Rumor: Civilization Online in development at Korea's XL Games

Recently it was known that Take Two/2K Games has signed a contract with the Korean game developer XL Games, allowing them to develop a online game based on a 2K Games franchise.

Rumor, apparently from "reliable Korean sources", says the game will be Civilization Online.

http://news.mmosite.com/content/201...roject_codenamed_x3_similar_to_archeage.shtml

http://news.mmosite.com/content/201...tled_mmo_project_is_civilization_online.shtml

The source who claims to have very close relations with XL Games says that "Project X3 has been under development for about one year and its prototype is reportedly available now."

Click to expand...

Ok, sooo....

1) Why post this in CivWorld Forum?
2) This looks like pure speculation....
3) How would this Civilization game look? As CivWorld shows, the players don't really like to give away powers (only rule "one city"), so how do it else? And would Firaxis/2k give something like this to an outside studio? The scope looks way too big to be feasible for an Online Game, which makes it an MMO(RPG?)? Or how?
4) The other games X1 and X2 look quite different, MMORPG-style projects. Why would their third be completely different in style and focus? But again, I just skipped the articles quickly, so I don't really know
5) Out of all the 2k franchises, why take Civilization? Why not for example make Mafia into an MMORPG? Sounds way more reasonable and fun, doesn't it? Besides again, Civ as a Online game would have to simulate the whole of history and culture, whereas otherwise you can concentrate on the 1920ies Mafia style.

But please enlighten me ;-)

No facts...

If it's true then I'm extremely curious about how they would make it work, I can see potential though.

If true, perhaps this is in response to Age of Empires Online.