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Richard Bartle Awarded the GDC First Penguin Award

Posted by Zonk on from the i-often-envision-mmog-designers-as-little-men-in-tuxedos dept.

TerraNova has the story that MUD1 co-designer Richard Bartle has been awarded the annual First Penguin Award. The award is given for exhibiting "the courage and bravery of a developer who is the first to test the proverbial waters, in the face of uncertainty of success or failure. Receiving a 'penguin' serves as an inspiration and lesson to the community."

5 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. My first muds by ackthpt · · Score: 3, Funny
    My first muds were played on un*x systems. Funny that.

    I hope Darl and his goons aren't reading this. If so, don't you have some paperwork or hearing to worry about?

    Darl McBride is massacred to small fragments by your slash
    Darl McBride is massacred to small fragments by your slash
    Darl McBride is massacred to small fragments by your slash
    Darl McBride is dead! R.I.P.

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Re:Muds by petsounds · · Score: 4, Insightful

    MUDs/MUSHes/MOOs *are* MMO games. The only real difference between them and modern MMO is the interface -- graphical vs. text. In fact, I would venture to say that some of the MUSHes and MOOs were more sophisticated and engaging than the more mainstream MMOGs of today. MOOs especially offered more ability for users to create complex objects through its own scripting language to enhance role-playing. The MMOGs of today are based on the MUD concept of gameplay, which always focused more on hack-n-slash and item collection than role-playing, with social interaction limited to parties banded together to make treasure hunting easier. Of course, MUDs in turn were heavily influenced by such early single-player games as the Nethack/Rogue/Moria variants on Unix systems.

    There are still quite a few text-based MMO games out there, just google for them.

  3. Annual "First Penguin Award" by Anm · · Score: 4, Informative

    This is not the first annual, nor is it the "Penguin Award". It is the First Penguin award and this is the fifth time it will be given out:
    http://www.igda.org/awards/archive_penguin.htm
    http://www.igda.org/awards/penguin.htm

    Anm

  4. Re:Muds by schild · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I'll save you the trouble and tell you exactly where this conversation will go. The following has comments on this exact subject from Raph Koster at SOE and Matt Mihaly at Iron Realms (they make big MUDs).

    Link to the conversation.

    --
    schild
    editor, f13.net
  5. Re:Morphine has good uses by bladesjester · · Score: 2, Informative

    Not all time spent on things like games would otherwise be spent working.

    There is, after all, this thing called recreation. Assuming that you are defined by what work you do is a foolish and dangerous thing.

    That being said, I think I'm going out for the day.

    --
    Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.