Happy birthday, blog: 10 years
The banner today
The first posts on the ancestor of this site went up ten years ago today. The site was dark blue. It used this newfangled HTML tag called frames, and I added each post by handcoding the HTML and uploading the file to the server.
I feel old. 🙂
Some of the oldest things on this site date back before the site itself, to when I was a young punk designer of 25 or 26, cocky and arrogantly sure I knew everything. I turn 37 in a week. I like to think I’m still a young turk tilting at the windmills.
Ten years ago, I started the site to archive some of the things I was telling the UO community and the LegendMUD community, things about the ways in which online communities can self-determine, things about how virtual worlds can serve as bridges, as ways to connect. To talk about how something people see as “mere games” can mean much more. I eagerly read everything I could by people like Randy Farmer & Chip Morningstar, Richard Bartle, and other pioneers. I collected aphorisms from mailing lists and gathered them into a reference source. I tried to share it back, to do my learning in public.
The previous banner, aka "the pixelly look"
In some ways, the site has become a book — most literally, in the way that A Theory of Fun was born from blog posts and snippets from MUD-Dev, but also in the over half a million words I have written here.
"Wood site #2" -- there was a wood site #1 before that one. This is where the knotwork thing came from.
I thought a good way to celebrate might be to turn things around on you. I am pretty sure that there are plenty of folks who haven’t been here that long — given that the site has gained several thousand daily readers in just the last year. So I thought I would ask some questions and use the anniversary as a chance to point people to some of the older material they might not have read.
So I want to turn it around on you! I have questions for you!
I don't seem to have the old art for wood site #1anymore... and there was one design older than this, all dark blue.
- So, how long have you been reading the site?
- How did you get here?
- What’s your favorite post?
- Favorite game essay?
- Favorite Sunday Poem?
- Favorite piece of music?
- Favorite presentation or speech?
- Most outrageously wrong thing I have said?
I have my favorites and am thinking of showcasing some of them over the next week, but I am curious, because I suspect that to some degree I am better known to many of you for what I have said than what I have done. So many of the things I have done aren’t really there to see anymore, but the things I have written and said are still here, for better or worse. 🙂
So thanks for coming on the journey! Here’s to another ten years, another half a million words, and more learning in public.
30 Responses to “Happy birthday, blog: 10 years”
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Happy blog birthday, Raph! And many more. My favorite posts are the ones in which you link to my blog, of course :-> .
Otherwise, I’ve most appreciated your hits at single-player video games.
Yehuda
Hi Raph! Grats! *Ding*
I’ve been reading the site since I was hoovering up virtual world design information while working on Dragon Empires and then Warhammer Online in 2003 and 2004.
The best presentation is definitely The Theory Of Fun which marked the point which marks the point for me where you started to take on a more expansive, less MMORPG focused perspective.
Sadly I missed that talk, but having dinner with you, Cory and Ted at Austin the following year still rates as one of the most fun evenings I’ve had.
The blog is great, but hanging out in person is even better. Here’s hoping we meet up again soon.
Grats again and good luck with the next 10 years.
Jim
Wow you’ve been at it pretty much since the beggining of the internet.
I remember the woodcut look! I’ve been reading since 2000 / 2001. The firs thing I ever read was the Laws of Online World Design.
I’m not sure exactly how I got here, but it had to be from following a UO-related link. I used to read sites about Ultima Online, then I came upon Scott “Lum the Mad” Jennings website, and then eventually got interested in asking myself “Who worked on this game?”
Favorite post(s) were the series of the UO Resource system. I liked the behind-the-scenes description of how it was made.
Favorite Sunday poem was “Peace”.
Best presentation was Small Worlds: Competitive and Cooperative Structures in Online Games.
The music bit I’m not too qualified for, as it does not have very many POWER CHORDS. I don’t know, set something on fire in your next video!
Was this blog using a different domain before? The time machine only take us back to 2005: http://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.raphkoster.com
Which is about the time I started to read your blog (maybe 2004). Started to read your after playing SWG for some time, which was my first MMO.
Favorite post? Becaus I remember having this kind of discussion with my D&D group back in ’96, I’d put “Do levels suck?” and “Do classes suck?” at the top.
It’s only been 10 years? It seems like forever. Congrats, and an early happy birthday too. 🙂
* So, how long have you been reading the site?
* How did you get here?
I came early on once in a great while, usually following a link from a gamers message board. The more frustrated I became with the trend of MMORPGs the more I ended up here for insight. Started visiting almost every day a few years ago.
* What’s your favorite post?
* Favorite game essay?
The topic of what you had in mind in UO and experimented with, on persistence and coding things affecting things. Such as how a wooden item could be tagged with “fire” making it burnable. Mainly because, while I thought that’s how coding such things would work, it reinforced my thinking as well as expanded the possibilities in my mind. This may have been the only thing that’s kept me involved in gaming, as everyone else was saying that these things couldn’t be done. Of course, they were making games that didn’t do!
* Favorite Sunday Poem?
Oh wow. I’d say “Puzzle Poems”, since it was a direct reply to my comments. But honestly, some of your other poems were so deep in meaning (despite my inability to see the poetry in some) that they have to list ahead of that one. But too many to pick out just one. Really, I’ve enjoyed many for their meanings, as that puzzle is better than the one I can’t seem to find.
* Favorite piece of music?
The most recent version of “November”.
* Favorite presentation or speech?
If I recall, you gave a presentation on persistent worlds. I really don’t remember. All your stuff is good. I always have felt that your thinking is very close to mine, so it’s hard to pick out the best. I’ll just say “thanks” here, for being a “persistent” voice.
* Most outrageously wrong thing I have said?
“Soon”.
hehehe
Indeed! It was at http://www.legendmud.org/raph for ages and ages. 🙂
Ugh, I need to fix the redirects again… I’ll get on that.
>So, how long have you been reading the site?
I read it occasionally in the old days, but only really began checking it every day when you did the relaunch.
>How did you get here?
You told me to look here…
>What’s your favorite post?
Whatever you write today (where “today” is relative to the day you write it).
>Favorite game essay?
The Player Rights one.
>Favorite Sunday Poem?
In common with, I suspect, the majority of your readers, I studiously avoid reading the Sunday Poem..!
>Favorite piece of music?
I haven’t listened to any of your music.
>Favorite presentation or speech?
Hmm, mentally, I kind of fold these into the game essays category.
>Most outrageously wrong thing I have said?
No idea. As I’ve just said, I don’t read your Sunday poems…
Richard
Richard Bartle:
That’s only because your desktop is as old as “mud”, right? I wouldn’t listen to Raph’s music either if all my desktop was capable of was beeping and ASCII art. ;p
Raph:
Only since sometime in 2006.
Frank, a coworker at SOE in 2006, turned me onto this blog. Then I started reading. And then e-mailing you. I didn’t know who you were, never seen you before, but I liked what you were saying. I was really surprised to discover that you lived down the street from me! Anyway, most incitive and incisive blog on the web.
If I had to choose, I’d pick Are Single-Player Games Doomed? That was the post that, I believe, encouraged me to contact you directly when we were at SOE.
Improving Game Marketing is also a great post. 😉
Anything you write about games being art, because I disagree with that approach and entire line of thinking!
Two favorites: The Pangrammatic Fox, where you met my challenge; and Ode to Code, a Geek Poem, because I can share that poem with all the nerds I know.
There’s a song from your CD that, if I remember correctly, sounds hard rock-y. Your samples page doesn’t seem to be working, so I can’t be more specific than that.
Although you and Warren did most of the talking, the panel discussion “When Worlds Collide” at Sandbox Symposium 2007 was most enjoyable.
Games are art? Jon Blow meant something other than what he actually said? Aside from those two items, we seem to be in agreement on most subjects.
[…] be known to anyone who considers themself to be in any way a student of the MMORPG genre – is celebrating 10 years of blogging. Ten years ago, I started the site to archive some of the things I was telling […]
[…] – 10 years of blogging goodness Posted in 1 by Rob on August 29th, 2008 Raph Koster has been blogging for 10 years and, to celebrate that and get the message more widely out there, I’ve tossed a piece onto […]
* How did you get here?
I read a note elsewhere by, I think, Jessica Hammer, suggesting A Theory of Fun (which I still don’t have…Oh! I just noticed that Amazon seems to have copies at list — but with a 1-3 week delivery…OK, it’s ordered. 🙂 ) so I came here to check it out and then learned who you are and that you were writing neat stuff. It was less than two years ago.
* What’s your favorite post?
You once posted a note explaining the roles and titles in a video game company as a result of a comment I made a few days before. That’s my favorite — but mostly for incredibly shallow and vain reasons. 🙂
* Favorite game essay?
I’m not sure what counts as an essay, but since I started reading you, the short series of posts/conversations about RMT and cheating, taken as a whole was the most interesting unit. I also dig historical UO and SWG stuff that you dole out.
* Favorite presentation or speech?
The slide shows that you’ve posted from presentations on game grammar have been the most valuable to me.
* Most outrageously wrong thing I have said?
You’ve never written something that I simply disagreed with. The closest is stuff that you failed to explicate sufficiently for my avocational POV.
Grats on having something to say for ten years straight! It’s kind of surprising that you waited so long to start publishing to the web. What, if anything, did you do between 93 and 98 that filled the same niche?
Whoa! That warrants a blog post in its own right.
Actually, there is material on the site — interviews and essays and the like — which do date earlier. Keep in mind I finished grad school in 95. I wasn’t in the industry until Sept 95. Stuff 93 to 98 was mostly written for MUD-Dev, for rec.games.mud.*, etc. It’s all on the Snippets page.
Favorite post? Well, the one that I read over and over again was “Do levels suck? Part II”.
Me>I haven’t listened to any of your music.
Morgan Ramsay>That’s only because your desktop is as old as “mud”, right?
No, it’s because I’ve read the poems.
Richard
Ooh, I shall have to make you eat my words. 😉
So, how long have you been reading the site?
Dunno, occasional visits since the time when you tried to fend of anti-pk arguments in rec.games.ultimaonlinesomething*… 1998?
What’s your favorite post?
The ones which point out games that have artistic qualities.
Favorite game essay
Hmm… The ones about user-building, they caused some good discussion. Or were they posts?
Favorite Sunday Poem?
No particular, I like how they (might) reflect what your mood is. I might prefer the more surrealistic ones, like the one about programming.
Favorite piece of music?
I probably should listen to it… when I find the time.
Favorite presentation or speech?
I tend to like presentations where people tell the establishment that they are all wrong…
Most outrageously wrong thing I have said?
All these questions…
I just can’t help myself – Happy Birthday to your blog! I am amazed how old this blog is, this got be a “Grand” blog or something – one of the oldest I’ve seen around.
Been here a while. I honestly do not remember when I started frequented this blog. I vaguely remember coming to legendmud/raph to find the Laws that everyone spoke about on Mud-Dev.
I mostly enjoyed the multipart analysis of UO’s design.
I don’t read the poems and I don’t listen to the music. That’s not because they are not good or anything. It’s just not what I come to this blog to look for.
I skim the presentations because I’d rather be there in person to hear them when I can. I prefer the articles because they tend to have more meat in them.
I wonder how much of Mud-Dev has moved here and to other blogs?
I’ve been reading since Wood Design #1 I think, though not so regularly till Wood Design #2.
I think I got here through UO related stuff, but it’s been long enough that I scarely remember. I do remember being more interested in the essays and snippets rather than the blog for quite a while.
My favorite post is this: https://www.raphkoster.com/2006/11/10/project-horseshoe-influences/
While that could probably count as an essay too, I’ll keep them separate and say Story about a Tree.
I’ve only really glanced over the poems and have barely listened to the music, so I’m not qualifed to say anything there.
But as to the most outrageous thing you’ve said? It’s a hard one, as you’ve never really said anything so outrageous as to be truly memorable; never any of absolutely horrible stuff like “Give me your 15 bucks a month little man, my porsche (or was it ferrari? I forget) needs a tune up” or any of the spectacularly wrong stuff like “64kb will be enough for anyone”. So probably stuff related to the defense of the early UO pvp system. It was easier to see how broken it was on the ground I suppose, but it took too long before it achieved some level of being properly addressed. It’s been too long to remember specific lines, so that vague general topic will have to do.
This is an easy one to answer. The Glossary of Mud Terms/Laws is by far my favorite. It should be featured here more prominently. 🙂
-Cambios
Blogging about Online Gaming and Virtual Worlds:
http://www.muckbeast.com
Happy Blogbirthday! I’ve been reading since you started it; I found it because I kept searching for archives to your posts on UO. I think I found it the day you put it up; it was a little shaky back then.
Not a lot of music or poetry stand out for me. I don’t really have a favorite anything, except most of your old UO and SWG memoirs. Those are always fun to look over.
I’m too new around here to have favorites. :p But, I’ve been familiar with Raph’s work since UO, having followed Lum the Mad’s page for years until it went down, and since then I’ve followed MMOs on a whole, treating them as sort of a collective, seeing the different and experimental ways in which developers have done things and how design decisions have played out over time (I wanted to grow up to be a game designer, I’ll admit it).
So, I can say I’ve kept very loose tabs on a couple of pages like this for a long time, but I can’t claim to have really been following this site until a couple of months ago. Everyone’s been very friendly, and Raph, you show a *lot* of insight in your writings. Here’s to learning in public! Here’s to new favorites in the next ten years!
So, how long have you been reading the site?
5+ years.
How did you get here?
Your game design posts as Holocron got me here, the ones where you did explain your perspective and reasoning.
What’s your favorite post?
I liked the UO Baking Bread / Infamous Dragon / Mudflation etc. best (can’t decide on a single one). I would appreciate if you could cover more of that (essentially, what MUDs or ancestral MMOs tried). Documentation of games is still poor and it looks like that new generations of game developers have to retry all the stuff again to find out why it doesn’t work.
Favorite Sunday Poem?
I admit that I only read them briefly; I liked a recent one with growing trees.
Most outrageously wrong thing I have said?
I wouldn’t go that far, but at some point I felt that you were following a kind of “freedom dogma” which appeared to me as kind of “anti-game” position. I have the feeling your more recent drift towards VWs, Web and Club Penguin is the evolution of that position, which I also see as a sort of Game Anti-Matter. In other words, I see you leaving the game play.. gaming field for other things.
Raph, I like to thank you! I designed all sorts of games since I was a kid, but in a naive way. I always steered for design, but your writing definitely had it’s share to kick-start it towards a self consciousness level. I am now a professional game designer for one of the top anticipated MMORPGs (yes, we try some different things) 🙂
* So, how long have you been reading the site?
It’s been in my RSS reader for 2 years, but I’ve been dipping in here and there probably since I first started lurking on MUD-Dev in the late 90s. Back then, I was an admin on a small Diku-derivative and working on my own custom MUD code. These days, I am still both of those things, but also working professionally on MMOs.
* How did you get here?
… see above.
* What’s your favorite post?
* Favorite game essay?
I don’t think I could pick out any individual ones, but that is because I don’t tend to remember individual posts to be honest. Generally there is something of interest in each one.
* Favorite Sunday Poem?
I usually read the poems, but dislike poetry so none of these leave much impression, sorry!
* Favorite piece of music?
Not listened to any. But that’s ok, as I expect few game dev people would want to listen to my music either. 😉
* Most outrageously wrong thing I have said?
I think the post last July which treated Facebook purely as some sort of networking tool, overlooking that in many ways it is a form of entertainment like any virtual world, was particularly ‘wrong’, as was the emphasis on it being an essentially local thing, given just how many people are reuniting with old school friends on it these days.
First became interested in your work during the development of SWG, but became an active reader in 2005 when I decided to get more serious about working on a career path in online world design.
Initially through the SWG forums, but later through… I forget. Google? Maybe it was through A Theory of Fun, I had heard it was an incredibly good book on design, and then came and found it.
“Another Youtube For Games”, because I wound up working for Kongregate.com since then, and it officially got my foot in the door to the video game employment world.
A Story About A Tree? But not for the sentimental original reasons. For the “Everyone on the Internet is a God damn liar, and it’s a damn shame if real Norwegian beauty queens actually die, because no one is going to believe they ever existed :(” Of course in the world of Facebook, where avatar names are quickly receding into obscurity, the whole thing is starting to feel quaint.
I’ve read many, and enjoyed some, but I can’t recall them off the top of my head.
See favorite poem. To be fair, I do really appreciate their presence on your blog. It gives it character.
Most of your presentations are just rehashes of things that readers of the blog have heard you express before, so it’s hard to pick out a favorite.
I honestly cant think of anything outrageously wrong, but as a Flash portal operator, I’m curious about metaplace and how it will turn out. I’m seeing a lot of creative things on the web. We’ll see if metaplace turns out to be wrong or right, I unfortunately havent had enough time to give a spin, but I remain anxiously curious.
Started reading during my SWG obsession, what must have been around mid 2004, been here since…
I wont be able to name posts, but I enjoy everything u write about game design, game industry and tech.
And I can’t say I dislike, I just skip almost every Poem and piece of music
Maybe this is what is wrong, not outrageously but with all due respect like you don’t go to Japan to have the most perfect pizza, I don’t read Raph Koster for music and poetry, but I understand they are really important in making you what you are and that’s fine with me, cause I love what you are.
Thank you.
>So, how long have you been reading the site?
About a year now.
>How did you get here?
Frustration at MMORPG’s in general, looked up “Designer Dragon” to see if he was doing anything interesting. Unfortunately I also discovered I’d completely missed SWG before it was broken.
>What’s your favorite post?
Anything about games, especially new and interesting developments.
>Favorite game essay?
The Laws of Online World Design
>Favorite Sunday Poem?
You do poetry?
>Favorite piece of music?
You means yours? Not listened to any, unless they’re in a game.
>Favorite presentation or speech?
Watched a few of youtube, all good, no favourite.
To far away to attend anything in person.
>Most outrageously wrong thing I have said?
Nothing outrageous that I can think of. Try Harder!
Actually, I know a restaurant in Tokyo that has what I consider the best pizza and pasta ever!
In Italy, I found pizza sold only in pretrol (gas?) stations, and not fabulous. Pasta though, was awesome!