You might remember reading about a seemingly obscure company called Worlds.com filing a patent infringement lawsuit against MMO developer NCSoft (Aion, City of Heroes, Guild Wars) last spring. It was widely covered in the video games press, and widely criticized by most community members. The suit revolves around a set of patents filed by Worlds.com back in the late-90s for its Starbright World project; a "social network" for sick and terminally-ill children.

Around the same time, Worlds.com CEO Thom Kidrin announced he planned to go after other major MMO publishers like Activision-Blizzard (World of Warcraft) and Linden Labs (Second Life), essentially claiming that every MMO on the market today owes Worlds.com patent infringement damages. In addition, MMO developers and publishers would have to pay Worlds.com a licensing fee to use its"interactive virtual world system" technology (more on that later).

Meanwhile, another patent troll stepped up to the plate last week, hoping to make a quick buck at the MMO industry's expense, à la Worlds.com. As we reported a few days ago, Paltalk Holdings Inc. filed suit against a handful of developers, including Turbine Inc., Activision-Blizzard and NCSoft, among others. The suit claims the MMO companies are violating its patents for its HearMe technology (an inconsequential, business-oriented "online meeting service"), which Paltalk bought the rights to in 2002. Will the MMO industry collectively stave off these lawsuits, or is this just the beginning of a multi-million dollar litigious gang bang?

World of Warcraft PTR Patch 3.2.2

The latest test realm patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html

The latest patch notes can always be found at http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/

The Brood Mother Returns
After years of lurking in her lair battling the many brave adventurers who travelled from afar to challenge her, Onyxia returns stronger than before to commemorate World of Warcraft’s five-year anniversary.

• Onyxia has been scaled to offer new challenges to level 80 players and is now available for testing in 10- and 25-player modes.
• Adjusted for modern raiding, but with the fundamental experience of fighting the Brood Mother still in effect, including the horrors of her Deep Breaths!
• Onyxia will now drop level 80 item versions of some classic loot items from the level 60 encounter.
• Brood of Onyxia, a very rare 310%-speed mount modeled after Onyxia herself will be available for the luckiest of challengers.

In response to a thread on the official forums stating Death Knights were blatantly overpowered from their creation, Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street listed five mistakes the World of Warcraft development team made when designing the class. He does remind us, however, that the team "didn't make DKs intentionally OP" and he doesn't view the introduction of Death Knights as a failure.

1. The team avoided adding some of the limitations of other classes since they learned a lot about class design over the years. "We gave the early DK an answer to almost everything."
2. DKs "became a little too versatile" to counter the attitude that players wouldn't have room for the class in their raids and Arena teams.
3. The team may have listened to the community "a little too much" by adding or buffing abilities when it wasn't needed.
4. All of the blue items given to starting DKs "helped lead to the perception of favoritism." There may have been a better way for the team to communicate its goals for the hero class.
5. The developers "just had bad luck" when the DK's cooldown-based tanking became highly effective in boss encounters and the plate/spell damage combo was highly lethal in early Arena seasons.

Check out Ghostcrawler's full post after the jump.

The Darkmoon Faire made its final European stop in Amsterdam last weekend and drew a record crowd of more than 3,000 visitors. Upper Deck International announced today that this Darkmoon Faire was the largest in the event's history. According to a press release, "A total of 21 different countries were represented by the 222 players who took part in the main World of Warcraft TCG tournament, while the online competition drew 12 times as many players as the usual number of Darkmoon Faire participants."

The official World of Warcraft Trading Card Game Web Site contains all sorts of coverage from the event, including a photo gallery. Anssi Alkio won the TCG main event and is now the new reigning Darkmoon Faire champion. Hans Joachim Hoh took home the crown in the miniatures tournament for his first Faire win. The TCG World Championships will be held in Austin, Texas, from Oct. 8-11, while the Darkmoon Faire will make its next stop in Las Vegas from Dec. 4-6.

ZAM user Samperor actually attended the Amsterdam Darkmoon Faire and will be posting his thoughts on the event, as well as photos from his trip, in our forums.

As we reported, the faction change service for North American players launched a little more than two weeks ago. Well, European players now have the option to switch from Horde to Alliance or vice versa. Ancilorn made the announcement today on the official European forums. All you need to do is head over to your account page to make the change, which costs 25 Euros or 20 Pounds.

Check out the FAQ after the jump for more information on the faction change service. Ancilorn also reminds players that Blizzard will be offering a race change service in the future, although no dates have been announced yet.

In response to a thread on the official forums asking if we'll see raids like Blackwing Lair again, Bornakk has outlined Blizzard's logic behind designing future raids and dungeons. For example, attunements "cause more frustration than benefit so we have aimed to put the story parts into optional quests and allow players to have easier access to the dungeons." Also, crowd control could be around, but the team doesn't want to triple the amount of trash just to make CC more valuable.

Bornakk said players complained about the "boring linear part" of old dungeons, but the team still wants dungeons to feel epic. Bornakk also acknowledged that long kill times for end bosses in the old days were often due to bugs. "Yogg-0 is still no easy feat though and that took quite awhile for even the top guilds in the world to pull off," Bornakk said.

So using the original poster's points, Bornakk says we probably won't see a raid like BWL again. What are your thoughts on the subject? Are you happy with how raids have progressed over the years, or do you miss some aspects of the older raids?

According to a Boston Globe article, Paltalk Holdings has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Turbine, Sony Corp., Activision Blizzard, NCsoft and Jagex. Paltalk claims the data-sharing technologies used in MMOs like World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Everquest, Guild Wars and Runescape violates two patents that Paltalk purchased from a company called HearMe in 2002. The patents cover technologies for sharing data among connected computers so all users see the same digital environment.

Some readers may think Paltalk has no chance of winning this lawsuit. However, Microsoft settled with Paltalk in 2006 by paying an undisclosed sum after Paltalk sued the industry giant for violating these same patent rights in Halo multiplayer features. As the article states, "Microsoft has conceded the validity of Paltalk's patents, making it tougher for Turbine and the other defendants in the current lawsuit to challenge them."

Throughout my years and years of MMORPG playing experience, I've definitely been happy to see this genre evolve in a variety of different ways. The implementation of quests over monster grinding, the massive increase in solo content over group content, the graphical upgrades and PvP game play becoming more and more important; the list goes on. Of all of these evolutions, however, none of these industry shifts appear to be as prevalent and genre-changing as the one that has managed to attach itself to many budding MMOs, and has also shown itself to be the cornerstone of Blizzard's 11.5 million subscriber base: 'easy casual' MMO gaming. No other term would also be as divisive in the MMORPG community as this.

In this regard, then, gamers will often note that, when something is easily achieved, it's considered to be 'casual' content, and it will be stigmatized as such. On the other hand, when something is extremely difficult to attain (Absolute Virtue items in FFXI, perhaps the "Alone in the Dark" achievement in World of Warcraft?), other players are quick to conclude that it requires too much of a 'hardcore' effort and, while the difficulty of the content will be appreciated, chances are high that very few players will be able to take part in it. In this way, the question I have is this: is difficulty the sign of a quality MMORPG, or, in our busy world, does the quality of an MMO now rest upon how many things a player can do in under an hour? This editorial may not provide all the answers, but at least it will give you something to think about!

The Cataclysm Web site has been updated with information on the vast ocean known as the Abyssal Maw, which is one of the new dungeons players will be able to explore in the upcoming expansion. According to the page, "nefarious and honorable factions alike will seek out the fabled weapon carried by Neptulon," the ruler of the aquatic realm, once Deathwing's actions create an opening into the Abyssal Maw.

We've added some screenshots of the Maw to our gallery. More information on the dungeon can be found after the jump.

Ahoy! Sept. 19 is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Blizzard is celebrating once again with the Pirates' Day event in Booty Bay. To participate, simply talk to any pirate commoner in a city to receive a costume, then head down to Booty Bay and look for Dread Captain Demeza and her crew above the bank and auction house. Talk to the captain to become an honorary crew member and turn into a pirate of your race and gender for 12 hours. The buff will persist through death, combat and mounting, but can be clicked off if you decide the pirate's life isn't for you.

Keep your eye out for pirate revelers, Cap'n Slappy and Ol' Chumbucket, and listen for the pirate-themed music and cannon fire. International Talk Like a Pirate Day was created in 1995 by John "Ol' Chumbucket" Baur and Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers. If you're interested in truly embracing the holiday, here's some tips on how to talk like a pirate.