oh and if you want a prime example of how virtual property works as anyone who owned peoperty or business in there.com

i own property in " real life" and pay my property taxes. I make around 50k a year...just because people are making money on a " virtual" commodity does not mean they should not be obligated to pay the taxes and dues applied by the country the game is operated out of. California is facing I believe a billion dollar deficit between the hoard of illegal immigrants in the state and alot of inept politicans. I say its simple, tax linden labls, have them appl a flat tax to all virtual property in the game. And not for nothing, if this was the UK or any other EU country this probably never would have made it this far. These 4 people have no legal ground to stand on. The as customers are essentially renting space on a server, if anything all a court would award them is a refund on their virual rent which not for nothing doesn't amount to 5 million dollars. Frankly it nauseates me that anyone in in SL makes more money than I do a week...I work these nerds just sit behind a pc in their moms basement

not for nothing i tried many times over the course of 3 yrs to immerse myself in eve...it's a very cold and isolating game..so much so even they are exploring being able to leave your ship and go on planets or stations. I think what everyone overlooks here is the situation cbs put cryptic in. They handed them the few assets perpetual created, and gave them a very stringent time line for release with a rider carrying stiff penalties if they missed their release date.  If you look at the are perpetual posted online during their supposed dev period it's exactly isentical to alot of whats featured in the game, your basically playing the perpetual modle on cryptics game engine.  The engine is very dynamic and in the right hands or with enough time the game could evolve into something descent, but as it stands this is not going to be the big blockbuster anyone imagined. And not to burst anyones bubble but did you really find all the dialogue trees in bioware games so compelling they warrant an mmo? Old republic is going to tank, they should have made an mmo star wars based on the new toon they have out.

In terms of space mmos in general there never really will be a successful one simply because they tend to keep things very linear unlike fanatasy mmos which give you alot of options,

I'm still going to play sto..but in my head i would have wanted it to be something vastly different 

i think something ehre needs to be reiterated to alot of people here. Firstly the whole point of an open or even closed beta is not to show everyhting a game has to offer. Secondly, when paramount sold the ip to cryptic after the miserable job perpetual had done they set specific benchmarks and contraols over where the game should be at in terms of developement, launch, and the interim there after. CO failed because the whole super hero thing is long in the tooth. Aside from eve there hasn't been a very good sci fi mmo since earth and beyond.  i'm waiting about a month to actually play the released game, but from my open beta experience this is the trek game alot of non trek fans want, it's not stepped in technobabbly like alot of the shows, it's not dripping in excessive politicism or sappy one universe for all rhetoric the story line has teeth and the game play is adapted in a way yo encourage a broad rang of players, which in turn will keep revenue and new content flowing. I have hated a number of the release ST games, except for elite force 2 and legacy< modded>.  I think alot of the belliegerence comes from alot of people that were noticably burned by SW galaxies. I'll admit after that fiasco I didnt touch mo's. Trek has lured me back out . 

 just an fyi cryptic has not at all said the elements offered in pre orders will either not be avail at some point in the game or their sto store...so instead of bashing cryptic may be you should laud them for finally doing something right in terms of securing an ip and doing it justice.  and maybe its just me but aren't the mods giving certian trolls here alot more lee way than they should?  Personally wheter you liek trek or not just the buzz from beta sounds like there will be something in this mmo for everyone

ok in all seriousness with the bashing of the new movie..did you guys forget that between nemesis and enterprise trek all but died? the fan boys and the cannon huggers who kept insisting paramount keep trek inside it's restrictive mold let to it's near death. People like cryptic and jj abrahms are taking the ip and breathing new life into it much the way ron moore did galactica...maybe trek shoulda died off so you'd have nothing to whine about 

ok it never astonishes me how at ad nauseaum people keep referring to cannon and the preservation of an ip. If the trek ip was kept as gene roddenberry had intended trek never would have become successful as it did. After the first season of TNG he was relegated to a consultant and not an executive producer of anything trek related from that point on. To argue that the fundamental changed cryptic made to ensure a fun, immersive game that attracts a broad swath of the public to atleast try the game breaks or some how alters the ip is a bit ridiculous. Half the games out out under the trek name failed because they tried too hard to appease the cannon hugging minority of the trek fan base. even most of the writers for all three recent series cited the suffocating constraints adhering to cannon and trek techno-babble as something that eventually led to the near death of trek.  I for one was thrilled that they opted not to puse for player controlled crews, I despise depending on people who are inherently undependable to show up for mmo events and or participate in raids etc.  And for the peopel who argue that it fundamentally stops being a trek experience for me trek was and always will be about the ships, which cryptic as painstakingly made an effort to get right both in exploration and combat. There's always going to be nay-sayers but for the love of god stop citing ip and cannon when in fact the ip and or cannon hasn't been adhered to for some time, and stop say my or our trek..it isn't your franchise to mainuplate it's paramounts and for once it looks as if they found the right people to do justice to us fans who have suffered through over a decade of awful trek games 

part of me is glad cryptic is " ignoring" the " fanbase". Perpetual spet an inordinate amount of time trying to pacify whom they thought would in the end play the game and it killed them.  I think in all actuality cryptic is maiing a mistake discussing game mechanics at this point with anyone.  I don't have high hopes  for the game in general but I have a positive vibe given cryptics track record.  As long as ship combat feels  immersive I don't care about the overall  mechanics

there is always going to be somebody who thinks they know what everybody wants out of a mmo.  In the current economic climate and the history of games attached to the trek ip floundering no matter how good they actually are, do you blame cryptic for being somewhat cautious in how far developed the initial release is.  Perpetual spent a butt load of money conceptualizing and building things like ship interiors that in the end they kinda realized noone had all that much interest in if the core of the game was bland.  I just recently installed the ultimate universe mod for star trek legacy, a game which sat on my pc for almost a year gathering dust,  and with just the introduction of new ships and maps and a little graphical tweek it breathed new life into the game, I played it a whole weekend straight.   Cryptic has always been adept at gauging what consumers want.  Just because what they are offering doesn't appeal to a few hardcord fanboys ( and make no mistake I am an avid trek fan) or mmo " professionals" doesn't mean the game itself won't be a success.  It's time that for once the trek community stops taking itself so seriously and allows new blood and ideas into its fold. After all what would tng have become without the borg?  Ds9 without the jem hadar .  I loved gene roddenberrys vision  but even he admitted that no establishment like UFP is without its flaws....so why not explore them and make the world of trek nmore relatable to everyone aside from tech geeks?  Ron Moore did an amazing job turning battlestar galactica from a campy 80's soap opera to a show rooted in relevant issues and relatable stories.  It time someone does something different with the ip not only as a movie but as a game otherwise it's going to die.

what oerplexes me is if you hate the game so much why bother commenting on it at all.  let others learn from their mistakes and let them see supposedly what a bad mmo looks like.  not everybody has the same concept of what a great mmo is thats why there are so many different games. sheesh

not for nothing eve is a lackluster game and I love sci fi and mmos but eve never really captured my interest.  Fantastic econmy and clans aside the game itself is bleh

i think everyone in here needs to get a perspective as to why the world is in the econmic state it is. Everyone was living beyond their means and it caught up to them.  Everyone in america based their livelyhood on inflated home purchases spurned on by laxed finacial regulation and frankly pure ignorance.  The rest of the world jumped on americas insatiable spending and bet their livelyhood on it. Now that we're tightening our belts the rest of the world has a reality check.  Funcom suffered from the same american business idea that you can shovel any kinda crap at someone and they will buy it.  it worls for a while but in the end everyone suffers.  The mmo market will survive the econmic problems in the world.  So will we as gamers. 

yeabelh 3 weeks and the shows over I can't  believe it either and it feels like they are trying to cram way too much into the end of the show I hope they stick to their guns and get us a few dvd movies from bsg like they did with stargate.  Now onto darkfall, what exactly is the hype about this game?  It's another hack slash elf bleh game.  I'd kill for a bsg mmo.  Actually I'm in line for jumpgate and star ttrek :)

if you want a socail mmo in trek clothing make one in secondlife.  honestly the gaming market has changed...people no longer have hours to devote to online game playing and frankly, the days of big guild making are fallin by the side too.  I hate games with huge gaps in xp...noobs being constantly snuffed by " experts".  trek was more about exploring, about ship combat  and just the general air of a sci fi atmosphere.  cryptic is taking a risk even doing a sci fi mmo, how many of them have failed in the last 5 yrs?  Personally, I'm holding my breath till I either get a beta key or trial access to the beta game.  I was one of those people who trashed star trek legacy till I got a better computer, now  I love it.  Only time will tell.

this is  the future of mmos?  i've seen better graphics on ps1 games.....that has to have been the most pathetic looking beta I've ever seen eeks

ok not for nothing yes i was bitter about what soe did with swg, but even I can set aside my vile disdain and actually try to enjoy soemthing. free realms looks like a better  There.com. Even art wise it looks similar. I just want a casual game I don't have to spend hours grinding on...as a 32 yr old full time employee i just don't have the time anymore.  I'm eager to see how this game runs and how fresh they keep it

what i dont understand is why promote a game which will be gutted of its used base once old republic launches..even if old republic looks like a slightly better swg.  the game was a failure from laucnh, both the trek and star wars ip are long in the tooth, both need a 10 yr hiatus.

1.) planetside: as soon as the introdouced that stupid core combat it went to terds

2.) LOTR:  i trialed it for 5 days and cried at its inflexability and stale combat

3>) sta wars: delivering space combat a year after launch didn't hide the obvious lack of dev and interest in soe's part, it was all a test bed for their greed

4.) tabula rasa: do i have to explain

5.) matrix....i'd gather keanu revves tastes better than this mmo

underrated? ur joking right>? there is full of middle aged redneck house wives with nothign better to do than suck up to staff members and spend their husbands well earned money. There sucks

what I find hillarious about the whole tone of this thread is we're bickering over the small variences in games that just rehash the same old sword and sorcery boredom. They just take the genre, throw some spalshy new graphics on it and feed it to the masses ever 2-3 years over and over and people jump.  Frankly there's a total lack of imagination in mmo's as of late, they all seem to try to best something already done.  I trialed lotr and frankly was intensely disappointed.  The combat, the enviroments, the lack of any sense of meaningful direction.  

Witht eh immenent death of trek online I'm left wondering what an american recession is going to do to the mmo landscape