Raph Koster, designer of SWG, and a designer of UO, has been making some news lately on his views of the MMO Industry.  His blog posts "Is Immersion a Core Game Virtue" and "F2P vs Subs" have caused quite a stir in the MMO fan community.  These issues, like many, have been avidly discussed on MMOFringe, and in these cases, Raph himself decided to jump in and clarify and expand on his thoughts.

See the MMOFringe Discussion Articles featuring Raph:

Raph Koster: Is Immersion a Core Game Virtue?

Raph Koster on Free To Play Models

SWAG!
I'd like to draw your attention to the two new links below the chatbox to our WDMKR store. I've added some logos to several items and feel free to buy, or not buy. Most every item has been marked up 3 dollars (some I haven't, like the thong because I think that we should get more WDMKR thongs onto more women at no extra charge). The 3 dollars will go towards hosting this site and hosting the Ventrilo server.

This is being done through Cafe Press. We will never take your orders, or your CC, or your address etc. That will all be done via their secure servers.

If you see any items on Cafe Press that you think would be popular or we should add to the store on principal (other thongs perhaps), let me know.

I realize a lot of people aren't as into the crafting as myself but it does have its uses as I will describe later.

There are 6 primary Crafting Skills of which you can choose only 1. It will show which gathering skills (3) and missions skills (4) generate the needed items for crafting.

**You will notice there are 14 crew skills and I have listed 13 so i'm stupid. But i'm not, Slicing is a gathering skill but does not generate any items used in crafting. It is used as a money maker. This is useful if you don't want to craft and just earn credits or on an alt (it also provides schematics for missions you will need later on. I have taken this on all my toons so far INSTEAD of a mission skill, as you don't need anything you get from missions skills until you have leveld up your crafting quite a bit [approx 100 skill points for armormech]).

Read more: Kelth's Crew Skills Primer