What are we giving away? Glad you asked! For 2 lucky winners we have 2 European Pre-Order boxes to give away along with 2 pieces of signed art. Whats included in the Pre-Order? Feast your eyes on these:

• An exclusive in game weapon – The Railgun.
• Exclusive access to final weeks of beta
• Loot bonus
• Head start – Play days before official release

On top of that, the pre-order box contains a disc which is absolutely loaded to the brim with movies, exclusive screenshots, music, concept art, and more!

To enter all you need to do is answer this simple question:
OCD and INC are littered throughout the game but what do they stand for?
All information can be found at http://eu.autoassault.com/game

To enter just email to aacontests@stratics.com with your answers, it's that simple.

Rules for entry are:

1. You can only enter from the EU.
2. Must be over 12 yrs of age, 18 and over if applying from Germany
3. Stratics has the right, upon you entering, to pass your full address to NCsoft Europe for the sole purpose of sending the prize(s) listed in this competition.
4. All entries must be received before Midnight on March 27th

Winners will be picked at random and will be contacted by email so please have a valid email address, all all entrants must be willing to provide full address details so the prizes can be sent

Codemasters and RF Online Stratics happily present you our exclusive Rising Force Online (RFO) Contest! We have 5 copies of the game - with all the pre-order extras and signatures of Codemasters' RFO team - to give away. One lucky person will also receive an exclusive limited edition Accretian model with his copy of the game.

The best news is that it's quite easy to enter this contest! All you have to do is tell us in 200 words or less why you should win this contest. Interested to hear more? Then rush over to our Contest Entry page.

RFO is a sci-fi fantasy MMORPG that puts you in the middle of a massive war between three races: Accretia, Bellato and Cora. Accretians are a robot race who exist for the sole purpose of serving their Empire. Bellato are a breed of small humans, renown for their affinity with technology. They can specialise in riding their huge Mechs to the battlefield. Cora are a tall elflike race, honouring their god Decem and making use of their magic and summoning powers. These races wage war against eachother three times a day over the Crag Mines, which provide highly valuable materials imperative to the race's economies.

If you're curious to hear more about RF Online, please do check out RFO Stratics. Our dedicated team there provides you with all the latest news and information about RF Online. You can of course also poke us with any questions you may have at our RF Online Stratics Forums.

March 10, 2006 (BELLEVUE, WA): ArenaNet® , developer of the award-winning online roleplaying game Guild Wars®, and NCsoft® Corporation, the world's leading developer and publisher of online computer games, announce today the release date of Guild Wars Factions^TM, the hotly anticipated second game release from the critically acclaimed studio. Guild Wars Factions will be available in stores worldwide April 28, 2006.

Guild Wars Factions takes place on the Asian-inspired continent of Cantha, where new and existing Guild Wars players join an epic quest to defeat an ancient evil and save a war-torn empire. Roleplaying and competitive player-versus-player gamers alike will be able to join together in guild alliances to take control of territory and determine the fate of Cantha. New scored challenge missions and strategic competitive missions allow players to test their roleplaying prowess and earn the right for their alliance to take control of cities, towns and outposts. Large-scale alliance battles pit teams from opposing factions against each other in a struggle to conquer new territory and redraw the battle lines across the continent of Cantha. New elite missions allow the most skilled players exclusive access to areas designed to be the ultimate cooperative challenge.

"Guild Wars Factions is an exceptional game that invites players to immerse themselves in a truly epic adventure unlike any they have seen," says Patrick Wyatt, a co-founder of ArenaNet. "The four new mission types create a unique experience that will engage both the roleplaying and competitive gamer in cooperative conquest of territories and strategic battles. Set against the landscapes of the visually stunning, Asian-themed continent of Cantha, and with two new characters to choose from — Assassin and Ritualist — Guild Wars Factions will redefine the online RPG experience."

New players will join the more than one million gamers already playing Guild Wars worldwide, and existing players will have a new continent and storyline to explore within the universe of Guild Wars, the ground-breaking online roleplaying game that took the gaming world by storm in 2005 with its innovative design, depth of play and no-subscription-fee model. While Guild Wars Factions is a standalone product that does not require Guild Wars to play, gamers with Guild Wars accounts who purchase Guild Wars Factions will be able to play in both campaigns with their existing characters and even gain extra character slots.

For gamers who can't wait until April 28 to get their hands on a copy of Guild Wars Factions, ArenaNet is hosting a massive beta test event in which all existing Guild Wars players and their friends are invited to delve into the experiences awaiting them in Cantha. For those who want to be the first to enjoy all that Guild Wars Factions has to offer, a limited edition pre-order package is currently available at retail stores throughout North America. This pre-order pack includes an access key to the Factions Preview Event (FPE) on March 24, and also provides access to Guild Wars Factions twenty-four hours before the street date, exclusive in-game items for each of the game's new professions, a "friend-key" that gives access to the FPE for friends without an existing Guild Wars account, a limited trial of Guild Wars (original Prophecies campaign) for a friend, a tactical guide, a quick reference card, and a CD that includes concept art, wallpapers, and in-game trailers.

For more information, please visit www.guildwars.com.

About ArenaNet
ArenaNet, located in Bellevue, Washington, is a wholly owned subsidiary of NCsoft Corporation. ArenaNet has built a state-of-the-art, interactive game network and develops premier multiplayer online games for dedicated game players. ArenaNet's first title, Guild Wars, is a global online roleplaying game that allows gamers to play with anyone, anytime and anywhere in the world. Its highly-anticipated follow up, Guild Wars Factions, will be released spring 2006. More information about ArenaNet can be found at www.arena.net.

About NCsoft Corporation
Headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, NCsoft Corporation is the world's leading developer and publisher of online games. Founded in 1997, NCsoft is home to Lineage®, the world's most successful online roleplaying game. NCsoft has joint venture offices located in Japan, Taiwan, and China, as well as branches in North America and the United Kingdom. In fiscal year 2005, NCsoft posted revenues of KRW (Korean Won) 338 billion or approximately US$346 million. More information about NCsoft can be found at www.plaync.com.

NCsoft, the interlocking NC logo, PlayNC, Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, Factions, ArenaNet, Lineage and all associated logos and designs are trademarks or registered trademarks of NCsoft Corporation. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Stratics is pleased to announce that we have joined forces with Eurekster, the leading provider of community powered search results to offer dramatically enhanced search capabilities across each of our sites.

The new search boxes are “community powered,” meaning that the order in which they return results will be optimized over time based on each result’s demonstrated relevance to Stratics’ users. Additionally, each search will also query a custom index of MMOG related sites across the web, representing the world’s first MMO specific search engine.

In order to make this new technology as readily accessible as possible, we have also launched a dedicated Stratics Search portal at http://search.stratics.com.

Stratics Central opens its Signatures and Avatars Forum!

That's right! We now have our very own forum for signature and avatar sharing, requesting a personal image, or learning how to create these beautiful works of art!

Here at Stratics Central, we believe in self-expression. And in an online community, there are only two ways to do so:

1. In the discussions you have; and
2. By the signatures you display.

Now, we have described our new forum as such:

Enjoy creating personal banners? Are you a collector of signatures? Then this is the forum for you! Share, discuss, teach, learn... it's all about signatures and avatars, personal banners of all types. Come inside and see the works that help individualize you and make our network more beautiful!

So now... we want to see what is out there! Each and every community has its own style and flair, and it can be seen through your works of art that you create, build, and display. So come show us. Come share and let us see who you are!

This forum is not only for the showing of your pieces, but also for discussing them. Where did the idea come from? What lead you to this image or that? Why this style? What is behind your art, and what do you hope people see? We want to discuss and share the ideas, the thoughts, the reasons behind the images you create. Or behind the images you wear. Do you request certain styles, types, themes? If so, why? Is there a history behind it, or just a vision you see of yourself? Tell us...

Let's discuss the online community forum signatures that become a part of who we are and how other people recognize us behind our keyboards.

Welcome... to Stratics Central. Where we bring the Stratics Network together as one community.

AutumnKiss
Project Manager
Stratics Central

The interview includes questions about Kingdom of Sky as well as the crafting plans of the future for this exciting game!

Stratics: The recent server mergers have caused some... dissatisfaction among many of the players, due to increased lag and overcrowding reducing the availability of named creatures needed for quests and raids. What are the plans to help alleviate these issues, if any?

Blackguard: We're working on zone performance issues now. Most of the lag issues have already been addressed, but we're continuing to work on them and will do so until we get them resolved. The increased population is a lot healthier for the server overall. As far as the current overcrowding that some people are seeing, we're still watching this one because we think it will alleviate itself as players spread out.