Frogster's MMO extravaganza

Five MMOs enough for you? Well, four and a half, I suppose. That's what Frogster Interactive Pictures AG is planning for the second half of the year: Runes of Magic, The Chronicles of Spellborn, StoneAge 2, Kickster and an Add-on for Bounty Bay Online.

So here's the schedule: Runes of Magic enters closed beta this September, "completely adapted to Western standards" (it's put out by a Berlin publisher), complete with an "impressive" soundtrack put down by sound studio Dynamedion. Roughly two months later, the game will enter open beta, and a complete launch will begin around the year's end. Pre-registration has already begun, so sign up if interested.

Next is Chronicles of Spellborn. The game passed performance and stress tests as of last week quite successfully following what they're calling an essential development milestone. All that's left is to integrate some remaining content components, do some final balancing, polishing, touching up, that sort of stuff, and it'll be done sometime this year. Pre-reg has begun for that one too, and you can sign up on Spellborn.com.

StoneAge 2 - a 'free2play' game - was just recently announced in its European form, and progress appears rapid; closed beta begins next month. Launch is planned for autumn, and beta registration is available on StoneAge2.com.

Kickster departs from the pack, it being an online soccer game. This one will launch in the autumn. Between that and Smash Online, sports fans should be having a field day (pun accidental) on the interweb this year.

As for the sailor MMOG (who knew!) Bounty Bay Online add-on, that's 'in the making.'