design track - learn the ins and outs of MMO game design.

 Designing a Hybrid MMOG (Peter Smith) - Session

This session will concentrate on the development of a National Science Foundation funded educational MMOG, Lunar Quest. Lunar Quest provides a conventional MMOG entertainment experience with integrated educational mini-games. This allows the content to be changed or expanded with very little additional development effort.

RP versus XP: Is Role-Playing Dead? (Craig Huber) - Round Table 

This round table will focus on roleplaying in the table-top terms within the MMOGs of today. Roleplaying is often looked at as a joke and players even on rp servers will poke fun and generally not participate in roleplaying of any kind. Where do live events fit into all this?

MMORPGs: Dead or Alive? (Robert Rice) - Round Table 

Are MMORPGs being lost in the roar of casual MMOGS and social networking? How are raising costs, big budget failures, and difficulty of finding funding going to impact MMORPGs? Will another title take over World of Warcraft or has the industry moved on? Have MMORPGs already hit their peak and just a slowly dying fad now? What new technologies and approaches can invigorate and redefine MMORPGs?

Learning From Other Media (Brian Green) - Session 

Games are a creative medium, just like many other creative media. Inspiration for your game development doesn't just have to come from games. Learn how you can take design lessons and concepts from a wide variety of other media, how to recognize similarities and avoid the pitfalls of trying to follow another medium too closely.

Designing The New Player Experience (Brian Green, Kelly Heckman, Jason Murdick) - Session 

To Be Announced

Designing Outside the Box: A Look at the Extraordinary (Celia Pearce) - Round Table 

This panel will focus on extra ordinary designing in MMOGs and how that affects the industry as a whole.

Network Design in MMOGs (Rusty Lee) - Round Table 

This round table will focus on the design of networking in MMOGs including: MMO networking requirements, advantages and disadvantages of network topologies, implementation options including available game engines, optimizations, and critical success factors.

What Your Mother and Your Ten-Year Old Can Teach You about MMOs (Nick Fortugno) - Session 

While interest in MMOs has been growing enormously the last couple of years, the focus has still largely been on the tradition gamer demographics: hardcore players (WOW, Eve) and DIY enthusiasts (Second Life). But the latest areas of commercial success and game innovation have come from a totally different direction: web-based multiplayer games for casual gamers. Games and portals from Club Penguin to Pogo.com to Webkins are expanding the idea of what a massive-multiplayer experience can be, and reaping the commercial benefits. This session will look at some of the ways casual games are reshaping the MMO landscape, and what lessons casual games have to teach us about reaching a broader audience for multiplayer experiences.