At first glance, you’d think Paltalk Holdings Inc. has a few loose screws rattling around in its head. After all, it recently declared legal war on a who’s-who list of big-name MMO developers: Blizzard (WoW), Turbine (Lord of the Rings Online), SOE (Everquest), NCSoft (Guild Wars, City of Heroes), Jagex (Runescape) – you name it. If you’re on top of the MMO world, Paltalk is trying to knock you down a peg or two. So, why would Paltalk risk getting torn to shreds by some of the fiercest lawyers in the videogame business? Easy – because the company already forced Microsoft to pony up an undisclosed sum with the very same lawsuit.

Paltalk holds a potent pair of patents that basically spell court-ordered doom for any massively multiplayer game publisher. These patents grant Paltalk providence over “sharing data among many connected computers so that all users see the same digital environment.” Sound like any MMO you’ve ever played before? Because it sounds like every MMO we’ve ever played before.

So, will this super team of MMO publishers – forced together by circumstance – be able to overcome Paltalk and its sidekick, Johnny Law? Really, we have no idea. Are there any lawyers in the audience who might be able to give us a more solid answer?

What? Were you expecting Atari put on an impish grin and let an, “Oops! You got me!” while a studio audience chortled in the background? Nope – in response to Turbine’s recent lawsuit over a purported Dungeons & Dragons Online contract breach, Atari’s firing back. The gist of the publisher’s argument: Whatchu talkin’ ‘bout, Turbine?

“Last week, with no warning, Turbine filed what can only be viewed as a frivolous lawsuit against Atari. This action can ultimately do a great disservice to D&D fans and to the MMO community at large. Turbine’s actions also appear intended to divert attention from the contractual obligations that Turbine owes to Atari,” said a prepared statement by Atari.

“In response, today Atari served a motion to dismiss the entirety of Turbine's lawsuit. Atari also filed a separate complaint to recover monies owed to Atari resulting from an independent third party audit of Turbine. While Atari hopes for a quick and fair resolution, it remains fully committed to the D&D communities worldwide and will vigorously protect the franchise and its own integrity in this matter.”

This may be a contract dispute, but we’re thinking Atari and Turbine might as well invite their divorce lawyers over while they’re at it. We just can’t see this ending with the two companies on decent terms. Hurt feelings and bruised egos, here we come!

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited’s been delayed. Honestly, though, we’re not all that impressed. After BioShock 2, Max Payne 3, Splinter Cell: Conviction, and Dark Void all closed their eyes, held their breath, and made the leap into 2010, DDO’s month-long delay seems, well, anticlimactic. September 9? That’s, like, tomorrow.

“While we are very pleased with the performance of the game and are excited about the response from the players, we are committed to delivering a high-quality experience.  We feel that more time is needed to deliver on this commitment,” said Fernando Paiz, Executive Producer of DDO Unlimited, in a press release.

“We feel that more time is needed to deliver on this commitment.  As a result, we are delaying our launch to ensure that we can support the massive increase in players that we are expecting and deliver them a free to play experience like none other.”

The free update was originally set to go live on August 4. Now it’s not. Really though, this delay’s nothing. If you want something to do in the meantime, go check out our preview of the game. By the time you’re done reading, the update will probably have landed, settled down, and started a family in a scenic rural area. Wake us when a game gets pushed into 2011. Then we’ll talk.   

Dungeons & Dragons Online, like the lion’s share of MMOs out there, has undergone countless changes since it launched, but never something this huge. Previously a subscription-based game, DDO is just about to engage the landing gear on its brand new free-to-play option, which brings with it new features of all shapes and sizes. We spoke with senior producer Kate Paiz about DDO’s latest makeover, chatting about topics including the DDO Store’s effects on game balance, the when’s and why’s of DDO’s new free-to-play model, the recent sale of id Software, and much, much more.

Seriously, grab a sandwich or something. This one’s a doozy.  
 
What prompted the decision to go free-to-play? Why move away from a subscription focus?

Ever since we’ve launched, we’ve gotten feedback from players that we’re just a different kind of MMO; we don’t have the same kind of basic gameplay mechanics as a lot of other, more traditional MMOs do. We have a lot of private, party-based instances. We give XP based on the completion of an adventure, of conquering a goal. So you saved the girl, right? You know, destroyed the weapon – completed something that was a little more epic than just killing monsters. It’s a bigger task. And because we’re based so faithfully on the [D&D] 3.5 rule set, there are also just some basic mechanics that differed [from other MMOs].

So one of the things that we hear all the time is that because we’re not that traditional MMO, and because research has shown that one of the barriers to joining an MMO is the subscription price, we felt like it made more sense to pull from D&D’s roots and go back to sort of a more module-based purchasing option, where players get a certain amount of content, like the players’ handbook, right up front, and then they can use that as much as they want and then purchase additional content when they want, the way they want – rather than being locked into a subscription fee.

Continue spelunking this verbal dungeon after the break.