Escaping into a virtual world was just what I needed after filing an insurance claim in a San Francisco parking lot. I began the process by walking through quite possibly the most badass office setup I’ve ever seen. Three Rings calls their establishment “Nautilus” and actually has a submarine hatch built into one of the corners of the spacious office, right next to the bookcase with a hidden door behind it. After perching on a carved wooden chair – the plainest thing in the whole room as far as I could see – I leaned over Designer & CEO Daniel James' shoulder to watch him boot up Whirled.

The best way to describe all that Whirled is – and it’s a lot of things – is virtual environment/online community/games portal. Players (Three Rings hates calling them “users”) log onto Whirled and start their virtual life with a little tofu avatar. They can evolve their avatar into just about anything they want (emperor penguin, giant whale, nearly-naked man) by playing games and earning coins to buy themselves stuff and upgrades.

Aside from avatars, players also have their own room to decorate and remake into a reflection of their inner-self. Or not – they could just make it into a pixilated strip joint/opium den, if they so choose. The point is freedom of expression and Whirled gives players the power to do that by encouraging them to create their own stuff and upload it for other players to use.

Most of that stuff is player-made games. Three Rings has always adored online multiplayer games – sort of like the Korean go-kart gaming fad – and multiplayer flash mages make up the core of Whirled’s experience. Some of the games Three Rings makes themselves, but they’re hoping the vast majority of Whirled’s games will be player-made masterpieces that encourage gamers to be creative and business savvy.

For example, James showed me talked about Corpse Craft – a primitive RPG made up of dungeons created by users. The graphics are old school; it’s kind of nice you have the option to change your avatar’s appearance to fit in because I think a giant emperor penguin would kind of stick out in a semi-goth setting.

ETA: My bad. He was walking about Corpse Craft while showing me Wyvern and I got confused.

“Penny Arcade described it as ‘fucking banging,’” James bragged.

And it was, but for more reasons than the setting and the decent gameplay. Corpse Craft is set up such that it’s free to play – but to get the most out of the experience players have to spend real-life money to buy Whirled gold bars. The gold bars go for 10 cents apiece and can be used to purchase content for the game; in this case, monsters for the dungeons.

Player-creators can choose not to require gold bars of their audience – the alternative currency in Whirled is “coins” which are earned entirely through in-game actions. But the incentive for gamers to be enterprising is high: the more gold bars a player-creator can get his audience to buy, the more opportunity he has to cash out gold bars into real money. You know, to use in real life.

So, if you made the most awesome game ever that so happened to require the purchase of gold bars here and there, you could make some money from Whirled. Not mention a name for yourself as a game developer.

“We’re hoping that developers will take advantage of Whirled as well,” said James.

There certainly is plenty of opportunity. Whirled launched its beta in March of 2008 and has grown to a base of nearly 20000 players since then.

The beta tag stays only because Three Rings isn’t quite done fiddling with the world here and there. Among the changes the developer is hoping to make is more group/guild management functionality. Currently, Whirled has friends lists and chat just like Facebook – but since the emphasis is more on gaming together than on just hanging out together, a guild system would be nice.

Whirled is something I feel that I can’t quite be put into words. It’s more than just a virtual space like Home and more than a networking system like Xbox Live. Go check it out for yourself if you want the full idea. Like with Puzzle Pirates, there's a lot of stuff going on under the shiny, entertaining hood.

Me, I’ve got some more insurance stuff to deal with.

I don’t know much about Gatheryn or what an advanced-casual massively multiplayer online game is supposed to be. But I gather (get it?) from the screenshots that it’s set in a steampunk fantasy world with zeppelins. The press release says gamers will enter a world of “adventure, mystery and romance,” and play familiar puzzle and action games to advance the story and earn stuff.

Stamos comes in as Game Studio Director for MindFuse, focusing on Gatheryn’s production and design . As a veteran of the Star Wars franchise – including The Force Unleashed – she sounds like she’s got the skill set to get the game from development to launch.

Clearly MindFuse thinks so too,going from the press release:

“Isa will be instrumental in the creation of the epic world of Gatheryn,” said Joseph Walters, Chief Executive Officer and Lead Designer of MindFuse Games. “Isa’s outstanding track record as a producer is self-evident when you look at games like the The Force Unleashed, and Gatheryn players will appreciate all she is contributing to the game.”

Well, at least somebody can get a job these dark days. More power to you, madam.

Fallen Earth Project Manager Colin Dwan said, “During the Alpha test phase, testers will be focused into specific towns so we can have miniature stress tests each week. They will be able to experience all of our game systems including missions, combat, crafting, scavenging, economy, and vehicles. We are extremely excited to move from general content creation to game balance and bug fixing.”

Incidentally the game date is 2145 and their apocalypse of choice is a plague named Shiva that wiped out 99% of the population. Always good to know which post-apocalyptic scenario we are working with. Hit the jump for full details on the alpha sign ups.

FALLEN EARTH ANNOUNCES ALPHA TEST

CARY, NC – August 12, 2008 - Post apocalyptic MMOG Fallen Earth announced today it will officially begin Alpha testing on Thursday, August 14, 2008. The test is scheduled to run through early 2009, immediately followed by Beta testing to begin in 1Q09.

Fallen Earth Project Manager Colin Dwan said, “During the Alpha test phase, testers will be focused into specific towns so we can have miniature stress tests each week. They will be able to experience all of our game systems including missions, combat, crafting, scavenging, economy, and vehicles. We are extremely excited to move from general content creation to game balance and bug fixing.”

Fallen Earth is a post-apocalyptic massively multiplayer online game that mixes first person shooter and role playing game style mechanics. The game is set in 2156, one hundred years after the world is brought low by a plague known as Shiva that killed 99% of the population. The game takes place in and around the Grand Canyon, one of the few habitable places left on Earth, which makes it a place many are willing to kill to control. Our world is one where mankind teeters on the edge of extinction, clinging to the bones of the old world while trying to recover their lost secrets. It's a world of scavengers and desperation. The players are those who choose to rise above the hardships of this new world and work toward a better world, or decide the old world was corrupt and all signs of it must be erased completely.

Gamers who are a GameSpot subscriber can apply for the free Alpha test at http://www.gamespot.com/event/codes/fallen-earth/. Gamers who are not GameSpot subscribers can go to http://www.gamespot.com/signup/index.php and sign up for free. Participants will be chosen based on qualifying criteria, applicant numbers, and testing schedules. If accepted into the Alpha test, gamers will receive a key code and can download the file immediately.

Fallen Earth, being developed using the Icarus Studios Tools Suite platform, will be showcased in the Icarus Studios booth 307 at the Virtual Worlds Expo in Los Angeles, CA, September 3-4, 2008 and in booth 316 at the Austin Game Developer Conference Expo, September 16-17, 2008.

For more information, players can visit www.fallenearth.com.

METEOR GAMES ANNOUNCES TWIN SKIES
New MMOG Features Multiple Ways to Play Including 3D PC Game, Web-Based Flash Applications, Mobile Games and Social Networking

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA – August 5, 2008 – Meteor Games, LLC, an independent game studio created by Neopets founders Adam Powell and Donna Williams, is developing Twin Skies, a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) that will target players of all ages with all new content, accessible gameplay and advanced socializing options. While Twin Skies is a complete, fully 3D PC MMOG, players will be able to interact with and even impact the online game world in entirely new ways, including through a series of extensive web-based activities, mobile applications and social networking capabilities.

“We’re excited to announce Twin Skies, our first major project since creating Neopets and a much more ambitious undertaking that aims to change the way gamers of all ages play and socialize in MMOs,” said Adam Powell, CEO and creative director, Meteor Games. “Twin Skies’ technology and design will allow players to access the game from anywhere and in any way they choose. The immersive world, advanced technology and accessible gameplay will be fun for gamers young and old, casual and hardcore alike.”

Unlike traditional MMOGs, such as World of Warcraft, Twin Skies will provide its players with multiple access points for enjoying the game world, allowing them to interact with the game when, where and for however long they want. PC players will be able to jump into the main Twin Skies PC MMO game to adventure, craft or explore the massive open world by themselves or with friends; players can also interact with Twin Skies on the official Web site via a series of fun and impactful flash-based mini games; or users can play Twin Skies through mobile applications and games.

Twin Skies will leverage BigWorld Technology to deliver advanced 3D graphics throughout a vast and seamless open world. The PC component of the game will deliver all of the core mechanics and gameplay that millions of MMOG fans have come to expect, while pushing beyond the boundaries of current MMOG competition by including deep player customization, fun and accessible content and advanced functionality, such as player housing.

Meteor Games has already launched the Twin Skies Web site (www.twinskies.com), which includes several preliminary flash-based games, including The Very Hungry Junkworm, where players gain points by eating junk and avoiding their ever-growing tail, and The Legends of Laundry, an exciting and fast paced puzzle game where players must contend with bombs, cats, evil fungi, and an unrelenting assault of stubborn stains in their quest to finish the laundry on time.

Once Twin Skies launches, these mini-games will have a direct effect upon the game world itself. Registered players will earn points, which can be spent to customize their avatars, unlock new areas of the Web site or even spawn events within the online world. For example, achieving a high score in the Web-based Hungry Junkworm mini-game might create a huge junkworm in the Twin Skies game world which will then head off and attack players. To play the first Twin Skies flash-based mini-games or to visit the game’s official forums, please visit www.twinskies.com.

Adding further accessibility to the title, Twin Skies will leverage today’s increasingly connected mobile technology by implementing games and applications designed specifically for cell phones and other devices. These applications will allow players to access characters and affect the online persistent world. More information on mobile applications will be announced at a later date.

Twin Skies is expected to enter Beta testing later this year. Full launch of the game is expected in 2009. For more information about Twin Skies, to play the flash-based games, or to learn how to take part in the Beta release, please visit the game’s official web-site at www.twinskies.com.

This video was recorded in NetDevil's second Lego Universe Project event. According to Scott Brown, NetDevil's president, in the first LUP event they asked these Lego users to give them an idea of what the game should be like, which of course resulted in them building hundreds of actual Lego models of monsters, places, and all kinds of devices, machinery, and vehicles.

After that session, NetDevil started to program the software tools and the models needed to design Lego Universe terrains and structures. Now, in the second LUP event, they have trained those Lego people on the tools themselves, which they are using to create the virtual worlds. Apparently, NetDevil is very impressed by how fast these people—who in their day jobs are mostly engineers—got into the tools after just a three-hour class. Hopefuly that means things are progressing fast and we will see this game—which seems to have great potential—sooner than later.

Ed Wood and Second Life go together like chocolate and peanut butter. After all, Ed was a director of inspired incompetence; Second Life is an entire virtual world filled with that incompetence.

So we were pleased to get a note from Kotakuite Ben B. telling us that the second annual Ed Wood Machinima Festival is taking place this weekend in Second Life. As he explains:

Ed Wood made films so bad, they were good. This weekend, Second Life residents have 48 hours to make a movie in the spirit of Ed Wood. Halloween Night, 7pm SL time, we will screen these movies IN Second Life at our theatre in Lukanida. Last year, the Ed Wood Festival was Alt-Zoom's first ever machinima festival, and so we are celebrating our first birthday as well by giving out L$60,000 in prize money for Worst Film, Worst Story, Worst Acting, Worst Costumes, and Most Disturbing Film!

You can check out last year's winners over at the official site. And, you know, I may very well finally dust off my furry avatar with the excreting phallus-nipples to make a dashing appearance. Maybe Eliza will deign to be my date. Florian Eckhardt

Ed Wood Machinima Festival [Official Site]

The Congressional Joint Economic Committee — a group of taxmen, economists and autocrats — have admitted that tax law has fallen "way behind" the march of MMOG progress and are now seriously looking into the issue of taxing virtual assets and incomes.

There's a good argument to be made for taxing virtual economies, of course. Second Life has over $500,000 dollars worth of in-game transactions a day, mostly in furry prostitution. Fair enough to tax virtual economies when it's possible to cash-in and cash-out of your virtual holdings.

But I'm going to tell you this: the second the Murky, Omnipresent Man cuts VAT off the top of the Helm of Fire I just bought off the Undercity Auction House is the day I motherfucking snap. Imagine a dozen law offers lying in pulsing, quivering wrecks of mutilated flesh at my feat as I stare at the sun and laugh and laugh and laugh. And when the Feds bullets tear through my flesh, turning my internal organs into slurry, my last words will be "Is that the best you pansies can do?" before the inferno-like hate dims from my eyes and my grip loosens on the throat of Dan MIller, senior economist for the JEC. Florian Eckhardt

US Congress launches probe into virtual economies [Reuters]

As a gay albino African-Irishman, you just know I have rhythm. If you've ever read Voltaire, you might recall Candide's description of what happened when Cunegonde stripped naked: every bystander fell to the ground in epileptic seizures of ecstasy. Well, that doesn't happen when I expose my mottled, creepy pink flesh, but when I get naked and hit the DDR mat? Everyone becomes my ho.

So excitement! Shiny Founder Dave Perry has announced that he is directing game development on a game that finally meshes my penchant for dance with my inherent catassery: Dance!, a DDR MMOG.

Acclaim's press release focuses on the aesthetic aspects of the player's appearance in DANCE!, promising players will have a chance to create their own unique dancer through variable styles, facial features, clothing and accessories. It's certainly an interesting approach to a game type that's found difficulty moving outside the hack 'n flash of orcs and elves.

Get it hooked up to the Live Vision cam and see me become the Leeroy Jenkins of Dance!. Florian Eckhardt

Dave Perry Overseeing a ... Dance MMO? [1UP]

Neither man, nor woman, nor furries, nor Wagner James Au is safe from terrorism, even when digitally ensconced in the Metaverse, as wild-eyed Warren Ellis describes a terrorist attack that took place in Second Life.

Materialising on the Integral Castle grounds, I found myself in the middle of a rain of small boxes, all of which were trying to load themselves into my inventory (where the objects in SL that I choose to hold on to are kept) while looping some Biblical jabber through the chat circuit, filling the entire screen.

Well, terrorist attack might be a tad hyperbolic on Warren's part. Instead of insidious agents of Al Qaeda, think pustule-faced teenage dorks hyurking in their computer labs. This isn't a purposeful attack targeting a civilian population to enact political change: this is just a bunch of griefers. Florian Eckhardt

Second Life Sketches [Warren Ellis]

A feature in this week's Economist, on news stands now, does something that Wagner James Au and all his fruity techno-utopianism never could: make me want to try Second Life.

How? Largely due to vivid descriptions of experiments like Professor Peter Yellowlees' in-game attempts to convey what it feels like to be schizophrenic to the healthy mind:

Peter Yellowlees, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, Davis, has been teaching about schizophrenia for 20 years, but says that he was never really able to explain to his students just how their patients suffer. So he went online, downloaded some free software and entered Second Life...

Mr. Yellowlees created hallucinations. A resident might walk through a virtual hospital ward, and a picture on the wall would suddenly flash the word "shitface". The floor might fall away, leaving the person to walk on stepping stones above the clouds. An in-world television set would change from showing an actual speech by Bob Hawke, Australia's former prime minister, into Mr Hawke shouting, "Go and kill yourself, you wretch!" A reflection in a mirror might have bleeding eyes and die.

Of course, go for the shitface eye-bleeding schizophrenia, stay for the virtual hookers. Florian Eckhardt

PS: The image is by Louis Wain, a cat fancier artist whose slide into schizophrenia can be seen in the growing madness (and, consequently, genius) of his paintings.

Living a Second Life [Economist.com]

Eve Online is a game I desperately want to love: an MMOG that doesn't involve playing a bearded midget dressed only in his Underoos. I gave the two week trial a shot: I loved the imagination behind the universe and my Shodan-like ship A.I. But after the initial novelty wore off, I realized that most of my time was playing Eve Online was actually spent in another room entirely, reading a book. I guess that's swell for multitaskers, but I like games that actually require me to be around to play them.

Still, a lot of Eve Online fans should be interested by this Firing Squad interview with senior producer Nathan Richardson. One of the subjects touched upon are details about the upcoming expansion for Eve, including a slew of graphics improvements, better management of corporations, more organization tools for combat and better situational awareness. A lot of spreadsheet stuff, in other words. There's also going to be a Direct X 10 Version of Eve, called Eve Vista... you know. Eventually. Florian Eckhardt

EVE Online Interview [Firing Squad]

This has been doing the rounds lately, but just in case you're looking for an MMOG fix and don't know which bobble-head Korean freebie to turn to: this astonishing blog compendium of free MMOGs and MMORPGs, called descriptively enough "The Best Free MMORPG List (and MMO's)"

Expect the quality of these games to be from absolutely terrible to surprisingly good, even if games like Mu Online have a class actually called "Fairy Elf." Anyone know which of these games are even worth bothering with?

The Best Free MMORPG List (and MMO's) [mmolist.blogspot.com]

In Spend the Night, players would have congregated virtual social lounges, desperately trying to catch the attention of some polygonal babe. Once a babe was procured, the couple would gravitate to a private room, where they would fool around until — at the highest moment of passion — the girl would whisper in her lover's ear, "LOLZ! I'M A D00D, U FAG."

Alas, Babylon. Republik just couldn't get the money together to make Spend the Night a reality.

Coitus Interruptus [Next Generation]

The infamous John Romero — known for designing Doom but better known for (ha ha ha!) Daikatana and marrying an Eastern European teenager — has posted a petulant retort on his blog in response to a recent interview done with him on Computer and Video Games. In it, he is outraged that his friend Lane's name is misspelled as "Lain", positing "how many times have you seen that name spelled 'Lain'"? Realizing that it's not exactly the sort of name you hear outside of Missouri trailer parks, Romero then asserts that he never claimed that John Carmack and Adrian Carmack were lovers... sorry, we mean brothers. He also corrects Computer and Video Games for saying that he is working on an MMOG with an unnamed company. He does this by mentioning that the name of his company hasn't been announced yet.

Ladies, gentlemen — this is the sort of 'clarifying' one does when they are married at Chernobyl. Luckily, the interview John's so incensed about — despite the 'errors' — is a lot more interesting, detailing his early days at id and his work on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake.

Computer and Video Games Interview With John Romero
John Romero's 'corrections'

GamersReports has two images from the recently announced Star Trek massive multiplayer online game available for viewing. Their blurb is careful to note that these aren't final screenshots, but rather engine renders. This is more or less what is being targeted for the game's final product. It looks good considering how early it is.

First Star Trek Online PC Screens [Gamers Reports]

It sounds romantic, doesn't it? Stop having to trek to the office, stop having to file TPS reports and just play a game and make money? Wired has a piece that looks at people leaving the real work force and entering the digital workforce. The vehicle for this? Linden Lab's Second life. Wired looks at Jennifer Grinnell, a woman who stopped working as a furniture delivery dispatcher when she realized she could make more money selling virtual clothing to people in Second Life. In the world of Second Life, the users are rsponsible for creating much of the content, so the oppotunity is there to capitalize. The last part of the article wonders if this is a fleeting chance to make some cash, or a legitimate way to earn for the future. Wharton professor Dan Hunter points out that "the expansion of the economy is almost certainly going to be dependent on expanding the service opportunities." Services like, cyber sex, among other, more utilitarian ones, I'm sure.

Making a Living in Second Life [Wired]
Are You Good at Cyber Sex?

Tony at Clickable Culture links to and blogs about a writer reviewing the sexual services found in Second Life. Simply called Second Life Escort Ratings, the blogger writes up detailed NSFW-text descriptions of encounters with various escort services. The reviewer, Tommy Thompson, is based in real life Amsterdam and visits SL's version of the country to see which escorts are the best. I guess when people are able to make money within the confines of Second Life it makes sense to review the "product," right?

Kissing and Telling in Second Life[Clickable Culture]
Second Life Escort Ratings [Second Life Escort Ratings Review Page]

True, the headline makes me think about the Super Mario Brothers Super Show and how a similar show hosted by Night Elves could be a giant mess, but that's not what this is about. Instead, Business Week published an article interviewing James Cameron (yep, Terminator 2 director). Cameron indicates he wants to create a game that will first lure MMO gamers and have them play in the virtual world, before the movie comes out shortly thereafter.

Also in the story is Imagine Entertainment's team-up with Alex Seropian (one of the guys behind Halo, now running Wideload) on a program titled XQuest. That curious experience is described by Business Week after the jump.

James Cameron's Game Theory [Business Week]

"If it flies, contestants will occupy a cramped spaceship-like module for a month. Its flight simulators will subject them to rocket-like conditions, including six Gs of thrust. Players will ply the galaxy while following the rough contours of a plot. Outside the ship, online gamers will track the crew's mission and ultimately board their own PC-based spaceships to rendezvous with contestants in shared, simulated space."

Prodigious Gaming reports that MMO City of Villains will get a content update with the April showers. Timed missions called "Mayhem Missions" will be introduced, allowing players to harass civilians, mess up the Po-Po and rob stores for points. Expect some user interface updates, general streamlining and a bunch of textures being upped to hi-res in both CoV and its honorable older brother, City of Heroes.

City of Villains update in April [Prodigious Gaming]

Gaming Steve is a fan of Blizzard's World of Warcraft, but his friend Clapperoth is an even bigger one. So big, in fact, that Clapperoth came up with an excellent guide to leveling your fishing and cooking to 300. Click over, check it out and get out there and open that damn wall.

World of Warcraft Guide to Cooking and Fishing [Gamer Steve]