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Richard Garriott Quits NCSoft
unc0nn3ct3d writes "In a shocking update on the seemingly endless troubles plaguing NCSoft, Richard Garriott — the king of online games, creator of The Ultima Series (and consequentially Ultima Online), as well as the recently troubled Tabula Rasa — has announced that he would be stepping down from his position at NCSoft. Apparently motivated by his recent trip into space, perhaps he has found a higher purpose while orbiting so high above the earth."
TR is, IMHO, the best MMO available today. It's also pretty cheap compared to WoW.
I have played both pretty heavily, and my all time fave is TR.
I've been a fan of Garriott since the beginning (Akalabeth) and he has rarely disappointed (well, ultima underworld kinda sucked). TR doesn't seem to have much of his penchant for dramatic story telling (unlike Ultima, Wing Commander, and UO), so his departure may not change much.
I hope he goes off to do something fun.
If TR ends after this, it will be a shame. It's my favorite MMO, and probably the last one I'll play for the foreseeable future (since most of the rest are just... meh)
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
If your numbers of players are declining, your product is in a death spiral, even if it takes 10 years to drop to something equating to nil. If you are not doing well financially now, having fewer players - meaning less cash coming in - means you can afford to develop less and have even less chance of turning things around. And there are several MMOs that have closed down.
http://www.mmogchart.com/charts/ - have fun checking it out.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Despite being raised in the US and sounding American, Richard Garriot was born in Cambridge, England. He also did not give himself that name, it was given to him by others who thought he had British mannerisms.
That's his name in Tabula Rasa.
I hate to break it to you, but computer games were being made before 3 years ago. If you were a gamer in the 80s, you KNOW that Garriot is indeed a king. Ever heard of the Ultima series?
If you were gaming in the 80s you are either -
A) trolling hard
B)living in an ignorant state of denial
C)lying
about the "washed up has-been" crap.
"But this one goes to 11!"
"Whoa, Paul McCartney used to be in a band?"
functional PvP
PVP, or rather, RVR(realm vs realm) was worlds better than anything that had come before it in terms of PVP. In fact, it made PVP more accessible to a larger part of the audience, which made for more varied encounters, which were more fun. Instead of Joe the Newbie, saying oh, what is this PVP stuff, I think I will go che.....
Dead!