Gods & Heroes, which just entered Beta recently, has announced that they are being put on hold “indefinitely” (read: dead). You can read the official statement on their website, here’s an excerpt:

The Perpetual team is faced with a unique challenge of simultaneously developing both Gods & Heroes and Star Trek Online in addition to growing our Online Game Platform business. After assessing all of Perpetual’s opportunities, we have made the decision to put the development of Gods & Heroes on indefinite hold.

G&H has been in development for a few years now. It’s a shame that it’s being scrapped. I am not in the beta but concept sounds neat. There are rumors flying around as usual that Perpetual’s not being managed properly. But it’s really very hard to be a small studio and trying to put out two MMOs (I experienced it myself).

I am anxiously waiting for some juicy bits from F13.net

Dr. Randy Pausch, a huge proponent for game entertainment for education, gave his “Last Lecture” recently. He’s been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and only have three to six months of good health left. I have never heard of him before personally (there’s much in this world I don’t know). But after watching his special on Good Morning America, which highlighted some of his speech and some additional comments, there’s no doubt in my mind that our industry will lose a great deal when he’s gone. I am inspired and admire his courage in such situation. After seeing this, I guarantee you, your big problems won’t seem that big anymore.

You can view the whole lecture on Google. A transcript and other information are available on his university website. You can also read more about him on his Wikipedia entry.

Watch this. It’s brilliant. Much better than SOE spamming players in game this weekend about Legends of Norrath.

According to TechCrunch.com’s article, their sources told them that AOL’s planning to create a social network at its long-dormant domain name www.wow.com. No details have been given, or even confirmed by AOL/Blizzard yet, but this seems to be a perfectly good use of the domain.

GamePolitics.com posted an amusing article about the ongoing of attorney Jack Thompson’s lawsuits against the Florida Bar. Thompson filed 13 different responses to a single “show cause” order. Judge Adalberto Jordan’s had it. The whole article is too long to repeat here, so just read it on their excellent website. My favorite of it all:

Despite what Mr. Thompson may think, this case is not a war with the world regarding the state of its moral standards (if it is, I clearly do not have jurisdiction). Therefore, he cannot continue to use this case as platform to battle everything in society with which he disagrees.

In which Thompson responded:

The day that Thompson thinks that the federal judiciary is either the repository of morality or an authoritative arbiter of moral standards is the moment that Thompson really does need the mental health examination that The Bar illegally demands.

Jack Thompson is a jackass and a menace to the video games industry, but you gotta admit reading stuff about him is very amusing.

At least for one particular Chinese MMO called King of the World, operated by Shanda. From the WTF department today, they decreed that only actual females can play female characters. All those who wish to play a female character must provide a webcam pic of a girl…

Shanda (Nasdaq: SNDA) subsidiary Aurora Technology has frozen game accounts of male players who chose to play female in-game characters in its in-house developed MMORPG King of the World, reports 17173. Aurora stipulates that only female gamers can play female characters in the game, and it requires gamers who chose female characters to prove their biological sex with a webcam, according to the report.

It’s unclear whether females can play male characters or not, my guess is yes. This comes after skeletons being “covered up” in WoW. I understand there’s cultural differences. Afterall, I am Chinese. But if China wants the respect they want so bad from the western worlds, these kinds of things are exactly the opposite of what they need. Not to mention this is totally moronic and can be worked around so easily (”hey mom, can ya come sit here for a sec”).

Oh, and they recently outlawed reincarnation too.

From the virtual worlds rumors department, Google Operating System, an unofficial Google news blog, reported that Google’s testing something new at ASU:

Arizona State University’s students have the opportunity to test a new product “that will be publicly launched later this year”. The invitation page mentions that the product is developed by “a major Internet company” and there are hints that the application is related to social networking, 3D modeling and video games.

Read the post itself for speculations from the site operator. Personally, I don’t think Google’s trying to creating another Second Life type virtual world. If anything, my guess is it will be a 3D MySpace or Facebook. Google’s business is information. What’s better than to get everyone on Earth to contribute information about themselves, and present them as they are in Google Earth? Then again, no one’s obligated to “show themselves” on Google Earth. Philosophically, this can turn into an additional dimension to the world as we know it.

Areae, headed by Raph Koster, finally released details about the secret virtual world project that they have been working on for a year now. It’s called Metaplace and it reeks of boundless potential. I am extremely excited about it, and at the same time, concerned.

Metaplace is a next-generation virtual worlds platform designed to work the way the Web does. Instead of giant custom clients and huge downloads, Metaplace lets you play the same game on any platform that reads our open client standard. We supply a suite of tools so you can make worlds, and we host servers for you so that anyone can connect and play. And the client could be anywhere on the Web.

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