From movies and books to computer games, the concept of the sequel is firmly embedded in the entertainment industry. It's usually a much safer bet to make a new part to an existing successful intellectual property than it is to back an untested product. In the games industry, sequels are a great way to make more money from the same game concept but as usual MMOs have proven to be something of a different animal. Subscription MMOs don't conform to the same rules as non-subscription games, favouring recurring orders and longer-term customer commitment over single purchases. While development studios often take sequels for granted, I'm forced to ask whether MMOs should have sequels at all or if a different paradigm is more appropriate.

In this article, I explore the games industry's obsession with repetition as I ask the question "Should MMOs have sequels?"

The free-to-play MMO business model as it presently stands in North America and Europe is still strides behind what exists in Asia, but F2P is clearly making inroads in the West. What's less clear is how the free-to-play business model will evolve in the coming years. We've come across an interview with Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard conducted by Rob Crossley for Develop, which points to a few directions that free-to-play may take.

It's safe to say Gerhard knows a fair amount about the state of free-to-play games; RuneScape boasts millions of players and is a major success story with this business model. Gerhard specifically highlights his views on bringing free-to-play MMOs to consoles. Technological hurdles aside, Gerhard focuses on the business model applied to consoles and the industry's resistance to the concept of truly free-to-play titles appearing on Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3. You can read up about F2P meeting console MMOs in the Develop interview with Jagex's Mark Gerhard.

Constance Steinkuehler is an educational researcher studying massively multiplayer online games from a learning sciences and new literacy studies perspective and an assistant professor at the University of Winsconsin-Madison. She teaches courses on virtual worlds, research methods and, as she says on her blog, the "smart" side of popular culture. Steinkuehler has announced that she's got the Nation Academy of Education / Spencer Post-Doctorial Fellowship to do a cognitive ethnography on RuneScape. The study aims to show the educational merit of games designed for and played by youths instead of adults, which is what is typically studied, and to examine the impact of gameplay on their everyday lives, social relationships and school work.

Cognitive ethnography is used to study the processes that effect the work carried out within a setting, whilst noting the effect of the material world and social context of the actions and social practices carried out. To put it in a simpler way, it studies how the social norms and social structures are created for a group of people who share a common culture, in this case RuneScape players.

You can read her proposal abstract over at her blog.

RuneScape is a game with a long history and one that's attracted millions of devoted fans over the years. That said, we think most would concede that RuneScape was getting a bit long in the graphical tooth. Improving RuneScape's graphics seems to be a priority for Jagex Game Studios from what we've read in the latest dev diary by the title's art director Mod Joe.

He writes about the redesign of the fairy area Zanaris, originally 'just a standard brown dungeon' which was later revamped to be blue, yet still didn't convey the 'magical' look the designers wanted. The first dev blog on the Zanaris improvements (of which two more are to follow) focuses on the concepts that needed to be re-worked, from the look of the fairies themselves to the environment they populate. Have a look at Mod Joe's development diary for more on the ways Jagex has worked to improve the look of RuneScape.

Jagex, the developer of the popular free-to-play browser based MMO Runescape, is looking very good as they enter into 2009 with two of their best quarters behind them and a brand new game ahead. RuneScape has already been hailed as the largest free-to-play game in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records, featuring 1 million paying players and 5 million free players.

Besides giving Blizzard a run for "which company could fill a pool with money and swim in it," Jagex is also preparing a brand new MMO game, set in the confines of science-fiction and giant robots. MechScape, as the project is currently known, will feature deeper gameplay than its fantasy cousin to target a brand new audience. MechScape will be based from RuneScape's technology and will feature graphics of a higher caliber than RuneScape HD. You can look for much more information regarding this project in our GDC interview with Jagex, releasing tomorrow.

Recently, the folks at Jagex had outlined their newest visions for the future of their free-to-play, browser-based MMO RuneScape. Afterwards, they encouraged any questions from the community, to get a better feel for what the players want or may be most concerned with. Little did they realize that they would receive nearly ten thousand questions from fans of the game.

So on the official RuneScape forums, they took 130 of the questions and answered them the best they could in a post that has reached 125 pages of responses so far. Some of the questions are game-related, but most in this batch are company-related. Jagex didn't simply answer the easy fanboy mail either, as you can see in even the first few responses. Check out the complete Q&A post by Mark "Mod MMG" Gerhard (and the 125-pages of responses!) as well as the newest Q&A follow-up concerning the Wilderness and real-world trading.

The MMO section of Eurogamer covers most of the big titles on the market, but one that's less-focused upon by their writers is Runescape which, despite its long history, is still running strong today. Eurogamer's Jon Blyth was tasked with jumping into RuneScape and writing about his experience as a new player.

Blyth walks the reader through Tutorial Island, the early quests, but laments how difficult it was to make friends. He writes: "I've never had a problem with this before. I'm a charming sod, my amiable winking could win over the most fundamentalist terrorist. But RuneScape is beyond my skills. Every 'hi' was ignored. When I did get a response, it was quick and efficient. From my limited experience, it's a brutal and lonely world for the low-level adventurer." Ultimately, Blyth was left with a conflicted view of the game. In his own words, it got under his skin and left him wanting just a bit more despite its flaws, but the game's graphical limitations and controls proved to be a limiting factor in how much he enjoyed the RuneScape experience.

Do we have many RuneScape players among our readers here at Massively? If so, what is it about the game that has kept you playing over the years?

Mod Mark, the Lead Designer for Jagex's RuneScape, has written a new Behind the Scenes article for January in which he describes the changes coming down the pipe for RuneScape.

There's mention of a new phoenix combat pet that will have the ability to fire ashes at your enemies. The Achievement Diaries are also releasing this month; this time set in the peaceful Seer's Village and the surrounding areas. As with previous Achievement Diaries, this one was created to show the hidden or non-quest activities in the area. In addition to these large additions, some minor changes will be made to the game. Check out the complete article for more information on all changes that have arrived or will be arriving in the month of January.

Nielsen Research has published its January through October numbers about the top 10 PC games and top 10 consoles by amount of time played. Once again World of Warcraft tops the charts. In fact, WoW has more time played than the other nine titles listed - combined.

Coming in at position 6 is Runescape, the browser-based game that could. It had just slightly less share than The Sims 2. Numbers for only October are available on the Nielsen website and show a different makeup for numbers 2-10, with WoW still in first. We can only imagine what this data will look like for November 2008 with the added game time of those who bought Wrath of the Lich King.

The behind-the-scenes workings of RuneScape's player-kill loot is a lot more complicated than many people might expect. It's not simply a matter of looking for PvP battles and hoping to win the random-number-generator for a sweet item, as a recent developer post on the game's official website explained. In short, a value known as "drop potential" must be increased if you want better loot. This is achieved by spending time in PvP areas, while risking a certain amount of your own items. Some zones like the Wilderness are worth more to your drop potential, but you can probably expect a lot more action too. This system rewards the brave, and leaves the cowardly with junk-loot.

As well as elaborating on the mechanics of PvP drops, the post also mentions that two improvements have been made to the system. One is a shift away from having a larger number of items dropping, to fewer but more valuable items. The other is a simple increase to the value of the items dropped. These changes help with inventory management, and also mean that people are more likely to bother picking up what they've earned. Sounds like a good reason to get out there and see what sort of items you can find -- just make sure you've got the skills to pay the bills.

"Why you should be playing ..." is a free form column from Massively.com intended to inform you about our favorite parts of our favorite games. We want you to know why we're playing them, so you can know what to play.

RuneScape is about to celebrate its 8th birthday (January 4th, 2009). It's amazing that in this industry, where high-powered games come and go, a java-based in-browser game has not only lasted but absolutely thrived for this long. Why is that? My personal feeling is that it's got the skills to ... well, you know the rest of that saying.

This is a game for all those who have never tried a MMO before or never thought of themselves as gamers. It offers everything and requires nothing. No fancy system specs. No minimum levels for skill attainment. No epic armor (though it does help a bit if you venture into the dungeons). Not even a credit card. It offers melee, magic, crafting, and cooking all in the same game through the cunning use of skills - twelve of them in the free version, to be exact, and an additional nine if you're willing to pay about $6 US per month. Follow us on a quick tour of the skills you can get for free and what makes them the heart and soul of this game.

What's more popular than Lindsey Lohan or the hit anime Naruto? More fun than American Idol or Angelina Jolie, and almost as popular to search on as Barack Obama? If you'd guess the web-based fantasy MMO Runescape we'd call you prescient ... or assume that you'd already taken a look at the Yahoo! Buzz year in review. This look back at the year 2008 in searches ranks Runescape as a bigger deal than pop princesses, reality TV shows, and that ubiqitous anime/manga/game icon.

Runescape, of course, is a ridiculously popular free-to-play MMO based entirely on Java and playable via web browser. It's a sign of the times to see this kind of title on Yahoo's list, and we're happy to see the genre in such a prominent place. If you're not familiar with the game you might want to take a look at the coverage we had back during E3, when the title went to a new higher-resolution state of play. Congrats to Runescape and Jagex on this accomplishment!

Thanks, Brian.
Update: Corrected the erroneous assertion that Runescape is Flash-based. It is not.

Since its launch in 2001, Jagex's RuneScape has steadily established a solid presence in the highly-competitive MMO market. Now into the millions of players across the world, the game is said to currently be at its highest surge in popularity. Building from that comes the news that Jagex has just appointed former THQ exec Vince Farquharson to head up their flagship fantasy MMO.

Farquharson' role at THQ included Creative Director and Development Director for three years, overseeing titles such as Warhammer 40,000: Squad Command and Broken Sword: The Angel of Death. He will focus on expanding RuneScape through content development and global distribution. This news comes almost exactly one year to the day after Jagex acquired former European PayPal CEO Geoff Iddison as their own CEO. We wish Farquharson and the rest of the folks at Jagex the best of luck with their future growth.

Should the theft of virtual items be punishable by law? This varies from country to country, but today's ruling in a Dutch court emphasizes that virtual crime is actual crime under their country's laws, regardless of whether the individuals involved are minors. Associated Press reports: "These virtual goods are goods (under Dutch law) so this is theft," the court said Tuesday in a summary of its ruling.

The court did not reveal the identities of the minors, but they are 15-years-old and 14-years-old, respectively. They apparently coerced a younger boy into giving them a 'virtual amulet and virtual mask' in RuneScape. The offenders have both been sentenced to community service -- 200 hours for the 15-year-old, and 160 hours for the 14-year-old.

Do you feel this is too steep a penalty for virtual extortion, or not steep enough? Should it matter if the items or currency involved are real or virtual?

Update: It's been communicated to us by our readers in Holland that the crime in question was not, in fact, a virtual one, but involved actual violence. The victim in question, according to this source, "was kicked and threatened with a knife." The original Associated Press source omitted this detail, which obviously changes the tone of the discussion below. To clarify, this was real world violence inflicted over virtual items, hence the community service sentences for both of the offending minors.

The MMO genre is more than World of Warcraft, Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online. Here's what's going on in the rest of the world.

Mabinogi welcomes Generation 3
The MMO that bills itself as "your fantasy life" has gotten its next upgrade with Generation 3. Now Mabinogi players will have the ability to marry each other, complete with license and wedding attire for both genders. An overarching quest will require warriors to recover dungeon seals to prevent the Fomor from entering the world. And finally, the pet system gets an overhaul, with new interactions, behaviors, and controls. The removal of the combat cap, increased UI options, and new items all await players in Generation 3.

Neocron 2 developer declares insolvency
10Tacle Studios AG, parent company of Reakktor Media GmbH, developers of Neocron 2, declared insolvency on August 6th. They are awaiting an insolvency administrator to determine what will happen with the game servers. In a later update to the original forum post, Kirk Lenke, CEO of Reakktor Media announced that the insolvency will not affect business operation of Neocron 2, and that they are still in development for upcoming title Black Prophecy.