Lord British Talks About EA, UO,& The Future

Warrior-GS writes: "Richard Garriott (aka Lord British), the creator of the Ultima universe and Origin Systems, is not longer under NDA after his departure from Origin and Electronic Arts. He gave his first interview about what he thought were problems at EA, where the Ultima series was going and what his future holds, especially now that many of his old co-workers are no longer employed, thanks to recent EA layoffs. You can find the interview at GameSpyDaily."

Comments

Quick virginity test: How many hours do you Ultima

[Anonymous Coward]

Online a week?

• 5: You'll lose your virginity at 20.
  
• 30: You'll lose your virginity at 25.
  
• 80: You'll lose your virginity at 30.
  
• 120: Have you consider the priesthood?
  
• What's Ultima Online? Aint pussy great!
  

An interesting interview.

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly, I didn't expect RG to say too much. I think too many people wanted him to get down on his hands and knees and beg forgiveness for the disaster of Ultima: Ascension...well, it's not going to happen.

What is painfully clear, beyond EA's continual negative influence, is that Richard Garriott was sick of his own creation. The pinnacle Ultimas (U VII and Serpent Isle) were headed by Warren Spector (Deus Ex and so much more) and a team of really creative folks...RG only had peripheral involvement. Ultima: Ascension, even given all the problems EA threw in it's way, is still a testiment to RG's apathy towards his own creation.

RG says he didn't want to keep doing Ultimas; what most people don't know is that he DID commit himself (to the fans) to one last Ultima, Ultima IX...included with the Ultima VIII megapatch was a little file called FANS.TXT, in which Richard Garriott essentially apologized for the terrible mess that U8 was, and promised one last "great" ultima. He said that Ultima 9 would return to it's roots and be an epic game the bards would sing about for eons. THIS is why the fans are angry with him...he broke his promise.

All this is in the past, however....Origin is dead, Ultima is dead and it's time to forge onwards. One thing is very clear though: Richard Garriott will have to prove himself once more. The longtime fans aren't just going to jump onboard whatever new project he's working on... it's clean slate time, and time will tell if RG is truly Lord British, or just another John Romero.

--Radagast, sometimes historian of Britannia

Ultima 9:Ascention is an amazing game

[dgp]

Ultima 9 is the most misrepresented game in history. It is also the most entertaining game I have ever played. The Ultima 9 world is the most immersive, the most free-form, and the most beautiful game world I have ever played.

The initial poor reception of U9 got the game thrown out of the gaming community's consciousness. How many games have been in development for years just to end up as PC Gamer's flavor of the month one month and forgotten about the next month. If you love a beautiful RPG with a real story, then give U9 a try.

Who is making today's adveture games and story-based RPGs that aspire to be more than a "Quake plus inventory"? I am excited that RG is going back to doing what keeps school students away from their homework - making original games!

Don

Re:Loving your work and living in it.

[Black Parrot]

> You don't see Bill Gates house built like a circut board with PCI boards for walls.

No, just broken windows everywhere he turns.

--

Re:Loving your work and living in it.

[Xmarksta]

Don't you think thats a little extreme?

Nah, it's not as extreme as it sounds...if you look real close at all the secret doors there's a little dot in the middle of them.

Quote from the article

[Monte]

We did not have the management bandwidth to grow intelligently.

"Management Bandwidth" - now there's a concept! Why do I keep thinking I got stuck with 1200 baud?

Standard EA Policy?

[Ted V]

Has anyone noticed this problem with EA Games? A small, successful company comes up with a really well designed game (Ultima IV, Ultima Underworld, Thief, etc). EA buys the company and starts wrenching the life (money) from the franchise. A few years later the company gets funding cut by EA.

To me this is yet more evidence that makes me believe EA knows very little about how to run businesses. They exude the mentality that "Lots of Hype for a well known Franchise makes oodles of money." Witness Daikatana... The fact is that only fun games can make serious money.

Would you kill a cow for $100 in meat today, or milk it for $1000 in the coming year? EA's Business practices are not geared towards the long term health *or* profitability of the Computer Game market!

One more reason to buy id software games. They're not owned by EA-- it's just a bunch of guys who like making extremely vicersal games.

-Ted

Who *really* gave that interview?

[smirkleton]

We all know Lord British was assassinated in 1997, at the hands of a lowly thief named Rainz, while attempting to give a speech to the denizens of the Ultima Online beta. What are you saying, he didn't really die? I SAW IT HAPPEN.

This low-level thief filched a firewall spell from a random knight, cast it, and suddenly, a wall of flame appeared out of nowhere before the real Lord British.

Then, with the hardened arrogance that several years of omnipotence might visit upon any of us , Lord British cried out, "Ah ha ha! You can't kill me!" as he wandered into the flames. Where he died instantly.

I barely escaped with my own life, since Lord Blackthorn, British's right-hand-man, completely panicked and summoned four daemons from the bowels of hell to unleash demonic slaughter on the mass of innocent bystanders. What an atrocity! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!

So who really gave that interview? Because Lord British is a dead man. Miss him. Miss him.

The Spirit of Ultima Lives On

[CaptainCarrot]

After reading a number of posts bemoaning the end of the Ultima games and the declining quality of the games later in the series, I thought I should point out that Ultima-style RPGs are alive and well. Spiderweb Software started out in 1994 with Exile, a massive retro-RPG in the style of Ultima IV. This was followed by two sequels, Exile II: Crystal Souls and Exile III: Ruined World, both of which implemented minor enhancements but were still basically in the same style. Blades of Exile was an expandable version of the game engine. It shipped with three sample scenarios and the Scenario Editor which allowed users to create their own. The best of them can be downloaded from Spiderweb's website.

The company shifted to a new engine that offered a pseudo-3D orthogonal projection with Nethergate. Nethergate was also innovative in that it allowed the player to roleplay either side of the conflict. Now they're working on re-releasing the Exile games using the new engine and under new titles. Avernum and the recently released Avernum 2 do not disappoint.

Although I have linked to the Windows versions of the games, Spiderweb actually develops and releases for the Mac first, and later ports its games to Windows. They also distribute a number of games that they do not produe, but IMO they're nowhere near as good.

All Spiderweb games are shareware, and you can play a fairly substantial portion of the game before having to pay. So if you miss Ultima, give them a try!

More excuses from Garriott

[FortranDragon]

Richard Garriott has been more and more disconnected from Ultima since U7:Black Gate. That's understandable since I'm sure he's tired of Ultima and wants to create something different. I can respect that, but the bad things he has done really puts a smear on his reputation.

The thing that bugs me is that the man finally drove Origin into the ground and he _still_ blames EA for his own mistakes. Ultima V shipped unfinished because they had no other choice. Ultima VI shipped buggy to meet the following week's payroll (ask Dr. Cat). Ultima VII drove Origin to the point of death and EA stepped in and saved Origin.

When RG decided that expanding the market for the Ultimas was more important than anything else we got the action/RPG abortion called Ultima VIII: Pagan. After that flopped, instead of accepting that he made a big mistake in abandoning the existing Ultima fanbase he blamed EA. That's where all of this 'Origin's problems are EA's fault' started. It was always EA's fault, never his. The man who created the Virtues, who brought morality and ethics to the computer gaming industry wasn't willing to accept responsibility for his own actions.

EA gave him five years to create Ultima IX and he still screwed it up. He fired good people. Move the entire U9 team to work on Ultima Online (ignoring Brook's Law). Hired a RTS guy to create the capstone of the Trilogy of Trilogies. Fired his design team. Ignored what the fans cried out for. Didn't bother to talk to anyone because he feared the "wilds of the Internet". And on and on and on. And when he shipped a buggy beta as the final product he blamed EA once again. No wonder they booted him.

Hell, don't even get me started on the whoppers the man has told: UO: There is no lag. U9: Well tested and debugged. These are not the actions of an ethical person, no matter how much the later Ultimas deal with those same issues.

All in all, it makes me sad that people like RG who -- however talented as a storyteller -- couldn't manage a one car funeral procession gets this attention when truly deserving people like Warren Spector who *can* manage, promotes the teams he works with instead of himself, and is very creative.

:sigh: When I was playing the original Ultima on my Apple ][ and waiting for Ultima ][ I never realised that one RG would make himself into a John "Daikatana" Romero.

Re:More excuses from Garriott

[John Miles]

I was basing on the reviews of U5 when it was released, such as Scorpia's review in CGW that commented on the unfinished areas in the game. I also remember Ultima V was rather late from its originally announced ship date. If I am misremembering both those facts than I apologize.

You're probably thinking of the Underworld portion of the game. It consisted of a map the same size as the main Britannian world, but which was (as you'd expect of a newly-revealed subsurface continent) only sparsely populated with cool stuff.

Some of our more vocal players and reviewers, including Scorpia, evidently felt that their $49.95 entitled them to a certain amount of entertainment value per square foot of real estate. The Underworld was never intended to look like some kind of underground Disneyland (or whatever these people were expecting), so it was a disappointment to some. But it most assuredly was complete as shipped. :-)

Which design direction? I can come up with at least three different designs U9 went through: the one that Mike McShaffry said gave him the chills it was so good, the Del Castillo one, and the one we finally got in the released version.

True, but note that none of the principal designs emphasized the Jumping Jews of Jerusalem routine that U8 demanded of its players.

I believe RG has said a number of times that each Ultima has sold more copies than the prior Ultima.

That was true up until U5. I'm not sure if U5 outsold U4 at the end of the day, although they were both very successful products relative to their budget. U6 was a much more expensive product to build, and it was where the profitability curve really started to break down.

U2 sold more than twice what U1 sold; ditto U3 versus U2. I'm pretty sure U4 eventually outsold U3, but not by a factor of 2. Hopefully someone who's more up to date on the real numbers will correct my assumptions where necessary, but the bottom line is, the market for Ultima-style RPGs showed distinct signs of saturation as early as the U3/U4 era.

If the sales of the series has remained essentially flat since U3, then I really have problems with his _management_ abilities (but not his creative abilities). Being able to hit a deadline is a part of what you are paid for as a manager.

Richard may or may not be a decent manager these days -- I honestly couldn't say. We had a very small, highly-motivated, and largely self-managing team on U5. But he is certainly an impressive living example of the difference between a "manager" and a "leader." If you worked for Richard, you'd follow him into Hell to collect nifty glowing rocks, just like the rest of us did. :-)

My understanding from what Mike McShaffry said in the infamous CGW interview, U8 was exactly what they set out to create.

Right... an Ultima that they were hoping would find a broader audience.

I've always understood that Richard was less involved in U8's design than in most of the other titles in the series. My impression is that, for better or for worse, some of the people who did have a lot of creative input weren't necessarily among the "old-school" types that I was referring to.

Though if you could I would be happy to see you give it a shot.

Let's just say that the erstwhile Lord British is not the only one with an upcoming Project X....

And this might just shock you, but I honestly think you can't have an Ultima without RG's input.

I wouldn't disagree with that for a nanosecond.

Re:More excuses from Garriott

[John Miles]

Ultima V shipped unfinished because they had no other choice.

Really? What a fascinating assertion. I don't recall many complaints along these lines from U5's players, and (having been the lead programmer on the project) I seem to be missing the usual feelings of resentment and anguish that accompany the forced shipment of an unfinished game. Can you refresh my memory here?

When RG decided that expanding the market for the Ultimas was more important than anything else we got the action/RPG abortion called Ultima VIII: Pagan.

Not to apologize for U8 -- I wasn't involved in it, and never got around to playing it -- but you're being a little dramatic with your Monday-morning quarterbacking. From Richard's point of view, it was scary as hell to watch his dev budgets climb supergeometrically with each successive title, while sales figures remained pretty much where they peaked in U3. By the time Origin started work on U8, it was clear that drastic changes were required to keep the series financially viable.

My understanding is that U8 actually sold pretty well, but few of the old-school people, including Richard himself, were ever happy with the final product.

After that flopped, instead of accepting that he made a big mistake in abandoning the existing Ultima fanbase he blamed EA.

I believe Richard has expressed his regrets and taken responsibility for U8's problems on more than one occasion. Certainly the design direction in U9 (bugs notwithstanding) took U8's criticism to heart.

EA gave him five years to create Ultima IX and he still screwed it up.

Making Ultimas is hard. Try it sometime.

:sigh: When I was playing the original Ultima on my Apple ][ and waiting for Ultima ][ I never realised that one RG would make himself into a John "Daikatana" Romero.

Okey-dokey, then.

Another of gamings greats tossed to the side

[Rurik]

It's sad, just as Thief was tossed aside like an old toy, so has the name 'Ultima'. It used to mean a wonderous world of adventure, then it just turned into a moneypot. Richard Garriot was a genious of his own right. I remember watching a special on him about 6 years ago, where he designed his own house. Everything was in a medieval tone, and the place was filled with hidden passages and secret doors. This guy wasn't just in it for the money, he truely loved his work... then big bad EA came and gobbled him up, and spit him out like so many other companies.

Sigh

Disappointed

[FortKnox]

I'm a touch disappointed with the interview. It was stuff I pretty much coulda told you about last year. I am more interested in what company he has started, people he'll be hiring, any more info on project "X", what genre of game he'd like to work on (I'm guessing he'll avoid RPG like the plague), stuff like that. For his first interview, the questions they asked weren't very good.

Perhaps Taco or Hemos can work their magic and get a /. interview of the 'ol Lord British??

Properly formatted

[KineticPoet]

Ugh, sorry...I forgot how /. does formatting.
---

I read this article yesterday, and then I did some googling to dig up some stuff on Project X. Here are some nuggets I found (sorry, I don't feel like re-finding all the links to articles I read):

-X will be an online community like Ultima Online

-X will be value based (like Ultima), and the world will dynamically reflect the number of good and evil people in different areas (he respectfully tips his hat to Molyneux)

-X will be set in the relatively near future with a SciFi background

-X will integrate Ebay-esque functionality for buying and selling virtual property; British believes that some people will choose to make their living in X

-X will try to be more inviting to casual gamers by not rewarding hard-core gamers who devote their lives to the game; British's clue was (and I paraphrase) "think of your best friend, who isn't necessarily someone you spend the most time with"

-X will place a strong emphasis on fashion

-X will have a target audience of both males and females

-X will have a primary seamless world environment (like UO) as well as "missions" for parties to embark on (which can also be player-created)

-British fancies tele-immersion technology, so although he denies knowing about the "story-telling" approach used by Neverwinter Nights, I'd expect him to return to his D&D roots by making X more of a role-playing experience That's all that comes to mind right now.

KP