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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."
Does this article call for a racist or anti-semitic diatribe? What a personal or disgusting description of a sexual encounter be more appropriate? What about a goatse link? Thank you in advance.
He needs to care for the alien fetus growing inside his stomach.
The games industry has sucked the life out of any 'franchise' inherited from when the PC game market was healthy.
Tabula Rasa has zero name recognition.
The number of people who know who Garriott is, is not enough to sustain usage on an MMO.
The cost of the game was exorbitant when you have zero name recognition.
MMOs have a shelf life and expire after a (very few) years.
Therefore, why would someone do a project like this, as a pure business case? I love Richard Garriott and what he represents, but I blame NCsoft for greenlighting and funding this MMO, rather than Garriott for creating it.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
This actually is a phenomenon known as the overview effect. Space travelers often report a transcendental sense of connectedness.
Beat me to it. "Who, what, when?" was going to be my title. An article about a guy who was remotely involved in this game-generation's Daikatana becoming un-involved? Yaaawn.
I'll save further comment for when kdawson dupes this article on Friday.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
What sort of troubles that aren't related to Tabula Rasa?
Is Guild Wars 2 at risk?!
"He needs to care for the alien fetus growing inside his stomach."
... so he can help start the alien space invasion!... oh no!... This would also explain his sudden career change and it would also explain John Carmack's move into Aerospace!... see it explains a lot! ... they are both aliens!
:)
Maybe aliens have already replaced him with a replica?
Maybe the Armadillo's are behind it!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armadillo_Aerospace
Then again, maybe we have both had too much coffee today.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world... those who understand binary and those who don't.
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.
My biggest complaint about Tabula Rasa was that it was so generic. When I got into the beta, from all the material and previews I'd read, I was expecting something like WW2 Online (but good) against an intelligent, dynamic AI army.
Instead I played WoW with crappy pseudo-FPS controls. About the only innovative feature was the cloning, and even the appeal of that was diminished by the near-Korean levels of grinding the game required.
If you haven't made a developer cry, you've wasted a day.
He didn't produce the first, the most successful or even a particularly good online game: so why would he be "king"?
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
"Whoa, Paul McCartney used to be in a band?"