I just got back about an hour ago from the Indie MMO Game Developer’s Conference. It was a great trip; just four hours by car from home to Minneapolis, great speakers, lots of great conversations.

Quickie highlights:

• Dr. Bartle! In general, and in specific – his chat on government interference in MMOs, which dovetailed nicely with his keynote this morning about the future history of the genre, annnnd getting to interview him. We ended up talking pretty much all about World of Warcraft. Which, at least, I enjoyed quite a bit.
• Nick Fortugno, of Rebel Monkey, did a fantastic talk about the casual industry’s view of Massive games. Really engaging speaker, very fun to listen to, and amazing content.
• Gordon Walton did a more directed ‘future of the genre’ talk, and it was some amazingly inspiring stuff. Personally inspiring as well as professionally – just really really great.
• Interviewed Scott Hartsman, Brian Green, and Jonathan Stevens about various and sundry.
• Fantastic dinner with some fellow MMO commentators, fish and chips and Boddingtons, and a great argument about WoW’s older content that feeds right into my feelings about revamping old content. Also: Got pissed at and made up with Kendricke. Good times.
• Recorded MNB #7 on the way home in the car! So with some (hopefully quick) editing, next show will go up promptly.

Cuppy, Scott, and Cameron were all there as well, and have some discussion of the event. If you’re curious as to where you can see my coverage, that’d be Gamasutra – probably all week long. Got a looot of stuff to transcribe. I wasn’t sure before I went if the time was worth it for the reward, and I think I chose wisely.

Thanks to everyone I got to chat with over the weekend for stimulating my brain.