Richard Garriott will be making a new "Lord British" type game..`

[Coldren]

No further details other than that.. My guess is it will be an online RPG, but using a web browser instead of a traditional client.

http://g4tv.com/videos/44297/DICE-2010-Adam-Sessler-Interviews-Richard-Garriott/

Fast forward to 7:53 for the statement.

Good interview otherwise, too. This interview shows that RG still "Gets it" with games, even though TR failed. It re-enforced my faith in his abilities.

.. I can't wait to see what he does next.

 

[Coldren]

Just had a random thought...

There was an announcement a while back that a company in India is being given some permission to use the UO IP/license from EA, but they never said WHAT it was they were doing with it...

Think they're webifying UO, or a new version of UO?

Would make sense. Lower development cost, and likely to some degree, simpler for a development house from India to do...

 

[Lefty]

UOville - another facebook game

 

[Mairut]

UOville - another facebook game

Does anyone think that he'd advertise UO in that game, or that it would be like an advert in and of itself? I could see it maybe helping subscriptions with UO. Hmmm... would he have to go through EA to be able to make that game since EA owns the rights, or because he created UO he would have special rights? Brings up a lot of interesting questions at least.
This isn't the first time I've heard of the possibility being a facebook game based on UO.
*continues rambling*

 

[LordDrago]

I believe his new game involves a business aspect where the ultimate goal is to buy a flight to space.....

 

[hungry4knowhow]

I believe we are going to be greatly dissapointed....Garriot has changed alot...F*ing Facebook? wth?

Dumbed down crap. I am not impressed.


/EDIT....their first published game: Sweet ass Poker.....a Torque2D game....wow. Not.

 

[Lady_Mina]

He made Tabula Rasa wich didn't quite make it...

He should have sticked with UO.

 

[Mapper]

Think they're webifying UO, or a new version of UO?

They could never even begin to webify UO, Far far too much information etc that Flash just couldn't handle.

I wish him luck with the project, But It sounds rather bad, However what do I know!

 

[Lady_Mina]

Isn't runescape one of those weird online java games?

 

[Tukaram]

Remember a couple years ago he said his favorite game was Toon Town. Just to let you know where his mind is right now.

 

[Coldren]

I believe we are going to be greatly dissapointed....Garriot has changed alot...F*ing Facebook? wth?

Dumbed down crap. I am not impressed..

You may not be impressed, but 81 Million active monthly users are.

http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=102452128776

Do you know anything else about DICE, where this interview takes place?

Do you know where ALL developers are going?

The casual market, where the money is. WoW, believe it or not, isn't casual enough for most people.

Am I saying it's not simple? No. Of course it's simple stuff.. But then again, I doubt you paid attention to anything in that interview. Just spewing vitriol without the typical backing of logic and reasoning.

It's a stepping stone. Sweet Ass Poker is about showing how a web designed game can look just like one installed locally on your machine. Simple games get people who DON'T game (Which is the vast majority of people, despite what you may think) into the market. After that, you step it up. You give them something with more difficulty and more complexity, or they go and seek it if they have the desire too.

As, again, said in the interview, not everyone will make the switch from simple games to more complex ones, but it' just like any other product - No one will buy what you sell if you can't even get them to try it for free.

The only impressive thing is the lack of foresight and rational thought some people demonstrate. Am I saying what game he makes is going to be great? No, because I have no clue what his plan is. I'll make that decision when the time comes. But making small, simple games that attracts large amounts of people is a hell of a way to get funding for a startup.

But to say that his approach is flawed shows an incredible lack of understanding about the world in which you live. He does get it, and in time, weather or not you like the approach, it's where EVERYONE is going. It's cheap to develop, it draws in more people, and it has room to grow.

Sorry, but that's just the way it is.

 

[Trebr Drab]

Coldren, you're right. Just wanted to point out that gaming is becoming more widely acceptable, bit by bit. And this is a huge step in that direction. It also is the most effective way, by far, to advertise. Especially to new audiences.

Last, the technology is evolving. If Flash doesn't improve, others will take their place. And they are trying now. It's all in development and the tech wars are already well underway.

 

[bumblefutz]

Garriot's a kook who hasn't "had it" since before UO. Design decisions were made by Koster and the other devs, they just told Garriot whatever it took to keep him happy and let him log in as Lord British to RP.

 

[Tangled Metal]

Richard Garriott made 10 Games in the Ultima Series BEFORE creating Ultima Online. He is the Father of MMORPGs! Give the guy a little respect, he deserves it from anyone who plays online games.

I say IF there is a FB game in the Ultima theme then more power to him for that! It will do nothing but help UO. And if he can become a gazillionaire off of a FB game then SWEET! I'd rather the money go to a legend than a 12 year old boy who copied the code from one game and slapped a new name on it!

 

[Millie]

UOville - another facebook game

Roflrolleyes:

 

[Lorax_Pacific]

I believe his new game involves a business aspect where the ultimate goal is to buy a flight to space.....

I thought he was saying by implication that he would make an online game where everyone would earn gold or credit to pay for their trip to space...

-Lorax

 

[Arcades]

I like how he remains true to Ultima and wears that silver serpent necklace...I think he wore that into space too.

Still skeptical about a UO app on an iPhone or UO app on Facebook...will be interesting to see how his new Lord British game will turn out.

 

[Darknat]

I like how he remains true to Ultima and wears that silver serpent necklace...I think he wore that into space too.

Still skeptical about a UO app on an iPhone or UO app on Facebook...will be interesting to see how his new Lord British game will turn out.

Well... that depends on how you see it. That necklace predates Ultima

 

[Kula]

I believe his new game involves a business aspect where the ultimate goal is to buy a flight to space.....

My thoughts exactly.


i hate rg and will never play a game of his ever again unless im paid to do it

 

[sdk]

Garriot's a kook who hasn't "had it" since before UO. Design decisions were made by Koster and the other devs, they just told Garriot whatever it took to keep him happy and let him log in as Lord British to RP.

you are a troll and obviously know jack **** about Garriot's past accomplishments. do some research before you make stupid statements.

 

[Coldren]

I believe his new game involves a business aspect where the ultimate goal is to buy a flight to space.....

My thoughts exactly.


i hate rg and will never play a game of his ever again unless im paid to do it

Wow.. Talk about naive..

Ok, so let's indulge the troll. If he IS working to make money for another flight into space.. So the hell what? What the hell do YOU work for? For fun?

At least RG has done more than a lot of people will ever do - He fulfilled a dream. And one that very few people on this earth will ever achieve in their lifetime. He's been to ****ING SPACE. What have you done that others can aspire to?

And god forbid business go to make *Gasp* MONEY.. Bastards! You should work for love of your product alone!!1!1! Charity and passion alone make the world go round, right?

Please. Get real. What he does with what he earns is nobody's business. If he happens to make another good game, and he gets another flight into space, well then everybody wins.

And if you're such a strong anti-RG, show your conviction and quit UO and anything UO related. Prove you believe in your principals.

 

[Saphireena]

Oh I hadn't seen that interview yet, thanks for posting that Coldren! Up till now I'd only read the news and had a gander at Portalarium's website. (they seriously need an artist to make that site look more credible )

I think he talks a lot of sense in that video and really summarizes well what folks in the game dev community are going through right now. Even we at Digital Chocolate have jumped on the bandwagon (like pretty much everyone else) and while I was making an Xbox game last year, this year I'm making a (you guessed it) Facebook game. Which, by the way is just about to be released. If you want to follow news on that, I'll be announcing it here very soon.

I remember when I first started seeing those games on Facebook, they were a mere irritation to me as friends spammed me like no tomorrow. So one of my daily tasks was to block-block-delete and block. It wasn't really until Cafe World that I started to really open my eyes and mind as I found myself strangely addicted. So I started to wonder: "Why am I spending time in this game when I could be spending time in a "proper" game instead?" and I realized that they're not really games, they're relaxation tools. There is something amazingly relaxing and gratifying in clicking stuff and seeing it react or change somehow. Those games also tap into our need to be productive, and much like you would grind your crafting in UO, they offer a similar experience. Lesson learned? Never underestimate anything in the games business, you just can never tell.

I think what Garriott says about gently shifting all these new casual gamers to deeper games could very well happen. Here is an interesting video about female gamers which is sort of related:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ZVZRsy8N8&feature=channel

This thread is hilarious by the way .

 

[Trebr Drab]

I believe his new game involves a business aspect where the ultimate goal is to buy a flight to space.....

My thoughts exactly.


i hate rg and will never play a game of his ever again unless im paid to do it

Wow.. Talk about naive..

Ok, so let's indulge the troll. If he IS working to make money for another flight into space.. So the hell what? What the hell do YOU work for? For fun?

At least RG has done more than a lot of people will ever do - He fulfilled a dream. And one that very few people on this earth will ever achieve in their lifetime. He's been to ****ING SPACE. What have you done that others can aspire to?

And god forbid business go to make *Gasp* MONEY.. Bastards! You should work for love of your product alone!!1!1! Charity and passion alone make the world go round, right?

Please. Get real. What he does with what he earns is nobody's business. If he happens to make another good game, and he gets another flight into space, well then everybody wins.

And if you're such a strong anti-RG, show your conviction and quit UO and anything UO related. Prove you believe in your principals.

I've heard a rumor of at least one gold farmer working his way towards a space flight.

 

[Coldren]

I think what Garriott says about gently shifting all these new casual gamers to deeper games could very well happen. Here is an interesting video about female gamers which is sort of related:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8ZVZRsy8N8&feature=channel

Nice link! I've seen a video by this guy before, but that was some time ago.. Didn't even realize he was still making them.

And if you really think about it, not only could it very well happen, it's already happened with everyone. Think about how video games started - They were simple, crappy looking games. Pong. Space Invaders. Pac Man. Then we get Mario Brothers, Doom, Final Fantasy, Dragon Warrior, Ultima. Before you know it, we're up to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Assassin's Creed, Uncharted 2, and Dragon Age.

The very same evolution has already occurred for people who already play video games. The difference is the technology and accessibility. Throughout gaming history, the technology took a lot longer to complete that evolution (And make no mistake, the cycle of gaming as we know it has pretty much come to it's upper limits). How many years between Atari and Playstation 3? 8086 and Quad Core Pentium 4? And how did you learn about them? Maybe you saw it in a store. Maybe a friend had one.

Flash and Facebook represent the rebirth of that very same cycle. It's starting all over again, only it will evolve much, much quicker. More than that, as the link you suggested notes, developers are paying more attention this time to what and how they market to ensure it attracts as many customers as possible - Male, female, young, old. Everyone. Social media is only going to spread the word faster, and with more people, more money, more information, it's going to get very interesting at rates we never thought possible.

It'll start simple. Bejeweled, Snood (God, so much time wasted on that one), Farmville. Someone WILL eventually make an excellent flash-based, media-integrated MMO - The question is simply, who will get there first?

Will everyone play it? No. Some will never be attracted to that style of gaming. You play to relax, as you said, but you personally appreciate the value in more complex forms of gaming. Not everyone will, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But if 1 of every 5 people who play Farmville try a flash-based MMO (Wishful thinking, I know), that's, what, 16 million more MMO players?

Be stupid not to try to get in on that action.

 

[Argoas]

what a pity, i wish the Avatar came back to get him to see the reason. Its true that this kind of games are easy money, but that doesnt mean that much of us wouldnt prefer a mmorpg, a UO style mmorpg (I dont like much Facebook).

 

[Longest Journey]

Richard sold out. There isnt much more it than that. Hes turned his back on what made him (Ultima), and is making facebook games for simpletons to play whilst updating their ego epeen page, prattling on and on about their trip to the shore and their new haircut and posting picutres of them and their loser friends.

 

[Lady_Mina]

Too bad richard sold out to EA...i still wonder what UO would have looked like if he would have sticked with UO.

Still hoping one day he'll release an other game similar to uo.

 

[AesSedai]

- So wrong. Due to all of the misinformation going on, it is easy to see why this went OT.

UO wouldn't have been created without EA's support (even if they still don't understand it very well). Sure Garriott needed to leave EA. But did any of you loudmouths even read Draconi's farewell post?! Why don't you try looking at post #140 and gaining .1 in knowledge.
Richard Garriott still cares very dearly for UO; and you can see he means it when he tells it to your face.