Lord British Returns To Ultima Online

Thanks to Origin for their news release announcing Lord British is returning to the world of PC MMORPG Ultima Online. The article trails: "Talk circulates throughout the land of the return of a figure from Britannia's past, whose whereabouts have been shrouded in mystery for these many moons", and GameShark has contacted NCSoft Austin, where Ultima creator Richard 'Lord British' Garriott now works (and where he has even introduced Lord British's character into Lineage), and reports that "Richard Garriott... gave [Origin/EA] permission to reintroduce the character into the world of Ultima. Origin apparently made a deal with Richard that allowed them to use the character if they had Richard's blessings."

great

[Dreadlord]

Lord British used to be one of my fav characters, and i play lots ultima online, with the character back, I guess I won't have much time for any other game :/

I thought...

[Polo]

I thought he was dead. ;)

Wow

[Snowspinner]

Considering how tightly Garriott has held onto that persona in the past - to the point of very deliberately blurring the line between Lord British and himself, allowing a company he is no longer at all associated with to continue using it is somewhat surprising - especially considering that the relationship between Garriott and EA has not always been cordial.

Then again, now that Garriott no longer has any rights to the Ultima line, which Lord British was always associated with, maybe he's just letting go of the past and moving on to entirely new ventures.

Re:Wow

[green.vervet]

That's true. Last I heard he was dressed up in tights and a cape fighting crime in Texas under that name.

Re:Wow

[neostorm]

Or NCSoft isn't doing so well in the states and he received large sums of money in exchange for "leasing" the name to EA.

This surprised me too, so I wonder what could have happened to make him turn partial use of the name over to them.

This also makes me wonder if this is just for the current UO and if EA is planning to put British in UOX as well.

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Then again, now that Garriott no longer has any rights to the Ultima line, which Lord British was always associated with, maybe he's just letting go of the past and moving on to entirely new ventures.

Maybe it's a sign that the therapy is working and he's beginning to realize that this is no way for a grown man to behave.

Re:Wow

[Lust]

...or perhaps he's getting paid a huge wad of cash.

Richard Garriott

[Henry V .009]

The headline made me think that Richard Garriott was returning to create more Ultima games. I have read a couple interviews with him, and think that he has an interesting take on game design. I never got a chance to play any of the Ultima games--though I remember reading reviews of them in the gaming magazines when I was little. Virtue in gaming seems like a very interesting idea given what we usualy see in games.

It's not the same

[tessaiga]

Lord British in UO was cool because he was Richard Gariott; running into him was kinda like a celebrity sighting. It's nice for story continuity that Gariott is letting Origin put Lord British back in, but it's not going to have the same "wow" factor now that it'll just be some random Origin rep behind the keyboard.

Bringing Back the Dead?

[Gothic_Walrus]

If I remember correctly, Lord British was killed during the UO Beta test phase. His character was supposed to be invincible, but because of a bug in the game, one of the players managed to kill him.

So...how do you bring back a dead man?

Re:Bringing Back the Dead?

[Gothic_Walrus]

Aha. After a quick Google search, I found a site that's got an interview with the player who killed Lord British, and the official response from the Ultima Online team. That site is here [noctalis.com].

Re:mod parent DOWN

[Alex2000]

oops

I didnt mean the parent. I ment the post with the link. And I had 2 points. The second was that the page was so old that 2 out of the 3 linked items were broken.
If you are going to post something for some quick Karma, at least point to a useful page.

Like this one [aschulze.net]

One that has pictures and the official response and the interview without broken links.
All it took was a 2 second google search.

Re:Bringing Back the Dead?

[neglige]

So...how do you bring back a dead man?

Ah, thats easy. Think "Alien 4" or "Star Wars 5" :)

Re:Bringing Back the Dead?

[WWWWolf]

Oh, easy, they just dragged his body to Lord British for resurrection...

...oh, wait a minute...

More like Lord Furry

[Mr. Darl McBride]

How many times has this guy "left the fandom" and come back again?

You reach a certain age, and you're supposed to stop with this childish crap.

More important, the return of plots

[Hythlodaeus]

More importantly, this also marks the return of human-run plots. UO's volunteer quest-makers were axed 2 years ago, along with the volunteer customer support and newbie-helpers, when EA got skittish about possible lawsuits like the one brought against AOL by its volunteers. Since that time, UO tried to make do with plots events scripted in code, rather than enacted by DM-like volunteers.

The return of Lord British was the first event enacted by the new Event Moderators - contracted employees doing pretty much what the former volunteers did. At least half of them are former volunteers, only now paid by the hour.

I think this is a very important positive step for UO, as the lack of human intelligence behind plot characters really sucked the soul from the game. Plots scripted by humans (sometimes partly on the spot) was, and will be again, one of the primary differentiating factors that sets UO apart in an increasingly crowded MMOG marketplace.

Re:More important, the return of plots

[FourPak]

This is excellent news - the return of GM run Storyline Events!

Now if only other mmogs would do this too. "Story" was what UO was always -supposed- to be about, and in fact that was what they Did for the first month or so after release. (before the pk-griefers ruined the game)

I fondly remember the Shrine Wars campaign, The Lich Twins, the Ogre Brothers, the mysterious Hermit who took up residence in Britannia for a time, etc., etc. You'd log into the game and something would actually BE GOING ON in the

RIP "Lord British"

[evil-osm]

No Lord British = Not an Ultima
No Richard Garriot = Not Lord British

Thanks for the series Richard, I'm really looking forward to your next creations. Here's hoping they will be as influential as the past ones.

P.S. Think "single player"... wink wink :)

Re:RIP "Lord British"

[SpiritHex]

lool yea, can't believe the freek still shops at K-mart what an ass.

Sucks even more that diz freek is sum kind of world famous multigazilionaire sumabeetch with 40ish games attached to his name, sum asocial degenerate who wasted half his life contributing to life by creating fantastic fantasy worlds, entertaining and dazzling many since 1979.

Sum reject who'll end up going down in video game history, quietly and comfortably passing away from his giant 25,000-square-foot-estate-up-ur-psycho-azz-castle .

T

Re:RIP "Lord British"

[gl4ss]

well i understood the whole freakking title as that garriot would be returning to the uo team..

obviously this is not the case.

luser

[fragged one]

honestly, i could care less about richard garriot and uo, what i want to know is if he is still wasting his time and money building a castle along lake austin?

wait....is that why? is mr. garriot running out of money for his brick and mortar? ahh, i see...the truth is revealed...

He left?

[JolieBlanc]

Admittedly, I stopped playing UO years ago, but when I was still playing Lord British was still around. It was indeed a celebrity sighting to be running around and suddenly walk right into the -real- Lord British. It was highly cool.

On the Lake Superior server, a bunch of us staged a RP event that lasted for like months, 'The Rebellion of Trinsic'. The city of Trinsic basically seceded from Lord British's realm, citing poor government as the reason. We had rebels in one color, loyalists in another, and we'