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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.

6 of 96 comments (clear)

  1. 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.
  2. 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 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.

    2. 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
  3. 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.
  4. 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