The 2008 Austin Game Developers Conference kicks off today September 15, 2008 at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.  In addition to the three main tracks on online games, writing for games, and audio for games, there will be the First Annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) Showcase, The Worlds in Motion Summit @ AGDC, and the Game Career Seminar.

Featured keynotes of the conference include: Club Penguin co-founder Lane Merrifield on customer-oriented development, sci-fi author Bruce Sterling speculating on computer entertainment 35 years into the future and Jason Page, audio manager of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe's R&D division, commenting on next-gen audio.

The online games track is further divided into business & marketing, design, social networking & community, and technology & services sub-tracks.  Online games, casual and hardcore, are covered as well as the latest insights into social networking trends.  Of note are the two post-mortem sessions detailing challenges faced by the pirate-themed MMOs, Pirates of the Burning Sea and Pirates of the Caribbean.

Here's a sampling of sessions. Stay tuned to Edge for coverage this week:

Online games track:

What Great MMO Designers are Bringing to Social Games  
Learn why successful MMO designers like Raph Koster are focusing their attention on Web games and casual MMOs.

Economic Design and Management of Virtual Worlds with a Large Shard Population
Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, lead economist for EVE - Online, and Sam Lewis, lead designer for The Cartoon Network, discuss the design of economic systems for MMOs.

Endgame: How to Build High-End Gameplay for Your Most Devoted Players
Damion Schubert, lead combat designer at Bioware Austin, discusses design mechanics for the endgame, such as raiding and city sieges.

Sessions to watch in the Writing for Games track:

Unsharding: The Secret to Storytelling in a Massively Multiplayer Environment
James Portnow, founder of Divide By Zero Games, proposes "unsharding" as a way to unleash the potential of player-driven in MMOs.

A Future Told: Writing for Cinematic Design
A retrospective on Bioware titles and how they represent important steps in cinematic design.

The Sandwich of the Month Club: Writing and Designing Successful Episodic Games
Dave Grossman, Director of Design at Telltale Games, outlines the tools and processes behind creating successful episodic games.

Highlights of the Audio for Games track include:

Iron Composer Texas, Year 1
In the first ever competition of its kind, contestants battle to be crowned Iron Composer Texas.

A Generative, Adaptive Music System for MMO games
Developed at Slipgate Ironworks, the Generative Adaptive Music System (GAMS) represents a new approach for music in MMOs.

Creating Foley for Games
Mark Petty, sound designer at Gearbox Software, gives a thorough presentation of Foley recording, asset creation, and implementation.