Furcadia is ten years old this month. It still flies under the radar of most of the MMORPG community, in part because the hardcore gamers aren’t interested in yiffing, and in part because it’s like so many other of the niche MMOs: isometric, low-end graphics, and far deeper design than most want to give it credit for.
Whew, been a while since I updated. Let’s see, the latest news:
We’re in a new house now. I have to replace the deck, but other than that it’s nice. I’m very glad to be out of temporary apartment housing… The VR Worldcon thing was a lot of fun. It was great to hang out with Dr Cat again. It had been quite a while since I had spent any time with him… Also, I have to say that I think Furcadia is probably the most successful non-gaming, socially oriented graphical mud I’ve seen. I was promised a log of the two things I did (a roundtable on managing obnoxious behavior online, and a general q&a session) but they haven’t materialized yet.
Thanks to Richard Bartle, looks like I’m heading off to London in a couple of weeks to give the opening address at Online Games ’99 on the 3rd and 4th of November. I am supposed to speak on “Current and Future Developments in Online Games” as well as (another) panel on managing obnoxious players (something everyone seems to want to know about!)
This is my first trip across the Atlantic–all my travels thus far have been in the Americas–and I am looking forward to it!
My CD is mastered! I’ll be duplicating it soon. I am not sure what I am going to do with it once I duplicate it, though (other than give it as a Christmas present to friends and family). Are there any of you out there who want it? Post on the Guestbook if you are interested in it. (I bet I see no activity whatsoever). To help you decide, I’ve put up a new mp3 in the Music/What I Play section, called Maybe Free. It’s the opening track on the CD.
I’ll be a guest at the first official VR Worldcon (yes, as in the World SF convention–the non-VR part is in Australia this year) being held this weekend, along with my friends Dr Cat and Jeff Dee, the Fat Man, and Harvey “Witchboy” Smith. Harvey and I worked together extremely briefly at Origin for a while… We’ll be at the portion that is hosted by Furcadia. A Q&A session has yet to be scheduled, but I am signed up to participate in a panel called Building A Better World: Managing Online Gaming Communities Effectively that will be on Friday, 8PM-PST 4AM-GMT 11PM-EST.
