If you had a blast taking pictures last New Year’s Eve, then maybe you’ll be up for round two of festive photo-taking this time in Atreia. Aion has announced a new screenshot contest to coincide with a special event for many Korean Daevas, the Lunar New Year.

“Help us ring in this New Year with style by sending us a screenshot of the place in Aion where you would throw your New Year’s celebration,” announced NCSoft in its official blog.

The Lunar Year contest is set to end by February 2, so you’ll have two weeks to capture the perfect screenie in Atreia and possibly win the Razer mouse prizes. The contest’s official rules and conditions are easy enough to follow, revealing the general criteria by which the Aion judges will base their choice: Presentation, creativity, framing, and uniqueness.

So basically no boring and predictable shots of you posing at some non-descript location. Given the vivid locations available as background in Aion, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to think of a concept for the shot and then stretch out those wings to find a suitably striking location. And don’t be afraid to have dozens or even hundred of takes–not like the Screenshot folder has a limit to it.

Once you’ve picked the best one, send it to aion_community@ncsoft.com with the required info like name, age, location and a disclaimer that should you win, you won’t be against revealing your screenie-taking secrets.

With all the drunken brawls one gets into while playing Age of Conan, it’s hard to sit still and just watch the world go by. Unless you’re Nexothep, a player from the German server Mitra, who took more than 140,000 screenshots of Age of Conan locales and put them together in fascinating three-minute videos.

The first of his recordings focuses on Khemi, the seaport capitol of Stygia, where clouds barrel across clear skies and adventurers weave in and out of its sandy streets.

The other video shows us Conarch Village, which serves as a pit stop for travelers and a pilgrimage site for those wanting to see where the legendary King Conan was born. This mountain village has a natural beauty that’s enhanced by the steady flow of activity as players pass through, visit the residing Conarch clan and brave the surrounding mountains in search of adventure:

Both snapshot videos serve as a reminder that while seeing blood and gore makes Age of Conan a visual treat, it’s game environments are also one of the richest among the current crop of MMOs.

In the Star Trek Online universe, only the foolish would dare fight the big-sized and ill-tempered Nausicaans head on. Even more foolish are those don’t take extra precautions when fighting the ultimate Nausicaan ship, the Guramba Siege Destroyer, which can blow up even the sturdiest battle cruisers to smithereens.

Revealed over the Christmas break to be a new C-Store ship for Klingons, the Guramba Siege Destroyer has been designed for front-line combat. The ship has seven weapons slots, five bridge officer seats (Lieutenant Commander Tactical, Commander Tactical, Ensign Engineering, Lieutenant Engineering and Lieutenant Science) and eight console modification slots (4 Tactical, 2 Engineering, 2 Science).

The Guramba Siege Destroyer also carries 300 crew, and can transform into its deadly Siege Mode. How deadly? Let’s just say you wouldn’t want to be around when the Guramba brings out the big guns, and big they are based on the combat trailer below:

Cryptic Studios explained that the Guramba gets all its Siege Mode juice when it diverts power from the engines to its laser arsenal. This allows the ship to launch devastating attacks, including its signature energy javelin. Star Trek Onine players are already describing the Guramba as the space equivalent of a Black Widow, and it’s hard to deny the resemblance: From the poison-green beams and curled tentacle design, to its ability to quickly dispatch its prey.

Only Klingon Empire captains with Lieutenant General rank can own a Guramba Siege Destroyer–a fact that is making Federation pilots squirm with envy for the first time in a long while.

Ranked matches in Arena and Battleground are so competitive that goofing off can be made grounds to kick you off the team. But as World of Warcraft introduces practice PvP matches in the form of War Games, players might be more willing now to test out crazy specs and unconventional fight tactics.

According to Blizzard, War Games are unranked matches where players can form teams and challenge other teams to an Arena or Battleground skirmish.  War Games can be seen as friendly trial games where the outcome doesn’t affect a team’s PvP rating.

War Games allow you to form teams and pit them against those from your own realm, both in the Horde or Alliance faction. As of now, War Games has no cross-server functionality but it’s not far-fetched for it to be expanded in the future. The maximum team size for Arena is five for a 5vs5 match, while for Battleground it depends on the maximum number of participants allowed in the chosen map (e.g. Warsong Gulch has a maximum team size of 10).

Even though no ratings or rewards are given to the victors, World of Warcraft keeps a record of your win-loss tally so there is still that pride of having beaten a lot of teams via War Games. There’s also the sheer fun of forgoing all positioning, focusing and target-swapping thoughts in favor of instinctual combat. Practice makes perfect and, in the case of War Games, also makes for pure fun so try them out now!

Forget about those heat-preserving wool scarves, snow boots and blizzard mitts. The Aion Solorius winter festival is more about fun that function, and nothing warms up the funny bone more than silly hats and stolen socks.

Like the year before, Daevas will have to grapple with the misadventures of the missing Shugo Santa, a red-nosed “reindeer,” and thieves out to ruin the festival by dashing off with the goodie-filled socks.

The Solorius quests will be available on both capital cities from festively dressed NPCs, and will reward dedicated Daevas a Solorius Cap and Hat Box. You can get them easily so long as you stop snickering long enough to get the simple and repeatable quests done.

The Solorius Cap is nothing too fancy, but the Hat Box contains funny-sounding and equally funny-looking headgear like the Solorius Deer Hat, Solorius Tam, Solorius Cloche Hat and Solorius Tuque.

Meanwhile, the Sock quests continues the long tradition of pranksters stealing just anything valuable to Daevan culture and society. This time around, it’s the valuable gift-giving socks that were nicked and it’s up to you to retrieve them. As a reward, you get to keep ‘em for storing seasonal gifts or just random knickknacks.

Finally, the Find Shugo quests will unlock the wondrous Winter Bear candy that turns you into–wait for it–a buffed up Winter Bear for a full hour. If that isn’t enough for you, then go bonkers over the Festive Scroll and Token of Gratitude rewards. We all know being all teal is all the rage these days, something about blending well with the snowscape.

In a bid to keep players logging in through the winter season, EverQuest II just announced rewards for the next three months leading up to the release of the Destiny of Velious (DoV) expansion on February 2011.

The instructions are rigid but rewarding: Players who have an active subscription on Dec. 14, 2010 and Jan. 17, 2011 and purchase the DoV expansion will get to unlock the Ice Wolf mount and a new Freeblood Vampire race.

The first image of the Ice Wolf mount has been released for public adulation (it’s white, furry and has a mean face on), but the bigger question among the community is how the vampire race models look like.

“Do they sparkle?” asked a concerned EQII player, obviously afraid of Twilight look-alikes invading the game. “The wifey’s going to call her vampire Edward or some such nonsense. I swear if these vampires look like anything from Twilight, I’ll go mad.”

To make the wait for these two February 2011 rewards more bearable, SOE is giving away two bonus rewards on December and January that will be revealed just when the rewards are distributed. That’s Dec. 14, 2010 and Jan.17, 2010 respectively.

Bad news for EverQuest II Extended free and silver members though — you’ll need to upgrade to a gold and platinum membership, or become an EQII Live subscriber to qualify for the three-month wide rewards. So go upgrade if you think it’s worth the wolf mount, vampire race and all that biting.

Square Enix has revealed the new abilities and spells that for all classes when the level cap increase from 85 to 90 pushes through this December.

Each job class will receive between 1 to 3 new abilities, ranging from buffs to attack commands, when the December version update goes live. But players will have to grind a level or two though before unlocking the abilities; most of them will be available starting level 87, with the exception of the new Tactician’s Roll ability for Corsairs.

Spellcasters also become more formidable with additional spells at their casting disposal.  There are a total of 14 new spells (7 White Magic, 4 Black Magic, 3 Songs and 1 Ninjutsu) available across levels 86 to 90. This includes the sure to be devastating Firaja for Black Mages and the mysterious Migawari: Ichi for ninjas.

Other jobs need not be so envious. The version update will also grant access to existing spells to select jobs, like Protect V for paladins at level 90, and a bunch of advanced elemental spells to red mages, scholars and dark knights.

With their combat arsenal improved, FFXI players can then practice on the improved monsters in Wings of Goddess areas, and gain more loot and experience.

Bowing to demands for greater storage space, Square Enix has announced the creation of two additional storage methods for Final Fantasy XI players, both of which allow quick access to armor sets and other sentimental knickknacks.

The Mog Sack works a lot like the Mog Satchel–it can be accessed anywhere in the world and can hold up to a maximum of 80 items depending on your goodiebag size. The new container can be purchased at a price of 9,980 Gil and, best of all, doesn’t require you to own a Mog Satchel.

The Porter Moogle, on the other hand, is a safekeeping service for Artifact and Relic gear as well as pieces acquired via Limbus and Salvage forays. Porter Moogles should make gear changes all the more convenient in FFXI and is poised to become an indispensable fixture to Vana’diel adventuring, since SE has promised that the service will “encompass an even greater range of gear in the future.”

The increased storage space has perfect timing; additional collectible armor will flood inventory spaces with the arrival of Heroes of Abyssea next month along with the December version update. As the last of three battle add-ons slated for 2010, Heroes of Abbysea will unleash new Empyrean Armor sets for all jobs, the full preview of which can be seen already in its new teaser site.

Indeed, kiss your storage woes goodbye!

Remember back in the day when your parental units plopped down a Lego set and then left for the movies while you, presumably, had a blast building things?

Atari and Cryptic Studios seems to have tapped into that childhood urge to create with its new Season Three: Genesis, which is due to launch on December 9. Pilots will be given access to The Foundry, a set of content creation tools that will make the third update of the Star Trek Online more involving for players.

Missions created using The Foundry will be available for play among the community-at-large, and the most popular ones will be lavished with fame and rewards. (The rewards part though are still totally speculative, but I wouldn’t put it past the developers to dangle some incentives to spur more impressive output.)

Season Three also activates the use of Borg technology aboard player ships. These highly advanced and obliteration-capable tech can be obtained in the new Special Task Force raids, and will bump up the coolness factor of your ship as well as its battle capabilities.

Other features included in this latest update is the “much cleaner, minimalist” experience of Sector Space travel. Testimonials, at least from those with access to the Tribble test server, notice that locations are more fleshed out in look and feel. There’s also the new Episode Replay functionality that allows previously finished episodes to be repeated–a boon for those who don’t mind the grind but like the loot.

Hold on to your mobiles! You’ll need them when logging in to World of Warcraft, assuming you install the new security feature from Blizzard.

“If you sign up for the Battle.net Dial-in Authenticator, you will be asked to make a toll-free phone call from a specific phone of your choosing to authorize unusual log-in attempts with the associated Battle.net account. Please note that you will only be asked to make this phone call when something about your log-in attempt appears out of the ordinary.”

Basically, if hackers and keyloggers steal your log-in password, they will still need access to your phone and PIN to break in.

Most users will benefit from this extra layer of protection, especially if they only play in one designated area, most usually at home. Blizzard said the authenticator should trigger when users access their accounts “outside of their usual play area” and, we assume, at different IP addresses.

Only one authenticator program can be active per account. So for now, it’s better to stick to the token authenticator when you’re just as likely to play WoW on an Internet cafe as you are in your home desktop.

The Dial-in Authenticator FAQ should answer the rest of your burning questions, including “Do I get a Core Hound pet for a successful install?” (Sadly, no.)