I recently had the chance to sit down with Pepijn Rijnders, a developer over at Sakari Indie, the lead artist for Foreign Legion: Buckets of Blood. FL:BoB is an over the top action third-person shooter that encourages users to gain levels and ranks, unlock and purchase new guns, accessories, and even new armor.

MMORPG - Those six letters personify PC gaming. Logging into your level 67 battle mage and spending countless hours mashing mouse buttons and hitting hotkeys. It's the way these games were meant to be played, right?  Since its release in 2007, the iPhone has been nothing short of a phenomenal success, and with the App Store revolutionising gaming on the move, is the way we approach online multiplayer gaming about to change?

It is doubtful that any player reads the Terms of Service or End User Licence Agreement when signing up to an MMORPG. The endless scroll of player obligations and legal nothings is enough to put anyone off their game. We all know the rules by now. Be nice, play nice, don't gank people. We are also petrified of breaking the rules. The punishments some companies dish out for disregarding the terms of use are just downright cruel! But, unfortunately for the humble MMO player, that isn't going to stop scammers from creating new opportunities to wreak havoc on your online world.

"9you, one of the fast rising MMO developers and publishers in China, recently announced that they will be integrating their upcoming MMOs with 3D technology. You read it right, players will have the chance to view their games through 3D vision goggles and experience the same kind of thrill when watching Avatar 3D (who hasn't watch the movie in 3D?). The company also admitted that the recent Avatar 3D wave helped them to speed up development of the project."

Have you ever been curious and asked where we all came from? I bet kids in the MMO world have the same questions. Aside from generic gameplay, renamed classes and recycled features, I managed to find out that some MMOs also share the same origins (in terms of story). You'd think some had already lost their originality in terms of game play, but storylines as well? Geez, it's like they're all connected somehow really.

On the 15th April, 2010, it was announced by Blizzard that the pet store had been updated. The soft sounding Pet Store has now evolved from selling small, yet expensive, pets to selling incredibly expensive in-game mounts. In my article World of Warcraft: Cash Shop Worries, which was posted on December 24th, I talked about the (then) recently added Pet Store, and the problems surrounding it. Towards the end of the article I wrote "After all it may just be pets now but later it might be something bigger and better." Unfortunately I was right.

Maybe it's just me, but being a thirteen year old without a credit card was excruciating. MMORPGs were spewing out left right and centre and my inability to cough up the subscription charges left me out in the cold. Six years ago, I couldn't wait to get my hands on the exciting titles everyone seemed to be hyping. The MMO boom was well underway, and I vaguely remember posting a "free MMORPG alternatives" thread on the OnRPG boards. Unfortunately, I soon realised that despite the enticing F2P tagline, adventuring into an online world for free does carry a price.

If you're reading this, you're obviously on the internet. Each and every person who has come to the site is an internet user and each of you were given the same priority to get here. This then is a quick chat with you about that and about Net Neutrality. Net Neutrality is one of those topics that really has all sorts of people wrapped up in it. Any of you who get involved can be sure that I won't be calling you liberal nuts or saying that you should go to North Korea. Honestly none of that helps.

What does it take to lead a pack of blood thirsty Orcs in the midst of battle? Is your Racial Archon a leader in real life? It's amazing how players can exercise leadership through MMO games. Whether it's war, raids, or simply PVE, there will always be a player who's calling the shots. Could it be because he is quite knowledgeable about the game, or is it because he just knows how to pull a group together? As far as IBM (a computer company) is concerned, MMOs are actually one of the best ways to prepare a leader for the real world, given a good real-time simulation of actual planning to exercise their leadership capabilities.

One of the biggest problems interfering in the life of MMO gamers worldwide is the games ability to block players from certain countries. In a way, the implementation of IP or region locking can be a big help to MMO players everywhere (will be discussed later). One simple reason would be the lag, as servers are most likely to lose their stability once the population exceeds its saturation point. Another thing would be to support their franchisers. Surely there would be no point in establishing local servers if players can still play on international ones, yes?

Developers are known to implement cash shops, power ups and other premium features to fund their free MMORPGs. After all, how can you expect games that give a huge chunk of their content away for free to survive? Today, subscription numbers are falling on many of the more popular pay-2-play MMORPGs. Is it time for even well-known publishers to begin including additional money making systems into games for a much needed cash injection?