The MMO Project Entropia (aka Second Life with less penis and more game) is announcing plans to completely rehaul the engine by 2008 using CryEngine 2. This is pretty big news in my opinion from an MMO standpoint especially when coupled with the recent news about JumpGate Evolution.
I think there’s something to this whole MMOlting thing - these games may be nearing or in their long tail but with a little reinvention and a lot of reincarnation I think they stand a chance to position themselves as a new game entirely. Certainly better than throwing away MMOs like paper cups after their 2-3 year run into niche obscurity. The real question is whether this works out as a business model, and how it is marketed. Short of the black-and-white to color ansi character type of transition of some of the early MUDs, I don’t know of many games in the past where you play the same game for years in a row and it updates its graphics to stave off the has-been stench.
