UO Blast From the Past – GDC 2001 with Raph Koster and Rich Vogel
If you have 64 minutes to spare and want to take an interesting and mostly academic look at Ultima Online’s early days and design decisions, then Gamasutra has the video just for you:
Going further back in time to GDC 2001, Raph Koster and Rich Vogel (both of whose credits include Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies) give an advanced lecture in ‘Design Patterns for Massively Multiplayer Environments’. According to their recipe, online worlds need a spatial environment of a virtual world (not just a gaming lobby), some kind of persona or avatar, and a sense of persistence.
Do keep in mind though that the majority of the discussion is of a more general nature about environment design, although you will have the chance to seee Raph Koster And Rich Vogel discuss UO’s early ecological/spawning system, and some of the problems they encountered.
It expands on some of the recent things said by Starr Long in regards to spawning issues and map bugs.
The Video: GDC Vault
Downloading now via Firefox plugin. I’ll strip out the audio and make it available on my site for anyone interested in having a portable copy. Thanks for the GDC link Deckard.
Since I have to work on the game tonight I won’t be able to listen to it ’til later, but the irony is that I’m working on that exact thing (the virtual ecology) right now. Hopefully I’ll have better luck than they did in UO, as the whole idea just makes my hairs stand on end for its brilliance.
Have at it:
http://eightvirtues.com/sanctimonia/misc/GDC%202001%20-%20Raph%20Koster%20and%20Rich%20Vogel%20-%20Design%20Patterns%20for%20Massively%20Multiplayer%20Environments.flac
Perfect for a listen in the car whilst about thy daily duties.