News comes from Japan that Square Enix will bring its long-running MMORPG, Final Fantasy XI, to the Sony PlayStation 3.

Final Fantasy XI began in Japan in 2002, and in North America in 2003.  It’s been released for the PlayStation 2 (PS2), Windows PC and, most recently, the Xbox 360.  FFXI has always been a cross-platform title, with players being able to use any of the three platforms, and even switch between them, within the same persistent world.  The PS3 version is expected to provide the same feature, and bring the high-definition graphics provided in the Xbox 360 version.

No specific date has been set for the release.  More on this as it comes.

Richard Garriott, the man behind the Ultima series, and more rectently Tabula Rasa, is suing NCSoft, the company that published Tabula Rasa.

Garriott served as CEO of NCSoft Austin until November of last year.  Shortly after returning from his paid visit to space, as a tourist, he apparently resigned from his position at the company. An open letter to the NCSoft customers and to the MMO community from Garriott was published on the Tabula Rasa forums.

According to the letter, Garriott was leaving the company voluntarily to pursue other interests.  Apparently, visiting space had made him rethink his priorities.

But that’s not really what happaned, at least not according to Garriott’s $24 million lawsuit.  According to Garriott, he was informed immediately upon his return to Earth that his time at NCSoft was done.

The post, the lawsuit says, was not written by Garriott. NCSoft put it up there to make things look good for the company. At the time, Garriott did not see a reason to object.  Now, he wishes he had.

As a part of Garriott’s contract, he had stock options until 2011.  The terms of his contract stated that his options would remain available to him until 2011, even if his position at the company was terminated.  However, if he were to voluntarily walk away from NCSoft, his options would expire after 90 days.

And there lies the problem: Richard Garriott insists that his termination was involuntary, but because NCSoft put up the front of Garriott leaving for personal reasons, they have recorded his departure as a voluntary one.  Garriott attempted to have this status changed multiple times, but NCSoft refused to comply, forcing Garriott to sell off his options at a bad time.  After all, in a recession the options were worth considerably less than they would have been in better financial times.

The lawsuit seeks $24 million in damages from NCSoft, claiming breach of contract, fraud and negligent misrepresentation.  You can see the official details of the lawsuit here.

If the things said in the lawsuit are true, he has a good point.  We’ll have to wait and see what NCSoft says about it.

Eurogamer published a story yesterday on the MMO real-money trade (RMT) market, in which the site talked with the owner of an RMT review site for World of Warcraft.

The site’s owner, who remained anonymous, estimated that about 30% of MMO players buy in-game currency with real money.

Although most game publishers are strongly against the sales of their game items and gold in the real world, the industry is worth about $2 billion U.S. annually.  The interviewed webmaster suggested that MMO publishers should license out the ability to trade game currency and items, regulating the industry and providing some protection to players.

I’ve never been a big fan of RMT, partly because it can hurt the in-game economies of MMOs, and partly because I’d rather play the game the way it was intended, rather than pay someone to do the legwork for me.  I’ve played Final Fantasy XI the most of any MMO, and inflation due to RMT caused major problems for that game’s economy for quite a while, until Square Enix stepped in to stop it.

What do you think?  Can RMT work, or is it hindering the gameplay?

Mythic has confirmed today that it is finalizing the transfer of player characters from 43 of its Warhammer Online servers which are set to close soon.

Players on the affected servers will be moved to new ones, without any loss of inventory or currency.  Guilds, auction items and mail, however, won’t survive the transition so players are encouraged to ensure that their inventory remains on their character.

Mythic hasn’t said much about the move, which shows that their plans for expansion are somewhat slowed.  A similar pattern existed with games like Age of Conan and the now-closed Tabula Rasa, where companies prepared to house large populations of players a but didn’t quite meet that level of success — or were unable to maintain a sizable player base.

Warhammer Online appeared to be a promising title in its development, and still serves an active power base.  It has not, however, reached the levels of adoption that some anticipated whenWarhammer Online sought to take on World of Warcraft.

Players of the space MMO EVE Online were treated to a new expansion yesterday.  Apocrypha, which is available for free to the game’s subscribers, is the tenth expansion to the long-running online title.

Apocrypha introduces what its developers call a “new player experience”, which will make it easier for new players to get into EVE — something that the game has struggled with.  The expansion also brings 41% more space to explore, as well as a new race of non-player characters known as the Sleepers, and many other new features.

The release also brings the game’s ‘premium’ graphics to the Mac platform, as the game’s visuals are updated for all players.

Thanks to a new distribution agreement with Atari, the retail box of EVE Online was also released yesterday for the first time since very early in the game’s life.  EVE Online can still be downloaded from the game’s website, as well.

Atari has announced that it will release a boxed version of the space MMO game EVE Online.

EVE Online has previously only been available via digital distribution, both through the game’s official site, and more recently, through Valve’s Steam distribution service.

Atari recently acquired rights to produce traditional retail media for the game, which it will begin to distribute on March 10 in North America, and March 12 in Europe.

The boxed version of the game will offer a new ship for buyers, as well as 60 days of play time.

EVE is developed by Icelandic developer CCP Games.  The game first launched in 2003 and maintains a dedicated player base.