Gamespy has the scoop on the free massive multiplayer online real-time strategygame Society. It has been announced some while ago as it was also made public that Paul Kerchen is working on it as project lead, he has worked with Maxis on SimCity 3000. So now the first details about Society are available.

The most important aspect for many people will be the no fee policy. You can pay for it if you want to, although it doesn't give you unfair advantages over other players, only the ability to customize more stuff.

The world in Society is divided into 30.000 areas, each one is the same size of an average rts map. Wage war, build up your city/economy, Society has it all. It is a persistent world so you can lose areas while you are online and offline. In the latter case you can only lose 25% of your territory. If you want to hold back other players it won't hurt to join/create an Empire, a group of other players which can protect your regions as well. Expect a strong AI too, it isn't always Player vs Player in this game. The game can be won though (f.e. if an Empire conquers most of the areas), after which the world receives a reset and the winner receives a bonus for the next game.

The customizable aspect might be the real key to success for Stardock here though. As mentioned in the article, you can add your own artwork/designs in the game to create an übergoodlooking army. Let's hope other companies won't start to sue Stardock once everyone tries to recreate some of the more famous rts-races.

No releasedate has been given and it isn't even sure if the game will only be released on PC.

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