you don’t go to Japan to have the most perfect pizza

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!

>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!

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?

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.

* How did you get here?

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.

* What’s your favorite post?

“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.

* Favorite game essay?

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.

* Favorite Sunday Poem?

I’ve read many, and enjoyed some, but I can’t recall them off the top of my head.

* Favorite piece of music?

See favorite poem. To be fair, I do really appreciate their presence on your blog. It gives it character.

* Favorite presentation or speech?

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.

* Most outrageously wrong thing I have said?

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.

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.

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, 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!

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.

-Cambios
Blogging about Online Gaming and Virtual Worlds:
http://www.muckbeast.com

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: http://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.