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  • CotP Discord Channel

    Covenant of the Phoenix has a new official Discord Channel!!!
    JOIN COTP IN DISCORD TODAY
    By Damis

    Valheim is hottest new survival and exploration game.

    Valheim is a game about exploring a huge fantasy world inspired by Norse mythology and Viking culture. You start your adventure at the relatively peaceful center of Valheim. The further from the center you travel, the more challenging the world becomes. But you will also find more valuable materials that you can use to craft deadlier weapons and sturdier armor. You will also build your own Viking strongholds and outposts all over the world. Eventually, you will build a mighty longship and sail the great oceans in search of exotic lands … but be wary of sailing too far...
    Key features:
    Huge procedurally-generated world - explore and inhabit mystical lands, from mysteriousforests to imposing snow-topped mountain ranges and stunning meadows, complete with their own creatures of legend to battle and wildlife to hunt. Co-op PvE (2-10 players) - - Whether you want to brave the lands alone or venture with trusted allies, Valheim supports independent, player-hosted servers and unlimited world creation. We recommend playing co-op with 3-5 players. Punishing dodge & block based combat system with a wide range of weapons Build & sail ships - from flimsy rafts to imposing warships, build legendary vessels to conquer the seas and discover new lands. Summon and defeat vengeful primordial bosses of myth and legend, and collect trophies to progress and craft new powerful items Flexible house and base building system - raise mead halls, farms, settlements outposts, castles and more. Intuitive item crafting - forge the finest weapons and armour, and craft food and mead. Dedicated server- for players who want to run a persistent server. https://store.steampowered.com/app/892970/Valheim/
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    By Damis

    Crypt Space Commander(CSC) A Space Sandbox MMO

    CSC is an open-universe, sandbox-style space MMO with a player-owned economy. Command starships and earn digital items to buy, sell, or trade without limits both inside and outside of the game universe. Experience a free-market Play-to-Own Economy that provides true ownership & freedom.
    Starships
    In CSC you, our Commander, can own and operate your very own starships. Starships come in all shapes and sizes and are specialized in either mining, combat, trade, or exploration. Starships in CSC can be endlessly customized with modules. Modules can add or upgrade existing ship functionality from shields and weapons to FTL drives.
    Economy
    Almost everything in the CSC universe can be crafted from resources openly available in the universe. The smallest shield module up to a universe-wide jump gate network can all be made with the right materials. Create new technology and share it freely for the good of the federation or sell it for the right price.
    Crafting
    The crafting system is uncapped, allowing players to continually improve on the quality of their crafted items. Specialization is encouraged by the CSC crafting mechanic, rewarding players for focusing on specific items & allowing them to create truly unique and valuable starship weapons or other components.
    Exploration
    Rules are merely suggestions in some parts of space. Areas under GFI protection do exist, and are open to explore and mine to your heart’s content, but the best loot is out there in Fringes of Space. Beware, dangers of all kinds are in the fringe: creatures, pirates, rogue Commanders, and faction governments. Those brave enough to venture deep into Fringe Space however will find an abundance of rare resources, larger bounties, and more lucrative quests.
    The Current Game State
    CSC is a game in development while in Beta with core game features implemented. As a starship Commander you can command your ship, explore 40+ star systems, mine for resources that can be used in manufacturing/workshop, combat NPCs for loot and resources, and play along with other Commanders on our LIVE MMO server.
    LInks:
    https://www.csc-game.com/
    https://store.steampowered.com/app/895040/CSC__Space_MMO/
     
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    By Damis

    TROVE: REFER-A-FRIEND

    Love Trove? Invite your friends to adventure by your side. You’ll earn fire-breathing rewards when they hit Mastery Rank 20 in-game!
    Each time one of your cubic recruits hits Mastery Rank 20, your Companion Level increases by one. Your very first Mastery 20 recruit grants an Elder Dragonling Ally, and the rewards grow in stature from there!

     
    Clink the link below for more information.
    https://trovelive.trionworlds.com/account/referral/get-account-referral-dashboard-flow.action?_gmg=gmg.2685578402.1621262511
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    By Damis

    Crowfall - Hunger Dome Mode

    An upcoming mode in Crowfall that allows 60 players to fight each others in a "Hunger Dome" style match. Todd describes it as a super condensed version of Crowfall on steroids and says it's really fun. It's a mix between a MMO, a MOBA and a Battle Royale (MMOBA).

    Characteristics:
    12 teams of 5 players teams start at the edge of the map ring that shrinks over time players can capture keeps, forts or castles players can die from the Hunger, monsters or players players can respawn if they own a structure team is eliminated when the last player dies players gain "ELO" players arrive on the map "naked", have to gear up up to 30 minutes per match restrictions on archetypes (not more than 2 tanks or supports per team) characters are clone version of players' characters, or available archetypes  
     
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    By Damis

    Blackwood Prologue now available for all ESO players.

    Begin a journey that will take you to the upcoming Chapter and beyond with the Blackwood Prologue, now available for all ESO players!
    The Blackwood Prologue questline is now live for all platforms and is free for anybody with access to the ESO base game (note, this includes Free Play Event players). To get underway, simply pick up the quest starter from the in-game Crown Store (located under the Quest Starters category).

    Join Lyranth in her investigations
    Once the starter is activated, you receive the quest titled “A Mortal’s Touch” and begin your adventure. In the two unique quests, you’re joined by the Dremora Lyranth and Wood Elf Eveli Sharp-Arrow to investigate the operations of a sinister Daedric cult. What you discover during the two Blackwood Prologue quests sets up the adventures to come in the Blackwood Chapter and larger Gates of Oblivion year-long saga.
    Finally, complete the Blackwood Prologue and you receive the Daedric Unwarding Amulet memento as a keepsake. Keep it close—you never know when you might encounter some Daedric wards!
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    The Virtual Black Market


    Killercod

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    Came across this website talking about how selling virtual goods in games is more profitable that the real economy in some cases. Basically it said that gold farming and power leveling generated revenues in the region of $3 billion in 2009 and was serving as the primary source of income for an estimated 100,000 young folks, primarily in countries like China and Vietnam. It also mentions that most of the revenue from such transactions ends up in the country where the virtual value is produced, which contrasts starkly with some of the more traditional international markets, such as that for coffee beans, where the study estimates only $5.5 billion of the $70 billion annual market value ever makes it back to the producing country.

     

    Some would argue that such services cheat the system, the game publishers, and the players by giving an unfair advantage to those who would use them and returning nothing to the company that makes or maintains the game, while others see it as an acceptable capitalistic venture of providing goods or services to those who have less time to grind and wish to pay for them.

     

    Being a long time gamer, I've had varying opinions on this subject. I, like many of you, absolutely hate gold spammers in game and report them religiously, yet I have purchased virtual currency for games from these sources on occasion. I've never paid for power leveling, or for specific in game items however.

     

    I've had mixed feelings about game companies punishing the players for taking advantage of these kinds of services on a limited basis, it makes them look greedy...because they did not think to take advantage of this revenue stream. One could argue that the current wave of FTP/micro transaction games is borrowing a page from the virtual black market, lending credence to how popular and profitable this activity is! If you can't beat them...

     

    Either way, this will long be a debated topic...my only fear is that the government will at some point try to assign real value to virtual holdings and tax you for them. Don't say it can't happen here...

     

    http://www.slideshare.net/vlehdonv/knowledge-map-of-the-virtual-economy-an-introduction

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    Hello Killercod,

     

    Nice find, here's a link to the white research paper around 75 pages as a PDF by: Dr. Vili Lehdonvirta & Dr. Mirko Ernkvist on "Converting the Virtual Economy into Development Potential[/b]".

     

    The game industry blog site of Terra Nova is another good bell weather barometer about stirrings and trends from the developer and academic perspectives.

     

    The day the IRS starts to demand taxes be paid is when Internet sales tax is commonplace. How many hundreds of billions of dollars have occurred as potential sales tax revenue on the Internet?

     

    That would be the linchpin trigger if virtual game wares become taxable here in the States. Otherwise i would fore see virtual game items become personal property similar to your operating system. Owning a limited use license to your copy of the game currency, game items, and virtual game property. Already the Swedish MMORPG developed by "MindArk" allows the real life ownership of personal property in the game world. Which they made it into the "Guinness Book of World Records" a couple years back to back. When a fellow from Miami paid $100K (thousand US dollars) for an orbiting asteroid to the main planet. Which he converted to a nightclub, and his money back within the first year from the in-game surcharges the players were making on his virtual property.

     

    Albeit this is similar to what the game developers did out of "Second Life" allowing players to make a real income from their virtual creations. Once more game publishers permit by Fiat that players can own their virtual copy of items and virtual property in-game. It won't become standard for the industry and then perhaps challenged legally in courts. Although the Chinese State beat us to that a few years back when a gamer had his phat lewt game sword stolen by a guest on his account. The Chinese Court awarded him the equal monetary value of what that virtual game sword was worth. (a few hundred to thousand in US dollars)

     

    I wouldn't be surprised in a little more than a decade from now just like the US Supreme Court will declare its decision this July. On the the California State wanting to restrict the sale of games to minors and how it would affect the sale of games overall to adults as well. That in a decade or so another dispute about virtual game items or property heads to a high Federal US court. Making it all the rage in terms of being news worthy to gamers.

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    Thanks for the info here...this kinda stuff interests me.

     

    Related...or maybe not, is the recent battle between Amazon.com and states over it's associates having to collect sales tax. Amazon is taking the hard road and ending it's associate programs in states that keep pushing the issue. While that may be unfair to the retailers, I'm glad to see Amazon standing up to Big Brother.

     

    Despite my working for the government, I see alot of these taxes overbearing and unfair.

     

    We get very little representation for the amount of taxation...

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