I'd like to point to a very nice post by Raph Koster on Jeff:
One of the comments on his post in particular seems very appropriate to me
The full post is at http://www.raphkoster.com/2008/09/30/jeff-dundee-freeman/Raph said:He did much more, but for me that was a shining moment. This was a guy older than me, a guy with more life experience, frankly. But to me Jeff was the guy that I found out there and helped and advised and hired and watched blossom. He was on his own trajectory - no question - but I am not someone who has really been a mentoring type, honestly, for whatever reason. He was a guy I could point to who had challenged me, learned from me when I had something to offer, and forged his own path. He went on to do great work on Jump to Lightspeed and then with Spacetime.
We disagreed about the NGE. But I also knew that when he got blamed for the whole thing, that it was a silly oversimplification, and I said so. It wasn't fair for him to be the public face of the NGE, but it happened anyway. He spent a huge amount of time talking to the players, talking to people for years afterwards, explaining, apologizing, justifying what he didn't need to and shouldn't have had to.
One of the comments on his post in particular seems very appropriate to me
I knew Dundee casually back when he was an active participant in the UO community - he had a brilliant mind, and it really is a tragedy that he'll no longer be a part of our virtual worlds.Fishermage said:I know you are the one with the theory of fun, man. Here's my minor corollary: the world just got less fun now that he's no longer here with us.