Mihaly interviews Bartle

 Posted by (Visited 6333 times)  Game talk  Tagged with: , , , ,
Sep 222006
 

A Chat with Richard Bartle. Among other things, it discussed the possibility of WoW having an “honorouable retirement” system.

Progenitor says, “OK, well at the moment the top level is 60. I’d like for it to keep accumulating points until you got enough for level 61.”

Progenitor says, “At that point, it would ask you if you wanted to retire with honour. if you said yes, you’d go on the high score list and that would be that, you could come back to chat and stuff but no more achievement-oriented play.”

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GDC round-up

 Posted by (Visited 9957 times)  Game talk, Music, Writing  Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Mar 192000
 

Well, lots to talk about in the last two weeks! Let’s see…

I’m back from the Game Developer’s Conference. It was a lot of fun, but also very tiring. I spent pretty much all my time talking about game design, and basically none of it partying. 🙂 It was great to see a bunch of folks, of course, many of whose names I am about to rudely leave off my list of people it was great to see: Richard Bartle, J. C. Lawrence, Toby Ragaini, Brad McQuaid (and John Smedley, though I didn’t see him that much), Chris Allen, Serafina Pechan, Amy Jo Kim, Amy Bruckman, Mike Sellers… whew. And more. Also nice to meet folks like the guys from Loki (go Linux!), Mark Jacobs of Mythic, and so many other great folks. The online sessions were packed… special shout out to Richard Aihoshi aka Jonric, since I bet he’ll first see this when it gets reprinted on the Vault Network…

Tons of updates to the Online World Timeline–I’ve gotten info now from what seems like everyone in the online games industry!

The big news is that my CD After the Flood is now available via MP3.com. If you like acoustic guitar, you should check it out. But don’t think there aren’t any rock tunes on it, because there are. 🙂 Since I am in the middle of shameless self-promotion, let me point out that it’s only $10. Odds are you’re a gamer if you are reading this page anyway, so think of it as being just one monthly fee for UO, EQ, or AC–except you get to keep it after you pay, instead of using it up!

For those of you who never tire of putting death threats, obscene ASCII art, and bizarre rants demanding changes in UO on my site, the Guestbook is once again operational. Just keep in mind as you do it that I’m not working on UO anymore, and threatening me over changes to UO is about as useful as threatening your local squirrel with a shotgun if he doesn’t remove stat loss. 🙂 (I must be reading too much of The Bench over at Penny Arcade…

Tomorrow, I’ll be reprising last year’s MediaMOO conference panel. This year, the topic is the future of online worlds now that 3d graphics are in the picture, and just to make things interesting, Amy Bruckman and Carlos Jensen have set up a link between MediaMOO and a VWorld. Should be interesting! As before, I’ll see about getting a log up here on the site afterwards.

I think that’s all I’ve got for this update… see ya in a few weeks, if I have anything new to put up…

Recent News

 Posted by (Visited 12158 times)  Game talk, Misc, Music  Tagged with: , , , ,
Oct 131999
 

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.

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