Recent News

 Posted by (Visited 10515 times)  Game talk, Misc, Writing  Tagged with: , ,
Aug 272000
 

Well, a major new essay is up. I hope I don’t get in too much trouble over it. 🙂 We’ll see! You can find it under Gaming/Essays/Declaring the Rights of Players.

I have several big updates to do to the Online World Timeline; I just got in a bunch of new data on PLATO to incorporate.

The machine the website is hosted on moved locations today, from Austin to Chicago. The domain names should still work fine, but the IP address has changed.

There’s now a search facility on the main LegendMUD site which also spiders these pages, so if you need to search the site, you can do it from there.

It’s time to submit talk proposals to the Game Developer’s Conference again. Any developers out there who have requests for topics to cover, post on the Guestbook and I’ll see if I can get it past Alan Yu! 🙂

Recent News

 Posted by (Visited 9772 times)  Game talk, Writing  Tagged with:
Jun 082000
 

Nothing really new to talk about. I haven’t been working on the book the way I should, but ah well. Every day that goes by seems to bring some new thoughts to mind that ought to go in it anyway! I did have a couple of articles reprinted: GIGnews reprinted the Games as Art essay, and the Hero’s Journey Stratics site reprinted A Story About a Tree. This latter essay seems to keep popping up all over the place… last time I searched, I found around a half-dozen sites reprinting it in its entirety.

All in all, a lot of changes, all around.

 Posted by (Visited 10117 times)  Game talk, Misc, Writing  Tagged with: , , ,
Apr 232000
 

Lots of stuff to talk about! To tackle things in order of how evident they are:

Yes, I redesigned the website. A few things have moved: in particular, a couple of sections got renamed, and a few things moved from one section to another.

I don’t work for Origin anymore. I’m now at the new Austin office for Verant Interactive, makers of EverQuest. I will not be working on EverQuest however, but on something yet to be announced. It was a very difficult thing to leave Origin after almost five years, and I wish all my many friends there all the best of luck.

Lots of new material is on the site as well. A brief list:

  • That opening address I was giong to give at Online Games ’99 is now up in the Gaming Essays section.
  • There’s a new Gaming Snippet about storytelling in the online space.
  • The Powerpoint presentation from GDC 2000’s session on the Laws of Online World Design is up now in the Gaming Laws section.
  • Lots of updates to the Online World Timeline! It’s moved into the Gaming Essays section.

GDC round-up

 Posted by (Visited 10203 times)  Game talk, Music, Writing  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Mar 192000
 

Well, lots to talk about in the last two weeks! Let’s see…

I’m back from the Game Developer’s Conference. It was a lot of fun, but also very tiring. I spent pretty much all my time talking about game design, and basically none of it partying. 🙂 It was great to see a bunch of folks, of course, many of whose names I am about to rudely leave off my list of people it was great to see: Richard Bartle, J. C. Lawrence, Toby Ragaini, Brad McQuaid (and John Smedley, though I didn’t see him that much), Chris Allen, Serafina Pechan, Amy Jo Kim, Amy Bruckman, Mike Sellers… whew. And more. Also nice to meet folks like the guys from Loki (go Linux!), Mark Jacobs of Mythic, and so many other great folks. The online sessions were packed… special shout out to Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric, since I bet he’ll first see this when it gets reprinted on the Vault Network…

Tons of updates to the Online World Timeline–I’ve gotten info now from what seems like everyone in the online games industry!

The big news is that my CD After the Flood is now available via MP3.com. If you like acoustic guitar, you should check it out. But don’t think there aren’t any rock tunes on it, because there are. 🙂 Since I am in the middle of shameless self-promotion, let me point out that it’s only $10. Odds are you’re a gamer if you are reading this page anyway, so think of it as being just one monthly fee for UO, EQ, or AC–except you get to keep it after you pay, instead of using it up!

For those of you who never tire of putting death threats, obscene ASCII art, and bizarre rants demanding changes in UO on my site, the Guestbook is once again operational. Just keep in mind as you do it that I’m not working on UO anymore, and threatening me over changes to UO is about as useful as threatening your local squirrel with a shotgun if he doesn’t remove stat loss. 🙂 (I must be reading too much of The Bench over at Penny Arcade…

Tomorrow, I’ll be reprising last year’s MediaMOO conference panel. This year, the topic is the future of online worlds now that 3d graphics are in the picture, and just to make things interesting, Amy Bruckman and Carlos Jensen have set up a link between MediaMOO and a VWorld. Should be interesting! As before, I’ll see about getting a log up here on the site afterwards.

I think that’s all I’ve got for this update… see ya in a few weeks, if I have anything new to put up…

Recent News & GDC

 Posted by (Visited 10453 times)  Game talk, Music, Writing  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Mar 042000
 

Wow, it’s been a while since I updated anything here…. ah well, there’s new stuff today!

I’m going to be at the Game Developer’s Conference next week. I’ll be doing a panel on online community with a bunch of great folks including Brad McQuaid of EverQuest, Toby Ragaini of Asheron’s Call, Mike Sellers formerly of Meridian 59, Jonathan Baron formerly of Kesmai and Air Warrior, Dr Amy Bruckman of MediaMOO, and of course Amy Jo Kim. That should be an all-day thing and quite a lot of fun. I’m reprising the usual roundtable on the Laws of Online World Design with Rich Vogel, and also doing a production lecture.

As part of the tutorial panel, Amy B. was doing slides on history of muds, and it set me on an obsessive tear this weekend. So if you look under Gaming/Misc Writings you’ll find a timeline of important events in the history of development of muds, MMORPGS, and whatever else you choose to call them.

My CD should be getting released by MP3.com in the next week or so. So for all three of you out there who want it, keep an eye out on my artist page there for more info.

A special poke in the ribs goes out to Brad, by the way, for saying in his interview with CGW that he’d pick me to play Aradune in the EverQuest movie. I dunno, Brad, I just don’t see how audiences would go for that… after all, you look soo… California. And I don’t. : Oh well, I imagine that at least Mark Asher (who did the interview & who does Game Spin over at Gamecenter) laughed–I doubt the rest of the world got the joke. Mark, next time footnote the interview. 🙂

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