... is nayone reading this interested in open source, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs or MMRPGs) such as Arianne and MMORPG platforms such as WorldForge? How about free software reimplementations of so-called "real-time" strategy (RTS) games such as Age of Empires or Total Annihilation? I hear there is also an open source project called FreeCraft in the RTS genre.

These games and software frameworks seem to make a massive debut on SourceForge and the like, but fade just as quickly into obscurity, or at least into inactivity. For example, WorldForge was announced to much sturm und drang about two years ago. The Butterfly Grid was designed to bring Globus and Access Grid-type technology (especially cluster computing) to bear against the lag-beasts of EverQuest and the like. I, for one, would really like to see one of these projects succeed - primarily for the research interest, but also for the, er, benefits to hmunsakind! :-D

Acksherly, I dknot think I'm alone...

Disclaimer: I have not so much as played FreeCiv, though I used to be an avid fan of WarCraft (the original, no bluidy "star", "two", "three", or "world of" :-)).

In other news: Tori Amos has teamed up with Apple's QuickTime division to start a video contest for her next video, "TaxiVision". Chect it out, and I hope to see your wrok on the QuickTime site or MTV or somesuch soon!

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Banazir