[url=http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-11-03-chess-2-the-sequel-how-a-street-fightin-man-fixed-the-worlds-most-famous-game]This article[/url] reviews something that I just discovered this morning. I haven't had a chance to download the actual rules, but they're free from the game developer if you just want to use a regular chess set. I have no idea if they're any good. However, the designer is apparently the guy who re-balanced Street Fighter 2's gameplay for CapCom, and has a passion for "multiplayer game design." I figured these would be references of interest to us in designing our own game, even if it's not an MMO.

What I know of it so far includes that "Chess 2" has actually six different "armies" to choose from (so I assume the pieces in each have slightly different rules, making choosing the army you play part of the strategy) and that an alternate win condition for moving the king over the mid-line of the board has been introduced to help reduce likelihood of draws and keep the game more aggressive.

I'm only a skilled amateur at Chess, so I don't have the insights to say how this will alter the game overall. But I am definitely going to try to obtain those rules when I am on my home computer. If anybody beats me to it. feel free to discuss them here, and maybe we can analyze some game design tricks from it.