Garriot Wins Another Major Award

During his 20+ years as a programmer and video game designer, Garriott has received numerous awards including Computer Gaming World's "15 Most Influential Industry Players," Next Generation's "America's Elite," PC Gamer's "Game Gods," and PC Games' "Designer of the Year." Garriott, along with his brother, Robert, was also named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Inc. magazine...

Son of Skylab and Spacelab astronaut Owen K. Garriott, Richard took an interest in computers at a young age. He began programming games in high school and produced his first published game, Akalabeth, at the age of 19. While attending the University of Texas at Austin, Garriott began developing one of the most successful, longest-running game series of all time: Ultima. Garriott and his brother formed Origin Systems, Inc. to begin publishing their own games, and the company was acquired by Electronic Arts (EA) in 1992.

Richard Garriot: The Best Is Yet To Come

GameSpot has caught up with Origin founder Richard Garriot to discus his recent AIAS Hall of Fame award. He also answered questions about his role in gaming history and how Tabula Rasa will be different from previous massively multiplayer experiences. A lot of the interview also has to do with the industry was shaped by the Ultima franchise and innovative steps that were taken back at Origin. You can find the complete interview here.

GS: Of your achievements to date, which are you the most proud of?

RG: Hmm. I have three games that I'm really the most proud of. They're Ultima IV, Ultima VII, and Ultima Online. I think what you'll see--especially in the first two examples-- that I'm most proud of, is trying to imbue in the computer games not just game mechanics, but also a sense of literary storytelling. To try to create settings and characters and reasons to be there and things to do while you're there that go beyond "fight the next monster, collect the next level of treasure, cash it in and then level up.

Garriott Explains Tabula Rasa Changes

When we recently looked at the progress of Origin founder Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, the game seemed a bit different. The unicorns and fairies had been replaced by cyborgs and overcast skies. Quarto found an article that addressed the change. I'm not sure I follow their reasoning, but for better or worse, the style has changed significantly. They claim the underlying concepts remain the same, but it'd be interesting to hear from someone who had been eagerly anticipating this title from the beginning.

Originally announced some time ago, the game underwent a marked shift just before E3 2005. Richard explained how it began with a rather trivial observation: everyone on the development team exclusively played female characters.

Why was this? Well, they discovered that as the game’s extremely far-fetched high fantasy style evolved, it became harder for male gamers to connect with their male avatars. Thus began a period where they tried to put a little more grit into the game; a process that would eventually completely redefine its setting.

Despite the marked shift in style from fantastic high fantasy to gritty alien vs. human doomsday, the ideals that inspired Tabula Rasa largely remain unchanged.

Richard Garriott Questioned About MMOs

Richard Garriott: With UO, we were in a fight to exist at all. No one believed in MMOs, so we had no funding. No one knew what features would be popular so we built lots of things not knowing how or if players might like it. We were writing code that had never been tried before, so it was hard to get it working well.

Interviewer: Since Tabula Rasa is taking place in outer space, there’s the implication that the game world will be quite large. Initially, just how big will this game be in terms of exploration?

Richard Garriott: The game will launch with 2 or 3 planets to explore, but we will provide new planets as fast as we can make them!

Richard Garriott Inducted Into AIAS Hall Of Fame

Richard "Lord British" Garriott, creator of the famed Ultima series of role-playing games and founder of gone-but-not-forgotten developer Origin Systems, is being inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) Hall of Fame.

Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto was the original AIAS Hall of Fame inductee in 1998, and has since been joined by Civilization developer Sid Meier, Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi, Doom designer John Carmack, Sim-everything creator Will Wright, Sega luminary Yu Suzuki, ambitious Lionhead founder Peter Molyneux, and Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins.

CNN's In The Know

Richard and Robert's roots in the industry go back to the early 1980s, when the two formed Origin Systems, Inc. At that point in the nascent games industry, the Internet as we know it didn't even exist, and online multiplayer games were still unheard of.

Origin's best-known games, the space shooter "Wing Commander" and the fantasy worlds of the "Ultima" games, likewise, were solitary experiences enjoyed alone in front of a computer screen. It wasn't until five years after Origin was acquired by Electronic Arts, Inc., in 1992, that "Ultima's" detailed world of Britannia was brought to the online masses with "Ultima online."

CorpNews Talks To Origin's MMO Creators

Everyone loves Richard Garriott interviews. In this one, the Corporation asked the founder of Origin about various massively multiplayer trends in 2004. This is his current area of expertise with the production of Tabula Rasa.

Corpnews: What emerging trend do you see as most affecting future MMOG designs?
Richard: Physics. MMOs try and create realistic worlds to explore and interact with. Thus, physics is a natural next step in crafting a real place. Plus, physics chips are now on the horizon, so we will be able to compute complex scenes quickly!

Origin and SOE's Raph Koster was also part of the interview.

Corpnews: What emerging trend do you see as most affecting future MMOG designs?
Raph: Well, I very much think that the "play single-player games alongside multiple people" trend is going to continue. Bluntly, I don't like it--I don't like it from a gameplay point of view because I as a player like the feeling of being in a world; I don't like it from a business point of view because I don't think people stick very well to that sort of game, or don't feel it merits a subscription fee.

Tabula Rasa Stretches Garriott's Boundaries

One of the interesting offerings at this year's E3 was Tabula Rasa by Richard Garriott. This will be his first major venture back into the game realm since leaving Origin and Ultima. Starr Long is also working on the project. Tabula Rasa is an online game, like all NC Soft games, that take place in a half fantasy/half sci-fi setting. Their team has spent a lot of time trying to work out boring elements of other online games and make the entire experience fun. A lot of the features focus on easy collaboration with friends. Teleporters let you join someone far away, and voice communication is natively supported within the game. Character skills and attributes can be modified as the game progresses so early decisions don't hinder players. I watched a lot of people having fun playing at E3, but I also think the game looks mighty weird. Take a look for yourself.

Odd Link Of The Day

In part two of TC's weird link quest, we have an interesting post from Slashdot from a former Origin employee dated 4th December 2001. Actually I don't have the actual link so I'll quote the post.

Re:EA's mismanagement? (Score:2)
by Moofie (battleangel99NO@SPAMyahoo.com) on Tuesday December 04, @12:01AM(#2652932)
(User #22272 Info | http://moofie.radiopossibility.com/)

They saved the village, by destroying it. I worked at Origin during the Wing Commander IV era, and EA's revolving door management, and utter intolerance for any new ideas out of Austin, made certain that Origin would never do anything innovative again. All EA wanted to hear from Origin was "Yes, Master, the new Ultima/Wing Commander/Crusader game is on schedule and under budget. May we please refrain from laying off our staff this year?"

With the possible exception of UO, which I personally didn't enjoy very much, but other people apparently groove to. And don't get me started about Ultima:Ascention.

I can't speak to Mr. Garriott's company management skills. Hell, I certainly wouldn't have the first idea how to run a company like that...I don't think anybody really does. He did, at one point, have a unique gift for storytelling in the medium of computer games. Unfortunately, that got buried under creeping featuritis. Hopefully, he'll be able to start with a clean slate (or a Tabula Rasa...wonder if that name is more than just coincidental? : ) and get back to his unique visionary roots.

I sure hope so. U6 is one of my favourite games ever.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!