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Thanks to VE3D for reprinting details of a new online gaming report discussing MMO trends and estimated game popularity. According to the excerpts from the Themis Group's report, online gaming will grow from $960 million revenues in 2003 to $4.10 billion in 2008, and the chart estimating "expected popularity of new persistent worlds... in descending order by projected subscriber base twelve months after launch" is headed by Blizzard's World of Warcraft, followed by Sony's EverQuest 2 and Turbine's Middle Earth Online. The report also suggests: "Success with a license challenges developers to find a way to implement the license's core appeal into an MMG-style game - a challenge which Final Fantasy Online met, but Star Wars Galaxies did not."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to an official press release announcing MMORPG developer Turbine has secured almost $20 million in venture capital funding to help fund Turbine's first self-published PC MMO project, Dungeons & Dragons Online. A GameSpot story quotes a Turbine spokesman as saying the move presents a "total shift in [our] business model. We're taking out the middle man between us and our fans." The Asheron's Call developers are still "partnered with Atari for retail marketing and distribution" on D&D Online, the company it "secured the D&D MMORPG sublicense" from earlier this year, but describes its intent to "[transition] from a developer into service publisher with its newest franchises." Turbine are also still working on The Lord Of The Rings: Middle-Earth Online in partnership with Vivendi.

Thanks to GameSpy for their article discussing the realities of building MMOG world based on existing licenses. They point out: "The rush is on. Star Wars Galaxies, released this past summer, was only the beginning. Middle-Earth Online is gearing up to bring The Lord of the Rings to life... The Matrix Online, still secretive, is a real noodle bender: A virtual reality based on living life inside a virtual reality?" But, as Will Wright points out: "Books and movies are by definition very linear properties, as seen from a single protagonist's point of view. That's very hard to put into an online world." The article concludes: "Most agree that great licensed games have to be based on a sense of place, as opposed to character."

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to the Middle-Earth Online website's new developer diary, in which the PC MMORPG's production designer Marc 'Taro' Holmes talks about the "epic responsibility" of visualizing Tolkein's world. He discusses some of the visual controversies: "The debates go back and forth, seemingly without end - does the Balrog have wings or is he made of living flame? Do dwarven women really have beards? How tangible are the Nazgul? How beautiful are the elves?", and shows some early concept art for the barrow-downs at Tyrn Gorthad.