This post is about Linkrealms. In the end, anyway. Time for another anecdote, which I have told some of before.

There were always questions about what to do with Ultima Online after it launched. EA was moderately baffled by the project, and the lawsuit didn’t help. People had figured out the network protocol, they had figured out the asset file format, they had figured out the map format… it wasn’t long until there were people making better tools for UO data than we had in-house.

The most notable of these was probably UOAssist, which prompted the creation of a program called “UOPro” for tools that we approved for usage and didnt’ consider exploits… as I recall, the UOPro program didn’t last very long. My favorite, though, was the one that let you edit hues, the palette files that were used to tint clothing and monsters — our in-house tool for that was so terrible that we promptly stopped using it and used the fan-created one instead.

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Virtual Worlds News interviewed a whole bunch of folks in the category, to get forecasts of what is happening over the next year.

The answers boil down to “Reply hazy, try again.” Growth, and bubble bursting. 2d, no 3d. Second Life tanks, Second Life dominates. Interoperability, no interoperability.

Everyone does seem to agree “more kids’ worlds.”

I was struck by this paragraph in this Massively article about Live Gamer:

Raph’s idea seems to be that RMT is simply another ancillary service that can spring up and provide revenue around the MMO market (of which this very site you’re reading is one). But there is a serious difference between RMT, and services like the one this site provides (in the form of MMO news and guides). RMT is still, among most players, considered cheating. As most people trying to make money off of RMT have pointed out, it’s a cultural thing, much more ingrained among Westerners than anywhere else. But it’s still a perception that exists– it’s OK to look at a strategy guide to become a better player, but it’s not OK to pay real money for better gear.

The thing that’s funny is that yes, of course players regard RMT as cheating. But make no mistake, looking up the steps to a quest was once upon a time a bannable offense on many muds, and widely considered cheating. (Calling the sites out there today “strategy guides” is a bit of stretch — they’re more like complete walkthroughs). Powerlevelling someone was once upon a time a bannable offense on some muds. Going through a quest with someone and telling them the steps. Chatting the location of an item on a public channel. You get the idea. Yes, all of Allakhazam is the equivalent of something that would have gotten scorn and anger from among both the playerbase and the admins.

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First, look at the beast that is the new 3-way SLI video card.

Then consider what it gets you (reg required):

Two key FPS titles failed to make waves in their opening month of sales in the US. Research firm NPD Group said that EA and Crytek’s critically lauded FPS Crysis sold just 86,633 units last month, following its release on November 13… A Metacritic average review score of 91 wasn’t enough… A PC with a dual core processor, 2GB of RAM and a mid-level DX10 card runs the game at around 30 framers per second average at midrange resolution… Midway and Epic Games’ Unreal Tournament 3 for PC fared even worse, selling just 33,995…

Scott Fisher: At the NBC/Universal island