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").
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.
Re:A short history
by
Kefabi
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Video Gaming is serious in Korea.
They have televised StarCraft matches, complete with announcers, play by play analysis, and strategy talk. I've seen some shows go as far as have the players wear "futuristic" type wear while playing each other.
Diablo II is big too. I've seen televised duels between players.
Lineage gets a good amount of screen time too with talk about the world and items and skills and such.
There are entire channels devoted to computer games.
The fact is, they have PC rooms open 24 hours a day where you can use PC's for less than a dollar and hours. They almost always have people in them too playing one of the above games, or Go, or a game called Fortress 2 (Expanded Worms-like game), or whatever else. At 3 in the morning there are still plenty of males and females still playing games.
I've seen arcades take up three floors, people have made livings playign Video Games there. It's not something loser kids with no time do, it's part of the culture.
Now the sorry thing is some culturally insensitive prick's gonna mod this +1 Funny...
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.
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!
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!
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
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.
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!
... 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!
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.