Own a piece of Camelot: players of the MMO game Dark Age of Camelot can purchase real estate in the virtual world.(Gaming)

Players of Dark Age of Camelot can feel more at home than ever in this virtual online game world thanks to a new expansion package that enables their cyber counterparts to purchase and decorate houses with a range of detailed 3D models.

Want to purchase a new home? What about a customized multistory Tudor-style dwelling, with a lush, flower filled garden, that's located in a desirable village-style setting called Camelot? Although the current interest rates may be extremely low, this type of home may still be beyond your financial roach--unless you are a resident of Mythic Entertainment's massively multiplayer online (MMO) game Dark Age of Camelot.

Mythic recently released Dark Age of Camelot: Foundations, a free, downloadable expansion to the game that adds player and guild housing options to the MMO role-playing title. With Foundations, players and groups, called guilds, can pick the neighborhood they want to live in, select the perfect lot, and then choose a construction style that fits their taste--and virtual budget. Players use game coins, or game points, which they earn through "adventuring," to pay a weekly rant. If the rent is not paid, the residence will disappear, and the lot will become available on the Camelot market. Rent also can be paid with tokens purchased through bounty points, which are earned in battle.

After buying their houses, players can decorate and redecorate their homes' interiors. And, in a first for housing systems within MMO games, they even can landscape the exteriors. All this is done by choosing from hundreds of elaborate 3D objects, ranging from torches, chairs, bookshelves, and pictures to hedges, flowers, and stone walls.

Constructing a virtual abode (along with its contents) in an MMO game requires a different approach than an artist would take for a single-person title. In short, the imagery has to be appealing to players, yet the models have to be light enough so the scene can he rendered in near-real time, no matter how items are purchased by players or how many characters wander into the environment at any given time. "The entire Foundations expansion is delivered via download, so we had to optimize the imagery to minimize the overall file size of the content," explains content producer Walter Yarbrough. "Therefore, our decorations required several [creative] passes and lengthy engine programming for maximum aesthetics and rendering efficiency."

To further optimize the imagery, the artists duplicated the ground textures in the housing zones located within the game's throe realms, or styles (Albion, Midgard, and Hibernia). To vary their appearances, the team changed the layout of the trees, rivers, lakes, and other objects. Moreover, the artists used Mythic's extensive library of European period architecture to ensure that the available structures matched the appropriate ...