In mid-January a hacker stole account data from 3.5 million Frogster users. The reason behind the hack was due to the way Frogster moderates its forums. The hacker, who is known by the handle Augustus87, also took issue with the way Frogster allegedly treats its employees. He accused Frogster of spying on employees and not being open with its customers. A couple weeks have passed since the attack, and Frogster still hasn’t tracked down the person responsible.

Frogster, a publisher of MMORPGs, has come under attack by a hacker who uses the forum handle Augustus87. The hacker claims to have stolen the account data of 3.5 million Frogster users and is threatening to release all the data if their demands aren’t met within two weeks. Log-in data for 2,100 users has already been released. Augustus87 claims to have hacked and verified 500,000 of the accounts in their possession.

The open beta of Runes of Magic is ending soon, but not too soon. Frogster Interactive has stated that the free-to-play MMORPG will officially launch on March 19, 2009. The open beta began back on December 15, 2008, and closed betas were going on throughout 2008. Since the betas were so popular, drawing in over 450,000 players, it looks like the official launch of the game will be bright as well.

This means that, when the Runes of Magic launches, practically every promised feature will be available. The dual class system will be in play, there’ll be over 1,000 quests to undertake, no zone boundaries in areas, customizable skills, special sets of armor to collect and wear, runes to upgrade equipment…

So, do you have any plans 11 days from today? Because if you don’t, then you may want to drop by Runes of Magic. Frogster just announced that the free-to-play, fantasy MMORPG’s open beta begins December 15, 2008, and what better way to celebrate then being there, playing the game, on the very first day.

Now, this is a slightly delayed launch. Originally, Frogster was telling those waiting in the wings that the open beta would begin on December 9, 2008. I don’t think a delay of six days is anything to complain about though.

Frogster’s even going to be a little dramatic about the transition between the closed and open beta periods with an event…

Runes of Magic is still in closed beta, but that isn’t stopping Frogster from feeling the Halloween spirit. The MMO is going to have some special additions to celebrate Halloween 2008. There are going to be quests, special characters, knowledgeable NPCs and monster potions…

Runes of Magic has nearly hit a milestone, according to Frogster Interactive. Frogster has just announced that over 95,000 users have registered to try and take part in the closed beta of its new, free-to-play, MMORPG. Not quite 100,000, but very close. Plus, since all these people registered just in the hopes they’d be picked to participate in the beta, its still cause for some celebration.

The Runes of Magic closed beta test II is going to begin October 9, 2008, and Frogster is going to call upon some of those 95,000 to participate. Initially, only a few will be given permission to play, but Frogster is planning further beta phases where 30,000 of the people who registered will be allowed to create accounts…

Frogster Interactive has just announced that it is working with Runewaker Entertainment on a new, free massive multiplayer online (MMO) game, Runes of Magic, which will supposedly change the way people look at free MMOs. So far open and closed beta periods have not been announced, but the press release states that the German language version of the game will be released before the end of 2008, with the English language version of the game for European and North American users released shortly after.

So far I’m not seeing any real revolutionary ideas when I look at the press release. The idea of having two classes for the character, a primary and secondary class, picked from six different options is new – I’ll give them that. But most of the other features from the game have appeared in other MMOs before. Some of the highlights from the features list are the 600-odd quests, skills and spells to learn (of course), armor sets with special abilities, runes that can be added to items, a crafting system, teleportation, the ability to own homes or guild houses, an in-game auction house, ridable animals, a system that gauges your reputation based on actions and the ability to control the game with the mouse or keyboard. Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure I’ve seen most, if not all, of those features in other MMORPGs.