This week in RoleCraft, Jim Moreno looks at ways for roleplayers to deal with the Fairer Tongue of Elvish.

The Earthrise team and Masthead Studios have announced a new fanart contest. If you've got that artistic bent, check out the contest details and prizes by clicking below.

Jonathan Steinhauer continues his application of the writings of Carl Clausewitz to MMOGs, this time looking at what happens when victory is yours.

This time on RoleCraft, Jim Moreno wants to hear from you roleplayers out there.

In this installment of RoleCraft, Jim Moreno looks at an interesting idea from WoW RP Realms: Full Immersion Roleplaying (FIRP).

Jonathan Steinhauer continues his study of Clausewitz and examines the art of the kill.

The second Earthrise newsletter has been released. Five developer profiles are presented including Masthead CEO Atanas Atanasov. There is also a letter from community manager 'Moll'. Check it out after the jump.

The Earthrise Question of the Week has been posted for the week of June 2-6, 2008. Technically, this week's 'question' isn't really a question but an article about in-game organizations for which players can work. Check it out after the jump.

Just in case you may not be aware, RoleCraft isn't the only place where you can find roleplaying related info on the interwebs. Of course you know that, and I'm only joking. During the course of my day, I am given and locating sites which are directly related to or merely referencing some aspect of roleplaying, and I consider it part of my duty to help keep you, my fellow roleplayers, informed as much as possible.

The latest Question of the Week has been posted on the official Earthrise forums. This week's question deals with jumping and hopping and the physics involved in those pursuits.

There's been a fair bit of discussion about jumping and physics. Can you tell us a little about the type of physics we can expect to see? Will there be ragdoll style effects? What about jumping? Will we be able to jump in combat?

Physics

While designing Earthrise engine we tried to build the best realistic experience and in the same time balance client requirements and server load. The physics engine will run simultaneously on the client and on the server. The server will ensure that the physics results from the client are feasible and prevent cheating. We are using a 3rd party physics core, which can take advantage of hardware and GPU acceleration and also have some internally-coded subsystems. Player movement and control is governed by the physics engine - forces such as gravity or wind (and other) will affect players, NPCs, and other game objects. Player mounts (vehicles) have mass and their movement and collisions are generated by the physics engine. Visual effects, such as particle systems, explosion blast waves, and projectiles will use the physics engine too, on the client side. The audio subsystem will use physics world and object materials to generate proper sound effects.

There's more so click below.