Richard Garriott interview

[Mantismat]

Hello there.
I wasn't too sure where I could post this, so feel free to move if an administrator feels its better elsewhere.

To begin with, I feel it important to admit to being addicted to UO from launch through to The Second Age. I do promise myself one day I'll revisit my favorite haunts of Britannia and see whats changed.

A few years ago a friend and I setup a gaming podcast which continues to this very day. Which a few weeks ago placed me in quite an overwhelmingly position on Skype interviewing Richard Garriott. I was given half an hour of his time which ended up being 45 minutes where I was able to talk to him about his career which quite naturally for me had us covering some of my questions about Ultima Online. He even told me an interesting tale about some of his time GMing in character as Lord British.

Anyway, I thought some of you fine people might get a kick out of listening to it, like I mentioned, its about 45 mins long and covers his upbringing, his Ultima legacy, UO, his time on the International Space Station and his new love for Geocaching along with his next gaming endeavor.

You can catch the interview here (with a nice play button so you don't have to go downloading anything if you don't want to).
http://www.midlifegamer.net/2010/07/podcast-special-%E2%80%93-mlg-meets-richard-garriott/

I must admit, I was very nervous, but Richard is a really nice guy to chat with.

I hope you enjoy.
Matt

 

[Coldren]

Hello there.
I wasn't too sure where I could post this, so feel free to move if an administrator feels its better elsewhere.

To begin with, I feel it important to admit to being addicted to UO from launch through to The Second Age. I do promise myself one day I'll revisit my favorite haunts of Britannia and see whats changed.

A few years ago a friend and I setup a gaming podcast which continues to this very day. Which a few weeks ago placed me in quite an overwhelmingly position on Skype interviewing Richard Garriott. I was given half an hour of his time which ended up being 45 minutes where I was able to talk to him about his career which quite naturally for me had us covering some of my questions about Ultima Online. He even told me an interesting tale about some of his time GMing in character as Lord British.

Anyway, I thought some of you fine people might get a kick out of listening to it, like I mentioned, its about 45 mins long and covers his upbringing, his Ultima legacy, UO, his time on the International Space Station and his new love for Geocaching along with his next gaming endeavor.

You can catch the interview here (with a nice play button so you don't have to go downloading anything if you don't want to).
http://www.midlifegamer.net/2010/07/podcast-special-%E2%80%93-mlg-meets-richard-garriott/

I must admit, I was very nervous, but Richard is a really nice guy to chat with.

I hope you enjoy.
Matt

It was a good interview.

Somewhat repetitive - The tale of Lord British and the Thief is repeatedly fairly often, even though it is a good story. But then again, most of his interviews are.

But all and all, good anyway!

 

[Adol]

Aye, much as I'll always deeply be grateful to Richard for all he's given us over the years, he does tend to have a set of answers he repeats by rote for every interview or pod cast he does... The only new information I gleaned was that his new idea for social gaming won't be based on Java etc, so he's looking at a full program rather than facebook plugins, like he seemed to suggest in the last pod cast I heard... sounds like he's thinking more like the ID Software Shareware model again.

Still, thank you for hosting this interview, and I notice you used the Vesper music at the start... it's interesting to hear just how much the Ultima series has touched people in different ways; Yew is my home, having started in Ultima IV there, back in 1988!

 

[Lord Urza]

Awesome Interview!

 

[Mantismat]

Thanks for the kind words.
I've never heard him speaking of UO in the past, but I guess I wasn't asking anything he's not been asked a thousand times. Was great for me to be able to bring his voice to our regular listenership, some who were also UO players and some who've only known of it via my gushings in the past.

Just being here though has given me the UO bug again.
I looked at trying to run it on my Mac, but it sounds like its more trouble than its worth. I have an old laptop kicking around which is very slow and runs XP, I may see if I can clean it up and see how things run.

I do remember a long time ago seeing a trial version available to users who had played UO in the past. Does anyone know if this is still the case, or if trial accounts are available to anyone? I'd like to see how well I can run the game again before setting up a full subscription.

 

[Coldren]

There is definitely a trial account you can sign up for and get the clients with. Good for 14 days.

It won't let you use your old account, though. That was the "Come back to Britannia" deal, and that isn't something that's persistent.

So make a new one and give her a spin. If you like what you see, just reactivate your old one and you'll have everything downloaded and ready to go.

http://www.uoherald.com/trial/

And don't worry - The questions you asked were just fine. He just tends to always give the same answers!

Although, if you can, ask for an exclusive in the future for any upcoming Portalarium projects - I'd love to know what his next "Lord British" game is going to be, and it kinda sounded like he wanted to talk about it, even though I'm sure he couldn't.. He did imply a few times it would be a UO-style game, so I'm VERY interested in knowing more about that.

 

[Lord Urza]

I do remember a long time ago seeing a trial version available to users who had played UO in the past. Does anyone know if this is still the case, or if trial accounts are available to anyone? I'd like to see how well I can run the game again before setting up a full subscription.

Yes they have 14 day trial accounts now for anyone I belive.

 

[G.v.P]

excellent interview man, you don't sound a stitch nervous and the chemistry of the interview is authentic

 

[Metalstorm]

Wow, great interview.

Thank you for posting that

 

[Hildebrand]

How do you download this podcast without having to download iTunes? I don't want iTunes. There's no direct download?

 

[Hildebrand]

Ok, only way I could is to subscribe to the rss feed "Latest Podcast" on the bottom of the page and then lists them.
Too bad it doesn't let me use Google Reader as my rss.

Can't directly download using my Droid, but at least I can copy it over.

 

[NuSair]

Yeah, he seems very enthused about making another Lord British game in the mold of UO. In the context that there are 2 kinds of mmo's- the UO kind and the EQ kind.

Honestly, if he makes a game similar to UO...

 

[Demonous]

Yeah, he seems very enthused about making another Lord British game in the mold of UO. In the context that there are 2 kinds of mmo's- the UO kind and the EQ kind.

Honestly, if he makes a game similar to UO...

he is right though, there is only the UO kind and the EQ kind and for some strange reason like 95% of mmos follow the eq kind which is leveling and all carebearish, not worrying about losing stuff when u die, other then UO the only other mmo similar so far is darkfall, and maybe mortal online but im not sure about that one

 

[NuSair]

he is right though, there is only the UO kind and the EQ kind and for some strange reason like 95% of mmos follow the eq kind which is leveling and all carebearish, not worrying about losing stuff when u die, other then UO the only other mmo similar so far is darkfall, and maybe mortal online but im not sure about that one

Because, in general, people don't like PvP. Maybe that is not true of what people call 'gamers', but for the general public, they don't want that. They don't want to fight other players. I wouldn't call it carebearish, but I am sure some would.

There are people that don't like being attacked out of the blue and don't like that kind of stress and drama. The point being is that those people make up a majority of the MMO gamers.

Also, the EQ kind is easier to develop for. You have classes and stats that in general you can just up X percent. Where as for UO, there is a cap on how much damage someone can take.

Back when I started raiding in EQ, the top Warriors had 4-5k hit points. When I left, my enchanter had 15k hit points.

With UO, you don't have that kind of development luxary.

 

[Clair The Mystic]

he is right though, there is only the UO kind and the EQ kind and for some strange reason like 95% of mmos follow the eq kind which is leveling and all carebearish, not worrying about losing stuff when u die, other then UO the only other mmo similar so far is darkfall, and maybe mortal online but im not sure about that one

The irony of it is some of the people that love and embrace the Classic UO/Darkfall play style are the ones responsible for its downfall. They were so mean, hateful, annoying, and disrupting to other players that articles were appearing in newspapers about how these actions were creating negative experiences for other users. I don't think the OSI team wanted to make trammel, but public opinion forced them to do something. I guess they under estimated how low some people will sink when the consequences are removed. Demon, it was not some strange reason. UO taught game developers that players, and people in general, can't be trusted to behave themselves when placed in a situation where there are no real consequences for their actions.

 

[Nihilus]

Well if Garriott plans on making a new UO he sure as hell better hire Raph Koster because it's thanks to him and NOT Garriott that Ultima Online turned out like it did (until EA screwed it up).

All the time you see Garriott's name mentioned when in reality he was the front man and the initial creater behind the lore/concept but not the brains, legs or arms behind Ultima Online. Raph designed it from the ground up and we owe the classic games uniqueness, atomosphere and gameplay to him and the design team.

 

[Coldren]

Well if Garriott plans on making a new UO he sure as hell better hire Raph Koster because it's thanks to him and NOT Garriott that Ultima Online turned out like it did (until EA screwed it up).

All the time you see Garriott's name mentioned when in reality he was the front man and the initial creater behind the lore/concept but not the brains, legs or arms behind Ultima Online. Raph designed it from the ground up and we owe the classic games uniqueness, atomosphere and gameplay to him and the design team.

I'd argue Starr Long had just as much a part of it as Raph. And everyone else on the team. And the Ultima universe was Richard's idea.. He didn't make UO by himself, and neither did Raph. Raph may have played a part, but it was Richard's vision, and that's a good starting point.

More than that, I don't think Raph has interest in such games anymore. He's more into Facebook/Social Gaming like Metaplace (Before it tanked). A standard MMORPG is probably outside the scope of his interests.

And I doubt he'll work for Portalarium when he can work for the company that bought his company.

 

[Amber Moon]

More than that, I don't think Raph has interest in such games anymore. He's more into Facebook/Social Gaming like Metaplace (Before it tanked). A standard MMORPG is probably outside the scope of his interests.

And I doubt he'll work for Portalarium when he can work for the company that bought his company.

Wandering a little OT but this article:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/playdom-announces-acquisition-of-metaplace-98051494.html

suggests Raph is staying put. Of coarse they always say that in an acquisition. I suspect Metaplace was running low on funds though, and this is a white knight.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Well if Garriott plans on making a new UO he sure as hell better hire Raph Koster because it's thanks to him and NOT Garriott that Ultima Online turned out like it did (until EA screwed it up).

All the time you see Garriott's name mentioned when in reality he was the front man and the initial creater behind the lore/concept but not the brains, legs or arms behind Ultima Online. Raph designed it from the ground up and we owe the classic games uniqueness, atomosphere and gameplay to him and the design team.

I'd argue Starr Long had just as much a part of it as Raph. And everyone else on the team. And the Ultima universe was Richard's idea.. He didn't make UO by himself, and neither did Raph. Raph may have played a part, but it was Richard's vision, and that's a good starting point.

More than that, I don't think Raph has interest in such games anymore. He's more into Facebook/Social Gaming like Metaplace (Before it tanked). A standard MMORPG is probably outside the scope of his interests.

And I doubt he'll work for Portalarium when he can work for the company that bought his company.

I think you're right, Coldren. I remember an article by Raph on how they all were hired, how they brought their programing examples in and how those were all in line with the "worldly" ideals that UO started with. Whoever was at the very beginnings of what UO was to be had already made the choices of game style. And to me, it sounded like a magical period in time that will be revisited at some point in a big way as we watch the saga of MMORPG creation unfold. The beginnings of MMOs was a "worldly" design. I wonder what would have happened if UO was made in the DIKU style?

 

[deadite]

Ah, the golden years of Origin...

I would love to see RG do another sandbox style MMO. I don't think you have to necessarily have full, open PVP to pull it off either.