Electronic Arts Shuts Down Origin Systems? 343
An anonymous reader writes "Waterthread.org has picked up the following on the studio that brought us the popular Ultima and Wing Commander series: 'Game company Electronic Arts is expected to tell its Austin employees this week that the company will be shutting down Origin Systems, its Austin operations, according to sources. Employees will be offered an opportunity to relocate to California or accept a severance package. Company officials could not be reached for comment. Austin is the #3 location in the U.S. for game development with more than 50 companies making major contributions to the game industry, including game development, publishing, tools and middleware and chips and hardware." The Wing Commander CIC has also posted a epitaph for Origin."
Damn... (Score:5, Interesting)
RIP to the best of the old-school studios, from a former OSI employee and servant of the Crown.
Everybody else just made crappy games. We created worlds.
Re:Ultima V Dungeon Siege Remake (Score:4, Interesting)
Just last week I bought Dungeon Siege, the first computer game I've bought in a year, just so I could play the fan-based remake of Ultima V featured on slashdot the other day [slashdot.org]. It was a neat concept to remake an old (but loved) game.
There's also a user created Wing Commander mod for Vega Strike [sourceforge.net].
I really dig the user-created remakes. They're just so crappy in comparison to the originals.
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Re:Damn it's true... (Score:5, Informative)
EA kills another great developer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:EA kills another great developer (Score:5, Informative)
Watch out (re: link in parent post) (Score:5, Informative)
Re:EA kills another great developer (Score:5, Insightful)
In hindsight, though, OSI has been in decline since the U8 days. EA may have preserved OSI's existance by buying them out, but their managerial influence certainly did not seem to help the company. Everything else that went wrong in the company is, to me, largely irellevant compared to, or caused directly/indirectly by, the EA buyout.
Sadly, OSI's future probably rested on the success of Ultima IX. UO was good for them financially(or so I am told), but it obviously was not enough to make the dev house survive independant of the consolidated EA house. I still remember seeing Myst-like screenshots of the original U9 concept years ago(1995) before any serious work on UO had begun. I also remembered reading that the old U9 project was suspended to put work into developing UO, and that when focus returned to U9, the entire old project was tossed, forcing them to start anew(and then start over again and again as design concepts changes. Avatar Raider anyone?).
It would seem to me that, had they never made UO in the first place, or had they finished Ultima 9 first, the house might still be alive today. Maybe.
Re:EA kills another great developer (Score:5, Insightful)
UO was released with just as many bugs as U9, and _stayed_ buggy. In fact, around 2002 when I last tried it, they were still blundering through patches which broke 2 things for each 1 bug fixed. I've seen patches released and rolled back within 4 hours... during which, they wrecked pure havoc upon those unlucky to download them. Patches which seemed to never have been tested at all.
UO also was released in a sad unfinished state, which since then has become the de-facto standard release for MMO games.
For starters, half the skills were either totally useless, or useless for anyone who wasn't playing a grief player. E.g., tinkering skill could only create trapped chests. Except no NPC ever opened a chest. So in effect the only use was to kill newbies.
The gameplay and game design itself was a poorly thought out catastrophe. Most of the issues were already known and tested for decades on MUDs, but UO just had to repeat every single mistake in the book.
E.g., it was dead predictable that someone will deadlock their original economy. The problem of people actually working hard to take non-renewable resources out of the game -- e.g., by stashing them in vaults or in the inventory of 100 non-played avatars -- was known on MUDs for ages. And blimey, who would have guessed? The exact same issue deadlocked UO's economy.
And how about listening to the customers? It took _years_ of screaming in anguish for a non-PK option, which Origin mostly just ignored. UO lost players hand-over-fist over that issue. Meanwhile Sony and Microsoft basically made "we're the place where you won't get repeadedly PK'ed like on UO" their _main_ claim to glory.
It was already known on MUDs that purely player-enforced justice does not work. Ever. RL justice works only because you do care about what happens to your RL self. But on virtual world you can _count_ on having a hefty share of players who just don't care about their virtual avatars. There is _nothing_ you can do in-character to keep them inline, because they aren't in-character to start with.
Etc.
Basically I'm saying that UO and U9 were both equally half-arsed efforts. Which one came first and which was delayed... does it even make that much of a difference? I believe that even if they came out the other way around, they'd still have been half-arsed. And still, basically, just a sympthom of the fact that something was already rotten at Origin.
This will kill Ultima Online. (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, it did have a long run.
Re:This will NOT kill Ultima Online. (Score:5, Informative)
Read some of the articles.
This is not the end for Ultima
ultima Online will still continue. I'm sure it will change, especially if people take the sevrense package instead of relocating. But it will still be there.
Re:This will NOT kill Ultima Online. (Score:5, Informative)
1: The next publish (what UO calls updates) is mostly (90%) about the ability to move characters between shards (seperate UO worlds)
2: The event moderaters have been removed and will
3: It is almost impossible to BUY THE GAME in stores anymore. Next to no brick and morter stores carry it and EA does next to no advertizing for it. So how does it attract new customers?
Re:This will NOT kill Ultima Online. (Score:4, Informative)
Here's some linkage: (Score:5, Informative)
Source 2 [ign.com]
Here ya'll go! Free Ultima Online to mourn the loss of OSI with.
Re:Here's some linkage: (Score:2)
Re:This will NOT kill Ultima Online. (Score:3, Interesting)
In the end they refused to get me a code. This are several postions on uo.stratics.com (the official UO boards) about this 'issue'.
About you (Score:3, Insightful)
You should apply for a moderator position at freerepublic.com and/or democraticundeground.com as you moderation system fits in a lot better at those two sites.
Re:This will kill Ultima Online. (Score:2)
Oh my (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh my (Score:5, Informative)
Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Although it still sucks that some people will be losing there job. The PC gaming biz is grim these days.
I hear they've been outsourced. . . (Score:4, Funny)
Ah well... (Score:4, Informative)
I have to say though, Origin had about the best tagline of any gaming company...
Origin - We Create Worlds.
Not anymore, I guess.
Re:Ah well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ultima 7 & SI are still two of the greatest and most fun games ever invented in my book, though. Too bad U8 was downhill and U9 wasn't even done. I hope Mr. Garriot can afford to keep his house with the secret room and the 5000 watt stereo - it would be a shame for him to have to get creative and make a good game again.
Keep an eye on TKO Software after this... (Score:3, Informative)
In addition to that, they've already scavenged a few Origin people before this happened, as well as picking up a couple Looking Glass developers. There's a rumor that they have a Black Isle guy, but he's been silent thus far, if he exists.
The whole plan is working
Where is #1 and #2? (Score:4, Insightful)
Where is the #1 and #2 location for game development?
Re:Where is #1 and #2? (Score:2)
What's the range of a "location"? (city? county? miles?)
What's being rated? (number of studios? dollars revenue?)
But, if I were to hazard a guess --
#1 San Fransisco bay area
#2 Los Angeles / San Diego area
Re:Where is #1 and #2? (Score:4, Interesting)
About 4 blocks from my house is the huge EA Canadian headquarters (950 employees) where they do all the sports games, and then downtown we have Radical Entertainment, Relic, Threewave, Rockstar Vancouver, Barking Dog, etc...
Origin, Bullfrog (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Origin, Bullfrog (Score:2, Informative)
* Westwood Studios (Command & Conquer).
* Maxis (SimCity).
Re:Origin, Bullfrog (Score:2)
I guess it depends on what you mean by "gutted."
Re:Origin, Bullfrog (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Origin, Bullfrog (Score:3, Informative)
Some other people have posted the one-word version of this, but there's more to it...
Maxis got the same treatment. EA is closing down operations in Walnut Creek, and moving them to some place on the S.F. Peninsula.
Walnut Creek is about two hours away from there in morning traffic, AFAIK. Sucks to be at Origin more, but it sucks to be at Maxis too.
But the main post made it sound worse than I think it actually is. It's not like Origin is going away just yet. Who knows? They could pull through relocati
Re:Origin, Bullfrog (Score:2, Interesting)
Will C&C ever be the same? Doubtful.
Re:Origin, Bullfrog (Score:3, Interesting)
As a game developer, i'd say Maxis is actually doing very well for itself. As Maxis being Maxis... yeah, I think they may have lost a little of their creative edge because of EA's meddling. But they still make good games for the time being.
Not a surprise. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not a surprise. (Score:5, Informative)
I, too, have been to Origin's site, and yes, it is very impressive indeed.
Re:Not a surprise. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not a surprise. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Not a surprise. (Score:2, Funny)
Why relocate to California? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why relocate to California? (Score:5, Informative)
#2 Activision [activision.com], THQ [corporate-ir.net], Vivendi [vugames.com], and a host of studios both publisher owned and independent are located there.
LA is the place to be in you are a video game maker who likes to buy all the talent, suck it dry as fast as possible and then fire that talent and start again. Whoa, did I just hear someone describe EA?
Re:Why relocate to California? (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, Austin [forbes.com] is good [expansionmanagement.com] for business [facilitycity.com].
Also, ordinary people can afford housing there, the quality of life is very good, and it's probably not going to be devastated by an earthquake anytime soon.
Re:Why relocate to California? (Score:5, Interesting)
That's EA to a freakin' T, and it practically brings tears to my eyes the projects and franchises they've run into the ground. Okay, namely it's just Ultima Online 2 that will never see the light of day, and it boils my blood that EA dropped the ball on that one! They're riding UO 1 like tobacco companies ride cigarette sales, and
Im suprised it took so long... (Score:5, Insightful)
After EA bought up Origion Wing Commander went into it's declining stages ending up with the catasrophe that was Privateer 2 on Erin's part and the nuclear holocaust that was the movie (On Chris' part). Thus died one of the finest and most groundbreaking gaming series in history.
I never paid much attention to Ultima but I knew it was a matter of time till EA did the same thing to it, I just read an article about after the success of EverQuest EA starting forcing Origin to make Ultima more Everquest-ish and less Ultima-like and thus removing and in forcing those changes it involved making Ultima un-Ultima-like thereby alienating Ultimas fans.
WAY TO GO ELECTRONIC ARTS - You have sucessfully killed two of the longest run and best gaming series there ever were. May you continue to spoon feed people things like Madden ever year with miminal changes and another $50 price tag.
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To the Origin Guys: Look to the community, we are with you, many would help you start anew to become what you once were. Weh ave confident in you guys.
Re:Im suprised it took so long... (Score:5, Informative)
I hope you'll also realize that the Wing Commander movie really had nothing to do with EA. When Chris Roberts left the company after Wing Commander 4 he negotiated for the movie rights to Wing Commander for a certain number of years. After that, there wasn't any EA involvement to speak of.
Re:Im suprised it took so long... (Score:2)
Re:Im suprised it took so long... (Score:4, Informative)
play Ultima Online like its 1999! (Score:5, Interesting)
There are a whole lot of UO emulated player run shards alive and kicking today. Many are attempting to recreate that era for UO which changed, like I said when EA gutted the OSI team. I have found www.preuor.com [preuor.com] the best shard for that purpose. They have meticulously made efforts to recreate the small things that made UO great. Try it, you'll be surprised how fun a 2d game mmorpg can actually be and best of all its free (no monthly fee or game purchase required).
www.preuor.com [preuor.com]
Re:play Ultima Online like its 1999! (Score:2)
Siege Perilous (re: Ultima Online like its 1999!) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:play Ultima Online like its 1999! (Score:3, Interesting)
The brand has no intrinsic value (Score:2)
Goodbye to the pedigree (Score:5, Insightful)
Killing Origin is just another sad episode in the tale of "EA Lames". We'll see more game console stupidity with John Madden screaming about football, but truly original game concepts are dying, as are the companies who made them.
I will lift a Guiness to my youth, and the hours of fun I had with Origin tonight.
Just what Austin needs (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Just what Austin needs (Score:2)
EA and origin was at UT just a few weeks ago... (Score:2)
It is true (Score:5, Informative)
1. They are not done with UOX. It is in Beta. Origin Beta or real Beta, who knows. They think they can move development to california for the Earth and Beyond people to finish?!?!?!
2. There were 230 people working there.
3. The studio management may have known, but I know they were still hiring and relocating people to Austin several weeks ago.
4. This was the worst kept secret in Austin. Everyone knew last week. Except the employees.
5. UO support moving to california.
6. Origin owned that building.
I have been gone from there for almost 6 years, but I spent 10 there. It is a little sad, but not unexpected. EA tried to shut it down back in '99, but pulled back from the brink for some reason. Feel sorry for their new employees, especially the new GM.
-Donut, Origin Alumni 1990-1999
Ultima VI, Ultima VII, Strike Commander, Serpent Isle, Pacific Strike, Longbow, Longbow2, A-10.
Re:It is true (Score:3, Interesting)
As a number of posts above have covered, a community [wcnews.com] still exists around a game that's been dead for roughly 6 years (WC: SO was released in '98).
I'm willing to bet that I'm not the only guy who wants Privateer on Linux or a modern OS, or even a multiplayer version.
What are your thoughts on releasing the source to the community for really old timers like Privateer, Armada, etc.? I think there's a lot of potential for a community project.
Expected... (Score:2, Insightful)
Here we go again... (Score:5, Insightful)
EA has bought its way to the top. Bullfrog, Westwood, Maxis, Origin have all fallen before the giant. Eliminating whole divisions--even highly successful ones--is nothing new. Just ask the people [garagegames.com] from Dynamix who got chopped shortly after Tribes 2 became a hit.
Infogrames, er, Atari, is no better. They went a from a small publishing house to one of the titans of the games industry by buying everything they could. Adopting the name "Atari," plastering it over their corporate monolith as a relatively cheap facade (the company was only a few million dollars) is, to me, the most cynical thing I've seen from a gaming company in a long time. Yet, there is no media outrage, not even a notice that they're a completely different company that adopted the same name.
Creativity is dead. There are no more juicy steaks of games, no more Command and Conquers or Homeworlds, the games that bring gaming into a whole new dimension, at least from the major houses. Instead, we get reheated leftovers or ground chuck, tossed on a bun and served up McDonalds style. Yet another game in the same series, yet another Sims expansion back--Is this the future of gaming that you want? This is the future of gaming as in the hands of EA and "Atari." EA did not produce a new, original game in 2003 [slashdot.org]--only rehashes and expansions.
Support an independent developer with fresh ideas, or support an open-source game. Look to the endless parade of closed studios and stifled creativity, sequels following the same pattern, only with few shiny new features. Is this the way you want your games? Or do you want something fresh and new?
Re:Here we go again... (Score:2)
Re:Here we go again... (Score:3, Informative)
I think I've seen more 'indie' games in the last few years then ever before. At least 'indie' to me, a lot of publishers these days I haven't heard of before.
To give an example that might interest folks in this thread (Wing Commander fans), I just bought a game I could call 'innovative' called "X2-The Threat", created by Egosoft and published by Enlight (or maybe I have that backwards). I've never heard of either.
Anyway, in concept take Privateer, give it Freelanc
Re:Here we go again... (Score:3, Informative)
"Creativity is dead" (Score:4, Interesting)
Even things regarding a game's difficulty is being gutted. Whens the last time anyone here played the singleplayer mode of any game and actually had trouble with it?
Creativity is alive and well (Score:3, Interesting)
That's silly. In the last several years we've got numerous creative games from major companies, and no reason to believe this will change. Animal Crossing, Dance Dance Revolution, Shenmue, Space Cha
Ahh Ultima (Score:5, Funny)
Though there are some great ultima projects being worked on such as the lazarus project [u5lazarus.com]
Re:Ahh Ultima (Score:5, Informative)
U4: word of passage that allows entry into the abyss
U5: allows entry into dungeon Doom in the center of the underworld
Get that weak stuff outta here (Score:3, Interesting)
Just a general question: did anyone else pillage the city of Yew over and over to build up money and experience? (Note: it was the only city that didn't have guards, and the druids were easy pickings). Getting killed by orcs was humiliating, and I had to level up *somehow*
Origin will be missed... those games are unqualified classics.
Game development locations? (Score:2)
And the first two?
(Yes, I know Silicon Valley, and ?)
Origin's games (Score:5, Informative)
publisher
3DO, CyberMage, Super Wing Commander
Amiga
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet,Wing Commander
Apple IIe/c/c+
Ogre,Omega,Ultima,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
Atari 400/800/XL/XE
Autoduel,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Atari ST
Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Commodore 64
Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet,Ultima: The First Age of Darkness
MSX
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Pony Canyon),Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Macintosh
Super Wing Commander,Ultima III: Exodus,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
PC
Abuse,CyberMage: Darklight Awakening,Privateer 2: The Darkening,Shadowcaster,Ulitma IX: Ascension,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Pony Canyon),Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima IX: Ascension,Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds,Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet,Ultima VII Part II: Serpent Isle,Ultima VII: The Black Gate,Ultima VII: The Forge of Virtue,Ultima VIII: Pagan,Ultima Worlds of Adventure 2: Martian Dreams,Wing Commander,Wing Commander II: Vengeance of the Kilrathi,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger,Wing Commander: Privateer,Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams,Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire
PlayStation
Crusader: No Remorse,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger,Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom
Saturn
Crusader: No Remorse
Sega CD
Wing Commander
Super NES
Wing Commander: Secret Missions
developer
3DO
CyberMage,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
Amiga
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Wing Commander,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
Apple IIe/c/c+
Ogre,Omega,Ultima,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny
Atari 400/800/XL/XE
Autoduel,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima: The First Age of Darkness
Atari ST
Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet
Commodore 64
Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny,Ultima VI: The False Prophet,Ultima: The First Age of Darkness
Game Boy
Ultima: Runes of Virtue,Ultima: Runes of Virtue II
MSX
Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Pony Canyon),Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
Macintosh
Super Wing Commander,System Shock,Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Wing Commander III: Heart of the Tiger
NES
Ultima: Exodus,Ultima: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima: Warriors of Destiny
PC
Crusader: No Regret,Crusader: No Remorse,CyberMage: Darklight Awakening,Strike Commander,Ultima Collection,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness,Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness (Pony Canyon),Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress,Ultima III: Exodus,Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar,Ultima IX: Ascension,Ultima Online,Ultima Online: Age of Shadows,Ultima Online: Lord Bl
Re:Origin's games (Score:3, Informative)
Autoduel on the Apple II I still think was a killer game. PC and console games came kinda close to matching its mix of action/adventure/building cars - Twisted Metal meets Legacy of the Ancients, circa 1985 - but not quite. That's one title I'd love to see remade
ON THE MAC!
Re:Origin's games (Score:2)
Yep, Autoduel was also available for the PC. Here's another list [gamefaqs.com] .
Origin WAS great, but what have they done lately? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Origin WAS great, but what have they done latel (Score:2)
I think it's because it gives us all a mark. The truth, as you said, is that Origin has been effectively dead for a long time. Their last success was Ultima Online. That was a service, though, so one can't really say the success was when UO was released. Some might say it was 1998, some 1999, some 2000... doesn't really matter.
The point is that, as unlikely as we all knew it was, some of us still held some hope that there would be a Truly Great game from OSI someday. That's gone now. We have nothing but s
Re:Origin WAS great, but what have they done latel (Score:5, Informative)
It's virtue lied in a combination of a HUMONGOUS open-ended, non-linear world with SO DAMN MANY non-generic niches, It was probbably the most replayable game in the world. I played 6 and 7 maybe 3 times each, and I just kept discovering more and more stuff I didn't find the previous times.
Then things started to go down. 7 Part II was nicer than 7 graphicswise, was as complex and full of niches as 7, but it was LINEAR. So much for a huge world you could explore at your leisure. You were now guided by the nose through the game.
Then came 8. Oh, the pain, the PAIN. Not only was it non-linear, it was DUMBED DOWN into oblivion. The game-world was no longer one large map.. rather, it was a series of "screens" you go from one to the other. 90% of the niches in the game unrelated to the plot were gone. Much of the gameplay was replaced by jumping puzzles that looked like a birdseye 2D tombraider-wannabe. And here, they put the good old Ultima atmosphere (with the mandolin music that followed when you were in the forest on the way to cove) to rest with 3 0.44 magnum shots to the forehead. Let's skip 8.
Enter 9. Gariott is no longer around. Still, 9 was a good try. Really, it was. The goal was in the right direction, and they were actually going for it. First, they put in the heaviest block, a 3D engine. Second, they got the atmosphere back, and they made an almost-successful attempt at bringing back the humongous world that was U7. But they fell short. There were no niches with side-quests and goodies to discover. There was no replayability. It was still linear. And there was no future - EA pulled the plug.
Then came UO, and EA decided they did not want me to be their client no more. They shut down all of Origin except for UO.
The genre was not completely lost though.
Two titles by other companies prevailed in my consiousness:
Elder Scrolls3: Morrowind made a shot at a humongous world. They did manage to get that right. But they went astray. There was no Garriot. No Lord British. There was no atmosphere. It was just an endless [beautiful] world of immensely over-recycled content, unbalanced gameplay, flat-as-a-plank characters and utterly boring [and endless] fed-ex quests that required spending too much of the game time on travel. The company who made it just wasn't Origin, it lacked a guide. And the game was a flop.
The one light that did indeed shine bright in the genre was Gothic. I truly salute the guys who made it. While it posed a slightly different atmosphere than Ultima, It was immersingly wonderful. The world was huge. The story thick, unpredictable, brutal at times. Real-world trust-noone and fend-for-yourself style. Main storyline put aside, the game world was accessible in an unlinear fassion.
And in a streak of genious, they took all the effort put into making the first game world, added a similar amount of effort to create a second, and had a world twice as big for Gothic II. Kudos guys.
Ultima genre aside, we come to the lancers. The wing-commander/privateer teams were stashed (and bought by M$), making Starlancer and Freelancer, games made by great devs, having the ability to soar, and trampled to garbage by executives with the intellect of a retarded coccaroach. Freelancer could have been a "Privateer 3", and could have borne the title proudly. It had it all. Graphics, missions, weapons, secret niches.
All but a decision to force down the plot on you at square one, drive you faster than you'd like towards its end, forcing you to finish it, then having you stuck in a beautiful humongous and largely-unexplored galaxy, with NO quests or goals of any kind save for random encounters and randimized generic missions to "go discover it" and make money you no longer need. Woohoo.
I'd love to meet the moron who made that call.
Or the one saying you can't take more than one mission at a time. DAMN. What was THAT good for?
I take solace in the fact that the team is still together, and maybe the executive
Could be worse. (Score:2, Interesting)
www.wcnews.com /.ed (Score:5, Informative)
Goodbye, Origin
For twenty two years Origin Systems set the tone for the computer gaming. Ultima, Wing Commander and dozens of others set the gold standard for which the rest of the industry could only hope to catch up. This era has finally come to an end as Electronic Arts readies an announcement that it will shut down the Austin-based Origin studio.
This is not the end for Ultima or Wing Commander. Ultima Online will now be run from California, and development of Ultima X will continue on the west coast. Hopes that another Wing Commander game would be developed in Austin were dashed long ago; the longtime belief that a California-based EA team would develop the next Wing Commander title may, ironically, be bolstered by this news.
What it is, however, is a tremendous moral loss on all fronts. Origin Systems will always be the ultimate symbol of gaming's greatest days, and its dissolution to a faceless corporate entity is, sadly, equally symbolic of the world today. Origin entertained, challenged and inspired our generation in a way that seems impossible today. Though the individuals who developed our games long ago moved on to greater careers, the very existence of the company itself continued to stand for something special; something amazing.
The CIC will continue to dedicate itself to Origin's legacy - we will redouble our efforts to archive anything and everything related to the company. We will strike to make the world remember what Origin meant. I wanted to end with a quote - something plithy and literary to express the meaning of such an ending. I came up with only this:
Instead... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Instead... (Score:2)
Origin died when Garriot was forced out (Score:5, Insightful)
Branding under one name, such as EA, is very attractive to corporations. Having "subsidiaries" with their own creative control is a big no-no for corporations. EA also pretty much ran Westwood Studios (famous for Dune, and C&C) down to the ground as well.
Origin may have died...but Ultima and Wing Commander will live on in our memories
Sivaram Velauthapillai
It's still living outside our memories too (Score:4, Informative)
origin. looking glass. why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe they're making their living on the kind of games I've generally considered "beneath me" - sports, car racing games and the like. But that leaves me wondering why they'd buy out a company that makes games in a totally seperate genre. What genre? Hardcore geek - Intelligent - True cyberpunk - Worth the money because the game is absorbing. Examples that I've played: System Shock 1 and 2, Asheron's Call, anything by blizzard, Deus Ex.
Did anyone ever play system shock 1? It was made by looking glass studios back in the early 80's. EA bought them. I just replayed that game a few months back. (took weeks of hacking just to get it to run on a modern machine) It's 20 years old, made on low budget, and it's STILL better than anything I ever played from EA.
It sounds to me like EA needs to parse out its game planning into seperate departments, because there's alot of talent that they've wasted in the process of assimilation. If they're aquiring good geek companies and making crappy geek games, they're losing something major.
My first guess is that they've got a non-geek calling the shots in what should be their insular geek games department. And that ain't good, because the mindset that makes Indy500 entertaining is not sufficient to keep a true geek satisfied.
If I don't like it, I don't play it. So in a way it's not a problem for me, but it saddens me that EA has taken so many good programmers off of interesting game projects, and cubbyholed them into EA style games.. all the while forgetting that it wasn't just programming that made the parent companies good. It was vision.
I can't help but hope that somebody at EA reads this, and somehow fixes the problem. It would be nice to be able to say: "I remember back when EA games weren't any good. It took them a while, but they finally got their act together."
Oh Good! (Score:2, Funny)
EA is too powerful (Score:4, Interesting)
2.) It markets the hell out of everything. NBA live for example has out sell Sega ESPN basketball every year. Soon competition from Sega might disappear and voila less competition again. They can keep the baskeball standard low for 5 years while they tweak their engine. Not good for consumer
3.) EA is losing quality yearly like M$ especially on the PC product line.
It all but happened years ago... (Score:3, Insightful)
Origin Haiku (Score:4, Funny)
not soon forgotten by us
Long live Ultima
You mean, this is news? (Score:5, Informative)
This development has been followed closely by a whole lot of people. Environmentalists freaked out about it, because it borders the Ballona Wetlands. The protest caused them to completely redesign the site *and* include several acres of wetlands restoration (because Hughes Aircraft, the former owner of the site, was none too kind to the native flora and fauna). Urban planners and designers are fascinated to see if the site can work, because it incorporates a lot of new (old) ideas, such as a mix of uses, high-density development, and a range of income groups.
When they originally were planning the site, Dreamworks SKG had just formed up, and was going to move in as the big anchor office tenant. When the project was massively delayed, they backed out, and one of the big issues was finding another tenant to take over that huge, state-of-the-art space. EA finally anted up late last year. They're cashing out their Irvine, San Jose, and Austin locations, and consolidating everything there.
If they're paying moving costs, it's a pretty good deal for folks moving, especially from San Jose. Units in Playa Vista start in the low $200k range, and the complex has a *ton* of amenities (including its own childcare center, market, and amphitheatre). Every unit has broadband built in and I think even data jacks in the walls, and the complex has its own intranet for reserving rec rooms, checking out events, and so on.
Frankly, I wouldn't mind living there myself... my husband feels it's a bit remote, though (you'd never guess you're in the second-largest city in the country; Lincoln Blvd. looks empty except for Playa Vista). It's between Venice and Marina del Rey, though, just about 5-10 minutes in one direction or the other.
I'm sure that they're counting on the consolidation saving them on staff, and it sucks that some people will lose their jobs. Me, I'm not crying about them bringing a whole mess o' jobs into Los Angeles, since I live here, but I suppose it does suck for those in the locations they're closing. I don't know if it's a good business move for them... unless they're changing their (fraudulent) policies on MMOG billing*, they'll have no business from me for a while, so who knows? But it's an interesting development, to be sure, from many perspectives.
*Used to have an Earth and Beyond account. Discovered from personal experience (twice) and a guildmate's experience that E&B accounts *always* expire two days before they are supposed to (according to the date that comes up on the screen to nag you EVERY FRICKIN' TIME you log in, after you've cancelled). You have to call them, during business hours, to get it fixed. Sure, they'll fix it right up, but oh... you got booted in the middle of a battle and now you can't log in, but they're closed? Pay up or die. I chose to leave my account permanently expired.
Open Source old projects? (Score:3, Interesting)
Probably not. Old games tend to just die, unfortunately.
Goodbye. (Score:4, Interesting)
EA destroyed Bullfrog, Origin,
What do they sell now ? The Sims
Some google cache links (Score:2, Interesting)
Rap Sheet - Ultima Series [google.com]
Rap Sheet - Wing Commander Series [google.com]
Wing Commander CIC [google.com]
Losing another "back in the day" developer (Score:3, Insightful)
Privateer 2 was something else: it didn't even bear the wing commander name nor Universe. Privateer 2 was the last DOS game I ever bought and never did complete it...I lost interest and had other things going on in my High School years.
But, hey, Sierra killed of my other favorite developer from back in the day, Dynmix or something like that...the folks that made the Aces series of flight sims. It was the gold standard until Combat Sim by microsoft came out...
I don't buy games anymore for computers. For starters, I use Macintosh now, second off, just don't have the time. Although its a shame to see such an old vetern fade away...
Story of a Game (Score:3, Insightful)
In 1990 I was finally able to fulfill that longing in the rec room of the Tiger's Claw, where there was, you guessed it, a standup video arcade simulation. Before I ever flew a mission I got scores in the millions fighting wave after wave of Dralthi. From then until the fireworks at the end, I was totally absorbed in the world that was Wing Commander. For the next several years, every time an expansion came out I was there. Malcom McDowell, Mark Hammell, John Rheys-Daves and even Ginger Lynn Allen!
In 1996 Chris Roberts, the man behind the Eing Commander Universe left for two projects. One is Digital Anvil [gamespot.com] the other was an extension of the movie sequences.
When Wing Commander [imdb.com] hit the big screen in 1999 Chris finally made it to the big screen himself as the pilot of the salvage ship that rescues 1st Lt Blair.
Chris went on to Freelancer [gamespot.com] and other games, and we've moved on as well. But Chris and the whole team at Origin will always be remembered as the ones who first brought true 3D space combat to a computer near us!
Origin games from a different angle (Score:3, Interesting)
Crusader: No Remorse and No Regret however, were amazing. To this day I wish someone could figure out how to get them to run on WinXP systems (Installer refuses on non-win9x and no compatiblity didnt help) so i could spin through them again.
Re:OK. And... (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people don't feel too bad about killing chickens for meat since chickens don't appear to be persons. Unfortunately, many also see nothing wrong with ignoring the effects of relocations and whatnot on the people at the company.
Re:OK. And... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying this is definitely the case, but while corporate management may be heartless, it usually isn't malicious. You make it sound like they're moving people just to have something to do.
Re:OK. And... (Score:2, Interesting)
not under capitalism (Score:2)
Within that context (of capitalism), employees are not humans. Instead, it is more appropriate to call them worker-consumer ants. You are just building the colony for someone. You are quite replaceable. You are nothing! If you can't work as wanted by the capitalists, you
Re:OK. And... (Score:2)
Re:Sigh.. EA takes another... (Score:2)
Why they buy... (Score:2)
Think of all the bank mergers in the late 90's/early 2000's - guess who made all the money on those deals? Tons and tons of jobs lost, communities without competing banks, and a lot of wasted effort and money. But the execs made off big time.
But it's also true that Origin just wasn't the same when Roberts left and Wing Commander fell apart.