MMOG Nation Broadcast Episode Five marks the happy return of the ‘cast … with some fantastic personal news for Michael. You’ll have to tune in to find out. Most of the episode is a discussion of ideas and concepts prompted from a talk Erik Bethke gave at the Game Developer’s conference earlier this year. “The 7-11 Gamer”, as a concept, is incredibly insprational for Michael - maybe he will be for you too.

Relevant Links:
Slashdot.org
Massively.com
Massively’s Writeup of Erik’s Talk
Worlds In Motion’s Writeup of Erik’s Talk
Erik’s PowerPoint slides from the Talk

Michael, you might be saying to yourself, you were doing so well! You’d posted pretty much all month long with some more-or-less interesting content … and then this weekend was radio silence. Plus, where’s MMOG Nation Broadcast number 5? You promised us something on GDC, which was a month ago at this point!

These are all excellent questions. I’d like to offer a few things to you on this Monday night:

• Assurances that MNB #5 is coming this week.
• A preview of upcoming blog posts -
  • Mauradon, Exploded (a WoW design experiment)
  • Why Microsoft Doesn’t Get Massive Games (an attempt to explain their actions)
  • The “Comfort” Game (why online games do more than just entertain)
  • Fabulous Faydark (recent EQ2 exploits)
  • Fists of Ham Instance Report #1 (WoW gaming journal)
• A preview of upcoming MNB episodes -
  • The 7-11 Gamer
  • Slouching Towards Innsmouth
  • Putting Yourself Out There
  • The ‘Mass’ Effect
• A promise that I’m going to have an important personal announcement by the end of the month. If you like my writing (and since you’re reading this I guess I can assume that) you’ll really like my news.

This week on the MMOG Nation Broadcast … we have a new name! Thanks Apple! Additionally, you’ll find here the first in a series of interviews that will run throughout the course of the show. This episode is entirely devoted to an interview with Mr. Greg Short. Formerly a producer for Sony Online Entertainment, Greg gave the keynote at the first GDC China event. We got together last year at Austin Game Developer’s conference to talk disruptive innovation in the games market. Come along with us as we discuss the impact of WoW on pretty much everything, why the Wii has a lot in common with MapleStory, and a great anecdote from Greg about gaming as a universal language. Also listen for a contribution near the end by SOE PR mogul Ryan Peters. Make sure to check back before the end of the week for another episode - I owe you guys.

Relevant Links:
Austin Game Developer’s Conference
Electronic Entertainment Design and Research
P.F. Chang’s

Music:
Jade Empire Main Theme, Jade Empire Original Soundtrack. Composed by Jack Wall, used without permission.

1. I have a new theme on the site, because we were thinking for a while that the K2 theme may have been partially responsible for the security vulnerabilities.
2. The site’s podcast will no longer be known as ‘Face the Nation’. It’s a reality in today’s podcasting sphere that you pretty much have to be on iTunes, and they just didn’t want to play ball when the podcast had anything like that name. The cast is now known as ‘The MMOG Nation Broadcast’.
3. The spam continues to be added to the site, much to my embarassment. You’ve probably noticed if you read via rss, and I heartily apologize. Please don’t remove the site from your reader - we’re working really hard to get it squared away. At this point we’ve ruled out plugins, the theme - Wordpress has been deleted and repatched a couple of times now … if anyone has any pointers about cutting edge SQL insert vulnerabilities, I’d be glad to hear about them.

I’m GDC-bound as of this morning, which is why the MMOG Nation Broadcast didn’t put out a new episode yesterday. Expect it during the week and (despite a week’s vacation after GDC ends) another one before the end of the month. Promise!

This is going to be a big year in SF; hope I get to see you there.

The MMOG Nation Broadcast’s third episode is yet another response-cast, this time to Craig Dalrymple’s ill-conceived defense of Fantasy vs. Sci-Fi. Doesn’t he know resistance is futile? A few more naughty words are used, and I even manage to insult religion. Next time will be more listener-friendly, I promise.

Root Posts:
Why Fantasy?
Sci-Fi Ghetto
Is There Hope for a Science Fiction MMORPG?
No Hope for a Science Fiction MMORPG?
MMO: Science Fiction MMO Outline #1 -”Book of Days”

My post: Five Reasons Sci-Fi Pwns Fantasy
His response: One Reason Fantasy Pwns Sci-Fi

Music:
Beachcoma, Finished Symphony, Wide Angle. Album by Hybrid. Used without permission.