with six-hundred items of beach fashion and accessories, in addition to the gameplay enhancements.

Nexon America today announced that gamers can officially join in the fight, as they launched the official North American service for the popular multiplayer online action-adventure beat’em up, Dungeon Fighter Online. The game is developed by the Neople Studio of Nexon, and is played by over two-hundred million players worldwide.

Dungeon Fighter Online features amazing PvE adventures and explosive PvP combat combined with dynamic RPG elements. The game is a 2D side-scrolling action game, which every player can enjoy.

One of the global market leaders in the Massively Multiplayer Online Game based on Browsers, Bigpoint, announced that it is going to be developing a new browser-based Massively Multiplayer Game which is going to be based on “The Mummy” Movie franchise by Universal Pictures and entitled “The Mummy Online”. The game will be only available online at the developer’s website, bigpoint.com, and is expected to be released in the winter of this year.

Players will be able to play the Action Role-Playing Game ‘The Mummy Online” free of charge. They will take on heroic roles and witness adventure elements inspired by the actual films.

The world renowned massively multiplayer online role-playing game publisher, Gravity Interactive, is very pleased to announce the opening of a new world in their ROSE Online MMO, entitled “Draconis”. Over 800,000 players can now experience a fresh start in a brand new environment.

“Leonis” is the first world of ROSE Online, where the visitors are aged veterans that can offer a low of wisdom and support to players that just started the game. Draconis however, is a brand new world which offers opportunities to explore new environments and to be the first to find and tackle some of the new ROSE Online Quests and Bosses. Both of the worlds will have the same game play and Experience rates.

One of Korea’s top internet companies, NHN Corporation, and the online payment solution provider, Moneybookers, have announced a partnership which is made in order to enable players of the new free-to-play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, Karos Online, to use a Moneybookers eWallet bank account or credit/debit card for in-game premium content purchases.

The Moneybookers eWallet is a secure payment solution very simple to use, with more than twelve million accounts around the world. You can register a Moneybookers account for free, after which you can transfer funds from your bank account or credit/debit card.

Funcom is very proud to announce the release of the expansion to the critically acclaimed massively multiplayer online role playing game “Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures”. Titled “Rise of the Godslayer”, the expansion is now available for purchase in retail as a combined package that includes the original game combined with the expansion.

The expansion pack is also available through online purchase for players upgrading from the original game. Rise of the Godslayer will introduce new adventures through the addition of new environments and dungeons.

Funcom just premiered the launch trailer for the first expansion for the highly acclaimed Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures. The expansion pack is entitled “Rise of the Godslayer” and will feature many new locations, characters and monsters that players will be able to experience when it launches on the 11th of May.

The Game Director and Executive Producer, Craig Morrison, explained that they are getting really close to the launch date of “Age of Conan: Rise of the Godslayer”, and that they are very excited to bring this expansion to life.