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I've been thinking recently about loss. Having been incredibly lucky with my own brush with the possibility of losing my World of Warcraft characters, I got to thinking. Not only about what I would have done if things hadn't worked out for me, but about how loss works in MMOs today.

Last week, Gabriel wrote a fantastic column about item decay in games past, present and future. I've been playing Diablo 2 again lately, for obvious reasons, and I had found myself thinking on the similarities and differences between the durability system in Diablo and WoW.

I've said before that my MMO career started with Star Wars Galaxies, so I don't have the long-term experience many of the other writers here at Massively do. I've never had to worry about making corpse runs in Everquest, or had to concern myself with losing my items in Ultima Online. While Galaxies did have item decay, it wasn't set to a punishing degree – items did wear out eventually, but at a reasonable rate. When an item eventually gave out, you crafted yourself a replacement, or you picked one up from another player. By doing so, you knew you were contributing to the economy, so if you tried hard you could convince yourself that you were actually helping the game.

Have you ever wanted to make more money? Sure, we all have. But the folks at Turbine actually want to help you out. The official Dungeons and Dragons Online site has an ongoing series of articles exploring the best ways to make a quick buck in Xen'drick. You're saying to yourself now: it's easy to make a coin or two. Just go out and bash a kobold to death. Too true, and lucrative, but what about after the bashing? Your pockets will be full and you'll be left scratching your head. The first article is all about inventory management, and tips for using collection bags to their full effect.

The second piece in the series is all about vendors, brokers and tavern keepers. All about where to sell your stuff once you have it organized, this piece also outlines the outlines you'll see on items. Every item has a relative rarity, which you can see based on what kind of frame is on the item's description. Especially important is the distinction between brokers and regular vendors - brokers are much better bets for rare or magical items. Don't sell your good old +1 to just any guy in a shop. Make sure to check back with the site, as future articles will cover other money-related elements like the auction house.

Looking to jump back into Dungeons and Dragons Online? This is the perfect time.

The first post-module 7 patch has dropped to the Dungeons and Dragons Online live servers, taking care of a few outstanding issues. Probably the most welcome change was the fix to an accidental deletion bug. Players were reporting losing items when they tried to move loot from the bank to their character if their character had full bags. Other tweaks include the reapplication of spell failure chances, some modifications and improvements to the recently-added Monk class, and a few odds-and-ends corrections to collection bags.

The official forums also has a known issues post up, allowing players the comfort of knowing certain bugs are being addressed. Our favorite in-the-game-right-now bug: "When attempting to guide your teammate across the chasm in the 2nd puzzle room of the Abbot raid, please be sure to remove your goggles before recalling after failure or success, as recalling with the goggles equipped could cause your party to become stuck during the loading screen."

As you may know, Turbine is becoming quite a force to be reckoned with in the MMO development industry. They began with their own titles (Asheron's Call 1 and 2) and have branched off into two of the biggest brand name IPs out there: Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons. Recently, there have been three large chunks of news to erupt from the Turbine PR volcano. The first of these being the fact that they received $40 million in investment funding from Warner Brothers for some unknown project. Now as you can imagine, the reason this news is so big, is because Warner Brothers owns the rights to many titles which could make very interesting MMOs. The most obvious of these would be Harry Potter, yet nothing has been confirmed or denied on that topic.

The second chunk of news is the fact that they're not attending E3 this year. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be big news at all, but with the recent ESA takeover and radical format changes of the once-popular electronics expo, we couldn't help but speculate on the trend of game developers looking elsewhere. The third piece of Turbine news is perhaps the largest with their recent confirmation on their development of an MMO for the console market.

So we had a chance to sit down with Turbine's Director of Public Relations, Adam Mersky, for a short interview to address these hot topics. We were both eager to set the record straight once and for all. Keep reading below the break for the complete discussion

A fan of the Turbine title Dungeons and Dragons Online? The best way to get your information is from the DDOReports Twitter feed.

From the first time I stepped into Turbine's Dungeons and Dragons Online: Stormreach, I was amazed by how well it managed to capture the dungeon crawling feel of the franchise that I knew, loved, and grew up with. With its fast-paced, pulse-pounding, and thoroughly satisfying combat, clever use of hidden doors and traps, and resource management mini-game of health, spells, and abilities, D&D Online provides a unique gameplay experience that no other MMOG can provide right now. One only has to listen to the vehement and impassioned discussion of the hardcore fans, found in any pick-up dungeon group, to realize that Turbine has something special here---something that World of Warcraft and Warhammer Online, EverQuest and Age of Conan, or even EVE Online simply can't offer.

However, is being unique and interesting enough to justify the price? On a recent Massively podcast, I mentioned that I've always felt like DDO wasn't worth the monthly fee, despite how much I love the game. The standard $15 per month pricing model is a one-size-fits-all label that looks a little too bulky on the city of Stormreach, for a number of reasons. Today I'm going to examine some of the reasons why a game which I find so interesting, exciting, and fun can't manage to crack my wallet open, and what I think Turbine could do to push the game a little further into the competitive territory of its gaming peers.

First floated yesterday, the rumor that Dungeons and Dragons Online was going to be ported to consoles is still flopping around, gasping for breath, yet not entirely dead. According to an article on the Crispy Gamer site, Turbine Communications Director Adam Mersky has neither confirmed nor denied the rumor. He only states that they are working on a console title, whose announcement will come later this year.

Though the article seems to take it as read that DDO is not console-bound, Mersky's comment was not a flat denial, meaning that there is still a possibility that the franchise could find a home on one of the next-gen systems. Is this something that would be of interest? Would the console version's players be able to play against the PC version's players? Time will tell, and once it's been announced, so will we!

[Thanks, James!]

Turbine has announced today that it has been chosen by AlwaysOn as one of the OnHollywood 100 Top Private Companies. This list contains the top private emerging technology companies in digital entertainment and media. Turbine was handpicked by the AlwaysOn editorial team based on several criteria including innovation, market potential, customer adoption, media buzz and investor value creation.

To honor Turbine and the others on the OnHollywood 100 list, there will be an event held on June 10th-11th, 2008 at the Sofitel Hotel in West Hollywood, California. These companies on the list were selected from more than 1000 companies, peer-nominated by leading venture capitalists, investment bankers and industry analysts. Congratulations to all our friends at Turbine!

The supposed "war" between consoles and PCs has been raging since the time the great MC Hammer walked the earth, with proponents of both sides taking pot-shots at the other for nearly as long as we can remember. We thought we'd heard just about every kind of comment that could be said between the two sides, but a recent interview with NVIDIA's Roy Taylor has proved us quite mistaken. According to Taylor, the future gaming as we know it is going to be a flip of the trend we've seen over the last ten years ago. Where once PC games served as the baseline and were ported over to consoles, now console games will be the baseline and PCs will be the recipients of enhanced ports. In other words, the end of the PC-exclusive is nigh.

If you just look at MMOs, which continue to drive the popularity of PC gaming, you can see that this is plainly false. While there are a number of MMOs scheduled to be released for consoles, with high profile names like Age of Conan, Champions Online, All Points Bulletin, and perhaps even Dungeons and Dragons, nobody has proven they can navigate the "maze of challenges" that come with cross-platform MMO development, let alone make a profit doing it. And in this blogger's mind, until MMOs officially cross-over to the dark side, it's too early to proclaim the PC-exclusive dead.

Our good friend reader Schad sent us a tip that rings strangely true, as weird as may sound: Turbine may be releasing Dungeons and Dragons Online for the Xbox 360 and/or PS3 consoles. The game is riding high after their big Module 7 release last week, and connecting the dots on this just might mean DDO is console-bound.

Before you try to throw the case out of court, hear out the evidence first:

• Schad notes that Turbine's careers page calls for a console engineer, and if you read the description of what they're looking for, phrases like "extend the functionality" and "updating Turbine's MMOG engine" point directly to a console port kind of situation.
• And the DDO team specifically has just recently announced that big changes are in the air over there -- they've suspended the "Weekly Dev activities" alert, saying that what they're working on is under wraps, and that the Turbine PR team is giving them more focus.

Which is exactly what you'd expect from a console port. Doesn't sound as strange after that, does it? And after thinking about it, DDO's "real-time" control scheme does lend itself very well to console controls, and the ongoing rumors that the game is going free-to-play would also make things easier for a console version. It's still a rumor for now, but all the signs we can see point to a possible console-based Stormreach in the future.

Massively Speaking Episode 8 runs down news and features from Massively.com for the week of May 26th - June 1st. It's a two-topic podcast, as Michael Zenke and Shawn Schuster are joined by guest hosts Cameron Sorden and WoW Insider notable Mike Schramm. We chat quite a bit about DDO Module 7, and then tackle the massive amount of stuff we've had on the site this week about Warhammer Online. Mike, Cameron, and Shawn toss around questions about the EA Mythic visit, and we speculate on the future of the genre. Join us!

Have a comment for the podcasters? Shoot us an email to podcast AT massively DOT com. Maybe we'll read your letter on the air!

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Read below the cut for the full show notes.

In an interesting story from a company we haven't heard much about recently, Turbine (who you might remember from such MMOs as Asheron's Call, D&D Online, and Lord of the Rings Online) announced yesterday that they've raised $40 million in capital funding from Time Warner and the GGV Capital, amongst others. Says CEO and President Jim Crowley, "This is a truly exciting time for Turbine."

While it's hard to argue with the fact that more money is a good thing, what is less clear is what sort of pitch the company made that warranted this infusion of sweet green moolah. Their release mentions a "growing portfolio of games" and bringing new titles to market, but this is the first we've heard of potential new development from the Massachusetts-based developer. One can't help but wonder what's next for Turbine. Mayhaps a superhero game to compete with the next biggest independent developer on the other coast? Only time will tell.

DDO's Module 7 goes live today, and boy, if you're looking for information about it, you're in the right place. Massively has been covering Module 7 since before Module 6 dropped, and just in case you missed out on any of our great coverage, it's right here for your perusing pleasure.

• Live at Connect '08, we provided coverage of the DDO panel, including a first look at the Monk class Turbine released in this patch.
• Shortly after that, we chatted with the woman herself, DDO Senior Producer Kate Paiz, on what worked well with Module 6, and everything else they were planning in Module 7 and beyond.
• We covered "Monk Week" and the official Turbine events leading up to the game.
• Not only did we provide great original coverage, but we aggregated coverage from around the 'net, including other interviews with Ms. Paiz, as well as official info drops (and did you take advantage of your chance to grab the soundtrack?)
• And finally, Massively's got the dungeonmaster of all Module 7 previews, including the number one reason you'll want to roll a Monk, a look at the Gary Gygax shrine and the new midlevel content, the new high level instances and bosses, and even an exclusive video preview of what you'll see in Module 7 (which you'll find right after the break).

We critted on the coverage of this new patch (going live today), and you get to be the one to claim all the loot. Before you sign in and check out Module 7 today, be sure to check all the links above and read about it here.