Massively^™

If it's Tuesday, it must be time for more news of Flagship Studios' upcoming free-to-play MMO, Mythos. Lead developer Travis Baldree tells German fan site Online Welten more about their plans for Mythos' future, Coming up are another class and another race. Travis also explains what sorts of things you'll be able to get with their RMT system, such as more slots for your "stash", and the ability to share your stash among other characters. Mounts are coming soon -- hope they're more unique than (yawn) boring horses. Information about new guilds, puzzle boxes, wedding rings and naked foot-races -- it's all there, in elegant English or glorious German -- your choice.

In his latest "Almost-a-blog", Travis also talks about their first epic quest-triggered Overworld boss. Everyone who helps take it down gets loot, similar to Warhammer Online's public quests. There's news about particle effects, Zone 2 progress, the consignment house and crafting. There also seems to be a lot of talk about open beta on the forums.

Earlier this month we had the chance to take a tour of the free-to-play Joymax title Silkroad Online. A unique fantasy game, this microtransaction-supported offering transports players back to the time of high adventure along the trade routes between Europae and China. The game offers players the option to play either as a Chinese character, with a mix of magic and might, or a European character with a more traditional MMO role. Alongside the usual leveling and killing of monsters, the game features a one-of-a-kind trade run system, that pits players against each other in groups and against NPC brigands in a nuanced blending of PvP and PvE.

Today we have for you a screenshot and video-heavy tour of the game, offering insights into what it's like to try out this singular title. For our video offerings click on through below the cut to see combat in action, character creation, and a taste of what the trade run experience is like. For more information on the game, and to see far more of the unique character customization elements like the lady on the tiger above, click through to our extensive exploratory gallery. Either way, stay for a second and investigate the blending of East meets West that is Silkroad Online.

Every few months Square/Enix lets loose a report from the anti-RMT squad they have on the Final Fantasy XI staff. These individuals are purposed with one goal: to keep the paths and streets of Vana'diel clear of monster-farming TOS-breaking gil-sellers. It's a thankless job, and even here on the site we've had people complain that it's not working. Still the reports come out, and still we see the company release word that they've dropped the banhammer on another few hundreds of individuals. It's a never-ending race, with the rats always one step ahead of the cat.

The most recent report seems to indicate their previous actions against farmers who focused on fishing have been somewhat successful. The also make mention of some anti-farming techniques implimented in the May update, with further techniques added in this most recent June update. Between these two they're hopeful named monster hunting will continue to decrease. They've also released some numbers on recent bannings, trying to give us a sense of how active the team has been. Movement enhancers look to be the most-affected group, with 400 cheaters kicked in the first month of June alone.

The development team working on Sugar Rush is based in Vancouver, Canada and includes former Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios Group vice president and creative director Steve Rechtschaffner, as well as studio Klei Entertainment. Headed by Jamie Cheng, Klei Entertainment previously developed and published Eets, a 2D puzzle game for PCs which was later revamped for Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade.

It will be interesting to see how Sugar Rush does in North America. MapleStory is unquestionably highly successful. It put Nexon on the global radar and shocked the naysayers when MapleStory earned 29 million dollars in revenue -- not bad for a free to play MMOG! The whole western and eastern MMOG market juxtaposition is fascinating; many have shunned a lot of eastern games in discussing the western market and vice-versa. A video from the closed beta showcasing game play is after the jump. Let us know what you think.

World of Kung Fu is the radical 3d martial arts MMORPG that utilizes Chinese mythology and themes for its setting. The game is free to play, and uses a micro-transactions to sustain development costs. It's important to stress that goods purchased in the "item mall" are not required to complete any quests or objectives in the game. New players also receive three "novice cards" that can be traded for in game items or cash including the following: Earth temple, which grants instant travel to any city already visited. Lion Toy, which will resurrect your character. And the Tai Yi Pill, which grants full healing.

To keep player s busy over the summer VestGame Entertainment has announced regularly scheduled events, which World of Warcraft players would recognize as daily quests. However, the daily events in World of Kung Fu aren't just your run of the mill fair, one is a trivial pursuit type of challenge. Quests are given out by Town Crier in the city of Liuhe and their rewards will range from experience, cash, and even rare items. Hey, it's free, and worth checking out if you are struggling to find something to play this summer.

At the end of last year, the Australian version of gaming blog Kotaku put up a series on the lengths to which one gamer went to experience World of Warcraft. He had already made the decision to quit the game, and decided to give it one last go via a power-leveled character. The series details the research put into the decision, and chronicles his experiences as he watches his new avatar ascend the ranks from the sidelines.

What's especially interesting is his final conclusion about the whole experience. When all is said and done, the anonymous author walks away from his powerleveled character barely having made it through his mid-60s. There might be a life lesson in the whole thing, and the series is well worth considering if you've ever considered such a service.

Meet Jay. Jay started in Second Life in April this year and was interested and involved enough to get himself some Linden Dollars via a currency exchange. A lot of Linden Dollars.

Unfortunately, Jay is now out-of-pocket by US$110, and is being told conflicting stories.

The creators of the sci-fi MMO Earthrise have been very active in recent months -- granting a number of interviews, releasing monthly newsletters, and participating in dev chats. Stratics recently hosted the third Earthrise 'House of Commons' dev chat, with three members of the Masthead Studios team.

The Masthead Studios devs that took part were Atanas Atanasov (CEO of Masthead Studios), Apostol Apostolov (Lead Game Designer), and Moll (Community Manager). Their discussion ranged from the professions available to players to the extensive crafting system in the game. Read on after the jump for details straight from the devs about what we can expect from Earthrise.

Genres are a sticky thing when it comes to gaming. On the one hand, they help us categorize and succinctly describe a hitherto unknown game. Simply referring to a game as an MMO, for instance, instantly conjures up a number of elements like a persistent world, large sharded player base, and character progression. While that sort of pigeon-holing is effective for most games out there, occasionally a game comes along that really defies our best efforts at categorization. In this blogger's mind, The Agency is a perfect example of that.

In a recent preview of the game, we're treated to details of the ways in which The Agency is both more than and less than a traditional MMO. A lot of the usual elements like persistence and character progression are there, but they're twisted in interesting new ways. None of this is especially new information per say (we spoke with the lead designer ourselves not long ago), but it's another new perspective on the game, and we can't help but gobble it up. Also out of the Eurogamer camp is a reiteration of the point made last month at ION that The Agency will not be using an RMT system for weapons, operatives, or anything else that would give one player an edge on another, which we're happy to see as well.

Exteel is already six months into launch, and it stays kind of quiet not often talked about in MMOG circles. If you haven't heard about this one it's a free-to-play MMOG where players can take up giant robots and smash each other into bits like retro-rats. Several Massively readers even gave it the thumbs up in our launch post. As for recent news we covered the Trooper recently, and the new Last Stand battle mode that interjects a PvE element into the game. The latest information comes from Jae Hwan Kim, Exteel US Producer, in this interview with WarCry.

A genuine concern exists regarding Exteel's well being and sustainability because the game is an Eastern esque MMOG supported by micro transactions. There is a lot more room for failure in the Western market for this type of MMOG. According to Kim, Exteel is doing great and broke a concurrency record last week which is always good news for any MMOG. Also in the interview Kim talks about a few new features coming soon such as the new Clan battle mode, NCcoin versus in-game credits, along with his quick thoughts on game balance. Be sure to check out the official Exteel website where you can download the relatively small client.

Think about this a moment: people are actually paying money to experience less of their games. Every day. Probably all day. These are often games that they've already purchased and, in effect, pay someone else to play for them. The existence of RMT and power-leveling services isn't exactly breaking news, but it makes these aspects of MMOs no less bizarre a notion. The thriving business built upon such tenets of how online games should operate is a matter of some concern to Jesse Henning, a writer at GameCyte.

Despite the can of worms it can be,"from a business standpoint, subsidizing RMT is a fantastic move," Henning writes. If players will buy items and currency outside of the system anyway, what company wouldn't prefer that cash to enter their own pockets? "From a design standpoint, however, RMT is a treacherous path to walk," Henning cautions, and goes on to look at the pitfalls of game design that incorporates RMT. Conversely, the writer then discusses the level-disparity design problem in World of Warcraft and how it actually encourages players to buy gold and use power-leveling services. Henning also looks at how the ancillary services operating within and around a world pull in more revenue than the world operation itself, citing Raph Koster on the issue as well. Have a look at the piece at GameCyte, which discusses how RMT affects console gaming as well as MMOs, and just how inescapable it really is.

Trion World Network is quite a company -- without releasing a single game, they've put together millions of dollars in venture capital and compiled a staff list that's got team members from across the history of MMO games, from EverQuest and Ultima Online to World of Warcraft and City of Heroes.

This week, they sent waves through the MMO community by announcing that not only were they working on a fantasy MMO to be helmed by Jon Van Caneghem (original creator of the Might and Magic series of RPG strategy games and co-founder of the company along with Lars Buttler), but that they were forming a groundbreaking partnership with the SCI FI Channel to develop and publish and MMO to live alongside a television show. Finally, we had a small glimpse of just what Trion, with all of their money and experience, were up to.

To find out more, Massively sat down with Van Caneghem (a busy man since the news dropped on Monday) to chat about both the fantasy MMO and the SCI FI project, and what Trion's been working on since they formed. Van Caneghem told us why Trion wants to make a different kind of MMO, and how they'll balance an online game with a television series from the network that's running Battlestar Galactica. The interview starts right after you click the link below.

Once again the crack team at Square/Enix dedicated to hunting down and eradicating the gold farmer has reported in. Final Fantasy XI has a particularly troublesome RMT problem, making communication to the playerbase on the issue critical. Recent reports have focused on strong initiatives with targeted crackdowns and mass bannings.

This latest post to the official FFXI site is really more of a status update, keeping players abreast of the most recent areas of concern. For example, the ever-present problem of hacked accounts and stolen items has been on the task force's mind for some time now. Thanks to recent changes, re-obtaining items should be a much faster process. As for particular activities, they're keeping a close watch on fish farming, the abusive hunting of Notorious Monsters, and "enhanced character movement" exploits; ie: speedhacking. The update also takes note of a few questions that have been directed to the team of late; full details are available on the site.

2007 proved to be a good year for Nexon in the United States, particularly with its free-to-play MapleStory. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that the although the game has 85 million users worldwide, only 5.9 million of them are U.S. players. Given the relatively small percentage of its player base located in the United States, it's surprising that MapleStory made an absolute killing on in-world transactions in 2007; the WSJ reports that 'Nexon's U.S. revenue last year more than tripled to $29.3 million from $8.5 million the prior year.'

Jeremy Liew provides some additional commentary on the Nexon windfall over at Lightspeed: "With $30m in US sales and 6m US registered users, assuming a 20% "active player" rate and 10% "buyer rate", that implies an ARPU of $20/mth which sounds about right and is consistent with number we've seen from games in Asia. It sounds like the US will be following very similar models of virtual goods monetization that we've seen in Asia." It's interesting that the predominantly Asian business model of legitimized RMT is already gaining some degree of acceptance in the United States, albeit a slow acceptance.

Via PlayNoEvil

"Buy this box for $60 or go to hell, I don't want your money." That's the message on the tunnel vision of boxed game sales that Alex St. John, CEO of WildTangent, is trying to get across to the gaming industry. The dominant business model in PC gaming largely ignores the possibilities of in-game transactions and ad-sponsored gameplay. St. John spoke on the need to pursue new gaming revenue models at the recent ION Game Conference in Seattle and more recently, at the 6th annual Wedbush Morgan Securities Management Access Conference in New York City. Gamasutra followed St. John at both events, where the WildTangent CEO raised some eyebrows when he asserted,"In a few years any business not making money from ads is leaving half their money on the table."

According to St. John, the industry fixation on boxed sales will be the downfall of a number of companies that fail to change their business models and embrace in-game or in-world revenue streams. "There's a wide open opportunity here. Anybody can get into this, and everything the traditional publishers and game companies know about doing business will ensure their failure," he stated at ION.