About this series: Notes from the Dawn of Time is a column that discusses the technical aspects of programming MUDs and other online games. Richard Bartle is the co-author of MUD, the world's first multiplayer online role-playing game, which was written in 1978.

• Hand-Carved Quests Revisited (12/18/2002) – #34: Richard concludes his quest series with advice on homegrown additions to a quest system. (last in series)
• Spawning (12/4/2002) – #33: Richard demystifies on-the-fly content generation.
• Questions and Answers (11/20/2002) – #32: Richard provides Q&A examples of reasoning.
• Ways to Look at Plans: Part 2 (11/6/2002) – #31: Richard jumps right into where the planning left off.
• Ways to Look at Plans: Part 1 (10/23/2002) – #30: Richard illustrates the planning of quest generation.
• Planning and Quest Generation (10/10/2002) – #29: Richard shows how sentient-presenting mobiles can have goals and achieve them.
• Problems with Planning (9/25/2002) – #28: Richard reveals the bumps in the road to planning.
• How a Planning Engine Works (9/11/2002) – #27: Richard lays the groundwork for a good planning engine.
• Quests (8/28/2002) – #26: Richard explains the ins and outs of computer generated quests.
• Why Plan? (8/14/2002) – #25: Richard outlines the logic of planning mobile AI.
• Introduction to Planning (7/31/2002) – #24: Richard describes the key to data planning.
• Mobile AI (7/17/2002) – #23: Richard begins a new topic on mobile, smart objects.
• A Complete Example (7/3/2002) – #22: Richard spills the beans through example.
• Lightening the Load (6/19/2002) – #21: Richard reveals ways to keep the binder lean and mean.
• Binding Noun Phrases (6/12/2002) – #20: Richard gets into kinky noun binding.
• The Binder (5/29/2002) – #19: Richard explains the final phase of parsing.
• The Parse Tree (5/8/2002) – #18: Richard shows us the branches of the Parse Tree.
• Token Stream Management (4/24/2002) – #17: Richard uncorks token streams.
• Backtracking that Works (4/10/2002) – #16: Richard breathes new life to backtracking.
• Backtracking (3/27/2002) – #15: Richard explains how to keep a parser from going astray.
• Algorithms for Parsing (3/13/2002) – #14: Richard demystifies parser creation.
• Parsing (2/27/2002) – #13: Richard explains how to parse input into bite-sized chunks.
• Grammar (2/13/2002) – #12: How do you parse an English sentence?
• Lexical Analysis (1/30/2002) – #11: Richard discusses how pre-processing command-line input works.
• The Stages of Parsing (1/16/2002) – #10: Richard breaks the stages of parsing down.
• Introduction to Parsing (1/2/2002) – #9: Richard begins a new vein on the command parser.
• Inheritance Coda (12/12/2001) – #8: Richard shares some key pearls of wisdom on inheritance.
• Matching (11/28/2001) – #7: Richard continues his discussion on inheritance.
• The Function Hierarchy (11/14/2001) – #6: Richard puts the function into hierarchy.
• The Tragedy of Objects (10/31/2001) – #5: Richard presents the flaws in Object-Oriented Programming.
• Efficiency of Inheritance (10/17/2001) – #4: Richard explains the problems of efficiency in multiple inheritance.
• Complicated Inheritance (10/3/2001) – #3: Richard opens the flood gates and explores complex inheritance in game design.
• Simple Inheritance (9/20/2001) – #2: Richard discusses the value of inheritance in MUDs.
• Introduction (9/5/2001) – #1: Richard Bartle steps up and takes a bow.