Ponca City, We Love You writes "Academics have been flocking to use virtual worlds and multiplayer games as ways to research everything from economics to epidemiology and turn these environments into educational tools. A game called Arden, the World of Shakespeare, funded with a $250,000 MacArthur Foundation grant and developed at Indiana University was supposed to test economic theories by manipulating the rules of the game. There's only one problem. "It's no fun, " says Edward Castronova, Arden's creator and an associate professor of telecommunications at the university. "You need puzzles and monsters," he says, "or people won't want to play ... Since what I really need is a world with lots of players in it for me to run experiments on, I decided I needed a completely different approach." Part of the problem is it costs a lot to build a new multiplayer game. While his grant was large for the field of humanities, it was a drop in the bucket compared with the roughly $75 million that goes into developing something on the scale of World of Warcraft. Castronova is releasing Arden to the public as is and says his experience should serve as a warning for other academics. "What we've really learned is, you've got to start with a game first," Castronova says. "You just have to." The new version is titled Arden II: London Burning."

Ponca City, We Love You writes "The Mercury News reports that a vulnerability in the way Second Life protects a user's money has been identified. Risks for users are reportedly limited because the researchers say the flaw can be quickly patched. The flaw exploits a known problem with Apple's QuickTime - when a virtual character passes by an infected object planted by hackers, the Second Life software activates QuickTime so it can play the video or picture. Hackers can direct the Second Life software to a malicious Web site that then allows them to 'take over the user's avatar and force it to hand over its Linden cash. Second Life is recommending that users disable streaming video playback in the Second Life viewer except when you are attending a known and trusted venue.' The hack raises tough questions for operators of virtual worlds. Should they be as secure as banks and guarantee the safety of money and property that characters in the world possess?"

Gamasutra is reporting that, along with Vivendi's ever-increasing earnings, recent information has been released updating the current player stats for World of Warcraft. Despite suspicions of falling numbers due to the long wait between now and Rise of the Lich King, Blizzard's Massive title is larger than ever, with some 9.3 million players. "Vivendi has chalked up the increase not only to its WoW subscriber base, but the release of its The Burning Crusade expansion, which saw release in China in the latter part of the third quarter ... The company also noted that its subscriber base has continued to grow from the 9 million mark it celebrated in July to more than 9.3 million, which it says is up more than one million subscribers since December 31 of last year."

Captain Kirk writes "We all know that World of Warcraft has checked for hacks to ensure a safe game environment for all players. The latest version of these checks goes beyond anything seen so far in that what is being checked is now completely encrypted. Obviously this hits bot writers as can be seen from these complaints, But it also strikes at the privacy of all users. Now Blizzard has a tool that is encrypted and can run any type of scan, transfer any file or edit any document on your computer. That can't be right."

The first quarterly report from EVE Online's very own economist has been released at the game's official site. GamesIndustry.biz has some comments from Dr. Guðmundsson on this first batch of numbers, exploring a bit of his methodology and the joys of working in EVE's closed environment: "Since life in Eve evolves at a faster pace than real life, we must use a so-called 'chained price index' rather than a representative basket. In real life, representative baskets are always used and in many cases the surveys for these baskets are done with very long time intervals. By looking at our results it is obvious how the fixed basket approach can overestimate the impact of price changes, just as predicted by theory. With consumer preferences changing faster now in real life than ever before (consumer electronics is a good example), this might be a lesson that could help us understand better changes in price levels and how we measure that outside virtual worlds."

The Call of Duty series is a benchmark for first-person shooters. The first title refreshed the already-tired World War II setting by added a gripping gameplay-based narrative, while the second was an important launch title for the Xbox 360. The newest chapter in the series, Call of Duty 4, is a new standard for the series and the genre. Set in modern times, the title breaks the mold of previous CoD titles in other ways as well. Most intriguing is its online 'character' development system, which takes some of the great ideas used in Battlefield 2 to the next level. Though the game suffers somewhat from overly-familiar gameplay in the single-player component, you'll probably be too busy gawking at the scenery to care. Read on for my impressions of this extremely attractive series update.

Renata writes "Researchers from Georgia Tech's GVU Center have installed AR Façade at the Grand Auto Text exhibition at the Beall Center for Art and Technology in Irvine, CA. The AR Façade installation presents an augmented reality version of desktop-based game Façade. The exhibit marks the first time this elaborate augmented reality interactive drama has been seen outside the GVU lab. The AR Façade immersive drama presents the virtual characters of Façade inside a real, physical apartment. Players play the role of an old friend invited over for drinks at a make-or-break moment in the collapsing marriage of the reactive characters, Grace and Trip. While some players attempt to pacify the characters, others break the ice with comic relief, performing for friends who can observe the unfolding drama from outside the exhibit. The uneasy social situation becomes all too real as players are able to move freely throughout a physical apartment and use gestures and speech to interact with the autonomous characters who appear graphically imposed in the space using a video-mix head-mounted AR display. The three month long exhibition will be open to public until December 15th."

Blizzard has officially announced that World of Warcraft Patch 2.3 will be dropped onto live servers next Tuesday. It's a huge update to the behemoth of Massively Mutiplayer games, including elements like a new raid zone called Zul'Aman, significant class changes, new questing content in the Dustwallow Marsh zone, and an increase in leveling speeds between 20-60. The full patch notes are available on the official site. "Elsewhere Guild Banks let you keep track of and organize your stocks much more efficiently, the Auction House has been revamped so it is easier to use, and you will be able to pick up daily quests so you have something to keep you from falling asleep as you go back to the same dungeons or battlegrounds again and again. The old 40-man Alterac Valley battleground has been fiddled with, too, so it should now have extra added fun, and those of you around the mid-level mark should head to Dustwallow Marsh for new quests and speedy leveling."

Rock, Paper, Shotgun comments on the big news from late last night: NCsoft has announced that it has purchased City of Heroes/Villains from Cryptic Studios, the Massive game's original developer. Everyone on the team has been offered a new position with the newly formed NCsoft NorCal studio, and many of them have accepted. As far as the players are concerned, NCsoft only intends for them to see freebies as a result of this deal: "Now back to you, the players. You are the lifeblood of our game. In celebration of our new studio and our exciting plans, and in order to thank you for the fantastic community that you have built, we are pleased to announce the following: All players with City of Heroes retail accounts will now have access to City of Villains, and all City of Villains retail accounts will now have access to City of Heroes. Players that didn't previously have access to "the other side" will find that they do now. Just log in to check it out! After the launch of Issue 11: A Stitch in Time this Fall, we are removing Debt from all characters and giving you a fresh start ... Also after the launch of Issue 11, all Supergroups will receive an additional 20,000 Prestige per Supergroup member."

holy_calamity writes "A bot-controlled avatar that tracks down lone avatars in Second Life and purposely invades their personal space has been created by UK researchers. The idea was to see if users value their virtual personal space. Bots avatars are not encouraged by Linden Labs — although this one is being deployed by academics, presumably spam-avatars (spavatars?) won't be far behind."

The official EVE Online site has details of upcoming patch 'Revelations 2.3'. Along with a number of bug-fixes to the PvP-focused Massively Multiplayer Online Game, this game fix will offer up compatibility with Mac OS X and Linux. Though the Mac client is a native port, Linux will require the used of Cedega. The post suggests that if you'd like a preview of what the game will be like on your rig, you can download the client and tool around the test server. System requirements are also listed, as are the distributions of Linux they are specifically supporting: Ubuntu 7+, Suse 10+, and Linspire 6. Update: 11/04 14:32 GMT by Z : Fixed implication of native Linux client.

Gamespot reports on the rumours swirling around the possibility of an Elder Scrolls Massively Multiplayer Online Game. They began when ZeniMax formed their very own Massive development company, ZeniMax Online. The company subsequently hired Matt Firor, formerly of EA Mythic, as its head. Now, the discussion online is centering on the registration of a URL that hints at big things to come for Bethesda's world. Pete Hines, spokesman for Bethesda, has a perfectly rational explanation: '"We are tired of people squatting on domains related to our games or simply not being able to get them if we needed them (note oblivion.com, fallout.com, and many others) and decided a while back we'd get these to keep it from happening again ... People are grabbing domains like these and trying to extract money from us for them, or using them for some other purpose.' Bogus or not bogus?: Bogus that the URL registration confirms the existence of an Elder Scrolls MMORPG. However, with others holding the Fallout and Star Trek MMORPG rights, the RPG franchise--famous for having MMORPG-size open worlds--is the only truly proven property in Bethesda's catalog."

The official Wizards of the Coast site notes that today is Worldwide Dungeons and Dragons Game Day. All day your Friendly Local Gaming Store will be running events using the D&D 3.5 rules, as well as skirmishes for Dungeons and Dragons minis. The official link there has downloadable character sheets if you want to go play, and the minis section of the site has rules and regs for the skirmish scenarios. The list of participating locations is available online ... so get rolling.

After a lengthy wait and a substantial retooling, Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa has gone live. The New York Times is running a piece looking into the history of Garriott's interaction with MMOGs, while Wired had a chance to speak with the 'General' getting a better sense of what the game is about. "'It takes 30 minutes to an hour just to meet up with your friends to start playing' in most MMOs, says Richard Garriott, the new game's executive producer. In contrast, Tabula Rasa, a PC game that will be released Nov. 2, was designed to appeal to the average Joe who's probably not interested in learning what "gold farming" or "damage over time" means and just wants to amuse himself by saving the universe. It's a calculated shift designed to move beyond the hard-core gaming crowd and court the mainstream audience that has made Nintendo's Wii such a surprise success. And it isn't particularly remarkable, except that Garriott is the man largely responsible for inventing the MMO model in the first place. "

EA Mythic CEO Mark Jacobs, in a new 'State of the Game' address on the Warhammer Herald site, revealed that Warhammer Online has been pushed back to at least April of next year. The game was originally slated for release this fall, and then was pushed to around February of next year. As always, the fearsome demon of polish is what's keeping the team hard at work through the holidays: "When we looked at our options, two paths lay before us: 1) Ship the game on time with fewer features and less polish, or 2) Extend the development cycle and spend the needed time and money to make WAR great. We chose the latter path - to invest additional time and effort in implementation and polish to make WAR great. Fortunately, we have the resources and support of EA behind us to extend our development cycle; time that will be used to make sure the game is everything we want it to be. WAR is coming, and it will be glorious." He notes also that they'll begin a new phase of testing next month, kicking Beta back into high gear.

Given the swirling rumours of a KOTOR MMOG, it should come as no surprise that BioWare and Lucasarts have announced they're teaming up for a project. They don't give any really concrete details, other than to say it is 'a ground-breaking interactive entertainment product'. They've also "launched a cobranded Web site, www.LucasArtsBioWare.com. 'Through our previous collaborations, we know that BioWare has an impressive ability to blend gripping stories with technological advancements, and we believe that our upcoming product will deliver an experience that will span the traditional boundaries of video game entertainment,' LucasArts president Jim Ward said in a statement. "

The site GigaOM is picking up its games coverage again, and kicks off with an article speculating on just what EA was thinking when it purchased BioWare and Pandemic. On the face of it, the move doesn't make much sense. BioWare is a great development house, but from EA's perspective their games are 'small potatoes'. "So why did they spend so much? The acquisition includes several titles for the Wii and DS already in development, and those may have breakout potential. There's tremendous gamer buzz around BioWare's upcoming RPG Mass Effect, but in all likelihood, it'll do similar numbers to the studio's million-plus-selling Knights of the Old Republic -- a hit, but not a huge one. There are rumors that BioWare is developing a 'Star Wars'-themed MMO, but if that's what inspired the purchase, the mystery only deepens: Sony Online's (SNE) MMO Star Wars Galaxies was a disappointment in relation to cost and anticipation, and that was released at the height of the buzz over a movie franchise that's since become old news."

BioWare's sci-fi RPG epic Mass Effect has now 'gone gold'. Essentially, the game is done and is ready to be pressed onto discs in time for its November 20th launch date. "The Limited Collector's Edition of Mass Effect will include a wealth of background on the game. Foremost among the premium package's offerings is a pair of 36-page booklets, one of which offers a primer on the game's universe and timeline, and the other a collection of concept artwork. The set will also include a bonus DVD with documentaries on the making of the game, a look inside BioWare, 18 Xbox Live gamer pics, 16 dashboard themes, 10 songs from the soundtrack, and 600 concept images with commentary from the game's art directors. [Z: But sites have noted it is only available for purchase online.] On top of that, gamers who preorder ... will receive a bonus disc with an introductory documentary on the game, a dozen gamer pics, eight dashboard themes, three songs from the soundtrack, and various trailers."

Gamasutra is reporting that a serious security breach caused the closure of EVE Online this past weekend. A previously-unnoticed anomaly in a database prompted CCP, makers of the game, to close down the game world and their website while the issue was examined. The flaw was rectified, and service restored the same day. No credit card or billing information was exposed in the breach. "Explained [CCP chief of operations Jón Hörðdal], 'What we discovered was an indication that one of our databases was being accessed through a security breach. Our policy in such cases is to mobilize a taskforce of internal and external experts to evaluate the situation.' Hörðdal said that the taskforce concluded that going completely dark so that an exhaustive scan could be performed was the best course of action. 'While some may feel that such a drastic reaction was not warranted, it is always our approach to err on the side of caution in order to protect the players,' he said."

simoniker writes "Areae president Raph Koster is perhaps best known as a designer of Ultima Online and the previous CCO of Sony Online Entertainment, and in an in-depth Gamasutra interview, he discusses his views on 'game grammar', the uniting of MMOs and online worlds, and the software patent problem. In particular, he's been talking about the 'barbarians at the gates' for hardcore MMO makers: 'Even the creation of the MUD in the first place was that. It was the Internet-based reaction to the stuff that had existed on the microcomputers and the Plato network and all of that. All of a sudden, "Oh, wait! We can put a text MUD on Arpanet!" And it was like, "Whoa!" and it spread like wildfire, and all of a sudden, all of that other stuff went away. So it's really possible for that stuff to be happening now with microtransactions, with portals versus traditional publishers, with digital distribution publishers versus traditional publishers, and with MMOs from MTV versus MMOs from Sony or EA or NCSoft.'"