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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."
I thought he was dead. ;)
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.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
The headline made me think that Richard Garriott was returning to create more Ultima games. I have read a couple interviews with him, and think that he has an interesting take on game design. I never got a chance to play any of the Ultima games--though I remember reading reviews of them in the gaming magazines when I was little. Virtue in gaming seems like a very interesting idea given what we usualy see in games.
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.
The bold print giveth, and the fine print taketh away
Aha. After a quick Google search, I found a site that's got an interview with the player who killed Lord British, and the official response from the Ultima Online team. That site is here.
Goo goo g'joob.
More importantly, this also marks the return of human-run plots. UO's volunteer quest-makers were axed 2 years ago, along with the volunteer customer support and newbie-helpers, when EA got skittish about possible lawsuits like the one brought against AOL by its volunteers. Since that time, UO tried to make do with plots events scripted in code, rather than enacted by DM-like volunteers.
The return of Lord British was the first event enacted by the new Event Moderators - contracted employees doing pretty much what the former volunteers did. At least half of them are former volunteers, only now paid by the hour.
I think this is a very important positive step for UO, as the lack of human intelligence behind plot characters really sucked the soul from the game. Plots scripted by humans (sometimes partly on the spot) was, and will be again, one of the primary differentiating factors that sets UO apart in an increasingly crowded MMOG marketplace.
For great justice.
No Lord British = Not an Ultima
:)
No Richard Garriot = Not Lord British
Thanks for the series Richard, I'm really looking forward to your next creations. Here's hoping they will be as influential as the past ones.
P.S. Think "single player"... wink wink
E.
Never rub another man's rhubarb - The Joker
oops
I didnt mean the parent. I ment the post with the link. And I had 2 points. The second was that the page was so old that 2 out of the 3 linked items were broken.
If you are going to post something for some quick Karma, at least point to a useful page.
Like this one
One that has pictures and the official response and the interview without broken links.
All it took was a 2 second google search.