I find I have lost count of the number of columns I have done for 1up on Massively Multiplayer games. Just the same, I did one this week … and handed it in a day late because I got retardedly sick on Thursday morning. I travel to coasts and across time zones and have no problems, but apparently I’m unable to finish things in a timely fashion in my own home. :P

The Big Story

Another AGDC has come and gone, and this year I finally made it down there for the festivities. What is AGDC? Until last year, it was an independently-run game conference held annually in Austin, TX. The event focused, much more than any other conference, on the creation of online games and virtual worlds. Since last year, the conference was purchased by the CMP group, the same folks that run GDC every year in the spring. They re-branded the event into “GDC Austin” and (or so it seemed to me) worked to widen the appeal of the event just a bit. The result this year was a conference struggling to be at peace with itself. Some very visible scheduling mistakes made it hard for some people to enjoy the experience; some panels were overflowing, while others (especially some of the keynotes) were sorely under-attended. It felt for the most part like first year jitters, and here’s hoping they’ll have most of the kinks worked out by next year. Below are descriptions of and links to coverage of some of the biggest events at the conference this year.

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