The creator of Ultima Online and Tabula Rasa and well-known designer Richard Garriot spoke at the Develop Conference in Brighton, England on the subjects of stagnating MMOG design and the NCSoft deal with Sony. His commentary on Massive game design is fairly direct: "If you look at the vast majority of MMOs that has come out since Ultima Online and Everquest, you can look at the features and they are almost exactly the same. Even though the graphics have got better and the interface is much slicker, fundamentally the gameplay is unchanged. Worse yet, there are many things that have become standard that I look at and even though they are powerful enough to encourage the behavior of people obsessed with playing these games, I don't think they are the right way of building the future."

Tech.Luver sends us to The Inquirer, which notes the banning of all gambling in Second Life. Here is the Linden Labs blog post about the change in policy, which is, to say the least, not popular. From the article: "[T]he large chunk of users that enjoyed using in-world casinos and betting Linden Dollars on events both inside and outside the game world will now have nothing left to do. Perhaps more to the point for Linden, the move will cut off the revenues earned from those owning Casino-style islands in the game, the owners of which are some of the top contributors to the Linden coffers through currency fees and land rental."

Wowzer writes "Blizzard today announced that their MMORPG World of Warcraft is now played by more than 9 million gamers around the world. From the article: 'That's half a million more than the number of monthly players WoW had back in March five months ago. — It's interesting to note that if the World of Warcraft were a nation, CIA's World Factbook says that out of 236 listed countries it would be the 90th most populated country on Earth above Haiti, but behind Sweden.' Also revealed this week was that DC Comics are creating World of Warcraft Comic Books based on the MMORPG, with the first issue appearing on November 14th. The ongoing monthly series will be written by industry veteran Walter Simonson (Thor, Orion) and feature art by Ludo Lullabi and inker Sandra Hope."

IGN is reporting that the next chapter in the Final Fantasy series, Final Fantasy XIII, has barely gotten into the production phase. "According to Sony's press materials, the highly anticipated RPG sequel is now 13% complete. Yes, a low, unlucky completion percentage. But thankfully it's not as low as Final Fantasy Versus XIII, which is listed as 1.3%!" And remember, even if it's completed sometime late next year or early in 2009 folks in the states will probably have a wait while the game is localized.

Once again, it's not a strange dream: BioWare is making a Sonic the Hedgehog RPG for the Nintendo DS. Since the announcement back in June there have been precious few details. Luckily, Wired's Game|Life had the chance to speak with BioWare's CEO Ray Muzyka and President Greg Zeschuk about more than just Mass Effect. They discuss the genesis of the game, the depth of the title's story, and a bit on what gameplay will be like: "Game|Life: BioWare's previous efforts have been for the PC and the Xbox (and now the 360 with Mass Effect). What is the appeal of designing for the DS? Ray Muzyka: The handheld group at BioWare is certainly very excited about the innovation that can take place on the DS platform. We're really innovating what a BioWare RPG is with this title - we're looking forward to offering new and unique ways to enjoy a fast-paced, story-driven experience with tons of exploration, customization and progression. We're very excited by the opportunity to use all the cool features on the DS, and to make BioWare's first handheld RPG, one with a lot of action too, since it's based in the Sonic universe!"

While most of the games at the show are coming out this Holiday season, some are tantalizing glimpses of 2008. Two titles that are (most likely) coming out next year also happen to be highly anticipated follow-ups to RPGs. Bethesda's Fallout 3 has been getting the bulk of the press between the two, as the post-apocalyptic title recaptures the interest of veteran gamers looking for some nostalgia. Part Oblivion, part retro, part humor, and all Fallout , expectations still seem to be high despite the lack of hands-on experiences. Fable 2 has been an equally anticipated roleplaying title, as Peter Molyneux's promise to make us love NPCs stands as a challenge to the Lionhead team. After much discussion of other gameplay elements, the focus of presentations at this year's E3 appears to be on 'one button combat': "Imagine satisfying combat with just one button. Every movement of your weapon, every parry, thrust, and counter is controlled with a single button ... Swiping away at enemies was simple enough by just mashing away at the button, hearkening back to the simple sword combat of a game like Prince of Persia. There was far more depth to take advantage of, however. Holding down the button took a defensive stance, and parried incoming blows from all directions. That classic Hollywood swordfighting move, the behind the back parry was a piece of cake to pull off. More complex counter moves, ripostes and finishers are more difficult to pull off, requiring specific timing, but once again, it's all accomplished with a single button."

Conlaw writes "A former plumbing contractor who has made a new career selling virtual cyber sex toys in the virtual world of Second Life, has now brought suit against another player who is allegedly copying and selling a device called the Sex Gen. The plaintiff, whose avatar is known as 'Stroker Serpentine,' is seeking the real name of the copycat entrepreneur. The reporter describing the lawsuit included commentary from a cyber law professor whose university maintains a virtual Supreme Court in the Second Life world."

Next Generation is reporting that the South Korean government's goal to get their cut of the real money transfer industry is now in the works. Folks who sell over $6,500 worth of virtual goods or currency in a given year will have an automatic Value Added Tax (VAT) withdrawn by the service they contract through. That is, the middleman service will remove taxes automatically for these repeat customers. If a South Korean sells over $13,000 worth of goods or currency in a given year, the government considers them a small business. As such, individuals in that position are required to obtain a business license and take care of taxes themselves. "An NTS official claims the organization will be able to monitor all transactions as RTM mediators have agreed to share clients' transaction details with the authorities. 'NTS would be able to track all transactions for taxation of virtual items,' Mr. Choi said. 'This is not about defining RMT legal/illegal; we don't see any contradictory facts to Amendment for Game Industry Promoting Law - we are not about to judge if RMT is legal or not,' he added."

Last week we asked you for questions to pass on to the folks behind the Gamers2Gamers RMT service. The response, from reading the comments, was mixed. The thinking seemed to mostly be that this was a marketing stunt, aimed at getting people to check out their website. There were several good questions, though, and we passed on the hardest ones to Sparter CEO Dan Kelly and CTO Boris Putanec. The response from these executives should lay to rest for you the issue of whether this was a marketing ploy or not. Moreover, some of their answers give insight into the company's grasp of the RMT market as a whole, and their chances of success in the competitive MMOG genre. I encourage you to read on to see how they've responded to our queries. Thanks to the Sparter execs for their timely response.

Flying Lab Software has been keeping its upcoming piratical Massively Multiplayer Game, Pirates of the Burning Sea, somewhat close to the chest. There's a Beta running, but outside of the forums and official website information has been thin on the ground. That changed last week with a flurry of posting to the Flying Lab Software site about a number of topics. This week there is big news: the game finally has a publisher. Flying Labs has partnered with SOE's Platform Publishing brand to put out Pirates of the Burning Sea. To clarify, if you're unfamiliar with Platform Publishing, Sony Online Entertainment will only be publishing the game; they will have nothing to do with development. "We had two other paths to launching this fall: going it alone and working with another independent outfit we've been spending time with. Both of these were good options in general (especially the partnership approach, as we really like those guys). But for either of those approaches to work for a fall launch, everything would have to go right the first time and we'd still need some luck. By working with SOE we know it'll just happen."

In the world of Massively Multiplayer Online Games, guilds live and die like generations of fruit flies. In the time it takes you to read this review, another group of friends will probably have decided to go their separate ways. Due to what is commonly referred to as 'drama', and the nature of the currently most popular online game, the modern MMOG guild tends to be a short-lived affair. A book published about a single guild, then, has to be discussing a singular organization. And indeed, The Syndicate has lasted for over a decade. Well known in both Ultima Online and EverQuest, and going strong into the days of World of Warcraft, they've had numerous public successes and some notorious failures. Their tale is a strange, and utterly personal view of the history of Massive games. It's also highly self-aggrandizing and probably contentious, but that's to be expected. Legend of the Syndicate is a publication worth reading by anyone interested in the history of the Massive genre, or the future of social networks online.

MattHock writes "Wowhead (a WoW information database) has been sold to ZAM (Affinity Media) for the price of $1 million. ZAM is the owner of several other WoW databases, including Thottbot and Allakhazam. Until recently Affinity was also the owner of IGE, a highly controversial company that sold in-game wealth for real life money. Affinity recently sold IGE, which Wowhead claims as the reason they allowed the sale to go through. But did ZAM really sell IGE? The blogger who put this story online doubts that IGE and ZAM have actually distanced themselves. He believes that the supposed sale was just actually a means of restructuring to hide the relationship, similar to how IGE's relationship to Thottbot was hidden for a number of months through a convoluted set of parent companies."

News.com has the word that congress is set to re-visit taxing virtual goods, a concept they shelved a while back in order to consider the matter more fully. That's given the Congress' Joint Economic Committee time to come to a decision about what exactly the value of virtual goods means for players and game-makers. An economist with the group told CNet to expect their report sometime next month. "What that report will say is unknown, as the committee has kept entirely quiet about its thoughts. However, it's clear that something will happen. 'Given growth rates of 10 to 15 percent a month, the question is when, not if, Congress and IRS start paying attention to these issues,' [senior economist Dan] Miller, who is a fan of virtual worlds and economies, told CNET News.com in December. 'So it is incumbent on us to set the terms and the debate so we have a shaped tax policy toward virtual worlds and virtual economies in a favorable way.'"

1up has the news that Bioware (makers of classic RPGs like Knights of the Old Republic and Neverwinter Nights) is collaborating with Sega to make a Sonic the Hedgehog roleplaying game for the Nintendo DS. "Sega's latest effort clearly illustrates the company's increasing interest in (and reliance on) Western content developers and Western audiences ... Now all we need to do is sit back and wait for the patented Bioware mid-game reveal which unmasks Tails once and for all as the evil Dr. Robotnik. Who needs Mass Effect? When the angst-ridden backstory of Knuckles the Echidna is your muse, the world is your spiky-headed oyster." For the record? I need Mass Effect. Now.

CVG is carrying details out of the newest Game Informer magazine, which has a huge feature on Fallout 3. The relatively spoiler free information gives us hints at some of the biggest elements of the game, such as combat, character creation and growth, and the possibility of multiple endings. " Fallout 3 kicks off with your birth and your mother's death in a vault hospital. This is where you get to create you character as your father (voiced by Liam Neeson) hands you over to the DNA analyser, before removing his mask to reveal similar traits to the ones you picked ... Fans will be pleased to hear that the Karma system is making a return, and there are 9-12 possible endings based on your actions. If it's even half as good as Oblivion, this should turn out to be something very special indeed."

Late yesterday, Sparter Inc. announced the Gamer2Gamer virtual currency trading platform. The goal: to provide a secure currency trading environment for players of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. Rather than purchasing currency outright, the goal of the project is to cut out the middleman and (implicitly) the gold-farming consortiums that supply larger for-pay sites. We were contacted by a representative from the company before the release went out, looking to speak with the Slashdot community about the service. In his words, the folks at Gamer2Gamer "are devoted gamers themselves and are well aware that not everyone will like the idea -- but we think plenty of folks will like a world where Real Money Transfer is workable and unintrusive." And so, you get the chance today to put the hard questions to them. One question per comment, please, and we'll pass on the best of the lot to be answered as soon as possible. Update: 06/14 17:58 GMT by Z : Howzer points out that there is an extensive FAQ on the service, that you can use as a springboard for questions.

InformationWeek is running an article looking at a piece of technology Canadian developer Bioware will be including into their in-development Massively Multiplayer Online Game. The still un-announced project, the article also lets on, is likely to launch sometime in 2009. The technology, called StreamBase, is a form of complex event processing. Bioware plans to use the ability to change the codebase on the fly, while the game is live. "One of StreamBase's functions is to analyze events and make sure no intruder is trying to disrupt the game's logic, make malicious movements against the activity of other players, or activate the hidden Easter eggs that are sometimes known to lurk in the game's logic. An Easter egg might make a sound that was not consistent with the game's design, show a message, or cause a character to move out of the logic of his role, Dalton explained."

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a ... company called Wizards of the Coast abandoned Star Wars fans who enjoyed their tabletop roleplaying game to an awful fate: product death. The Star Wars d20 product line, which saw print from 2000 to late 2004, attempted to capture the epic adventure that is the Star Wars setting within a simple quantifiable ruleset. Unfortunately, the d20 rules (circa 2000) were far too clumsy to make the RPG 'feel' like Star Wars. Even a 2002 Revised Core Rules book did little to create an intuitive play experience. Now, in time for the setting's 30th anniversary, Wizards has released a brand new edition of the rules, marking a relaunch of the product line. Dubbed the 'Saga Edition', it has completely revamped the d20 rules to meet with demands for Star Warsyness. Read on for a review of the changes, which may finally bring the fun to the galaxy far, far away.

Today the embargo ended for news on Sony Online Entertainment's two newest Massively Multiplayer Online Games. One, entitled The Agency is slated for the PS3 and PC formats, and will feature a spies and mercenaries theme so far unseen in the Massive genre. The other is FreeRealms, a fantasy title deliberately aimed at non-traditional gamers. It will feature whimsical gameplay and offer users the ability to create their own content, another first for a Massive title. Gamasutra has an interview with Matt Wilson, the studio director of SOE-Seattle, discussing the inspiration behind The Agency . "I think our big inspiration to develop this game actually came from watching movies. If you pay attention to all of the summer blockbusters there are lot of movies that come out around the spy/espionage genre. Whether it's James Bond, or the Bourne series all the way from Mission Impossible or even TV shows like 24 or Alias, it is a really big genre of information that is out there."

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a decision that could have far-reaching implications, a federal court in Pennsylvania has held that the California arbitration clause in the 'take it or leave it' clickwrap agreement on the Second Life website is unconscionable, and therefore unenforceable. In its decision (pdf) in Bragg v. Linden Research, Inc., No. 06-4925 (E.D. Pa. May 30, 2007), the Court concluded that the Second Life 'terms of service' seek to impose a one-sided dispute resolution scheme that tilts unfairly, 'in almost all situations,' in Second Life's favor. As a result, the case will stay in Pennsylvania federal court, instead of being transferred to an arbitration forum in California."