Paltalk Holdings targets Turbine with new lawsuit

Turbine Entertainment, makers of such MMO’s as Asheron’s Call, Dungeons and Dragons Online Unlimited and The Lord of the Rings Online, is facing a lawsuit from the same company that convinced Microsoft to settle out of court in 2006. According to the Boston Globe, Turbine has been accused of patent infringement related to its Dungeons & Dragons Online and Lord of the Rings Online titles, Paltalk Holdings. That company succeeded in negotiating a settlement with Microsoft in 2006, related to its Halo games.

The company filed the lawsuit with the US District Court in Marshall, Texas earlier this month, alleging that Turbine’s game violate a technology patent it owns which covers sharing data among connected computers. The company is also targeting Sony of Japan, Activision Blizzard, NCsoft, and Jagex with similar lawsuits.

A spokesperson for the company had no comment on the matter, saying only that “Turbine does not provide comment on pending lawsuits.” We’ll have more on this story as it develops.

Going Free-to-Play Part II: D&D Online Guided Tour

In Part 1 of Going Free-to-Play: D&D Online Unlimited I talked to Turbine PR Director Adam Mersky and Executive Producer Fernando Paiz about some of what players can expect with the free version of the game.

In Part 2 I get a chance to see some of those concepts in action via a guided tour of the world with a high-level character and Executive Producer Fernando Paiz as my tour guide and (for all intents and purposes) protector. Along for the ride are Senior Producer Kate Paiz and Turbine PR Director Adam Mersky, who provide some facts about such things as how to change the color of your hair, the in-game store and the new areas and adventure modules available to players.

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Going Free-to-Play: The D&D Online Unlimited Q&A

Last week Turbine Entertainment announced an industry first: it revealed that it was retro-fitting a commercially launched, subscription-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game and relaunching it as a free to play game with micro-transactions via an in-game store. The game in question is Dungeons & Dragons Online, which, along with The Lord of the Rings Online, is Turbine Entertainment’s bread and butter.

But the privately held MMO company isn’t just grasping at straws here or committing an act of desperation with this move, because many in the industry believe free to play is the future. With games like Free Realms and Runes of Magic garnering millions of subscribers in a short amount of time after launch, there is no denying the viability of the free to play model. But how will a commercial game like D&D Online hold up in this brave new environment? We wanted some answers from Turbine, and answers we received.

For those answers, we turned to Dungeons & Dragons Online Executive Producer, Fernando Paiz and Turbine Entertainment Public Relations Manager Adam Mersky. They filled us in on the future of the Dungeons & Dragons Online MMO, henceforth known as Dungeons & Dragons Online Unlimited .

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