This past Monday and Tuesday I attended the Georgia Tech Living Game Worlds IV conference. I saw some great talks, chatted with some fun people, and learned lots of interesting things. And I never even changed out of my pajamas!
Read On Below!
This conference, which was put together by my Alma Mater Geogia Tech, took place in multiple spaces at once, both physical and virtual. It was physically embodied in Atlanta of course, but it was also streamed live on the web and inside of Second Life. There were also multiple options to connect to an IRC channel for chatting during the conference, and the channel was cleverly linked up to Second Life as well so that Second Lifers and IRCers could hear each other and communicate.
Since I was at home in lovely El Cerrito, I opted to give the Second Life conference a go. Most people reported having a beautiful stream of the conference, but unfortunately my sound and picture was choppy throughout. I blame my “broadband — but barely” internet connection. Nonetheless, I was able to glean enough from the talks and the virtual attendee’s chitter chatter to really learn alot and have a great overall experience.
I have a huge list of things to look up — games, books, articles, people, and got alot out of just chatting with people. But here are my top three personal highlights from the actual talks. Its not really fair, because the following people spoke after my stream was more or less under control, and I know there were folks before this point that said some really interesting things. But I am going to have to look those people up later I guess. For now, here are my favorites from what I actually got to see. 
Craig Kronenberger of Good Egg Studios gave a talk about his (and his wife’s) company’s game, Elf Island. Even though this talk again was pretty choppy in my stream, this game and whole concept just blows me away! This game is an online game for kids which, through the kids playing it and participating in it, actually translates into building REAL houses for Habitat for Humanity. I didn’t really get how it all came together (again, the stream’s fault, not the speaker’s) but this game is amazing, the concept is amazing, and you can be bet I’ll be delving in to find out more. Just take a look at this. I’m in love.
Sam Lewis from Cartoon Network’s Fusion Fall had this simple but clear and brilliant message for designing games for kids.
1) Know what they find fun.
2) Know what they don’t find fun.
3) RESPECT THEIR FUN!!
This should be instinctual to game designers designing for any audience, but its one of those messages that helps to be spelled out from time to time. The third point is especially important: Once you know what your audience wants, don’t try to make a game that they don’t really want because you want to implement the features YOU think are fun. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t innovate or try to find new ways to do things, but just be clear about your goals and who the audience is.
There was preview of Fusion Fall during the lunch break, but unfortunately my stream was so bad I couldn’t really see what was going on.
The last panel of the conference was the Pioneer’s Panel, featuring Richard Bartle (MUD1), Randy Farmer (Lucasfilm’s Habitat), Pavel Curtis (LamdaMoo) and Brian Green (Meridian 59). It doesn’t matter how much I read about the history of online games or how often I hear guys like this speak, I just eat this stuff up. This was also the panel for which my stream was least choppy, so I got to really enjoy it. Here’s what I took away, in a sentence, from each speaker:
Richard Bartle: MUD wasn’t a stroke of genius, it was a collection of almost hapharzard influences and circumstances and this kind of thing could easily happen again.
Randy Farmer: VRML based worlds failed, mostly, because companies confused cool technologies with social needs. (Good lesson there, and one that companies in this industry seem to have to learn over and over again…)
Pavel Curtis: A big reason LambdaMoo grew is because it was a nice and welcoming place, but eventually the wizards had to put their feet down about certain things and not apologize for it.
Brian Green: Love your players and they will love you back.
They said alot more of interest, of course, but those are the kernals I appreciated the most from each one. Also this AMAZING promotional video Randy Farmer showed for Habitat.
The other bonus of attending the conference via Second Life was getting another chance to check out Second Life itself. My first go at Second Life was not overly successful. Second Life is NOT a very newbie-friendly place. The UI is a mess, there isn’t very helpful help, and the options you have when you first enter the world are overwhelming and confusing. The first time I tried Second Life, I couldn’t figure out how to do anything, couldn’t find anyone to talk to, and couldn’t make my way to anyplace that sounded at all cool. This time I was given an easy way to get to where I was trying to go (the virtual conference space) and when i got there I was given alot of hand-holding and help (not to mention some very groovy items) from established SL residents. It was through these patient and friendly gals that I began to get the hang of things and see just a teensy sampling of the variety that can be found in SL. I visited an awesome pirate ship, an Alice in Wonderland inspired tea room, and heard rumors of a very cool sounding Steam-Punk world, Fairy Land, and role-playing environments. Now that I have a little bit of orientation, I am definitely intrigued enough to stop back in and see if I can’t explore a little more.
Here is the schedule of the event, if you’re curious who all was there talking. Hopefully they will post videos of the individual panels so that those of you who missed the talks, as well as those of us with crummy internet connections, can see what they missed.
This was a great time, and I intend to attend next year as well. I’d like to go in person next time though if I can swing it. I wonder if anyone would mind if I wore my pajamas to the GVU?