After Ultima 8 and Ultima 9? Unless you are a heatseeker or uncritical fanboy of Richard Garriott, then you won't be rejoicing about RG's group moving into new office space (I'll spare you the allusion to Ion Storm and their Dallas offices:)).
I don't think many Ultima fans will be rejoicing at this bit of news. You see, we are interested in *Ultima*, not just any old thing RG puts out (for example, the old Car Wars computer game). At this point -- for whatever reason, bad decisions/burnout/you pick a reason/etc. -- Ultima fans will be taking a wait and see attitude. They want to know what the finished product will be like. And after the botches made of U8 and U9, who can blame them?
If he designs a great online game, cool, we all benefit. If he designs an online game as revolutionary as U4, well, enough said.:-D
At this point, Ultima fans have had _years_ of promises. It is what RG actually produces that will speak for him.
Re:Slashdot readership stats ... get 'em fresh!
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Stopping The 56K Hate
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· Score: 1
> It seems some people are using IE2.0 (don't believe it)
Believe it.:) IE 2 is the browser you get when you install NT 4. Bigger companies tend to be anal about upgrading _anything_.:sigh:
I understand that, that's why I wished he never had to sell. Sadly, I knew he couldn't keep it on his own, I just think (financial considerations aside) that Origin, Sierra, and others would be making much better games if they were still under control of people willing to take risks to make a great game. A far cry from EA who will not publish a game it does not think will be a bestseller
Well, first you have to define what a "much better game" is.:) Is System Shock a "much better game" than Doom ][? A lot of people think that, but Doom ][ sold a heck of a lot more copies than System Shock.
I honestly don't think you would get many more "much better games" even if the smaller companies still controlled their own fates. You would still have things like people burning out (RG and the Ultima series) and umpteen clones of a popular game (remember all the Asteriods/Pacman/etc clones in the early 80s?), or the owners deciding everything has to be different (Ken Williams/Sierra).
Games are, by and large, a for-profit enterprise where the developers want to get Joe to part with his beer money for their product because said product has enough entertainment value. You can't ever put financial considerations aside. If you do, you die.
Umm, do you know who Dave Cutler is? The guy who create WindowsNT for MS? One hint, go look up the terms VAX and VMS.
I will sat that complaining about MS not making an original OS is pretty dumb considering Linux and the *BSD's are all imitations of Un*x.:sigh:
Re:This has been happening too often...
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Dynamix Closed Down?
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> How much better would things be now if Richard Garriott never sold (or had to sell) Origin to EA?
Things wouldn't be any better. As Richard Garriott said himself, Origin wasn't big enough to survive by itself because Origin didn't have the muscle and deep pockets to grease the distribution channels well enough.
The reason EA does so well is that its management understands the distribution channel and has the size to pay the big stores to display their games.
(This also ignores the fact that with Ultima 6 and Ultima 7 Origin pushed itself to the financial breaking point.:sigh:)
Just thought I'd point out that RG wasn't in control of Origin when EA took over, EA appointed at the least a different GM, as well as high level management types... In which case, by your logic RG is absolved...;-)
But not completely, then.;-)
However, I believe RG was in control of Origin for long time after EA bought Origin. It wasn't until some of the UO follies occurred that EA installed their own person. Wholly-owned subsidiaries and all that.
You're probably thinking of the Underworld portion of the game. It consisted of a map the same size as the main Britannian world, but which was (as you'd expect of a newly-revealed subsurface continent) only sparsely populated with cool stuff.
Some of our more vocal players and reviewers, including Scorpia, evidently felt that their $49.95 entitled them to a certain amount of entertainment value per square foot of real estate. The Underworld was never intended to look like some kind of underground Disneyland (or whatever these people were expecting), so it was a disappointment to some. But it most assuredly was complete as shipped.:-)
Then my apologies are tendered.:-)
I dug out my CGW (#47, May 1988) that included the Scorpia review. In her review she gave an example of a pair of secret doors in Skara Brae that lead to nowhere. She went on to point out other areas and say, "It gives Ultima V a certain unfinished look, as well as aggravating players who may spend fruitless hours looking for something or waiting for someone that doesn't exist.". If this effect was what was intended, then obviously the game was finished as designed.
Richard may or may not be a decent manager these days -- I honestly couldn't say. We had a very small, highly-motivated, and largely self-managing team on U5. But he is certainly an impressive living example of the difference between a "manager" and a "leader." If you worked for Richard, you'd follow him into Hell to collect nifty glowing rocks, just like the rest of us did.:-)
That I understand. Charisma is a powerful motivator. While I think Ollie North ought to be in jail for what he did, you can't help but like the guy when you meet him.
This is completely tangential to the discussion, but I was wondering if you knew anything about the FM-Towns (Japanese) version of Ultima VI that included full speech? I have an original CD and I would like to be able to convert the sound files to something more usable. I was hoping that as the author of the Miles Sound System (thank you:)) you might be able to point me in the right direction towards decoding these files.
Don't you find it at all concidental that when EA did finally step in, the Ultima games became the worst they have ever been?
No, but not for the same reasons you believe. I think having EA's deeper pockets allowed RG to try dumb things. He could try the action/RPG U8, whereas before he had to appeal to his core market. He could take 5 years to create U9, whereas before he had more pressures to ship and to ship a polished game.
Why do you blame RG for bankrupting Origin?
Is it all his fault? No. Is it all EA's fault? No. I do think, as the person in control of Origin, he bears the greatest share of the responsibility for what happened to Origin. Again, what appalls me is the fact RG never mentions his own mistakes, but instead prefers to leave you with the impression that all of Origin's woes were the result of Big Bad EA. That answer is a little too pat for me.
Anyhoo, you don't seem to have much proof anywhere that RG "drove Origin into the ground"..
Ultima VI was shipped to meet payroll. Origin was in such financial straits that the company was sold to EA. If neither of those are driving a company into the ground, then we aren't speaking the same language.
Really? What a fascinating assertion. I don't recall many complaints along these lines from U5's players, and (having been the lead programmer on the project) I seem to be missing the usual feelings of resentment and anguish that accompany the forced shipment of an unfinished game. Can you refresh my memory here?
I was basing on the reviews of U5 when it was released, such as Scorpia's review in CGW that commented on the unfinished areas in the game. I also remember Ultima V was rather late from its originally announced ship date. If I am misremembering both those facts than I apologize.
I believe Richard has expressed his regrets and taken responsibility for U8's problems on more than one occasion. Certainly the design direction in U9 (bugs notwithstanding) took U8's criticism to heart.
Which design direction? I can come up with at least three different designs U9 went through: the one that Mike McShaffry said gave him the chills it was so good, the Del Castillo one, and the one we finally got in the released version.
Not to apologize for U8 -- I wasn't involved in it, and never got around to playing it -- but you're being a little dramatic with your Monday-morning quarterbacking. From Richard's point of view, it was scary as hell to watch his dev budgets climb supergeometrically with each successive title, while sales figures remained pretty much where they peaked in U3. By the time Origin started work on U8, it was clear that drastic changes were required to keep the series financially viable.
I believe RG has said a number of times that each Ultima has sold more copies than the prior Ultima. If the sales of the series has remained essentially flat since U3, then I really have problems with his _management_ abilities (but not his creative abilities). Being able to hit a deadline is a part of what you are paid for as a manager.
My understanding is that U8 actually sold pretty well, but few of the old-school people, including Richard himself, were ever happy with the final product.
My understanding from what Mike McShaffry said in the infamous CGW interview, U8 was exactly what they set out to create.
I believe Richard has expressed his regrets and taken responsibility for U8's problems on more than one occasion. Certainly the design direction in U9 (bugs notwithstanding) took U8's criticism to heart.
RG has consistently blamed EA as the cause of U8's failures. If he is to get the credit for the games, should he not bear the burden of the mistakes?
Making Ultimas is hard. Try it sometime.
Heh. That's an easy cheap shot to make. You and I both know that EA won't every let Ultima out of their hands. Though if you could I would be happy to see you give it a shot.
And this might just shock you, but I honestly think you can't have an Ultima without RG's input. It is just that I can see he can be a disaster as a manager. Then again, I now from first hand experience as a programmer for almost two decades that seldom do you find a decent manager and a decent programmer/creative person in the same body. Each job function requires a set of skills that require time and experience to develop and have little overlap.
Considering who the interviewer is, the poorly done interview isn't surprising. Tina Haumersen has been one of Garriott's sycophants for years. She has gone so far as to name one of her kids after a character from the Ultima games.
Then again, she's used his misfortunes for her on ends. When RG was fired from/left Origin she couldn't wait to post that information on her little website in order to drive hits to it. Her scoop was more important that any respect for the man and what obviously had to be a painful time for him.
When the Dallas Observer story broke about the antics at Ion Storm, this same person tossed John Romero the same softballs. Her opinion was that if you knew the creators of a game it would tell you if the game would be good or not!
Richard Garriott has been more and more disconnected from Ultima since U7:Black Gate. That's understandable since I'm sure he's tired of Ultima and wants to create something different. I can respect that, but the bad things he has done really puts a smear on his reputation.
The thing that bugs me is that the man finally drove Origin into the ground and he _still_ blames EA for his own mistakes. Ultima V shipped unfinished because they had no other choice. Ultima VI shipped buggy to meet the following week's payroll (ask Dr. Cat). Ultima VII drove Origin to the point of death and EA stepped in and saved Origin.
When RG decided that expanding the market for the Ultimas was more important than anything else we got the action/RPG abortion called Ultima VIII: Pagan. After that flopped, instead of accepting that he made a big mistake in abandoning the existing Ultima fanbase he blamed EA. That's where all of this 'Origin's problems are EA's fault' started. It was always EA's fault, never his. The man who created the Virtues, who brought morality and ethics to the computer gaming industry wasn't willing to accept responsibility for his own actions.
EA gave him five years to create Ultima IX and he still screwed it up. He fired good people. Move the entire U9 team to work on Ultima Online (ignoring Brook's Law). Hired a RTS guy to create the capstone of the Trilogy of Trilogies. Fired his design team. Ignored what the fans cried out for. Didn't bother to talk to anyone because he feared the "wilds of the Internet". And on and on and on. And when he shipped a buggy beta as the final product he blamed EA once again. No wonder they booted him.
Hell, don't even get me started on the whoppers the man has told: UO: There is no lag. U9: Well tested and debugged. These are not the actions of an ethical person, no matter how much the later Ultimas deal with those same issues.
All in all, it makes me sad that people like RG who -- however talented as a storyteller -- couldn't manage a one car funeral procession gets this attention when truly deserving people like Warren Spector who *can* manage, promotes the teams he works with instead of himself, and is very creative.
:sigh: When I was playing the original Ultima on my Apple ][ and waiting for Ultima ][ I never realised that one RG would make himself into a John "Daikatana" Romero.
Cringely isn't a columnist in Infoworld. The name is a pseudonym used by the editiors for a rumor column. So please take everything you read in the column with a large grain of salt.
I remember blowing my summer work money on a Sears Video Arcade and a stack of games, including Adventure. My brother and I played that game until four in the morning that first day.:)
We _found_ the magic dot the first day in our explorations, but it wasn't until *years* later we discovered that the dot let you into the easter egg room.
The way we discovered the dot is that we found that the room the dot was in was blocked on all four sides. Wondering what might be in there we hauled the bridge to the room and investigated. At first we knew something had happened, but since we were playing on a black and white 12" TV, we didn't realize that we had picked up the dot.
We tried a number of things with the dot, but gathering several items by the thin wall and walking through the wall never occurred to us.
Ultima V on the Amiga and PC... (The Amiga version also had some music whereas the other editions didn't).
As far as I remember, only the IBM PC version was music-challenged. My Apple ][ Ultima V certainly has music. In fact, it can drive *two* Mockingboards and four speakers.:)
Ultima IX was Garriott's last chance to survive at Origin. Ever since Garriott sold Origin to EA, Origin has turned out buggy games (before even). He had to make U9 good or suffer the corporate consequences.
Unfortunately, Garriott continued to be out of touch with what people wanted and what his team could do with the existing technology. *sigh*
I think Garriott can be a good game designer, but a disaster as a manager and VP. (Remember the "There is no lag in Ultima Online" statement he made?) He should have stuck to what he was good at and hired some sharp people to run the business side of Origin for him.
At least we have the old games, especially Ultima IV through VII to remember, play, and praise Garriott for (though his involvement with U7 was minimal).
On the tech side, the thing I like about newspapers and, by extension, magazines and books, is that they are technology agnostic. A century from now you'll still be able to read that newspaper (assuming the acid in the paper hasn't eaten it away). Can you say the same for that 8-track tape, 8-inch floppy, cassette tape, CD-ROM, etc.?
On the content side, it depends. My local newspaper (The Kansas City Star) is pathetic. It is filled with fluff and crud and no real news. It is so community-oriented as to be worthless as a source of information about the world. It has almost become a news catalog instead of a news source. Newspapers need to return to real, substance-oriented news and journalism. I prefer newspapers like the NY Times, the Washington Post (on its good days), The Wall Street Journal, or the superb British newspapers like *The* Times.
The same is true of magazines. Newsweek, Time, and even US News and World Report are jokes, content-wise compared to, say, The Economist. (It is interesting to me that the papers and magazines which focus on economics are the good ones with a lot of substance.)
Oops. I've rambled a bit.:)
One final thought (not intended as flame bait): While I enjoy sites like Slashdot, I don't consider them the online equivalent of newspapers or a source of journalism. What Slashdot is to me is a "news catalog" where I can find interesting stories _done elsewhere_. To me, if Slashdot was truly a news site it would be creating its own stories and not just presenting interesting links.
As a consultant/programmer/software engineer I work 40 - 45 hours a week. This is mainly because I'm paid on an hourly basis. The more I work the less the customer wants to pay for that overtime work, so the problem self-corrects.;)
I've been paid both a salary and hourly as a full-time employee, plus I've been paid hourly as a consultant.
I prefer hourly because if some idiot decides to ask you to work longer you get paid for your time. Yes, many places promise comp time (aka time off), but few actually give you that comp time. Even fewer give you comp time on a one to one ratio of extra hours worked to hours taken off. That said, the down side of hourly is that if you don't work you don't get paid. So taking those long lunches isn't an option.:)
One the other hand, if you are trying to work your way up in your company, I guess you should go salary and expect to be overworked without compensation. Given how often we technical people change jobs I think playing the career ladder game at a single company is a foolish move. Which is why I prefer to be a consultant paid by the hour. Your job changes are an expected part of your career.
When I was growing up in those pre-IBM PC days both words were a nasty insult used by those who could only measure their own worth by trying to destroy or demean others. I cring when I see others call themselves geeks or nerds because, to me, it means the assholes have won.:(
I guess there is a generational divide even among those of us with the hacker (classic meaning) mentality. To call oneself a geek or a nerd except as a broad joke, is a sure sign of a luser or a hip-wannabee to those of my generation.
I guess if it makes you happy to call yourself either of these two words, more power to you, but please understand that some of us despise those words with a passion.
How soon we forget.:) There have been a number of ports, to the Apple IIgs, the SNES, Atari Jaguar, and the Mac among others. Check out http://www.warzone.com/fullnews/902317374.shtml.
I think Linux is marginal on the *desktop*. I think it is going to continue to be marginal on the desktop until there are developers that create world class apps for things as varied as basic accounting stuff (we all like to get paid, right?:)), personal tax software, geneology, hobby specific software (things like PC Stitch), and of course, games.
My point is that there is a wide variety of necessary and/or desired software out there that people look for that isn't cool for programmers to be working on. Stuff that you have to _pay_ programmers to develop. (I'm a programmer myself:) and a bunch of stuff I work on I wouldn't touch if I wasn't paid to do so.) Until we start seeing more basic, mundane programs such as Star Office, Linux just isn't going to be a real option for most users (and this assumes that the stuff is given away for free -- if developers charge for it the barriers for Linux get even higher).
Ultimately if people want to marginalize Microsoft they are going to have to fulfill *all* of the functions and services Microsoft provides, better, cheaper, and faster.
Through mismanagement Origin *lost* the source code for Ultima 7. Then again, Origin's philosophy for the Ultimas is to throw the old engine away and start over from scratch.
That lost source code makes a nice argument for open source doesn't it?:)
I definitely have a preference for breast size - I won't mention what it is. But my favorite breasts are my wife's. Not because they're large, medium, or small, but because they're HERS. Take hers and put them on someone else, and in the long run they're not interesting to me.
I would agree with your sentiment. For myself. I realize that others might and generally do think differently. Then again, liking just your partner is a different situation than being single and looking for a partner. Different rules apply.
The point is that, if we're thinking, feeling people, we look beyond the superficial and fall in love with the REAL PERSON. We value who they are, and what they look like becomes less and less important, only important in that it is a part of them.
The key is that "if". Not all people are like that. Nor do they want to be. If two people are happy with each other and choose to stay at a superficial level then who are we to say that they are wrong for having different standards than us?
Also,all relationships start out at a superficial level. No one can look beyond the superficial until they've spent the years getting to know the "REAL PERSON". That "getting to know" takes a lot of open and very honest communication. So what is the problem with liking certain parts of a person and then making the effort to know more?
Plus, why is it better to like one part of a person, such as their brain, and not another part of a person, such as their body? Some people are proud of those aspects of themselves. Should we blanket-dismiss certain things or should we appreciate what we like about a person, appreciate what they like and learn more about each other? Don't we have to start somewhere?
Believe me, I'm not offended by Robin's preferences. I'm offended that he considers them so important that, in an essay on what to look for in a relationship, he made them the subject of over half of what he wrote. And in that particular case, he was basically saying that you should be nice to the ugly, not because you should be nice in general, but because they might someday be good-looking. His reasoning follows that if you knew in advance that they'd still be ugly in ten years, you'd have no reason to be nice to them.
I don't follow that reasoning at all. What I see Roblimo confessing is that he looked at someone on a superficial level and didn't bother to learn the "REAL PERSON". Because of that mistake he lost out on being involved with someone that would have interested him if he had been a bit more aware himself.
I got news for ya. In the long run, we're ALL ugly. In 10 years, 20 years, 30 years YOU will be the ugly one. After 20 years of gravity and infant feeding, those breasts won't be so pretty. If we're lucky, the majority of our lives will not be spent looking young and beautiful. If we're wise, those ugly years will still be meaningful, and we will not spend our time pining for the beautiful days.
That's old news to me.:) My son is in school and my partner's (who is older than me) son is in university. The amusing thing (maybe news for you) is that breasts are still neat at any age, even if they've sagged or been baby chewed. You see, to me beauty has nothing to do with age and everything to do with the person.
Not only have I been on a college campus and met those women, I've seen the result of those sorts of marriages in the long term. The current film "American Beauty" sums those marriages up extremely well -- full of empty accomplishments, missing most of what's really important in life.
That depends on who you talk to. I know a number of women that are quite happy with their "MRS". They willingly chose that option with their eyes open. Are they to be dismissed as stupid simply because they chose to follow their bodies with their minds and lives?
To say that husband-hunting is the result of _basic biology_ -- that's even more offensive than Roblimo, who simply took his personal preferences and assumptions about the world and applied them to everyone. To you, the MRS women aren't merely trying to satisfy a societal preference, they're hard-wired to do so. Doesn't it bother you that that very thinking has been used to excuse the very worst of all human behaviors in history?
Sorry, but husband hunting is a basic fact of biology. Just as is the tendency of males to want to impregnate as many females as possible. The procreation instinct is the strongest survival instinct there is. (An interesting book to read on the subject is Sperm Wars by Robin Baker.) If it wasn't humanity wouldn't exist today. The fact that we are hard-wired to procreate is no more a cause of anguish than it is that we only see in a certain part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Actually, knowing how our bodies do really work gives us a better chance to make wise choices.
Anyway, the fact that certain thinking has been misused doesn't mean that the thinking is wrong. If misuse destroyed the worth of an idea then things like freedom, democracy, equal rights, etc. would not be creditable instead of having such power these days.
Interesting way of quoting someone's words without accurately representing their spirit.:)
> Geek girls are incapable of being loving and considerate, and unloving and inconsiderate geek guys have to avoid that.
Sometimes the worst person for you is the one that is exactly like you. Anyway, he didn't make that claim about Geek girls.
> The ideal woman is one who selflessly meets your every needs.
Being in love with someone is being *willing* to selflessly meet your partners needs. This comes from within and isn't the terrible thing you seem to think it is.
> The proper role for the woman is that of handservant, who considers running your bathwater to be part of a "mutually beneficial" relationship.
That's _your_ claim (handservant). The point is to meet each other's needs. That's what is going to make the relationship work (among other things).
> One way to evaluate a woman is to take off her clothes and makeup.
Yes, it is. If those things are important to someone they'd better not pretend otherwise. If they do then the relationship is based on a lie. Just be honest that this is important. Then if that doesn't work for the other person you both can move on before you make each other's life a living hell.
> In bars, the females that are unattainable are called "women" while the ones that you are supposed to go after are called "girls".
He mainly used the word "women" so your comment is a strawman. Don't distort what he said otherwise you destroy your criticism. Unless, that is, you want to do a mindless politically correct troll.:)
> If a woman finds you unattractive, dump her as quickly as possible.
Why not? If she doesn't like you why force yourself on her? "No" is supposed to mean something is it not?
> Grown breasts are worth waiting for.
For some of us, yes. Others could care less. Remember, some of this is personal preference. Being offended by someone's personal preference is usually idiotic. It would be like saying you don't like someone because purple is their favorite color.
> Be nice to geeky looking girls, just in case they grow up and look good.
The moral of that story is "Be nice to everyone, 'cause that ugly duckling may just be the lovely swan -- and don't do to others what you don't like them doing to you."
> In spite of all of the above, imperfections are to be overlooked.
No, a relationship takes work and one of things you need to work on is making sure the other person can do the things they like in a relationship.
> All women are looking for a man to fill the empty void in their lives
The "all" is _your_ verbiage. If we use the accurate quote we would have a proper picture of what Roblimo really said. Which is very accurate. Anyway, I guess you haven't been on a college campus and met those women looking for their "MRS". But that's basic biology and you don't seem to like that.
We'll skip your last ad-hominem attack and put it down to sour grapes.:)
Slashdot Mirror
> Ultima fans rejoice!
:)).
:-D
After Ultima 8 and Ultima 9? Unless you are a heatseeker or uncritical fanboy of Richard Garriott, then you won't be rejoicing about RG's group moving into new office space (I'll spare you the allusion to Ion Storm and their Dallas offices
I don't think many Ultima fans will be rejoicing at this bit of news. You see, we are interested in *Ultima*, not just any old thing RG puts out (for example, the old Car Wars computer game). At this point -- for whatever reason, bad decisions/burnout/you pick a reason/etc. -- Ultima fans will be taking a wait and see attitude. They want to know what the finished product will be like. And after the botches made of U8 and U9, who can blame them?
If he designs a great online game, cool, we all benefit. If he designs an online game as revolutionary as U4, well, enough said.
At this point, Ultima fans have had _years_ of promises. It is what RG actually produces that will speak for him.
> It seems some people are using IE2.0 (don't believe it)
:) IE 2 is the browser you get when you install NT 4. Bigger companies tend to be anal about upgrading _anything_. :sigh:
Believe it.
I understand that, that's why I wished he never had to sell. Sadly, I knew he couldn't keep it on his own, I just think (financial considerations aside) that Origin, Sierra, and others would be making much better games if they were still under control of people willing to take risks to make a great game. A far cry from EA who will not publish a game it does not think will be a bestseller
:) Is System Shock a "much better game" than Doom ][? A lot of people think that, but Doom ][ sold a heck of a lot more copies than System Shock.
Well, first you have to define what a "much better game" is.
I honestly don't think you would get many more "much better games" even if the smaller companies still controlled their own fates. You would still have things like people burning out (RG and the Ultima series) and umpteen clones of a popular game (remember all the Asteriods/Pacman/etc clones in the early 80s?), or the owners deciding everything has to be different (Ken Williams/Sierra).
Games are, by and large, a for-profit enterprise where the developers want to get Joe to part with his beer money for their product because said product has enough entertainment value. You can't ever put financial considerations aside. If you do, you die.
> Windows NT : Innovated directly from OS/2.
:sigh:
Umm, do you know who Dave Cutler is? The guy who create WindowsNT for MS? One hint, go look up the terms VAX and VMS.
I will sat that complaining about MS not making an original OS is pretty dumb considering Linux and the *BSD's are all imitations of Un*x.
> How much better would things be now if Richard Garriott never sold (or had to sell) Origin to EA?
:sigh:)
Things wouldn't be any better. As Richard Garriott said himself, Origin wasn't big enough to survive by itself because Origin didn't have the muscle and deep pockets to grease the distribution channels well enough.
The reason EA does so well is that its management understands the distribution channel and has the size to pay the big stores to display their games.
(This also ignores the fact that with Ultima 6 and Ultima 7 Origin pushed itself to the financial breaking point.
Wing Commander IV was released in 1996, after EA owned Origin.
But not completely, then. ;-)
However, I believe RG was in control of Origin for long time after EA bought Origin. It wasn't until some of the UO follies occurred that EA installed their own person. Wholly-owned subsidiaries and all that.
Then my apologies are tendered. :-)
I dug out my CGW (#47, May 1988) that included the Scorpia review. In her review she gave an example of a pair of secret doors in Skara Brae that lead to nowhere. She went on to point out other areas and say, "It gives Ultima V a certain unfinished look, as well as aggravating players who may spend fruitless hours looking for something or waiting for someone that doesn't exist.". If this effect was what was intended, then obviously the game was finished as designed.
Richard may or may not be a decent manager these days -- I honestly couldn't say. We had a very small, highly-motivated, and largely self-managing team on U5. But he is certainly an impressive living example of the difference between a "manager" and a "leader." If you worked for Richard, you'd follow him into Hell to collect nifty glowing rocks, just like the rest of us did. :-)
That I understand. Charisma is a powerful motivator. While I think Ollie North ought to be in jail for what he did, you can't help but like the guy when you meet him.
This is completely tangential to the discussion, but I was wondering if you knew anything about the FM-Towns (Japanese) version of Ultima VI that included full speech? I have an original CD and I would like to be able to convert the sound files to something more usable. I was hoping that as the author of the Miles Sound System (thank you :)) you might be able to point me in the right direction towards decoding these files.
No, but not for the same reasons you believe. I think having EA's deeper pockets allowed RG to try dumb things. He could try the action/RPG U8, whereas before he had to appeal to his core market. He could take 5 years to create U9, whereas before he had more pressures to ship and to ship a polished game.
Why do you blame RG for bankrupting Origin?
Is it all his fault? No. Is it all EA's fault? No. I do think, as the person in control of Origin, he bears the greatest share of the responsibility for what happened to Origin. Again, what appalls me is the fact RG never mentions his own mistakes, but instead prefers to leave you with the impression that all of Origin's woes were the result of Big Bad EA. That answer is a little too pat for me.
Anyhoo, you don't seem to have much proof anywhere that RG "drove Origin into the ground"..
Ultima VI was shipped to meet payroll. Origin was in such financial straits that the company was sold to EA. If neither of those are driving a company into the ground, then we aren't speaking the same language.
I was basing on the reviews of U5 when it was released, such as Scorpia's review in CGW that commented on the unfinished areas in the game. I also remember Ultima V was rather late from its originally announced ship date. If I am misremembering both those facts than I apologize.
I believe Richard has expressed his regrets and taken responsibility for U8's problems on more than one occasion. Certainly the design direction in U9 (bugs notwithstanding) took U8's criticism to heart.
Which design direction? I can come up with at least three different designs U9 went through: the one that Mike McShaffry said gave him the chills it was so good, the Del Castillo one, and the one we finally got in the released version.
Not to apologize for U8 -- I wasn't involved in it, and never got around to playing it -- but you're being a little dramatic with your Monday-morning quarterbacking. From Richard's point of view, it was scary as hell to watch his dev budgets climb supergeometrically with each successive title, while sales figures remained pretty much where they peaked in U3. By the time Origin started work on U8, it was clear that drastic changes were required to keep the series financially viable.
I believe RG has said a number of times that each Ultima has sold more copies than the prior Ultima. If the sales of the series has remained essentially flat since U3, then I really have problems with his _management_ abilities (but not his creative abilities). Being able to hit a deadline is a part of what you are paid for as a manager.
My understanding is that U8 actually sold pretty well, but few of the old-school people, including Richard himself, were ever happy with the final product.
My understanding from what Mike McShaffry said in the infamous CGW interview, U8 was exactly what they set out to create.
I believe Richard has expressed his regrets and taken responsibility for U8's problems on more than one occasion. Certainly the design direction in U9 (bugs notwithstanding) took U8's criticism to heart.
RG has consistently blamed EA as the cause of U8's failures. If he is to get the credit for the games, should he not bear the burden of the mistakes?
Making Ultimas is hard. Try it sometime.
Heh. That's an easy cheap shot to make. You and I both know that EA won't every let Ultima out of their hands. Though if you could I would be happy to see you give it a shot.
And this might just shock you, but I honestly think you can't have an Ultima without RG's input. It is just that I can see he can be a disaster as a manager. Then again, I now from first hand experience as a programmer for almost two decades that seldom do you find a decent manager and a decent programmer/creative person in the same body. Each job function requires a set of skills that require time and experience to develop and have little overlap.
Considering who the interviewer is, the poorly done interview isn't surprising. Tina Haumersen has been one of Garriott's sycophants for years. She has gone so far as to name one of her kids after a character from the Ultima games.
Then again, she's used his misfortunes for her on ends. When RG was fired from/left Origin she couldn't wait to post that information on her little website in order to drive hits to it. Her scoop was more important that any respect for the man and what obviously had to be a painful time for him.
When the Dallas Observer story broke about the antics at Ion Storm, this same person tossed John Romero the same softballs. Her opinion was that if you knew the creators of a game it would tell you if the game would be good or not!
Richard Garriott has been more and more disconnected from Ultima since U7:Black Gate. That's understandable since I'm sure he's tired of Ultima and wants to create something different. I can respect that, but the bad things he has done really puts a smear on his reputation.
The thing that bugs me is that the man finally drove Origin into the ground and he _still_ blames EA for his own mistakes. Ultima V shipped unfinished because they had no other choice. Ultima VI shipped buggy to meet the following week's payroll (ask Dr. Cat). Ultima VII drove Origin to the point of death and EA stepped in and saved Origin.
When RG decided that expanding the market for the Ultimas was more important than anything else we got the action/RPG abortion called Ultima VIII: Pagan. After that flopped, instead of accepting that he made a big mistake in abandoning the existing Ultima fanbase he blamed EA. That's where all of this 'Origin's problems are EA's fault' started. It was always EA's fault, never his. The man who created the Virtues, who brought morality and ethics to the computer gaming industry wasn't willing to accept responsibility for his own actions.
EA gave him five years to create Ultima IX and he still screwed it up. He fired good people. Move the entire U9 team to work on Ultima Online (ignoring Brook's Law). Hired a RTS guy to create the capstone of the Trilogy of Trilogies. Fired his design team. Ignored what the fans cried out for. Didn't bother to talk to anyone because he feared the "wilds of the Internet". And on and on and on. And when he shipped a buggy beta as the final product he blamed EA once again. No wonder they booted him.
Hell, don't even get me started on the whoppers the man has told: UO: There is no lag. U9: Well tested and debugged. These are not the actions of an ethical person, no matter how much the later Ultimas deal with those same issues.
All in all, it makes me sad that people like RG who -- however talented as a storyteller -- couldn't manage a one car funeral procession gets this attention when truly deserving people like Warren Spector who *can* manage, promotes the teams he works with instead of himself, and is very creative.
:sigh: When I was playing the original Ultima on my Apple ][ and waiting for Ultima ][ I never realised that one RG would make himself into a John "Daikatana" Romero.
Cringely isn't a columnist in Infoworld. The name is a pseudonym used by the editiors for a rumor column. So please take everything you read in the column with a large grain of salt.
I remember blowing my summer work money on a Sears Video Arcade and a stack of games, including Adventure. My brother and I played that game until four in the morning that first day. :)
We _found_ the magic dot the first day in our explorations, but it wasn't until *years* later we discovered that the dot let you into the easter egg room.
The way we discovered the dot is that we found that the room the dot was in was blocked on all four sides. Wondering what might be in there we hauled the bridge to the room and investigated. At first we knew something had happened, but since we were playing on a black and white 12" TV, we didn't realize that we had picked up the dot.
We tried a number of things with the dot, but gathering several items by the thin wall and walking through the wall never occurred to us.
So close and yet so far...
Ultima V on the Amiga and PC... (The Amiga version also had some music whereas the other editions didn't).
:)
As far as I remember, only the IBM PC version was music-challenged. My Apple ][ Ultima V certainly has music. In fact, it can drive *two* Mockingboards and four speakers.
Ultima IX was Garriott's last chance to survive at Origin. Ever since Garriott sold Origin to EA, Origin has turned out buggy games (before even). He had to make U9 good or suffer the corporate consequences.
Unfortunately, Garriott continued to be out of touch with what people wanted and what his team could do with the existing technology. *sigh*
I think Garriott can be a good game designer, but a disaster as a manager and VP. (Remember the "There is no lag in Ultima Online" statement he made?) He should have stuck to what he was good at and hired some sharp people to run the business side of Origin for him.
At least we have the old games, especially Ultima IV through VII to remember, play, and praise Garriott for (though his involvement with U7 was minimal).
On the tech side, the thing I like about newspapers and, by extension, magazines and books, is that they are technology agnostic. A century from now you'll still be able to read that newspaper (assuming the acid in the paper hasn't eaten it away). Can you say the same for that 8-track tape, 8-inch floppy, cassette tape, CD-ROM, etc.?
:)
On the content side, it depends. My local newspaper (The Kansas City Star) is pathetic. It is filled with fluff and crud and no real news. It is so community-oriented as to be worthless as a source of information about the world. It has almost become a news catalog instead of a news source. Newspapers need to return to real, substance-oriented news and journalism. I prefer newspapers like the NY Times, the Washington Post (on its good days), The Wall Street Journal, or the superb British newspapers like *The* Times.
The same is true of magazines. Newsweek, Time, and even US News and World Report are jokes, content-wise compared to, say, The Economist. (It is interesting to me that the papers and magazines which focus on economics are the good ones with a lot of substance.)
Oops. I've rambled a bit.
One final thought (not intended as flame bait): While I enjoy sites like Slashdot, I don't consider them the online equivalent of newspapers or a source of journalism. What Slashdot is to me is a "news catalog" where I can find interesting stories _done elsewhere_. To me, if Slashdot was truly a news site it would be creating its own stories and not just presenting interesting links.
As a consultant/programmer/software engineer I work 40 - 45 hours a week. This is mainly because I'm paid on an hourly basis. The more I work the less the customer wants to pay for that overtime work, so the problem self-corrects. ;)
I've been paid both a salary and hourly as a full-time employee, plus I've been paid hourly as a consultant.
:)
I prefer hourly because if some idiot decides to ask you to work longer you get paid for your time. Yes, many places promise comp time (aka time off), but few actually give you that comp time. Even fewer give you comp time on a one to one ratio of extra hours worked to hours taken off. That said, the down side of hourly is that if you don't work you don't get paid. So taking those long lunches isn't an option.
One the other hand, if you are trying to work your way up in your company, I guess you should go salary and expect to be overworked without compensation. Given how often we technical people change jobs I think playing the career ladder game at a single company is a foolish move. Which is why I prefer to be a consultant paid by the hour. Your job changes are an expected part of your career.
When I was growing up in those pre-IBM PC days both words were a nasty insult used by those who could only measure their own worth by trying to destroy or demean others. I cring when I see others call themselves geeks or nerds because, to me, it means the assholes have won. :(
I guess there is a generational divide even among those of us with the hacker (classic meaning) mentality. To call oneself a geek or a nerd except as a broad joke, is a sure sign of a luser or a hip-wannabee to those of my generation.
I guess if it makes you happy to call yourself either of these two words, more power to you, but please understand that some of us despise those words with a passion.
How soon we forget. :) There have been a number of ports, to the Apple IIgs, the SNES, Atari Jaguar, and the Mac among others. Check out http://www.warzone.com/fullnews/902317374.shtml.
I think Linux is marginal on the *desktop*. I think it is going to continue to be marginal on the desktop until there are developers that create world class apps for things as varied as basic accounting stuff (we all like to get paid, right? :)), personal tax software, geneology, hobby specific software (things like PC Stitch), and of course, games.
:) and a bunch of stuff I work on I wouldn't touch if I wasn't paid to do so.) Until we start seeing more basic, mundane programs such as Star Office, Linux just isn't going to be a real option for most users (and this assumes that the stuff is given away for free -- if developers charge for it the barriers for Linux get even higher).
My point is that there is a wide variety of necessary and/or desired software out there that people look for that isn't cool for programmers to be working on. Stuff that you have to _pay_ programmers to develop. (I'm a programmer myself
Ultimately if people want to marginalize Microsoft they are going to have to fulfill *all* of the functions and services Microsoft provides, better, cheaper, and faster.
This is a bit off-topic, but:
:)
Through mismanagement Origin *lost* the source code for Ultima 7. Then again, Origin's philosophy for the Ultimas is to throw the old engine away and start over from scratch.
That lost source code makes a nice argument for open source doesn't it?
I definitely have a preference for breast size - I won't mention what it is. But my favorite breasts are my wife's. Not because they're large, medium, or small, but because they're HERS. Take hers and put them on someone else, and in the long run they're not interesting to me.
I would agree with your sentiment. For myself. I realize that others might and generally do think differently. Then again, liking just your partner is a different situation than being single and looking for a partner. Different rules apply.
The point is that, if we're thinking, feeling people, we look beyond the superficial and fall in love with the REAL PERSON. We value who they are, and what they look like becomes less and less important, only important in that it is a part of them.
The key is that "if". Not all people are like that. Nor do they want to be. If two people are happy with each other and choose to stay at a superficial level then who are we to say that they are wrong for having different standards than us?
Also,all relationships start out at a superficial level. No one can look beyond the superficial until they've spent the years getting to know the "REAL PERSON". That "getting to know" takes a lot of open and very honest communication. So what is the problem with liking certain parts of a person and then making the effort to know more?
Plus, why is it better to like one part of a person, such as their brain, and not another part of a person, such as their body? Some people are proud of those aspects of themselves. Should we blanket-dismiss certain things or should we appreciate what we like about a person, appreciate what they like and learn more about each other? Don't we have to start somewhere?
Believe me, I'm not offended by Robin's preferences. I'm offended that he considers them so important that, in an essay on what to look for in a relationship, he made them the subject of over half of what he wrote. And in that particular case, he was basically saying that you should be nice to the ugly, not because you should be nice in general, but because they might someday be good-looking. His reasoning follows that if you knew in advance that they'd still be ugly in ten years, you'd have no reason to be nice to them.
I don't follow that reasoning at all. What I see Roblimo confessing is that he looked at someone on a superficial level and didn't bother to learn the "REAL PERSON". Because of that mistake he lost out on being involved with someone that would have interested him if he had been a bit more aware himself.
I got news for ya. In the long run, we're ALL ugly. In 10 years, 20 years, 30 years YOU will be the ugly one. After 20 years of gravity and infant feeding, those breasts won't be so pretty. If we're lucky, the majority of our lives will not be spent looking young and beautiful. If we're wise, those ugly years will still be meaningful, and we will not spend our time pining for the beautiful days.
That's old news to me. :) My son is in school and my partner's (who is older than me) son is in university. The amusing thing (maybe news for you) is that breasts are still neat at any age, even if they've sagged or been baby chewed. You see, to me beauty has nothing to do with age and everything to do with the person.
Not only have I been on a college campus and met those women, I've seen the result of those sorts of marriages in the long term. The current film "American Beauty" sums those marriages up extremely well -- full of empty accomplishments, missing most of what's really important in life.
That depends on who you talk to. I know a number of women that are quite happy with their "MRS". They willingly chose that option with their eyes open. Are they to be dismissed as stupid simply because they chose to follow their bodies with their minds and lives?
To say that husband-hunting is the result of _basic biology_ -- that's even more offensive than Roblimo, who simply took his personal preferences and assumptions about the world and applied them to everyone. To you, the MRS women aren't merely trying to satisfy a societal preference, they're hard-wired to do so. Doesn't it bother you that that very thinking has been used to excuse the very worst of all human behaviors in history?
Sorry, but husband hunting is a basic fact of biology. Just as is the tendency of males to want to impregnate as many females as possible. The procreation instinct is the strongest survival instinct there is. (An interesting book to read on the subject is Sperm Wars by Robin Baker.) If it wasn't humanity wouldn't exist today. The fact that we are hard-wired to procreate is no more a cause of anguish than it is that we only see in a certain part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Actually, knowing how our bodies do really work gives us a better chance to make wise choices.
Anyway, the fact that certain thinking has been misused doesn't mean that the thinking is wrong. If misuse destroyed the worth of an idea then things like freedom, democracy, equal rights, etc. would not be creditable instead of having such power these days.
Interesting way of quoting someone's words without accurately representing their spirit. :)
:)
:)
> Geek girls are incapable of being loving and considerate, and unloving and inconsiderate geek guys have to avoid that.
Sometimes the worst person for you is the one that is exactly like you. Anyway, he didn't make that claim about Geek girls.
> The ideal woman is one who selflessly meets your every needs.
Being in love with someone is being *willing* to selflessly meet your partners needs. This comes from within and isn't the terrible thing you seem to think it is.
> The proper role for the woman is that of handservant, who considers running your bathwater to be part of a "mutually beneficial" relationship.
That's _your_ claim (handservant). The point is to meet each other's needs. That's what is going to make the relationship work (among other things).
> One way to evaluate a woman is to take off her clothes and makeup.
Yes, it is. If those things are important to someone they'd better not pretend otherwise. If they do then the relationship is based on a lie. Just be honest that this is important. Then if that doesn't work for the other person you both can move on before you make each other's life a living hell.
> In bars, the females that are unattainable are called "women" while the ones that you are supposed to go after are called "girls".
He mainly used the word "women" so your comment is a strawman. Don't distort what he said otherwise you destroy your criticism. Unless, that is, you want to do a mindless politically correct troll.
> If a woman finds you unattractive, dump her as quickly as possible.
Why not? If she doesn't like you why force yourself on her? "No" is supposed to mean something is it not?
> Grown breasts are worth waiting for.
For some of us, yes. Others could care less. Remember, some of this is personal preference. Being offended by someone's personal preference is usually idiotic. It would be like saying you don't like someone because purple is their favorite color.
> Be nice to geeky looking girls, just in case they grow up and look good.
The moral of that story is "Be nice to everyone, 'cause that ugly duckling may just be the lovely swan -- and don't do to others what you don't like them doing to you."
> In spite of all of the above, imperfections are to be overlooked.
No, a relationship takes work and one of things you need to work on is making sure the other person can do the things they like in a relationship.
> All women are looking for a man to fill the empty void in their lives
The "all" is _your_ verbiage. If we use the accurate quote we would have a proper picture of what Roblimo really said. Which is very accurate. Anyway, I guess you haven't been on a college campus and met those women looking for their "MRS". But that's basic biology and you don't seem to like that.
We'll skip your last ad-hominem attack and put it down to sour grapes.