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Games Entertainment

Richard Garriott Claims Moon, Plans New Brittania 95

Posted by timothy from the dark-side-or-light-side? dept.
kennon42 writes: "Lord British says he is reuniting his old Origin team. Will they rise again to dominate the industry? Lord British owns the moon!" Self-declared "Industry Elder" Richard Garriott may have been less visible for a little while, but if anything it sounds like he's gotten more ambitious as he plans his next venture. Funny, free-wheeling interview -- I only wish it had been a little longer, and addressed games for Open Source OSes, too. And yes, he's claiming the moon.
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Lord British Owns The Moon, Plans New Brittania More

Lord British Owns The Moon, Plans New Brittania

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  • richard garriot (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    He was good at writing RPGs in basic for really old low end hardware, i think ultima 9 shows he has no clue about how to implement a 3d engine. Of course i say screw 3d, do it ultima 7 style, if he has sense and says screw the hype and goes 2d, it will be awsome. The guy knows how to make a pretty good story, although ultima 9 was also a little on the linear side. Ultima 7 was awsome, that was the ultimate. If he is smart he will get a kick ass artists, writiers, voice actors, and some programmers who can deliver a finished project by the deadline. Ultima 7 is masterpeice, ultima 9 was exceptable, after it was finished, unfortunatly that was several months _after_ it went on sale. ultima 8, that one was ok, beat it and all, so it had to be kinda engrossing, but if this guy is smart he will say screw the trendy shit and make a old style ultima 7 type with todays graphics and sound.

  • Re:Reunite the Looking Glass team (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Look to Ion Storm Austin...many ex LG'ers now work there with Warren Spector, on the Thief 3 project. In fact, I believe that Terri "voice of SHODAN" Brosius is running the Thief 3 show over there as well...

  • Re:Point Of Information: Akalabeth (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Yes, he has read Tolkien and he's a Tolkien fan. There's hints throughout his games. In Serpent Isle for example, there is a swamp called "Gorlab", now read that backwards :)
    Also, the runic alphabet he uses comes directly from Tolkien (with some minor adaptation of how it is mapped to out alphabet). I could read Tolkien's silverscroll map or whatever it was, because I knew the runes from Ultima... remember Tolkien was a professor for nordic languages, he made that alphabet.
    There's probably more from Tolkien hidden in Ultima, don't know.
    elen sila lumenn omentielvo if I remember correctly... (I know, the punctuation is wrong)
    CU Drax

  • games for open source OSes (Score:4)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 15, 2001 @09:51AM (#290201)
    I only wish it had been a little longer, and addressed games for Open Source OSes, too.

    What were you hoping to hear? "Yes, we enjoy losing money, so our next Ultima will be delayed while we waste time porting it to Linux"?
  • Blast those cheap Chinese flagpoles! To hell with them all I say! Next time we go to the moon we should use quality American made flagpoles that won't blow over when your lunar module takes off!
  • First off, how was my post offtopic? Do you moderators even bother to read the articles? This guy is claiming ownership of the moon because he bought a scrap of junk the Russians left there from an unmanned landing. If *anyone* can claim rights to the moon it'd be the USA. We're the only nation to ever set foot on another celestial body. That's a huge accomplishment that has never been repeated by any nation. As for the British... if they landed men on the moon hundreds of years ago I think that'd be news to everyone here. PS: Moderators, you really need to get a sense of humor. Sheesh. :-)
  • The United States of America owns Earth's moon silly people! We planted our flags up there and claimed it for the USA. If you don't like it, go up there and knock our flags down and put your own up. :-)
  • Newish games I have enjoyed fairly recently, technology or not:
    • Black and White
    • Diablo 2
    • FAKK 2 (well, that was last summer)
    • Counterstrike
    I'd have to say that there have been some good games out there.

  • Actually, I heard Joseph Campbell attended a private screening of Star Wars at Lucas' ranch just before he died.

    --
    Marc A. Lepage (aka SEGV)
  • True, but on the Apollo 15 mission another flag was erected.

    -rl
    ---

  • I know why he wants to claim the moon!! (Score:3)

    by dustpuppy ( 5260 ) on Sunday April 15, 2001 @08:45AM (#290208)
    It's so he can get a good position for a castle or tower - there's simply not enough room on Britannia these days.

    And then he'll have all the spawn to himself without having to worry about PKers - lucky bastard!

  • Reunite the Looking Glass team (Score:3)

    by SurfsUp ( 11523 ) on Sunday April 15, 2001 @11:15AM (#290209)
    I'd like to see the Looking Glass team reunited, the guys who built Ultima Underworld, one of the best first person role players ever. (Update the graphics and re-release please:-)

    I believe Seamus Blackley was one of the original members, but I could be wrong, maybe he joined later. Now of course he's under the mind control of billg, and will attempt to further the interests of the dark side by devoting all his talent to xboxing.

    Looking Glass had some kind of close relationship with Origin when they did Ultima Underworld. I suspect the Origin guys did much of the game design and QA, because I never did see anything quite like it in terms of play value, even later from Looking Glass/Blue Sky. I guess there must have been friction too, because after UW2 I don't think they ever worked together again.

    *Sigh*
    --

  • Hmmm. Richard Garriot claims the moon because he has property there....

    Do you actually own something that was left on the moon?

    Yes. I purchased Lunakod 21 from the Russians. I am now the world's only private owner of an object on a foreign celestial body. Though there are international treaties that say, no government shall lay claim to geography off planet earth, I am not a government. Summarily, I claim the moon in the name of Lord British!

    Meanwhile, John Carmack is busy trying to build serious rockets [armadilloaerospace.com].

    Something is going on here.....

  • The Longest Journey got rave reviews, but sold only a pathetic 500 copies in America last year.

    Actually according to PC Data of Reston, VA The Longest Journey sold 351 copies from 1 Jun to 31 Dec 2001. Yes, the game was excellent according to every reviewer and gamer I talked to about it, but it was also independantly published by Funcom (soon to be MMORPG entrant for Anarchy Online [anarchy-online.com]. To win market share, you need big bucks. I hope Funcom can do better with AO than it did with TLJ.

    Meanwhile, I just bought Sam and Max from the Lucasarts retail page. There's big bucks for you. And it runs on a 386.
    --

  • We all know Richard Gariott has the ability to write games that acptivate us for a long time. Ultima was one of the most successful franchises in gaming history, and Ultima Online (no matter how damaged the game is) is still going nice and strong.

    Now that UO2 has been cancelled and there's almost an entire dev team frothing at the mouth to start work on TNBT, Gariott's non-compete runs out...

    Buckle your seat belts, kids. It's gonna be a fun ride.
    --

  • We've had a lull in the gaming world for the past few years. All technology, no development in gameplay.

    Is this guy gonna change anything?
  • Well, online gaming may have been a big development, but it doesn't directly effect funfactor.

    Online gaming is a word I generally fear.

    There have been several series(es?) that I've wanted to play, but have gone online. I cannot devote any substantial time to something like that. Regular intervals are also hard to keep consistent.

    It seems to me that much on online gaming is focused on long, drawn-out games that require one to spend lots of time.

    On the other hand, maybe it's just that the best new games are more involved, and I'm just upset to not have the time to play them.

    But really, games' ability to keep me(typical gamer?) interested has diminished. Maybe it's age.

    Another 2 cents.
  • I can't believe no one's mentioned Tribes/Tribes2 in terms of great new/newish games. Teamplay is a -lot- more advanced than in the (imho) highly overrated Counterstrike.
    I agree with suggestions regarding Deus Ex, though. There need to be more games like DE or System Shock 2 (FPS/RPG hybrids)
  • I think we might be alright here. I saw a special report on FOX a couple of weeks back that PROVED that man hasn't been on the moon, and can't go. You see, there's a crater on the ground in Area 51, and a building big enough to shoot a movie in, so the whole moon thing was faked. Plus, there is radiation in space, so we can never get to the moon alive. An investigative reporter said so, so it must be true!

    --
  • Old, low end hardware? Are you mad? U7 was the first game EVER to REQUIRE a 386. U6 was the first game I ever saw in 256 color VGA. (Amiga users need not chime in. I know your computer was cool back in the day.) U8 had people lining up for new computers. Then it sucked. U9 did the same, and sucked (although not QUITE as much. Almost...but not QUITE).

    The earliest Ultimas were running on low-end hardware...but that's all there WAS. Ever since, Ultima has been pushing the technology envelope until it shredded.
  • However as Joseph Campbell says in Hero With A Thousand Faces: "A schism in the body social, will not be resolved by any scheme of a return to the good old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements. Only birth can conquer death-the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new."
    does anybody know more about Joseph Campbell? It's very interesting to see somebody straight out of my D&D-induced youth say something so profound - in a game magazine interview, of all things. does anybody know more about Joseph Campbell?

    computer games will be an art form like film and books. the time is here.
  • April 15, 2001: Richard Garriott, also known as Lord British, has claimed the moon. He was the leader of a company named Origin, which produced the successful game Ultima Online. Among his ambitious plans, he sees a future for the currently arid moon. Natalie Portman has sanctioned his plans for a petrified-people museum, much like a wax museum. This museum will be the first one of its kind on the moon, and a small city will be built around it. The city will include numerous strip joints and restaurants, some of which will only serve hot grits.

    Meanwhile, the United Nations is sending an army corp of 6,352 soldiers to combat the 1,202,379 "Knights of Lord British" that have set themselves up on the moon through secret launches sponsored by Origin, which had, incidentally, been losing money and laying off employees.

    Local "Slashdotters" tend to side with Lord British, although some side with the UN, as Lord British also plans to set off atomic explosions on the surface of the moon in such a pattern that the side of the moon facing the earth will look like a smiley face.
  • Not having ever owned a DOS or Windows PC, I haven't paid attention to Ultima for a long time. I do remember walking into Egghead software, back when they still sold Apple II software, and getting my copy of Ultima V as soon as it was released. At that time, they were just getting around to releasing the IBM (as PC was called then) version of Ultima IV. I probably still have my "Ultima V: The Wait is Over but the Excitement Has Just Begun" t-shirt. I had a Mockingboard for my IIe, and hooked it up to a pair of old speakers. The computer was in our study, so my parents got to listen to those repetitive Ultima songs over and over and over until I finished the game. And then, of course, the Apple II world collapsed, although as a die-hard Apple II fan (I read A2-Central and loved Beagle Bros Micro Software (established $7BC)) it took me quite a while to realize this. I kept hoping Ultima VI for the Apple II would be released--there were rumous all over the place that it had actually been completed but never released. I suppose now that my Mac G4 would be fast enough to run the PC versions of Ultima VI and VII under emulation, if I ever wanted to revisit that experience of my youth...


  • On a trip to the states in 90/91, I read in the National Enquierer (.. I know..) about some mad american scientist who wanted to blow a huge chunk off the moon and land it on the earth so all of America would have californian weather all year round. I guess he agrees with you then :)

  • You can play ultima VII (and Serpent Isle) with Exult : http://exult.sourceforge.net/

    As the original executable required a pure blank DOS boot, they have rewritten the whole engine from scratch and it now works on a lots of different platforms (MacOS included). You still need the original datafiles...
  • It was indeed a fantastic game, except for one thing : the UI sucks big time. Using the inventory system is a real pain in a**.
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • We've had a lull in the gaming world for the past few years. All technology, no development in gameplay>

    Just because you don't associate with the games out there doesn't mean there aren't good games out there.

    And I agree that there has been technology development going on, but if you're looking at who's doing the big
    technology development, also look at who's using that technology. How many games out there are built on the
    Quake engines, the Unreal engine, or the LithTech engine?

    A lot of technology advancements are made in those engines, and then licensed off to people
    making the games.

    If you're looking for some good games, try looking at:

    Fallout
    Deus Ex
    Jagged Alliance 2
    HomeWorld
    Tribes

    Each of those titles are different styles of games. Sure some of them are not the FIRST with that technology or
    gameplay style, but how does that make them less enjoyable?

    Good luck.
  • Because the moon is already owned. [tercera.cl] (Link is in Spanish only; use the Fish [altavista.com] or the Gist [copernic.com])
    --
  • Yeah, sure. Wonder who Nixon asked for permission before sending them to the moon? [tercera.cl] (Gajardo claimed it in 1953, beat it...) :-P
    (Sorry for repeating this...)

    Oh, and those guys from moonshop are asking money for nothing. :-P
    --

  • I think what he was trying to say is that console rpg's suck, especially when compared to the breadth of experience found in PC rpg's.

    I know a lot of people are going to start screaming "FF!" "Chrono-something!" But get over it. Poster above identifies the two major distinctions between a popular console rpg and a pc one, I'm simply going the step further by making a value judgement (tho that doesn't excuse my potentially trollish behaviour, ah wellL:)

  • Getting the old crew together (Score:3)

    by smoondog ( 85133 ) on Sunday April 15, 2001 @08:10AM (#290229)
    It is funny how old classic game makers getting together sounds a little like old rock-n-roll bands doing reunion tours. I have I hopes for a breath of fresh air, but like most old reunions, you still just want to hear the old songs. 'cause the new stuff is flat and uninspired.

    -Moondog
  • It's not a waste if you develop the game on Linux, which many of us find to be a much more productive and stable environment than Windows.

    However, the interview had nothing to do with technical details.

  • I'd say those two represented a 'sweet spot' in game technology. You could walk through an almost-3D world and interact with loads of items. But the engines ran fine on a 486, and left enough spare CPU cycles for the NPC's to have fairly involved schedules. Walk into a bakery, and the shopkeeper would be going through the motions of baking bread. At 6:00pm, he/she would head to the inn for dinner, then head home to sleep.

    Plus, the relative simplicity of U7's engine (compared to today's 3D games), and the lack of voice-actors, made it possible for the developers to create huge plots, with almost a novel's worth of conversations. If you disassemble Serpent Isle's 'usecode' file, you get around 10Mb of plot and text.

  • I like to make comparisons between the games industry and book-publishing. Imagine how great it would be if your favorite author announced that he/she would no longer be writing novels, but instead, would compile fan fiction based on their previous stories.

    The trouble with games like UO isn't that they're online, but that they don't have plots. I don't want to spend my time talking to a bunch of computer geeks like myself! I want to be entertained by someone who writes better than I can, and has different thoughts and ideas.

  • Nah think moon mounted laser cannons...

    "The Alan Parson's Project"

  • He must pay property taxes by the acre.

    uhm, to whom? I'll just claim sovereignty over the moon, and he can pay his taxes to me.


    ---

  • what about the bemani series? thats new, creative, and so so so so much fun.
  • Quite easily actually as Square doesn't really create RPGs. They create interactive movies.

    What I mean is, Ultima, and most of it's PC bretheren, are mostly non-sequential, non-scripted, "do what you will" environments in which you happen to "game".

    Final Fantasy, and it's ilk, are quite a bit different. Relying mostly a strongly scripted, entirely sequential, total lack of freedom environments in which you can count yourself lucky enough to even have a say in the combats.

    The only portions of an FF game that you get control over are those where you are running aroud the overland map doing "level runs" just so you can beat the next "boss" monster.

    Traditionally, in Ultima, you are also responsible for the inter-character conversations as well as runnning around the overland map on "level runs". However, in many of them, you are also able to bypass entire portions of the game through sheer cleverness (anyone remember the magic carpet in U7?), which isn't likely in a console RPG that keeps things under such a tight rein.

    The difference is obviously the fact that the interactive portions in the two style of games are entirely different. I believe it's the interactive aspect that differentiates the two, and what Garriot is talking about in his interview.

    Though I do agree that he probably should've mentioned Square, as they are the leaders in their branch of the RPG milieu. Though maybe he's only concerned with the PC space.

    -- kwashiorkor --
    Leaps in Logic
    should not be confused with

  • I think that the REAL reason, why he wants to claim the moon is that he wants to revert back to old weapons like catapults, yet keep their effectivenes also in these days. Wouldn't it be cool to have a place for your castle where you don't need building permit, have plenty of rock lying around and can use catapults as ultra modern weapons?

    Did you also read "Moon is harsh Mistress" from R.A.Heinlein as he obviously did?

  • my wife is getting into writting, and really has learned to enjoy fantasy and other epic scale stories and events. She has even expressed her concern to write a game at some point, with me doing the footwork. Now, I am not asking about the game side particularly (that is too big a subject) but both of us would be intersted in learning the ins and outs of plot and story development that could help us. Would you suggest (time is precious, and earlier it was posted that it is a bit of a difficult read) starting from front to back with his works (all of them) or just some of the better ones and maybe some other works directly inspired and staying true to form of Campbell's work?

    Not to sound lazy, but at this point of our lives we would not want to devote our entire existence to this, but want a good foundation to build on later. Thank you, for any suggestions

  • As LB pointed out, the US can't claim rights on the moon because they signed an international treaty. LB, as a nongovernmental power, could claim it (of course, the US will just make him give it back).
  • BTW, Star Wars and The Matrix are a few of the movies that follow the Hero Cycle pretty slavishly.
  • Not trying to insinuate that it's a bad thing, old chap. Just putting it in perspective. :-)
  • ...until of course anything valuable is discovered on it... or we need it for something (like to store stuff - or launch large rocks at foreign countries).

    ...and then take it by pure brutal ignorant millitary force.

    That's even cooler if all he is done is "claim it" but still lives in a house on earth... roll in the tanks, and bombers... better make sure you don't live next door to that guy... he's a target now...

    ...oh wait a second... he owns an object on the moon... and based on that has laid claim to the whole thing...

    Blast him anyway... carnage... chaos... destruction! Wait a second... all of that isn't embodied in millitary force...

    Ferrets! Chaos with fur, claws and an odd smell. Release the ferrets! They'll teach him a fuzzy lesson he won't soon forget - and the therapy won't be cheap either.
  • Brittannia is owned by the Queen of England! :P
  • I only wish it had been a little longer, and addressed games for Open Source OSes, too.

    The odds of Mr. Garriot doing a game for any of the Open Source OSes are slim-to-none, because Garriot is not a visionary like the rest of you Linux users. Garriot is a gamer and buisnessman, cut and dry. He's going to have his work cut out for him just developing for Windows and the majour consoles, let alone adding support for MacOS and others like Linux.

    This is why the X-Box could be such a hit. The X-Box graphics drivers should look at least a LITTLE like that for Windows; DirectX is something of a standard and I can't imagine them deviating from that too much. Programming for something that they're already familiar with and something that ports VERY easily to the PC will be a big incentive for developers. Why get their hands dirty with Linux for the few thousand copies it would sell? It's just like adventure games in America; the Europeans make plenty of them, but we never get them over here because they simply don't sell. For instance, The Longest Journey got rave reviews, but sold only a pathetic 500 copies in America last year. How can the Euros justify publishing toward that? It's the same thing for Linux & company.


  • He has written a lot [amazon.com] more than one book. For the lay person (and even many who are closely involved in the field), all scholarly discussion of myth begins and ends with Joseph Campbell's work.

  • I am not one of the scholars or lay persons mentioned above, I just had the unfortunate experience of dating someone who was ;)

    Keep in mind that I've only read a couple essays and excerpts of Campbell's and I'm not the most knowledgable source around, but as others have pointed out, his ideas of the Hero in myth and story telling is exemplified all over the place: Star Wars, The Matrix, Dune, The Hobbit, etc., etc. He didn't invent anything so much as he expertly researched common themes that have always been present throughout history in every culture and compiled his research in a scholarly format.

    You already know the Hero myth. Young person is forced into a destiny of greatness, starting with a long journey. There's wisened teachers along the way, trusty friends, challenges and setbacks that shape the Hero, and initial reluctance to fulfill the role fated for him/her. Eventually the Hero comes to accept his/her destiny, gains wisdom, meets the challenge and kills the Big Bad Guy(tm).

    There's a lot more to it if you really want to get into it, and the Hero was just one area of myth that Campbell focused on, but you get the general idea. If you want a totally textbook example of the Hero myth read David Edding's fairly wretched but very readable "Belgariad" series. By "readable" I mean it is written at a 10 yr. old's reading level, so you can finish all 5 in about as many days. By "wretched" I mean that he nailed the Hero theme so perfectly that the books come off as a boring cliche.

  • You'll be hard-pressed to find an Ultima fan who would agree that U8 was a brilliant success.
  • "...and then take it by pure brutal ignorant millitary force."

    My friend went through basic not too long ago and he mentioned nothing about the lunar assault training!

    Where do I sign up??

  • He owns Lord British. EA owns the trademarks and/or registered trademarks on Britannia, Avatar, Ultima, Origin, and "We Create Worlds."

  • Nah. He just thought the name was cool.

  • As a Tolkien fan, I'd like to inquire whether Akalabeth, one of R.G's first games has anything to do with Numenor [glyphweb.com], the downfallen island kingdom of the Edain.

    In the Elvish tongue of Sindarin, Akalabeth means "The Downfallen". It is also a name of a part in the Silmarillion that describes the downfall of Numenor.

    As a side note, the name does not come from Arabic (since the L in the definitive particle A(l) not cancelled before K, but Q).

  • At least so he says. He's even been selling plots. Here's the link [fanhosts.com] .
  • What about a britannia far flung from into the future?
  • >Most console games are stats based games? More stats based than
    >Ultima? It's always appeared to me that PC RPGs have far more
    >statistics and complicated math than console RPGs. Perhaps he
    >has more complex in mind in his "stats-based" vs. "playing a
    >role" categories.

    I think what he's really trying to compare are the different styles of MMORPGs... Look at his mention of EverQuest, for example. In EQ, the only real goal is to "get better." Get items and level up. Get items and level up. Get items and level up. It's really a boring routine and it tends to prohibit a lot of interaction - if you're just starting out, few EQ gods are going to take you under their wing, because you'd just be getting in the way.

    UO, on the other hand, is all about interaction, or at least that's what I took from it. Stats aren't the real priority for most people. Sure, when your mage is sitting there at 99.8 and you can't get those last two tenths no matter how much 8x8ing you do, you're gonna be concerned about stats... But I spent a lot more time in UO just talking to people and making spontaneous adventures with random people, than I did worrying about having 100int or GM parrying, etc.

    I never got into Final Fantasy. I've played a few times with friends, but it's always seemed like too much for me. I'd sit there watching a friend get ambushed by a group of monsters, then he'd flip through pages upon pages of items, spells, etc etc only to finally die or beat the monsters, and check (you guessed it) his stats. There was never anything to show for all that page-flipping and button pushing. Maybe I'm just more suited to online games.

    Garriott's on to something, I guess we'll just have to wait to find out what. But I know I won't be disappointed.

    Shaun
  • Exile III [spiderwebsoftware.com] was ported to Linux, and is one of the best Ultima-style games I've every played. The port is thanks to Boutell.com [boutell.com] and works marvelously.

    If only Spiderweb Software [spiderwebsoftware.com] would recognize that they should have more of their games ported to Linux...They were originally Mac-centric and have since been doing Mac->Windows ports.

  • He can have the moon but... (Score:3)

    by baywulf ( 214371 ) on Sunday April 15, 2001 @08:21AM (#290256)
    He must pay property taxes by the acre.
  • Actually, I believe that Queen Elizabeth owns "Britannia" and the royal family's "I.P." rights pre-date ultima............
  • Ah, fond memories of:

    Playing Ultima to win

    Getting bored, making a backup, and trying to kill Everything, including Lord British

    Greatest disappointment was getting to the bottom of the volcano and finding I didn't have an answer to some stupid question, which I had no clue would be required. (this at 4:00 am after a marathon 6 hour descent into it)

    Still, U2 is probably my favorite. Can be played in a couple hours and the dungeons aren't even necessary.

    I still think some middleground between the Unix Moria game, Ultima 4 and a mud would be great fun.

    --

  • Or Ultima 9 for that matter. Ultima 7 was the pinnacle of Ultima games IMHO.
    ====
  • I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so!
    ====
  • If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend Half-Life(single player, get CounterStrike if you want to play online). It's a pleasant blend of nice technology and intriguing story. I've played it all the way through something like 5 times.

    "// this is the most hacked, evil, bastardized thing I've ever seen. kjb"

  • Is it just me or does old Richard bare more than a passing resemblance to Tom Greene?
  • Panzer Dragoon Saga for the Sega Saturn is one of the greatest innovations that have ever been introduced to the gaming world. It really is too bad that only 10,000 copies were made in the States, but that just shows how braindead the Americans at SoA truly are.

    Sega/Sonic Team/Overworks/Team Andromeda are the only ones who know how to make a game correctly. Squaresoft, Lord British, and all these other lame ass companies don't know how to make a game worth shit...sure, they make nice eye candy, but that's all their good at; they don't know how to make good music or a decent story and therefore, they don't deserve a penny from the consumer.

    Why can't all games be like Panzer Dragoon Saga? Why? I think I have an answer to my own question; I think it's because there are far more braindead people than there are intelligent people, and since the braindead fools value money over art, the consumer suffers with a crappy product.
  • Yes, I have played most of Squaresoft's 'shit' and the only game that had a 'decent' story in it was Xenogears (and it was only cool because Nanotechnology was in the plot). If you are one of those 'idiots' who thinks that the Final Fantasy series contains any substance whatsoever, you're crazy. Final Fantasy has lame stories, it's not epic, and the music gets worse with each new version (you would think that since Squaresoft makes such good graphics, that they would at least make their music stop sounding like midi quality, and make it sound like red book audio or something instead) But do they do this? Nope. It's because there is no talent there in their sound and story development departments.

    Sure, Squaresoft makes 'wonderful' graphics and CG - but, as I said before, that's all they are good at, especially since the team who made Xenogears disbanded.

    Sega, on the other hand, has one hell of a 1st party development team (Sonic Team, Overworks, and Team Andromeda)...they know how to make graphics, sound, and story and combine them into one brilliant game. Phantasy Star and Panzer Dragoon Saga are perfect examples.

    Want to hear what Panzer Dragoon sounds like? Log onto Napster or WinMX and download Track 18 and the ending theme to the game and you will get a small taste at how wonderful this game is.
  • Though programming a game by yourself is impressive, I'm still one who prefers quality over anything. One person, alone, can't make quality...and the Ultima games are not quality whatsoever - I know, because I'm an old school gamer just like you. Dragon Quest, was a much better rendition of what Ultima should have been, but never was.

    By the way, I'm not putting down the 'legends' of the gaming industry by any means...I'm just saying that, as an artist, they need to put a little more effort into their work instead of rushing thing and giving a crappy product to the public and expecting them to pay $50-$60 for utter garbage.

  • Console games are stats based? (Score:3)

    by laserdance ( 249359 ) on Sunday April 15, 2001 @09:35AM (#290266)
    From the Interview...

    How do you feel about the new console RPGs?

    There are two kinds of "Role Playing Games" in my mind. Stats-based advancement games, like Diablo and EverQuest, which are very popular, but less interesting to me, and games where you play a role first and the leveling up is less a focus, like Thief and Ultima. Leveling games are easier to build and often more popular. Yet, I feel that when the craft of role-playing is mastered some day, they will be the most desirable. Most console games are stats based games, thus less interesting to me.

    Most console games are stats based games? More stats based than Ultima? It's always appeared to me that PC RPGs have far more statistics and complicated math than console RPGs. Perhaps he has more complex in mind in his "stats-based" vs. "playing a role" categories. Yet I fail to see how you could call advancement in Final Fantasy stats-based, and how could you describe console RPGs without describing Square?

  • I believe he meant "low end hardware" only in comparison to current pc's and 3d tech today.
  • "I only wish it had been a little longer, and addressed games for Open Source OSes, too."

    Maybe he, like the rest of the industry, knows that Linux will never be anything more than a hobbyist's OS and could care less about writing software for it?

    "The good thing about Alzheimer's is that you can hide your own Easter eggs."

  • I read in the National Enquierer (.. I know..) about some mad american scientist who wanted to blow a huge chunk off the moon
    Alexander Abian is the nutcase, err... scientist. He thought that the earth was in an imperfect orbit and that this was the caue of war, disease, famine and other sundry bad things. The reason for the imperfect orbit was the moon. Blow it up and then we'd be all better.
  • Garriott's on to something, I guess we'll just have to wait to find out what. But I know I won't be disappointed.

    I agree. He's been one of the greatest RPG-style game designers in computer gaming histroy (if not THE best), and every one of the Ultimas have been fantastic games for their time. There is the possible exception of Ultima IX, which was kinda shakey though it's pretty decent once you apply all the patches (except for it's semi-linear nature). But to be honest, you make 10 games and 9 of them in a row are hits, you have to expect an eventual not-so hit.

    The gaming industry is pretty stale right now. I enjoy Ultima Online, but outside of that there isn't really very much that is interesting. The last time that I got excited about gaming wass back in late 1998 and early 1999 with Half-Life and Thief. They finally brought plot and depth (and with Thief a twist) back to the first-person shooter genre. Everything since has just been duplication of what has come before.

    If anybody can bring us another new gaming paradigm or experience it would be Garriott. Whether that's a true 3D first-person or third-person interactive MMORPG with an emphasis on role-playing, I dunno. That seems to be the way that it's going. But I think that Garriott's head is definitely in the right place.
  • I jsut got it 6 months ago or so. Well I have a PIII 700 with 384MB of ram, and a GeForce DDR. Ok, so you figure the game ought to run steal, after all the on box recommendations are a PII 400mhz, 128MB ram and a Voodoo 3 (that's the recommended, not the minimum). Ha. The performance is best described as "barely adiquate". There is noticable shearing in many scenes and it drags in all occasions unless I'm in a cave or something. On my friends PII 450 with a Vooodoo 3 it's unplayable.

    For your friend, is he running it in Glide (3dfx's proprietary 3D API)mode or D3D? It will run much much faster in Glide mode. The game was originally coded to Glide and then "ported", so-to-speak, to Direct3D. This was because the game began development way back in the day before Ultima Online and 3dfx was king of 3D API's and Direct3D was barely a blip on the radar.

    Also, there were some definite issues with GeForce cards. I don't know if this was resolved with the GeForce2 or if later drivers eliminated it, but with some tweaking most GeForce owners got it to run fine. I had a K6-III 450 and an original TNT1 card and I got it to run just fine with some tweaking.

    Basically I feel Orign has really been going down hill lately, much to my dismay.

    Run into the ground by EA is more like it. Can't blame them tho, they're in it to make money the only way they know how, not by releasing quality engaging games that become instant classics. Think about what EA excels at. Quickly and cheaply producing games of average quality that sell for 3-6 months and then get shelved when the next version comes out (sports games). Lather, rinse, repeat. I liked them better when they were just a distributor.

    It's kinda sad though that Origin was what saved EA back in the day and then EA kept shitting on them. But it's that way ANY time a company buys out another company. The buyee always gets shit on.

    Each successive Ultima has been an even bigger dissapointment and now UO2 got canceled. I know many people are quick to get mad at EA for it but think about it: They wouldn't have canceled it without a good reason. MMRPGs are HUGE cash cows, there must have been some serious problems with it for them to put the axe on it.

    Depends on how you look at it. From the article, I gather that EA spent something like $10 million developing it and it still wasn't complete yet. Then the economy takes a temporary downturn, and the bean counters find out that it's going to cost another couple million to keep UO2 floating until release when they can begin recouping their money. Not knowing how long the economy is going to be down, they make a knee-jerk reaction that is better for short-term profits by killing the game. They write-off the money they've already spent, nobody knows where long-term profits will lead, but the investors stay happy.

    Honestly though, it looks like the next move for Ultima Online is going to have to be a fully first-person 3D perspective. Now that they have all the models done already (Third Dawn) and a 3D engine that looks pretty sweet (UO2), it shouldn't be too much work to begin melding them together. Otherwise, it's gonna be bye-bye UO in a couple years and there won't be an EA product to take it's place.

  • But "Utlima" is of course, so I bet it will defintily not been called like that :)

    Actually, from what I was reading around the time that Ultima IX released he wasn't planning on doing any more "Ultima" games. The intent was to make games of similar interest and depth but that with Ultima IX the world of Brittania and Ultimas (as far as he was going to be involved) was done.

    He was working on something called simply "X" before he left EA, and I gather that's what he was referring to in the interview.
  • On the other hand, maybe it's just that the best new games are more involved, and I'm just upset to not have the time to play them.

    That's more likely the case. I'm in the same boat as you. There are tons of online games and they fall into 2 categories:

    1. Quick pickup shooter matches (Quake III, Unreal Tournament) with no thought required.

    2. Long-term goal oriented games (UO, EQ, AC, Diablo II) that require varying degrees of thought and planning (even if it is just in how to level up) and a tremendous time investment to reach the status of the "average" player (I plaed Ultima Online off and on for 3 years before I had my first GM character!).

    Personally I'm kinda bummed because so much emphasis is placed on online gaming these days. I do play Ultima Online (more than I should probably), but I miss having quality, thoughtful games that you can play by yourself and save when you're busy and finish it later. The thing about online gaming is that the people who play it the most are those with the most time to devote to it. Persistent worlds are there 24/7 and the games that utilize them reward players who are also there 24/7 while penalizing people who are there once a week. Busy people like you and me don't get to play often enough to be "l33t d00dz", and our schedules make it hard to coordinate games with our similarly unl33t friends. So we kinda get stuck with very little value for online games.
  • Tolkien was a professor for nordic languages, he made that alphabet.
    Actually, the Dwarven runes used in the Hobbit come from actual Anglo-Saxon runes, with the exception of the Y, and one form of P. Other than that, they're almost identical.

    Gotta love runes. Always fun to scare the hell out of people who have no idea what you're writing. :)

  • Oh, then you will have noticed that the actual spelling is Challenged in your above post. Sorry....I couldn't resist it. I tried, really I did. :)

    BTW, ya know you yanks are nothin' but a colony anyway. Soon, the British government will claim what is ours...BWAAHAHAHAAAA!!

    ..Ahem...Sorry. Okay, okay, I'm going. No need to push.

    :)

    RM

  • No. He isn't. And you're a bit of a prick, if you don't mind me saying.

    RM

  • He owns the LB name but does he own Britannia (Score:3)

    by __Maad__ ( 263535 ) on Sunday April 15, 2001 @08:17AM (#290277)
    from the article:

    Is this the end of the Ultima universe and Lord British/Blackthorne?

    I own/am Lord British. A New Britannia shall rise!

    The question I'd like to have answered is, does Richard also own the rights to Britannia, or does Electronic Arts ? If a "new britannia" is indeed to rise, it may have to be one that lacks Britain, Yew, Buc's Den, Moonglow and all that good stuff that makes up the Britannia we know and love. (or perhaps that's what he means by "new")

  • I've seen the same Briannia over and over since UO4... yes it was always slightly different. In UO8 minoc was suddendly an island. SkaraBrea was always doomes etc :)

    But actually I'm personally not hot to see just the next incarnation of the same map again.

    I enjoyed the new fresh map of Serpent Island...
    However the map of UO9 was a try-to-be brittain, where more or less my heart hurted how it looked like. (and how small it was)

    "Brittania" I guess this is not trademarked by OSI/EA, also is "Lord British", not as far i know, or "Lord Blackthrone".

    But "Utlima" is of course, so I bet it will defintily not been called like that :)

    BTW: "Are you with us?" is also a trademark from them :)
  • I guess Carmack has enough Ferraris now.
    -----------------
  • Oh, man good luck with Sam and Max. I played that thing, and know I have a severely warped vie of reality (hint: the way to get to the other side of the resturant is to climb inside the fish.)
    -----------------
  • In my opinion they got everything right in that game. Some of the areas weren't as good as some of the subsequent games, but it did the over all best job. The problems I had with the next 3:

    Ultima 7: The major problem was the insane memory requirements. That game was a real bitch to get to run because it needed a redicilous amount of convential memory. I had a whole set of DOS boot menus (remember those?) and I actually had a special entry jsut for Ultima 9 to get it all the memory it wanted. It came out during the day of the DOS/4GW and CWSDPMI hybrid mode compilers too, so there really was no excuse.

    Also, I had a number of crashing problems with it. This really isn't excusable in DOS, since you can't blame the OS, all it does is disk services, basic memory management, and the mouse (if you used the MS mouse driver).

    Ultima 8: What's to say really, I mean the interface was jsut a dog. I couldn't get past that so I never really got into the game, same goes for all my friends. Even Origin wasn't happy with that one.

    Ultima 9: This game is so problematic it's jsut unbelievable. I mean the actual sotry is great, the intrface is cool, the music owns, but the programming is so poor I want to beat the programmer with a rolled up newspaper. Ultima 9 crashes all the time. Not regular crashes either, it just dumps me to the desktop with no error, so something internal to its code is terminating the program. Also, the game has real problems internally. I remember once completeing a dungeon only to find the critical item had not spawned, so I had no choice but to reload and try again. Finlayy the game is SLOW in the purest sense of the word. I didn't get it when it came out at first, because I was too busy with AQ2, I jsut got it 6 months ago or so. Well I have a PIII 700 with 384MB of ram, and a GeForce DDR. Ok, so you figure the game ought to run steal, after all the on box recommendations are a PII 400mhz, 128MB ram and a Voodoo 3 (that's the recommended, not the minimum). Ha. The performance is best described as "barely adiquate". There is noticable shearing in many scenes and it drags in all occasions unless I'm in a cave or something. On my friends PII 450 with a Vooodoo 3 it's unplayable. This, and it's not nearly as detailed as say Quake 3 or Tribes 2, both which run great.

    Basically I feel Orign has really been going down hill lately, much to my dismay. Each successive Ultima has been an even bigger dissapointment and now UO2 got canceled. I know many people are quick to get mad at EA for it but think about it: They wouldn't have canceled it without a good reason. MMRPGs are HUGE cash cows, there must have been some serious problems with it for them to put the axe on it. Hopefully Garriot will pull things together and start producing great games again, the Ultimas were some of my favourite games throught my childhood.

  • Forgotten System Shock? Personally, I think Thief: The Dark Project is their best game ever.
  • She's writing the plot, I believe. Randy Smith is the producer.
  • The actualy make-up of Britannia has been so different from game to game that I wouldn't see it as any great loss. Ultima Underworld I&II and Ultima 8 succeeded brilliatly while pretty much ignoring Britannia lore.
  • If you don't like it, go up there and knock our flags down and put your own up.

    The US flag planted by the Apollo 11 crew was blown down when the Eagle took off for Earth. You owned the moon for a few hours...
  • Buckle your seat belts, kids. It's gonna be a fun ride.

    It certainly is. When Garriot left Origin it looked like the end of an era, but now it looks like the dawning of a new golden age. Free from the strictly corporate concerns of EA, Garriot can go back to greenlighting unique titles like Ultima Underwold, Omega and Wing Commander.
  • Have you heard of rocket engines? They're devices which propel spacecraft when large amounts of thrust are required, such as when taking off from Earth or the moon. They emit gas. Put 2 and 2 together and get 4. Moron.
  • The past few years have seen for the first time the widespread growth of online gaming. I'd consider that a pretty big developement in gameplay (and also in technology).
  • When old bands do reunion tours, their new stuff blows because they lack inspiration. They get together, and try to give them new iterations of the tried and true(tm). Lord British is obviously not trying to create a chip of the old block, but rather new concepts, away from what he's been known for doing.
  • George Lucas has always stated right up front that he was a Joseph Campbell devotee. I mean, look at Luke for God's sake!

  • Straight from the article:

    " Do you wish that you could regain the helm at Origin once again? We fantasized about buying Origin back from EA. I feel we could have made it run much better. However as Joseph Campbell says in Hero With A Thousand Faces: "A schism in the body social, will not be resolved by any scheme of a return to the good old days (archaism), or by programs guaranteed to render an ideal projected future (futurism), or even by the most realistic, hardheaded work to weld together again the deteriorating elements. Only birth can conquer death-the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new." [Yeah. What he said.] "

  • Nuh uh! (Score:3)

    by antdocevil ( 416329 ) on Sunday April 15, 2001 @08:05AM (#290292) Homepage
    The people at moonshop.com have already claimed the Moon. Silly goose.

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