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The Letter Was Written by NCsoft (Score:5, Informative)
... but contrary to official postings from 'General British' himself ...
If you bother to read the official document [libsyn.com] hosted by GamePolitics, Garriott claims that letter was fabricated while he was in quarantine from his space flight. And he claims its true intent was to deprive him of stock options he would have if he were terminated involuntarily. Since it sounded as voluntary termination in the letter, he no longer had these stock options:
22. Shortly after the "quarantine call," NCsoft prepared and presented an "open letter" to Mr. Garriott, announcing Mr Garriott's departure from the company. That letter was drafted by NCsoft but purported to be from Mr. Garriott to the Tabula Rasa players. The letter announced that Mr. Garriott was "leaving NCsoft to purse [new] interests." Though NCsoft's letter omitted details about the circumstances surrounding Mr. Garriott's departure, Mr. Garriott saw no reason at the time to object to these omissions, and he did not object to NCsoft posting the letter on the Tabula Rasa website.
23. With the benefit of hindsight, however, it appears that NCsoft's "open letter" was a prelude to the wrongful conduct by NCsoft to come.
E. NCsoft Re-Characterized Mr. Garriott's Termination as a Voluntary Departure, Depriving Mr. Garriott of the Full Value of His Stock Options.
Seems to boil down to whether or not his termination was voluntary or involuntary that determines if he could have exercised $27 million (not $24 million) in stock options.
Re:The Letter Was Written by NCsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Seems to boil down to whether or not his termination was voluntary or involuntary that determines if he could have exercised $27 million (not $24 million) in stock options.
Actually, it boiled down to when not if he could exercise his stock options. If his leaving was "voluntary" he would have to sell his stock options right away or risk them not being honored by NCSoft. If his leaving was involuntary, he'd have until June 2011 to decide when to exercise his stock. Because of his "voluntary" leaving, he had to exercise his stocks in a down market rather than being able to pick the right time to cash in.
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Re:The Letter Was Written by NCsoft (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:The Letter Was Written by NCsoft (Score:5, Informative)
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Perhaps, however, they did play:
Ultima III;
Ultima IV;
Ultima VI;
Ultima VII (parts one and two); and
Ultima VIII.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_British#Assassination_of_Lord_British [wikipedia.org]
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Yeah, but practically speaking, I doubt NCSoft has any Glass Swords (as distinct from a glass sword, and much to my sadness there is a difference) lying around.
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True, but since L.B. was in quarantine, maybe his Invul flag wasn't set and all they needed was a Wall of Flame.
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I really liked dropping the sign on his head. The poison bread in Ultima IX was kind of weak sauce. Killing him in Ultima VII was especially rewarding because you learned a little secret about him in the process.
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Unless you get him with the ships canon in Ultima ///.
I can't believe I remembered that..
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If you bother to read the official document [libsyn.com] hosted by GamePolitics, Garriott claims that letter was fabricated while he was in quarantine from his space flight
I find this sentence very amusing, but I think its because I'm working on the assumption that he is crazy and isn't actually going to space, and he locked him self in his room for a while.
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That would be a bad assumption. Google "Richard Gariott space" and you'll get a long list of news articles on his visit to the ISS, topped by an official web site for the event. He launched on Oct. 12 and returned to Earth Oct. 23.
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That would be a bad assumption. Google "Richard Gariott space" and you'll get a long list of news articles on his visit to the ISS, topped by an official web site for the event. He launched on Oct. 12 and returned to Earth Oct. 23.
Google Owen K and you get his dad - making them teh first father / son pair to fly into space and both did it to space stations. (Skylab and ISS)
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Technically I haven't stopped I'm still giggling about it
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Richard Gariott was actually supposed to be the very first space tourist. I believe he paid first, but didn't go up until later. And it is a little known fact that his dad was an astronaut.
Actually I think it is extremely cool that he spent his fortune living out childhood dreams (building a castle with trap doors, jousting, going into space, etc).
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That all sounds incredibly fishy to me. The guy loses a fortune as the stock market tanks, tries to claim that his voluntary resignation was forged to get back that money, then says he didn't notice said forgery because he was in quarantine (they don't allow phones and the internet in health quarantine, wtf?).
Man that whole story stinks like an unemployed WoW player and raises more questions than the old guy in a college class.
hm (Score:2)
24 million dollars?
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Lord British (Score:2, Informative)
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Akalabeth Rules!
Re:Lord British (Score:4, Informative)
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Yeah, seriously, wtf?
His game persona should be pretty well known to anyone who would care about the games enough to post a story to /.
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His game persona should be pretty well known to anyone who would care about the games enough to post a story to /.
So then what is your excuse for not knowing that in Tabula Rasa his persona was called General British?
In anticipation of next week's launch of Tabula Rasa, we would like to invite you to join us in our end of beta event. The Tabula Rasa team will be playing and challenging you to take on General British himself on Friday, October 26, 2007 from 10:00 PM to 11:59 PM Central Time.
http://www.playtr.com/news/latest_news/the_tabula_rasa_end_of_beta_event.html [playtr.com]
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And his dad being an astronaut is "little known"? Huh..."I'm going to space just like my dad...." was one topic of convo at dinner with him.
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The *game character* being General British doesn't change the fact that his *in real life* nickname is Lord British.
And for the game Tabula Rasa he used the name General British hence that is why it was used in the summary.
I call Lord British to the stand! (Score:3, Funny)
Suddenly, with Garriott on the witness stand, Rainz, cleverly disguised using his 'Appearance as Matlock' spell - reaches into his briefcase and produces a fire scroll!!!!!!!!!!
Alas, Bailiff Blackthorne could not reach him in time...
Question (Score:2)
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The options are just an agreement to sell a number of shares at a set price. If NCSoft was worth $10/share when the options were cut, and is worth $20/share now, then Richard Garriott could buy the stock directly from the company for $10/share, then turn around and sell it for $20/share on the open market. If the stock is currently only worth $5/ a share, then he would still buy at $10/share, but wouldn't be able to gain any profit at all from a sale.
NCSoft isn't paying him anything at all, they're just cut
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I don't understand how stock options work. Did NCSoft save money by forcing Richard Garriott to exercise his options 90 days early?
I don't know the specifics of this case, but it's very doubtful.
Usually stock options are extra stock the company issues at the set price.
In essence, they print up new shares - they don't buy them at the market rate - the cost to the company is close to 0.
Then they sell them to you. Far from costing them money, they actually make money.
But they're going to get the same amount of money whether you buy them today or 2 years from now.
(Because of inflation, money now is worth more than money later, but that's
The thread about this news got nuked on L2 forum (Score:5, Interesting)
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EA Bought Bioware (Score:5, Interesting)
EA owns the Ultima license. Bioware needs to hire Richard Garriot tomorrow and remake Ultima. The first three Ultima games had plots going all over the place. Most of the games don't run on modern computers, and many gamers today never played a single-player Ultima. But thanks to Ultima Online, they recognize the name.
Use the Dragon Age engine that Bioware made, and remake the original Ultima trilogy. I know he doesn't want to work for EA, but working for EA under Bioware probably wouldn't be that bad. Please, make this happen.
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All of the games minus Ultima 2 work just fine on my dual-core XP system, with or without DOS Box. Ultima 2 gives constant divide overflow when attempting to run.
I just whipped out my Ultima 1-6 Disc from back when I purchased the 6-pack games pack (Spear of Destiny, Ultima 1-6, Blackthorne, Stellar 7, etc.) just to check.
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I've gotten the games to work with Exult, Dosbox and the like, but most modern gamers wouldn't touch archaic games like that sadly. And while the plot/concepts of the second trilogy hold up really well, the first trilogy was very inconsistent. I'm not sure he knew what he was doing or planning back them.
Re:EA Bought Bioware (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the interesting things about the Ultima V: Lazarus project, which was a remake of U5 based on the Dungeon Siege engine, was that several spells and features from the original 8-bit release couldn't be implemented safely. (You can't teleport around in dungeons, among other things.)
The old-school 2D worlds had some real advantages when it came to game-design freedom. If you wanted to implement an airplane, you changed the player icon into a 14x16-pixel airplane, made the speaker play a repetitive clicking sound, and turned off collision detection. Need a teleport spell? Just generate pairs of random numbers from 0-63 and accept the first pair that lands on an empty tile. It took about 10 minutes to add a new monster via the 2D tile editor; no need to submit a request to the art director, coordinate with the animators, and hope you're not setting the schedule back another week or blowing the texture-memory budget.
Bottom line, the first three Ultimas were chock full of stuff that would be a nightmare to implement in a modern game engine. Lighting, animation, physics, sound, and so forth don't just complicate the code base, they complicate all aspects of production. It'd be comparable to the difference between writing a chapter in a novel about dragons attacking a city, and shooting the scene in a $200M movie. Not to say it can't be done, or that it shouldn't be done, but what you end up with will not be a very faithful heir to the originals.
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I think it is largely forgotten how much RG pushed the technical boundaries. Ultima 1 had some weird elements like space flight. Would it be removed for technical reasons in a newer title, or would it be removed because it was wacky and took away from the original title?
From a story perspective, I'd like to see him revisit the original trilogy of kill-the-big-baddie and try to put a spin on it. He put that concept on its head, in Ultima IV-VI, but those games feature abstract concepts that are best handl
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Bioware has no qualms taking as long as they want to make a quality game, and won't release something unless they are happy with it (like Blizzard). Look at all the time they are taking with Dragon Age.
I think it would behoove him to hook up with a company with established, talent RPG writers and designers, who also have a great piece of technology in the Dragon Age engine.
Bioware also started a MMO studio in Austin and hired up the last remaining remnants of his Origin staffers in Austin. Even though EA
Transcript of Richard Garriott's team of lawyers: (Score:4, Funny)
Iolo: "...Ask Dupre about that."
Dupre: "...Ask Shamino about that."
Shamino: "...Ask Iolo about that."
He's got to pay for that space trip some how (Score:2, Funny)
He said it cost him virtually all of his savings to pay for it. Or was that, it cost him all of his virtual savings? Either way....he needs more money. Afterall, Lord British can't be seen in a Hyundai.
Mr. Smith sez: (Score:2)
No, but it'd be perfectly acceptable for Lord British to ride a talking horse.
This will be the plot of Ultima XI (Score:2)
NC Soft and teh Guardian team up to destroy Lord British. With the crack lawfirm of Dupre & Fitzowen, Esq advising your moves, you'll have to collect the contracts from the Sandallwood Box, travel to the Shrine of Justice in Yew, convince the Magistrate there that Brittania law applies to South Korea, then track down the vile Chung Blackthorn II.
Confronting him in his underworld lair from which the Exodus Lineage Server farm runs, you will defeat them, take their funds for a return to space...
How big a bomb was Tabula Rasa? (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason I said these things is Mr. Garriott seems to have a lot of grandiose ideas, but is incapable of implimenting them himself. Has he coded anything himself since Ultima 2 or 3?
Anyway, he comes up with ideas, gets others to pay him for them, and when these ideas don't actually work. It's everyones fault but his own.
After all, he's the idea guy. It's not his fault, you couldn't make it happen. Or that you didn't understand. That you didn't *get it*
It was a great idea.
The failure is yours.
So of course, someone, somewhere, owes Mr. Garriott a great deal of money.
And he should get it.
He can use it to buy himself a sense of shame.
Re:Who the fuck? (Score:5, Informative)
Richard Garriott is one of the better-known fucking game developers, his first games came out at the end of the fucking 70's. He created the entire fucking Ultima series, including Ultima Online, which was one of the first fucking MMOs. He gained the fucking nickname "Lord British" in school because his friends thought he sounded like he had a fucking British accent (he's American though, and lives in fucking Texas), and in his Ultima series the fucking ruler of the land was a character called Lord British whom he fucking modelled after himself (visually, anyway), and he used the fucking name to credit himself ("a fucking Lord British game"). The game he developed with NCSoft, who he's now fucking suing, was called Tabula Rasa and his fucking in-game persona was instead called "General British". He alleges that NCSoft fucking fired him and did so in a way that they claimed he fucking voluntarily left, thereby forcing him to sell his fucking stock options for a lower price than he would have gotten had he been allowed to retain them according to his fucking employment contract, which said that if he was fucking fired (as opposed to leaving voluntarily), he was allowed to keep his fucking options until 2011.
So that's what the fuck is going on.
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Re:Who the fuck? (Score:5, Funny)
Need moar fucks.
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Re:Who the fuck? (Score:5, Funny)
We all do.
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So that's what the fuck is going on.
Fucking heck, I have no fucking mod points for that. Though, fucking insightful or fucking funny? Not sure which fucking which.
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It's cool, it's the fucking thought that counts.
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-fractoid, the Learned, Impartial and Very Relaxed.
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Excellent, my quest to discover the /. account of Jonathan Burroughs has finally met success.