Round Up: New Payment Option For D&D Online, Ankama Studio At E3, Disciples III Signed For Global Release

Today's round-up includes news of a new payment option for Dungeons & Dragons Online, Ankama Studio's E3 presence, and a partnership between Strategy First, .dat Company, and Akella to release the PC strategy RPG Disciples III: Renaissance worldwide, as well as the latest posts from GameSetWatch and Serious Games Source, and Gamasutra job postings. - Turbine has announced another payment option for their recently released massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach for players who prefer not to use a credit card for automatic billing. The company has signed a deal with Internet Payment Solutions, Inc. to accept payment from customers using PayByCash. In addition, PayByCash customers can take advantage of a 60-day game pass for $33.19. PayByCash is currently accepted by other popular online games, including Gunbound and the immensely popular World of Warcraft. - French independent developer Ankama Studio announced that the company will be present at E3 in Los Angeles, May 10 - 12, 2006. The company will be on hand to preview Wakfu, a new massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) set for release at the end of 2007, as well as Dofus-Arena, which is currently in beta, and the upcoming Dofus extension Riders of the Dragoturkey, which will ship in June. In this extension, new things will appear such as mounts, breeding professions, new functionalities of communications and exchange in between players as well as the enlargement of the free zone. - Publisher Strategy First has partnered with Russian developer and .dat Company and Russian publisher Akella to develop and globally publish the next game in Strategy First’s Disciples franchise for the PC, Disciples III: Renaissance. In development since the summer of 2005, Disciples III uses .dat’s in-house Virtual Dream engine, and will feature 3D presentation, three playable races, and the new ability to allow a Lord to use spells in the battlefield. “It is a great pleasure to be working on this project with Akella and .dat. The team brings immense talent on the table and both Akella and .dat have everything it takes to give this project the world-class polish we wanted for the Disciples franchise,” said Richard Therrien, VP Product Developments for Strategy First. - The latest updates on Gamasutra sister weblog GameSetWatch include info on merchandise offered by Japanese developer Gust, a look at the classic PlayStation puzzler Devil Dice, and Easter festivities in Lineage II. In addition, recent updates on new site Serious Games Source include research on the benefits of DDR, as well as a feature covering Tabula Digita's Dimenxian. - Also updated today: the latest Gamasutra job postings, featuring openings from Bungie, Factor 5, Nihilistic Software, Planet Moon Studios, The Art Institute Online, and Ubisoft.