Here’s an article I wrote for the Star Wars: The Old Republic site.  Long-time readers may see some repeat themes in this one (including the Gameplay Triangle), but I’m introducing it to a new audience, so there.

Massively multiplayer games are not new. The first true massively multiplayer game was a text-only virtual world called MUD, put together by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw in 1978. This little window of dizzying text descriptions was a far cry visually from the seductively lush 3D virtual worlds of today, but it was enough. Enough to get the genre started, and enough to get armchair designers across the world to imagine the possibilities, and debate philosophical matters of game design. One of these questions, still asked today, is whether or not massively multiplayer environments should strive to be games or to be worlds.

Also, yesterday a slightly more tentacle-in-cheek interview with me was posted on Gamespot.

Original comments thread is here.