This always comes up, and I often seem to be on the opposite side of the argument from many players. I’ve usually found that those who have worked on the implementation side of both tend to feel that they are the same thing, but that thsoe who haven’t see them as somehow categorically different.

So here’s my stab at explaining why I think both are really the same thing; in many ways, there are far larger differences between certain kinds of text muds than there are between graphical and text-based games.

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Stéphane Bura has picked up the ball and run with it! Check out his Game Diagrams based on the grammar I proposed.

Worth reading over, if you enjoy your hobby: Senate Game Hearing Files.

Here’s the full post, but my abbreviated excerpts are:

• As players mature, play multiple MMOs, and repeatedly experience very similar games, they can be expected to look for different game styles or even to look for worlds.

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As usual, here’s my summary of the latest issue of the Daedalus Project.

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Cory Ondrejka of Linden Lab has bet Dmitri Williams 25 cents that Second Life will have more users than WoW two years from now.
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This PDF of a presentation by Janet Murray is wide-ranging and challenges many basic notions about games and story, especially the whole “a game that makes you cry” meme.

I’d say more, but it’s lunchtime and I am starving.

The April 2006 issue of Computer Gaming World has a 2 page interview with yours truly. Some excerpts:

Both MMOs you’ve been involved with — Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies — earned CGW’s Coaster of the Year award. Do you have anything to say about that?

I tend to think that part of the reason for the snubs is that people were let down when all our big dreams didn’t pan out. But the disappointment wouldn’t have been there if we weren’t dreaming big together in the first place. Many games settle for small dreams, but I am not interested in settling.

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Very annoying, but hence the lack of postings today. First I had to try different cables, then different computers, then mix ‘n’ match, to confirm that it was indeed the monitor. Whenever it turns on, it shows a picture for about one second, then it goes to a black screen.

Guess I will need to run out and buy a new one first thing in the morning… *grumble*

It’ll be here in San Diego, on April 7th, at the Mira Mesa Barnes & Noble at 7pm.

That’s all the details I have right now, except that I’ll be giving a new talk related to the topics in the book.

Which I now need to write.