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Turbine has announced today that it has been chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the OnHollywood 100 Top Private Companies. This list contains the top private emerging technology companies in digital entertainment and media. Turbine was handpicked by the AlwaysOn editorial team based on several criteria including innovation, market potential, customer adoption, media buzz and investor value creation.

To honor Turbine and the others on the OnHollywood 100 list, there will be an event held on June 10th-11th, 2008 at the Sofitel Hotel in West Hollywood, California. These companies on the list were selected from more than 1000 companies, peer-nominated by leading venture capitalists, investment bankers and industry analysts. Congratulations to all our friends at Turbine!

The forums depths of Asheron's Call have been churning and swirling of late, in a tizzy about the imminent arrival of the 100th patch to their beloved game. Asheron's Call has been around for some time now, released as it was back in 1999; it will be sharing its 10th anniversary with EverQuest next year. In the meantime, the Turbine developers are teasing and poking at the players, offering up some tasty hints about what might be in that next patch. Without a doubt, the patch will be building on the game's ongoing story; just last month the Introductions chapter of the game opened up some new game elements, storylines, and even rewards for patient players.

Some of the hints the developers have dropped touch on treasure chest rewards, and the mechanics with the treasure system. They also have plans for a new landscape hunting quests. The most firm new information comes from Frelorn, with the AC community relations team, about an incoming tier of loot and its role in the landscape hunting game. Says he, "One of the ways we are looking at [adding this loot] is to use the Direland Champions mechanics. So that players who like to outdoor hunt would have a random chance of spawning a "Boss Creature" which would then either have this new profile or a key that would allow a pull on one of the new chests. This is of course, not set in stone, and we may go with another way of doing this, which we will explain when we begin releasing all of the information on the 100th update."

In an interesting story from a company we haven't heard much about recently, Turbine (who you might remember from such MMOs as Asheron's Call, D&D Online, and Lord of the Rings Online) announced yesterday that they've raised $40 million in capital funding from Time Warner and the GGV Capital, amongst others. Says CEO and President Jim Crowley, "This is a truly exciting time for Turbine."

While it's hard to argue with the fact that more money is a good thing, what is less clear is what sort of pitch the company made that warranted this infusion of sweet green moolah. Their release mentions a "growing portfolio of games" and bringing new titles to market, but this is the first we've heard of potential new development from the Massachusetts-based developer. One can't help but wonder what's next for Turbine. Mayhaps a superhero game to compete with the next biggest independent developer on the other coast? Only time will tell.

Turbine, the maker of MMOs Dungeons and Dragons Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and Asheron's Call, has been honored in Boston, MA as one of the Northeast's Top 100 Companies. The requirements for selection granted over 500 companies a close look by the judges. This contest was not contained to MMOs or even computer games. This was a selection ranging from banks to investment firms. Each company "had to demonstrate leadership among their peers in the following areas: innovation, market opportunity, commercialization, media buzz, and stakeholder value creation." That certainly crosses the threshold of addicting the masses to gathering boar snouts all day!

So, what did Turbine have to do to receive this honor? Obviously more than just designing online worlds; they had to prove they were worth their two cents on the market as well. Turbine managed to pull it off and CEO Jim Crowley made was happy to accept the honors. He remarked, "We are honored to be selected as one of the top 100 companies in the Northeast as it is a real validation of our success to date and of our strategy moving forward as we expand our product portfolio and our geographic footprint." Turbine's claims of running the number two MMO in the western market certainly seems more justified in this light. Receiving a top 100 award is a noteworthy accomplishment for a designer of MMOs. Tip of the hat, folks.

We've all heard the warnings before: If you keep playing those MMOs, you'll become addicted, or WoW players live in their parents' basement, never to see the light of day, or you'll shoot your eye out, or you'll grow hair on your palms. Many people proclaim to know what's best for everyone else, but recently a study by Dr. John Carlton of England's University of Bolton declared a similarity between MMO players (playing Asheron's Call) and traits common among people with Asperger's syndrome. In many media interpretations of this research, Dr Carlton's true findings were misconstrued.

So in a recent article at GameSpot, Dr. Carlton set the record straight. He explained that there are different levels of gaming "interest". There's a fine line though between the highly engaged and the addicted gamer. He goes on to clarify certain issues that were overlooked in previous news stories on this topic, including the fact that of the 391 people tested for this study, none were actually classified as having Asperger's syndrome. It seems the bottom line in his clarification is that more research would be needed to specifically say one way or another if MMOs actually cause addiction.

Nothing lasts forever. MMO's come and go, business plans succeed and fail, and sometimes the best will in the world keeps bleeding cash. MMOs and virtual worlds cost a bundle in power and bandwidth to operate and (for decent customer service, GMs, admins and billing) can cost even more in staffing (hint: That's why a lot of operators keep the staff counts down).

All the while the developer/operator is trying to keep the cash-burn rate down and recover the costs of the game, in the hope of breaking even before the money runs out. Asheron's Call 2, Auto Assault, Saga of Ryzom, Earth and Beyond, and more are gone. Sometimes subscriptions never quite rise high enough for the long-tail model to be sustainable for an MMO. Do you think your online world will still be here this time next year as the end of Q1 2009 rolls around?

Expect Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Asheron's Call to be unavailable for a short while this Monday, as Turbine have made it known that some downtime is scheduled for February 25th, 7:00AM to 11:00AM Eastern. This will include all Turbine services, and may lead to forum and website unavailability between 9:00AM and 11:00AM. Unlike some downtimes, test servers like LotRO's Roheryn will not be left up for you to while away the hours on, so you might just have to rest this one out.

All Turbine game servers are down today for their once-ever-other-Monday scheduled maintenance. Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online and Asheron's Call players, we hear your pain. What to do until the servers come back up at 2pm EST today? Instead of trolling the official forums, we'd like you to look ahead at what awaits you.

For LotRO, Book 12 is now on the test server with its revamps to the Guardian, Burglar and Champion classes as well as the Barbershop and the cosmetic Outfit system and polish pass on the high level solo zone, Angmar. Also, last week's dev chat dropped quite a few hints on post 12 plans.

DDO is not to be outdone with its upcoming Module 6 content patch. Our own Mike Schramm got a hands-on tour from the devs. Not only did he get a grand tour of what is to come this week when the Module goes live, but hints of what Turbine is planning throughout the year for this title.

And finally, Asheron's Call is looking forward to...um, 9 more years? We'll look into it and get back to you on this one.

You may or may not be familiar with the "ghostly wolf" debacle that occurred in the World of Warcraft recently. It involved a pet wolf that would not have been able to be tamed by Hunters without some clever usage of game mechanics and some costly preparation. Blizzard confirmed that they would not be changing this, prompting many players to begin their time and money investments into obtaining a "Grimtotem Spirit Guide" pet. Then a hotfix was released that meant the wolf could no longer be tamed, and a resounding "WTF?!" was heard across the land.

Sandra at Elder Game discussed this case, and having had experience as producer of Asheron's Call, decided to write a hypothetical story of what the whole ghostly wolf situation might have been like behind the scenes at Blizzard. It's a tale of miscommunication, internal drama and politics. The point she makes at the end is that it is extremely difficult for a large development team to work as a single entity, and that internal communication is the key to avoiding scenarios like the above. The full article is definitely worth a read, and gives an insider perspective on the sort of challenges these teams face that aren't directly related to development. Also, for a bit of history on the ghostly wolf story, WoW Insider covered each of the stages, from discovery, to the announcement that Hunters would be able to continue taming them, to the hotfixing.

Turbine is spreading the holiday cheer with winter seasonal events in three of its games. Lord of the Rings Online is introducing its first Yuletide event. From December 14 until January 3, players can embark on a quest that will reward them with a snow-covered tree for their yard. While not on the scale of other seasonal events introduced in the game, the reward will be sure to please the many new homeowners who are looking for status symbols to display in their online neighborhoods.

Next, in Asheron's Call, Santa Sclavus will be traveling the lands handing out presents to the good little boys and girls. But the naughty ones will only be getting coal. Be sure to be on the lookout for the jolly gift giver and see what he has for you.

FInally, in Dungeons and Dragons Online, The Festival of the Twelfth Moon has arrived in Stormreach and brings with it the Festivult Jester. Players can collect Festivult Coins from chests and turn them in for special holiday prizes.

Overall, Asheron's Call looks like the most fun of the three events. A GM controlled NPC can have great fun interacting with the players if he is not mobbed by 80 at once. But we're also curious how the LotRO devs have incorporated Christmas into Tolkien lore. They have a tricky balance to maintain to meet the expectations of their customers, but not violate the spirit of Middle-earth's well-detailed culture.

This game looks awfully familiar, doesn't it? The peaceful landscape, the cloud-covered sky, even the interface looks like something we've seen recently, doesn't it? But we're here to tell you, this is not the game you are looking for. Though this shot in particular bears a lot of similarity, both in setting and interface, to Turbine's latest MMO offering, Lord of the Rings Online, this shot is actually from the now defunct Asheron's Call 2. Schad, who sent in the shot, tells us, "It died, but I still have the screens!"

We're pretty excited to see screenshots in the One Shots mailbox for games other than Guild Wars. Not that we don't like Guild Wars -- but variety is the spice of life and we love to see shots from games we haven't highlighted lately. We only post what you send us send your screenshots and stories from games long dead to oneshots@massively.com. You may see it posted here tomorrow!

The patch notes for Asheron's Call's November update were recently published by Turbine. Most of the changes are bug fixes and tweaks, but a couple of things are worthy of note.

Rare item drops have been increased world-wide, new items have been added to "the various special vendors across Dereth," and some more masks have been put into the game. The patch notes also cryptically say that "there appears to be some sort of plague affecting the Carenzi of Marae Lassel." Presumably Turbine wants us to figure out what's going on there for ourselves.

It's good to know that Asheron's Call is still getting some patch love on a regular basis; some older games aren't so lucky.

Big Fish Games have tossed their line in to the gaming industry, and pulled up Thinglefin, a team composed of people that worked on The Matrix Online and Asheron's Call. Awful puns aside, it would seem that Thinglefin's proposed in-browser MMO, covered by Worlds in Motion earlier in the year, is a good acquisition for Big Fish Games as it fits with their more casual lineup of games.

The article from Worlds In Motion gave a few more details about Thinglefin's new game, including comments on the company's blog from founder Toby Ragaini (who was also the lead designer for The Matrix Online and Asheron's Call). He said that it will be free to play, will run in a browser without the need to download or install anything from them, and that there will be some premium features that people can choose to pay for.

[Via Gamasutra]

We reported yesterday that Turbine's login servers for The Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online, and Asheron's Call were down all day. They've since come back online, and Turbine has apologized to the subscribers to those games by giving them some small gifts.

Players of all three games will have their subscriptions extended by one day, essentially making yesterday free. Additionally, players will receive in-game items. DDO players will each receive one Candy Cane with 30 charges of Moderate Heal. LotRO players will receive five Hope-boosting Scented Candles. And AC players will get increased drop rates (that's the superior gift, we think).

Listen, Turbine; you can't buy our love!

Wait, increased drop rates? Okay, never mind, maybe you can.

For our current series of giveaways, we're talking about everything Turbine -- and for those of you who haven't had the chance to enjoy playing their games, we're giving some away! So if you haven't had a chance to try out Asheron's Call, you're in luck, because we're giving away two copies of Asheron's Call: Throne of Destiny. To win, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post between now and 3:00 PM EST tomorrow, November 8th. We'll pick two commenters to take home a copy of AC! (To be eligible to win you must be a US resident of age 18 or older -- please check our official rules for full details!)

Not interested in Asheron's Call? Well, we're also giving away copies of LotRO and copies of DDO -- with more Turbine giveaways showing up throughout the day!