While you may expect good cheer, fun, laughs, and presents on Christmas Eve not everyone is so blessed. NCSoft got something worse than coal, they got sued. According to VirtualWorldNews the developer Worlds.com, an early virtual world developer in the 90s, is filing suit against NCSoft. Why? Apparently Worlds.com had two patents regarding scaling virtual spaces and enabling users to interact and chat in 3D environments.

Considering how broad of a statement that is, I wouldn't be surprised if these patents were filed for the sole purpose of filing suit against someone further down the road. Worlds.com is stating that City of Heroes, City of Villains, Dungeon Runners, Exteel, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage II, and Tablula Rasa all infringed upon the patent. You can read the full details over at VirtualWorldNews.com.

So what's next? Blizzard? Mythic? SOE? I really hope Worlds.com gets a nice swift kick for what seems to me a very dirty gesture. I'll keep you posted as events play out. I wrote to Worlds.com today about a possible interview with them to defend their position. My money is on them giving me the negative response.

Anyway, this post came from both my homebase and I touch on it on a post I made for NegativeGamer. While I think Worlds.com will get their asses handed to them, they don't seem to think so. They are already talking about the "Next" generation of Worlds.com. I wonder how a company that has done NOTHING since the 90s suddenly gets the money to fund something like that..

Wait..