Lord British Returns To Ultima Online

Thanks to Origin for their news release announcing Lord British is returning to the world of PC MMORPG Ultima Online. The article trails: "Talk circulates throughout the land of the return of a figure from Britannia's past, whose whereabouts have been shrouded in mystery for these many moons", and GameShark has contacted NCSoft Austin, where Ultima creator Richard 'Lord British' Garriott now works (and where he has even introduced Lord British's character into Lineage), and reports that "Richard Garriott... gave [Origin/EA] permission to reintroduce the character into the world of Ultima. Origin apparently made a deal with Richard that allowed them to use the character if they had Richard's blessings."

Comments

Wow

[Snowspinner]

Considering how tightly Garriott has held onto that persona in the past - to the point of very deliberately blurring the line between Lord British and himself, allowing a company he is no longer at all associated with to continue using it is somewhat surprising - especially considering that the relationship between Garriott and EA has not always been cordial.

Then again, now that Garriott no longer has any rights to the Ultima line, which Lord British was always associated with, maybe he's just letting go of the past and moving on to entirely new ventures.

It's not the same

[tessaiga]

Lord British in UO was cool because he was Richard Gariott; running into him was kinda like a celebrity sighting. It's nice for story continuity that Gariott is letting Origin put Lord British back in, but it's not going to have the same "wow" factor now that it'll just be some random Origin rep behind the keyboard.