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Apple to start paying Ireland the billions it owes in back taxes
Last year, the European Commission ruled that Apple's sweetheart tax deal with Ireland was illegal and that the company owed around $14.5 billion in back taxes. But Ireland was rather slow to start collecting that cash, which led the Commission to refer the Irish government to the European Court of Justice in October due to Ireland's non-compliance with the 2016 ruling. However, the Wall Street Journal reports today that the country will finally start collecting those billions of dollars owed by Apple and it may start doing so early next year.
PayPal revamping its policies to better support crowdfunding
PayPal's commerce system wasn't built for crowdfunding, and that has created problems for some startups -- the company recently (if briefly) froze $45,000 of Mailpile's assets, for example. The PayPal team is determined to set things right, however, and just announced that it's reworking its policies to better accommodate crowdfunding projects. The firm isn't yet saying what those changes entail, but it's requiring that its Risk Management group review any potential freezes on crowdfunding campaigns until there's a permanent solution in place. While we'd prefer that PayPal devote the same kind of care to all frozen funds, it's good to know that fewer entrepreneurs will have their dreams dashed by someone else's mistake.
Hyperspace Beacon: The SWTOR F2P experiment, group leveling
With the last bit of Update 2.1: Customization revealed yesterday, I can talk about an item that will change the free-to-play side of Star Wars: The Old Republic. After the next update, F2P players can withdraw credits from escrow with Cartel Coins. Although I will not have a way to find out whether this will actually affect the prices on the Galactic Trade Market until it goes live, I think it's safe to say that prices will initially go up. Let's talk about this and group leveling in this week's SWTOR free-to-play experiment.
The Road to Mordor: Homeless in Middle-earth
Every Friday, The Road to Mordor brings you the latest in Lord of the Rings Online news, guides and analysis. It's always amusing to me when the Turbine team gets decked out in leather, waves around their riding crops and starts abducting members of the public for their innocuous "surveys." Okay, maybe that's just how I mentally envision them going about the task – and I'm sure that says a lot about the state of my mental health these days. However it happens in reality, Turbine's pretty good at soliciting player opinion on improving the game, and last week we saw them post a thread in the forums entitled "Tell the Community Team - New and Revamped Systems" to do just that. They basically asked players to comment on what game systems they'd like to see improved, what new systems should be implemented, and what regular systems they never use due to time or other factors. PvMP, Radiance gear and Legendary Items were off the table for discussion, but all else was fair game. I started to tally all these up, but that was an insane task, which I realized only after filling up an entire sheet of paper while I was only on page 5 out of 39 of the thread. Besides, the overwhelming theme of the thread quickly made itself known: players want housing fixed, and in a bad, bad way. So, hey, let's look at the Middle-earth housing crisis this week, and see how we can make it better.
EVE Online Community Spotlight: a Q&A with Chribba
Trust is a rare commodity in EVE Online. Many players are drawn to the game by the fact that almost any form of deceit, betrayal, and outright treachery is allowed in EVE. Not all players head down this path, of course, but plenty do. This element of risk is what makes the game exciting, but even those who are wary of the online personas of some EVE players may still find themselves getting backstabbed and robbed, or worse. Many in EVE have learned to profit from the misfortunes of others. However, this social environment has created certain opportunities for individuals who are able to establish their credibility over time, and through great effort. Among the most trustworthy in EVE Online is Chribba, a player who's very active in the community and provides a number of services to EVE fans, free of charge. Helped by Chribba's efforts, EVE Online has expanded into a game where players become auteurs, creating videos and sharing their in-game pursuits with others, either for their own glory or their organization's propaganda. Of course, his contributions don't end there, as most everyone in the EVE community knows. Massively recently caught up with Chribba and asked him to share a bit about what he does for the EVE player base, and why he does it.
LotRO EU dev chat reveals Book 13 details
At the end of every month the Lord of the Rings Online Europe team sits down for a dev chat. February's happened last night at Stratics and this time we got some juice on the upcoming Book 13 content patch. Here are the highlights: Book 13 will contain a new area to explore that is bigger than Evendim but have a different climate than the recent heavy emphasis on snowy mountains No new 12 or 24 man raids will be introduced. (Note: The recently launched Book 12 introduced new raid content for those hungry for more large group encounters.) 6 man instances work will be limited to the Book 13 continuation of the epic storyline as well as retuning the existing Annuminas 1 group instances. New armor sets are coming to primaily address playstyles not served by existing armor sets Housing is changing in regards to non-payment. Instead of losing your house and all your items going into escrow, non-payment of the maintenance fee will simply lock you out of your house until you can pay. Your house remains and all your items remain within while you are locked out. Only houses that are abandoned will have their items placed in escrow. The ability to turn off the graphic of certain item slots will be independent for each Outfit New non-combat clothing will be coming as well as headgear that doesn't cover your characters hair (i.e. Circlets.) The devs also talked about technology being implemented into the game that will allow them to work in new functionality. Here are some of the features they would like to add at that point: More character slots Guild banks Sending multiple items in the mail at once Expect dev diaries to start appearing soon detailing the major features of the patch as we get closer to its arrival on the Test server. A full transcript of this dev chat can be found at Stratics. %Gallery-10737%
