The Origin Gallery: Mudders of Invention
Raph Koster, known also as Designer Dragon, has been cleaning out his garage, and marked the occasion of Ultima Online’s 15th anniversary by tweeting a pair of scanned images of an article entitled...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Raph Koster: ‘A Theory of Fun’ Ten Years On
Gamasutra is featuring an embedded video of Raph Koster’s talk from GDC Online 2012, in which he revisits A Theory of Fun, which was first proposed a decade ago. At its core, Koster explained that his...
View ArticleRaph Koster Looking at How Games Think
Raph Koster, lead designer for Ultima Online (among other games), will be presenting on the topic of “How Games Think” at GDC China. It should be a fascinating presentation: ..Raph Koster will examine...
View ArticleRaph Koster: Games Teach Odd Lessons
Raph Koster’s talk at GDC China, at least as Gamasutra relates it, sounded fairly negative through much of its content. Koster began by examining the nature of games as, primarily, algorithms, and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Raph Koster Revising “A Theory of Fun”
Former Ultima Online lead designer Raph Koster has recently undertaken a project to update his book, A Theory of Fun, and has posted the first update as to how that effort is progressing: I have been...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Richard Garriott Is the Subject of Some Controversy Today
If, like me, you have a bunch of different gaming news sites in your RSS feed reader, you probably saw Richard Garriott’s name pop up in conjunction with a…rather inflammatory quote today. Gamasutra:...
View ArticleRaph Koster Quits Disney/Playdom
Raph “Designer Dragon” Koster, one of the key architects of Ultima Online, has left the employ of Playdom (and, with it, Disney). And in the blog post in which he announces the event, he reminisces...
View ArticleRaph Koster’s First Game
Raph Koster has posted a video of footage from the first game he ever wrote to YouTube: As he explains on his blog, he was inspired to write the game mostly by his forays into board game design: You...
View ArticleRaph Koster On His Life, and Games
Raph Koster, Designer Dragon to some and one of the key architects of Ultima Online during his time at Origin Systems, has posted a lengthy missive in which he talks mostly about his life and history,...
View ArticleRaph Koster: Theory of Fun Status
Raph Koster — original lead designer for Ultima Online, once known as Designer Dragon — has evidently submitted his revisions to A Theory of Fun to O’Reilly. How much has changed? Well, I would guess...
View ArticleGDMag’s Top 30 Developers of All Time Naturally Includes Origin Systems
Game Developer Magazine closed up shop recently (you can download their last issue, for free, at this link). Included in their final set of articles was a list of the game development studios that, in...
View ArticleRaph Koster’s MMORPG.com Interview: Ultima Online Comments
Raph Koster has had a storied and interesting career in the games industry. He was the lead designer for Ultima Online, and the creative director for Star Wars: Galaxies. He has been working on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pre-Order Raph Koster’s Updated “A Theory of Fun” at Amazon.com
Raph Koster’s well-known book, A Theory of Fun for Game Design, was first published almost ten years ago. The good Mr. Koster has made some revisions and additions to the book, and it will be...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Pimps and Dragons: Ultima Online Profiled in The New Yorker, Circa 2001
One could say more for its formatting, but there’s no doubt that this lengthy look at the development history and in-game culture of Ultima Online, which was featured in The New Yorker’s “Department...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Crowfall: Raph Koster Collaborating With ArtCraft Entertainment (Updated)
Those of you who were/are fans of Ultima Online, and who have not yet been looking at Crowfall with any significant degree of interest, may want to give ArtCraft Entertainment’s upcoming MMORPG a bit...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Crowfall: Kickstarter Campaign Reaches Over 50% of Goal On Day One
The Crowfall Kickstarter campaign went live this morning, and thus far has raised (as of this writing) 57% of its $800,000 goal. Which, really, is a very impressive first-day performance for any...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #114
Greetings Fellow Avatars! Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar: Play Release 15 Now! Underworld Funded – Now Entering Final Week! Crowfall Kickstarter Funded in 3...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shroud of the Avatar: Update of the Avatar #115
Greetings Friends and Fellow Fellow Avatars! Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar: Community Sponsored Decoration Contest Abe’s Overworld Work-in-Progress Release...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Spam Spam Spam Humbug: Episode 2 Live
Item creation is not a feature.The second episode of Spam Spam Spam Humbug, the Ultima Codex podcast, is now live, and is also available here for download. In this episode, I offer some comments on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Richard Garriott Interviewed in “Online Game Pioneers at Work”
Richard Garriott was one of fifteen computer game development pioneers interviewed in Morgan’s Ramsay new book, Online Game Pioneers at Work. Ramsay’s first book, Gamers at Work: Stories Behind the...
View Article