The Chronicles of Spellborn only launched a few months ago, but they've already announced that they're going to "re-develop" the game as a free-to-play title. Acclaim Games stated on Monday: "The development is planned to carry into 2010 and will include several enhancements and changes to the current game. The enhancements and development of the new model will be carried through a joint venture between Spellborn NV and the development studio of Frogster Asia Co. Ltd based in Seoul, the Korean studio bringing its expertise in the field of free-to-play and micro-transactions."

Once this re-development is complete The Chronicles of Spellborn will cease to be a subscription game and will switch over to the free-to-play model. We're not sure if there will be any further development on TCOS as it exists now, but a post on the game's EU forums by community manager Kelas stated, "For now, the servers and system (subscription) will remain the way it is. There are still people available for running the daily work and systems."

We announced some details about the Mortal Online pre-order which was slated to kick off today in the game's online store. However the Mortal Online developers, Star Vault, announced there will be a two-week delay with the launch of the Mortal Online online store.

Star Vault CEO Henrik Nystrom announced: "On the 25th of June we brought you some good stuff, but today we have to bring you bad news. We have been working very hard to get the shop up and for it to accept different methods of payment, however it's not obvious we have been too optimistic this time as we have encountered several last-minute problems.

More information and a new schedule will be announced on the Mortal Online game store soon."

(Thanks for the tip, Rhys)

Joystiq's fearless leader Chris Grant recently caught up with 38 Studios CEO Brett Close to discuss their recent acquisition of Big Huge Games, and what this might mean for the "Copernicus" MMO. Massively has mentioned Copernicus at a few points in the past, but unfortunately in terms more vague than we'd like. We know it's a fantasy MMO project that draws upon notables like R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane, but Joystiq turned up some more info about Copernicus.

Close stresses that Copernicus is an IP that will exist in several channels; there will be books, graphic novels, and of course an MMO that draws upon these elements. "Rather than drilling into details about why this is going to give people something they have never experienced before... what I will tell you is that it's simply based on that talent [R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane] and based on our approach and our experience in building these products. There's nothing like it out there right now. And I don't believe there's anybody working on anything like this right now."

Black Prophecy is a space-based science fiction MMO in development at Reakktor Media in Germany, which we've covered a bit here at Massively. But the fact is that Reakktor may not be a company that many MMO gamers are all that familiar with. The Black Prophecy team has decided to try and remedy this, with a Q&A in their community forums that introduces a bit about CEO Kirk Lenke and development director Simon Bachmann, as well as their approach to the game.

Ultimately, the Q&A answers some of the questions that people have about Black Prophecy, both in terms of game mechanics and the business decisions behind getting the title published.

Current subscribers will see no real change in the game, as what they're paying for now is what's included in the new VIP model. The F2P players will not exactly have access to the same features for free, yet they can purchase as little or as much as they'd like in the Turbine store with Turbine points. This allows more casual players the chance to play the game and only pay for those features they know they'll use. To help explain this new system, and answer some questions we had, we had a chance to sit down with Adam Mersky, Turbine's Director of Communication, Kate Paiz, Senior Producer for DDO and Fernando Paiz, Executive Producer for DDO. Keep reading after the jump to find out what they had to say.

While online economies can seem to be (and often are) fundamentally different from AFK economies, there's a key component that makes any online economy function in ways that are all-too-familiar.

That's us. You and me. People.

Whether bags of treasure fall out of dead rats, or the economy is reliant on texture artists, modelers and scripters, it's people that make online economies with fundamentally alien premises work in some very surprisingly quotidian ways.

Looking back over the rather long, rich and tumultuous history of Second Life, it seems that Linden Lab finally has their griefer problems more or less eliminated. That doesn't mean that they're gone, by any means. Griefing still happens every day, but it's now a problem for individual users and communities. The problems that Linden Lab itself had with griefers are, pretty much, over.

Back in the day (before free accounts) griefers were a big-time problem for the Lab. A small group of griefers could take down or impede significant quantities of the Second Life architecture, eliminating any semblance of service for thousands or tens of thousands of users. Those days are long past.

The store is a fairly ordinary store in Second Life terms, except that it appears to sell objects that are mostly available for free elsewhere in the virtual environment. Reselling 'freebies' in Second Life is generally considered to be a reprehensible practice, but it does happen. This particular store is one of the places we routinely check out to evaluate the effectiveness of Linden Lab's harder-line policies on gaming traffic (and thus search-rankings) within Second Life.

In front of us are a row of 53 avatars, camping out. The provision of such camping facilities being one of the things that are prohibited under the new policy. We tried for a little while to get the attention of one of the camping avatars to see what they might think, and finally succeeded. As it happens, the avatar who responded was a bot – actually one of 70 bots being controlled by a single user who declined to give us a name. The bot-operator was, however, happy to answer a few questions for us, through the remotely-controlled avatar.

World of Warcraft is perhaps the only Western MMO to enjoy tremendous success thus far in China, the world's fastest growing market for online games. It's been a difficult road to the top though, if recent news reports are any indication. In addition to government regulations preventing Wrath of the Lich King from releasing for the Mainland, we've reported that The9 has lost the rights to operate World of Warcraft in China to competitor NetEase. Now we learn that the transition of operations from The9 to NetEase will mean World of Warcraft goes dark in China for a matter of weeks.

JLM Pacific Epoch in Shanghai has been following the story and reports that The9 will cease mainland operation of WoW at midnight on June 7th, after four years of continual service. World of Warcraft will return to China in "late June" under the banner of NetEase. It's expected that character data will be preserved with the handover.

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	One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!

With only two months of operation under its belt, fantasy game Runes of Magic already seems to be enjoying a great deal of popularity. Runes of Magic uses the free-to-play business model, which is discussed in an interview with community manager Jörg "Kerensky" Koonen. Sam "Azerian" Maxted from ZAM caught up with Koonen to discuss the game's launch and where the title is headed in future updates, but their talk quickly turned to some of the details of how the game's economy operates.

Koonen discusses how players have responded to Runes of Magic's microtransaction system through the in-game Item Shop, and that by design the Item Shop doesn't sell certain types of items. "We do not sell any weapons or armour or such," he says. "All of this has to be collected by the players through the game." However, Runes of Magic also uses non-microtransaction currencies and some players are concerned that their gold lacks real value in the game. Koonen says that the developers are looking into this. They're presently gathering feedback from the playerbase and are willing to introduce other measures, if necessary, to ensure that non-microtransaction currencies serve a purpose in RoM.

One of the titles gamers can look forward to this summer is CrimeCraft, a hybrid of a shooter and urban MMO from Vogster Entertainment, to be published by THQ Inc. in August. Vogster and THQ have taken a somewhat surprising step towards distribution of CrimeCraft in North America; the title will be sold exclusively at Best Buy, either in-store or online.

The exclusivity of this deal may bring some perks to CrimeCraft players. The official release states: "Consumers who purchase CrimeCraft at Best Buy will receive two months of free play time and a number of exclusive in-game items, including two in-game t-shirts from acclaimed real-world fashion labels and a combat backpack for their avatar. Gamers will also receive a virtual Best Buy discount card that allows them to purchase in-game items at a reduced cost. Those gamers pre-ordering CrimeCraft via Best Buy retail stores or online at www.bestbuy.com, will additionally receive virtual in-game shoes from Ecko Unltd., created by fashion icon Marc Ecko, access to play the pre-release version of the game during beta, and three days' head start at the game's launch."

Pre-orders begin on May 31st (online) or on June 7th (in stores). CrimeCraft is still slated for an August 25th launch.

Some say the Second Life 'killer app' is meetings, some say weak-ties, some say it's art, creativity, live music and other related forms of content publishing, and some consider it to be as simple as the micro-transaction economy, where sums smaller than most payment organizations are willing to handle can be exchanged for both virtual and non-virtual goods, as well as services.

That would be from the consumer end. From Linden Lab's perspective, the 'killer app' for them is closer to what Blizzard's killer app is for World of Warcraft: Your friends and your inventory.

As we come up to the time of year when the long-awaited Second Life Homesteads price-rise is due to hit, Linden Lab has announced that any Homestead simulators owned before 1 July, 2009 will continue at the old monthly rate of US$95 instead of US$125, before the price-rise finally kicks in for those too on 1 July, 2010.

The deal essentially saves owners of Homestead products a once-only total of US$360 per simulator, if the simulator is owned or purchased before 1 July this year (a bit less than the cost of a new one). If you've abandoned your Homestead simulator this year, you can have it reinstated at no extra charge. Homesteads have a limit of 20 agents (avatars, if you prefer), and 3,750 prims, and will still be subject to as-yet-unspecified script-limitations before the end of the year. Homestead simulators cost US$375 each to purchase.

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	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.

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.

We've been giving a lot of thought to Second Life's new voice service, Avaline (currently undergoing an early beta). Avaline will allow you to pay to reserve the ability for someone on an external phone to call a voice-user through their avatar, by dialing an access phone number and entering a code (much like your basic teleconferencing service, though with just the two of you, apparently). The phone number of the caller is presented before you choose to accept the call.

What, exactly, seems to be the use-case here? If the caller is a Second Life user themselves, it is probably more convenient (and cheaper) to fire up Second Life and establish a voice session directly with you, if you're online. Otherwise, we're a bit stumped. Do you tell people, "No, don't call my office. Dial my Second Life avatar instead, because it will be just like talking on the phone!" – Pretty much that would be because it is talking on the phone.

It seems hard to envision a niche that the service fits into. We're open to suggestions.

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	Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.