Massively

Here comes the familiar discussion of player rights once again, but this time in a different form. Warhammer Online blog WAAAGH! has a post discussing the possible virtues of an MMO customer "Bill of Rights" as it were. Our immediate thoughts were of Richard Bartle's presentation discussing the good, bad and ugly futures of massively multiplayer online worlds. If you skim through Bartle's presentation, you'll come across the future involving player "rights" pretty quickly. Otherwise known as the lawyer future, possibly one of the scariest suggestions we've ever heard for our beloved MMOs.

Granted, some of those predictions are quite out there. Paying income tax on the money you earn in-game is a pretty big leap, but it all starts out with players pointing to EULAs (End User License Agreements) as unfair. If we start demanding more rights within our online worlds we run the risk of having to walk a very thin tightrope that could lead to a lot of headaches later on. Don't get us wrong, we're all for companies treating their player-base better, but a virtual coup d'état is the last thing any of us should want.