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Project Entropia's Universe Solidifies
Psyiode writes "Swedish interactive entertainment developer MindArk today announced the virtual universe Project Entropia is going gold on January 30th 2003. If you'll recall, Project Entropia is a MMORPG where everything is purchased with real money and slowly degrades during use. Could this be the way most online games will be played (and paid for) in the future?"
We play to escape reality, not be held back by it.
[o]_O
Last time I checked the beta out, it lacked certain prerequisites for a good game environment, including the ability to walk. Seriously. The character models had no walk animation, and instead, just slid around. I have serious doubts about this game, mostly because it seems that more effort has gone into the complex systems (read: economy) than into the user experience. Just my 2 cents.
Why would I want to do this on line. I have enough problems with spending money on things that decay in the real world?
JFMILLER
Strive to make your client happy, not necessarly give them what they ask for
Yep, they're purchased with real money until someone figures out how to steal them or counterfit them.
Welcome to the world where you pay for the privilege to be cheated and robbed!
Anyway, it better be a blast otherwise it's just going to suck ASS
Will PK & loots be treated as real murder & robbery?
There's no way I would put money into an MMORPG like that. They all get hacked or exploited some how eventually, and then what happens to the guys who put hundreds of dollars into the game? On the other hand, if i could be the first one to get a copy of the hack...
They're saying that they've invested over 15 million USD in the game already and will continue to invest over 5 million USD/year! That sounds like a horrific amount of money for them to try and make back. Expect a virtual cup of coffee to cost 10 bucks real money!
Also, I live in Sweden and work in the Internet industry here and I've never heard of this company. If their investment has been as large as they say it has, I would expect to have heard something about them. (I would also expect them to build a website that *doesn't* crash my browser (IE 6!) every time I visit the site!).
Just my 2 Entropian cents!
A little planning goes a long way...
...to play this game when RealLife (tm) has been up to version 5.6 since a few million years already ?
Tsuyoikoto ha taisetsu da ne, dakedo namida mo hitsuyousa (Strength is an important thing, but tears too are necessary)
ok, so the way the game works is that if you kill and steal from someone, you become an outlaw, and then people can kill/steal from you without becoming an outlaw, so you're going to be a target. What is going to happen is a gang will form of the top 10-20 players who will just go around killing, stealing from and dividing up the goods of every other player in the game. As far as I know, there is no reason this wouldn't happen. Its like living in a world with no police, it would just be large gangs.
Why would I want to pay for something that does not exist and "degrades" over time, just like the real world. I am curious as to how this economy is going to work. Is it going to be setup like "paypal," where one dollar is worth one "Entropia" dollar, or will there be an exchange rate? On the surface this concept is neat, but I fear that someone will crack this really quick and leave all the suckers who paid real money out in the cold. I think this concept would work better in a "Sims" type environment, not a space epic. Is little timmy going to have to save up to buy that "Millenium Falcon" in Entropia?
"Jeremy, you need to get to an internet cafe and cut and paste some appropriate sentiments about me from the world wide
In game you have a vitual wallet. You are able to make transfers to and fom your real bank account at any time. So if you earn money in the game you are earning money in real life too.
Real life has WAY better graphics
I beta tested this game when it was initially released to the public, I downloaded the installer and could _not_ get it to run. I emailed tech support a bunch of times, and they could not help me - finally I found out the .cab files had not even been extracted by the installer. I'm not trusting a company who has spent "15" million dollars and can't even get the installer to work correctly.
Wow..and people were doing drive by shootings and other acts of violence in Japanese internet cafes over EQ. Imagine what it will be like when someone takes items worth $100+ in real money.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one the bus load of girls just went down.
Pay real money for something that deteriorates over time? This sounds to much like my Windows PC setup....
in the game can i buy a character that will go, buy a computer, with my real money in his virtual world, then play a stupid game he has to pay for in the game with his 'real' money... that he can pay for his damn self, because ill be dammed if some game character is going to bum a dime off me after i paid for him to exist.
stupid leech characters.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
Yep.
"Should you make money in the virtual world, you can also withdraw it to your real world account and thus actually make money in a virtual world."
Pretty cool, actually.
Business Plan:
1) Find a duplication bug.
(duplication bugs allow you to clone items, usually by manipulating how the game saves or moves items)
2) Buy a 20 dollar item.
3) Duplicate it 20 times, for 20*2^20 = 20 million items.
4) Sell it back to the game.
5) Cash out your 20 million and retire.
If I pay for the game software I am entitled to play for free. Blizzard is a prime example of this in action and working..
If I get the software free I am willing to pay to play.
I am not willing to violate rule 1 or 2.
If they expect me to pay for the software and pay to play and pay for stuff in the game they must be totally bonkers.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
How appropriate of a name for the planet: Calypso. She put her efforts into distracting Odysseus from his real goal to go home. I don't think this game is going to distract me and keep me from my real life for seven years like Odysseus though.
It's not like you can't get things for cash in every OTHER game like this, they're just starting out that way from the onset.
The real question is whether you can buy character skills. Paying real cash for things isn't so bad when characters still need to acquire skills through practice - then you can also acquire things through skills. I.e. maybe I can buy a "Sword of Moderate Death" for $20, but the only way to get a "Sword of Extreme Death" is to find a level 99 Wizard to enchant it - and maybe that Wizard is going to want some cash for his services.
The cash thing just makes this game more of an extension of the real world than a substitute. No more getting spanked by some 12 year old who can play 16 hours a day because you have a real job and they don't - now your real job is worth something in the game.
'Course, me personally, I'd rather get laid.
paintball
if they want this to work like the real world, as far as economy goes at least, tehn we should have financial protection as well.
I want life insurance policies, FDIC insured bank accounts, credit fraud reimbursement, and a living trust, not to mention offshore accounts, holding companies and tax havens.
If this was set in the middle ages or ancient babylonia i'd understand why you could only carry around your wealth to insure it's safety but that's why we developed all these other paradigms, to protect ourselves from bandits, outlaws and thieves. Just cause it's sci-fi doesn't mean it's post apocolyptic! Where's the civilization?
Also how do these things degrade? Can we repair them? or can we just buy Good(TM) stuff that doesn't degrade? I know people who buy cheap stuff and yeah it's pretty much crap before it degrades but it also degrades much much more quickly than most of the stuff I buy, like furniture, clothing, electronics, appliances, etc. Any of the rest of you people out there still have something you bought even five years ago that is in mint condition? ten years..
I do.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I played a MUD when I was in HS/college, and I was arguably the best player in the game, and my clan was definitely the best clan in the game. The game also had an outlaw system similar to this one, and sure enough, everyone in my clan had outlaw flags.
However, we wern't outlaws - we WERE the law. If you were nice, you were treated nice, and if you killed and stole from people, we'd hunt you down. Most people gave us a wide berth, but some would think they could take us on, and they'd get beat down too. The rest wanted to join the group.
Not saying it's not possible the top 10-20 players won't form an outlaw group, but it's also possible that the top 10-20 players form a more benevolent power structure.
paintball
Isn't one of the large advantages of the RPG's out now that you can be anyone you want? If real world classes and poverty extend into the online realm, why would anybody want to take part.
If you are just going to get fragged by the 15 year old who's parents bought him the best gun in the game, why play?
??
"Could this be the way most online games will be played (and paid for) in the future?"
No.
Most gamers would get real tired of having to shell out tons of money just to have a powerful character, and having to put up with little shits with too much money and attitude ruining it for everyone else. The achievement of advancing a character is what makes it so much fun for most people. I mean it's just bits, a non-reality, yet peopel enjoty the accomplishment. Hell D&D really showed this. It was all pen and paper and a story told among friends. You could cheat if you wanted, it's not like you couldn't just write down whatever character you wanted (provided the group was ok with it), the DM could jsut tell a story such that noone was ever in any danger. That's no fun, the risk and advancement of the interactive adventure is the appeal.
If you want a game where you just start out and don't have to worry about that shit, just compete, play Quake, UT or the like. No leveling, no building, just combat. I love games like that for that, but tring to say you ought to just be able to buy your way to the highest levels in an RPG just defeats the purpose.
with a payment scheme like this, they can easily make subtle game economy changes to basically raise the fee for playing. whereas in a monthly fee based game if they up the fee by, say, 150% of what it is, it is quite a bit more noticeable and users will easily drop out or complain.
the idea seems like a good one to people looking to play the game, but it is incredibly sneaky from the other end when you think about it.
for example, they are able advertise being able to play the game for free, what they don't tell you is you can't do anything without buying anything, thus, severely limiting gameplay. to really play the game you need to purchase $10 worth in items that decay within a month, after which point you must buy another $10 worth. they can easily monopolize the market by making themselves the only provider of items in the game. sure you can create your own things but how good is it compared to the store bought equivalent? they don't give such details on the website.
transactions can be really simple, they can make an agreement in the game so clicking a button decrements/increments directly from your credit card instantly. only people who are calculating the money conversions and keeping track of how much they spend will be able to realize the actual cost of playing the game.
i'm not sure i'll play this game for fear of losing my sense of reality and my money along with it.
Can be hard getting a good game of RealLife (tm). Partial destruction of your FAT only to find later all you needed was a FirmWare upgrade is a real pain.
-Matt
--- Need web hosting?
The whole concept seems contrary to what many gamers go for in MMOGs. Don't players LIKE that advantage in the real world doesn't follow into the game world? Project Entropia allows players to buy into power using real dollars, so I guess it stands to reason that wealthier real world players will acquire more power and wealth in the game. I'm scratching my head wondering how this translates to better gameplay.
Maybe this setup will attract older players with more disposable income?
It really sounds as if the Entropia people saw knuckleheads spending thousands on Ebay to buy Ultima characters and decided to cash in by routing that money into their own pockets. I mean, everything in the game degrades. And who is the only "manufacturer" of new equipment? Hmm.
Besides, the first schmuck who loses a bunch of money on some crappy item will sue the company.
This thing almost sounds like a good way to launder money or move it between shady sources...
"In the new universe, real-world money can be used for virtual-world or real-world transactions (patent pending)."
They're even going to patent real world transactions!
It looks like they will offer insurance, you can transfer your credits back to USD, pk'ers can't steal your credit card in the game. The base exchange rate is 10 eBux = 1 USD.
01:36AM up 426 days, 2:46, 1 user, load average: 0.14, 0.11, 0.05
because there's money involved. If the guys in your clan could have gotten maybe $10 or more per day for killing and robbing weaker players, how many of them would still want to be the law? I think that greed is a lot more important than community to people.
How much do you wanna bet when they say they're investing 15-million, they mean they're creating $15,000,000 worth of items in-game? =)
$50,000 from Uber Swords of Slaying (500 @ $100 apiece)
$5,000 from Moldy Muffins (5,000 @ $1 each)
etc, etc.
-Berj
From THIS article...
...At the request of Microsoft, Adobe Systems, other members of the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and nearly 70 local court officials in Gothenburg, Sweden, swept through MindArk's offices, temporarily shutting down company operations while the bailiffs catalogued every piece of software in the place. ...
/. back in June with a note on my thoughts regarding established big biz hijacking and controling any developing net based economy.
I submitted this to
I wish I saved the rant in ascii and still can't believe it was rejected. (What? I must be new here)
"Hey, you just sold me a so-called magic armor which in fact didn't save my ass at all ! I want my money back, NOW !'
So I guess every has figured out how it works by now, you buy items and then you kill monsters/other people in hopes of finding more valuable items and making a profit. So there will be 2 types of players in this game, the guys who are really good and make a profit, and the suckers, who lose money while supporting who whole thing. Now how long do you think the suckers are going to keep losing money for? Maybe a month if they're stupid, probably less. This thing is basically like a large pyramid scheme, the only way it works is if you keep getting people who are stupider than you to join in at the bottom, and that's not going to happen forever, so eventually it collapses.
Read more on this link.
Fortunately this game looks really boring. Without player vs player encounters I can't see why anyone would want to invest sums of money to make their character any better.
If you're interested in an almost fully functional online world where PvP and Guild vs Guild competition is the main objective then check out Shadowbane where you can literally change the world.
Open beta will occur in the new year.
- This and all my posts are public domain. I am a Physicist. I am not your Physicist. This is not Physically advice
i dont see how they are going to get my interest with their server being down. this is the type of thing that kills mushs.
... well then they can easily have my $20 or so a month.
if this is simsonline meets everquest meets grand-theft-auto:vice city
i would love to spawn off another virtual life.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Please choose your avatar... will you be Warlock, wizard, magician, theif, lawyer, policeman, taxman...
1 461&pageversion=1
A crime in the virtual world is a crime in the real world too. You steal game credits and you're stealing real money. So the first time you see any crime in this mmorpg report it to the police immediately at: http://www.polisen.se/PSUser/frameset.jsp?nodeid=
I know what I'm gonna do - hack into city bank - transfer as much money as possible to a swiss bank account somewhere - and when they come to arrest me I'll say - oh - I'm sorry - but I thought that citybank was just a mmorpg - and surely this is just a virtual theft - where's the harm in that.
Seriously though - the second you can turn mmorpg income back to real income - you have a lot of very serious ethical questions. If someone steals from me online - do they pay tax on that income or not. If I hack the code to generate income - is that tax deductible, is it a crime? Is a crime in the virtual world not a crime in the real world too?
3D worlds are getting more and more common.
Here is an alternative, you can even create and share your own objects and scripts: Second Life
So you're postulating it will look like a better version of this flick?
"I am the rocker, I am the roller, I am the out-of-controller!"
-- Project Entropia's best player.
How can you use my intestines as a gift? -Actual Hong Kong subtitle.
This is probably going to attract people who hope to be able to make money from the being in the game (we see this in just about all other online games, where they sell items and equipment for real life money) - it may also be a way for nolife nerds to make a living without leaving their sofa!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Remember the sims? A game where you have to work, pay bills, clean the house, etc etc etc ... people are weird!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
... is that Entropy is basically "Libertarian Online". Should be popular with /.ers then.
You've got your definition of entroy wrong. Your assuming it has a meaningful definition.
In order to examine the situation that your talking about, you have to go right back to the physics of the situation. Entropy is an integreating factor, something that is required to make the mathematics balance. It is not more than that. It turns out, however, that the concept of disorder fits with entroy in many cases (but not nessescerily all).
Once you follow the mathematics through (going from mental maths here), i think you'll find that in order for that to be true, assuming that the basic laws of mathematics don't change, you'll end up having to reverse a few other signs in thermodynamics, so that the net effect will be to reverse the 0 and infinity point of energy.
Net result: Things behave exactly as they are. If you apply a negative sign to every energy, you get 'increasing' entropy. Given that energies are arbitary anyway, you can do that, with no change in observerations. So, you end up with a world identical to our own.
What does this mean? The situation you want to generate is not possible.
The concept of real life money being involved in this game is interesting, however, the lack of information concerning how they will protect monies in game and your account information disturbs me. - Below is an excerpt from their FAQ.
18.7 How is my account information protected?
There is a complete security system to take care of this.
18.8 How is account hacking going to be handled?
As you must understand we cannot reveal any details about our security.
This does not inspire me to trust them or their product/service. - Are they using SSL? Something different? What protects the players in game account and real life account? What happens if there is a server hiccup and I get charged twice for an item? Is my account credited? Do I have to prove my case, if so how, what information must I supply. Must I hand over *very* personal information, like Paypal requests in account disputes, if something goes wonky with my account or if I am accused of some wrong doing? I guess players get to email the support/dev persons and pray that they are more forthcoming with information than the FAQ. But since they haven't told you anything already, do you expect them to tell you anything, down the road, when something bad goes down? I feel there are too many questions not already answered when the game is only a month and a half from gold.
I'm sorry but this just seems like playing poker with a professional dealer while blindfolded.
Sounds like a great way to launder large amounts of cash. Rocco spends a ton of money in-game from a non-extraditable country, and 'sells' it all to Vinnie's character, who cashes out, happily legal and flush.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
If they make it a possibility to 'win' in the game, make it a bit of a gambling like, restrict the weapons heavily so that you cannot directly get the best weapon, have a lot of unique weapons.
;)
With the 'win' ability i mean you could find some good weapon and sell it for real money or real money trading between players. And also perhaps virtual dice games, roulette etc...
Charge the players very small monthly fee like 1USD and the weapons etc... costs they get revenue from there but if there just would be a chance that good player could gain cash also. that would be need to be very exactly balanced etc... to not increase pkiller count. for example if they'd make it so that both players fighting needs to have pkilling mode turned on and of course it should be hard to both see what kind of character with what powers they have.
This would lead to people taking duels etc... and might create a 'sub-culture' on the game =)
With what i mean a very good player is like top 2% could play actually without fees and few could gain from it, and perhaps so that there could be people getting from quests etc... very good weapons all the time and selling to those players in need of them, thus creating it so that few players could play as their work, and this would in time perhaps make so that NPC merchants etc... would be just for the n00bs as there are player groups where some of them goes hunting weapons etc... and one or two stay's in the cities selling that stuff.
Pulsed Media Seedboxes
Just a thought, but with the climate of "our society is crumbling, lets blame computer games", we (as computer game players) always had the retort that it wasn't "real" per-se, e.g. noone actually suffers as a result of actions carried out upon/to them in any virtual world.
However, this no longer holds with this game. You steal Etropian money from them, you are taking real hard cash from them. Where does this stand in the eyes of the law? Must you sign a waiver to play? Surely in the excessively litigious world of the US of A, someone is gonna get mauled? Also, the anti computer game lobby now have a real reason to start banning games. Frankly I'm fascinated by the concept, but I don't think I want to go down that road.
IMO there is no longer a stark line drawn between criminality in the real world and the virtual one. It's no longer a moral issue, it's an issue, period. Kids (or adults) who start to f*ck ppl over in this game have a real danger of getting a feel for this "free money" lark and may well bring this behaviour into the real world. No?
- Ois
PGP KeyId: 0x08D63965
Did you punish one of your own if he stepped out of line? If not you werent the law, but just the syndicate.
just play anything with Windows 98 and you'll get the same effect.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Is THAT what that game was about? I thought it was to torment those little guys until they died. Oops...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
With all the recent articles on video game addiction, this whole concept of mixing video games and gambling sounds a little risky.
Does this not have the potential for people to spend their life savings on this game?
So now, not only can videogames kill you, they can also make you go broke.
When your widow goes to claim your life insurance, they'll find you cashed it in to buy yourself that new house in Project Entropia.
After all, you download the game free of their site and can play for free - you just can't do all that much in the wolr dwithout dropping some cash in (have to buy a gun to hunt, or mining tools to mine, etc). But for free you can at least run around the world and see how things work and how well refined their technology is.
I've played it in "commercial open trial" for a while now off and on, and I've been quite un-impressed. Unless they make some serious balancing improvements in the economy, and overcome some serious technical difficulties they're having, it's gonna flop.
One their biggest design flaws, IMHO, is their attempt to make the client's view of the world simultaneously seamless (no zoning), lagless (client to server), and cheatproof. They've put a priority on cheatproof, as they should with real money involved. A cheatproof client means that you can't send the client any data ahead of time. In Everquest, for example, the client software is told everything in your zone ahead of time, even thigns you can't see yet. Very cheatable, but it improves performance - not as much has to be sent by the server as you walk around. By eliminating pre-caching of cheatable server data, and also going seamless (one huge world instead of broken up "zones" that take a few seconds to move between), the lag is unbearable. Even under good conditions, actions take place seconds after you push a button, mobs pop up in front of you "magically", etc, etc...
Being able to do this sort of "live" data feed between client and server with no predictive pre-caching of cheatable elements really requires the next generation of networking, where every PC in the world is connected to every other by extreme bandwidth with extremely low latency. On the modern net the latency is just too much to have such intimate real-time conversations over such long distances reliably.
11*43+456^2
Can ordinary people get attacked and have their stuff taken, or only "Outlaws"? If everyone can be attacked, then this thing is a breeding ground for lawsuits. Let's say you just invested large amounts of money in some nice weapons and armor. Now, some guy comes along and takes all of it from you. You've just suffered real world financial damage. It's lawsuit time. Bear in mind, I'm not saying the lawsuit necessarily has much validity, but simply that it is very, very likely to be filed by the "victim".
What if I trade an object worth $0.19 for an object worth $0.22 (suppose the other guy thought this trade was worth it for some reason). Is this trade subject to capital gains tax?
It seems like throwing "real" money in makes the whole thing a lot more complicated and less fun, since real money implies real rules and laws governing what you can and can't do.
Exempting those who may be good enough to profit from the purchases/sales options, this might be a good thing for addicts. If you can't *afford* to play the game 24/7, then at least we could see them going out and getting a job.
Of course, they could also end up like heroin addicts, breaking into cars and selling stolen stereos to pay for their "Entropia" addiction. (don't think it could happen, you underestimate how some of these people get sucked in).
I still see hackers/cheaters being a big problem though. EG is constantly modifying things to lock out cheaters. Having a game with real money (and by a lot of what I've heard, lacking good programming in areas as the installer/character-anis suck) would be asking for trouble unless it has a very good method of
a) Securing transactions
b) Preventing cheating
c) Still making the game fun/playable.
This has probably been mentioned, but... If you're putting down money on a game, and then taking money back at the 'end' of the game, isn't that gambling? When I was 12 years old, I remember going to an arcade in New Hampshire, USA, called "Fun Spot", where you exchanged money for token which you could use to play video games, skeet shoot, stuff like that. They also had a machine where you could pump tokens into in hopes of winning more tokens. I hit the jack pot on that particular token machine, and got the bright idea that I'd exchange my tokens for cash -- i was a smart kid, cash was surely better than some 8 bit crummy games of the day, BUT! You weren't allowed to exchange the tokens back for cash -- cause it's considered gambling! I was bummed. Anyways... I personally have nothing against gambling, but... Uncle Sam isn't so keen on kids gambling (although this is a sweedish game, i assume they're looking for some american customers), think there might be an issue with letting kids play a game where you can put down real cash to win or lose it? And for the sake of discussion -- what will morally conservative types think about a game where you can kill someone and take their -actual- money. Regardless, I think it's a relatively neat idea -- and yes, ground-breaking. But, you won't see me signing up for it. I have a modest budget, and If I lost my wad cause some spoiled brat kid fragged me cause they have the money to spend on the best weapon, i'd be turned off for life, so... I just won't go there.
In the screenshot below there is an insurance company in the background.
Screenshot
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.
When buying expensive goods, you have to take opportunity cost into account. Say you buy some high-quality item and I buy the cheapest one I can find, if I have to buy a new one every 2.5 years and you have to buy a new one every 5 years, yours is not necessarily worth twice as much. Instead, the value of yours is dependent on what else I can do with my extra money. The simplest example is what if I invest it: after 2.5 years what percentage will I have to spend to replace my item? More complex examples are like the first purchase in NES Dragon Warrior: good armour, good weapon, or cheap both? (Now we all know that you should spend all your money on the weapon, because armour is for sissy bourgeois, but you get the idea...)
Check out an AVI of the actual gameplay in action. I must say, the graphics engine looks great, but the art could definitely use some work. For example, the lightning bolt effect looks real, but not correct.
>You're sig is a joke right?
Its a soundbite, your sig can't be very long. Follow: most webmasters (>90%) don't use stylesheets as they were intended, namely as a relative definition. They define all fonts as ABSOLUTE sizes, if you do that the font size can't be adjusted in Microsoft Internet Explorer - ie, if your sight, like mine, isn't 20/20 it can be hard to read a lot of pages(you can disable it in the advanced options, but it still uses the stylesheet hight for linespacing! Ie, the letters are on top of each other). If they had designed them with just a little bit of care, and used relative font sizes instead, they would be scalable and readable. If you tell that to the webmasters they either don't know what you are talking about or tell you to get lost (in varying degrees of politeness)
Some sites who do it wrong:
http://www.cnn.com
http://www.nvidia.com
>Trying to figure out what the point is though...
Hoping for a better world?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Those graphics ARE good. I like the clapping at the end.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
I laugh. Dukes so owned you.
/.?
How the hell did my MUD career follow me all the way to
paintball
I said benevolent. Nobody said it was a representative or just law.
You just need a clan smart enough to realize that endlessly slaying the new players isn't in the clan's long-term interest. The idea that the top 10-20 players would be smart enough to enforce some level of protection for newer players isn't totally without merit.
paintball
Age of Insanity, now quite dead (although still running) hack-n-slash Circle2.2 derivative. Small world, ripped off zones, buggy code (at the time), cheating admins, lots of carnage.
paintball
Were you quoting the article or summarizing my post? I'm confused because that's exactly what I said. Or did you reply to the wrong post? :)
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!