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Garriott's Portalarium partnering with Zynga for Ultimate Collector
Former Ultima Online guru Richard Garriott is joining forces with Zynga, the social gaming behemoth that has been hemorraging users and executives in recent months. Garriott's Portalarium company will use the Zynga Platform to launch its Ultimate Collector game, which is currently undergoing a limited Facebook beta. "Ultimate Collector is really three games in one," Garriott says via press release. "It's a collecting game where players go on a major hunt for collectibles ranging from toys, gadgets, historical weapons, novelties and famous art and display those collections in their homes. It's a shopping game where players can visit shops and stores in our game, some of them from national retailers, to purchase items and add to their collections. And it's a world building game that allows players to outfit a home, show off their collections to their friends, sell virtual items to other collectors and make in-game money to upgrade their house and grow it even larger."
Richard Garriott says his new social game is the 'spiritual successor' of his previous work
Every so often, Ultima Online creator Richard Garriott takes a break from his social gaming endeavors to grant an interview to a fan site. The latest such is on display at Gather Your Party, and Garriott has plenty to say about his current company, Portalarium, and how its new Ultimate Collector title might appeal to UO fans. "For us it's a stepping stone. It's an MMO-lite in my mind. Very lite, with more what I will call classical leveraging of casual game mechanics than you will probably see in the RPG, but compared to most casual games, to most social games, it is far deeper," Garriott explains. He's also aware of the amount of skepticism that his turn toward social gaming generates among Ultima fans and MMORPG enthusiasts, but he thinks that's par for the course. "Newness is fraught with a certain kind of risk, distrust and lack of understanding," Garriott says. "I think what I'm building now is the spiritual successor of my previous work."
The Daily Grind: Could you make your own MMO for $30 million?
Massively gets a certain amount of grief for writing news stories about Richard Garriott. While it's true that he hasn't made a major contribution to the MMO industry since the 1990s, it's also true that he's something of a touchstone when it comes to geekery and ambition. If a guy can go from being a young astronaut hopeful to having a spare $30 million to burn on a spaceflight, that's got to count for something, doesn't it? While we're on the subject of a spare $30 million, yesterday's Garriott piece got me to thinking about what I would do if I had that kind of pocket change. While spaceflight and a lifetime supply of Hershey's kisses are certainly high on the list, I'd use a good chunk of the money to make my own MMO. What about you, Massively crew? Would you self-finance an MMO if you could, and what would it be like? Would $30 million be enough? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Garriott talks riding rockets, Man on a Mission movie
Richard Garriott may not be making the MMO sequel that many of his fans crave, but he is the subject of a new documentary film called Man on a Mission. VentureBeat.com recently corralled the elusive creator of the famous Ultima franchise for an extensive interview. The piece is mainly focused on the film, which is currently playing in select cities as well as various on-demand internet outlets. The documentary presents Garriott's career as an underdog triumph, and highlights the fact that he was rejected for NASA's astronaut program due to his poor eyesight. Garriott had the last laugh, however, as he bought his way to the international space station in 2008 and became the first second-generation astronaut in American history (and a noted supporter of private-sector space flight). While there's precious little info regarding Garriott's current and future gaming pursuits, the interview does offer up some geeky nuggets for those interested in rockets and rocketmen. "For example, launch you think of as this loud, shaky, scary moment," Garriott explains. "In fact, on a liquid-fueled rocket like the Soyuz, it's almost perfectly silent and smooth on the inside. It's much more cerebral, it feels much more like a ballet move, lifting you ever faster into the sky, than it does a sports car dropping the clutch at a green light."
Documentary on Richard Garriott to premiere in 2012
He's the man credited with Tabula Rasa and Ultima Online. He blames other companies for ignoring the social gaming space. He runs his own company via robot, and he likes to remind everyone that he is a key element of the ultimate RPG. Oh, and he's been to space, and that's what the upcoming documentary about Richard Garriott is going to focus on. The documentary, Man on a Mission, will be chiefly focusing Garriott's efforts to be the first son of an astronaut to go into space. As the documentary explains, due to Garriott's nearsightedness, a career in NASA was always out of the question, but he never stopped wanting to follow in his father's footsteps. The documentary will premiere on January 13th nationwide, tracing his path to fortune through video games followed by his trip aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. If you're interested in seeing what you can expect from the documentary, you can check out the trailer just past the cut.
Richard Garriott talks cross-game platforms and leaving MMOs behind
Even though Richard Garriott has moved on from the days of Ultima Online and the sadly defunct Tabula Rasa, it's hard not to pay some attention to the man behind what's frequently considered the first modern MMO. A recent interview with Gamasutra reveals that the man himself is no longer really invested in MMOs as a genre, however. According to him, "Even the kinds of games that you might think I would make, I don't generally play, because they're often just too much of a hassle to get into them." The bulk of the interview is dedicated to discussing Garriott's social gaming company, Portalarium, and his plans to try to leverage games into a shared network similar to Steam rather than using Facebook's built-in integration. It's a look into the man's latest project, which should prove of interest to those still following him, even if he's no longer interested in MMOs as such.
Richard Garriott on the state of social gaming
Legendary game creator Richard Garriott raised a few eyebrows when he announced a foray into social gaming last fall. The MMORPG maestro and occasional astronaut seemed a rather unlikely candidate for the casual games space after spearheading the likes of Ultima Online and Tabula Rasa. In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Garriott revealed that he's taking no prisoners when it comes to his new endeavor, offering his views on the large number of crapware titles cluttering the casual space as well as his company's plans to distribute its tools for free in order to help standardize the sector and raise the quality bar. "There's tons of small start-ups who we are seeing take lots of investment and lots of activity and large acquisition costs -- who are creating, literally, junk. Stuff that people aren't playing that much and if you play it it's not much fun," Garriott opined. Garriott's new company, Portalarium, has thus far produced Port Casino Poker and Port Casino Blackjack, both playable via Facebook, and is now shifting its focus to a new title that has more in common with UO. Details on the new game are slated to be revealed over the next two weeks.
Richard Garriott and the choppy waters of social gaming
The term "social games" or its frequently-used cousin "Facebook games" is one that gets talked about a lot by MMO gamers these days. Specifically, it gets talked about in a similar tone to the UbiSoft DRM nightmare or the entire Infinity Ward fiasco. So it's going to turn some heads -- and raise some hackles -- when Richard Garriott moves into the social gaming scene. Creator of the genre-setting Ultima Online and the much-discussed Tabula Rasa, Garriott has explained in an interview with Gamasutra why he made the shift and what he thinks of the social gaming scene as it stands now. In short, he sees in social and mobile games the same things that marked other major shifts in the overall philosophy of making games, making them the next big wave. It's not an uncommon sentiment, but he goes on to point out that many of the virtues these games have, such as no installation and no up-front cost, are desirable traits in any game. He goes on to discuss stories in games and how he thinks that even social games can have them, even as he advocates less emphasis on freeform player-generated narratives. Take a look at the full interview to get a clearer picture on what we can expect from Garriott next -- and considering his place in the field of MMOs, it should be notable.
Garriott hits NCsoft with $27 million lawsuit
Tabula Rasa's absentee landlord (well, before it burned to the ground), Richard Garriott, is suing NCsoft for $27 million, according to a Texas court filing. GamePolitics has the documents detailing how Garriott was laid off from NCsoft while he was still in quarantine from his space trip. However, due to the characterization of his termination as "voluntary," he apparently missed out on millions in stock options, which is what the suit is all about. The official word -- up until this point -- was that Garriott left NCsoft late last year after ... let's see, as Garriott put it at the time, his trip into space "sparked" some new interests for him to pursue. Hopefully the lawsuit will shake out more behind-the-scenes NCsoft drama and Tabula Rasa embarrassment nobody was willing to discuss openly. Update: The figure is $27 million according to the court documents. Thanks, @leighalexander. Source -- Garriott suing NCsoft for $24 million [Kotaku] Source -- Garriott sues NCsoft for $24 million [GI.biz] Source -- Garriott sues NCsoft for million in stock options [GamePolitics]
Building a better MMOusetrap: Morality schmorality, where's me sword?!
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men (and women ... and children)? Certainly most MMO players, or to be even more general most people who go on the internet know at least what they expect other people to act like. Certainly they would act like normal people right? Upstanding citizens, keeping the peace, helping old ladies across the street, buying girl guide cookies. But then if you have those fine folks, you certainly would have to have their counterparts, the criminals and scum-bags of the virtual worlds, preying on the innocent and weak. A sort of symbiosis has to exist even online, else you would either have complete anarchy, or pure utopia (and that sort of thing could never happen in a video game, eh Jack?) and neither of those situations truly juxtapose reality, they simply.And that's what MMO's are supposed to do in some sense or another if I'm to believe what all the articles, thesis's, and marketing materials say. Even in the trailer for the upcoming MMO documentary Second Skin they say things along those lines. So you have to balance the good with the bad to have a virtualisation with reality, but then something is amiss, because it's certainly damned hard to be a bad guy online. Oh sure you can gank people in PvP, or use MPK tactics to train monsters on to groups, but those sorts of things make more of a dickwad than they do a truly evil person.Something I hear flying around a lot these days, mostly in conjunction with RIchard Garriott's sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa, is the idea of morality. But can there really be moral choices in an online world, where just about everything a character does is pre-destined, set on rails, and left to run its course on its own time table?
Live at the Independent Game Conference: Richard Garriott keynote
This morning your cheerful (only because we've had enough caffeine) Massively staffers are reporting to you live from the Independent Game Conference in Austin, Texas where Richard Garriott is about to deliver the morning's keynote address. For those of you who aren't sure why you should care, let me give you a mini-bio: Richard Garriott helped pioneer the MMO industry with the launch of Ultima Online a decade ago. If that that doesn't ring any bells, all I can say is that you could trace the heritage of most massively multiplayer games today directly back to UO. This morning, Garriott is going to be speaking on good game design through research. Curious to hear his thoughts on the subject? Keep reading for our live coverage of his keynote.
Massively interviews: Starr Long of Tabula Rasa
Two weeks before the launch of NCsoft's latest MMO, Tabula Rasa, Massively had a chance to sit down and chat with the game's producer, Starr Long, in their Austin offices. We discuss Tabula Rasa's past, present, and future -- including a first glimpse at the game's ambitious expansion plans. So what's there to look forward to in Tabula Rasa? Alien-human hybrid races, a major expansion a year (each featuring an entirely new planet), and major content patches every few months. Need to know more? Keep reading!
Zero Punctuation hates on Tabula Rasa
If you've been paying attention to the Escapist's Zero Punctuation reviews, then you've caught on that the whole point is to listen to some British guy hate on a game for a few minutes (the exception being the Psychonauts review where he just hates on people who didn't buy it). The latest review from "Yahtzee" has him hating on Tabula Rasa. As Americans (or, at least, Escapist editors) seem to love listening to British accents getting all uppity and nit-pick on things in absurdest Monty Python-esque statements, this Tabula Rasa review (found after the break) is another entertaining stroll of Yahtzee's breathless rage.
MMO design: the job of creating worlds
Decisions over how long burning rivers should stay aflame for can have a profound impact upon the atmosphere and enjoyment factor of a virtual landscape. This, and many other decisions like it, is how Richard Garriott spends his time these days -- as executive producer for Tabula Rasa, he has to help craft a variety of planets. World-building isn't a new hobby; fantasy authors and tabletop GMs have been facing questions like this for years, and often throwaway comments cause a lot of trouble for those making film adaptations or video game versions of the world. Creating a world from scratch for gaming means that all the important questions need to be answered at once, however, or the players will ask them. It doesn't stop at the design stage; game companies are providing governments, too, by creating laws and rules on the fly.Universes created primarily by users, like the world of Second Life, still operate within boundaries and constraints set down by the developers and providers of that world. If the Metaverse idea is really the future of online gaming, there's going to be a lot of influence exerted by some early decisions, just as early networking protocols and standards still influence today's Internet.[Via Walkerings]
