We have a ton of links to share with you in this week's recap of our exclusive content and noteworthy news items (which can be found after the jump). With the holiday season upon us, most MMOs are celebrating with numerous events. Some, such as World of Warcraft's Feast of Winter Veil, are listed below. Whichever game you play, take some time to enjoy the festivities. Also, feel free to browse our news archive to check out everything that couldn't fit in this weekly recap.

Allakhazam Features

Dangers of Sanrio Town : Hello Kitty Online features an in-depth social network. While it's a good tool for meeting other players, it could be dangerous for the game's younger fans.

Ten Years of Lineage II : Sam Han, Lineage II Producer for NCsoft West, and Young Park, the original Lineage Production Assistant for NCsoft West, talk with us about the Lineage franchise.

Jumpgate Evolution Media #3 : These exclusive screenshots showcase fighters class ships and factories that are used in crafting.

Swordsman Screenshots : We take an in-depth look at this class from IGG's free-to-play Zu Online.

Station Crap : Allakhazam Editor-in-Chief Andrew "Tamat" Beegle has a less than favorable personal opinion on SOE's new Station Cash microtransaction service. What do you think about it? Let us know in the comments section.

Last week, the EVE Online team posted an update regarding an expoit with Starbase reactors. Well, the team has now posted details of their investigation, stating "we are working on the assumption that this bug has been exploitable since the release of player owned structures on November 24, 2004."

Our actions so far have included the eradication of 178 starbases that were exploiting this issue. Some had multiple reactors running in the bugged state.  We have also banned all those we have found directly involved and all accounts we have found to be connected to those players. The investigation is still under way and will take a while to conclude.

The full investigation will take weeks according to the post. You can read the full thing here or below.

If you're interested in competing in the Sixth Alliance Tournament, the time is approaching to sign up. You can register for the event tomorrow, Dec. 19, at 11 a.m. GMT. Everything you could ever want to know about the sign-up process can be found here.

CCP Claw and the team have been hard at work finalizing the rules, and we are pleased to announce that the final set of match rules are now available in the Official Rules Thread. These changes include a small re-balance in the points cost of Heavy Assault Cruisers and Battlecruisers.

Keep reading below for the full announcement, which contains information on the team of expert commentators who will join CCP in Iceland in February and the list of prizes.

Quantum Rise 1.0.4 has been deployed to "address performance issues regarding memory leaks that were affecting some of our players." In addition, it adds a new utlility feature to EVE Online:

Need for Speed

• A new graph is now accessible in the performance monitor that displays information about memory usage in the client.

The full patch notes can be found here or below.

CCP has teamed up with Xfire for its holiday event, EVE 'til EVE, which offers some great prizes for playing EVE Online.

All you have to do is create an Xfire account, download the client and join the Official Xfire EVE Online Guild. Then, simply play EVE Online while the Xfire client is running. That's it. Depending on the amount of hours you play between today and Dec. 31, you'll be eligible for numerous prizes.

One (1) Grand Prize Winner:  40+ Hours : 1 EVE model ship of choice, 1 Year EVE Online Subscription, 1 Year Subscription: EON Magazine, EVE Strategic Maps book, EVE Online T-shirt.

All the rules and the rest of the prizes can be found here or after the jump. The minimum amount of time you have to play is two hours for a chance at a three-month EVE subscription.

It's that time again for another recap of some of the most noteworthy news stories and exclusive items posted this week on Allakhazam. Since we already introduced this new series last week, let's get right to the links. There's even more after the jump.

Noteworthy news stories

• Allakhazam is hiring! : Have you ever wanted to work for Allakhazam? We have positions open for two part-time editors.
• 1st Video Documentary Released : LucasArts and BioWare have released the first Star Wars: The Old Republic documentary with gameplay footage. Check it out and let us know what you think.
• Tauren Burger with Fries : A World of Warcraft-themed restaurant just opened in Beijing. Watch the video to see what it looks like.
• Fan Fest Forum Topics : The Allakhazam team was at the Final Fantasy XI Fan Festival 2008 and our forum is full of discussion regarding the event.
• Station Cash is Now Available in EQ and EQII : You can now buy in-game items using real cash in SOE's new microtransaction service. What do you think about the service? Let us know.
• Atari's Parent Company to Acquire Cryptic Studios : The Star Trek Online and Champions Online developer will be acquired by Infogrames Entertainment.

The EVE Online team has posted an update regarding an exploit with Starbase reactors.

We discovered seven corporations with multiple Starbases set up for the express purpose of exploiting the issue.  Three of those corporations were members of two alliances. We took immediate action against the offenders and banned over 70 accounts and destroyed all the Starbases run by the corporations in question.  All the offending corporations are now effectively inactive as a result of our actions.

This matter will be further discussed by the team at a meeting this weekend, so there may be more developments regarding this exploit. More information can be found here or below.

If you play EVE Online on a Mac, you're going to need to update your Cider engine so your Mac client will automatically update when patches go live. Also, the new Cider engine build includes some fixes that should boost your performance.

We would ask all Mac users to click 'Yes' when prompted to update their Cider engine. Not doing this will require you to manually locate patch downloads and start the patch process for any client updates manually.

Basically, all you need to do is log in and click "Yes." The full announcement can be found here or below.

UPDATE: Due to unforseen network issues, Quantum Rise 1.0.3 was actually deployed on Dec. 11.

Quantum Rise 1.0.3 will be deployed on Dec. 10 while Tranquility is offline from 11 a.m. to 3:40 p.m. GMT. This patch promises to boost performance for all players.

This year we are giving you the gift of the Christmas Performance Patch which contains a massive boost to both large fleet and small gang engagements as well as much improved game play for every player in New Eden. Focusing on improvements to the Need for Speed initative, this very special patch streamlines performance to significantly increase frames per second (fps) and makes improvements to the patching process to allow for a smoother patching performance in general.

That's a great present, indeed. The full patch notes can be found here or below. Also, Technical Director Jon Bjarnason goes incredibly in depth in today's dev blog entry to explain exactly how the new patch will drastically improve the performance of the EVE client. Bjarnason seems quite proud of his teams for this update, and his excitement shines through in the blog entry.

CCP RealX has posted an interesting dev blog delving into the music of EVE Online. RealX wrote 10 new tracks for the Quantum Rise expansion to accompany the 57 that were already in the game.

In the blog entry, RealX explains how the music creation process has changed over the years, and how it will continue to change in the future.

Much greater things are possible now: a totally adaptive soundtrack made up of musical elements which would weave up an interesting sound universe, changing to what is happening around you. We are also working on a overhaul of all the sound in EVE as it has gotten less love than it perhaps should have in the last 5 years. We are working with a whole new technology now which gives us much more creative freedom.

So while you play EVE Online, don't forget to turn up your speakers and enjoy the music. You can read the full post here or below.