mmotimesheaderIssue 59: Happy New Year Gamers! Welcome to 2013! I hope all of you had a safe and splendid Christmas and New Years. I’m sure many of you probably killed off a few brain cells and hopefully you recovered well and with no guilt.

There hasn’t been a lot happening recently, this issue mostly consists of Mists of Pandaria patch 5.2 updates. There are a couple of non-WoW updates here such as Marvel Heroes but I think the Christmas and New Years holidays probably attributed to a lack of interesting news. WoW fans can rest assured though that there will be a Blizzcon 2013 and talks and rumors are already starting. Read on and game on!

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beta! Defiance Beta Coming January 18

Posted 1/3/13 – Trion’s new shooter title Defiance will have its first beta event January 18th through January 20th. The beta will only be available for the PC and apparently this game will be available for both consoles and the PC and its scheduled for an April release. Trion is currently accepting beta sign ups.
Massively post

Mists Patch 5.2 On PTR

Posted 1/2/13 – Blizzard sure is trying to move quickly to keep its promise on releasing new content faster as they have officially posted the next patch on the PTR. Character transfers are also active so anyone can move their level 90s over and check out the new raid and world bosses. There is a new quest hub as well (which has a Isle of Quel’Danas feel) – yay, more dailies! I’m guessing we will see this new content patch probably around the end of February.
WoW Insider post

More Details on Marvel Heroes (w/ video)

Posted 12/28/12 – More news has come out for the upcoming superhero MMO Marvel Heroes. This latest bit of information includes more details about the game and another video of in-game footage. There still isn’t a release date but Gazillion did tease about a 2013 release. If this title interests you then you definitely want to check out this post.
Comics Alliance post

Sunsong Ranch Improvements in 5.2

Posted 12/27/12 – As we talked about in a previous issue of the times, Blizzard was alluding to making some big changes to the Sunsong Ranch. Well Blizzard has provided some additional details as to what those changes will be. The biggest (and apparently most requested) is that the ranch can become a rest zone, but the player will have to purchase the ranch from Farmer Yoon. No word on what kind of gold sink we are looking at.
WoW Insider post

Blizzard Teases New Raid for 5.2

Posted 12/21/12 – As a Christmas treat Blizzard provided a teaser for those fighting the war against the Sha. Blizzard has teased that there will be a new raid in patch 5.2 and we will learn more about the Thunder King. The PTR for the 5.2 patch will begin some time in January so we are probably looking at a March/April release. Here are a couple of links to feed your curiosity.
MMO-Champion post | WoW Insider post

I also provide The MMO Times in an e-mail. If you are interested in receiving the e-mail version please click here to subscribe.