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Online World News

Posted by Zonk on from the from-lands-far-far-away dept.

Several tidbits of info for you today regarding developments in Online Worlds. Lineage II is going to be adding a gambling component. Players will be able to place bets on monster races or purchase lottery tickets. MMORPG.com has a story discussing the fact that the excellent crafting based game A Tale in the Desert now has a Mac Client. Players on Windows, Linux, and Mac can now experience the Second Telling. Anarchy Online is now available for free download. Prospective players can download the client and have 14 days to experience the game before they have to decide to take up the monthly fee or not. Starting next week FilePlanet will be giving away 20,000 Beta Slots for The Matrix Online. Speaking of Betas, the Dark Age of Camelot: Catacombs Beta application is now available. Congratulations also to Mythic Entertainment and DAoC, who is celebrating it's 3rd Anniversary this week. The Blizzard site has up a new Q&A about World of Warcraft. It sounds like some features of the game are going to slip to post-launch. Combined with the rapidly approaching Open Beta this would seem to confirm that the game will be launching within a month or two.

16 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. EQ2 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You forgot to mention Everquest 2... probably the biggest competitor to WoW at this point.

    -fanboy

  2. Too much text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Not enough line breaks... head exploding.

  3. Don't know about you lot... by Realistic_Dragon · · Score: 4, Funny

    ...but I'm still playing on a neverwinter nights persistant world. Being addicted is bad enough without having to pay by the month for it.

    --
    Beep beep.
    1. Re:Don't know about you lot... by Realistic_Dragon · · Score: 2, Informative

      The New Adventurer's Domain, and there are open slots: 129.241.186.207:5121

      It's an action-orientated PW with light RP and it's pretty huge now. Powerplaying is gently discouraged, but no one will bitch at you for having a fighter(10)/bard(1)/rdd(10) - unless you happen to be trying to use dev crit kukris :)

      --
      Beep beep.
  4. Re:Who is Zonk? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why is this offtopic? The user who posted the story, "Zonk" has no link on them, of course, we'd ask who it is!

  5. Is it worth trying Anarcy Online? by carlivar · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I've always been curious about AO but I never have any desire to pay much for Massive Multiplayer games after Everquest. To me, it is ridiculous that they make you pay for the original game media and then ALSO charge you a monthly fee! And then keep grabbing for your money with expansion packs, ugh.

    So anyway, since AO is free for 14 days is it worth giving it a shot? I played EQ for a couple years, was addicted to it, got depressed by my "/played" and quit it one day. I've been playing a bit of Planetside lately because that's only $10 to download, but I doubt I'll keep it up much longer. It gets rather boring and repetitive. Is AO "EQ in space"? Or is it more interesting?

    Carl

    --
    Vote Libertarian
  6. Anarchy Online in Linux by RedneckNinja · · Score: 3, Informative

    It is worth mentioning that you can play Anarchy Online in Linux using CVS Cedega:

    AO Linux

    Works great for me! I use Windowmaker and while playing full-screen, desktop switching still works without texture corruption (I get texture corruption switching desktops running in windowed mode).
    --

  7. Online gambling by idesofmarch · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That really makes me question when this kind of thing is going to run afoul of U.S. gaming laws. Ultimately, if it can be shown that virtual currency has quantifiable value and and exchange rate with real world currency, would this not constitute real gambling? I am aware that Lineage may not be hosted in the U.S., but many online games are. Any opinions from lawyers or others who may be knowledgable?

    1. Re:Online gambling by IKnwThePiecesFt · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Except in game currency could never be found to have an exchange rate with real life currency, since most games list such things as against the TOS

    2. Re:Online gambling by idesofmarch · · Score: 4, Informative

      All the TOS could do is officially prohibit a player from selling in-game currency. However, there are many websites where players can do exactly this, and the game companies are powerless to stop this and, in some instances, may not want to, as it would decrease the popularity of that particular game. I think it can be established that despite the TOS, many in-game currencies have very real value.

    3. Re:Online gambling by jericho4.0 · · Score: 4, Informative
      That TOS might not hold up, though. In the U.S. 'possesion is 9/10ths of the law'. If I belive I 'own' a piece a chainmail, say, and the game supports my 'ownership', than that chainmail might legally be mine, regardless of the TOS.

      TOS or not, if I can sell my chainmail right now for $50.00, then it has value. As much as the Federal Reverve would like you to think otherwise, the value of currency will always be decided by supply and demmand.

      This article is a very interesting look at the realities of the online gaming economy. It notes that per-capita wealth of EverQuest players is $2,266 (Real Cash $$), making it richer than China.

      --
      "A language that doesn't affect the way you think about programming, is not worth knowing" - Alan Perlis
  8. World of Warcraft is by far the best MMORPG. by supervillain · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I expect many people to drop whatever they are playing to switchover. I know people that cancled their five year old everqust accounts after playing WoW for an hour.

  9. What about Vendetta Online? by tjwhaynes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If space MMORGs are your thing, you might consider checking out Vendetta online, which is currently in Beta testing and features Windows, Linux and Mac clients.

    This is the same Vendetta that had been alpha testing for ages, looked like it wasn't going to happen, got all but abandoned and yet somewhere from the ashes the developers have pulled out the stops and built a mission-based, group-orientated space fighting and trading MMORG. So far so good and if you see "Nexus 6" knocking around, give me a couple of shots across the bows and say hello.

    Cheers,
    Toby Haynes

    --
    Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
  10. Guild Wars by jlefeld · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Guild Wars is the next mmo i'm going to get in to. It has mmo features but looks like it will remove the tedious parts from mmos. Plus there is no monthly charge. But out of the current mmo's I think WoW looks the coolest. I played it till level 4 and I was impressed about how cool the early quests were.

    www.guildwars.com

  11. Economics by Draconix · · Score: 2, Insightful

    To me, it is ridiculous that they make you pay for the original game media and then ALSO charge you a monthly fee! And then keep grabbing for your money with expansion packs, ugh.

    Unfortunately, it kind of needs to be done if they're going to make any money off it. The first buy is because a lot of work went into making the software, the monthly fee is necessary to maintain the servers, pay the GMs, etc., and the expansion packs cost money for the same reason the main software does. TANSTAAFL.

    --
    By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
  12. Re:Who is Zonk? by Zonk · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Up until I was hired on as the Slashdot Games editor, I was an editor over at MMORPGDot.com, where I was known as Dialogue. I also recently worked with simoniker on the Gaming Hacks book for O'Reilly Press. I do have a website, located at Randomdialogue.net. I don't keep my editor name linked to it because I'm not sure I could handle the traffic.