conform writes "The New York Times reported today that Sega Corporation (the Japanese parent company) has merged with Sammy Corp, a vendor of pachinko machines. The Sammy side of things are expected to dominate post-merger operations, and will likely shift Sega operational focuses back to the arcade market. Also, the end of the article notes in passing that SquareSoft has been aquired by rival RPG manufacturer Enix."

chadeo writes "Ok all you arm chair game developers, listen up. Over at RPG Codex there are currently 4 articles, written by professionals in the industry, on RPG design. There is A Christmas lesson in CRPG design by Timothy Cain, Thoughts on RPG development by Leon Boyarsky, Hand of Gosh Darn Good Design by Chris Taylor, and Treatise on Combat to Pink Floyd by Gareth Davies. All of them are a great read, and you can join in the discussion with the authors and see how your ideas stack up. What do you think is the key to a great RPG?"

trotski writes "In its day, Ultima 7 was one of the most complex and detailed RPG's ever made. Lets put it this way, in 1992 it required 20 mb of hard drive space and a 386 processor; cutting edge equipment that at the time retailed at well over $2000. Unfortunatly, until now getting Utlima 7 to run properly under win9X or worse, win2K or XP was heart-breaking. Fortunatly, someone has designed a utility that allows you to run this program under all versions of Windows as well as Linux! Very exciting for people out there who want to play this classic." Actually, Linux support seems to be only hypothetical at this point; along with the link to download the code is a note that says "Anyone who wishes to study the source code, or to port it to Linux or any other OS, is welcome to download this file."

SquareAMP writes "The makers of the 'Final Fantasy' video game series will be merging with the makers of the 'Dragon Quest' series to produce an RPG powerhouse to be re-named Enix Square Co. Reuters has all the details of the planned merger, that includes the dismantling of Square's assets and absorption into Enix. For Square fanboys fearing that this may ruin their favorite RPG company, Square's current CEO Yoichi Wada will be running the combined entity."

Abies writes "During last year or so, quite a lot of people were fired from WotC - current owners of the D&D line. A few days ago, _most_ of big names out there had to quit - including Skip Williams and Jeff Grubb. Official WotC press info, Enworld news about that and a Monte Cook thread contain some more detailed info. Do you think it will spell an end to D&D ? After something which seemed to be a ressurection of old-time RPG, Hasbro seems to kill the biggest RPG company out there. Will OGL and the D20 license be enough to preserve the genre ?"

Miguel Angel Blanch Lardin writes "Arianne is a Game Engine to build Internet games and applications. You can use it to create your own games, from RPG to Realtime strategy games, arcade or Turn based strategy ones." We noted Arianne two years ago.

BrotherhoodOfSteel writes " Accelerate your Mac reports that MacPlay is re-releasing Fallout as part of their value series. This is the original (good) version and the new release will be Mac OS X-compatible. MacGamer has a preview. And since it's news, there must be a press release." Those who have played Fallout and Fallout 2 can vouch for the quality of narrative in this single-player RPG. Now if someone would port Fallout 2, life would be complete for Macintosh users. Update: 06/21 16:24 GMT by J : Here's Omnigroup's page on the Mac OS X port.

Urthpaw writes "Neverwinter Nights, the D&D based RPG from BioWare (Makers of Baldur's Gate among other titles), for Windows, MacOS and Linux has Gone gold. The game allows players to make their own "modules", or adventures, and DM them for up to 64 friends. Server-linking features allow the assembly of distributed MMORPGs."

securitas writes "Reuters and AP tell us that Epic Games and the US Army have announced the America's Army series of games, jointly developed by the Department of Defense and Epic. The first two-part game in the five-year project includes an RPG called Soldier and a first-person shooter called Operations. The game will be free of charge and available for download in July or August, with 1.2 million CDs simultaneously released, attached to gaming magazines. Does this remind anyone else of the war-room scene from Toys or Ender's Game?" Future installments will include Sim Mess Duty, Sim Standing Guard in the Rain, Sim Blister, and Sim Invading Iraq to Keep Approval Ratings High.

jaredcat writes "Ever wonder what would happen if the incredibly creative talents of Squaresoft and Disney got together? Well I never did, but that didn't seem to stop them. The first joint production of Square and Disney, Kingdom Hearts, was just released in Japan. Its an RPG with a Square CGI, a Square story, a Disney sense of humor, and Square and Disney charectars. If the opening movie is any indication of what's to come when Kingdom Hearts becomes available in the US, its going to be the best thing to hit the PS2 since, well, Final Fantasy X :)." Very positive review. Gotta admit, I'm intrigued. Update by J : Check out this review too, with a ton of screenshots, from the GIA: "By all rights [it] should be an awkward, conflated mess... instead, it's an epic piece of crossover fanfiction."

vand writes "Do you have, or know anybody who has, any IBM 1401 "system" software? We're looking for Autocoder, Cobol, Fortran, RPG, ... tapes. Sort 7 would be nice to have, too. We'd much rather have the tapes' or decks' contents than have them physically."

the_bahua writes "Have a look at this one-on-one with Gary Gygax, over at KCGeek.com. It's a tell-all, see-all, look into the mind of the man behind the second-best thing to do at four in the morning. Responsible for one of the cornerstones of geekdom, he is largely unknown to many, including many RPG fans."

Spacemonkey asks: "So, IBM has finally ported Linux to run on their veritable plethora of hardware. Sounds like a real solid commitment to OSS, right? Well, the devil's in the details, however. After spending several hours searching on the Internet, I could not find one single implementation of the RPG ^? environment on Linux. So IBM really wants to run Linux on their machines, but what if you want to run your AS/400 applications within the Linux space instead of OS400?"

Urthpaw writes: "BioWare (maker of the Baldur's Gate series of games, among others)'s D&D-based 3D, multiplayer uber-RPG, Neverwinter Nights, who's future has been recently cast into doubt by some legal trouble will be released, after all. It is currently scheduled for "Early 2002" release, on Linux, MacOS, and Windows. The press release is here."

Every Christmas season brings with it a storm of new game releases, just in time for the gift-buying frenzy. This year however, marks the release of SquareSoft's first Final Fantasy title for the PS2. I was lucky enough to snag a copy soon after release and spend some time with it. Read on for my first impressions.

Last week Sean, a 16-year-old computer geek and gamer who has never been in serious trouble, was thrown out of a Texas school and ordered into "alternative education" for responding to a year's worth of bullying and harassment, some verbal, some physical. His crime was to fantasize out loud about revenge. He got as much due process as Chinese dissidents get. His father, a Slashdot reader and graphic designer, has pulled his son out of the system and into home schooling. He asks for help and advice. This is a story about life in America's schools these days for people who are "different," who live at the mercy of jerks and cover-your-butt administrators. (Read more.)

Jonathan J. writes "Back in 1987 an all-time classic RPG game came out called Dungeon Master. It defined gui for that type of rpg to this day. It's still fun to play. Chaos Strikes back (1989) was the first sequel, and D.M. 2 came out in 1995 (dm2 was the least exciting, for me). There are a lot of very loyal fans of the first two, like myself. Please announce that Dungeon Master Java is out, it's free! The graphics are greatly improved and it's a whole new game with new content! There is also a level editor included. For more information about the game check the Dungeon Master Encyclopedia website " I can distinctly remember many hour spent playing this game in the basement of my friend's house - in between Alamaze and Monster Island - 'course I'm still playing the latter two, so it might be time to play the former again as well.

sundance asks: "Despite Wizards of the Coast's Microsoft-like domination of tabletop RPGs there may be a revival under way for some of those old RPG worlds we used to love. Runequest's Glorantha has been back for a while now with a new game system and new products including a computer game: King of Dragon Pass. M.A.R. Barker fans also got a boost recently with the annoucement that Tekumel is to return to print! What does Slashdot think? Is it a good sign that these old friends are returning to print or are they doomed by Wizards domination of the industry? Can an independent game survive in today's market?"

A new study finds computers have become a fixture in many kid's lives at an unbelievable pace -- 72 percent of U.S. households with kids now have computers, many times the number five years ago. But the study by the Packard Foundation also finds an outrageous gap in computers and Net access between rich and poor kids at home and in schools, an issue that has so far failed to arouse campus activists, the tech industry, or President Bush, who outlined his educational initiatives this week without once even mentioning computers or technology. The study also has new stats on kids and computer use by age and activity. (Read more).

Dracos asks: "Some friends and I are developing a tabletop fantasy RPG. The concept for our magic rules is based on a fourth generation language ^[?] , combined with an object model. I've spent the last few days searching the net, but all I've found is information on how to design data structures for use with 4GLs, not 4GLs themselves. The related alt.lang.* newsgroups appear to be dead.Does anyone know of any resources on how to design a 4GL? Information of our game, as well as the rules, can be found at http://www.thedragonsforge.com."