Just a link to one of Aaron William’s (Nodwick, PS238) newest endeavors… (In case you aren’t familiar with his work… Mr. Williams is a legendary gaming/RPG cartoonist from the early days of Dragon Magazine… Nodwick the henchman has been around for decades.)

Backwards Compatible

From the strip for Feb 13, 2008 (I’ll try to get the direct link for posterity’s sake later):

“MMOs are practically Barbie Dolls for gamers… it’s all about having the hottest outfit, whether they’re armored or have a cape.”

On the mud-dev mailing list, Mike Rozak wrote…

Several amateur MMORPG development kits are now on the market (Multiverse, Realmcrafter, Torque), with more to come. Some amateur authors are using the toolkits, but despite the fact that there are around 100x as many MMORPG players as MUD players, there only seem to be 10x as many amateur MMORPG authors as amateur MUD authors. Why is this? Where are all the amateur MMORPG devs?

Number of worlds as a metric:

MudConnector lists 1500 text MUDs. Sure, a lot of them are dead, so let’s assume the real number is 200 (just to be on the completely-safe side).

Those 200 MUDs are supported by a community of (my guestimate) 200K players. (It used to be 400K(?) pre MMORPGs.)

In other words, there is about a 1:1000 ratio of MUDs to players. Given a guestimate of 5 contributers per MUD (could be only 2), that means that 1 in 200 players are contributers. Or it could be 1 in 500 (if only 2 contributers per MUD on average).

There are approximatelly 20 million MMORPG players (100x the number of MUD players). Why aren’t there 200×100 = 20,000 amateur MMORPGs out there? Why aren’t there 40,000 amateur authors contributing to these worlds?

Yeah, sure, MMORPGs are more difficult to create, etc. So why aren’t there just 2000 worlds (not 20,000)? Or even 200?

The tools are available, albeit not very stable/mature: There’s Multiverse, RealmCrafter, and Torque. Metaplace is coming. My own toolkit (kind of MMORPG-like) is coming.

And there’s NWN 1 & 2, which actually do have around 200 worlds. Multiverse lists around 25 worlds, with (as far as I can tell) only a few being public, and none (as far as I know) are actually done. Realmcrafter’s forums are only accessible if you purchase RealmCrafter, so I haven’t been able to gague their developer population, but from posts elsewhere (and searches), it seems like only a few worlds are limping along. Torque has Minions of Mirth, and a few groups proudly displaying screenshots, but not much else.

Forum posts as a metric:

Watching the forums, it feels like hundreds of amateur authors (maybe a thousand) are out there. Not 40,000. MudConnect and TopMudSites get 10 (?) developer/author posts a day. Multiverse and MMORPGMaker are around 20-ish each. Even the NWN1 and NWN2 forums, while more active that MudConnector and TopMudSites, are not super busy (50 dev posts a day?).

Given 100x the players (MMORPG to MUD), I’d expect 100x the amateur authors, and 100x the forum posts… that’s around 1000 posts a day. My rough count is more like 100 posts per day on all the MMORPG-ish development forums.

Why haven’t amateur authors flocked to these tools?

For my part, I would respond with 3 points…

First, MMORPGs are a more visceral experience than the text MUD.  While there is possibly a similar ratio of discontent and interest in exploring alternatives for both MMOs and MUDs, I would suggest that there is far greater “low level” participation in the MMO realm… which I would define as people who are interested in being entertained, nothing more…. because it is easier for the typical individual to relate to and interact with the visual elements of the interface.  Such individuals, upon growing discontent, do not look to create their own alternative, but rather simply turn to some other form of diversion.

Second, MMO creation is difficult, particularly because it is multi-disciplinary in nature.  Not that writing a decent MUD is simple: however, it really only requires a fair amount of imagination, programming skills, and an ability to write engaging prose is a plus.  By contrast, a decent MMO requires artistic ability to generate sprites, models, animations, and what-have-you; some sound effect and music compositional skills are helpful; and knowledge of user interface design techniques is highly relevant, all in addition to the skills for the MUD developer above.

Most of the packages mentioned make few attempts to provide a comprehensive set of graphical elements as part of their distribution.  Help files and documentation is often highly technical, and fairly spotty to boot… meant more as a reference than a guide.  Examples are rudimentary and relatively poor in terms of leading interested parties through the process of generating a sample world to begin to flesh out.  In some cases, costs can run into the $500-1000 dollar range just to get a rudimentary world in place with a handful of models to animate.  In short, they are not currently situated to truly encourage widespread amateur use.  (Much the same is true in the MUD realm, and even arguably more so in some ways… but the simpler nature of the task, combined with the more focussed skill set requirements and cost-free access to materials, still equates to a far lower barrier to entry, I suspect.)

Finally, the question as posed in the email essentially assumes the the MUD/MMO crowds are fundamentally separate, that there is no crossover whatsoever between the MUD and MMO sets of participants.  I don’t believe that is really the case.

While it may be true that a large percentage of MMO participants are relatively uninterested in MUDs (see point #1), I question whether the reverse is the case.  Is it not likely that an individual with an interest in creating an MMO might not start by investigating MUDs, as a simple, relatively straightforward introduction to the endeavor?  They might quickly move on, or become discouraged and drop the idea entirely… but they’d still be counted in both MUDs and MMOs, not just one or the other.

Anyway, those are some of my random thoughts on the topic… anyone out there with a different take?

… Boo!

Okay, it only seems like it.  As you may have guessed, real life got in the way for a while there.  Pesky stuff.  To borrow from Night Court… “but I’m MUCH better NOW.”

Of course, getting back into the groove is harder than it seems.  Sadly, I haven’t even been keeping up with my usual round of blogs.  I have no idea where the conversations are now… ah, well, I’ve always been a bit off the beaten track anyway.

Random stuff, to start…

• If you have a fascination with disasters-in-the-making, I am currently scheduled to run a roundtable at the IMGDC.  At least it’s a roundtable (I shouldn’t have to talk much, praise heaven), and on a topic I have some claim to experience with: the concept of roleplaying, and how it might apply to MMO design and development.  I’ve even got my own little picture and promo on the presenter’s page, if you can believe that.  (WARNING: my visage has been known to induce screaming fits in small children.  View with caution.)
• I can’t remember if I’ve ever linked to this in the past, so… www.onrpg.com is a site I ran across a bit ago that links to a variety of indie, free-to-play MMOs, “engines”, and the like.  Might be of interest, in case you’re casting about for something to fill some time or offer inspiration.
• It being election season here in the U.S. (is it ever NOT election season?), I’ve been shoehorning in a little candidate research, and ran across this WoW-related gem (titled “re: Your Brains”) on a couple of political blogs.  Not sure if it’s made the rounds on the MMO blogs yet… I thought it was quite humorous.

Well, more tomorrow.  I’ve actually had a few topics building up steam of late… I may actually have something of potential interest to pontificate on!  (That’d be a change, huh?)

Building on previous posts in the same line: for example, this one on potential Races, this on potential Travel options, and this on Economic levels and options… rambling through some of the occasional thoughts I’ve had re: a mutation mechanism for a Gamma World type of setting.  As always, feedback is welcomed.

The Difficulty

As most probably already know, mutation in real life (in most known lifeforms) doesn’t really work the way it is presented within the Gamma World mythos: “expressed” mutation is a process which occurs over generations of offspring, not within a single individual.  Since the setting is at least implied to be a future version of our own world, this is a potentially significant issue: if it doesn’t work this way now, why would it in the future?  However, the concept of mutation occurring regularly to an individual is a central concept to the Gamma World paradigm (and a sizable factor in making it an interesting setting)… I want to retain it for the implementation.

There are two basic options for dealing with the apparent disconnect between “how things really work” and “how things work in this imaginary future”: 1) simply ignore it, or 2) come up with an explanation for why this changes.  My preference is to attempt the latter: nothing wrong with going the former route, I just believe that by developing a coherent (tho fanciful) story for why this change occurs, a foundation for further enhancement and future decision making is also created, making a consistent setting and plot more likely.

This is a long one… much more beneath the fold…

Background

Casting about for vaguely plausible mechanisms for allowing mutation in humans and other species, I decided to go with an human-engineered symbiotic bacteria or virus as the core mechanism, and a metamorphosis process similar to reptilian skin shedding, or more accurately, the larva-to-adult pupal metamorphosis process. 

Note that I highly doubt it would actually be biologically possible to engineer such thing, but it doesn’t have to actually work… it just has to seem plausible, and be complicated enough that few are likely to pursue it far enough to completely debunk it in the near future.

I’m usually not much for massive “lore” write ups in MMOs (because they only rarely have much impact on the actual play), but I was messing around on New Year’s trying not to obsess about work, and wrote the following as a distraction.  It kind of helps explain where some of my ideas have been heading.  And so, to save time, a potential “back story” as constructed so far…

Excerpted from the History Since The Fall
by Damon Finnes, Archivist Superior of Far-go, Order of Restorationists

After the plague-triggered Cataclysm had largely run it’s course, it became obvious that the decimated remains of life on the planet, let alone civilization, was going to have to change drastically to survive.  Exotic chemical weapons, bio-weapon plagues, and radiological hazards of varying impact and intensity were everywhere, and in many cases would likely take millenia to fade to non-lethal levels.  While most survivors did not have the expertise or resources to do much more than fight to survive from day to day, a few enclaves of the former world-wide technological civilization still existed, and decided to preserve as much as could be salvaged of the lifeforms that had once flourished across the planet.

Most of these efforts focused on relatively mundane efforts, such as obtaining and storing baseline genetic samples, creating refuges and safe havens, and the like, but a few went much further.  These groups attempted to find ways to enhance existing life such that it could survive in the new, far more deadly world of the post-Cataclysm… and two separate efforts achieved some measure of success.

HRRV-A

The first success was a former government organization, headquartered in North America, but with enclaves and significant resources around the globe.  This group created a symbiotic retrovirus (registered with the Nate-O AI as Human Restorative RetroVirus-2117-A-51, or HRRV-A for short) which, when introduced into a host, could accelerate the body’s ability to isolate and excrete harmful materials and aggressive cells, and repair damaged cellular DNA by copying “healthy” DNA and literally invading and replacing the damaged cell.  The only transmission vectors of the virus were through artificial introduction by a complicated injection regimen, via direct and prolonged blood to blood transfer, and/or through the placental barrier, the chemistry of which the virus was designed to recognize as a trigger to “reset” and accept/present a new host DNA template.

HRRV-A was quickly proven to be successful only in a few species: humans and other primates, for the most part.  While it’s primary benefits applied to nearly any species it was introduced into, it could not successfully be passed to subsequent generations in most species, and usually rendered female mammalian hosts effectively impotent (all viable fetuses were killed by the mother’s HRRV-A virus).

HRRV-A is the dominant HRRV in Pure Strain Humans.  It is the primary reason for their exceptional physical resistance and recuperative powers in comparison to pre-Cataclysm humans, and also significantly extends lifespan and intellectual potential, particularly memory (natural cellular decay processes are impacted as well as environmentally induced ones).  Most chemicals, toxins, radiological materials, and other harmful influences are isolated by the HRRV and moved to the bladder or intestines for elimination… a relatively slow process, but quite effective at mitigating the impact over time of all but the most intense influences.

The organization which was responsible for the creation of HRRV-A no longer exists, fractured by internal politics only a few decades after the Cataclysm (see Chapter 9, the Early Shadow Years).  Factions within the Brotherhood of Thought, Seekers, and Knights of Genetic Purity can trace connections back to this group, however, and the group which eventually became the Healers is thought to have began as an adjunct operation to distribute the HRRV-A in remote areas.

HRRV-B

Only a decade or so after the initial distribution of HRRV-A, a second virus, building on the fundamentals of the HRRV-A strain, was developed and tested by a separate group, thought to be remnants of a former multinational business or advocacy entity.  HRRV-B was intended to address some of the shortfalls of the HRRV-A strain: it was designed to be more generic and apply to a far wider range of species, and was significantly more capable of transmission via direct blood-to-blood contact, apparently to eliminate the need for a specialized injection regimen.  Multiple variants were developed for different species, and a mechanism for recovery from catastrophic contaminations was incorporated, an effective hibernation/pupal stage induction mechanism, to be triggered by specific catalysts.

The organization leading this effort was far less cautious and circumspect than the original group.  It quickly became apparent that cross-contamination between species was occurring far more frequently than had originally been anticipated, and that the metamorphosis mechanism had unintended side effects, and was being triggered by natural causes to boot.  Some abortive efforts were made to contain the spread of the virus, but the organization largely self-destructed due to recriminations and differing agendas before any significant progress was made, and the HRRV-B strain quickly spread to become dominant in the biosphere.

Unlike HRRV-A, this strain does not offer significant short-term resistance to harmful influences, although some limited cellular repair does take place as a result of HRRV-B activity on a day-to-day basis.  Instead, upon reaching critical levels of contamination, the host is forced into a hibernation state, a thin chrysalis forms around the creature, and a frenzy of cellular repair and regeneration activity takes place over a 8-24 hour time span.  The resulting impact on the host depends on which specific substrains of HRRV-B were dominant in the host at the time of metamorphosis: significant changes in genetic information and even body structure can potentially take place.  Note that the chrysalis remains are highly dangerous and toxic, having become the repository for most of the contamination which triggered the metamorphosis in the first place.

While the process of metamorphosis is not directly controllable by the host, it can be significantly influenced by a variety of means: changes in diet, exposure to certain catalysts and energies, introduction of specific HRRV-B strains to influence the mutation process, etc.  Over the past 10 decades or so, various organizations and entities have made a study of ways to delay, enhance, mitigate and control the process: access to that expertise can often be obtained (for a price). 

On the other end of the process, meditative disciplines have been developed which can allow an individual to wake from and exit the metamorphosis state earlier than would otherwise occur, with varying impact on the end results.

The group which was responsible for the creation of HRRV-B self-destructed shortly after it’s release, and no known records of it’s origin or purposes remain today.  Factions within the Radioactivists, Ranks of the Fit, and Brotherhood of Thought could probably trace their lineage back to that group’s demise, however.

BRRV

About a century after the Cataclysm, a brilliant (ed. note: but rather unbalanced) “Wizard” (see Chapter 23, Origins of the Wizard-Ancients) is said to have discovered a way to modify the HRRV-B strain to make it potent for most forms of plant life, referred to now as Botanical Regenerative RetroVirus, or BRRV.  Many Ancient scientists and researchers seemed to drift toward a lonely hermetic existence during the Shadow Years, and the mental instabilities resulting from their extreme isolation generated a great deal of upheaval thereafter (and in some cases, continue to do so, to the present day.) 

In this case, the Green Mother, as she has come to be called, probably had an overall positive impact on post-Cataclysm society, although the Knights of Genetic Purity would likely disagree. (Note that many other similar situations involving other Wizards were not nearly as beneficial in effect.)  The impact of BRRV on plants is nearly identical to the impact of HRRV-B on animal life. 

BRRV and HRRV-B are not compatible, and neither crosses into the other kingdom.  However, a variety of situations have arisen where genetic material from one has been incorporated into the other, such that some attributes formerly restricted to one can now occasionally be found in the other… animals with photosynthetic skin, plants with human-level intellect, and so on.  (Note that neither HRRV-B nor BRRV is at all compatible with HRRV-A.)

Personal Commentary: According to the Green Mother, whom I visited personally a couple years ago, she developed BRRV simply because she was tired of having half the rose bushes in her garden wilt and die whenever the wind would shift to blow from a nearby crater.  In a fit of pique after a particularly bad blooming season, she developed the new form of the virus in about a week.  And I quote: “I’m not sure what all the fuss is about.  It was really quite a simple thing to do, obvious even.  And the garden has done ever so wonderfully, ever since…” 

(The moral of the story: best to just stay away from Wizards if possible… even their whims can be devastating.)

Engineered HRRV-B and BRRV

Over the past couple of centuries, more and more exotic mutations have arisen, many of which are almost certainly the result of intentional genetic experimentation.  For example, prior to about 50 years ago, no recorded instance or rumor of a “Cold Generation” mutation can be found.  There are now multiple verified substrains of the HRRV-B and BRRV viruses which imbue such an ability, utilizing a couple of different endothermic compounds and reactions that previously were never found in nature, according to accessible records.

It is assumed this is the work of Wizards or mutation-obsessed Cryptic Alliances like the Radioactivists and The Iron Society.  Such engineered variants are significantly more unstable and dangerous than naturally occurring HRRV-B varieties, but some of the more adventurous seek them out anyway, due to their distinctiveness (and potentially powerful effects.)

End of excerpt

Returning to the topic at hand

The narrative above lays out some of the assumptions I’m starting with in terms of implementation.  Some of the mechanics I’m currently contemplating…

Contaminants

A variety of contaminants are possible, and tracked individually as Conditions on the character.  Radiation is tracked in total effective Rads, for example.  In Ancient humans, these simply accumulate, and at elevated accumulations, cause constant damage until the character dies.  Similar mechanics would track the accumulation and impact of mercury, lead, chlorine, arsenic, asbestos, tar/ash, and so on.

Pure Strain Humans (HRRV-A infected) have the advantage of an automatic process which eliminates a portion of all contamination accumulations every hour or so.  Thus, as long as they have the opportunity to avoid constant additional contamination, they will eventually return to a perfectly “cleansed” state.

Mutated Humans, Animals, and Plants (HRRV-B/BRRV infected) suffer the same basic cumulative effects as Ancient humans, but upon reaching elevated levels, can cleanse themselves by dropping into Metamorphosis (which I am assuming would usually be initiated by the player upon logging out, and effectively done “off-line”).  The risk of engaging in this option would be in the changes the character would undergo: potentially, the character could end up with a completely different set of abilities, and need to master an entirely new set of skills and tactics as a result.

Metamorphosis

At character creation, the player could “purchase” a number of general Mutation conditions.  Each Mutation condition would enable one rank of a mutational ability to be expressed every time the character goes into metamorphosis.  The offset for each Mutation condition taken is a negative Karma Rank, placing a small penalty on the character’s general probability of success (appx -1% per negative KR).

Starting mutation-abilities would be selected during character creation as well.  In essence, the player is choosing which variants of HRRV-B were dominant during his last metamorphosis.  Once the character enters play, the impact of a metamorphosis event is determined by tracking which HRRV-B variants the character comes in contact with.  Thus, the player can allow the process to be effectively random, or can take various actions to gain some measure of control over the results.

Each time the character goes through Metamorphosis, an additional Mutation condition is applied (including corresponding negative KR as offset).  During metamorphosis, each and every Mutation condition gets matched up with a mutation-ability, in order of dominance, until all have been consumed.  Example:

Elann, a mutated human, is entering metamorphosis.  He had 10 Mutation conditions, now increased to 11.  He has 15 HRRV-B Infection Conditions at present…

Enhanced Physique (5)
Exothermic Chemical Generation (4)
Genius Capability (4)
Telekinesis (1)
Hemophilia* (1)
Vision Defect* (1)

The first Mutation condition is automatically assigned to Enhanced Physique, since it has the highest rank count (5), reducing it (temporarily) to 4; the second Mutation condition is assigned randomly, since 3 different variants all have 4 ranks unassigned at that point; and so on.

Previously, with only 10 Mutation conditions to apply, he would have received 4 Enhanced Physique, 3 Exothermic Chemical Generation, and 3 Genius Capability abilities, reducing each of them to 1 unassigned unit remaining. The 11th Mutation condition introduces a potential problem: since all 6 variants have 1 unassigned rank at that point, Elann might now pick up one of the defects (indicated with *).

I’m currently going back and forth on how these Infection Conditions will come and go within the character.  The option would always exist to do artificial adjustment of the list, with appropriate tools and skills: the question is what mechanism would be most interesting for “natural” cross-contamination… tie it to criticals, or more specifically, bleeding wound results, in combat?

If you’ve ever read any of my random musings on my “dream design”, you may recall running across references to “Awareness” scores in one form or another.  One of the challenges I was fighting with (prior to getting buried at the office) was how to effectively convey the needed information about Awareness to the player in order to make it a viable and interesting part of the design.

Fundamentals

In Voyages, the Awareness score is an objective mechanism meant to measure whether the character detects various potential events/stimuli, and in what level of detail.  Prevalent examples of situations in existing games/systems that would be analogous might be things like trap detection, secret door detection, listening at doors, detecting hidden/invisible opponents, etc.  In Voyages, the intent was to take the concept to a finer level of detail than is usually offered, and give increased control to the player.

In essence, the player is asked to monitor and control up to two related Awareness scores: a “general” score and a “focus” score.  The “focus” score applies to whatever specific stimuli the player indicates the character is focusing on: selecting a trap detection technique, for example, would tie the “focus” score to that endeavor, leaving all other stimuli to be compared to the (usually lower) general score instead.

On the other side of the coin, every stimuli is assigned two threshhold ratings: a “detection” rating and a higher “recognition” rating.  If the character’s current Awareness exceeds the “detection” rating, the player is notified of the stimuli in general terms (“You hear someone speaking quietly nearby.”)  If the ”recognition” rating is exceeded, far greater detail is offered, potentially limited by other knowledge/skills (“You hear a guttural male voice whispering in Orcish, about 40 feet to your left.”)

The intent is to tie this system in to nearly all aspects of the game.  For example, attacks in combat include detection and recognition threshholds: an attack must be detected to defend against it, and recognition offers the additional detail of whether the attack will miss despite lack of defensive action.

Interface Issue

The question I’ve been worrying away at for a while is, how best to offer sufficient feedback to the player such that the Awareness mechanic is a viable part of the gameplay?

I wanted to try to avoid using simple status bars, if possible.  One idea I was playing around with briefly was the following:

The larger golden circle representing general Awareness, the smaller overlapping golden circle representing focused Awareness.  The blue filled circles would represent current score, expanding and contracting based on the character’s actions.  Each stimuli would generate the two “open rings” demonstrated in each display (the inner ring being detection, outer ring being recognition), popping in as the stimuli occurred and fading away over a second or two.

In action, it kind of gives off a “radar/sonar” kind of vibe, which seems appropos.

However, plenty of problems as well.  Problems with the idea include:

• There can be multiple nearly simultaneous stimuli; displaying 2 rings for each could easily lead to confusion with relatively few events;
• Even with the overlap, this takes up a lot of real estate on the screen: the example is 100×100 pixels;
• There is no obvious way to express changes of scale: a buff that increases potential Awareness significantly, for example, might be difficult to indicate to the player;
• The number of “steps” in value that can be effectively indicated is small (relative to the screen real estate consumed, at least).  The larger circle is 80×80, and really only can express 40 discrete “steps” in value as proposed.

One alternative I started to play with was using the same base concept, but using “barbell” lines to indicate stimuli, which would essentially radiate outward from near the center to near the edge, somewhat like hands on a clock.  That would increase the number of stimuli that could be displayed simultaneously… if the lines were separated by 22.5 degrees (out of 360, of course), that would give room to display 16 at once (12 if you cut out the overlapped area…)

Anyway, I’m kind of casting about for some original ideas here.  Anyone got anything?

Through the magic of the 4-sided die (first time I’ve rolled one of them in a while), the winners of the drawing for the IMGDC passes were determined to be Ethic and Emi.  (Apparently the letter of the day was “E”?).  Drop me a line at huberc -at- frontiernet -dot- net, and we’ll get the registration process figured out.  My apologies to those not selected… if I could, I’d spring for more.

(One more week of “crunch time”… it’ll be nice to get back to normal.)

Old news at this point, I imagine, but I weaseled my way into the latest SUWT, kinda by accident… the show is available as part of the Virgin Worlds podcast collective here (with links and show notes) and on iTunes.

Host:
Darren – Common Sense Gamer

Guests:

John – Ancient Gaming Noob
Dennis – Potshot
Michael from MMOG Nation, etc.

… and me.

Topics:

• Introductions
• Listener mail/What we’re playing
• Cheater cheater, pumpkin eater
• Predictions for 2008
• Out of the Gate
• We all get a hug

Blog of the Week:
WorldIV

As many may recall, there is a game development conference here in Minnesota at the end of March (29-30), the Independent MMO Game Developers Conference.  As per the site…

IMGDC is a venue for Independent designers and developers to come together to share ideas and learn in all areas related to MMOGs.

It was a great conference last year, and I’d really like to encourage the denizens of the MMO blogosphere to come and join in the experience… perhaps we can have a blogger sub-convention of sorts?

As an incentive to encourage attendance, I’d like to have a little contest.  I have a couple of extra conference passes to give away, and anyone who can make it to the conference is welcome to put their name in the hat to receive one of them.  (In addition, anyone who wants to save on hotel costs is welcome to crash at my place, as well… it’s not exactly the Ritz, and a ways out in the burbs, but it’s got a roof and 4 walls, and plenty of room.)

To submit your name for the drawing, simply leave a comment after this post.  If you have a blog, please leave a link.  If you don’t have a blog, list a couple of blogs you frequent and comment on.  I do want to try to keep it confined to people who are involved in the MMO blogs on some level, but beyond that, no restrictions apply.  Depending upon how much interest there is, I’ll do a random drawing from amongst the submitted entries to determine the winners, if necessary.

Other people likely to be at the conference include Brent (virginworlds.com) and Cuppy (cuppycake.org).  I’m assuming Michael Zenke from MMOG Nation will be there as well (Madison isn’t _that_ far away ).  Aaron from Anyway Games will be attending as well, last we talked, assuming it works with his schedule, of course.  I’m assuming other locals like Cameron, Kendricke, and Ethic will be there as well (or at least available for a dinner gathering, perhaps?)

And, of course, there are the actual speakers at the event… check out the list at the conference site.  It should be a great conference.

So, free conference passes up for grabs.  Anyone interested?

Obviously, I’ve been a bit distracted/busy/overwhelmed of late (pick whichever strikes your fancy, all apply).  I will be returning to regular posting only slowly, I’m afraid… still a bit of pressure from real life to deal with before something approximating normalcy will return.

BTW, on an utterly unrelated note, anyone else looking forward to finding out what the monster actually is in that Cloverfield movie, coming out on the 18th?  I haven’t been much of a monster movie fan over time, but the refreshing POV on this one captivates me…

Anyway, just a “not dead yet” note.  Type at you tomorrow…

My 2007 list is here. 

The only one I can claim unmitigated success with is #2… I hit 225 in July, actually, and maintained fairly ever since (227 this morning… but it’s the holidays).  I guess I could claim success on #1… I’m still here blogging… but I don’t really feel I’ve improved the site much.  #3 and #4…

Well, let’s not dwell on the past.

1. Maintain the blog for another year, and hopefully improve it.

2.  Get back into the swing on my volunteer projects.  (This one will be tough… the office is going to be a demanding place this year.)

3.  Get something _done_ with my own Voyages project (low priority).

4.  Go to my 25th high school reunion, which should be this year, assuming there is one.  (Could be fun…)

5.  I will be more generous this year.  (My charitable giving was down slightly this year according to my records.  That needs to change.)

Happy New Year, all!