Coastalbeat.com

Hello readers, thanks for coming around and reading Tekno-Logic this week.

Last week in Tekno-Logic we looked at the struggling Apogee game-development studio, and more specifically the closing of their sub-branch 3D Realms. 3D Realms is the development group that elevated the iconic Duke Nukem video game character to stardom in the past couple of decades. Sadly, I did introduce the news of 3D Realms' closing in last week's post, because that gun-toting mercenary is an icon that will be missed. But it looks like 3D Realms hasn't disappeared off the face of the blogosphere yet. No, it'll be taking even more of a harsh beating before then, because now Take-Two has filed a lawsuit in order to sue Apogee for not delivering on the long anticipated title featuring the Duke: a next generation first-person-shooter called Duke Nukem Forever.

Duke Nukem Forever was in development starting from 1997 to just recently, when developer 3D Realms closed down less than two weeks ago. Take Two, which had publishing rights to the title once it was complete, had been funding the project for over a decade with no finished game to show for it. Take Two is suing the head studio of Apogee after paying $12-million in publishing rights for a game that was never returned. Right now there is no information as to a court date or such, and neither developer Apogee or publisher Take-Two has made any comment on the event, as of late.

In other news we'll be taking a look at one of the new, free massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG), Free Realms from Sony Online Entertainment, and it's pretty incredible growth in popularity. Also, one of the defendants in The Pirate Bay Four trial, whose case had its first court's guilty verdict earlier on April 17th, has devised a very creative way to 'deny' their opposition from some of their funds with a play on the familiar internet act of a distributed denial of service act, or “DDoS” for short.

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Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has been working on a free MMORPG for some time now, called Free Realms, and it is one of those overly bright, family-friendly kind of games. For example, you get to choose between two different races for your in-game avatar: human or pixie, which gives you little to experience beyond a human standpoint that doesn't force other in-game players to question your sexuality behind the keyboard. Regardless, I am determined to make the most butch and manliest pixie you ever could in-game, but it won't allow me to create my preferred name of the “Jack Bauerstone”, inspired by the FOX television show 24.

The world of Free Realms has a long list of possible classes and jobs that you can take, some of which are only available to premium members (in other words, players that pay a $5 monthly fee), and the same tiered experience goes for items and quests in the Free Realms world. In addition to an optional monthly fee, the game is supported by a shop that utilizes a currency called “Station Cash”, which is built upon by users spending real-world money, and this is a system that's familiar from a ton of other free-to-play online games, like the popular Maple Story from Korea's Nexon developers. The game also hopes that players will interact with each other and bond together, and it has been toted as a next step into the future of social networking, but from what I've experienced that's a lot harder to actually do since most players are focused only on the quests and jobs that nobody really cares to chat or play together. In-game jobs include careers like pet training, cooking, a combat-focused brawler class, and more generic classes like mining and harvesting. Most of each class' jobs are played through minigames or puzzles, which increase your skill in the profession you're pursuing. There are also other games like kart racing or demolition derby, which is something similar to the classic Mario Kart games from Nintendo.

Despite all of that trouble and hassle of tiered gameplay and little diversity between players, Free Realms' popularity has exploded. Before three weeks had passed of Free Realms going public, Sony Online Entertainment's new MMORPG had over one-million new registered players, an incredible number for any new online game, free or not. In celebration of this event, SOE will be giving away in-game items to players for free. I'll be putting in more time with the game in the future if I can convince some friends to join up with me in-game, but I'm still a little off-put with the lack of diversity. Not that I'd imagine the game leaving it's Disneyesque design, but it'd do it some good to give us more options apart from the cookie-cutter, “pretty” options.

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The four defendants of The Pirate Bay trial that concluded last April in Stockholm, Sweden, were charged with fines totalling around $3.5-million, all of which they say will never be paid. But one of these four found inspiration in their newfound challenge, and has devised a legal plan to strike back at it's opposition: a creative take on the DDoS attack, more accurately depicted as a DDo$.

The Distributed Denial of Dollars attack, devised by Gottfrid Svartholm, encourages internet users to pay a small fee of about .13 cents American to the law firm that represented the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). While the idea of gift-giving seems thoughtful and kind, the cost of processing the donation is greater than the value of the donation itself, which means the firm would lose money in the end. Somewhat similar to the concept of a traditional distributed denial of service attack (DDoS), the more people that donate or participate in the effort, the more damaging the effect is.

This idea, posted under the label of internet-avgift (which translates in English to internet-fee), was published at the start of this past week, and since then it appears that the law firm may have since closed their bank account. At this time, it's not known whether or not this was done in defense of the internet-avgift act or due to supporters already donating. Legal or not, these are some incredibly smart and creative members in the pirate community to devise such a devious plot.