Game talk

This is the catch-all category for stuff about games and game design. It easily makes up the vast majority of the site’s content. If you are looking for something specific, I highly recommend looking into the tags used on the site instead. They can narrow down the hunt immensely.

  • Recent News

    Hours Categories Game talk, Writing
    Comments 1 Comment

    As usual, I did the annual live storytelling thing on LegendMUD this year. Every year since 1994, I’ve gone to the graveyard there, and in front of an audience, improvised a spooky story on the spot. This year the story was called Sugarheart, and I’ve posted it here under Stories/Live.

    If you like these stories, head on over to and check out the spooky story contest. Alice is one of my favorite online comic strips, and voting ends today–the prize is some original artwork from the strip, I believe.

    I got permission from the Rantings of Lum the Mad site to reprint the Roundtable on Fiction in MMORPGs so look for that under the Gaming/Talks section. I also reprinted the RPGVault interview I did a little over a month ago. You can find it under Gaming/Talks, as usual.

    I’ve also updated the Online Worlds Timeline with a bunch of new info from folks like Daniel James (formerly of Avalon & Middle-Earth Online), David R. Woolley (long-time developer on PLATO), and a great set of dates for Ted Nelson’s Xanadu project supplide by KaVir aka Richard Woolcock. And more… so if you’re into the whole history bit like I am, you may want to check out the latest there. There’s even one new law, named Dundee’s Law, since he spotted it fly by on Mud-Dev.

    Lastly, today I found a UO emulator shard that is using the “Advice to Virtual World Admins” from the article on Declaring the Rights of Players as the basis of their code of conduct. Yipes.

  • Recent News

    Hours Categories Game talk, Misc, Writing
    Comments 1 Comment

    Another year, another birthday. Next year will be the big 3-0. Ah well.

    I’ve done a big update to the Online Worlds Timeline (under Gaming/Essays). A bunch of info on PLATO, Minitel, MTrek, new info in the year 2000, and a somewhat nicer format.

    Saw lots of citations of the Laws (& a nice quote from “Current and Future Developments in Online Games”) over at the Games Domain Review.

  • Recent News

    Hours Categories Game talk, Misc, Writing
    Comments 1 Comment

    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

    Hours Categories Game talk, Writing
    Comments 1 Comment

    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.

    Hours Categories Game talk, Misc, Writing
    Comments 1 Comment

    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.