For those of us whose work is play, the Indie MMOG Conference, produced by Last Straw Productions and held in (of all places) Minneapolis, began as a study in contrasts. There were three other events of much larger scale with which we shared the Convention Center, each of which represented a unique and distinct play community. Perhaps the most massive of the massively multiplayer games hosted there was the national girl’s volleyball championship. Hundreds of uncannily tall teenage girls circulated through the halls, jogged along the perimeters, stretched and warmed up, before joining their teammates and competitors to kick ass in a giant hall filled with nets and mats.
Joining in with the “girl power” festivities, event 2: a tap and modern dance competition, populated with tween and pre-teen girls, dolled up with sparkly eye shadow and sporting sequins and chiffon, practicing their jazz and tap-dance routines in the lobby outside of where our meager little conference was taking place. Across the hall from the dancers, event 3, a karate championship provided yet another contrast: young boys in martial arts attire and belts of varying colors connoting their current “level.” Tucked away in a tiny corner with all these divergent communities of play swirling around us was the Indie MMOG conference, a motley crew of about 100 or so MMOG designers, pontificating on the historical context of MUD and graphical virtual world design, and leaning across tables debating the merits and shortfalls of class vs. leveling systems, strategies for character progression, sex sacred and cows.
One of the benefits of a highly focused conference is that you can dig down into a level of depth that might be skimmed over in other contexts. A series of hour-long information-rich talks and highly focused roundtables allowed for extremely deep discussion on a range of topics pertaining to the design and management of virtual worlds. Following are a few tidbits that caught our attention.
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