A pleasingly round number up there, and no end in sight:

Van Hemlock (Ep 60): Jumpgate and Rapellz

Some news, as is customary, and our first report-back session of the new on-air Operation Cheapseats. I was playing gPotato's Rappelz, which can be found here:

Rappelz

And Jon's fortnight consisted of the original Jumpgate by Netdevil, which can be found here:

Jumpgate

(My own previous thoughts from early 2006 are here: Op Cheapseats: Jumpgate, but I'm sure Jon will elaborate on his own more recent visit over on www.chimpsinspace.com soon.)

I'll do a proper Op Cheapseats style post further expanding on my thoughts about Rappelz shortly, but the overall process of the fortnight trial soon came back to me in force. It's a hopelessly unrepresentative sample of a proper MMO experience; two weeks to show off six months or more of expected habitation, and this may indeed be one reason Free To Play seems to be gathering ground of late; let the player try it out for as long as they need. This probably works as a business model because a fortnight is rarely long enough for most people to develop an attachment to a new game, world or character. Allow them months and months, and they'll be more invested and more likely to want to splash out on Extras... perhaps.

Speaking of Dubious Snapfire Opinions formed by Unrepresentative Glimpses of Games, looks like Eurogamer went ahead and gave Darkfall that second review afterall, despite Aventurine's wishes. Can find that here:

Eurogamer: Darkfall Second Review

Worth a read, as Kieron Gillen touches on many of the wider issues surrounding the trainwreck that was the first review attempt. I'll be interested to see what the next explosion centres on, as I'm sure all The Usual Suspects will have a lot of intelligent and considered things to say in response...