[MUD-Dev] MUD-Dev conference 2003/2004

[Brian 'Psychochild' Green]

Hello all,

As you may know, I was one of the organizers and participants in the MDC 
conference this year.  I think the response was good enough that it's 
worthwhile discussing the possibility of a similar conference next year 
as well.

The goal is to make the conference useful to MUD developers, including 
text and graphical developers, social and game developers, and hobbyist 
and commercial developers.  Personally, I thought the MDC was great, 
personal biases aside.  I got the opportunity to hang out with people 
doing actual work in the field instead of attending hit-or-miss sessions 
that may or may not cover what you expect at that "other conference". ;)

To this end, I'd like to find out what people thought of this year's 
conference, and what people would like to see in next year's conference. 
  A few questions to lead the discussion:

Was this year's conference (2003) useful?  Did it meet your needs as a 
MUD developer?  Granted, maybe not every talk was right up your alley, 
but did you get good utility out of enough sessions to justify the 
entrance price?

Do you think it's worth staying in the San Jose area longer to attend 
next year's MDC?  Would you be willing to travel beyond downtown San 
Jose for the conference?

Should next year's conference (2004) expand?  Would multiple tracks be 
worthwhile?  Would a two-day conference be worthwhile?  Given the 
preference between two+ tracks on one day or 1 track over 2 days, which 
is preferrable?

What kind of talks are you interested in?  Was the mix at this year's 
conference good?  (Remember, we do want to serve a wide audience, so we 
can't just focus on one particular topic. ;)

What did you think of the venue?  Was it hard to find?  Was it too 
cramped?  Did you like the atmosphere?

Would you be interested in seeing demos of other people's work at the 
conference?  Would you be interested in showing demos of your own work 
at the conference for a small fee to cover setup costs for electricity 
and internet connection?

Are you interested in an organized get-together after the conference 
somewhere social?  There's a Dave & Busters (think grown-up Chuck E. 
Cheese's) nearby that could handle the group.  Would you be interested 
in paying a bit extra for a conference room and food in the evening?

If the moderator would forward responses to this to Meta, we can carry 
on the discussion there without too much hassle for the main list.

Thanks in advance for your feedback!

--
"And I now wait / to shake the hand of fate...."  -"Defender", Manowar
          Brian Green, brian at psychochild.org  aka  Psychochild
         |\      _,,,---,,_      *=* Morpheus, my kitten, says "Hi!" *=*
   ZZzz  /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_               Meridian 59
        |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'        http://www.meridian59.com/
       '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)            An online RPG with character




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