Some of you may remember a recent editorial that was published here at Allakhazam about my concerns with Station Cash. Obviously, there were people at Sony Online Entertainment who disagreed with me. During my time at CES last week I had the opportunity to sit down with John Smedley to let him know why I decided to write the piece and our conversation quickly turned into an interview opportunity. Mr. Smedley was both rational and receptive during our off the record talks and clearly understood my opinions, regardless of his own. He even went out on a limb to let me know that he'd like to take some of the concerns that I had back to the EverQuest II development team. You don't have to have a very big imagination to know that those remarks put a smile on my face.

During the interview, which is nearly ten minutes in length, we talked about Station Cash, Free Realms, EverQuest's ten year anniversary, and the EverQuest movie which has been rumored for years.  I have to admit, some of the Station Cash products that Sony Online Entertainment is going to be rolling out are exciting. I even found myself saying 'I'd buy that' during the interview. As far as my opinions of Station Cash are concerned, as long as the experience potions available for purchase are where they draw the line, I'm willing to co-exist.

'Imagine being able to open up a book with every member of your guild, and have that physically mailed to you as a part of station cash. Our goal is to be able to buy both in game items, and those kinds of items, but be able to do that among all of our games in the future.'

Please check out our interview with John Smedley which we've transcribed for those of you who don't want to see John Smedley and me stare into each other's eyes for ten minutes. Also, please tell us what you think about the interview, Station Cash, the EverQuest movie and anything else that comes to mind, in the comment box below.

Recently we had the chance to interview Sebastian Strzalkowski, the Associate Art Director on Free Realms. There was a ludicrous amount of features discussed in a limited amount of time. We barely get any time to take a breath with all the new information flowing in. In fact, there was no way for us to be able to include everything that we were shown, Free Realms looks like it's ready to go!

The levels of customization are intense and elaborate. The interface is quite clean and streamlined, and the combat system is equally usable. The artwork is one-of-a-kind and the concept itself is completely unique to Free Realms. From Racing to the custom clothing, Free Realms looks like they are putting together quite the amazing free game for all, and we’re sure that they will make something truly special. Sebastian even drops hints as to what's next for this development from Sony Online Entertainment. Sounds like we all have something we are going to have to try out when it’s finally available later this year! Make sure to check out the video available after the jump and let us know what you think.

If you've ever played a FPS (First Person Shooter), chances are you've heard the name Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel at least a few times. Widely regarded as the most successful professional gamer around, he's won twelve World Championships over five different games. We caught up with him at CES to talk about something you wouldn't suspect, World of Warcraft.

During the interview he made it clear that he's going to keep his WoW life casual, but pursue it in a business perspective by actively seeking out and possibly sponsoring World of Warcraft professionals. In my mind this is great news for would be professionals that just need a little help breaking into the space.

I think I'm going to keep it more casual but I think I'm going to go about it the professional way by finding the best players and sponsor them to travel around underneath the Fatal1ty brand and support our product line with Creative. I'm really looking forward to sponsoring some guys.

Check out our exclusive interview with Fatal1ty after the jump.

DC Universe Online is a game that we’ve been paying a lot of attention to lately for a number of reasons. The biggest that comes to mind is Jim Lee, whom we did an interview with in December. When the Allakhazam team saw DC Universe last, there were mixed opinions as to whether or not the game would amount to anything. After our meeting with Sony Online Entertainment on Thursday, we’re singing a different tune all together.

The game looks like a lot of fun; which is something that a few of us wouldn’t have said when we saw it in 2008 at the San Diego Comic-con. The most exciting new aspect of the game that was shown was the Cases/Capers system. ‘Cases are essentially missions that you work on that are a lot like quests. Heroes have Cases and Villains have Capers.’

As you’ll see in the demonstration we were given, the game still needs work. I’m still not completely happy with the controls and camera angles, but the good news is -- neither is the development team. SOE is taking a new approach with DC Universe, and I believe that they understand this is a game can’t be anything less than 100% ready when they launch.

Please make sure to check out our look at DC Universe Online after the jump.

Some of the Allakhazam team are in Las Vegas this week covering CES (Consumer Electronics Show) . We had the opportunity to catch up with Brett Close, the President and CEO of 38 Studios to see if we could get any details about the project simply known as Copernicus. Unfortunately, Brett wasn't able to give any new details about the  other game than the announcement that the studio will be bunking down to continue the already 'ahead of schedule' development process. It's refreshing to see a company with so many opportunities to hype their game (because of the huge names involved: Curt Schilling, Todd MacFarlane, R.A. Salvatore), announce that their going to go mostly silent for an entire year.

We're actually ahead of where we want to be and things are going so well that we're going to turtle ourselves in and just keep focused on development. There's not much to say for '09; we just want to continue making the solid process that we're making and I think it's not only fair to us but I think it's even more fair to the fans out there that want to see something.

We were extremely excited to see more concept art like was given to us during Comic-con but we're just going to have to wait until 2010. Make sure to check out our interview with Brett Close after the jump.

For as long as I've been playing World of Warcraft, I've always wondered what it would be like to be given the opportunity to interview one of the most popular characters within the game. This week I had that very opportunity and found myself scratching my head in confusion. Thrall wasn't what I expected at all.

Tamat : Hey Thrall! Thank you for allowing me into your private quarters to have a small chat. ....Why are you looking at the ceiling?

Thrall :  Lok'tar human!  As Warchief of the Horde I struggle daily to maintain a balance between our shamanistic ancestry and modern fashion trends.  Do you think "Clefthide Brown" or "Zhevra Gray" would look better in here?

Tamat : Ummm, I don't know. I'm here to interview you, not answer questions about skinned hides! Anyway, what are your thoughts on the semi recent re-discovery of Northrend?

The following editorial contains views that are the opinion of the author and not necessarily the views of Allakhazam.com

Last week Sony Online Entertainment announced Station Cash, which was met with an uproar from the community. Station Cash is a new virtual currency program that gives players the option buy in-game items from their virtual wallet. This has been seen by many as a short sighted attempt to put money in their pocket without consideration of tomorrow. I don't know about you, but my letter to Santa didn't say anything about getting screwed by Sony. That's how I feel though. I feel somewhat betrayed by the company that I've always talked about as one that listens to their players. It seems that this is no longer true of Sony Online Entertainment.

This isn't the first time that SOE has pushed the same kind of envelope. The launch of Station Exchange back in July of 2005 was met with the same criticism. So what's different this time around? Everything! First of all, we're not getting the choice this time. With Station Exchange they only implemented it on select servers that players had the option to transfer to. The same was true with the introduction of PvP into EverQuest II. First there was discussion which resulted in the creation of dedicated PvP servers because this was what the fans indicated they wanted. This time around it's being forced on everyone, and it was done that way no discussion, no warning and no choice.

My biggest question is why they decided to ninja implement such an important "enhancement" if they didn't already know it was going to piss people off. It's my opinion that they did know; they just simply didn't care. It seems that a simple compromise, like creating specific Station Cash servers for people to transfer to, would have been held with higher regard in the community. So why didn’t they go that route? That's a question as enigmatic to me as their choice to continue PS3 MMO development.

Recently we had the opportunity to interview Craig Morrison, Game Director on Age of Conan. During our interview we discussed some of the changes that have been made to combat, the expected changes to PvP with the notoriety system as well as some of the newer content plans on the Age of Conan drawing board.

Tamat : Hello Craig. Thank you for taking time out of your day to talk with us about Age of Conan.

Craig : No problem at all. Glad to get the chance to answer some questions and talk a little bit about the game.

Tamat : Let's start with the most obvious question: How do you feel about Age of Conan in its current state?

Craig : I think we are in a pretty good position to build on the launch of the game. Obviously there were some elements of the game that people have really reacted well to, and some that haven’t worked out as well as we would have liked. We definitely recognize that there are some areas of the game that need improvement and we are working through those at the moment.

Surprise, surprise! I'm a Star Wars nerd. Having said that, when Star Wars: The Old Republic was announced last month, naturally, I flipped out. Of course deep down most gamers already knew it was coming. When the rumors started that Bioware was developing an MMO using their Lucas Arts license; it was pretty obvious at that point. Though that wasn't concrete enough to keep us from crossing our fingers. I mean, who wants to see an Indiana Jones MMO? The thought alone, scares me.

Last week I had the opportunity to sit down with Sean Dahlberg, Bioware Community Manager in charge of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Like me, he's a huge Star Wars fan and was eager to share everything he could about the game. During the interview we talked about the storyline, PvP and over sized lightsabers.

Tamat : Hey Sean. Thanks for putting away your lightsaber for long enough to talk with me about Star Wars: The Old Republic. How are things going over at BioWare?

Sean Dahlberg: Things are going great, especially now that we've revealed the game.

Tamat : Let's start off with some basic information about the games storyline? Can you give us an overview of what’s happening in The Old Republic?

I’ve had the opportunity to conduct some fun interviews over the years but sitting down with Jeffrey “Tigole”  Kaplan felt like I was hanging out with an extremely knowledgeable gamer, not a big wig at a major studio. From the moment I met him he had this pleasant aura about him which made it extremely easy to talk about our previous lives as hardcore ‘EverQuesters’. Once upon a time Jeff was the GM of a guild that many of you reading have likely heard of, “Legacy of Steel”. He’s used his love and knowledge of gaming and the end result is World of Warcraft.

The following is from my talk with Jeff Kaplan on Wednesday night at the official Blizzard Wrath of the Lich King Launch event in Anaheim, California. Special thanks go out to Humphrey Cheung from TGdaily.com for the pictures and to Blizzard PR for sneaking me inside Fry’s.

Allakhazam : Hey Jeff, thank you so much for agreeing to talk with us tonight. We know there is a lot going on so we appreciate your time.

Jeff : Well I really appreciate being here and I'm a huge fan of Allakhazam so it's my pleasure.

Allakhazam : Thank you! So what were some of the major challenges you had developing Wrath of the Lich King?