Raph Koster

Raphael "Raph" Koster (born September 7, 1971) is an American entrepreneur,

Biography

Koster attended

In 2019, Koster and Eric Goldberg founded a new company, Playable Worlds, focused on creating an as-yet-unnamed MMORPG.

Credits

Games

• LegendMUD (emeritus implementor, 1994)
• Ultima Online (lead designer; Origin Systems 1997)
  • Ultima Online: The Second Age (lead designer; Origin Systems 1998)
• Verant Interactive
  2003)
  • Sony Online Entertainment
    2004)
  • Star Wars Galaxies: Episode III Rage of the Wookiees
    (chief creative officer; Sony Online Entertainment 2005)
  • Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan
    (chief creative officer; Sony Online Entertainment 2005)
• EverQuest II (chief creative officer; Sony Online Entertainment 2004)
  • EverQuest II: Desert of Flames
    (chief creative officer; Sony Online Entertainment 2005)
  • EverQuest II: Kingdom of Sky
    (chief creative officer; Sony Online Entertainment 2006)
• Champions: Return to Arms (chief creative officer; Sony Online Entertainment 2005)
• Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade (chief creative officer and editor; Sony Online Entertainment 2005)
• GripShift (chief creative officer; Sony Online Entertainment 2005)
• Frantix (chief creative officer; Sony Online Entertainment 2005)
• Field Commander (chief creative officer; Sony Online Entertainment 2006)

Discography

• After the Flood (1999)

Writing

• ISBN 1-932111-97-2
  )
• "Declaring the Rights of Avatars"
• A Story About A Tree, (May 1998), revolving around the
  Karyn incident
• "The Laws of Online World Design" (GDC 1999 presentation)
• Koster, Raph. "Geek Fun Isn't Frivolous; Alien Swarms of Thundering, Flashing Games Hit Town This Week. They're Here to Make Us Smarter." Los Angeles Times May 15, 2005, sec. M1.
• "As Seen In Modern Lair" (October 2007)

Awards

• Hot 100 (
  Next Generation
  2006)
• 100 Greatest Developers (Game Informer 2006)

References

1. ISBN 0-9743091-2-5
   . UO set new standards in virtual environment design. Its visionary lead designer, Raph Koster, introduced many innovations [...]
2. ^
   ISBN 1-59273-000-0
   . At the 2002 Game Developer's Conference, an audience member asked the panel on "Building the Next-Generation PW" how he, as a writer, could ensure the integrity of his story in a PW. The reply came from panel member Raph Koster, the creative director on Star Wars Galaxies and former lead designer of UO: "Get over yourselves; the rest of the world is coming. Okay? People value self-expression. Is 'story' going to go away? No. Is careful crafting going to go away? No. Are the professionals engaged in that going to go away? No. Well, except that IP—the concept of intellectual property—may, but that's a whole other side discussion. The thing is that people want to express themselves and they don't really care that 99% of everything is crap, because they are positive that the 1% they made isn't. Okay? And fundamentally, they get ecstatic as soon as five people see it, right?"
3. ISBN 0-13-101816-7
   . That people did play is a tribute to the game's design team, led by Raph Koster. Raph had a background in virtual world design, having worked on 1992's Worlds of Carnage (the first DikuMUD to have an embedded scripting language) before moving on to found LegendMUD in 1994 with Kristen Koster (his wife), Rick Delashmit, and others. [...] LegendMUD was itself an innovative game, boasting a number of features to promote role-playing that had never been implemented before. For example, unlike other DikuMUD derivatives, LegendMUD was classless (players don't elect to be fighters, magic-users, healers, thieves, or whatever); this concept was to shape the design of Ultima Online powerfully. The wide-ranging playing experience of the designers meant that they could draw on ideas from many other codebases, too.
4. ^ Scott, Ryan (April 2006). "The CGW Interview: Raph Koster". Computer Gaming World. No. 261. p. 37. Archived from the original on November 23, 2008. 1994: The award-winning LegendMUD, codesigned by Koster, launches (www.legendmud.org—still active today).
5. ^ Koster, Raph (May 10, 2009). "17th Wedding Anniversary". Raph's Website. Retrieved November 26, 2009.
6. ^ Koster, Raph (December 18, 2013). "CV".

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Raph Koster.

• Raph Koster's Website
• Areae, Inc. at the Library of Congress Web Archives (archived 2008-08-01)
• A Theory of Fun for Game Design official website
• Raph Koster at MobyGames
• "Raph Koster Leaves Sony Online Entertainment" (
  Gamasutra)^{[dead link}
  ]

Interviews

• Pham, Alex. "Game Design; Building a Community—Even a Virtual One—Takes Work." Los Angeles Times Sep 6, 2001, sec. T5.
• Interview: December 21, 2006 at the Wayback Machine (archived 2007-10-12) (Amber Night)
• Interview: December 25, 2006 at the Wayback Machine (archived 2008-07-23) (Stratics)
• Interview: March 22, 2006 (Game Studies)
• Interview: July 25, 2006 (The Escapist)^{[dead link]}
• Interview: March 10, 2007 (GameZombie.tv)^{[dead link]}
• Interview: October 11th, 2007 at the Wayback Machine (archived 2007-10-19) (The MMO Gamer)

Wikimania 2014

In the news

• BBC: Virtual worlds opened up to all (September 19, 2007)