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Garriott Brothers Return to Gaming
rhaig writes: "According to the Austin American Statesman, The Garriott brothers, Richard and Robert, the creators of Austin's Origin Systems Inc., are back in the gaming business. The pair scooped up about 30 recently laid-off Origin employees to staff their new Austin-based online game company, Destination Games."
>I'm betting that any other gamehack who just read this article (and there are 90,000
:)
>potential gamehacks reading slashdot on any given day) can whack up something with the same
>user-selectable-parallel-universe model in a couple of months, if not a couple of weeks.
The infrastructure maybe, but would it be a fun game?
Plotting out a detailed story can easily take a year. Forget about the technology for a moment and look at print authors. How long does it take Terry Pratchett to knock out another diskworld novel? That guys' really GOOD, and writing is his full time job, and he still only does about one book a year.
With most games these days, the story is "let's go kill something". Uh-huh. The most recent ground-breaking uber-game was "The Sims", which actively avoided any plot-like elements anywhere in the design.
R.G. doesn't have to redefine the world to make a successful game. There's a new "game of the year" every year.
Considering that his first product is repackaging a proven game in a new market, and that he's financing the company with a small chunk of his personal wealth and so doesn't have loans to repay or investors to placate. Basically, he's doing it to scratch his own itch, because he likes making games.
I'd say the new company's on a pretty strong footing. Now we just have to bug him for a Linux version...
Rob
(second hand story)
;-)
Discplaimer: Some people are offended at death. I did not imagine this story, nor do I condone this or give any personal opinions as to the validity of it. This is not funny. Do not laugh. Fine.
------
Back in the early 90's, I had a friend who was living down in Austin in his friends walk-in closet. One day he went to work (at Origin) and was sitting in his cube.
Suddenly, he hears screams and gunfire. Two guys dressed from head to toe in black are rampaging the building killing people!
A boatload of police show up and surround the building, as the two black-clothed men throw down their weapons and uncover their faces.
Apparently, it had been a big joke for them to set up this scene. They had selectivly asked some friends at work to act dead when shot, and had informed the secretaries of the gag.
This friend went on to study at the prestigeous Barnum and Baily Clown College (Of which there are even worse, more horrid stories from that era as well).
----
Another story I heard was that they had their annual employee meeting, where they discussed financial results. They had rented out a private theatre for the presentation.
As the employees finished arriving, the CEO of the company walked up to the stage and asked for the first slide.
The CEO announced, "We're doing damn good!" and proceeded to show Jurrassic Park (The Movie) a day before it was released.
Now, wasn't that a nicer story.
- Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
I've noticed that a lot of people here enjoyed playing Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle, and that some of them have tried to play the game again only to have trouble getting the game running in modern operating systems.
. The author even makes the source available, and is encouraging someone to do a Linux port. Now how cool is that?
The problem was the custom memory manager Origin wrote in order to get around the limitations of EMS. It performs BIOS-level memory access, which Win9x and Win2K simply won't allow.
The solution is a new executable for these games that uses modern memory management techniques and also incorporates a frame limiter so the speed problems are also solved! I've personally tried this patch out and trust me, it's a REAL kick running Ultima 7 in a window!
You can find more info and get the patch at http://members.iinet.net.au/~rsd/U7inWindows.html
ok, no it doesn't, but it just aint my ball of wax. I could role play when it was just me a terminal and mud, but I spend 99% of my time in UO just clicking on my knife and a piece of wood to make arrows. Yawn. RTS > RPG in my not so humble opinion, but maybe Worldforge will eventually release something that is playable and prove me wrong.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Sure...but playtesting is key to making it a balanced world. And the attention spans of you players are short. You've got to have a compelling story to keep the users paying the access fees.
Given one hour to live, the student replied: "I'd spend it with professor FP who can make an hour seem like a lifetime."
Baking bread isn't the point. Or rather, it is. ^_^ Incidentally, I heard this same debate many years ago regarding Ultima 9. In... rec.games.computer.ultima.dragons (among the names it's owned over the years...) Baking bread itself is not the point. The many ways the player and world could interact was. For example, I'll take the game Worlds of Ultima: Savage Empire. You can use the traditional weapons you find... or you can make your own ^_^ Saltpeter + Charcoal + sulfur = gunpower. Bamboo + flint + steel = rifle (really!). Rifle + gunpowder + rocks = bang! Gunpowder + clay jar + cloth strips + tar = fuse bomb (and grenade!). You could do anything with anything. There's More Than One Way To Do It. (woah.) By concentrating on the bread, you're missing the big picture. Incidentally, baking bread rocked as it could save you money. (1) Get wheat from field (2) Grid wheat (3) Put meal in oven (4) eat bread - mmm
From a Gamespy article:
"While Destination will only be developing online games, they may end up publishing other solo player or online games."
Good! Maybe by then new computers will be able to actually run Ultima IX.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
Which is why the market is saturated with the product right now.
;-)
But seriously, This is something I look forward to. Anytime a serious artist in the field puts together something, especially a start from scratch thing, I'll at least check it out. With enough expertise, a career in this field should go 50 or 60 years of jaw dropping products.
This could be fun.
Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
I have all the Ultima games from beginning to end.
I know I'm going to get beat senseless for this, but Ultima IX may be the single best game of any kind I've every played (yes, I played it through to the end) except for maybe Nethack, and Ultima Online is great as well.
I think the recent Ultima games have been given a bum rap.
$0.02 + $0.01 for the pennies dish.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
It's great to hear that these two gaming pioneers are back in the business. This is great news for the industry as well as gaming consumers. A while back, perhaps a year ago the announcement that Origin Systems would produce only multiplayer subscription based online games, after the success of Ultima Online.
Is there any word on weather Destination Games will be operating exclusively in that market as well, or pursue other areas of the market as well?
--CTH
--
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
> This new game, Tabula Rasa (or "blank slate"), won't be out for another couple of years, Garriott said.
These guys are big on the wordplay.
Tabula Rasa.
A game that hasn't been written yet, throws away their old model, and basically is so pre-production that "another couple of years" is a plan horizon for it?
I'm betting that any other gamehack who just read this article (and there are 90,000 potential gamehacks reading slashdot on any given day) can whack up something with the same user-selectable-parallel-universe model in a couple of months, if not a couple of weeks.
--Blair
great, so when we're escaping from our own reality and playing video games, we can then escape from the alternat ereality that is the video game, into yet another alternate reality. Man, make me wonder how some people are ever gonna find theyre way back without bread crumbs.
What I'm wondering though, is how in the world Garriot ever got away with a contract from EA stating simply a 1-year non-compete clause. They should have known that he was gonna jump right back into gaming. Since he was basically the biggest resource of epic, grandiose sized gaming, they're the ones who can't compete with him now. I've got confidence that while a massive game from within his imagination is still several years away, it'll be quite different from what else is on the market at the time. He did it once, and did it well. at the very least im interested to see what else he can do from here.
BeHUMAN
lumthemad.net has been covering this for a while ... this article dicusses a rumor that Garriot has obtained a controlling interest in NCSoft which is currently developing a game called Lineage
...
... that's here.
The article is here
Secondly, it looks like he'll be charging a bit for his next online game (maybe as much as $30 a month)
_f
I thought Rainz assassinated him a while ago.
...Autoduel's sequel.
Let's get Steve Jackson back in the mix too!
GURPS AutoDuel has progressed well since then as well. Plus, the game could have some nice 3D eye candy too.
Flamebait or not, this is worth a reply:
>If he could find some good project management he might stand a chance.
I think that's the whole idea, at least to some extent. UO2 got behind schedule under the "management" of EA's Origin Assimilation Team, not RG. Origin was doing pretty well (deadline wise and product wise, not necessarily money wise) until EA scooped them up. Perhaps when you speak of missed deadlines and buggy releases on Richard's watch, you're thinking Ultima 9, but IIRC, EA was primarily responsible for that bungle too.
In any case, it's gonna be a fun ride. I can't wait to see what Destination comes up with.
Shaun
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
ORIGIN Studio Brand
From its modest beginnings -- brothers Richard and Robert Garriott working out of their parents' garage -- to its current 81,000 square feet of high-tech office space and more than 200 full-time employees, ORIGIN Systems' (http://www.origin.ea.com) has always been known for setting new standards in interactive entertainment. The company, based in Austin, Texas, has emerged as one of the innovation leaders in the ever-changing world of entertainment software.
ORIGIN was established in 1983 and since then has produced more than 60 highly acclaimed titles, including the award-winning Ultima, Wing Commander, Privateer, and Crusader series of games. Development continues at ORIGIN for Internet-only products. The first of those was Ultima Online and its follow-up, Ultima Online: The Second Age. Ultima Online , the industryÂ's most successful and profitable online-only game, today allows thousands of people to play simultaneously in a persistent fantasy world and currently has 150,000 active player accounts.
taken from
http://www.origin.ea.com/info/home.html
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
Garriot certainly did some ground breaking stuff. His Ultima series brought a whole sense of realism and proportionality to RPGs, practically every item in the game could be interacted with in some way. At the time, it allowed for some very interesting and sophisticated gameplay.
Of course, for games today such concepts are a given. The ideas that put Garriot on the top are now regularly implemented. He's all but starting over from scratch, whatever he accomplishes won't be able to coast on previous successes.
But on the other hand Mr. Garriot certainly strives to tell a good story, something many of the semi literate game designers don't prioritize anymore. I'll be curious to see what he comes up with, he has a freedom to design games that many of his peers must envy. Hopefully he'll come up with something truly unique and different.
From Origin to Destination. I like it.
Easily amused,
-l
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If anyone would like to read about my personal experience working at Origin, it's on my web site at http://darkbox.pentagod.com/soulcage.htm.
Badman