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Join iTZKooPA, Amatera, and Heartbourne for this MMOcast. This weeks topics are:
Frogster shows off Mythos cinematic, then promptly has a majority stake purchased by Gameforge. Transaction calculated to cost 85 million bottles of water sold on the street corner out of a cooler.
Just a day after professing my love for Tabula Rasa, the title returns to the forefront of MMOG news, courtesy of a lawsuit filed by its creator, Richard Garriott. Lord British, as he is known by some, sued NCsoft after his departure from the company in late 2008. After much litigation, a federal court has awarded him a victory, to the tune of $28 million.
“I am extremely pleased with the jury’s decision,” Garriott said in a statement. “The facts were clear that my departure from NCsoft was not voluntary. I am very pleased with the final award.”
Hopefully enough to buy the intellectual property rights?…
The basis of the case was the scenario in which he “left” the company. Originally portrayed as a resignation, Garriott admitted months later that he was fired. Fired while he was on his space flight to the International Space Station, a publicity stunt to further promote Tabula Rasa. Furthermore, the resignation letter was allegedly written by the publisher, not Garriott. Garriott chose to sue his former company after he was forced into selling his stock options in 90 days, rather than the 10 years his contract allowed. The deceptive short sale cost him millions of dollars.
Everybody loves an underdog story. But seriously Richard, get those servers back online (and add some endgame).
Click here to slog through all the lawyer mumbo jumbo.
A few months ago I was reading my PCGamer, the Starcraft II issue (August), and there was a interesting article by Ultima Online creator Richard Garriott, aka “Lord British”. It was basically about the growth MMORPGs have had over the last decade and how he expects the growth to continue. However, towards the end of the article he mentioned how a new MMORPG he was developing was going to change the MMORPG genre, Tabula Rasa. Having recently quit Lord of the Rings Online, I have been looking for a new MMO to play and decided to look up more about this game. Basically from what I read around, the game is an attempt to create a MMORPG with little down time and a whole lot of action.
Two of the big things that stuck out was travel time and the fighting system. Traveling has been minimized in 3 ways. One, the world map is much smaller than todays MMORPGs. No more riding 10-20 mins to just get somewhere or meet up with someone. Second is that all characters, regardless of class, have travel skills, so they can port to other locations in the game instantly. Finally, quests from what I read are all instances, so you don’t need to travel to some far distant corner of the map to get to it. They will be assessable from any major “hub” in the game. Hubs are what towns and cities are called in Tabula Rasa.Aside from short travel times, the fighting system has also been revamped. No more clicking a button and just waiting for your character to kill whatever your fighting. Fighting will be more involved and hopefully less boring. Boss fights shouldn’t be the only enjoyable fights in the game, so with a revamped fighting system hopefully regular monster should be fun to kill again.
This is one game I am definitely keeping my eye out on. Recently I quit LOTRO so I’m looking for a new MMORPG to pickup and this one is on the top of my list.
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