Jeff "Dundee" Freeman, R. I. P.

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Scott Jennings| 47 Comments

Jeff Freeman passed away this weekend. Apparently his brother began posting publically to that effect on various community sites this week.

I can confirm this, because friends from Zenimax Online tried to contact me asking what happened. After leaving Spacetime Studios, he was set to start with them this week.

I am stunned as I’m sure is everyone else who was even tangentially touched by Jeff’s work, of which there was a great deal, ranging from Ultima Online to Star Wars Galaxies to his writings on the web, dating from Usenet to his blog.

Any other words I could write would be wholly insufficient to the task. May he find the peace he sought.

(Edit: Raph Koster’s tribute, Obituary)

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  • JuJutsu

    Well sh1t.

  • http://www.corpnews.com/getfreepassestoe3forwritingdrivel/ Mr. Savage

    Holy Fuck.
    :(

    That blows.

    Hope he is having a good time wherever he decides to wind up.

  • sanyaweathers

    I can’t think of anyone in the industry who didn’t like him.

    That’s kind of rare.

  • Signe

    I’m sorry. It’s very sad. :(

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  • Jason Durall

    I’m shocked.

    I worked with Jeff for a year and a half at Spacetime – he was in the office next door to me in all that time.

  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com/ J.

    fuck.

    never even got to meet him.

  • Ethic

    So young, my prayers go out to his friends and family.

  • http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

    .

  • Bonedead

    This makes me pretty sad. He was pretty much the only person who checked my blog. I don’t really know what else to say, this just sucks a lot. My condolences to his family.

  • http://www.killtenrats.com Zubon

    A great light has gone out.

  • Walter Yarbrough

    Rest In Peace

  • Annette

    I had the pleasure of working with Jeff at SOE. Like Sanya said, I never met anyone who didn’t like him as a person.

    He will very definitely be missed.

  • http://www.lietcam.com Sara Jensen Schubert

    Jeff was one of the most genuinely inventive and insightful designers I’ve ever known.

    If you wanted a totally different way of approaching something, but totally different in a good and implementable way, Jeff was your guy.

    Also, Jeff was your guy if you wanted a totally unrelated, yet strangely relevant Youtube link for any given topic.

    Rest in peace.

  • http://ve3d.ign.com/ Apache

    :(

  • JoeW

    My God, I am blown away.

    I don’t know what to say.

    Jeff was an awesome guy.

    Oh man. =(

  • http://www.damnedvulpine.com/ J.

    I kept thinking I’d run into Jeff eventually. We would trade e-mails occasionally over the years. His early stories as Dundee on the Lake Superior shard of UO were inspirational. Last month I informed him about the IGDA meet at Opal Divine’s, where Scott got caught on film. I don’t think he came, or at least I never saw him there.

    I wish I’d mailed him more often.

  • http://www.psychochild.org/ Psychochild

    I’m in J.’s position. I always figured I’d run into him eventually. We exchanged a few emails in the past, but nothing terribly deep.

    Always a bit disturbing when things like this happen suddenly. :/

  • http://tidehorizon.blogspot.com Tide

    This is very sad. I am shocked. I was waiting to see what he would do next. Terrible.

  • Floyd Grubb

    Jeff, or “Dundee” as I primarily knew him, was a great guy. I played with him several times in Ultima Online, and read his essays on the world and game design with interest. I did not always agree with him, but he always made compelling arguments.

    While we never met in person, I will miss him. The gaming community is less now with his passing.

  • http://www.38watch.com Grish

    Wow, this is heartbreaking news. His family and friends are in my thoughts and prayers. Unbelievable..

  • Rich Bryant

    I don’t publicly blog anymore and this needs saying, if only so I know I said it.

    Jeff was cool. One of those people where emails and blog comments were all the communication possible because of immense distance in time(zone) and space, but that was enough.

    I crawled into my development hole over a year ago and stopped posting but kept working. In that time, there were only three gaming blogs I kept up with. This one, one other and Jeff’s. He was cool because he always had something different to say and try as you might, you could never fully disagree with it. And certainly not without laughing.

    It may be “only” electronic for me, but Jeff leaves a big hole in the world where there used to be a really cool, funny guy with enormous analytic capabilities and a user-friendly way of expressing those abilities.

    I don’t know about anyone else, but I’ll miss him.

    Sorry for using your comments for that, Scott – couldn’t think of a better place.

  • Amaranthar

    Rest in peace, Jeff.

  • Victor Wachter

    Even though Jeff and I worked at SOE at the same time, I know him much better from when we were both just UO players, posting on r.g.c.u.o.

    The only way to describe him in those days is inspirational. He was a hero to the scared PK-weary newbies of the Lake Superior server and gave them a home in his guild The Nameless Ones (I think that’s it). He was easily the most respected member of the newsgroup and his posts always stirred the best discussions. He was also the best at the troll posts.

    As a community manager, I have seen very few players who made that kind of difference to so many others. The industry gained something awesome when he joined and took a great loss with him gone.

    The other thing is that he was also a bit cynical and would probably cringe at the sappiness I just spewed ;)

  • Hearding

    I never met Jeff in person, but I feel like I’ve just lost a good friend. We’ll miss you Jeff.

  • http://drasten.blogspot.com/ Drasten

    I will remember is his wit & wisdom both on r.g.c.u.o and in UO on Lake Superior. He did a great job bringing together a lot of good people into UO and making sure they were having fun. The guild he helped run (he would have put “run” in quotes) had a simple message: No jerks.

    My thoughts are with his friends and family.

  • Radnor

    :(

  • http://www.moorgard.com Moorgard

    I’m speechless and sad.

    Rest in peace.

  • Ian

    This is a shock. I knew him, talked with him in game many times on LS. SBR was his baby, his brainchild. We ran roughshod over the PKers of LS, They fought back. He never really joined us, but, he supported us.

    Corwin of Amber, if you are out there. Join me in mourning the passing of a good person.

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  • Paul

    wtf? :O

  • Damien Foletto

    Very tragic indeed. I too worked with Jeff at Spacetime and always found him to be very funny and extremely intelligent. It is a sad time for the industry and all who knew him. RIP, Jeff. You will be missed, but your work and memory will live on.

  • http://construed.wordpress.com dmosbon

    Man that is sad…

  • http://wowpanda.blogspot.com wowpanda

    This is so said. I remember the UO days. That is the first MMO I played. I played beta with one of my friends, and I tried and failed to kill a bear.

    I didn’t play UO when it come out, my friend did, and I remember initially he said there were lag (understandable because it is the FIRST!!). Then comes Diablo, it doesn’t have lag because it limits a group of 5 (or 8) people in one server. UO was too advanced at that time, the hardware nessessary was not totally there yet.

  • aozora

    salute^

  • Paks

    This is very sad news. :(

    Rest in peace.

  • dartwick

    sad story

  • Janey

    My favorite of Jeff’s essays:
    http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/ackjul99.html

    If anybody knows how to get in touch with Shay … please point her to this post, and/or my gmail address of “madronatree@.”

  • http://www.onrpg.com/ onrpg

    RIP :(

  • http://www.corpnews.com Rasputin

    I’m struck utterly speechless. There aren’t any words for what he meant.

    RIP.

  • Steve

    This is totally shocking. Jeff was a great guy to work with.

  • http://wowpanda.blogspot.com wowpanda

    Thanks Janey, that was a great post. The part of Lolly really give me a good laugh :-)

  • RB

    Rest in peace. :(

  • nerd gone bad

    dreadful news. very sad. You can tell from all the heartfelt responses that he was known, loved, and respected and will be sadly missed.

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  • Nathan Johnston

    I made my respects over at his blog.

    …

    I’m sad. I never got to meet him in real life, and while I’m not a developer or designer, I was a reader. I found him through Ubiq’s and Lum’s listings, and I enjoyed reading his words… his life. I just wonder if it will stay. Hopefully somehow his blog will stay forever up like a memorial of some sorts, so we can remember him.

    …

    It’s been a crazy week for us all, so take this with some jest and merriment when I say, “Please, no one else die. I’m sad enough.”

    -Nathan J.

  • Colin

    OMG I’ve just stumbled on this. My wife and I were in The Nameless Ones long ago, and we played on his private server, as well. I was just thinking about him the other day, and I searched for his blog and found this. Mir and Cassie give their respects. Rest in Peace, Jeff.