Richard Garriott
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This Week in MMO: Oh hey, it's Star Wars edition
It's time for another episode of This Week in MMO, and the focal point of this week's episode is none other than the freshly launched Star Wars: The Old Republic. Gary Gannon, Mike B., and Mike Schaffnit share a conversation about the staggered launch, the early start, the newly announced grace period, and much more. Of course, the world does not revolve only around SWTOR, so the guys also take some time to highlight other goings-on in the MMO world. Warhammer Online will be merging servers once again, which does not forecast a sunny outlook for Mythic's PvP-focused title. Also on the table is talk that the gradually less sane Richard Garriott will be returning to work on the Ultima universe. What could this mean to MMO players? Well, click on past the cut and find out for yourself.
EA denies Richard Garriott's claims of Ultima Online discussions
What would a recent day in MMO news be without a mention of Richard Garriott? Today's entry is especially interesting in a he-said-they-said kinda way. A few days ago, Richard Garriott spoke up on the possibility of a reincarnation of the Ultima franchise through talks "at very high levels with Electronic Arts about access to the property." But EA is now denying this claim. EA's Jeff Brown recently told IndustryGamers in a candid interview that he's not sure what Lord British is talking about. "No one at EA is discussing partnership or licensing opportunities related to the Ultima Online franchise." Sorry Ultima Online fans, it seem that either the talks were supposed to be confidential, or they simply didn't happen at all.
Garriott talking with EA about Ultima Online 2 [update: apparently not]
There's been a lot of talk lately about new and bold MMOs, ones which feature angel-people, Jedi and pandas. But what about games that feature real-ass gaming industry visionaries operating under a pseudonym? More specifically: What about Lord British? His reign may not have come to an end quite yet: In an interview with Eurogamer, Richard Garriott explained that he's currently talking to EA about publishing a new entry in the Ultima Online franchise. "I would love to have access to the Ultima property," Garriott explained. "We've had discussions at very high levels with Electronic Arts about access to the property." He explained that "counter-forces" at the company have been hesitant about such an undertaking, adding, "So far we've not put a deal together, but of course, yeah, I would be very open to it." Check out the full interview for what Garriott has in mind besides medieval real estate and spaceships. Update: EA head of corporate communications Jeff Brown recently contradicted Garriott's statements to IndustryGamers, explaining, "I'm not sure what Richard Garriott is referring to. But no one at EA is discussing partnership or licensing opportunities related to the Ultima Online franchise." A spokesperson for Garriott further clarified, "Richard is not CURRENTLY having conversations at high levels with Electronic Arts regarding the Ultima franchise. He never said that he is. I can assure you, however, that those conversations have taken place in the past." This seemingly contradicts Garriott's sentiment that "We're in discussions with Electronic Arts even now about a possible marketing and distribution relationships and things of this nature," though we suppose he could have been talking about his Ultimate Collector project, the title of which does start with "Ultima."
The Soapbox: On gold-farming and the grind
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. You're no doubt aware of a certain sci-fi MMORPG that's launching this week. As is the case each time a new major title releases, I'm curious to see how (or if) the developers will deal with the inevitable real-money trade. BioWare has been fairly quiet about gold-farming and the steps it may take to combat it, which isn't too surprising given the unglamorous and often controversial subject matter. Few game devs mention their anti-RMT plans prior to launch, but plenty of dev teams complain about RMT after their game has been released. And yet, the usual solutions to black market currency trading are continuously ineffective at stopping it.
Richard Garriott: 'Exceptionally unusual pressures' helped tank Tabula Rasa
What truly happened with the sad tale of Tabula Rasa, the scifi MMO that had the full backing of Richard Garriott and NCsoft -- and yet lasted only 15 months before being shuttered? For the full scoop, it's good to go right to the source: General British himself. Garriott sat down with Eurogamer for a candid dissection of what went wrong with Tabula Rasa. Ultimately, he feels that he did not do enough to make the game the best it could've been. Initially, Garriott's team brought on several Asian developers to help shape the title to be appealing to the Eastern market. The partnership didn't work out, and after two years the team basically started over. By then, Tabula Rasa was already struggling. "So Tabula Rasa started its two-year late restart under exceptionally unusual pressures and with understandable corporate discontent, which made it very difficult to finish," he said. Garriott then acknowledges that the MMO's failure has caused players to be wary about his future projects: "Since Ultima Online was a fair time back and Tabula Rasa had its troubles, it makes perfect sense that people would go, 'I'm cautious as to what my expectations are.'"
Garriott's Ultimate RPG 'clearly the spiritual successor' to Ultima
The Richard Garriott crazy train is heading toward a section of track that long-time fans of the gaming god might actually appreciate. In a new interview with Eurogamer, the man behind Ultima Online talks a little less about his recent foray into social casino games and a little more about what might be Ultima Online 2. Yes, we've seen the UO sequel smoke before. This time, though, there may be fire. "We've actually talked to Electronic Arts about [Garriott leading Ultima Online again]. I would love to have access to the Ultima property. We've had discussions at very high levels with Electronic Arts about access to the property," he explained. Regardless of any EA deals, Garriott says that his new Ultimate RPG is "clearly the spiritual successor of the Ultima series."
Portalarium announces Ultimate Collector: Garage Sale as first title
Richard Garriott's recent startup, Portalarium, had many people wondering what would be the first thing to come out of this mad scientist's new studio. Well, wonder no more. Now we know that Portalarium's first title will be a Facebook game known as Ultimate Collector: Garage Sale, which focuses on -- you guessed it -- collecting things that you buy at garage sales. We couldn't make this up if we tried. Players can create an avatar and customize their houses, and then go shopping at estate sales, garage sales, pawn shops, and so forth in order to complete collections of items. These item collections can then be displayed in your house as a trophy of sorts, or you can sell them to make a quick buck. We'll just have to wait and see how this bizarre project shapes up in the coming months.
Garriott's Portalarium announces first game, and it's about garage sales
Multi-millionaire Richard Garriott probably hasn't been to a garage sale in many years (unless they were actually selling garages), but he's making a game about them. Perhaps those are the "roots" he intended to return to with his recent startup, Portalarium. Ultimate Collector: Garage Sale, going into closed beta "just after the holidays," is a Facebook game that claims to invent a new "shopping and collecting" category of social games. Players create homes and avatars, and then search in-game garage sales, storage units, estate sales, pawn shops, and other junkeries to complete collections of real-world items, using them to decorate their houses or flipping them in their own sales. Portalarium said that "national retailers" will also have in-game stores. Garriott's own experiences do play into the design of Ultimate Collector. Many of the available items will be from his own collection of ephemera, including space memorabilia, "quack medical devices," and of course shrunken heads. And all of the real-world items will come with information about their provenance. "In fact we've provided links in the game so players can go back to these websites to learn more about the items they've collected," said executive producer Dallas Snell, "and, in some cases, even buy them for real if they still exist and are available for sale."
Richard Garriott predicts the death of consoles as a gaming medium
Considering his influence on the realm of MMOs, many gamers would argue that it's hard to dismiss Richard Garriott's thoughts on development out of hand. A recent interview with the man includes him predicting the fall of traditional console gaming in favor of portable devices, and the end of MMOs as a major market share compared to social and casual games. As Garriott puts it, the era of MMOs was chiefly between 2000 and 2010, and the explosion in social gaming is now a new part of the overall game development cycle. Naturally, since Garriott's current company, Portalarium, is targeting specifically that demographic, he might be just a little bit biased. But he's hardly the first industry insider to claim that modern games need to be easily be picked up with little to no up-front cost. Take a look at the full interview for more, including Garriott's thoughts on how present designers are lazy and his self-comparison to Tolkien.
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.
Rise and Shiny recap: Ultima Online
This might sound silly, but my life is super rough. Well, OK, hardly rough at all, and I'm eternally thankful for that. But once in a while, a feeling of burn-out starts to creep into my everyday gaming life, and I need to take a vacation from the constant search for new titles and trolling through gaming forums to recharge my batteries. It might sound completely dorky, but I can understand how actors can seem so insane: They are. Sometimes you just need to play a good, juicy role to reset your creative self. There are certain games that we can always go back to, games that will instantly provide a feeling of nostalgia for those of us who have played them before. Ultima Online is one of those games, and it might just be the perfect example of a game that we can use as comfort food for our restless gamer hearts. So I spent an official week taking a look at the game (again) and found about what I'd expect. Click past the cut!
Richard Garriott describes his 'ultimate' RPG
Before Tabula Rasa, before Ultima Online, before any of the Ultimas, Richard Garriott had a vision for what he called the "ultimate" RPG. In a lengthy Facebook post, Garriott takes us back to 1974 when he first got the idea for such a game after being influenced by Lord of the Rings and Dungeons & Dragons. Starting with BASIC games on his school's teletype and moving up through the modern era of MMOs, Garriott details how he's been pursuing a dream of creating and refining one RPG to rule them all. He doesn't have kind words for how Ultima Online's shaped up since his absence, however, saying that elements like Elves and Ninjas were added against his wishes. "This is only a small example of why and how Ultima has drifted away from Richard Garriott, but I have not drifted away from Ultima," he writes. "It is clear to me that I, Richard Garriott, am an essential ingredient of at least the Ultimate Ultima, if not more broadly the Ultimate RPG. Perhaps one day, now that the people who pushed me out of EA more than a decade ago are long since gone, EA will recognize that together, we could rebuild that franchise in a way that they have failed to do in the intervening years. Richard Garriott is an essential ingredient in the Ultimate Ultima!" He ends his passionate speech with a few glimpses into the design for this "ultimate" RPG that he and his team are currently designing: "You will have customized Avatar homesteads and real roles to play in a deep, beautifully realized highly interactive virtual world. It will have virtues and the hero's journey reflected back to the player. It will have the best of synchronous and asynchronous features in use. Fiction will support your arrival from earth into this new world. I even hope to make maps, coins and other trinkets available to players of the game."
Global Chat: October 30-November 5, 2011
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat! Global Chat this week touches on some of our most reliable hot topics: free-to-play and game design. Business models, as well as how games are created and whom they're created for, are always good for discussion, so follow along after the jump to see what a few of our readers had to say.
Richard Garriott blames Blizzard for ignoring the social gaming field
Richard Garriott, who heads up social games outfit Portalarium, publicly put the screws to Blizzard and other major MMO companies for overlooking the casual gaming space. In fact, he says that World of Warcraft's biggest challenger won't be from another AAA title, but from the "Zyngas of the world." Talking to Industry Gamers, Garriott accused Blizzard and EA of dropping the ball when it came to social gaming, which Zynga has since explored and exploited. "The only reason Zynga exists is because people like EA, people like Blizzard, failed to step in," he said. Garriott sees these small start-ups as having great potential in the near future. "I think within a few years, you'll see that's not really the case," he said. "I think you'll see that the quality level that comes up through the casual games will rival the quality of traditional massively multiplayer games and then, because it's not something you have to subscribe to, because it's something that virally spreads, and especially because, as people churn out of a big MMO they've got to go somewhere." Garriott's Portalarium is currently working on an upcoming project that is "much more like Ultima Online than people might expect."
Richard Garriott running Portalarium with robots
Have you ever wished that instead of having to go to your job, you could just turn on the computer, log in to an avatar in the same manner as an MMO, and take care of everything that way? Perhaps to the surprise of no one, Richard Garriott has begun doing precisely that at his company, Portalarium. Rather than commuting between New York and the studio in Austin, Garriott has a small robotic avatar to allow him a face-to-video-monitor presence in Austin even when he's away. The robot itself is a $15,000 Anybot QB from the eponymous company Anybots, Inc, which Garriott claims was originally purchased so that his mother could virtually attend his wedding in France. He also stresses that it's not a means of keeping tabs on employees, merely a way to bridge the gap between two very distant locations. And really, if you had just won millions of dollars in a lawsuit, wouldn't you be attending all events via robot?
Richard Garriott wins lawsuit against NCsoft (again)
Last July, spacefaring game developer Richard Garriott won $28 million in a court case against former employer (and Tabula Rasa publisher) NCSoft, claiming that he was forced to sell his stock in the company at a low point in the market following his termination. NCSoft appealed the decision, and, after more than a year of further legal struggle, an appellate decision was reached in the 5th Circuit Court: Richard's getting paper. "It would be unjust to allow NCsoft to sit back during trial, observe Garriott's litigation strategy, and then demand a new trial on damages when it dislikes the verdict," the ruling reads. Garriott's former victory was not only upheld -- NCSoft now owes him $32 million with interest and attorney fees. With that kind of cash, he could buy back his old manor, and build, like, five new manors on top of it. Or he could just go into space again; in the long run, that's probably the better investment.
Appeals court affirms Richard Garriott's lawsuit win against NCsoft
Ever since Richard Garriott won his lawsuit against former employer NCsoft last year, the legal process has been grinding on ever since to hash out the details. Today we've learned that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed the win of almost $32 million in favor of Garriott. The lawsuit came about after NCsoft fired Garriott in 2008 and then marked his departure as "voluntary," causing his stock options to expire instead of remaining intact through the end of his 2011 contract. In 2010 a court found NCsoft to have breached its contract, and it ordered the company to pay $28 million plus interest and attorney fees to Garriott and his legal team. This recent ruling affirms that outcome and paves the path for Garriott to be compensated. In the ruling, the 5th Circuit Court writes, "It would be unjust to allow NCsoft to sit back during trial, observe Garriott's litigation strategy, and then demand a new trial on damages when it dislikes the verdict." [Source: Androvett Legal Media press release]
Richard Garriott is selling the manor
"We'll be honest Claudette, we both just love it. When you told us the home used to belong to Richard Garriott and that the asking price was $4.1 million, we were unsure. But this is one of the most beautiful homes we've seen in Austin. And the walk-in tunic closet? Just lovely." "Oh, I'm so glad to hear it. There's just one other ... small thing. Teensy really." "...What?" "Well, I'm legally required to tell you the home ... is constructed on a Tabula Rasa burial ground." "Surely not!" "No, no, it's true. The Neph, the Bane, the AFS, all jammed under the floorboards. They're hermetically sealed, but still ... pretty grim." "How could --" "Now, on the plus side. That lamp over there? He stole it from the International Space Station." "So you're saying I have to live over the remains of an entire MMO, NPCorpses stacked on top of each other like cordwood, but on the bright side -- space lamp?" "... So, maybe ... $3.9 million? You think?" "We'll ... we'll get back to you."
Richard Garriott's Britannia Manor II up for grabs
Have you ever wanted to live in a king's castle? Well, now you can... sort of. Richard Garriott (or Lord British, if it pleases you), creator of Ultima Online and Tabula Rasa, is selling his home -- affectionately named Britannia Manor II -- for the paltry sum of $4.1 million. If you're in the market for a multi-million dollar house, then what are you doing reading Massively? Go on over to the home's Re/Max listing and have a ball.
The Daily Grind: Would you play another Ultima MMO?
The last time rumors of a new Ultima MMO flew, the Massively readership collectively drooled all over our site. This time, it's less a rumor and more a what-if: In an interview with IndustryGamers, Ultima series founder Richard Garriott stated that he has his "own very particular ideas for what Ultima can and should become over time" and that he'd be open to collaboration with Electronic Arts, which currently owns the IP. Given Garriott's current interest in social media gaming, we have to wonder whether a new Ultima game -- a spiritual successor to the still-going Ultima Online and its canceled sequels -- might someday enter the MMO arena. What do you think? Should Garriott and EA make another Ultima MMO or stick to single-player romps? And if an Ultima sequel actually made it to launch, would you play it? 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!
