Raph Koster on 2004

Continuing the interviews that began with Warren Spector last week, GameSpot asked Raph Koster about his ideas regarding 2004. Koster was a lead on Privateer Online at Origin.

There's also a lot of games from past years that I am still playing--the Karaoke Revolution games are a hit with my daughter, so I end up playing those with her a bunch. Donkey Konga too, and I just got Taiko Drum Master, which is similar but different. As you can tell, I do a lot of "offbeat gaming."

His favorite personal highlights from game development in 2004:

The inclusion of voice-over for non-player characters in Everquest 2 set, I think, a big new benchmark for MMORPGs. It really makes a difference. I think the [Star Wars Galaxies] Jump to Lightspeed expansion also set a new high watermark--I don't think any MMO has ever done such a massive addition to gameplay ever. It added a whole new way to play the game, and it melded twitch combat into an MMORPG.