Here is the video from the visit by Raph Koster to the September 2012 OGDA meeting.

Raph is probably best known for his role as Lead Designer at Origin on the seminal MMORPG, Ultima Online. He then went on to be Creative Director and Chief Creative Officer of Sony Online’s Austin, TX studio where he was the main designer of their MMO, Star Wars Galaxies. At SOE, he also was the CCO on Everquest 2. After leaving SOE, Raph started his own company, Metaplace, which was later acquired by Playdom (now part of Disney Interactive). He currently serves as their VP of Creative Design.

Raph is also the author of the book, “A Theory of Fun for Game Design” — a very popular primer on how to approach some aspects of designing interactive games.

At this year’s Game Developers Conference Online in Austin, he is being presented with their Online Game Legend Award for his work in the online game space not only as a developer, but author, frequent speaker, and advocate.

Our topics ranged from his biography, the early days of online gaming (way back in the text MUD days!), challenges from Ultima Online, formalized game design grammar, and even the right mindset to being a good game designer.

Note that this is the first time we were using Google+ for our interview. It turns out that Raph and I would occasionally freeze up, but the recording on Google+/YouTube would not. It makes for a few interesting moments where we were reacting to the lag.