If you’re a gamer, it’s likely that you’ve played custom levels. But have you ever tried making one yourself? Making custom content is a challenge, especially for the uninitiated. For puzzle games, levels should be tricky but not too convoluted. For RPGs, you need to spawn enough enemy waves to get the player’s pulse up, but not make them endure endless grinds. It’s all about balance. Most games give players the option to thumbs-up or thumbs-down custom levels, so it’s a little scary to put yourself out there, only to see your ratings plummet. You knew shouldn’t have placed so many spike traps, dangit!


Though you may risk sleepless nights and self-esteem, making your own maps can be very rewarding. And if you’re harboring a secret dream to work as a game designer someday, it’s a good way to expand your portfolio. So we’ve compiled a list of games that have cool editing software for customization. Hopefully this will provide some inspiration for those of you who have wanted to create a new map or level, but haven’t been able to take the plunge. Who knows? Maybe the next Defense of the Ancients is inside you right now, yearning to be free.

According to Courthouse News (which generally isn't the first place most players would expect to find MMO news), Turbine has filed a lawsuit against Atari "to recover in excess of $30 million in losses occasioned by Atari’s breach and wrongful conduct." Turbine alleges Atari failed to meet its publishing and distribution obligations for Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach and continued to accept payments from Turbine related to the upcoming launch of the free-to-play DDO Unlimited even though even though Atari planned to "immediately threaten to terminate the agreement."

According to the lawsuit, Turbine alleges Atari would terminate the agreement to either extort money from Turbine or "to free itself from its obligations under the contracts in order to clear the way for the launch of its own competing MMO service based on the D&D and Advanced D&D intellectual properties." While the competing product is not specified, Gamespot believes it's Atari's rumored Neverwinter Nights MMO, which would apparently be developed by Cryptic Studios.

If you're interested in reading it, Courthouse News has a PDF of the full lawsuit, which was filed Aug. 24 in New York County Court.

Have you ever wondered what the modern MMO landscape might look like if the forerunners of the genre had been different? The multiplayer text-based games, MUDs, of the late 80s and early 90s ran on pre-Internet, dial-up networks called Bulletin Board Systems, or BBSs. These games helped to pave the way for early-generation MMOGs like Neverwinter Nights; the first MMOG to feature graphics instead of a text-only or ASCII art interface.

Next came the classics; the pioneers of the MMO industry like The Realm, Ultima Online and Everquest. But it wasn't until World of Warcraft that MMORPGs truly went mainstream, breaking down the walls that separated RPG fans and PC gamers. Both Everquest and WoW changed many gamers' preconceptions about the role-playing genre. They exemplified a new breed of MMORPGs that didn't rely so much on turn-based combat, text-heavy interaction and many other inherent staples of traditional RPGs.

When I see the products that consistently rise to the top in today's lineup, it makes me wonder if the modern "mold" of MMOs is cured to a rock-hard standard, or if we might still see an innovative change in the mainstream market. Also inspired by an editorial I stumbled upon recently; Colin "Seraphina" Brennan's "All hail the modern MMO gamer—a twitchy, frothy mess," I'm more curious about the current MMORPG paradigm than ever. Will players embrace unfamiliar MMO concepts, or are we stuck in a market that will only produce viable games if they follow tried-and-true designs?

According to the sources of Chris Morris, the author of The Cut Scene video game blog on the Variety Web site, Cryptic Studios is developing an MMO version of Neverwinter Nights for a possible release in 2011.

Morris wrote in his blog entry that "Details about the project are unavailable, naturally, as it is an unannounced title. But this reportedly was the primary reason Atari was interested in acquiring Cryptic late last year."

The first Neverwinter Nights was produced by BioWare in 2002. As Morris mentions, BioWare is now owned by Electronic Arts and will have nothing to do with the creation of the alleged MMO. So what do you think? Would you play a Neverwinter Nights MMO?