Posted by
chrisd
on from the who-doesn't-want-a-moat-after-all dept.
Our friends at Salon have an article "The Return of Lord British" about what Richard Garriot has been up to in the last year since he's left Origin. It is mostly about Lineage (a mmporpg?), but it touches on EA mismanagement (new tagline "We create write-offs").
EA's mismanagement?
by
Rimbo
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
If I recall correctly, EA was the savior of Origin Systems, bailing Origin out of its own mismanagement. An AC above said, "Who cares, everything past Ultima 6 sucked." Well, in my opinion, it's because Garriott was more involved with running the company at that point than he was with designing games. His gifts lie with the latter, not the former.
Re:EA's mismanagement?
by
Moofie
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
They saved the village, by destroying it. I worked at Origin during the Wing Commander IV era, and EA's revolving door management, and utter intolerance for any new ideas out of Austin, made certain that Origin would never do anything innovative again. All EA wanted to hear from Origin was "Yes, Master, the new Ultima/Wing Commander/Crusader game is on schedule and under budget. May we please refrain from laying off our staff this year?"
With the possible exception of UO, which I personally didn't enjoy very much, but other people apparently groove to. And don't get me started about Ultima:Ascention.
I can't speak to Mr. Garriott's company management skills. Hell, I certainly wouldn't have the first idea how to run a company like that...I don't think anybody really does. He did, at one point, have a unique gift for storytelling in the medium of computer games. Unfortunately, that got buried under creeping featuritis. Hopefully, he'll be able to start with a clean slate (or a Tabula Rasa...wonder if that name is more than just coincidental? : ) and get back to his unique visionary roots.
I sure hope so. U6 is one of my favourite games ever.
-- Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Lord British immortalised by Imanewbie.com-
by
Joe+'Nova'
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I just think the way the company mismanaged its projects(U7-10), basicly sabotaging them, is a shame. Origin had tons of kewl games, I'm just glad R.G. has found something productive.
-- This mind intentionally left blank. The KKK a bunch of sheetheads? You decide!
I had a look at it
by
jeti
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Several weeks ago, I read in a forum
that Lineage would be the most popular
MMPORG in asia. So I downloaded the free
trial version (>200MB) and had a look.
Well - the graphics were ok. But there
really wasn't too much to do. Also there
were a lot of players on the server
complaining that they'd de facto beta-
test the game for $15 per month. It seems
like the free trial had just been introduced.
I now consider the message about the
popularity a plant. Hopefully things have
improved.
Re:I had a look at it
by
Hadean
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Well, if you actually read anything about the game, you'd have realized that the popularity talked about is for Asia, which is currently at around 3 million players. Lord British and the gang are creating a whole new universe (ie new players) for non-Asian areas (in Garriott's own words, more or less, Asian players are too good at cooperating, and would destroy North American players in this type of game). So yeah, this version of the game isn't massively populated at the moment, but no, you're not beta testing... it's been through the ringer already.
A short history
by
gusnz
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Lineage has been mentioned on Slashdot previously, as part of a furore over violence in games resulting to aggression in the real world.
For anyone who doesn't want to load that page up, it linked a very interesting TIME article here. I suggest reading it -- in the Western world, the whole dollars-for-Diablo-items routine is normally as bad as this gets, but this is (if true) several steps beyond that entirely.
Last days at Origin
by
nsample
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I had the pleasure of visiting EA/Origin's Austin facility before the Garriott + team exodus. It was a neat place to be, but there was a real feeling that people were being stifled, not getting to do what they wanted creatively, and being slaves to the visions of other...
And I saw Richard's car in the parking lot. Hella cool. =)
Anyway, now they're off on their own, striking out! With a new company and new ideas... "destination games." They were going to lead us back to their roots (which are our roots), back to greatness...
But now, even their email addresses are at NC... the makers of Bloodpledge. The reason is, for apparently financial reasons, they're porting games. Hardly a creative process. I can only hope they pick it up and get back on track after they're done with Bloodpledge. Otherwise, they changed the name of the masters from "EA" to "NC" and the game from "Ultima Online" to "Bloodpledge."
Someone else's ideas and blood, sweat and tears. We hope to see yours again, Garriot! All your fans are hoping you find the path again.
The days of yore...
by
AntonVoyl
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
... were in the '80s for Richard Garriott and Ultima. That's when games were about gameplay, gamers needed graphpaper, and people whose names were on the boxes still coded. We may scoff at him now, but Lord British was a big deal in those days.
Picture this: it's a Saturday morning in the late '80s and 300 restless geeks are packed into a Georgetown University auditorium waiting with baited breath for Lord British himself to unveil the Ultima V beta.
We were the GameSIG of the Washington Apple Pi, and Richard Garriott was our guest and our friend. He wasn't just showing us a preview of Ultima V, he was showing it to us before anyone else got to see it.
Already, Ultima IV had blown our minds, and we all wanted to see where the series went next. For many of us who were at an impressionable age (I was 11), the Ultima series was a big part of our intellectual lives. Lord British was our guardian in the game and our hero in life.
When Garriott stepped onto the stage wearing armor and carrying a sword and shield, we just went nuts. Better still, he came bearing gifts; he reached into his satchel and threw handfuls of silvery ankhs out to the roaring crowd. I caught one and still treasure it.
Then the lights dimmed and we waited for the moment of truth. Lord British put the 5.25" diskettes into the Apple IIGS (256K). He fiddled with the projection system a bit and them blam: Ultima V blasted onto the screen.
The graphics and sound just blew us away, and Garriott explained each improvement as he took us through an hour-long tour of the game. You could see (and hear!) grass sway in the wind, waves rolled, trees blocked light while windows let it in... And the music!!!
The climax came when he showed us the lighthouse. You could see and hear the surf pounding on the rocks, while a beam of light swept over land and sea, just like a real lighthouse. And all of this before the backdrop of convincingly forboding music. Inside the lighthouse awaited a surprise: the keeper was none other than the don of our GameSIG, Ron Wartow. Somebody we knew was in Ultima V!
After talking to the Wartow character and getting him to crack a few jokes, Garriott looked up at us and then paused for a full ten seconds. Breaking the silence, he asked: "Well, shall we attack Ron?" We yelled back an affirmative reply. 8 turns later, Ron was a bloody pulp and our party was 5 gold and a ham sandwich richer. We were in stitches... the kid next me laughed so hard he puked through his nose.
On his way out, Lord British gave us cloth maps and whispered to us about Easter eggs he'd sprinkled throughout the series. We were on cloud nine, and I was ready to devote my life to becoming a pixelated Avatar. I wanted to grow up to be Lord British. I wanted to make games, I wanted to be in them, and I wanted to live them.
Sadly, I never got to play Ultima V. The game was delayed and the 'rents wouldn't spring for the IIGS. By time I had the resources to play the game, I'd moved onto the PC and was hooked on a series of games by a guy named Sid Meier, but that's another story for another day...
--
sig semper tyrannis!
Re:The days of yore...
by
kaisyain
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
That's when games were about gameplay
Yeah back during the halcyon days of creativity when they churned out such classics as Ms. Pac Man and Jr. Pac Man, and who could forget ET? And then there all those Great Games like Tapper, LED Storm, Cupfinal, and Chase HQ. Wait, you mean you don't remember them? That's because they sucked. They had horrible gameplay. Hell, try going back and playing Dig Dug or Pac Man or Paperboy and tell me the gameplay on those things doesn't suck ass.
The problem with nostalgia is you only remember the best of the past and you're comparing it against the average from the present. How is Diablo's gameplay any worse than the original Gauntlet's? How is Thief or Half-Life less engrossing than Shinobi? How is Ghostbusters better than X-COM? Is Gran Tourismo less interesting than Pole Position?
The current complaints about style over substance might seem valid unless you haven't excised memories of Cinemaware and Dragon's Lair.
Re:can't hope to succeed
by
sittius
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Well, we can hope that maybe he'll come up with something new and innovative.
I do remember meeting him in the early '80s at a computer software store in Georgia. I agree that he was a pioneer and obviously very dedicated to what he was doing. What struck me, was that even though he was quite well known and successful, at that point he possessed a quality I've rarely seen in programmers : Humility
I imagine he's grown up and lost that quality, but that's the way I remember him...
And I still remember the original Ultima ( the C-64) version with fondness.
What is it about people, journalists in particular, that makes them believe that the U.S. "market" is so well insulated by the McDisney cultural powerhouse, that nothing can ever be "successful" in the United States.
The number of "foreign" products, games, whatever, that are seeing tremendous success here is staggering, but the "yeah, but" crowd just continues to bury their head in the demographics reports. I'll guarantee that some tie-wearing cynical #*@&!~*@%& at some arrogant company said Harry Potter would never be a "success" either. Can't you just hear it? Some haircut in a grey suit holding his hand over his #%&@#*()%# cell-phone and saying "a kid with glasses and a broom? Give me a break!"
Just a reaction to the "far too foreign to make a truly successful crossover title" remark in the article. What is truly successful? How much? A billion? A hundred billion? What?
This is what causes the money-grab mindset of businesses now. If it doesn't lead to a 100000% market-cap increase and an IPO and put us in the Fortune 100, and the creative team can't PROVE that will happen, then we'd rather just have another meeting.
I just read a few articles about "Dance Dance Revolution." Here's another product that U.S. companies probably laughed at. Yet, whenever I see the game, some kid is putting money in it, and 437 other kids are lined up around the corner to play it, and 300 other people are watching, and 10,000 other people are putting up web sites about it.
Keep having meetings and keep running your mouths, U.S. corporate-types. There's a million little companies out there with a million little really neat ideas that are eventually going to eat your %#&@$()* lunch.
return rant();
The Play's the Thing
by
epepke
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
A few years ago, I saw the late Douglas Adams give the keynote address at Siggraph. He was just designing Starship Titanic at the time. He said one thing that has stuck with me: "Use your limitations, before they are denied you." By that I think he meant that computing power and graphics cards would advance to the point where it would become tempting to rely on flash and adrenaline for the success of a game and neglect thought.
I think that time has come. There is a dreadful sameness to the games that are being produced today. Consider Alice. The art and texture are marvelous, as is the potential of the idea: the internal world of a madwoman. Yet the play reduces to running around and shooting, with a few Donkey Kong skills thrown in. All the big tasks consist of defeating bosses, a la Duke Nukem. A good play, no doubt, but it could have been so much more.
On the other hand, consider Deus Ex. The reasonably modern first-person graphics are very good, but it also weaves in RPG elements, interaction with characters, and a multipath plot.
Are older game designers extinct dinosaurs, useless in an age where form is king? Or are they, instead, people who remember when flashy graphics were not enough to ensure satisfactory Christmas sales? Are they, in fact, the descendents of dinosaurs: soaring birds?
I hope to see computer games emerge from the current state, which is like movies in 1910, and come into their own as a real art form. To do this, I think that we need art that does more than show off the technology. I think that the skills of the pioneers are still needed.
Slashdot Mirror
If I recall correctly, EA was the savior of Origin Systems, bailing Origin out of its own mismanagement. An AC above said, "Who cares, everything past Ultima 6 sucked." Well, in my opinion, it's because Garriott was more involved with running the company at that point than he was with designing games. His gifts lie with the latter, not the former.
one
two
Tribute-
I just think the way the company mismanaged its projects(U7-10), basicly sabotaging them, is a shame. Origin had tons of kewl games, I'm just glad R.G. has found something productive.
This mind intentionally left blank.
The KKK a bunch of sheetheads? You decide!
Several weeks ago, I read in a forum
that Lineage would be the most popular
MMPORG in asia. So I downloaded the free
trial version (>200MB) and had a look.
Well - the graphics were ok. But there
really wasn't too much to do. Also there
were a lot of players on the server
complaining that they'd de facto beta-
test the game for $15 per month. It seems
like the free trial had just been introduced.
I now consider the message about the
popularity a plant. Hopefully things have
improved.
Lineage has been mentioned on Slashdot previously, as part of a furore over violence in games resulting to aggression in the real world.
For anyone who doesn't want to load that page up, it linked a very interesting TIME article here. I suggest reading it -- in the Western world, the whole dollars-for-Diablo-items routine is normally as bad as this gets, but this is (if true) several steps beyond that entirely.
<!-- DHTML / JavaScript menu, popup tooltip, Ajax scripts -->
I had the pleasure of visiting EA/Origin's Austin facility before the Garriott + team exodus. It was a neat place to be, but there was a real feeling that people were being stifled, not getting to do what they wanted creatively, and being slaves to the visions of other...
And I saw Richard's car in the parking lot. Hella cool. =)
Anyway, now they're off on their own, striking out! With a new company and new ideas... "destination games." They were going to lead us back to their roots (which are our roots), back to greatness...
But now, even their email addresses are at NC... the makers of Bloodpledge. The reason is, for apparently financial reasons, they're porting games. Hardly a creative process. I can only hope they pick it up and get back on track after they're done with Bloodpledge. Otherwise, they changed the name of the masters from "EA" to "NC" and the game from "Ultima Online" to "Bloodpledge."
Someone else's ideas and blood, sweat and tears. We hope to see yours again, Garriot! All your fans are hoping you find the path again.
... were in the '80s for Richard Garriott and Ultima. That's when games were about gameplay, gamers needed graphpaper, and people whose names were on the boxes still coded. We may scoff at him now, but Lord British was a big deal in those days.
Picture this: it's a Saturday morning in the late '80s and 300 restless geeks are packed into a Georgetown University auditorium waiting with baited breath for Lord British himself to unveil the Ultima V beta.
We were the GameSIG of the Washington Apple Pi, and Richard Garriott was our guest and our friend. He wasn't just showing us a preview of Ultima V, he was showing it to us before anyone else got to see it.
Already, Ultima IV had blown our minds, and we all wanted to see where the series went next. For many of us who were at an impressionable age (I was 11), the Ultima series was a big part of our intellectual lives. Lord British was our guardian in the game and our hero in life.
When Garriott stepped onto the stage wearing armor and carrying a sword and shield, we just went nuts. Better still, he came bearing gifts; he reached into his satchel and threw handfuls of silvery ankhs out to the roaring crowd. I caught one and still treasure it.
Then the lights dimmed and we waited for the moment of truth. Lord British put the 5.25" diskettes into the Apple IIGS (256K). He fiddled with the projection system a bit and them blam: Ultima V blasted onto the screen.
The graphics and sound just blew us away, and Garriott explained each improvement as he took us through an hour-long tour of the game. You could see (and hear!) grass sway in the wind, waves rolled, trees blocked light while windows let it in... And the music!!!
The climax came when he showed us the lighthouse. You could see and hear the surf pounding on the rocks, while a beam of light swept over land and sea, just like a real lighthouse. And all of this before the backdrop of convincingly forboding music. Inside the lighthouse awaited a surprise: the keeper was none other than the don of our GameSIG, Ron Wartow. Somebody we knew was in Ultima V!
After talking to the Wartow character and getting him to crack a few jokes, Garriott looked up at us and then paused for a full ten seconds. Breaking the silence, he asked: "Well, shall we attack Ron?" We yelled back an affirmative reply. 8 turns later, Ron was a bloody pulp and our party was 5 gold and a ham sandwich richer. We were in stitches... the kid next me laughed so hard he puked through his nose.
On his way out, Lord British gave us cloth maps and whispered to us about Easter eggs he'd sprinkled throughout the series. We were on cloud nine, and I was ready to devote my life to becoming a pixelated Avatar. I wanted to grow up to be Lord British. I wanted to make games, I wanted to be in them, and I wanted to live them.
Sadly, I never got to play Ultima V. The game was delayed and the 'rents wouldn't spring for the IIGS. By time I had the resources to play the game, I'd moved onto the PC and was hooked on a series of games by a guy named Sid Meier, but that's another story for another day...
sig semper tyrannis!
Well, we can hope that maybe he'll come up with something new and innovative.
I do remember meeting him in the early '80s at a computer software store in Georgia. I agree that he was a pioneer and obviously very dedicated to what he was doing. What struck me, was that even though he was quite well known and successful, at that point he possessed a quality I've rarely seen in programmers : Humility
I imagine he's grown up and lost that quality, but that's the way I remember him...
And I still remember the original Ultima ( the C-64) version with fondness.
Sittius
Xibalba: My hell. Your hell. Our hell!
What is it about people, journalists in particular, that makes them believe that the U.S. "market" is so well insulated by the McDisney cultural powerhouse, that nothing can ever be "successful" in the United States.
The number of "foreign" products, games, whatever, that are seeing tremendous success here is staggering, but the "yeah, but" crowd just continues to bury their head in the demographics reports. I'll guarantee that some tie-wearing cynical #*@&!~*@%& at some arrogant company said Harry Potter would never be a "success" either. Can't you just hear it? Some haircut in a grey suit holding his hand over his #%&@#*()%# cell-phone and saying "a kid with glasses and a broom? Give me a break!"
Just a reaction to the "far too foreign to make a truly successful crossover title" remark in the article. What is truly successful? How much? A billion? A hundred billion? What?
This is what causes the money-grab mindset of businesses now. If it doesn't lead to a 100000% market-cap increase and an IPO and put us in the Fortune 100, and the creative team can't PROVE that will happen, then we'd rather just have another meeting.
I just read a few articles about "Dance Dance Revolution." Here's another product that U.S. companies probably laughed at. Yet, whenever I see the game, some kid is putting money in it, and 437 other kids are lined up around the corner to play it, and 300 other people are watching, and 10,000 other people are putting up web sites about it.
Keep having meetings and keep running your mouths, U.S. corporate-types. There's a million little companies out there with a million little really neat ideas that are eventually going to eat your %#&@$()* lunch.
return rant();
A few years ago, I saw the late Douglas Adams give the keynote address at Siggraph. He was just designing Starship Titanic at the time. He said one thing that has stuck with me: "Use your limitations, before they are denied you." By that I think he meant that computing power and graphics cards would advance to the point where it would become tempting to rely on flash and adrenaline for the success of a game and neglect thought.
I think that time has come. There is a dreadful sameness to the games that are being produced today. Consider Alice. The art and texture are marvelous, as is the potential of the idea: the internal world of a madwoman. Yet the play reduces to running around and shooting, with a few Donkey Kong skills thrown in. All the big tasks consist of defeating bosses, a la Duke Nukem. A good play, no doubt, but it could have been so much more.
On the other hand, consider Deus Ex. The reasonably modern first-person graphics are very good, but it also weaves in RPG elements, interaction with characters, and a multipath plot.
Are older game designers extinct dinosaurs, useless in an age where form is king? Or are they, instead, people who remember when flashy graphics were not enough to ensure satisfactory Christmas sales? Are they, in fact, the descendents of dinosaurs: soaring birds?
I hope to see computer games emerge from the current state, which is like movies in 1910, and come into their own as a real art form. To do this, I think that we need art that does more than show off the technology. I think that the skills of the pioneers are still needed.