DOMO: Divided dream developments
Late last month, we wrote about anguish among players of Dream of Mirror Online at a move by GameTribe to block IP addresses outside of Europe, and to have competing operator Aeria Games to block European addresses from their servers.
All in all, it's been quite a tangle of he-said/she-said - assorted forum posts, threads and interviews are no longer accessible, making it even harder to pin down what's going on, but we've put together a bit of a timeline, and there has been a new development that may make players saddened by the split rather happier.
On 8 November, GameTribe announced that they would be blocking North American gamers from DOMO "since the game will be hosted there by a US based company".
On 8 December, the CEO of Aeria Games posted that they were against IP blocking, and "It is our official position that game community should allow for open access to all (including Americans going to DOMO Europe)."
GameTribe clarified their own position a day later on 29 November, saying that "We'd prefer not blocking IPs on our games" but noting that another company had an exclusive license for North America, and that their hands were reluctantly tied.
That same day, Aeria Games posted an announcement that despite negotiations, GameTribe had requested IP blocks and that developer Softstar had agreed with GameTribe, and that Aeria would have to block European IP addresses from their DOMO servers.
That's when the player anguish started, as people who had formed friendships and relationships via the DOMO closed beta realized that they would no longer be able to play together. We covered the story that day.
After all of that fuss, it turns out there won't be IP blocks on the game servers. Source IP checking is going to be done during registration. If your registration is from the right region, you'll be able to sign up. If it's from the wrong region, you'll have to switch to the other operator.
We guess that means that you could get a friend to register an account for you - or use a proxy in another region - if you were determined to continue playing with your friends. The people who have problems with being separated from their friends at least have friends who can help them bypass the restrictions.
Got this far and are still wondering what Dream of Mirror Online is all about? Check out our hands-on coverage of this deliciously cute MMO.
