EYA Interactive has announced that its upcoming free-to-play MMORPG Titan Online is to enter open beta on April 28th.

As we've stated in previous Titan Online coverage, the title is an "epic title based on traditional Asian culture", specifically based on the Korean novel Mo Siang. Though Korean, both novel and game are set in ancient China, where players are to "experience historic Chinese locales and meet influential figures from various dynasties."

The open beta is to feature new game content including special items an armor, including eleven special event weapons.

"The upcoming open beta is to allow users to tap into a world that has already birthed a veritable civilization of fans in Asia," said an EYA Interactive representative. "All participants will have the opportunity to start from the beginning to maintain balance and fairness; however, there are no plans to wipe the accounts from this open beta moving forward."

NCsoft's Mountain View, CA-based City of Heroes developer gets an official rebranding today. The studio formerly known as NCsoft NorCal will now be called Paragon Studios, in a move the publisher says expresses its "commitment to further develop the City of Heroes franchise and other MMO games."

"Day to day we're still working on our current tasks, so that hasn't changed, but this is a particularly exciting announcement for us because it solidifies what we've been doing with NCsoft since the acquisition of the City of Heroes IP in late 2007," GM and executive producer Brian Clayton tells Gamasutra.

"We are moving forward full steam ahead and plan to maintain our leadership position in comic book-inspired MMOs," says Clayton. "For our team, this is a great way to formalize the commitment we already have."

So how will the rebrand affect the way the team is working? NCsoft bought the City of Heroes IP in 2007 and transferred the original Cryptic Studios team from Los Gatos to Mountain View. The team has since grown from 20 to 50 staffers and expanded its content offering for the MMO, most recently with the "Mission Architect" user-generated mission tool.

"But our temporary name didn't really play into our team's identity," Clayton says. "Now that we are able to formalize our identity around Paragon City -- the city in which the City of Heroes game is staged -- we can really show where we came from, where our hearts are, and where we are going."

"Our latest City of Heroes: Architect Edition release is the first full-fledged game from our studio. The Mission Architect system is something we feel has raised the MMO bar, and set the standard for innovation, creativity, and community support that our studio has and continues to invest in."

[The preceding article by Leigh Alexander also appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

Social network/gaming site hi5 has announced a partnership with PlaySpan, a provider of monetization solutions for online games, social networks and virtual worlds. Under the agreement, hi5 will offer two of PlaySpan’s global payment services to its subscriber base of 62 million users.

PlaySpan’s PayByCash and Ultimate Game Card are to provide purchase capabilities for virtual goods and other premium content for hi5 users.

In addition, PlaySpan has announced it is to expand its global PayByCash services to better serve hi5's users, with additional payment services expected to launch in Turkey, Thailand, Portugal, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, and Argentina within the month.

“Some of the world’s most recognized brands use PlaySpan as a monetization solution for their virtual world customers,” said Anil Dharni, Vice President of Products at hi5. “Our partnership offers our users a very flexible means to purchase hi5 Coins, the virtual currency our members use to acquire premium goods and services on the site. Not only will our North American users have the security and convenience of a retail stored value card, but our users in Europe, Latin America and Asia will also have more payment options at their disposal.”

Latina-themed virtual world for tween girls Hip Chicashas announced the addition of the Emmy-Award winning animation producer and Zookazoo virtual world founder Sherry Gunther to its advisory board.

Gunther's history includes heading up Hanna Barbera Cartoons as Senior Vice President of Production, running Klasky Csupo for five years, and leading divisions for Nickelodeon, Fox’s prime-time animation studio and Warner Bros. Pictures.

The company has also announced that Maciej Miechowicz, formerly the Lead Architect of Barbie Girls and currently CTO of virtual world developer MegaPlayer, is to oversee the architecture for Hip Chicas and assist in the development of the site and of the operational team through the launch and beyond.

Miechowicz is to assist Hip Chicas by ensuring the scalability and modularization of its architecture, as well as in the development of its team.

“We are taking an important step to ensure the quality of the virtual world by adding Ms. Gunther as an advisor and enlisting the help of Mr. Miechowicz,” stated Lazaro Fuentes, founder and CEO of Hip Chicas. “Ms. Gunther’s animation and virtual world experience, coupled with Mr. Miechowicz experience as the Lead Architect for the Barbie Girls site bring strong virtual world fundamentals and know-how to the Hip Chicas team as the company prepares its launch. Both have built and launched successful virtual worlds that are counted among the top tween worlds today and are both at the forefront of their respective fields.”

KingsIsle Entertainment has announced a new update for its popular tween-orientated MMO Wizard101, with features including new spells, a training points "buyback" system and a quest helper.

For players who have reached level 48, there is a new spell in each of the game's seven schools of magic to be unlocked through a quest, while players who wish to modify their character can now buy back their training points using Wizard101's micro-transaction currency Crowns and spend them on different spells.

In addition, the game's player versus player section includes new rewards including a new pet, and players can now identify friends within their friends list as "best friends".

We covered Wizard101 as part of our Online World Atlas earlier this year.

Not exactly the most "ground breaking" (ahem, little pun there) news, but OGPlanet has announced the addition of a new stage, "Under Construction" to Rumble Fighter, its MMO fighting game.

Set in a "gritty urban construction site" players can use wooden ramps to navigate the stage while attempting to avoid being knocked off, with other hazards including weak points of scaffolding.

Rumble Fighter allows up to 8 players to fight in each individual battle, and includes a combo attack skill system and a range of fighting styles.

"Rumble Fighter players are going to love the challenge of 'Under Construction,'" said Yeonji Lee, Rumble Fighter producer. "Between fending off opponents, keeping your feet on stable ground and making sure not to tear the whole site apart, the new stage really puts your brawling skills to the test."

Activision Blizzard has confirmed rumors yesterday that publisher NetEase will take over control of World of Warcraft in China.

The change is a major blow to former Chinese WoW operator The9. Blizzard's MMORPG has been the primary driver of the company's revenues.

The9's contract officially expires in June. The firm gained the rights to distribute and operate WoW in June 2005, and subsequently saw revenues double over the next year.

As recently as February this year, The9 has indicated that WoW "continued to enjoy high popularity and tremendous growth," maintaining a high peak concurrent users level of around 1 million.

Whisperings that distribution duties would change hands caused The9's shares to slide 22 percent yesterday.

According to Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter, the new contract with NetEase substantially increases Activision Blizzard's royalty rate on revenues from WoW in China.

He estimates that with The9, Activision Blizzard collected a 22 percent royalty rate that translates into $50-$55 million annually based on recent subscriber figures.

"Although the terms of the new arrangement were not disclosed, we estimate that the royalty rate will increase to at least 55%, and that the new arrangement will generate revenues of over $140 million annually," Pachter says.

Says Activision CEO Robert Kotick: "We believe this new relationship will promote a consistent level of quality and service in mainland China for each of the games that Blizzard Entertainment is partnering with NetEase on, including WarCraft III and StarCraft II, as announced last year."

"In addition, we believe this new relationship positions us well for the long-term, and despite the near-term impact of the transition, we are reaffirming our calendar 2009 financial outlook," he added.

The9 also operates the MMORPGs MU, Soul of the Ultimate Nation, Granado Espada and several other titles.

[The preceding article by David Jenkins and Kris Graft also appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

PC subscription MMO City of Heroes' new user-generated Mission Architect system "has exceeded any expectation we have set for it," says Matt Miller, lead designer on the project at the NCSoft-owned Paragon Studios.

The Architect update, which lets players design and populate their own mission arcs within the game, has been a success among current players -- and also encouraged lapsed users to return, says Miller, although he declined to specify numbers.

According to Miller, users had built 360 mission arcs, each containing 5 missions, for other City of Heroes users within the feature's first 60 minutes of availability.

"By midnight on day one, we had over 2600 arcs, and exactly 24 hours after launch we were already at 3800 arcs," says Miller.

[The preceding article by Leigh Alexander also appeared on Worlds in Motion sister site Gamasutra.]

"We did some data mining of our own, and 3,800 surpasses the amount of content that we, the developers, have made for all of City of Heroes and City of Villains combined. In just one day our users did more than we could in almost five years."

One week following Mission Architect's launch, Miller says there are 20,000 arcs published and playable -- 6259 of them "heroic" and 2240 of them "villainous." Of these, users have awarded five-star ratings to 2,860 total arcs.

Gamasutra is currently running a series of articles written by Paragon Studios' Joe Morrissey discussing the Mission Architect's policing system, with the second in the series to debut on the site in the near future.

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Telltale Games, Blizzard and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

[We're now opening submissions for this year's GDC Austin, and the Worlds In Motion Summit content will be integrated into the main conference this year, which deals with all forms of connected and online gaming - so submit now!]

The organizers of Game Developers Conference Austin have started accepting submissions for the upcoming four-day trade show, to be held this September.

Proposals to present lectures, roundtables and full-day tutorials will be accepted for review by the GDC Austin advisory boards through Friday, May 8th.

Presented by Think Services, organizers of the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco (and parent company of Gamasutra), GDC Austin is a four-day event taking place at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas from September 15 to 18, 2009.

GDC Austin focuses on connected games including online games, virtual worlds, and social networking. Submissions should address the most pressing development challenges for connected games related to business and marketing, design, social networking and community, services, production, and programming.

GDC Austin has also opened the call for submissions for the Game Audio Summit and for the Game Writers Summit. The Game Audio Summit is designed to elevate game audio development education, strengthen the community, and foster professional growth of the individual. The Game Writers Summit is dedicated to the art and craft of game writing, game narrative and interactive storytelling.

Said event director Izora de Lillard in a statement, "Now in its seventh year, GDC Austin will continue to serve the global online development communities through education and networking. Having developed an international reputation over these seven years for being the focal point of key learnings in the online games space, we are thrilled to return to Austin in September with expanded content focused on innovative designs and business models within connected games."

More information about the submissions guidelines, conference topics, and advisory board can be found at the show's official site.