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Designing Virtual Worlds


by Richard Bartle

Designing Virtual Worlds is the most comprehensive treatment of virtual worlddesign to-date from one of the true pioneers and most sought-after design consultants. It's a tour de force of VW design, stunning in intellectual scope, spanning the literary,economic, sociological, psychological, physical, technological, and ethicalunderpinnings of design, while providing the reader with a deep, well-grounded understanding of VW design principles. It covers everything from MUDs to MOOs to MMORPGs, from text-based to graphical VWs.

Designing Virtual Worlds brings a rich, well-developed approach to the designconcepts behind virtual worlds. It is grounded in the earliest approaches to such designs, but the examples discussed in the book run the gamut from the earliest MUDs to the present-day MMORPG games mentioned above. It teaches the reader the actual, underlying design principles that many designers do not understand when they borrow or build from previous games. There is no other design book on the market in the area of online games and virtual worlds that provides the rich detail, historical context, and conceptual depth ofDesigning Virtual Worlds.

About the Author

Richard Allan Bartle, Ph.D., co-wrote the first virtual world, MUD ("Multi-User Dungeon"), in 1978, thus being at the forefront of the online gaming industry from its very inception. A former university lecturer in Artificial Intelligence, he is an influential writer on all aspects of virtual world design and development. As an independent consultant, he has worked with almost every major online gaming company in the U.K. and the U.S. over the past 20 years.

Designing Virtual Worlds
by Richard Bartle - List Price: $49.99 , Price: $29.99 You Save: $20.00 (40%) Paperback: 768 pages; Dimensions (in inches): 1.22 x 9.16 x 7.38; Publisher: New Riders; 1st edition (July 15, 2003)

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User Group Network News Service. (C) 2004, all rights reserved. Affiliate groups may freely republish this piece so long as they include the tag line: "From the User Group Network News Service at http://www.user-groups.net/"
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