Gamasutra has posted a paraphrased and quoted version of Gordon Walton's GDC Austin speech. I'm a fan of Mr. Walton, I met him back when he worked at Kesmai on some of their amazing forerunners (namely Air Warrior and Battletech) to the MMO market. He has a pedigree resume and I think he's exactly the right man to produce Bioware's first MMO.

Overall I'd say his speech was hit & miss, some parts read bang-on like an MMO producer & designer's bible, while others demonstrate that he could be dangerously too close to the source, perhaps needing to step back and play like a gamer rather than in designer mode 24/7. Regardless, he's still on my shortlist of good peeps in the MMO industry, so it's well worth a thorough read.

Some highlights (because I couldn't resist):

"Content sucks. Content takes people to build. You can build systems, but systems suck because we pattern match 'em real quick. Content is custom-crafted things for people to do." He described the concept of the "player horizon" -- a player should not perceive all that she can do from the beginning of the game: something tantalizing has to hang out of reach. "If I can visualize everything that will happen to me by the end by level 3, the game's over."

. . .

Simplify the damn GUI!" Walton exhorted. "MMOs have the worst and most complex GUIs because we have so much shit you can do in the game. We want to give players all that stuff!"

. . .

Walton described customization as "a steam release valve" for an audience that can't be satisfied within the bounds of the basic interface. Bringing up another example, Walton cited City of Heroes, another MMO with a strong casual audience. "Conventional wisdom said that their game was missing all these features, but it worked."

. . .

"Don't tune for the hardcore."     . . .    this stems from "forgetting our object is not to keep people as long as humanly possible, but to provide entertainment." When it comes to grinding, "they will do it, but they will hate you."

I'm betting that Bioware's MMO will be a great game, although it's still a few years away.