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Spector, Garriott on Games

Posted by michael on from the invisible-hand-of-the-ion-illuminati dept.

Warrior-GS writes "GameSpy has two interesting interviews up. Richard Garriott of Ultima fame talks about leaving Origin, getting bought out by NCSoft and becoming a pitchman for a popular Korean MMORPG trying to make it in the states. He also mentions his new game, Tabula Rasa. The other interview is with Warren Spector, who opened up a bit on the Deus Ex sequel Invisible War, while also commenting on linear games, anime style games and what the future holds."

4 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Classic Ultima vs Online by aridhol · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I've been a fan of Ultima ever since I got Ultima IV on my Commodore; I've since gone back and played the entire central series.

    I look at what they're marketing as Ultima these days, and have to wonder what the heck happened. Why did Blackthorne go from being a corrupted nobleman to being a cyborg? When did Britannia get all ultra-high-tech?

    I don't play online games. I like to go through at my own pace, on my own schedule, and complete a game. I don't want some 31337 kiddie to come along and screw up the game by being completely out of character or by cheating. And I don't want to pay extra to play a game that I've already bought.

    So my Ultima experience is limited to the "real" Ultimas. I'll never know what accident of history changed Britannia to a sci-fi nightmare. And I won't lose any sleep over it.

    --
    I can't say that I don't give a fuck. I've just run out of fuck to give.
    1. Re:Classic Ultima vs Online by DrCode · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I agree, and also have another reason for playing single-person games: I like being the hero. In single-person games, you get to save the world, solve the mystery, or defeat the evil pirate LeChuck.

      One game designer (forgot who) suggested that the ideal multi-player game would have far more NPC's than real players. That way, each human player could still be the center of attention, and get involved in complex plots, only occasionally running into other humans.

  2. Re:Tabula Rasa by $$$$$exyGal · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Here's what Garriott says about the name "Tabula Risa":

    There's a number of ways to interpret "clean slate." We originally picked that name less because of subject matter than the need to start over again. Interestingly, if you go into the way the game is designed, we didn't actively choose to have the fiction behind the game support that title, but the background tale we selected actually wound up fitting the name quite well.

    Interesting that the name didn't necessarily have anything to do with the actual product.

    --sex

    --
    Very popular slashdot journal for adul
  3. Re:Cool. by Reedo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I honestly can't tell if that's sarcasm of not.

    If not, then you must not have heard about Ultima 9? Made by a guy with a solid reputation (Ultima!) and was heralded by Origin/EA for it's cutting-edge graphics technology. It released and was one of the biggest disasters in recent memory. It was so buggy that Origin remastered the game with all the patches and sent them out to registered users who bought Ultima 9. They also shut down the message boards shortly after release because of the massive amount of complaints.