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During this weekend's Fan Faire, Sony Online announced plans to release EverQuest: House of Thule, the 17th official commercial expansion pack to the company's flagship MMO that started in 2001. Sign ups for beta testing the expansion have already begun on the EQPlayers.com web site and the beta itself will start on Monday.

Perhaps the big new feature in this expansion pack is the addition of player housing for EverQuest subscribers, something that players of the game have been wanting for a long time. Look for an increase to the level cap for players along with the usual mix of new monsters, quests and items. Fan site EQWire.com states the expansion is due for release on October 14.

Sony Online suprised attendees at its annual Fan Faire fan event in Las Vegas this weekend by revealing very early plans for a new EverQuest MMO with the code name "EverQuest Next". Now comes word that the two EverQuest Next panels (and indeed all of the Fan Faire panels) have been captured on video and posted on Sony Online's Fan Faire Facebook page.

The Facebook videos are not of the best visual or sound quality but it does the job of showing the info at the panel presentation. Sony Online's CEO John Smedley told the audience that EverQuest Next won't be replacing EverQuest 1 and 2 and that both games will stay live until Sony Online feels they are no longer profitable. He also stated that EverQuest Next is designed to be scalable in terms of its PC hardware requirements, saying it will run on a laptop or the most powerful hardware desktop PC. Finally he stated that there will be some way for players of the first two EverQuest games to transition to EverQuest Next but details are still vague.

[Via Massively]

Back in June, Sony Online stated that the long awaited super hero MMO DC Universe Online would be released sometime in November. However the publisher wasn't any more specific than that. This weekend at the DC Universe Online panel at the San Diego Comic-Con it was confirmed that the game would officially launch on November 2.

As we reported earlier this week, the game's official web site is taking beta applications right now. According to the game's official Facebook page it sound like the closed beta could begin sometime this coming week. Oh, you want to see that cool CGI trailer for DC Universe Online once again? No problem. Check it out after the jump:

So we know that DC Universe Online is this long-in-development MMO from developer Sony Online based on the DC Comics super heros and its vast fictional universe. Sounds straightforward, right? So what does Mark Hamill have to do with the game?

That's the question after today's reveal of the July 24 panel schedule for the San Diego Comic-Con. It states that a panel devoted to DC Universe Online will have Luke Skywalker himself present, along with DC Comics' co-publisher Jim Lee Will the actor be voicing the Joker, his long time animated role, in the game or is there something else going on? All we know is that the panel listing says, "Jim, Mark, and key members of the development team from Sony Online Entertainment discuss how an earth-shattering chain of events will make you the key to the salvation or ruin of the DC Universe when the game launches this November." Oh, and if you attend the panel you will be getting a VIP beta key for the game. Nice.

There have been tons of great cliffhanger endings in history. Will Han Solo get out of that carbonite casing? Will Captain Picard get free of the Borg? Who shot J.R. Ewing? Who is the final undiscovered Cylon? We can now add one more cliffhanger to this list. "What games will Big Download pick as the five most anticipated PC games for E3 2008?". Yes we know you have been waiting with baited breath to find out the answer to this hugely important question. Well, your prayers have now been answered. We have now arrived at our choices for the top five PC games we are most looking forward to seeing at the 2008 E3 Media and Business Summit. Will the game that you are most interested in be on this list? Read on for the conclusion to our report. Again you can look back for our picks for 25-21, 20-16, 15-11 and 10-6.

As we mentioned in our previous articles, these are just our predictions on what games will be shown at the event; many of these titles have not been officially confirmed to be at E3 as of this writing. Also, there's no Activision Blizzard titles on this list due to the new massive publisher bypassing E3 but a press conference by Activision Blizzard on Tuesday during E3 is highly expected to show some upcoming titles from that newly merged publisher. With that out of the way let's look at our picks for the next five games on our list.

The excitement is building to next week's E3 Media and Business Summit in Los Angeles (man does that sound like some kind of soulless seminar at some Holiday Inn but we aren't in charge of the naming of the event) where over 5,000 journalists have been invited to attend the largest single gathering of game publishers in North America. Big Download will be covering the event all next week but this week we are counting down our top 25 most anticipated PC games we hope we will get to see and maybe play at the event.

On Monday we went through our 25-21 picks so if its Tuesday it must be time for the 20-16 picks on our list. As we mentioned previously, these are just our predictions on what games will be shown at the event; many of these titles have not been officially confirmed to be at E3 as of this writing. Also, there's no Activision or Vivendi Games/Blizzard titles on this list due to the two publishers bypassing E3 but a press conference by Activision on Tuesday during E3 is highly expected to show some upcoming titles from that publisher (and maybe Vivendi/Blizzard as well). With that out of the way let's look at our picks for the next five games on our list

Sony Online's upcoming MMO first person shooter The Agency is trying to succeed where its first attempt at such a game, the sci-fi themed title Planetside, failed. Instead of a massive multiplayer battlefield, The Agency is all about story and characters with your player taking on the role of a Hollywood movie-style super secret agency battling foes all over the world.

Sony Online recently released a new trailer showing off some of the operative's in The Agency's two super-spy organizations, UNITE and Paragon, doing what they do best (but some of the things they do aren't very nice). Big Download has the HD trailer available for you to grab which should give you an idea of what the developers want to do with the game. The Agency is due for release for the PC sometime in late 2008-early 2009.

Download The Agency Character trailer at Big Download now!

It continues to be one of the most high profile but still mysterious game developers around. 38 Studios was formed in late 2006 by famed Boston Red Sox pitcher (and massive Everquest fan) Curt Schilling to create an all new fantasy MMO game with art direction by Spawn comic book creator Todd McFarlane and a fictional background created by fantasy author R. A. Salvatore. Yet little else is known about the game itself, other than it will use Epic's Unreal Engine 3 as its graphical basis.

Today 38 Studios announced that it has hired Travis McGeathy, formerly of Sony Online Entertainment, to join their team as their systems design lead. McGeathy, better known to Everquest players as his user name "Rashere" was previously the lead designer for Sony Online's long running MMO title. McGeathy joins fellow Sony Online team members Jason Roberts and Steve Danuser at 38 Studios who joined the company in 2006 and 2007 respectively.. It may be a while, however, before we learn any concrete info on the actual game itself.