Richard Garriott's Ultima
dragon42
have changed since those days, though, and companies have different
motivations. (See $$$) I sincerely hope that he'll start another company and
produce another "whatever". If not, then goodbye Richard. It's been one hell
of a good ride!
-Alpine Dragon
--
It is by Caffeine alone that I set my mind in motion
It is by the beans of Java, that my thoughts aquire speed
The hands aquire Shakes; the Shakes become a warning
It is by Caffiene alone that I set my mind in motion
Dave Scallan <daves...@home.com> wrote in message
news:CreF4.20640$Tn4.6...@news1.rdc2.pa.home.com...
> While I was as surprised as anyone over Richard Garriott parting ways
> with Origin, I am more shocked by some of the comments by members of this
NG
> and also some made in a few of the Dragons NGs as well .
> Comments like "Good riddance" and "It's about time" - and the like , all
> invariably linked to the disappointment over "Accession's". early buggy
> release and the hardware support problems.
>
> I surely do blame RG for his part in the debacle of U9 but I do not
> believe his bad decisions were decisions based on greed. He is guilty I
> suppose of reaching beyond his grasp. Perhaps RG's Actual bad decision was
> years ago hitching Origin's wagon to Electronic Arts in the first place.I
DO
> feel the Execs at EA are a greedy lot and failed to understand this was a
> game of monumental graphical abilities based on Richard's desire and
vision
> to "Create Worlds" rather than just design a "game"
>
> Obviously the pressure to release U9 before it was ready just to be
on
> the shelves for the '99 Christmas season came from the people that still
> work at Origin and not those who were let go 2 days ago!
>
> Incidentally, I played U9 with the 3rd patch and never actually
> experienced the frustration many of you felt by attempting the original
> version. While I have minor criticisms of the game myself, I thought it
was
> the most beautiful and immerse game I have ever played on my PC. There
were
> no showstopping bugs, no objects disappearing, decent frame rates (except
in
> Britain) and only a few to system crashes that did no real damage other
than
> having to reboot the game. I am writing about this in a positive way
> because, to be honest, I expected much worse.
>
> If U9's release would have been NOW and not November of 1999 I am
sure
> much would be different , at Origin, in minds and computers of gamers, and
> in these newsgroups.
>
> Let, not forget that:
> *The Ultima games are and will always be considered some of the best
of
> the genre and of computer games in general.
> * They have always pushed the hardware envelope in order to heighten
the
> "immersive qualities" of these "worlds" and unlike game consoles, PCs vary
> widely in their hardware, configuration and abilities.
> *Richard Garriott is THE founder and visionary of these worlds and has
> been dedicated to the creation of these worlds, rather than the business
of
> publishing games, which is why Origin has always needed other
> ompanies( Sierra, Brodurbund, EA) to handle THAT part, of getting the
games
> to us, the players.
>
> I might think the words "good riddance" too , but I would apply them
to
> what I would tell Mr. Garriott about his not working for Electronic Arts
> anymore!
>
>
> Dave Scallan
>
>
Jason Ely
for one, know that the issues at hand with Ultima 9 cannot be blamed on him.
When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing it
through. I worked with Richard for 5 years and I know first hand what EA
does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated what
Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
EA will say "Ok Rich, you can do that.". Then EA loses money in a
quarter from another area and decides "Lets tighten the leash on Origin a
bit more." and next thing you know they say "Oh Rich, we decided that you
can't do that now, even though you made a million promises.". EA wants to
mold Origin into its "Online Only" company. This means that they care
NOTHING about the other games at Origin.
Ultima 9 has had a very rough development cycle, simply because it has
never had any good backing from EA. I don't care what outsiders say... I was
THERE! I knew what was going on first hand!
Richard is a master at coming up with game ideas, telling stories and
such. That is why so many people and myself have followed him through the
times. Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, he is human, but some people
don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he doesn't
meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
Another question I have is if you guys think Richard sucks so bad and
Ultima has been so horrible for so long, then why the hell are you buying
the game and playing it? Why not move on, get a life and drop it? For people
who call themselves an Ultima Dragon to pound so hard on the very person who
inspired them is totally ignorant!
I'm not trying to flame anybody, but I am trying to stand up for a
person who has given so much and tried to fight the "big company bad boys"
to give each and everyone of you a great gaming experience in the world of
Ultima.
Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like this
is very sad and shows who his true fans and loyal followers are.
-Jason Ely
Musashi Dragon <Musash...@home.com> wrote in message
news:k1sbes4umin29pit3...@4ax.com...
> "Dave Scallan" <daves...@home.com> foolishly provided me with the
> following Twist material...
> > While I was as surprised as anyone over Richard Garriott parting
ways
> > with Origin, I am more shocked by some of the comments by members of
this NG
> > and also some made in a few of the Dragons NGs as well .
>
> We've been like this for a long time...
>
> > Comments like "Good riddance" and "It's about time" - and the like ,
all
>
> I haven't posted mine yet, so I'll do 'em here:
> *yawn*
> So what?
> He got what he deserved -- if not better.
>
> > invariably linked to the disappointment over "Accession's". early buggy
> > release and the hardware support problems.
>
> Not to mention spelling problems?
>
> FYI, this is the reason that I'm responding. If you hadn't made such a
> sweeping statement about our comments and reasons for making them, I
> wouldn't have responded.
>
>
> Technical problems? No, actually. I don't care too much about the
> hardware and buggy stuff. I don't like the fact that they claim
> "everything is now fixed", when it isn't. I don't like the fact that
> they shut down the discussion boards.
>
> It goes beyond that. Ultima 9, without any bugs and running at 100FPS
> on an 80286, is still a pathetic game. Maybe it's on par with the other
> garbage out there, but it doesn't deserve to be an Ultima. It's not an
> RPG. The plot was idiotic. The dialogue was aimed at ten-year olds.
> Etc. These complaints have nothing to do with the lack of technical
> ability of U9.
>
> But even before U9 was released, RG had ceased to be a god. Ultima 8 is
> a good example. So were all the lies he told us.
>
> > I surely do blame RG for his part in the debacle of U9 but I do
not
> > believe his bad decisions were decisions based on greed. He is guilty I
> > suppose of reaching beyond his grasp. Perhaps RG's Actual bad decision
was
>
> And breaking his promises. fans.txt, anybody?
>
> > years ago hitching Origin's wagon to Electronic Arts in the first
place.I DO
> > feel the Execs at EA are a greedy lot and failed to understand this was
a
> > game of monumental graphical abilities based on Richard's desire and
vision
> > to "Create Worlds" rather than just design a "game"
>
> Oh, please. "The big bad EA suits were the bad guys!".
>
> > If U9's release would have been NOW and not November of 1999 I am
sure
> > much would be different , at Origin, in minds and computers of gamers,
and
> > in these newsgroups.
>
> Not here.
>
> > Let, not forget that:
> > *The Ultima games are and will always be considered some of the best
of
> > the genre and of computer games in general.
>
> Correction. U4 to SI will always be considered some of the best.
> Depending upon who you talk to, they may add U3 or subtract U4, U5, or
> SI. Oh, wait, the UWs belond in there as well.
>
> Ultima 9 will be considered a horrible monstrocity. And Ultima 8 will
> be debated as to whether it's an ok game. But not a masterpiece.
>
> > * They have always pushed the hardware envelope in order to heighten
the
> > "immersive qualities" of these "worlds" and unlike game consoles, PCs
vary
> > widely in their hardware, configuration and abilities.
>
> So?
>
> > *Richard Garriott is THE founder and visionary of these worlds and
has
> > been dedicated to the creation of these worlds, rather than the business
of
> > publishing games, which is why Origin has always needed other
> > ompanies( Sierra, Brodurbund, EA) to handle THAT part, of getting the
games
> > to us, the players.
>
> So?
>
> RG created some really good games ten years ago. He hasn't since. OK,
> maybe he hasn't in the past eight years; somebody'll point out when SI
> was released.
>
> Pagan sucked. RG said some stuff in fans.txt.
> UO sucked. But there is no lag. Nor bugs. Or something.
> U9 sucked. For reasons other than their programming skill and lack of
> morals (ie shipping a game with known major bugs).
>
> > I might think the words "good riddance" too , but I would apply them
to
> > what I would tell Mr. Garriott about his not working for Electronic
Arts
> > anymore!
>
> OK. That's nice. Enjoy your opinion.
>
> --
> Musashi Dragon Graduate student of Innuendo and Twisting
> -==(UDIC Greybread)==- Official rgcud NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!-sayer
> Angle of Hot Sex GSD's Brat Child
> Extremely Sic Linux Junkie
Jason Ely
news:38E696A6...@hotmail.com...
>
> well, why did he sell origin to ea? granted, ea has certainly a bigger
> budget that origin had, but there are several companies sailing under
> ea´s flag...that could have been predicted...remember "could". he is
> only a human being after all...
>
Origin had to merge with EA in order to continue doing business.
Basically they were out of money. Things were not as profitable back then.
It was a hard road and basically Origin would have closed its doors.
Joining EA allowed Origin to give back to the employees that had been
working so hard on the games. It was not known then what EA would become. At
the time EA was the light at the end of the tunnel.
-Jason Ely
Dave Scallan
with Origin, I am more shocked by some of the comments by members of this NG
and also some made in a few of the Dragons NGs as well .
release and the hardware support problems.
I surely do blame RG for his part in the debacle of U9 but I do not
believe his bad decisions were decisions based on greed. He is guilty I
suppose of reaching beyond his grasp. Perhaps RG's Actual bad decision was
years ago hitching Origin's wagon to Electronic Arts in the first place.I DO
feel the Execs at EA are a greedy lot and failed to understand this was a
game of monumental graphical abilities based on Richard's desire and vision
to "Create Worlds" rather than just design a "game"
Obviously the pressure to release U9 before it was ready just to be on
the shelves for the '99 Christmas season came from the people that still
work at Origin and not those who were let go 2 days ago!
Incidentally, I played U9 with the 3rd patch and never actually
experienced the frustration many of you felt by attempting the original
version. While I have minor criticisms of the game myself, I thought it was
the most beautiful and immerse game I have ever played on my PC. There were
no showstopping bugs, no objects disappearing, decent frame rates (except in
Britain) and only a few to system crashes that did no real damage other than
having to reboot the game. I am writing about this in a positive way
because, to be honest, I expected much worse.
If U9's release would have been NOW and not November of 1999 I am sure
much would be different , at Origin, in minds and computers of gamers, and
in these newsgroups.
Let, not forget that:
*The Ultima games are and will always be considered some of the best of
the genre and of computer games in general.
* They have always pushed the hardware envelope in order to heighten the
"immersive qualities" of these "worlds" and unlike game consoles, PCs vary
widely in their hardware, configuration and abilities.
*Richard Garriott is THE founder and visionary of these worlds and has
been dedicated to the creation of these worlds, rather than the business of
publishing games, which is why Origin has always needed other
ompanies( Sierra, Brodurbund, EA) to handle THAT part, of getting the games
to us, the players.
I might think the words "good riddance" too , but I would apply them to
what I would tell Mr. Garriott about his not working for Electronic Arts
anymore!
Dave Scallan
Lost Dragon
>with Origin, I am more shocked by some of the comments by members of this NG
>and also some made in a few of the Dragons NGs as well .
There's really no love lost between myself and Origin (or Garriot for
that matter).
>I surely do blame RG for his part in the debacle of U9 but I do not
>believe his bad decisions were decisions based on greed. He is guilty I
My suspicion is that Garriot rose to his own level of incompetence
several years ago and was probably more comfortable being a design-guy
than he ever was being face-man for Origin. *Unfortunately*, he used
his remaining time at Origin to make a lot of promises that he
couldn't keep, so now he's just going to have to take his lumps.
> *Richard Garriott is THE founder and visionary of these worlds and has
>been dedicated to the creation of these worlds, rather than the business of
I don't like phraseology like this. Garriot doesn't need to be
propped up on a pedestal. If he wants to do a game, he can open up to
the unwashed masses and *gasp* ask for some suggestions on what the
players would actually like to see. The days of Garriot - or any
developer for that matter - bringing his tablet down from Mount Ultima
are over and done with.
>I might think the words "good riddance" too , but I would apply them to
>what I would tell Mr. Garriott about his not working for Electronic Arts
>anymore!
Feh. AFAIC, he has to prove himself all over again. Good luck too.
I'm one cynical dragon.
/| .oo__. .-----.=- -= Lost Dragon =- -=.-----. U
{ \| ,-'' | _O_ |==- -= Forever Dead Forgotten Lie =- -==| _O_ | D
`,_/'(_)\_ | | |==- Remembered Souls, They Cannot Die -==| | | I
<...{_)_)_''`-----`===-- http://www.lostdragon.com/ --==='-----' C
Musashi Dragon
> with Origin, I am more shocked by some of the comments by members of this NG
> and also some made in a few of the Dragons NGs as well .
We've been like this for a long time...
> Comments like "Good riddance" and "It's about time" - and the like , all
I haven't posted mine yet, so I'll do 'em here:
*yawn*
So what?
He got what he deserved -- if not better.
> invariably linked to the disappointment over "Accession's". early buggy
> release and the hardware support problems.
Not to mention spelling problems?
FYI, this is the reason that I'm responding. If you hadn't made such a
sweeping statement about our comments and reasons for making them, I
wouldn't have responded.
Technical problems? No, actually. I don't care too much about the
hardware and buggy stuff. I don't like the fact that they claim
"everything is now fixed", when it isn't. I don't like the fact that
they shut down the discussion boards.
It goes beyond that. Ultima 9, without any bugs and running at 100FPS
on an 80286, is still a pathetic game. Maybe it's on par with the other
garbage out there, but it doesn't deserve to be an Ultima. It's not an
RPG. The plot was idiotic. The dialogue was aimed at ten-year olds.
Etc. These complaints have nothing to do with the lack of technical
ability of U9.
But even before U9 was released, RG had ceased to be a god. Ultima 8 is
a good example. So were all the lies he told us.
> I surely do blame RG for his part in the debacle of U9 but I do not
> believe his bad decisions were decisions based on greed. He is guilty I
> suppose of reaching beyond his grasp. Perhaps RG's Actual bad decision was
And breaking his promises. fans.txt, anybody?
> years ago hitching Origin's wagon to Electronic Arts in the first place.I DO
> feel the Execs at EA are a greedy lot and failed to understand this was a
> game of monumental graphical abilities based on Richard's desire and vision
> to "Create Worlds" rather than just design a "game"
Oh, please. "The big bad EA suits were the bad guys!".
> If U9's release would have been NOW and not November of 1999 I am sure
> much would be different , at Origin, in minds and computers of gamers, and
> in these newsgroups.
Not here.
> Let, not forget that:
> *The Ultima games are and will always be considered some of the best of
> the genre and of computer games in general.
Correction. U4 to SI will always be considered some of the best.
Depending upon who you talk to, they may add U3 or subtract U4, U5, or
SI. Oh, wait, the UWs belond in there as well.
Ultima 9 will be considered a horrible monstrocity. And Ultima 8 will
be debated as to whether it's an ok game. But not a masterpiece.
> * They have always pushed the hardware envelope in order to heighten the
> "immersive qualities" of these "worlds" and unlike game consoles, PCs vary
> widely in their hardware, configuration and abilities.
So?
> *Richard Garriott is THE founder and visionary of these worlds and has
> been dedicated to the creation of these worlds, rather than the business of
> publishing games, which is why Origin has always needed other
> ompanies( Sierra, Brodurbund, EA) to handle THAT part, of getting the games
> to us, the players.
So?
RG created some really good games ten years ago. He hasn't since. OK,
maybe he hasn't in the past eight years; somebody'll point out when SI
was released.
Pagan sucked. RG said some stuff in fans.txt.
UO sucked. But there is no lag. Nor bugs. Or something.
U9 sucked. For reasons other than their programming skill and lack of
morals (ie shipping a game with known major bugs).
> I might think the words "good riddance" too , but I would apply them to
> what I would tell Mr. Garriott about his not working for Electronic Arts
> anymore!
OK. That's nice. Enjoy your opinion.
MdmeDis
Musash...@home.com says...
<snip of excellent response>
> OK. That's nice. Enjoy your opinion.
That saved me a lot of typing. Just one thing to add - to Mr Scallon.
You may also notice the least amount of comments is happening in this
the Dragons group. There are a number of people who espoused the rather
noble ideals the 'real' Ultimas expressed. It gave many the chance to
play the Knight in Shining Armour and be honourable - many felt that
those were the ideals of the creator.
The past few years have shown that person to be far less than his
creation - and there is a sense of great disillusion - betrayal, almost.
I know that sounds silly, and taken in conjunction with what Fortran
said about Larry Niven and an authors characters, it probably is - but
in a world where to get anywhere you have to put aside your morals, it
was nice to believe that out there in their world there was a Good Guy
who won.
The most negative opinions, and thus the less biased, in general are
coming from non-Dragons
--
Disoriented Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-
Having finally opted for it being the rest of the
world that's screwed, after all.
Musashi Dragon
the following Twist material...
> First of all I'd like to ask why do you lay all the heat on Richard? I,
First, please post follow-ups below the quoted text.
Secondly, because he's the one (officially) in charge. If U9 was a
roaring success, he'd get the credits. Since it sucks, he gets the
blame. This is called responsibility.
> for one, know that the issues at hand with Ultima 9 cannot be blamed on him.
> When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing it
> through.
In that case he's made an awful lot of promises that he can't keep.
Either way (lying or being inable to fulfill promises) I have no reason
to believe him.
> I worked with Richard for 5 years and I know first hand what EA
> does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated what
> Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
Such as the storyline? Sure, the big bad EA guys force Origin into an
online-only company. And they forced Origin to ship U9 six months
before their game was ready. And didn't give Origin enough money to
hire a better team. And they practiced voodoo every day to curse Ultima
9. Etc. Even granted all that, U9 is still totally unsuitable to
follow in the footsteps of U7.
> Ultima 9 has had a very rough development cycle, simply because it has
> never had any good backing from EA. I don't care what outsiders say... I was
> THERE! I knew what was going on first hand!
That's nice. I reiterate that I'm not judging U9 on its technical
flaws. I'm talking about the "final wrap-up" which leaves more things
unanswered than it answers. I'm talking about the plot that I've seen
bettered in a fanfic that somebody spent one weekend working on. I'm
talking about the pre-teen love story of Raven. Etc.
> Richard is a master at coming up with game ideas, telling stories and
> such. That is why so many people and myself have followed him through the
> times. Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, he is human, but some people
> don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he doesn't
> meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
He hasn't met up to the "God" status for the last eight years. I'm a
slow learned; I didn't realize it for the first five of those.
> Another question I have is if you guys think Richard sucks so bad and
> Ultima has been so horrible for so long, then why the hell are you buying
> the game and playing it? Why not move on, get a life and drop it? For people
I bought it to make my collection complete. I'm not whining about the
$100 CDN I wasted on it.
And I have moved on. As to my life... well, that's a debatable point.
:)
> who call themselves an Ultima Dragon to pound so hard on the very person who
> inspired them is totally ignorant!
Ignorant? *I'M* ignorant about Ultima games? Ohhh boy... *You* have
no conception of what the Ultima Dragons are. I could say much, much
more, but it wouldn't be pretty.
> I'm not trying to flame anybody, but I am trying to stand up for a
No?
> person who has given so much and tried to fight the "big company bad boys"
> to give each and everyone of you a great gaming experience in the world of
> Ultima.
Really.
> Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like this
I used to be loyal. But even an idiot like me starts to realize
something after the tenth broken promise.
> is very sad and shows who his true fans and loyal followers are.
I am a fan of the real Ultimas: U4 to SI. I am not a fan of RG. I
never claimed to be.
Dave Scallan
I have to assume that you were responding to those who replied to my
post, since you and I very much agree, although I am not an insider and have
never worked with Richard or EA.
I have been into Ultima since the early 80's (Ultima 3 was the first I
played on my C-64) and I have since played every one except Pagan.
I am sure I have wasted many hours of my life playing "stupid computer
games" as my wife would say, but I must say that all those hours playing
Ultima III, IV, V, VI VII & IX were truly very enjoyable ones.
When I say I blame Richard Garriott for his part in all the problems
with the Ultimas and UO I say so because no one twisted his arm to sell out
to EA. He benefited financially from that union so he has to walk away
knowing that perhaps he could have done better than sign with a Hydra-Dragon
publisher.
So...... I will watch and see what Richard does next in the way of
creating new computer gaming worlds because I know Origin will never have
anything like his magic again.
Dave Scallan
Glum Dragon
Jason Ely <jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com> wrote in message
news:8c5mo6$f90$1...@news.jump.net...
Ensor
series immensely. I've played False Prophet, Black Gate, Serpents
Isle, Pagan, Ascension, Underworld I and II and Martian Dreams and
every game gave me hours of pleasure. Sure, maybe Pagan didn't have
night and day and other role playing stuff but so what? It was still
fun and that's how I judge a game.
I want to say thank you to Richard Garriot for producing these games
and I hope him the best in his future endeavors. Nothing would make me
happier than to hear he has started his own company so he can do
things the way he wants to do them and not the way a bunch of suits
who never played a game in their lives think it should be done.
Everyone else say what you want. To me Richard Garriot will always be
my liege Lord British.
Victor Danilchenko
>
> "Jason Ely" <jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com> foolishly provided me with
> the following Twist material...
> > First of all I'd like to ask why do you lay all the heat on Richard? I,
>
It does not apply if the response is a monolithic rant not made to any
*specific* section of the text. ;)
> Secondly, because he's the one (officially) in charge. If U9 was a
> roaring success, he'd get the credits. Since it sucks, he gets the
> blame. This is called responsibility.
The only thing you can REALLY blame RG for, is having sold Origin to a publicly
traded corporation; after that, he very quickly became little less than a
figurehead. Sure, he would have received praise if U9 turned out OK -- but
considering how short a reign he had been given, he still did not have much
control over U9's development.
Now don't take me wrong, the decision to sell Origin WAS a major betrayal,
although I doubt RG (or most of the dragons -- or myself, for that matter)
realized that at the time; that one decision meant subjugating anything and
everything Ultima meant, to the god of quarterly profit. However, once that
blame is allocated, blaming RG for other stuff is like blaming the weather for
raining on your parade.
You can blame the laws binding publicly-traded corporations in USA, and you can
blame RG for tossing Origin into that mess; you can hardly blame him for what
happened after, when he no longer had any real control.
> > for one, know that the issues at hand with Ultima 9 cannot be blamed on him.
> > When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing it
> > through.
>
> In that case he's made an awful lot of promises that he can't keep.
> Either way (lying or being inable to fulfill promises) I have no reason
> to believe him.
Well, shortsightedness is not the same as dishonesty. While I would not trust
any promises he made while under EA (because he had virtually no control over
them being kept -- all of his promises were by definition hot air), I would
reconsider if he founded a new company.
> > I worked with Richard for 5 years and I know first hand what EA
> > does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated what
> > Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
>
> Such as the storyline?
Such as the storyline being affected by the fact that the game was scrapped,
re-written, scrapped, re-written, rushed, wrung out, and tumble-dried on high
setting.
> Sure, the big bad EA guys force Origin into an
> online-only company. And they forced Origin to ship U9 six months
> before their game was ready. And didn't give Origin enough money to
> hire a better team. And they practiced voodoo every day to curse Ultima
> 9. Etc. Even granted all that, U9 is still totally unsuitable to
> follow in the footsteps of U7.
That tends to happen when making maximum profit is the sole goal. Tends to work
OK for making racing-car games, but not for something more involved.
> > Richard is a master at coming up with game ideas, telling stories and
> > such. That is why so many people and myself have followed him through the
> > times. Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, he is human, but some people
> > don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he doesn't
> > meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
>
> He hasn't met up to the "God" status for the last eight years. I'm a
> slow learned; I didn't realize it for the first five of those.
He has lost 'god' status the moment he ceded control of Origin; he might regain
it if he founds a new company, a-la Sid Meier.
--
Daermonestroer Dragon
Victor Danilchenko
I wonder if there was an option at the time of joining some privately-held
company with a nicer vision of the future, instead of a public corporation like
EA...
--
Daermonestroer Dragon
Claus Dragon
>
> First of all I'd like to ask why do you lay all the heat on Richard? I,
> for one, know that the issues at hand with Ultima 9 cannot be blamed on him.
> When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing it
> through. I worked with Richard for 5 years and I know first hand what EA
> does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated what
> Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
> EA will say "Ok Rich, you can do that.". Then EA loses money in a
> quarter from another area and decides "Lets tighten the leash on Origin a
> bit more." and next thing you know they say "Oh Rich, we decided that you
> can't do that now, even though you made a million promises.". EA wants to
> mold Origin into its "Online Only" company. This means that they care
> NOTHING about the other games at Origin.
well, why did he sell origin to ea? granted, ea has certainly a bigger
budget that origin had, but there are several companies sailing under
ea´s flag...that could have been predicted...remember "could". he is
only a human being after all...
> Richard is a master at coming up with game ideas, telling stories and
> such. That is why so many people and myself have followed him through the
> times.
i liked all games in which rg was involved somehow...yes, the game ideas
were always great.
>Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, he is human, but some people
> don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he doesn't
> meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
sure.
> Another question I have is if you guys think Richard sucks so bad and
> Ultima has been so horrible for so long, then why the hell are you buying
> the game and playing it? Why not move on, get a life and drop it? For people
> who call themselves an Ultima Dragon to pound so hard on the very person who
> inspired them is totally ignorant!
well, i did not buy u9. first of all, my computer is not up to date for
that. what is more, the whole game concept seemed somehow [looking for
an appropiate word] bizarre. [not satisfied with it]
i enjoy playing u1 - u7si until this day and i will always remember the
magic that surrounded the games when i was younger and those games were
new...
> I'm not trying to flame anybody, but I am trying to stand up for a
> person who has given so much and tried to fight the "big company bad boys"
> to give each and everyone of you a great gaming experience in the world of
> Ultima.
see the question above. why did origin "join forces" (that´s what a
note said) with ea?
> Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like > this is very sad and shows who his true fans and loyal followers are.
i am desperately trying to, but it is hard.
claus dragon
Telemachos
<Musash...@home.com> wrote:
>"Jason Ely" <jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com> foolishly provided me with
>the following Twist material...
>> First of all I'd like to ask why do you lay all the heat on Richard? I,
>
>First, please post follow-ups below the quoted text.
<snip>
*sigh* Sometimes you american people can be SO stone-headed and
stubborn...
Enough said - I give up.... its days like this where I can actually
feel ashamed to be a dragon...
Telemachos Dragon d-- e- N++ Om+ U1!234!5!6!7!S'!8!9K!A!L!W!M
-==(UDIC)==- u++ uC uF- uG uLB uA nC nH+ nP+ nI nPT nS+ a22
The Peroxide Homepage : http://www.peroxide.dk
- Home of the PXDTUTS & Free Games
- Home of the Ultima 1 Remake!
Vulcan Dragon
<Clau...@hotmail.com> revealed:
>well, why did he sell origin to ea? granted, ea has certainly a bigger
>budget that origin had, but there are several companies sailing under
>ea´s flag...that could have been predicted...remember "could". he is
>only a human being after all...
It has been said in the past that Orogin's money problems at the time
were such that, if they did not sell, they would have folded.
========================================================================
Vulcan Dragon -=(UDIC)=- mcar...@columbus.rr.com
Lord of the Chicken Wings
Lost Dragon
>Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
There are an awful lot of developers under EA who seem to be able to
function and put out some pretty nice games.
>don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he doesn't
>meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
He was praised for doing good games - back when he was doing good
games. Now he's getting slammed for doing pitiful games. It goes
both ways.
>who call themselves an Ultima Dragon to pound so hard on the very person who
>inspired them is totally ignorant!
I'm a fan of the series. I don't have to like the person who created
it. I'm not a Garriot Dragon.
> Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like this
>is very sad and shows who his true fans and loyal followers are.
Well, there's the rub. The past three games he's put out have been
complete crap IMO. He doesn't deserve my loyalty anymore.
Ophidian
Victor Danilchenko <dani...@cs.umass.edu> wrote in message
news:38E694F1...@cs.umass.edu...
> The only thing you can REALLY blame RG for, is having sold Origin to a
publicly
> traded corporation; after that, he very quickly became little less than a
> figurehead. Sure, he would have received praise if U9 turned out OK -- but
> considering how short a reign he had been given, he still did not have
much
> control over U9's development.
Well, the problem is that in interviews and etc. he implied that he was in
complete control of the game. I seem to recall one of them even stating
that 'LB has dropped his other duties to be the full time U9 designer.' If
he chose not to lie and indicate at some point that he was in not control,
that would be great. But I am not an Origin employee; I don't know what EA
does to Origin and i don't know how involved people are, I can only read the
box--and RG's name is in big letters. My opinion might change if he came
out and said, "I wasn't in control of any of it, in reality" then my opinion
might change. However, for now I will believe (based on the say-so of OSI
and LB) that Richard made most of the creative decisions for U9.
-Ophidian
Ricktaxx Mang
"Jason Ely" <jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com> wrote in message
news:8c5mo6$f90$1...@news.jump.net...
> First of all I'd like to ask why do you lay all the heat on Richard?
I,
> for one, know that the issues at hand with Ultima 9 cannot be blamed on
him.
> When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing it
> through. I worked with Richard for 5 years and I know first hand what EA
> does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated
what
> Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
---Cut ---
Jonathan Comly
> "Jason Ely" <jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com> foolishly provided me with
> the following Twist material...
> > First of all I'd like to ask why do you lay all the heat on Richard?
I,
>
>
> roaring success, he'd get the credits. Since it sucks, he gets the
> blame. This is called responsibility.
>
him.
> > When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing
it
> > through.
>
> Either way (lying or being inable to fulfill promises) I have no reason
> to believe him.
>
> > does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated
what
> > Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true
backstabbers.
>
> online-only company. And they forced Origin to ship U9 six months
> before their game was ready. And didn't give Origin enough money to
> hire a better team. And they practiced voodoo every day to curse Ultima
> 9. Etc. Even granted all that, U9 is still totally unsuitable to
> follow in the footsteps of U7.
>
has
> > never had any good backing from EA. I don't care what outsiders say... I
was
> > THERE! I knew what was going on first hand!
>
> flaws. I'm talking about the "final wrap-up" which leaves more things
> unanswered than it answers. I'm talking about the plot that I've seen
> bettered in a fanfic that somebody spent one weekend working on. I'm
> talking about the pre-teen love story of Raven. Etc.
>
and
> > such. That is why so many people and myself have followed him through
the
> > times. Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, he is human, but some people
> > don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he
doesn't
> > meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
>
> slow learned; I didn't realize it for the first five of those.
>
and
> > Ultima has been so horrible for so long, then why the hell are you
buying
> > the game and playing it? Why not move on, get a life and drop it? For
people
>
> $100 CDN I wasted on it.
>
> And I have moved on. As to my life... well, that's a debatable point.
> :)
>
who
> > inspired them is totally ignorant!
>
> no conception of what the Ultima Dragons are. I could say much, much
> more, but it wouldn't be pretty.
>
>
>
> > person who has given so much and tried to fight the "big company bad
boys"
> > to give each and everyone of you a great gaming experience in the world
of
> > Ultima.
>
>
> > Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like
this
>
> something after the tenth broken promise.
>
>
> never claimed to be.
>
would allow that person to meet
RG....
It didn't get in on time and I lost...
All in all, U3 & U4 for the NES
are a couple of RPG's that I
don't mind playing over & over
again:)
To tell the truth...
I don't think NP let us know
who won the great privlege
to see RG...:(
But that was circa 1987-88..
--
Jonathan Comly
Ophidian
I,
> for one, know that the issues at hand with Ultima 9 cannot be blamed on
him.
> When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing it
> through. I worked with Richard for 5 years and I know first hand what EA
> does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated
what
> Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
EA certainly contributed to U9's problems, but Rich has repeatedly stated
that he is happy with the end product and that it met his goals. THis may
be PR posturing and lies, but I have no reason to beleive that it is--I will
assume that what he says he feels is actually how he feels.
> Ultima 9 has had a very rough development cycle, simply because it has
> never had any good backing from EA. I don't care what outsiders say... I
was
> THERE! I knew what was going on first hand!
You worked on Ultima 9?
> Richard is a master at coming up with game ideas, telling stories and
> such. That is why so many people and myself have followed him through the
> times. Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, he is human, but some people
> don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he doesn't
> meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
I don't care if he's God, I care what he does to Ultima, a mythos that has
grown far beyond him. If he screws with it (Ultima IX) or uses it to sell
virtually unrelated crap (UO), or sells it to people who cannot handle it
(EA) then I and many others will chastize him for it.
> Another question I have is if you guys think Richard sucks so bad and
> Ultima has been so horrible for so long, then why the hell are you buying
> the game and playing it?
Most of us aren't. I was replaying U9 in order to write a review, but I
have reached a(nother) game stopping crash and will most likely remove the
monstrocity from my hard drive, yet again, and write the review from memory.
> Why not move on, get a life and drop it? For people
> who call themselves an Ultima Dragon to pound so hard on the very person
who
> inspired them is totally ignorant!
I was never terribly inspired by Richard. I think he was inspired to create
Ultima; like all art, it was not 100% his doing. I respect Richard for how
he handled his creation up until the point he sold it to EA< and it was
corrupted, over the next 8 years, beyond recognition.
> I'm not trying to flame anybody, but I am trying to stand up for a
> person who has given so much and tried to fight the "big company bad boys"
> to give each and everyone of you a great gaming experience in the world of
> Ultima.
Well, when did he start fighting back? Because he certainly hasn't put out
too many good games since SI was cut short in 1993.
> Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like
this
> is very sad and shows who his true fans and loyal followers are.
I do have loyalty--I am quite loyal to the Ultima mythos and story and will
quite happily rip anyone to shreds who tries to twist it or use it to sell
unrelated games. This includes its creator.
I do not have a personal opinion of Garriot because I do not know the man.
I do however not have respect for what I know of his actions relating to
Ultima in the past few years. I can think of a number of pointed questions
I would ask him, but I do not and doubt I will ever have the chance....
-Ophidian
Paulon
Disorganizer and says...
> Musashi Dragon wrote:
<SniP>
> > In that case he's made an awful lot of promises that he can't keep.
> > Either way (lying or being inable to fulfill promises) I have no reason
> > to believe him.
>
> Well, shortsightedness is not the same as dishonesty. While I would not trust
> any promises he made while under EA (because he had virtually no control over
> them being kept -- all of his promises were by definition hot air), I would
> reconsider if he founded a new company.
If he couldn't keep the promises he made, then he should have just kept
his mouth shut. While I can understand he was constrained in what he
could say without causing bad publicity, comments like 'well-debugged'
aren't going to get him anything but well-deserved grief.
--
Paulon Dragon d++ e- N T+ Om U1!2!3!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!9!K!A!L!W!M!
-==(UDIC)==- u++ uC+ uF uG uLB+ uA+ nC nH+ nI nPT nS+ nT+ y?
The Other Codex http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~paulryan/Ultima/
Settle for what you can get, but first ask for the World
Ka'a Orto'o, Gnomic Utterances, C IV
Negate the Spell to Wish me Well...
Claus Dragon
> > budget that origin had, but there are several companies sailing under
> > ea´s flag...that could have been predicted...remember "could". he is
> > only a human being after all...
> >
> Basically they were out of money. Things were not as profitable back then.
> It was a hard road and basically Origin would have closed its doors.
REALLY? that´s something i can´t imagine...well, that´s a reason for
selling: you have to otherwise it´s the end.
>
> Joining EA allowed Origin to give back to the employees that had been
> working so hard on the games. It was not known then what EA would become. At
> the time EA was the light at the end of the tunnel.
okokok, but EA is a large company. there are lots of programming teams
and lots of game designers aso working for EA. in such a case, you are
not the most important asset because EA wants to see money and they
normally don´t give a f*** about quality. but that is something
predictable. i remember my comment to the newsletter about EA and origin
joining forces: well, that´s it, they are finished.
am i right, or not?
claus dragon
>
> -Jason Ely
Jason Ely
its from their high-profile lines like the sports-line.
Claus Dragon <Clau...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:38E71B6D...@hotmail.com...
> Jason Ely schrieb:
> >
> > Claus Dragon <Clau...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:38E696A6...@hotmail.com...
> > >
> > > well, why did he sell origin to ea? granted, ea has certainly a bigger
> > > budget that origin had, but there are several companies sailing under
> > > ea´s flag...that could have been predicted...remember "could". he is
> > > only a human being after all...
> > >
Paul T. Begley
Touche! Well put.
Defenestrater Dragon
Fortran Dragon
> First of all I'd like to ask why do you lay all the heat on Richard?
Because he's the one that made all the promises. Like "Ultima IX
is complete, well debugged, and, I hope you agree, worthy of its
position as the finale of the Ultima Trilogy of Trilogies.", when he new
there was a patch in progress *before* the game even shipped.
Tell us why we shouldn't lay heat on RG for lying to us? Do you
really want to say that Ultima IX shipped "complete" and "well
debugged"?
> I,
> for one, know that the issues at hand with Ultima 9 cannot be blamed on him.
> When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing it
> through. I worked with Richard for 5 years and I know first hand what EA
> does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated what
> Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
Then that's at odds with what Mr. Mike said in the full "Death of
Ultima IX" interview and at odds with what SimCity and the Sims creator
Will Wright said in this month's CGW "EA either does something or it
doesn't, there is no in between.".
> EA will say "Ok Rich, you can do that.". Then EA loses money in a
> quarter from another area and decides "Lets tighten the leash on Origin a
> bit more." and next thing you know they say "Oh Rich, we decided that you
> can't do that now, even though you made a million promises.". EA wants to
> mold Origin into its "Online Only" company. This means that they care
> NOTHING about the other games at Origin.
More crap. Origin was floundering and UO was such a stunning
surprise. originally 2 servers and 15,000 people was thought the max UO
would bring in and when Origin got an order of magnitude more people
with the resulting monthly cash flow.
> Ultima 9 has had a very rough development cycle, simply because it has
> never had any good backing from EA. I don't care what outsiders say... I was
> THERE! I knew what was going on first hand!
So did Mr. Mike and again *his* recollections are at odds with
yours.
Basically, under Richard Garriott had terrible management. Good
people like Denis Loubet left (read the interview with *him* as well)
because of the mess up management style at Origin. And I doubt EA had
much to do with Ed Del Castillo getting Richard Garriott's blessing. We
all know what happened then...
So, unless you want to claim that people like Denis Loubet, Mr.
Mike, and Will Wright are out and out liars, you're simply another
person following Origin's lead and blaming EA for all the woes at Origin
instead of actually dealing with any of the real problems at Origin.
> Richard is a master at coming up with game ideas, telling stories and
> such. That is why so many people and myself have followed him through the
> times. Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, he is human, but some people
> don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he doesn't
> meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
Strawman. No one puts RG up on the pedestal. What they did
expect was either a quality of management that met his design abilities
or the self-honesty and integrity to pair himself up with a high quality
manager.
> Another question I have is if you guys think Richard sucks so bad and
> Ultima has been so horrible for so long, then why the hell are you buying
> the game and playing it?
Because some of us were idealistic enough to believe RG's return
to day-to-day involvement with Ultima IX would give us a real Ultima.
What we got was a buggy, linear adventure game instead of an Ultima
CRPG.
> Why not move on, get a life and drop it? For people
> who call themselves an Ultima Dragon to pound so hard on the very person who
> inspired them is totally ignorant!
You obviously don't understand the Dragons. You obviously don't
like honest criticism. You obviously don't want to understand how
people can feel betrayed by Richard Garriott after all of his promises
about a quality product. So many of the promises of fans.txt were
broken. The promise that he had learned since Ultima VIII not to ship a
buggy Ultima was broken.
> I'm not trying to flame anybody, but I am trying to stand up for a
> person who has given so much and tried to fight the "big company bad boys"
> to give each and everyone of you a great gaming experience in the world of
> Ultima.
Richard Garriott those thing through Ultima VII, though from
Ultima V and up he had less and less involvement with Ultima until
Ultima IX.
Yes, we'll thank him for all the good, old games, but his day is
done as a game designer unless this becomes a big wake up call. He
needs to get a feel for what people are actually using in hardware and
the games they want.
The insularity and the we're-the-center-of-the-gaming-universe
mentality at Origin needs to be pumped out of RG's system. Maybe we'll
get back the man that created Ultima IV...
> Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like this
> is very sad and shows who his true fans and loyal followers are.
We had loyalty. After all, *we* were the ones who bought Ultima
IX based on our belief in RG and Ultima. We hoped he wouldn't let us
down.
So, who are his real followers? Those of you who praise the
emperor's new clothes to the heavens or those of us that point out he's
butt naked?
--
Fortran Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
Hidalgo Trading Company: <http://home.earthlink.net/~fortran/>
rgcud FAQ: <http://home.earthlink.net/~fortran/faq/rgcudfaq.html>
Fortran Dragon
[Snip]
> Now don't take me wrong, the decision to sell Origin WAS a major betrayal,
> although I doubt RG (or most of the dragons -- or myself, for that matter)
> realized that at the time; that one decision meant subjugating anything and
> everything Ultima meant, to the god of quarterly profit. However, once that
> blame is allocated, blaming RG for other stuff is like blaming the weather for
> raining on your parade.
If you are talking about the betrayal of the fans then you had
better blame RG's incompetent business practices that made the sale of
Origin inevitable. After all, Dr. Cat has publicly stated that Origin
had to ship Ultima VI in order to meet payroll. Other on the Ultima
teams have publicly stated that the same occurred with the Ultima VIIs.
Basically, if RG hadn't sold Origin it would have died because RG
didn't have the ability to hire competent business people to run Origin.
That RG was willing to run his company into the ground will pursue a
vision instead of pulling back a little to make sure that Origin would
be around for a long time making great games.
If you want to argue "major betrayal" then RG's actions that lead
to the inevitable sale of Origin should also be included.
Fortran Dragon
[Snip]
> When I say I blame Richard Garriott for his part in all the problems
> with the Ultimas and UO I say so because no one twisted his arm to sell out
> to EA.
No, but then Origin would have been dead. Origin was sold because
they weren't a viable company at that point. Mr. Mike said EA viewed
Ultima as a key franchise and wanted high-quality, profitable games
associated with the franchise.
Mils
It's not what he got that matters. It's what we will have
as a result. I don't care if he's an asshole or anything,
as long as he makes good games, I'll buy them.
> It goes beyond that. Ultima 9, without any bugs and running at 100FPS
> on an 80286, is still a pathetic game.
Certainly not. U9 is an awesome game, though it gets boring at some part
of the game. If U9 isn't a good game, then I would die for a good game.
>Maybe it's on par with the other
> garbage out there, but it doesn't deserve to be an Ultima.
It does.
> It's not an
> RPG.
U7 was not really an RPG.
> The plot was idiotic.
I agree.
>The dialogue was aimed at ten-year olds.
I hated when all the girls wanted to fuck the Avatar.
> And breaking his promises. fans.txt, anybody?
Yeah. As I said in another post, they were planning to use an extended U8
engine or a Crusader one. And what promises were made in fans.txt ?
> > Let, not forget that:
> > *The Ultima games are and will always be considered some of the best
of
> > the genre and of computer games in general.
>
> Correction. U4 to SI will always be considered some of the best.
> Depending upon who you talk to, they may add U3 or subtract U4, U5, or
> SI. Oh, wait, the UWs belond in there as well.
U8 is a good game. U1/U2 are too.
We could argue that U8 is as much as an Ultima than UW1/2 are.
> Ultima 9 will be considered a horrible monstrocity.
I'll wait. 5 years from now, if that place is still around, I wonder
how is it going to be considered.
> RG created some really good games ten years ago. He hasn't since.
Discutable.
Moa Dragon
Jason Ely
> You worked on Ultima 9?
>
started. I had decided I enjoyed playing Ultimas more than working on them.
So I decided to be one of two programmers that started the Crusader series.
I was involved with the U9 design meetings. Also the U9 and Crusader team
worked in parallel and used the same code-base. Both teams shared the same
office space and we all were still very close. Basically we always knew each
others business. When Richard decided to not use an Isometric engine (the
one I helped develop for Crusader) is when the projects started to split up.
Still the projects were still very close and code was shared often. The
original Ultima 9/Crusader teams were very much like a family. The team that
shipped U9 had maybe 3 of the original design/programming team that it
started with.
>
> I do not have a personal opinion of Garriot because I do not know the man.
> I do however not have respect for what I know of his actions relating to
> Ultima in the past few years. I can think of a number of pointed
questions
> I would ask him, but I do not and doubt I will ever have the chance....
>
I believe, and I know I am not the only person who worked for Richard
that has thought this, that in order for Richard to make a game that
compared to the classic "Ultima" games he would have had to leave Origin and
start again. Maybe he'll do this... I certainly hope so. How can Origin make
a product when it was forced as a whole to care more about numbers in fear
of being shut down or disbanded. Quality was an issue but when huge layoffs
were thrown at the company and warnings of more if numbers were not met,
what is one to do? Richard had been locked in, he wanted to finish Ultima 9.
Several of us predicted Richard would depart after U9 anyways, it wasnt a
total shock to me.
-Jason
Jason Ely
> Yeah. As I said in another post, they were planning to use an extended U8
> engine or a Crusader one. And what promises were made in fans.txt ?
>
>
using the Crusader Engine, which I was one of two programmers on. The U9
team spent a good 5 months developing editor tools and such that were
actually of the same source tree as the Crusader code. To this day there are
still Ultima 9 references in the Crusader:No Remorse/No Regret code.
Then it was decided to go 3D. At that time there was talks of doing an
Ultima 10. In my opinion they should have developed U9 using the Crusader
engine. They would have shipped the game 2 years earlier. The versions that
I had of U9 in 2d/Isometric were actually very very cool. It was designed
more like Ultima 4/Ultima 5, with a world map and "Tiny-Tar" that walked
around the countryside with zoomed in Cities and Dungeons. Anyways, I
believe U9 should have stayed 2d and they could have been developing the
technology and story for U10 in parallel.
>
> U8 is a good game. U1/U2 are too.
> We could argue that U8 is as much as an Ultima than UW1/2 are.
>
Being both a developer on this project and an oldskool Ultima lover I
have to agree. It wasn't what I would have considered to be a classic
Ultima, but it was an interesting game. This is not to say I have my own
list of complaints about it.
-Jason
MdmeDis
says...
> > budget that origin had, but there are several companies sailing under
> > ea´s flag...that could have been predicted...remember "could". he is
> > only a human being after all...
> >
> Basically they were out of money. Things were not as profitable back then.
<gasp> You mean they were having to live with the same reality all game
producers have to face. They have to make money. They were mismanaged
then, or they wouldn't have been in such dire financial straights.
Amongst other things, they had Wing Commander which was the best selling
game of its day - if you can't survive with that, you are doing
something wrong. Selling Origin wasn't a betrayal, it was the only thing
to keep it alive.
> It was a hard road and basically Origin would have closed its doors.
>
> Joining EA allowed Origin to give back to the employees that had been
> working so hard on the games. It was not known then what EA would become. At
> the time EA was the light at the end of the tunnel.
Give us some proof that EA ever interfered. Some small shred of
evidence. (and that doesn't include deadlines, although if
someone could prove they actually did that it'd be interesting)People
say - no proof anywhere - that they were told to ship or kill U 9. If
the man had integrity, why didn't he kill it?
RG was senior VP at Origin - it was his responsibility to make sure
Origin turned a profit. It is, amongst other things to ensure that games
are out in a timely fashion, to stay on the curve technically and that
the games are playable and finished when released to the public.
In all except UO, which he didn't have much to do with, he failed on the
profit side. UO wasn't as successful as it could've been because of the
"who gives a shit about the customer" attitude the company employed. He
failed miserably in all the rest, and managed to get many to the point
where they wouldn't buy anything with the Origin name on it. For the
rest, under his leadership, Origin has managed to kill Jane's, Wing
Commander, Crusade and Ultima.
I'm only surprised EA waited 'till it was too late
for these franchises (for want of a better word) to get him out of harms
way - given the damage he was doing to their reputation. I suspect that
he was warned by them many times, but as with print mags that dared say
the king was naked, he threw a tantrum and said they were out to get him
- instead of realising and addressing the very real problems.
All this overlooks the probable reason for his demise - X. His departure
happen a day or two after the release of an interview in which he said X
was the way he and his core team at Origin were going. Given his history
and the extremely controversial nature of such an enterprise, they felt
it would damage Origin further, and declined to back it.
So he and they went. It his loyal (blind?) followers for whom I feel
pity.
MdmeDis
says...
> First of all I'd like to ask why do you lay all the heat on Richard? I,
> for one, know that the issues at hand with Ultima 9 cannot be blamed on him.
> When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing it
> through. I worked with Richard for 5 years and I know first hand what EA
> does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated what
> Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
Richard should've felt completely at home then. I remember what he said
about 'Mr Mike' McShaffery and Bob White after the CGW interview.
>
> EA will say "Ok Rich, you can do that.". Then EA loses money in a
> quarter from another area and decides "Lets tighten the leash on Origin a
> bit more." and next thing you know they say "Oh Rich, we decided that you
> can't do that now, even though you made a million promises.". EA wants to
> mold Origin into its "Online Only" company. This means that they care
> NOTHING about the other games at Origin.
>
> Ultima 9 has had a very rough development cycle, simply because it has
> never had any good backing from EA. I don't care what outsiders say... I was
> THERE! I knew what was going on first hand!
Yet every other company says their experience with EA is otherwise.
Sounds like the same cry from RG that happened when CGW told a few home
truths "We're picked on - its all their fault!"
> Richard is a master at coming up with game ideas, telling stories and
> such.
Then he should've stuck to that. He didn't, and wouldn't or couldn't
learn what it took to run a company and paid the price.
> That is why so many people and myself have followed him through the
> times.
I've often wondered about that. I've come to the conclusion he must be
very charismatic. My other choice is to believe there are hundreds of
incredibly gullible, not to mention dense, people out there, and I don't
believe that.
> Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, he is human, but some people
> don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he doesn't
> meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
>
> Another question I have is if you guys think Richard sucks so bad and
> Ultima has been so horrible for so long, then why the hell are you buying
> the game and playing it? Why not move on, get a life and drop it? For people
> who call themselves an Ultima Dragon to pound so hard on the very person who
> inspired them is totally ignorant!
You think blind loyalty is better? FWIW, if Garriott had chosen to
listen to some of the things his fans were telling him instead of
surrounding himself with a group of yes-men, last Thursday wouldn't have
happened.
The ultimate insult to his fans, in an effort to boost pre-release sales
and get better shelf space, was to put out a special edition with their
name on it - thus ensuring that market, which otherwise would have
waited.
For the record, I'm not and never have been a fan of his. I'm a fan of
the Ultima games, the best of which weren't put out by him but by teams
of people.
I'll point out yet again the Dragons aren't his worse critics - the
general public is.
>
> I'm not trying to flame anybody, but I am trying to stand up for a
> person who has given so much and tried to fight the "big company bad boys"
> to give each and everyone of you a great gaming experience in the world of
> Ultima.
>
> Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like this
> is very sad and shows who his true fans and loyal followers are.
If he'd given a flying fuck about his fans, he'd have been here a time
or two to talk to us. Not once in 4+ years did he do that. Loyalty
begets loyalty - royalty begets a bunch of doormats and camp followers.
What about all the loyalty he showed to Bob White and all the teams that
he burnt out?
All most of us wanted was a decent game - we got lies and unfinished
products. To expect us to be loyal to that insults both our intellect
and integrity. If you choose to follow that path, that's up to you, but
please don't be telling me what I should and shouldn't do.
Ophidian
Mils <mi...@club-internet.fr> wrote in message
news:8c7rod$rns$2...@front7m.grolier.fr...
> U8 is a good game. U1/U2 are too.
> We could argue that U8 is as much as an Ultima than UW1/2 are.
The reason that U8 and U9 are not generally considered "true Ultimas" is
because they eliminate major positive components that were built up in
previous games and proven effective--such as NPC scheduling, and epic,
involved plotline. THey reverted back to the style of Ultima 1 and Ultima
2, which while decent for its own time is inappropriate in a modern Ultima.
The Underworlds, to me, are not in the mainline series and therefore would
not have to meet the same criterea to be decent Ultimas as the mainline
series would. IMO, both were good games--UW1 lacked a really great plot,
and what UW2 made up for in plot, it lacked in any major improvements over
UW2 in interactivity/eappearance/etc. But they were charting unproven
ground, which deserves a lot of respect.
Ultima IX did a so-so job (3D-wise) of what many other games do well. That
leaves the game resting on its plot and its character development. The plot
is a joke and the character development is basically nonexistant.
I'm confused what you think U9 does have going for it. It has some cute
dungeon puzzles, but I didn't feel like I was really the Avatar when I
played it, I felt as if I was commanding some dimwitted horny moron around
the world.
-Ophidian
Victor Danilchenko
>
> My glass typewriter shows Victor Danilchenko typing...
> [Snip]
> > Now don't take me wrong, the decision to sell Origin WAS a major
> > betrayal, although I doubt RG (or most of the dragons -- or myself, for
> > that matter) realized that at the time; that one decision meant
> > subjugating anything and everything Ultima meant, to the god of quarterly
> > profit. However, once that blame is allocated, blaming RG for other stuff
> > is like blaming the weather for raining on your parade.
>
> If you are talking about the betrayal of the fans then you had
> better blame RG's incompetent business practices that made the sale of
> Origin inevitable. After all, Dr. Cat has publicly stated that Origin
> had to ship Ultima VI in order to meet payroll. Other on the Ultima
> teams have publicly stated that the same occurred with the Ultima VIIs.
<shrug> that's what happens when you let someone unfamiliar with business make
the business decisions. It's a fine line to walk, I suppose -- running a
profitable business without making profit be the sole goal.
> Basically, if RG hadn't sold Origin it would have died because RG
> didn't have the ability to hire competent business people to run Origin.
So I've heard.
> That RG was willing to run his company into the ground will pursue a
> vision instead of pulling back a little to make sure that Origin would
> be around for a long time making great games.
Sounds like he overestimated his business competence.
> If you want to argue "major betrayal" then RG's actions that lead
> to the inevitable sale of Origin should also be included.
Certainly -- but that whole Origin sale deal was THE betrayal; everything after
was just aftershocks.
--
Daermonestroer Dragon
Ophidian
MdmeDis <mdm...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.135141573...@news.alt.net...
> In all except UO, which he didn't have much to do with, he failed on the
> profit side. UO wasn't as successful as it could've been because of the
> "who gives a shit about the customer" attitude the company employed. He
> failed miserably in all the rest, and managed to get many to the point
> where they wouldn't buy anything with the Origin name on it. For the
> rest, under his leadership, Origin has managed to kill Jane's, Wing
> Commander, Crusade and Ultima.
That move always struck me as odd. Weren't the Jane's flight sims
considered to be some of the best in the buisness? I've never played them,
but I don't remember much of anything besides stellar reviews for them.
UO's success is pretty irnoic, in my opinion. I think its simplicity and
hack-n-slash nature are what make it appeal to the mass market, for whom
such games are the "in" thinbg at the moment. And yet it was intended to be
a full scale, interactive "virtual world."
As I have said elsewhere, I will believe what the game manuals say and
assume that RG made most of the creative decisions for Ultima IX, until I
have some evidence otherwise.
-Ophidian
Attentive Dragon
Ophidian wrote in message ...
>
>MdmeDis <mdm...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>news:MPG.135141573...@news.alt.net...
>
>> In all except UO, which he didn't have much to do with, he failed on the
>> profit side. UO wasn't as successful as it could've been because of the
>> "who gives a shit about the customer" attitude the company employed. He
>> failed miserably in all the rest, and managed to get many to the point
>> where they wouldn't buy anything with the Origin name on it. For the
>> rest, under his leadership, Origin has managed to kill Jane's, Wing
>> Commander, Crusade and Ultima.
>
>
>That move always struck me as odd. Weren't the Jane's flight sims
>considered to be some of the best in the buisness? I've never played them,
>but I don't remember much of anything besides stellar reviews for them.
Indeed... Wing Commander also, was a great series... the latest couple of
games weren't AS good, but I don't see why they would have dropped it.
>UO's success is pretty irnoic, in my opinion. I think its simplicity and
>hack-n-slash nature are what make it appeal to the mass market, for whom
>such games are the "in" thinbg at the moment. And yet it was intended to
be
>a full scale, interactive "virtual world."
>
I play Ultima Online because of the interaction with my friends I have met
on there, as well as with my guild-mates... The whole "power-gaming" aspect
just bores me... if played with a more "RPG" attitude, the game can be far
from simplistic, and quite "interactive."
However, you are right, its success is rather ironic... and shows EA (and
Origin's) attitudes towards their fans... they pretty much ignore any
complaints, going so far as to claim that there is no problem, until people
start leaving because of those problems. Once something threatens their
precious "bottom line," then they expend the effort to DO something...
>As I have said elsewhere, I will believe what the game manuals say and
>assume that RG made most of the creative decisions for Ultima IX, until I
>have some evidence otherwise.
>
fair enough... indeed, all we have to go on is what he has already said... I
would like a reason to believe better of him... I truly wish he would at
least say SOMETHING now... as in Ultima 9, the silence from the throne makes
the people cry out "Where is our king?!"
A.D.D.
Duo Maxwell
> IX based on our belief in RG and Ultima. We hoped he wouldn't let us
> down.
>
> So, who are his real followers? Those of you who praise the
> emperor's new clothes to the heavens or those of us that point out he's
> butt naked?
>
> --
>
> Fortran Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
Some of these interviews you mention...
Do you have URLs for them?
I would be interested in reading them.
Ophidian
Attentive Dragon <dex...@gate.net> wrote in message
news:8c8d9n$2che$1...@news.gate.net...
> I play Ultima Online because of the interaction with my friends I have met
> on there, as well as with my guild-mates... The whole "power-gaming"
aspect
> just bores me... if played with a more "RPG" attitude, the game can be far
> from simplistic, and quite "interactive."
The problem is that it is not the virtual community it is meant to be--The
original idea is that you would log on, go to a virtual tavern, and meet
some people to talk to, go adventure with, etc. My experience seems to be
that 90% of the people in the game are thieves, PK's, or power-gamers who
tend to either be alone or group with friends from real life. My brother,
for instance, is a born power gamer )I recall him naming his chatacers
"Fighter" and "Claric" in D&D games...); he plays UO and is quite
successful. I am not a power gamer, and i could not get anywhere in the
game without fighting. ANy other attempt at interaction was basically
ignored. UO reminded me more of Diablo, just less fun.
-Ophidian
Fortran Dragon
[Snip]
> *sigh* Sometimes you american people can be SO stone-headed and
> stubborn...
He's Canadian. You really should read people's headers.
Otherwise you are going to look like you have a blind prejudice against
Americans. ;)
MdmeDis
says...
> EA cares about numbers. They really don't give a damn about quality unless
> its from their high-profile lines like the sports-line.
Considering that the sports-line games are about the ONLY games EA
develops, it's hardly surprising they expect their subsidiaries to do
likewise. And completely invalidates what you are saying about EA not
giving a damn about quality.
Fortran Dragon
[Snip]
> believe his bad decisions were decisions based on greed. He is guilty I
> suppose of reaching beyond his grasp. Perhaps RG's Actual bad decision was
> feel the Execs at EA are a greedy lot and failed to understand this was a
> game of monumental graphical abilities based on Richard's desire and vision
> to "Create Worlds" rather than just design a "game"
How about Richard Garriott's monumental disconnect from some of
the important things his fans wanted (a party, different gender avatars,
non-linear game, a CRPG, life like NPCs, etc.)? How about his
monumental disconnect for the hardware that people were using (DirectX,
OpenGL over Voodoo)?
It is Richard Garriott's responsibility to create a viable game in
the timeframe given.
> Obviously the pressure to release U9 before it was ready just to be on
> the shelves for the '99 Christmas season came from the people that still
> work at Origin and not those who were let go 2 days ago!
No, it isn't obvious. If you have proof to back up your claim
then, by all means, share it. Otherwise it is just your opinion.
> Incidentally, I played U9 with the 3rd patch and never actually
> experienced the frustration many of you felt by attempting the original
> version. While I have minor criticisms of the game myself, I thought it was
> the most beautiful and immerse game I have ever played on my PC. There were
> no showstopping bugs, no objects disappearing, decent frame rates (except in
> Britain) and only a few to system crashes that did no real damage other than
> having to reboot the game. I am writing about this in a positive way
> because, to be honest, I expected much worse.
Heh. I'm running a P2-450 with 256 Meg RAM, plenty of swap space
and drive space, a GeForce 256 and I still get herky-jerky frame rate.
The game still has dies if I dare deviate from the linear path assigned
me.
> If U9's release would have been NOW and not November of 1999 I am sure
> much would be different , at Origin, in minds and computers of gamers, and
> in these newsgroups.
No, it wouldn't. The final patch still leaves bugs.
> *The Ultima games are and will always be considered some of the best of
> the genre and of computer games in general.
Ultima IV through VII, and the Underworlds, yes. Ultima IX? No.
> * They have always pushed the hardware envelope in order to heighten the
> "immersive qualities" of these "worlds" and unlike game consoles, PCs vary
> widely in their hardware, configuration and abilities.
Not really, no. This only started with Ultima VI. Oddly enough,
that's when Origin's stuff started to get much buggier.
> *Richard Garriott is THE founder and visionary of these worlds and has
> been dedicated to the creation of these worlds,
Like his dedication to Ultima VIII or Ed Del Castillo? Like his
dedication to the fans by making his fans.txt comments reality?
> rather than the business of
> publishing games, which is why Origin has always needed other
> ompanies( Sierra, Brodurbund, EA) to handle THAT part, of getting the games
> to us, the players.
Then he should have done a better job of letting _other_ people
manage the projects, including his own.
Fortran Dragon
> Then it was decided to go 3D. At that time there was talks of doing an
> Ultima 10. In my opinion they should have developed U9 using the Crusader
> engine. They would have shipped the game 2 years earlier. The versions that
> I had of U9 in 2d/Isometric were actually very very cool. It was designed
> more like Ultima 4/Ultima 5, with a world map and "Tiny-Tar" that walked
> around the countryside with zoomed in Cities and Dungeons. Anyways, I
> believe U9 should have stayed 2d and they could have been developing the
> technology and story for U10 in parallel.
We asked for this. Repeatedly. Apparently as far as Origin was
concerned we fans were basically stupid lumps that needed to be told
what we should be playing instead of daring to say what we wanted.
Fortran Dragon
> Well Said, Enough Said....
Loyalty is earned, not demanded. Origin and Richard Garriott have
demanded loyalty.
Fortran Dragon
[Snip]
> a product when it was forced as a whole to care more about numbers in fear
> of being shut down or disbanded.
Then they should quit and work elsewhere. As long as they are
sheep and let their own management choose numbers over quality they
basically get what they deserve. No one is holding a gun to their heads
and forcing them to work at Origin under these conditions. They are
doing this of their own free will.
Durham Dragon
>>
> Then it was decided to go 3D. At that time there was talks of doing an
>Ultima 10. In my opinion they should have developed U9 using the Crusader
>engine. They would have shipped the game 2 years earlier. The versions that
>I had of U9 in 2d/Isometric were actually very very cool. It was designed
>more like Ultima 4/Ultima 5, with a world map and "Tiny-Tar" that walked
>around the countryside with zoomed in Cities and Dungeons. Anyways, I
>believe U9 should have stayed 2d and they could have been developing the
>technology and story for U10 in parallel.
This I did not know. So the original 2D U9 was multiple scales like
pre-Ultima 6? That I would have liked to see. Failing that at least a
monoscale 3D overhead engine might have kept the focus on content over
solving visual/performance challenges. They likely would have been able to
release at a time when Glide was still dominant too.
>> U8 is a good game. U1/U2 are too.
>> We could argue that U8 is as much as an Ultima than UW1/2 are.
>>
> Being both a developer on this project and an oldskool Ultima lover I
>have to agree. It wasn't what I would have considered to be a classic
>Ultima, but it was an interesting game. This is not to say I have my own
>list of complaints about it.
I love the Underworlds and don't have huge complaints about U8 outside of
it's incomplete nature, but I don't consider either to be a part of the core
Ultima series. The goals of these games were just different.
Durham Dragon
Jason Ely
> This I did not know. So the original 2D U9 was multiple scales like
> pre-Ultima 6? That I would have liked to see. Failing that at least a
> monoscale 3D overhead engine might have kept the focus on content over
> solving visual/performance challenges. They likely would have been able
to
> release at a time when Glide was still dominant too.
>
-Jason Ely
Jason Ely
Amelia Hurlock <aahu...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:38E81B20...@earthlink.net...
> Just my 2 cents:
> When an author becomes famous and his/her books become classic, who
> remembers the two, three, or however many other books were not as
> "perfect" as the classics? Too many people today judge an artist, a
> musician, or even a programmer by their last work, giving them only the
> respect they have earned for their last product. Why can't we all just
> admit that we have respect for what Richard Garriott has done in the
> past, and does it matter what we think now? We're arguing over recent
> occurrences in the life of the series. Why can't we give him our thanks
> for the fun times that we have had with his games, whether those
> experiences began in 1985 or 1997? Does it matter? Does it matter that
> the last product might or might not have been what we had in mind?
> RG is an artist. An artist has to feed himself as well. We all need to
> remember that. We should not pick his actions apart because how dare we
> judge him? We are not in his shoes. Ultima was his baby, his creation!
> No parent is perfect. Please do realize that he is human, and he has to
> weigh his dreams against being able to earn enough to survive. As fans
> of Ultima (it does not matter which game), we owe some respect to the
> creator, and I for one wish to tell him "Thank you for the good times".
> He has no responsibility to make each and every one of us happy. He has
> a responsibility to his artistic creation, and we should not judge what
> his decisions are. Who among us would like to be judged like that?
> HyperActive Dragon
Musashi Dragon
following Twist material...
> I'm confused what you think U9 does have going for it. It has some cute
> dungeon puzzles, but I didn't feel like I was really the Avatar when I
> played it, I felt as if I was commanding some dimwitted horny moron around
> the world.
Well, maybe Moa feels like a dimwitted horny moron which all girls want
to climb into bed with? :P *VEG*
Ophidian
Fortran Dragon <for...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.1351b19d4...@news.alt.net...
> Not really, no. This only started with Ultima VI. Oddly enough,
> that's when Origin's stuff started to get much buggier.
Well, I'm not so sure about that...I'm not sure how much the old Apple II
COULD be pushed, at least how much farther than it had already been pushed.
I also recall Ultima III having been one of the earliest games with a full
musical score (or so a review claimed), and I know U5 had an obsence number
of disks.
But then, I suppose adding more content to the game despite technological
limitations is a little different from the
graphics-at-the-expense-of-everything-else attitude of U8 and U9--where
devotion to the latest and greatest "gee whiz" technologies overshadowed
providing the most in-depth storyline and most immersive experience, both of
which rely on many nontechnological isseues).
I had also thought that, in many ways, U7 did not push the technology of the
time quite as hard as U9 pushes current technology--but my memory is vague.
I remember it chugging along on my system, but I don't remember having any
video or sound issues. Or, for that matter, any during-game crashes. Hmm.
-Ophidian
Contrapuntal Dragon
in the Great Tome of Farnarkling:
>
> MdmeDis <mdm...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:MPG.135141573...@news.alt.net...
>
>> In all except UO, which he didn't have much to do with, he failed on the
>> profit side. UO wasn't as successful as it could've been because of the
>> "who gives a shit about the customer" attitude the company employed. He
>> failed miserably in all the rest, and managed to get many to the point
>> where they wouldn't buy anything with the Origin name on it. For the
>> rest, under his leadership, Origin has managed to kill Jane's, Wing
>> Commander, Crusade and Ultima.
>
>
> That move always struck me as odd. Weren't the Jane's flight sims
> considered to be some of the best in the buisness? I've never played them,
> but I don't remember much of anything besides stellar reviews for them.
I have (Longbow series, ATF) and they were indeed excellent - much in the
vein of the old Microprose/Wild Bill Stealy/Sid Meier flight sims for the
Commodore machines. Quite technical but very immersive and fun to play.
> UO's success is pretty irnoic, in my opinion. I think its simplicity and
> hack-n-slash nature are what make it appeal to the mass market, for whom
> such games are the "in" thinbg at the moment. And yet it was intended to be
> a full scale, interactive "virtual world."
Yes, it's a pity that the Quake-heads and lusers ruled the roost for so
long, and it took OSI as long to realise they had a customer base outside of
the US...
> As I have said elsewhere, I will believe what the game manuals say and
> assume that RG made most of the creative decisions for Ultima IX, until I
> have some evidence otherwise.
Personally, I no longer care - UIX ruined the series for me.. I'll stick
with I - SI as "canonical"..
> -Ophidian
'punt.
--
Michael Fleming <mflemin...@contrapuntal.ods.org> -=(UDIC)=-
PGP: 0xOEF8E582 GPG: 0x908E1EB6 ICQ: 9150031 TLA: 4 should do.
WWW: http://www.zip.com.au/~mfleming/
-=- I have authoritah? -=-
Amelia Hurlock
Ricktaxx Mang
"Amelia Hurlock" <aahu...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:38E81B20...@earthlink.net...
--
Ricktaxx Dragon ---
-==(UDIC)==-
UK!1!2!3!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!9!
Ophidian
> No parent is perfect. Please do realize that he is human, and he has to
> weigh his dreams against being able to earn enough to survive. As fans
> of Ultima (it does not matter which game), we owe some respect to the
> creator, and I for one wish to tell him "Thank you for the good times".
> He has no responsibility to make each and every one of us happy. He has
> a responsibility to his artistic creation, and we should not judge what
> his decisions are. Who among us would like to be judged like that?
> HyperActive Dragon
If I made promises about my artisitic endeavor and proceeded to break them,
then I would expect to be chastised as a liar much like RG is now. RG can
do whatever he wishes with his games, regardless of how many people they
upset. However, he can't complain when people take him to task for his
inept buisness management, his dishonest claims, or for his shipping an
unfinished product.
I also would say that Richard has created a beast that goes quite beyond
himself. I would almost compare it to the Star Trek franchise, which over
the years also has slowly collapsed into mediocrity, or worse (depending on
who you ask). I would almost say we are fortunate not to see what Ultima X
would have become....
I think most of us showed our respect for his previous work by buying Ultima
IX--indeed, by buying the Dragon Editions--despite all the reviews advising
us not to.
-Ophidian
Ophidian
Durham Dragon <robin_...@hotmail.removeme.com> wrote in message
news:MaUF4.20238$Xk2....@tor-nn1.netcom.ca...
>
> This I did not know. So the original 2D U9 was multiple scales like
> pre-Ultima 6? That I would have liked to see.
Ugh. Why? I always thought that was stupid; killed my suspension of
disbelief. And I thought the fact that in Ultima VI, the same 'segments' of
terain often repeated themselves--with the weird, nonsensical zoom out bit,
they're all the same anyway! Yeesh. That was one of the reasons I loved
U6, it was like a real world--when I left a town, I followed the path to the
new town. I could look at the trees and rocks anywhere in the world.
Granted, the overall world might not have been as "large" as in Ultima 5,
but in overall content, Ultima 6 had far, far more.
-Ophidian, famous for his dislike of U5 and for his dislike of the wacky
console-brand duo-scaled maps, which he considers to be of the Devil
himself! :-P
Mils
> > dungeon puzzles, but I didn't feel like I was really the Avatar when I
> > played it, I felt as if I was commanding some dimwitted horny moron
around
> > the world.
>
> Well, maybe Moa feels like a dimwitted horny moron which all girls want
> to climb into bed with? :P *VEG*
Actually, this annoys me, as well as in the game than in life.
It feels like the game is gender oriented at teens.
......
I feel I'm gender oriented too ! :p
Moa Dragon
Durham Dragon
<20XF4.16772$64.5...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>...
>
>Durham Dragon <robin_...@hotmail.removeme.com> wrote in message
>news:MaUF4.20238$Xk2....@tor-nn1.netcom.ca...
>>
>> This I did not know. So the original 2D U9 was multiple scales like
>> pre-Ultima 6? That I would have liked to see.
>
>Ugh. Why? I always thought that was stupid; killed my suspension of
>disbelief. And I thought the fact that in Ultima VI, the same 'segments'
of
>terain often repeated themselves--with the weird, nonsensical zoom out bit,
>they're all the same anyway! Yeesh. That was one of the reasons I loved
>U6, it was like a real world--when I left a town, I followed the path to
the
>new town. I could look at the trees and rocks anywhere in the world.
>Granted, the overall world might not have been as "large" as in Ultima 5,
>but in overall content, Ultima 6 had far, far more.
Ultima 6 certainly had more content in terms of total amount of artwork and
characters and writing but you have to remember that the budget, technology,
and size/sophistication of the development team were an order of magnitude
greater. So the greater amount of overall content is not necessarily
attributable just to the monoscale versus dual-scale engine.
>-Ophidian, famous for his dislike of U5 and for his dislike of the wacky
>console-brand duo-scaled maps, which he considers to be of the Devil
>himself! :-P
Hehe, next you're going to tell me you dislike U4. Wait don't answer that.
:P
Obviously monoscale and multi-scale maps both have their advantages and
disadvantages. Since you've covered the other side, I'll do the advantages
of dualscale and the disadvantages of monoscale. :)
One of the design goals of U9 was to make the game more friendly to
non-Ultima veterans because to paraphrase RG they had grown too large and
intimidating. They were on the right track to solving this problem in the
original design of U9 with dual-scale. Finding your way around a big world
while navigating on a zoomed out map (U1 to U5, Final Fantasies, Fallout,
etc) is much easier and faster than finding your way around a monoscale map
done to reasonably realistic scale. It also saves a lot of artist/designer
time by not having to detail huge amounts of wilderness that the player
isn't necessarily going to pay a lot of attention to, and more importantly
allows them to give that much more attention to game content. Like the old
games you could zoom in for combats, wilderness NPC encounters, villages and
settlements, etc.
What ended up happening with U8 and U9 in 3D monoscale (and to a lesser
extent with U7/Serpent Isle) is that the world was shrunk to what most would
admit is a unrealistically small size, for budgetary reaons and to keep the
worlds easy to navigate. This for me is as much of a break in the illusion
as a dual-scale setup, if not more. With U5 it's a short walk from Britain
to Paws but in your mind you are traversing a long distance taking
hours/days of gametime and Britannia is still a large continent.
Arcanum might be a game that solves this since it keeps a VERY large
continuous world which you could walk through if you had the time, but at
the same time lets you go to a world map screen to navigate the world more
quickly, while preserving the proper scale of things. Another game to
consider is Black & White which isn't an RPG but has a 3D engine which
smoothly zooms in and out from a mouse sitting on a barrel to an overhead
view of the entire world map.
Durham
Jonathan Comly
> My glass typewriter shows Jason Ely typing...
> > Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like
this
> > is very sad and shows who his true fans and loyal followers are.
>
> IX based on our belief in RG and Ultima. We hoped he wouldn't let us
> down.
>
> So, who are his real followers? Those of you who praise the
> emperor's new clothes to the heavens or those of us that point out he's
> butt naked?
>
*FIREWORKS*
Cheer most of my cast!*
--
Jonathan Comly
*Thomas & Sara are asleep at the
moment<VBLG>
(BTW... A *SPHERE OF SILENCE*
was cast around the cousins before the
above commenced!!D)
Contrapuntal Dragon
<aahu...@earthlink.net> scribed in the Great Tome of Farnarkling:
> Just my 2 cents:
> When an author becomes famous and his/her books become classic, who
> remembers the two, three, or however many other books were not as
> "perfect" as the classics? Too many people today judge an artist, a
> musician, or even a programmer by their last work, giving them only the
> respect they have earned for their last product.
Most of the sensible posters here are actually referring to a downward trend
in quality since around the time of U7-SI, amongst other things.
> Why can't we all just
> admit that we have respect for what Richard Garriott has done in the
> past, and does it matter what we think now? We're arguing over recent
> occurrences in the life of the series.
People tend to comment - often at length - on /current/ affairs...
> Why can't we give him our thanks
> for the fun times that we have had with his games, whether those
> experiences began in 1985 or 1997? Does it matter? Does it matter that
> the last product might or might not have been what we had in mind?
> RG is an artist. An artist has to feed himself as well. We all need to
> remember that.
As a (now former) musician, I am quite aware of what an artist is and needs
to do to survive. ;-)
Remember that RG is also a businessman and due to his standing a public
relations officer - he has to deal with the populace (especially since the
Internet came into common use) whether he likes it or not. You cannot live
in an ivory tower anymore.
As I see it, RG is copping flak not only for the standard of the offering
but that he has essentially misled the fans before, during and after the
development and release of the game - the infamous fans.txt, various
interviews, statements regarding bugs, questionable "performance
improvements" with the patched versions of Ascension. Lag times in UO..
Others will add to this in due course.. ;-)
> We should not pick his actions apart because how dare we
> judge him? We are not in his shoes. Ultima was his baby, his creation!
> No parent is perfect.
How very true. Neither is RG. Just because he is an "artist" does NOT make
him a better person than us! Nor does it make him above criticism. Far from
it - he's as fallible as we are and deserves both praise and condemnation as
appropriate.
> Please do realize that he is human, and he has to
> weigh his dreams against being able to earn enough to survive.
Yes, that is his problem, not ours - as we have to do this for ourselves
also.
> As fans
> of Ultima (it does not matter which game),
Please keep the above phrase in mind. We are fans of ULTIMA. The UDIC are
not the Lord British Dragons or the Richard Garriott Dragons or even the
Origin Dragons. We aren't supposed to be arsekissers or yes-men to anyone -
in fact we (the UDIC) pride ourselves in being diverse and not holding a
consensus opinion on anything.
> we owe some respect to the
> creator, and I for one wish to tell him "Thank you for the good times".
That's fine. But respect is a two way street, and we (the PAYING customers
and fans) haven't been getting it of late - look at the blatant BS that's
been issued of late... What does he (and OSI) take us for?
> He has no responsibility to make each and every one of us happy. He has
> a responsibility to his artistic creation, and we should not judge what
> his decisions are.
We're shelling out the gold to keep his "art" coming, so it's in our (the
paying customers') best interest to prod the artist to produce something of
quality.
You could say that his art is a commission from us, the fans that shell out
the folding stuff for his works. Understandably when promised a masterpiece
and a sketch arrives, we're a little displeased... ;-)
> Who among us would like to be judged like that?
Me. If I truly cared about the quality of my creation, I would be more than
willing to take on constructive criticism of my work. RG has not done this
to my knowledge (in more than a token manner - we can now bake bread but
there's so many plot holes and loose ends - a MAJOR sin considering his
promises to clear things up at the end of "the Trilogy of Trilogies") and
many of his employees - Ed DeCastillo in particular - have been quite rude
to members of the Ultima-playing fraternity merely for exercising the
freedom to criticise a work!
> HyperActive Dragon
Contrapuntal Dragon
(Player since u5 ('87), Ultima Dragon since '95, FWIW)
Maxim S. Shatskih
> because they eliminate major positive components that were built up in
> previous games and proven effective--such as NPC scheduling, and epic,
U8 has NPC scheduling.
Max
Matt Kimmich
Ophidian schrieb:
>
<snip>
> -Ophidian, famous for his dislike of U5 and for his dislike of the wacky
> console-brand duo-scaled maps, which he considers to be of the Devil
> himself! :-P
Sorry, 'Phid, but actually you're famous for your aquatic interludes
with dolphins and for the public nature of your private life. ;)
--
Thirith Dragon
Attentive Dragon
Fortran Dragon wrote in message ...
>My glass typewriter shows Telemachos typing...
>[Snip]
>> *sigh* Sometimes you american people can be SO stone-headed and
>> stubborn...
>
> He's Canadian. You really should read people's headers.
>Otherwise you are going to look like you have a blind prejudice against
>Americans. ;)
>
>--
Well, he is right... sometimes us Americans can be pretty stone headed and
stubborn... but I don't believe any one country has a monopoly on THAT...
heh...
Of course, he wasn't totally wrong to call Musashi an American... after all,
he lives in North America doesn't he? Is he ashamed of his continent now?
<smirk>
Of course, supposing the use of "American" to be continental, such as
"European" or "Asian," what word, then, would we use to refer to us folks
from the USA?
A.D.D.
Telemachos
<for...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>My glass typewriter shows Telemachos typing...
>[Snip]
>> *sigh* Sometimes you american people can be SO stone-headed and
>> stubborn...
>
> He's Canadian. You really should read people's headers.
>Otherwise you are going to look like you have a blind prejudice against
>Americans. ;)
He heh.. :)
Telemachos Dragon d-- e- N++ Om+ U1!234!5!6!7!S'!8!9K!A!L!W!M
-==(UDIC)==- u++ uC uF- uG uLB uA nC nH+ nP+ nI nPT nS+ a22
The Peroxide Homepage : http://www.peroxide.dk
- Home of the PXDTUTS & Free Games
- Home of the Ultima 1 Remake!
MdmeDis
says...
> Just my 2 cents:
> When an author becomes famous and his/her books become classic, who
> remembers the two, three, or however many other books were not as
> "perfect" as the classics? Too many people today judge an artist, a
> musician, or even a programmer by their last work, giving them only the
> admit that we have respect for what Richard Garriott has done in the
> past, and does it matter what we think now? We're arguing over recent
> for the fun times that we have had with his games, whether those
> experiences began in 1985 or 1997? Does it matter? Does it matter that
> the last product might or might not have been what we had in mind?
> RG is an artist. An artist has to feed himself as well. We all need to
> judge him? We are not in his shoes. Ultima was his baby, his creation!
> weigh his dreams against being able to earn enough to survive. As fans
> of Ultima (it does not matter which game), we owe some respect to the
> creator, and I for one wish to tell him "Thank you for the good times".
> a responsibility to his artistic creation, and we should not judge what
According to normal standards of truth and honesty, you mean? According
to ethical business practices? Are you *really* blind/besotted enough to
say how dare we question that? Because he produced a couple of good
games that gives him the right to cheat people out of money? - which is
what you are doing when you release an unfinished game.
Bet you'd be screaming like a raped ape if you bought a car with an
unfinished engine, and the producer shut up shop and moved on. Bet you
wouldn't be drooling on about the manufacturer being an artist (which
Garriott never was anyway) and above reproach.
Telemachos
<bitb...@contrapuntal.ods.org> wrote:
>> we owe some respect to the
>> creator, and I for one wish to tell him "Thank you for the good times".
>
>That's fine. But respect is a two way street, and we (the PAYING customers
>and fans) haven't been getting it of late - look at the blatant BS that's
>been issued of late... What does he (and OSI) take us for?
>
>> He has no responsibility to make each and every one of us happy. He has
>> a responsibility to his artistic creation, and we should not judge what
>> his decisions are.
>
>We're shelling out the gold to keep his "art" coming, so it's in our (the
>paying customers') best interest to prod the artist to produce something of
>quality.
But who told you to buy the game ? Noone I believe.
I myself am enjoying the game alot and have not experienced ANY plot
stopping bugs.. and performance is great. OK, I play it on a monster
machine but that does not change the fact that the game is fun for me
and probably for lots of people with similar machines (Athlon 700Mhz
w. Voodoo3 in my case)
The plot is in NO way thinner than that of U4 and U5 IMHO..
MdmeDis
In article <8c7ss5$9k3$1...@news.jump.net>, jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com
says...
> >
> > Yeah. As I said in another post, they were planning to use an extended U8
> > engine or a Crusader one. And what promises were made in fans.txt ?
> >
> >
> The Ultima 9 engine was redesigned several times. Originally it was
> using the Crusader Engine, which I was one of two programmers on. The U9
> team spent a good 5 months developing editor tools and such that were
> actually of the same source tree as the Crusader code. To this day there are
> still Ultima 9 references in the Crusader:No Remorse/No Regret code.
>
> Then it was decided to go 3D. At that time there was talks of doing an
> Ultima 10. In my opinion they should have developed U9 using the Crusader
> engine. They would have shipped the game 2 years earlier.
Many of us wished that - or even the U8 engine. We said that, begged for
that - suggested we thought they could go 3D with another Ultima - and
were told we were a bunch of whiners and ingrates who didn't know what
was good for us.
Now we got the crummy game we were trying not to get, we are being
called disloyal and stupid because we don't roll over and worship at
Dick's feet.
--
Disoriented Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-
Having finally opted for it being the rest of the
world that's screwed, after all.
>
> >
> > U8 is a good game. U1/U2 are too.
> > We could argue that U8 is as much as an Ultima than UW1/2 are.
> >
> Being both a developer on this project and an oldskool Ultima lover I
> have to agree. It wasn't what I would have considered to be a classic
> Ultima, but it was an interesting game. This is not to say I have my own
> list of complaints about it.
>
> -Jason
Attentive Dragon
Ophidian wrote in message ...
>
>Attentive Dragon <dex...@gate.net> wrote in message
>news:8c8d9n$2che$1...@news.gate.net...
>
>> I play Ultima Online because of the interaction with my friends I have
met
>> on there, as well as with my guild-mates... The whole "power-gaming"
>aspect
>> just bores me... if played with a more "RPG" attitude, the game can be
far
>> from simplistic, and quite "interactive."
>
>The problem is that it is not the virtual community it is meant to be--The
>original idea is that you would log on, go to a virtual tavern, and meet
>some people to talk to, go adventure with, etc. My experience seems to be
>that 90% of the people in the game are thieves, PK's, or power-gamers who
>tend to either be alone or group with friends from real life. My brother,
>for instance, is a born power gamer )I recall him naming his chatacers
>"Fighter" and "Claric" in D&D games...); he plays UO and is quite
>successful. I am not a power gamer, and i could not get anywhere in the
>game without fighting. ANy other attempt at interaction was basically
>ignored. UO reminded me more of Diablo, just less fun.
>
Depends on the definition of "success." UO isn't a game that can be "won"
per se, and after awhile, being "Grandmaster everything" just gets boring...
there has to be more to the game...
Depends a lot on shard and who you meet. American shards, generally, are
plagued with many of the problems you state, though assuming 90%
PK/theif/dink rate is pretty high... a large portion of the player base is
no doubt in the middle-highschool range, but computer games have
traditionally appealed to that age group, so this is nothing new. I think
I'd be safe to say MOST Ultima Dragons started playing Ultima while still in
school.
Japanese shards, by contrast, have a much smaller PK rate... players there
often just don't want to play that way... they enjoy the role playing
aspect, though I'm certain the power gamers are just as prevelant, the
assholes are not.
Anyway, so yes, you will find a large portion of "immature" players, but as
I said, it depends on what time, what shard, and with whom you play. I
personally play on Atlantic, an USA-East Coast shard. I keep meeting new
people everyday (more guildmates, guilds we have alligned with, our
neighbors all around the Skara Brae/Brit/Yew corssroads) and though I have
run into a fair share of "problem" gamers, the friendly, helpful folks just
out to have a good time have outnumbered to creeps, at least if only in my
experience.
The game CAN, I'll admit, be nothing more than a stale wanna-be "Diablo," if
played as such. It can also be much more... the main problem however, is
that it is not intuitive... conversation is handled poorly (at least for any
kind of tavern setting... words jumble all over each other if people stand
too close, and vanish too quickly) and to find the really "good" role
players, you need to leave town, which exposes you to the PKers. The buggy
"UO-messenger" (which was removed, but the option's still there in the game)
might have made this work better... or some kind of chat option (there is a
chat room type thing, but something that allowed BBS style text, WHILE
allowing you to see the people around, somehow linking the two together
might have been better.) ICQ seems to be the weapon of choice, but that's
buggy in and of itself, and doesn't fulfill the role needed for the "tavern"
setting, which I feel would be wonderful if ever implemented properly.
You're right, it is a serious detriment to being able to play the game as
anything more than "Diablo" (though I hate it when people make Quake
analogies, because they are two different animals...)
In the defense of us "NON-power gamers" though, all I can say is, my guild
mates and I run many events and festivals (upcoming Beltaine festival for
example) that have nothing to do with skills or stats. They hold
tournaments, parties, weddings, and yes, go together on the occasional
adventure too ;) But we're there mainly to have FUN... and the recent
changes going into the game show that the design teams, at least, seem to
think that we are NOT the minority anymore (hopefully!!!) Despite the
game's shortcomings, we're able to have a pretty good time, and interact
very well with each other.
Anyway, sorry about the long UO rant... wrong usegroup ;)
A.D.D.
MdmeDis
says...
> Claus Dragon <Clau...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:38E696A6...@hotmail.com...
> >
> > well, why did he sell origin to ea? granted, ea has certainly a bigger
> > budget that origin had, but there are several companies sailing under
> > ea´s flag...that could have been predicted...remember "could". he is
> > only a human being after all...
> >
> Origin had to merge with EA in order to continue doing business.
> Basically they were out of money. Things were not as profitable back then.
<gasp> You mean they were having to live with the same reality all game
producers have to face. They have to make money. They were mismanaged
then, or they wouldn't have been in such dire financial straights.
Amongst other things, they had Wing Commander which was the best selling
game of its day - if you can't survive with that, you are doing
something wrong. Selling Origin wasn't a betrayal, it was the only thing
to keep it alive.
> It was a hard road and basically Origin would have closed its doors.
>
> Joining EA allowed Origin to give back to the employees that had been
> working so hard on the games. It was not known then what EA would become. At
> the time EA was the light at the end of the tunnel.
Give us some proof that EA ever interfered. Some small shred of
evidence. (and that doesn't include deadlines, although if
someone could prove they actually did that it'd be interesting)People
say - no proof anywhere - that they were told to ship or kill U 9. If
the man had integrity, why didn't he kill it?
RG was senior VP at Origin - it was his responsibility to make sure
Origin turned a profit. It is, amongst other things to ensure that games
are out in a timely fashion, to stay on the curve technically and that
the games are playable and finished when released to the public.
In all except UO, which he didn't have much to do with, he failed on the
profit side. UO wasn't as successful as it could've been because of the
"who gives a shit about the customer" attitude the company employed. He
failed miserably in all the rest, and managed to get many to the point
where they wouldn't buy anything with the Origin name on it. For the
rest, under his leadership, Origin has managed to kill Jane's, Wing
Commander, Crusade and Ultima.
I'm only surprised EA waited 'till it was too late
for these franchises (for want of a better word) to get him out of harms
way - given the damage he was doing to their reputation. I suspect that
he was warned by them many times, but as with print mags that dared say
the king was naked, he threw a tantrum and said they were out to get him
- instead of realising and addressing the very real problems.
All this overlooks the probable reason for his demise - X. His departure
happen a day or two after the release of an interview in which he said X
was the way he and his core team at Origin were going. Given his history
and the extremely controversial nature of such an enterprise, they felt
it would damage Origin further, and declined to back it.
So he and they went. It his loyal (blind?) followers for whom I feel
sympathy.
MdmeDis
says...
> First of all I'd like to ask why do you lay all the heat on Richard? I,
> for one, know that the issues at hand with Ultima 9 cannot be blamed on him.
> When Richard tells his fans something, he has every intension of seeing it
> through. I worked with Richard for 5 years and I know first hand what EA
> does to Origin. Lay the blame on the heads at EA. They totally dictated what
> Richard could and couldn't do. And believe me, they are true backstabbers.
Richard should've felt completely at home then. I remember what he said
about 'Mr Mike' McShaffery and Bob White after the CGW interview.
>
> EA will say "Ok Rich, you can do that.". Then EA loses money in a
> quarter from another area and decides "Lets tighten the leash on Origin a
> bit more." and next thing you know they say "Oh Rich, we decided that you
> can't do that now, even though you made a million promises.". EA wants to
> mold Origin into its "Online Only" company. This means that they care
> NOTHING about the other games at Origin.
>
> Ultima 9 has had a very rough development cycle, simply because it has
> never had any good backing from EA. I don't care what outsiders say... I was
> THERE! I knew what was going on first hand!
Yet every other company says their experience with EA is otherwise.
Sounds like the same cry from RG that happened when CGW told a few home
truths "We're picked on - its all their fault!"
> Richard is a master at coming up with game ideas, telling stories and
> such.
Then he should've stuck to that. He didn't, and wouldn't or couldn't
learn what it took to run a company and paid the price.
> That is why so many people and myself have followed him through the
> times.
I've often wondered about that. I've come to the conclusion he must be
very charismatic. My other choice is to believe there are hundreds of
incredibly gullible, not to mention dense, people out there, and I don't
believe that.
> Has he made some bad decisions? Yes, he is human, but some people
> don't realize that and are so quick to punish him harshly when he doesn't
> meet up to the "God" status 24/7. This is totally unfair.
>
> Another question I have is if you guys think Richard sucks so bad and
> Ultima has been so horrible for so long, then why the hell are you buying
> the game and playing it? Why not move on, get a life and drop it? For people
> who call themselves an Ultima Dragon to pound so hard on the very person who
> inspired them is totally ignorant!
You think blind loyalty is better? FWIW, if Garriott had chosen to
listen to some of the things his fans were telling him instead of
surrounding himself with a group of yes-men, last Thursday wouldn't have
happened.
The ultimate insult to his fans, in an effort to boost pre-release sales
and get better shelf space, was to put out a special edition with their
name on it - thus ensuring that market, which otherwise would have
waited.
For the record, I'm not and never have been a fan of his. I'm a fan of
the Ultima games, the best of which weren't put out by him but by teams
of people.
I'll point out yet again the Dragons aren't his worse critics - the
general public is.
>
> I'm not trying to flame anybody, but I am trying to stand up for a
> person who has given so much and tried to fight the "big company bad boys"
> to give each and everyone of you a great gaming experience in the world of
> Ultima.
>
> Try having some loyalty for a change. To rejoice in something like this
> is very sad and shows who his true fans and loyal followers are.
If he'd given a flying fuck about his fans, he'd have been here a time
or two to talk to us. Not once in 4+ years did he do that. Loyalty
begets loyalty - royalty begets a bunch of doormats and camp followers.
What about all the loyalty he showed to Bob White and all the teams that
he burnt out?
All most of us wanted was a decent game - we got lies and unfinished
products. To expect us to be loyal to that insults both our intellect
and integrity. If you choose to follow that path, that's up to you, but
please don't be telling me what I should and shouldn't do.
MdmeDis
only way I could get the follow-ups right (no more) - and in the hopes
these Origin apologists will see it answer some of the points I made.
Although somehow I doubt it - it seems to me they just want a forum to
cry in because their lord and master got his comeuppance. I get the
distinct feeling their ears and eyes are as tightly shut as his were.
In article <k1sbes4umin29pit3...@4ax.com>,
Musash...@home.com says...
<snip of excellent response>
> OK. That's nice. Enjoy your opinion.
That saved me a lot of typing. Just one thing to add - to Mr Scallon.
You may also notice the least amount of comments is happening in this
the Dragons group. There are a number of people who espoused the rather
noble ideals the 'real' Ultimas expressed. It gave many the chance to
play the Knight in Shining Armour and be honourable - many felt that
those were the ideals of the creator.
The past few years have shown that person to be far less than his
creation - and there is a sense of great disillusion - betrayal, almost.
I know that sounds silly, and taken in conjunction with what Fortran
said about Larry Niven and an authors characters, it probably is - but
in a world where to get anywhere you have to put aside your morals, it
was nice to believe that out there in their world there was a Good Guy
who won.
The most negative opinions, and thus the less biased, in general are
coming from non-Dragons
MdmeDis
bitb...@contrapuntal.ods.org says...
> In rec.games.computer.ultima.dragons Amelia Hurlock
> <aahu...@earthlink.net> scribed in the Great Tome of Farnarkling:
> > When an author becomes famous and his/her books become classic, who
> > remembers the two, three, or however many other books were not as
> > "perfect" as the classics? Too many people today judge an artist, a
> > musician, or even a programmer by their last work, giving them only the
> > respect they have earned for their last product.
>
> in quality since around the time of U7-SI, amongst other things.
Other things - like killing the best series of games ever made (WC,
Crusade, Ultima) and Jane's - you mean?
>
> > Why can't we all just
> > admit that we have respect for what Richard Garriott has done in the
> > past, and does it matter what we think now? We're arguing over recent
> > occurrences in the life of the series.
>
> People tend to comment - often at length - on /current/ affairs...
Sort of "never mind that he's a liar and dishonest, he came up with a
Good Idea a decade ago (U IV) and thus is excused any role in decency
and loyalty to his fans and the paying public.
>
> > Why can't we give him our thanks
> > for the fun times that we have had with his games, whether those
> > experiences began in 1985 or 1997? Does it matter? Does it matter that
> > the last product might or might not have been what we had in mind?
> > RG is an artist. An artist has to feed himself as well. We all need to
> > remember that.
>
> As a (now former) musician, I am quite aware of what an artist is and needs
> to do to survive. ;-)
Yeah - the starving artist, given that RG owns the garret, and several
of 'em in his castle doesn't quite ring true, does it?
>
> Remember that RG is also a businessman and due to his standing a public
> relations officer - he has to deal with the populace (especially since the
> Internet came into common use) whether he likes it or not. You cannot live
> in an ivory tower anymore.
>
> As I see it, RG is copping flak not only for the standard of the offering
> but that he has essentially misled the fans before, during and after the
> development and release of the game - the infamous fans.txt, various
> interviews, statements regarding bugs, questionable "performance
> improvements" with the patched versions of Ascension. Lag times in UO..
>
> Others will add to this in due course.. ;-)
Ack. I'm tired of citing it all. These people just need somewhere to
snivel. They don't want to discuss it, nor do they want to deal with the
realities and in an effort to avoid them they beat up on the dragons,
>
> > We should not pick his actions apart because how dare we
> > judge him? We are not in his shoes. Ultima was his baby, his creation!
> > No parent is perfect.
>
> How very true. Neither is RG. Just because he is an "artist" does NOT make
> him a better person than us! Nor does it make him above criticism. Far from
> it - he's as fallible as we are and deserves both praise and condemnation as
> appropriate.
>
> > Please do realize that he is human, and he has to
> > weigh his dreams against being able to earn enough to survive.
>
> Yes, that is his problem, not ours - as we have to do this for ourselves
> also.
I'm to the point where I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't a troll - I
mean, get real! Earn enough to survive? What's the average castle cost
to run - complete with imported snow? By cheating people out of their
hard-earned money?
>
> > As fans
> > of Ultima (it does not matter which game),
>
> Please keep the above phrase in mind. We are fans of ULTIMA. The UDIC are
> not the Lord British Dragons or the Richard Garriott Dragons or even the
> Origin Dragons. We aren't supposed to be arsekissers or yes-men to anyone -
> in fact we (the UDIC) pride ourselves in being diverse and not holding a
> consensus opinion on anything.
>
> > we owe some respect to the
> > creator, and I for one wish to tell him "Thank you for the good times".
>
> That's fine. But respect is a two way street, and we (the PAYING customers
> and fans) haven't been getting it of late - look at the blatant BS that's
> been issued of late... What does he (and OSI) take us for?
Ah - but he's "the creator". These people want a god - the fact theirs
has clay feet they DO NOT want to hear.
<snip>
> > Who among us would like to be judged like that?
> Me. If I truly cared about the quality of my creation, I would be more than
> willing to take on constructive criticism of my work.
Ditto and well said, 'Punt. Many other game producers are too.
> RG has not done this
> to my knowledge (in more than a token manner - we can now bake bread but
> there's so many plot holes and loose ends - a MAJOR sin considering his
> promises to clear things up at the end of "the Trilogy of Trilogies") and
> many of his employees - Ed DeCastillo in particular - have been quite rude
> to members of the Ultima-playing fraternity merely for exercising the
> freedom to criticise a work!
Antos Dragon
business practices of a company? What would have happened if LB did
hire proper business managers, and kept his involvement to what he
does best: Programming and designing? If this would have occured in
reality, Origin would not have been sold, U6 and U7 would have been
100% completed and debugged before released, etc....
What happened with Sid Meier? And the guy from Bullfrog? (Peter M
-something.....for the life of me, I can't spell it). Was it similar?
On Sun, 02 Apr 2000 16:13:55 -0400, Victor Danilchenko
<dani...@cs.umass.edu> enlightened us by scribbling this gem of
wisdom:
>Fortran Dragon wrote:
>>
>> My glass typewriter shows Victor Danilchenko typing...
>> [Snip]
>> > Now don't take me wrong, the decision to sell Origin WAS a major
>> > betrayal, although I doubt RG (or most of the dragons -- or myself, for
>> > that matter) realized that at the time; that one decision meant
>> > subjugating anything and everything Ultima meant, to the god of quarterly
>> > profit. However, once that blame is allocated, blaming RG for other stuff
>> > is like blaming the weather for raining on your parade.
>>
>> If you are talking about the betrayal of the fans then you had
>> better blame RG's incompetent business practices that made the sale of
>> Origin inevitable. After all, Dr. Cat has publicly stated that Origin
>> had to ship Ultima VI in order to meet payroll. Other on the Ultima
>> teams have publicly stated that the same occurred with the Ultima VIIs.
>
> <shrug> that's what happens when you let someone unfamiliar with business make
>the business decisions. It's a fine line to walk, I suppose -- running a
>profitable business without making profit be the sole goal.
>
>> Basically, if RG hadn't sold Origin it would have died because RG
>> didn't have the ability to hire competent business people to run Origin.
>
> So I've heard.
>
>> That RG was willing to run his company into the ground will pursue a
>> vision instead of pulling back a little to make sure that Origin would
>> be around for a long time making great games.
>
> Sounds like he overestimated his business competence.
>
>> If you want to argue "major betrayal" then RG's actions that lead
>> to the inevitable sale of Origin should also be included.
>
> Certainly -- but that whole Origin sale deal was THE betrayal; everything after
>was just aftershocks.
Remove the part of my email that doesn't belong there, to email me..
We are the Borg...
You will be assimilated...
Resistance is futile...
Antos Dragon
never would have even known WHY Origin was sold until I started
learning about the internet...)
I still remember the days (before or around U7) when I could actually
*call* Origin's austin office directly. I even did this once, in an
attempt to get the original U4 C64 boxed version, and talked to a
person regarding the availability of these (yes, they were still
around! but the cost was around $79 USD!), and also about the C64
Trilogy versions. It was remarkable to actually talk to a very
friendly, live person about this. And IIRC, this was a toll-free
number...but it was so long ago....I'm not even sure.....
But back then, things like that made me proud to be an Origin
supporter.
Not long after Origin sold to EA, I was absolutely unable to contact
them again, although I do recall some (512) number listed in
manuals...but it simply wasn't the same...
Although, I did reach them once after the sellout, to obtain manuals
for Ultimas 1-6, after getting a compilation CD...(although I was
hoping for the Original manuals, not the remaked
compilations...grr......*spews flame, igniting the nearest tree*)
But Fortran...
Why was Origin not viable? Weren't the Wing Commander 1/2 games
selling like hotcakes, along with Ultima VI? I remember they were on
the CGW top 10/100 for a LONG time (and this LONG before ZDnet bought
them, and CGW was still #1, period).
So what could RG possibly do that could have caused all of this? I do
remember some of what Dr. Cat said (I saw him stop by the #udic
channel...one of my memorable net experiences, much like Paul Reiche
and Fred Ford stopping by the #starcontrol group a few years ago...),
but I still didnt really understand what had happened...
Did Strike Commander have anything to do with this? I still remember
the fiasco known as Pacific Strike, which received one star out of 5,
because NO existing PC could run the game at all --thats not called
pushing the envelope...
Oh, on a humorous note...
How does Pacific Strike run on a P3-810 w/ 256 megs of RAM ? :-)
On Sun, 2 Apr 2000 11:14:23 -0500, Fortran Dragon
<for...@earthlink.net> enlightened us by scribbling this gem of
wisdom:
>My glass typewriter shows Dave Scallan typing...
>[Snip]
>> When I say I blame Richard Garriott for his part in all the problems
>> with the Ultimas and UO I say so because no one twisted his arm to sell out
>> to EA.
>
> No, but then Origin would have been dead. Origin was sold because
>they weren't a viable company at that point. Mr. Mike said EA viewed
>Ultima as a key franchise and wanted high-quality, profitable games
>associated with the franchise.
Antos Dragon
Look at what happened with Interplay!
They were originally part of EA.....then split from them sometime
around Bards III.
EA is so damn greedy, that they won't even give the rights to the
Bards' Tale name back to Interplay, the original designers!
And for what? How long has it been since we've seen a "Bard's Tale"
game? 11 years (I still don't know how Interplay was able to use the
name for BTCS but not for anything else).
And I still recall the relations between EA and Origin at one time
were not so wonderful. Wasn't this depicted as a parody in one (or
more) of the Ultimas? Something like the spheres in U7 or one of the
characters in U5...
On Fri, 31 Mar 2000 21:13:26 -0600, "Jason Ely"
<jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com> enlightened us by scribbling this gem
of wisdom:
>Claus Dragon <Clau...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:38E696A6...@hotmail.com...
>>
>> well, why did he sell origin to ea? granted, ea has certainly a bigger
>> budget that origin had, but there are several companies sailing under
>> ea´s flag...that could have been predicted...remember "could". he is
>> only a human being after all...
>>
> Origin had to merge with EA in order to continue doing business.
>Basically they were out of money. Things were not as profitable back then.
>It was a hard road and basically Origin would have closed its doors.
>
> Joining EA allowed Origin to give back to the employees that had been
>working so hard on the games. It was not known then what EA would become. At
>the time EA was the light at the end of the tunnel.
>
> -Jason Ely
Antos Dragon
EA or LB's own wish ?
On Sun, 2 Apr 2000 11:22:10 -0500, "Jason Ely"
<jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com> enlightened us by scribbling this gem
of wisdom:
> When Richard decided to not use an Isometric engine (the
>one I helped develop for Crusader) is when the projects started to split up.
Antos Dragon
enlightened us by scribbling this gem of wisdom:
(snip)
>The plot is in NO way thinner than that of U4 and U5 IMHO..
Now hold on a minute...
You're comparing games that came out 12-15 years ago, that ran on 1
mhz 8-bitters with 64k of RAM, to a game that has trouble running on
P3-600's with 256 megs of RAM. Now, I would certainly HOPE that the
plot of a recent game is better than an ancient graphical based game
(text adventures are different), but does that mean U9 did anything
*special*? No.
U4 broke new ground. With a plot and emphasis that had been
completely unheard of in CRPG's. (Although, some could argue that
this was first hinted at by the format of the Exodus finale).
Ultima 5 didn't really break new ground plotwise, compared to U4, but
expanded on everything Ultima IV did, and did it better. (although
with this came some weak points, although overall I throughly enjoyed
it) Technologically and graphically (especially the refined combat
engine) it was very nice. U6 went backwards in combat :) (yup, sure,
you can switch armor in battle....)
U4-5-U6 had pretty 'adult' themes, and important lessons to be
learned. They were a cut above the competition. But what did U9 do
that was special? NOTHING!!! Who cares about the pretty
textures?....
(although I'd love to see the fixed U9 engine licensed out....)
>Telemachos Dragon d-- e- N++ Om+ U1!234!5!6!7!S'!8!9K!A!L!W!M
> -==(UDIC)==- u++ uC uF- uG uLB uA nC nH+ nP+ nI nPT nS+ a22
> The Peroxide Homepage : http://www.peroxide.dk
> - Home of the PXDTUTS & Free Games
> - Home of the Ultima 1 Remake!
Remove the part of my email that doesn't belong there, to email me..
Jason Ely
Antos Dragon <kyle...@NOSPAMmy-deja.com> wrote in message
news:erphesgo1r0iv0ruu...@4ax.com...
> Jason -- Wny did RG decide on this? This is very important...was it
> EA or LB's own wish ?
>
Antos Dragon
interactiveness of the U7/SI engine, combined with the old format of
the U5 engine...(and with turn based, or at least, Darklands/BG/Xcom3
phased type combat...drool....) And in fact, based on how you say the
game was originally going to be, "Fans.txt" was actually being adhered
to at that time.
So please, by God, tell me, why the f*** did this happen!?!
It's almost as if I want to ask you to release that source engine from
the Isometric early U9 to the developers amoung the dragons, and watch
them continue what was the original vision....
But sigh....at least I can dream about it....
But please, give some insight as to why this did occur...
On Sun, 2 Apr 2000 11:30:15 -0500, "Jason Ely"
<jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com> enlightened us by scribbling this gem
of wisdom:
>>
>> Yeah. As I said in another post, they were planning to use an extended U8
>> engine or a Crusader one. And what promises were made in fans.txt ?
>>
>>
> The Ultima 9 engine was redesigned several times. Originally it was
>using the Crusader Engine, which I was one of two programmers on. The U9
>team spent a good 5 months developing editor tools and such that were
>actually of the same source tree as the Crusader code. To this day there are
>still Ultima 9 references in the Crusader:No Remorse/No Regret code.
>
> Then it was decided to go 3D. At that time there was talks of doing an
>Ultima 10. In my opinion they should have developed U9 using the Crusader
>engine. They would have shipped the game 2 years earlier. The versions that
>I had of U9 in 2d/Isometric were actually very very cool. It was designed
>more like Ultima 4/Ultima 5, with a world map and "Tiny-Tar" that walked
>around the countryside with zoomed in Cities and Dungeons. Anyways, I
>believe U9 should have stayed 2d and they could have been developing the
>technology and story for U10 in parallel.
>
>>
>> U8 is a good game. U1/U2 are too.
>> We could argue that U8 is as much as an Ultima than UW1/2 are.
>>
> Being both a developer on this project and an oldskool Ultima lover I
>have to agree. It wasn't what I would have considered to be a classic
>Ultima, but it was an interesting game. This is not to say I have my own
>list of complaints about it.
>
> -Jason
>
Remove the part of my email that doesn't belong there, to email me..
Antos Dragon
Ack!
I hadn't played U5 in so long, that I totally forgot about the NPC
scheduling which was first introduced in that game (along with
day/night) !!
Ok...excuse my profanity but WHAT THE F*CK is up with this?
How can a 1 mhz 6502 with 64k of RAM do NPC scheduling, but a P3-600
with 128+ megs CAN NOT DO IT??
3D or not 3D is irrelevent...
WHAT AM I MISSING?
On Sun, 02 Apr 2000 17:46:08 GMT, "Ophidian" <zacw...@hotmail.com>
enlightened us by scribbling this gem of wisdom:
>
>Mils <mi...@club-internet.fr> wrote in message
>news:8c7rod$rns$2...@front7m.grolier.fr...
>
>
>> U8 is a good game. U1/U2 are too.
>> We could argue that U8 is as much as an Ultima than UW1/2 are.
>
>The reason that U8 and U9 are not generally considered "true Ultimas" is
>because they eliminate major positive components that were built up in
>previous games and proven effective--such as NPC scheduling, and epic,
>involved plotline. THey reverted back to the style of Ultima 1 and Ultima
>2, which while decent for its own time is inappropriate in a modern Ultima.
>
>The Underworlds, to me, are not in the mainline series and therefore would
>not have to meet the same criterea to be decent Ultimas as the mainline
>series would. IMO, both were good games--UW1 lacked a really great plot,
>and what UW2 made up for in plot, it lacked in any major improvements over
>UW2 in interactivity/eappearance/etc. But they were charting unproven
>ground, which deserves a lot of respect.
>
>Ultima IX did a so-so job (3D-wise) of what many other games do well. That
>leaves the game resting on its plot and its character development. The plot
>is a joke and the character development is basically nonexistant.
>
>I'm confused what you think U9 does have going for it. It has some cute
>dungeon puzzles, but I didn't feel like I was really the Avatar when I
>played it, I felt as if I was commanding some dimwitted horny moron around
>the world.
>
>-Ophidian
Antos Dragon
Ah....yes...100% agreed.
Many of us have forgotten that the first FIVE Ultimas were designed to
run on 1 mhz computers with 64K of RAM. (yes, the original U1 ran on
less...but...)
Ultimas 2-5 ran just fine on a C-64 (although U5 had terrible loading
times, but the lack of a fastloader and the abysmal speeds of the 1541
did not help). U5 did run much faster on an Apple II/e.
Admittedly, you needed a C128 for U5 music, and a mockingboard for any
music on Apples on U3, 4, and 5)
But, I would say that those games did push the limit of existing
hardware, insetad of requiring someone to buy a whole new PC just to
play it.
And yes, the beginning of Origin's woes occured when U6 was originally
being developed for the II/e, and then the 8-bit market suddenly died,
according to what Dr. Cat said on one of his irc visits... (and that
doesn't account for LB's mismanagement....)
So lets see...U1-5 required an Apple/64k or C64 (V did better with
more RAM), 6 required a whole new PC (286 or 386sx with soundcard),
VII required goobles of RAM (8 or 16 strongly preferred, although 4
was so common with memory prices in the stratosphere--$200 for 4 megs
RAM), and a fast 386 or 486, U8 required a 486dx2 or better......U9 at
least a P3-450 with 512 megs (yes guys, this is true) of RAM...
*sigh*
On Sun, 2 Apr 2000 21:45:49 -0500, Fortran Dragon
<for...@earthlink.net> enlightened us by scribbling this gem of
wisdom:
>My glass typewriter shows Dave Scallan typing...
>
>> * They have always pushed the hardware envelope in order to heighten the
>> "immersive qualities" of these "worlds" and unlike game consoles, PCs vary
>> widely in their hardware, configuration and abilities.
>
> Not really, no. This only started with Ultima VI. Oddly enough,
>that's when Origin's stuff started to get much buggier.
(snip)
Antos Dragon
The Ultimas just got bigger, with far more detail (bigger # of
disks-basically doubling in size-Ultima 3-one DS disk, Ultima IV, two
DS disks, U5-FOUR DS disks-DS=double sided), and yes, the old systems
really couldn't push 'graphics', so the tile-based rendering was
simply improved in quality.
Ultima 6 also ran fine (at patch 4.5) if you had a typical system.
And it had support for older systems (CGA/EGA, even hercules !!).
Sure can't say the same for U9!
U7 really pushed the technological barrier, but the real problem was
disk access--you needed lots of RAM (8 megs or more) to set up a disk
cache to avoid slowdowns. Although a fast 386 could run it ok, with
enough memory. Four meg systems would run U7 fine, but 8 megs let you
set up an even larger disk cache.
I did buy my first PC after buying U7, and used it without a RAM
upgrade (4 meg dx2) for U7 and U8. U8 was also ok on it, but
remember, at that time, U8 was released when the P66 or P90 was the
fastest thing out, and almost everyone still had 486's.
But there is no damn reason for U9 to want 512 megs. How many
*Gamers* actually have that much RAM? (Im talking pure gamers here,
not the graphic artists/developers that also enjoy games too). I
wager, none.
When I say 'want', it means that I heard the performance really
skyrockets if you have a 512 meg system.
On Mon, 03 Apr 2000 03:36:57 GMT, "Ophidian" <zacw...@hotmail.com>
enlightened us by scribbling this gem of wisdom:
>
>Fortran Dragon <for...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>news:MPG.1351b19d4...@news.alt.net...
>
>> Not really, no. This only started with Ultima VI. Oddly enough,
>> that's when Origin's stuff started to get much buggier.
>
>Well, I'm not so sure about that...I'm not sure how much the old Apple II
>COULD be pushed, at least how much farther than it had already been pushed.
>I also recall Ultima III having been one of the earliest games with a full
>musical score (or so a review claimed), and I know U5 had an obsence number
>of disks.
>
>But then, I suppose adding more content to the game despite technological
>limitations is a little different from the
>graphics-at-the-expense-of-everything-else attitude of U8 and U9--where
>devotion to the latest and greatest "gee whiz" technologies overshadowed
>providing the most in-depth storyline and most immersive experience, both of
>which rely on many nontechnological isseues).
>
>I had also thought that, in many ways, U7 did not push the technology of the
>time quite as hard as U9 pushes current technology--but my memory is vague.
>I remember it chugging along on my system, but I don't remember having any
>video or sound issues. Or, for that matter, any during-game crashes. Hmm.
>
>-Ophidian
Amelia Hurlock
> > We should not pick his actions apart because how dare we
> > judge him? We are not in his shoes. Ultima was his baby, his creation!
> > No parent is perfect.
>
> How very true. Neither is RG. Just because he is an "artist" does NOT make
> him a better person than us! Nor does it make him above criticism. Far from
> it - he's as fallible as we are and deserves both praise and condemnation as
> appropriate.
Constructive criticism is one thing. People have a right to
constructively criticize others, but to do the "character bashing" that
has been going on here is not constructive, just cruel.
> > Who among us would like to be judged like that?
>
> Me. If I truly cared about the quality of my creation, I would be more than
> willing to take on constructive criticism of my work. RG has not done this
> to my knowledge (in more than a token manner - we can now bake bread but
> there's so many plot holes and loose ends - a MAJOR sin considering his
> promises to clear things up at the end of "the Trilogy of Trilogies") and
> many of his employees - Ed DeCastillo in particular - have been quite rude
> to members of the Ultima-playing fraternity merely for exercising the
> freedom to criticise a work!
Taking constructive criticism and having the resources (time, funds,
permission from higher authorities ) to implement the changes are two
separate things.
> Contrapuntal Dragon
> (Player since u5 ('87), Ultima Dragon since '95, FWIW)
HyperActive Dragon
(player since NES U3 ('90?) and Dragon since '92 on Prodigy)
(don't pull rank)
Michael Lehmeier
>Jason -- Wny did RG decide on this? This is very important...was it
>EA or LB's own wish ?
I don't really think that this is important.
RG said that it was his decision or at least that he supported it.
Therefore he took responsibility for it.
Therefore it is pretty unimportant whether or not EA forced him
or Origin towards 3D. At least when anyone searches for an excuse for
RG.
>On Sun, 2 Apr 2000 11:22:10 -0500, "Jason Ely"
><jason@_nospam_asylumsoft.com> enlightened us by scribbling this gem
>of wisdom:
>
>> When Richard decided to not use an Isometric engine (the
>>one I helped develop for Crusader) is when the projects started to split up.
--
Michael Lehmeier -==UDIC== Nightshade Dragon m_leh...@gmx.de
Amelia Hurlock
> According to normal standards of truth and honesty, you mean? According
> to ethical business practices? Are you *really* blind/besotted enough to
> say how dare we question that? Because he produced a couple of good
> games that gives him the right to cheat people out of money? - which is
> what you are doing when you release an unfinished game.
He didn't cheat anyone out of their money. They purchased a game out of
their own free will. When people bought the first Ultima's did they have
in mind that they had darn well better be getting the best thing on the
market? No. With any game purchase, you take a chance. People should
know that.
> Bet you'd be screaming like a raped ape if you bought a car with an
> unfinished engine, and the producer shut up shop and moved on. Bet you
> wouldn't be drooling on about the manufacturer being an artist (which
> Garriott never was anyway) and above reproach.
Never, EVER joke about rape. It is NO laughing matter.
I never said he was above reproach (should the reproach be
constructive). You want to sacrifice someone for having good intentions
but being unable to carry them out. Sure, there's the saying that the
road to **** is paved with good intentions. But honestly, was there a
"satisfaction guarantee" on this game? on any of the Ultimas? No. If you
assumed that there was, then you had better check the box again. There
is no warranty, and there never was.
HyperActive Dragon
Fortran Dragon
[Snip]
> Some of these interviews you mention...
> Do you have URLs for them?
> I would be interested in reading them.
The Mike McShaffrey interview from CGW, "What Happened to Ultima
IX": <http://www.gamespot.com/features/ultima9/index.html>
and
The interview with Denis Loubet done for the late, lamented
Trinsic Telegraph by Earendil Dragon:
<http://pw1.netcom.com/~billyfw/interv.html>
--
Fortran Dragon -==(UDIC)==-
Hidalgo Trading Company: <http://home.earthlink.net/~fortran/>
rgcud FAQ: <http://home.earthlink.net/~fortran/faq/rgcudfaq.html>
Fortran Dragon
> Jason -- Wny did RG decide on this? This is very important...was it
> EA or LB's own wish ?
Honestly, if it was EA's wish, do you really think RG is going to
say that? At his level people and companies play a lot of face-saving
games to make sure no one sues...
Dave Scallan
> Ok...excuse my profanity but WHAT THE F*CK is up with this?
> How can a 1 mhz 6502 with 64k of RAM do NPC scheduling, but a P3-600
> with 128+ megs CAN NOT DO IT??
>
> 3D or not 3D is irrelevent...
> WHAT AM I MISSING?
Scale, mainly.
A couple of words from that ridiculous Raven's dialog in UIX consumes more
memory than the entire U4 or U5 game system on an Apple II or Commodore 64.
Those machines were more like consoles, every machine was the same, so if
the game ran on one, it ran on them all. Also the entire engine had to fit
into 64K of RAM and shuttle terrain, conversations, towns, castles &
dungeon data off a 170K floppy.
If NPC scheduling in U5 took ,let's say an additional 4% of resorces on a
c-64
that could mean NPC scheduling in U IX might require an additional 4% there
too . (my guess is if that were implemented the frame rate, walking around
the town of Britian would be that much slower.)
(I am not a programmer, that's just an uneducated guess)
Z. Bond
Amelia Hurlock <aahu...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:38E9178A...@earthlink.net...
> MdmeDis wrote:
> He didn't cheat anyone out of their money. They purchased a game out of
> their own free will. When people bought the first Ultima's did they have
> in mind that they had darn well better be getting the best thing on the
> market? No. With any game purchase, you take a chance. People should
> know that.
Had he openly stated in the U9 press release:
"Ultima 9 has shipped! It is still very buggy, and it does not incorporate
many of the features we promised--but go buy it anyway!"
then he would not be guilty of anything. Unfortunately, he made promises
and broke them; he made false statements concerning the "bug-free" nature of
the game. RG led people to believe they were buying something they were
not; hence he brought all this on himself. Most people don't respect or
remain "loyal" to liars.
> I never said he was above reproach (should the reproach be
> constructive). You want to sacrifice someone for having good intentions
> but being unable to carry them out. Sure, there's the saying that the
> road to **** is paved with good intentions. But honestly, was there a
> "satisfaction guarantee" on this game? on any of the Ultimas? No. If you
> assumed that there was, then you had better check the box again. There
> is no warranty, and there never was.
As i said above, RG stated the game was thoroughly debigged and made a
nunber of promises about its contents that proved to be false. This is not
a warranty in the legal sense, but we aren't planning a lawsuit. We're
pointing out RG's morally questionabke (at best) behavior and demand an
explanation. As usual, RG is quite silent.
-Ophidian
Z. Bond
Durham Dragon <robin_...@hotmail.removeme.com> wrote in message
news:j9YF4.20307$Xk2....@tor-nn1.netcom.ca...
> One of the design goals of U9 was to make the game more friendly to
> non-Ultima veterans because to paraphrase RG they had grown too large and
> intimidating. They were on the right track to solving this problem in the
> original design of U9 with dual-scale. Finding your way around a big
world
> while navigating on a zoomed out map (U1 to U5, Final Fantasies, Fallout,
> etc) is much easier and faster than finding your way around a monoscale
map
> done to reasonably realistic scale. It also saves a lot of
artist/designer
> time by not having to detail huge amounts of wilderness that the player
> isn't necessarily going to pay a lot of attention to, and more importantly
> allows them to give that much more attention to game content. Like the
old
> games you could zoom in for combats, wilderness NPC encounters, villages
and
> settlements, etc.
I always did have problems with navigating in the monoscale maps. The
simplest solution I would have thought would be to use a Daggerfall-Esque
system, where you could choose a route on an overhead map, but play the
actual "game" within the close-up view.
Of course, Daggerfall's problem was that the area you skip ove in the
"world" map really was empty wasteland! If there was one thing I enjoyed
about Daggerfall, it was the grandeur.
My problem is not the concept of being able to navigate quickly, it's the
fact that you are forced to zoom out. I would never complain so long as I
had the option to zom in and get lot in the wilderness if I so desired. And
keep it realistic, no seeing beyond trees! :-P
And--silly me, you stated as much in the next paragraph :-P
> Arcanum might be a game that solves this since it keeps a VERY large
> continuous world which you could walk through if you had the time, but at
> the same time lets you go to a world map screen to navigate the world more
> quickly, while preserving the proper scale of things. Another game to
> consider is Black & White which isn't an RPG but has a 3D engine which
> smoothly zooms in and out from a mouse sitting on a barrel to an overhead
> view of the entire world map.
I always considered U9's zooming mechanism flawed. I would have thought you
could avoid drawing smaller polygons once you had zoomed out a certain
ways...
-Ophidian
Goldenflame Dragon
<for...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> The Mike McShaffrey interview from CGW, "What Happened to Ultima
>IX": <http://www.gamespot.com/features/ultima9/index.html>
>
What really fascinates me is this line:
"Things weren't all bad, however, because Electronic Arts had given
Origin a mandate to make sure that the Ultima franchise was
reestablished by Ultima IX, no matter how long it took."
Goldenflame Dragon
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-=<UDIC>=- Goldenflame Dragon http://www.tumbolia.org/golden.html
d++ e++ N++ T-- Om++ UK1!2!3!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!A u++ uC++ uF- uG++ uLB++
uA(+) nC+ nR nH+ nP+ nI nPT+(++) nS++ nTo++ oA++ oE oy++ a24
In the beginning was the Word.
In the end... past honor, past life, past caring...
In the end will be the Word.
Helgraf Dragon
>
> Contrapuntal Dragon wrote:
> > > We should not pick his actions apart because how dare we
> > > judge him? We are not in his shoes. Ultima was his baby, his creation!
> > > No parent is perfect.
> >
> > How very true. Neither is RG. Just because he is an "artist" does NOT make
> > him a better person than us! Nor does it make him above criticism. Far from
> > it - he's as fallible as we are and deserves both praise and condemnation as
> > appropriate.
>
> Constructive criticism is one thing. People have a right to
> constructively criticize others, but to do the "character bashing" that
> has been going on here is not constructive, just cruel.
Show me where RG's character has been bashed. What _has_ happened
is that we've (repeatedly now for those who choose to ignore the
_facts_) shown what he's done wrong - and how he's chosen to go on
and ignore the problems and his own promises when they are
inconvienient. You talk about RG creating Ultima - well, then
maybe he should have paid more attention to his own creation, and
less to the superficial details of same. Very Dr. Frankenstein,
to be unable to accept the responsibility for your own creation.
And tragedy ensues.
>
> > > Who among us would like to be judged like that?
> >
> > Me. If I truly cared about the quality of my creation, I would be more than
> > willing to take on constructive criticism of my work. RG has not done this
> > to my knowledge (in more than a token manner - we can now bake bread but
> > there's so many plot holes and loose ends - a MAJOR sin considering his
> > promises to clear things up at the end of "the Trilogy of Trilogies") and
> > many of his employees - Ed DeCastillo in particular - have been quite rude
> > to members of the Ultima-playing fraternity merely for exercising the
> > freedom to criticise a work!
> Taking constructive criticism and having the resources (time, funds,
> permission from higher authorities ) to implement the changes are two
> separate things.
Is this the best counter you can offer?
>
> > Contrapuntal Dragon
> > (Player since u5 ('87), Ultima Dragon since '95, FWIW)
> HyperActive Dragon
> (player since NES U3 ('90?) and Dragon since '92 on Prodigy)
> (don't pull rank)
Rank is irrelevant. Don't take it so personally.
--
Helgraf Dragon, the NSA Dragon, Fossil, Mao Count : 5
A Chronicler of the Circle of Dragons, King of Sloth
__ The Exodus of the *Other Side*|Plonk Count: 5
/__\ d++ e++ N T-- Om+ U1!23!4!5!6!7'!S'!8!KA!L!
/|__|\ u+++ uC++ uF uG++ uLB+ uA++ nC+ nH+ nP+ nI+ nPT nS++ nT+
|----| y++ a25;a1600 When home is a torus, expect curves.
|_||_|
Contrapuntal Dragon
<aahu...@earthlink.net> scribed in the Great Tome of Farnarkling:
>> > We should not pick his actions apart because how dare we judge him? We
>> > are not in his shoes. Ultima was his baby, his creation! No parent is
>> > perfect.
>>
>> How very true. Neither is RG. Just because he is an "artist" does NOT
>> make him a better person than us! Nor does it make him above criticism.
>> Far from it - he's as fallible as we are and deserves both praise and
>> condemnation as appropriate.
>
> Constructive criticism is one thing. People have a right to
> constructively criticize others, but to do the "character bashing" that
> has been going on here is not constructive, just cruel.
Character bashing? Are you referring to anyone in particular? If you're
referring to me then you're well off the mark. I criticise the man because
he's made many promises regarding many aspects of Ultima that were never
even going to be fulfilled, and frankly misled many of us regarding the real
state of the game (bugs in particular).
I've not said anything about the man that can't be backed with tangible
evidence, and often his own words.
I also strenously object to the notion that he's beyond criticism and that
we should all bow down to him because "he's Lord British, a visionary, the
Father of Ultima". It's grossly insulting to the intellects of
critically-thinking people.
>> > Who among us would like to be judged like that?
>>
>> Me. If I truly cared about the quality of my creation, I would be more than
>> willing to take on constructive criticism of my work. RG has not done this
>> to my knowledge (in more than a token manner - we can now bake bread but
>> there's so many plot holes and loose ends - a MAJOR sin considering his
>> promises to clear things up at the end of "the Trilogy of Trilogies") and
>> many of his employees - Ed DeCastillo in particular - have been quite rude
>> to members of the Ultima-playing fraternity merely for exercising the
>> freedom to criticise a work!
> Taking constructive criticism and having the resources (time, funds,
> permission from higher authorities ) to implement the changes are two
> separate things.
The above doesn't make much sense at all.
Garriott has had more than enough time and resources to put out the game
that was promised in fans.txt. It didn't happen because it wasn't so much
the "vision" that was being followed but the bottom line (this is also a
criticism of Pagan too) and the bigger market. Hence we got an
"action-adventure" that was pushed out the door much earlier than it should
have been, and even after three patches it's performance is well, patchy
(argh, bad pun!)
>> Contrapuntal Dragon
>> (Player since u5 ('87), Ultima Dragon since '95, FWIW)
> HyperActive Dragon
> (player since NES U3 ('90?) and Dragon since '92 on Prodigy)
> (don't pull rank)
Don't be a smartarse. You can't pull rank! (This is the UDIC!) ;-)
I wasn't "pulling rank" - just letting folks know that I'm not some newcomer
spoiling for a flamefest.. (I know that this is xposted..)
Contrapuntal Dragon.
--
Michael Fleming <mflemin...@contrapuntal.ods.org> -=(UDIC)=-
PGP: 0xOEF8E582 GPG: 0x908E1EB6 ICQ: 9150031 TLA: 4 should do.
WWW: http://www.zip.com.au/~mfleming/
-=- I have authoritah? -=-
Contrapuntal Dragon
<aahu...@earthlink.net> scribed in the Great Tome of Farnarkling:
>
>> According to normal standards of truth and honesty, you mean? According
>> to ethical business practices? Are you *really* blind/besotted enough to
>> say how dare we question that? Because he produced a couple of good
>> games that gives him the right to cheat people out of money? - which is
>> what you are doing when you release an unfinished game.
> of their own free will.
A fool and his money....
> When people bought the first Ultima's did they have
> in mind that they had darn well better be getting the best thing on the
> market? No. With any game purchase, you take a chance. People should
> know that.
When promised the world, people tend to listen anyway. That's hype for you.
Alas, it's worked...
>> Bet you'd be screaming like a raped ape if you bought a car with an
>> unfinished engine, and the producer shut up shop and moved on. Bet you
>> wouldn't be drooling on about the manufacturer being an artist (which
>> Garriott never was anyway) and above reproach.
> Never, EVER joke about rape. It is NO laughing matter.
>
> I never said he was above reproach (should the reproach be
> constructive).
Bit of a change from "Richard The Artist" from a couple of messages ago..
> You want to sacrifice someone for having good intentions
> but being unable to carry them out.
Oh, get your hand off it! He had plenty of opportunity to produce something
/much/ better than what was given. How many times was this game completely
overhauled or restarted?
> Sure, there's the saying that the
> road to **** is paved with good intentions. But honestly, was there a
> "satisfaction guarantee" on this game? on any of the Ultimas?
Strawman. Many of us just wanted a decent Ultima that was worthy of the
finish to a two-decade series. It wasn't what it should have been - or even
what it was said to be by it's creator.
> No. If you
> assumed that there was, then you had better check the box again. There
> is no warranty, and there never was.
People should not have to pay full price for beta-quality code. It is an
insult to the consumer and it makes the company and the programmers look
bad.
> HyperActive Dragon
Contrapuntal.
Fortran Dragon
> Just my 2 cents:
> When an author becomes famous and his/her books become classic, who
> remembers the two, three, or however many other books were not as
> "perfect" as the classics?
Most of the hard core fans do.
> Too many people today judge an artist, a
> musician, or even a programmer by their last work, giving them only the
> respect they have earned for their last product.
Well, that isn't the Dragons. They give Richard Garriott the
credit for Ultimas I through IV and the Richard and the teams the credit
for Ultimas V through VII.
> Why can't we all just
> admit that we have respect for what Richard Garriott has done in the
> past, and does it matter what we think now?
Yes, it does matter. Either the man is stupid (which I doubt) or
he knowingly lied to the fans about Ultima IX being complete and well
debugged.
> We're arguing over recent
> occurrences in the life of the series.
No shit.
> Why can't we give him our thanks
> for the fun times that we have had with his games, whether those
> experiences began in 1985 or 1997?
We do.
> Does it matter?
Yes, because if RG had listened to his fans and not pulled this
crap we would still have the Ultimas to look forward to. Now Ultima is
dead at the hands of its creator.
You may think it is ok for a creator to beat its child to death,
but I don't.
> Does it matter that
> the last product might or might not have been what we had in mind?
It matters that he broke his promises and lied to his fans. The
very same fans that had *faith* *in* *him* to make Ultima IX a real
Ultima.
> RG is an artist. An artist has to feed himself as well. We all need to
> remember that.
RG is not an artist. He is a programmer and a game designer. And
considering that he sold Origin to EA for $30 million I doubt he has to
worry about feeding himself.
> We should not pick his actions apart because how dare we
> judge him?
He is selling a consumer product. Of course we have the right to
criticize the product he is peddling. After all, he wants our money!
> We are not in his shoes. Ultima was his baby, his creation!
He killed it.
> No parent is perfect. Please do realize that he is human, and he has to
> weigh his dreams against being able to earn enough to survive.
He built a 20,000 square foot castle with a moat, secret passages
and the like! It is one of a number of large homes that he has built.
He doesn't need to worry about survival. It isn't like we are going to
see RG on welfare in our lifetimes.
> As fans
> of Ultima (it does not matter which game), we owe some respect to the
> creator,
We give him the respect he has earned. We also give him the harsh
criticism he has earned for his lies, as well.
> and I for one wish to tell him "Thank you for the good times".
> He has no responsibility to make each and every one of us happy.
Who here has claimed he does?
> He has
> a responsibility to his artistic creation, and we should not judge what
> his decisions are. Who among us would like to be judged like that?
He isn't an artist. A craftsman, perhaps.
Anyway, if he can't learn or take criticism then he shouldn't be
trying to sell products to the consumer market.
Fortran Dragon
> He didn't cheat anyone out of their money.
Yes, he did. He lied about the quality of the product and people
bought the game trusting his word. They were grossly abused by the
trust they had placed in him.
[Snip]
> Never, EVER joke about rape. It is NO laughing matter.
Grow up and learn what a figure of speech is.
> I never said he was above reproach (should the reproach be
> constructive). You want to sacrifice someone for having good intentions
> but being unable to carry them out. Sure, there's the saying that the
> road to **** is paved with good intentions.
The word you are looking for is "hell". Using four asterisks
doesn't remove the responsibility for what you said.
> But honestly, was there a
> "satisfaction guarantee" on this game? on any of the Ultimas? No. If you
> assumed that there was, then you had better check the box again. There
> is no warranty, and there never was.
Page 13, Ultima IX Installation Guide.
Fortran Dragon
> Another resounding look at reality... Thank-you...
Right. I'm sure Richard Garriott is starving tonight in that
castle of his...
Fortran Dragon
[Snip]
> OK, I play it on a monster
> machine but that does not change the fact that the game is fun for me
> and probably for lots of people with similar machines (Athlon 700Mhz
> w. Voodoo3 in my case)
Which is a small portion of the intended audience. Try playing
the original version of the game on recommended specs. Then tell us how
fun it is...
Fortran Dragon
> business practices of a company?
Not always, but very often. Just compare Ion Storm to id. At id
the business side was carefully picked and is under reasonable control.
At Ion Storm the business side fucked everyone over. <sigh>
> What would have happened if LB did
> hire proper business managers, and kept his involvement to what he
> does best: Programming and designing? If this would have occured in
> reality, Origin would not have been sold, U6 and U7 would have been
> 100% completed and debugged before released, etc....
Possibly. One of the problems in the early 90s was the
consolidation of the distribution channels. You needed to either be a
big guy or hooked up with a big guy to make it onto the store shelves.
MdmeDis
ocb...@yahoo.com says...
> How very bohemian of you.
>
> No offense,
See sig.
Interesting that you view personal integrity as 'bohemian'
> but we all have to live in the real world here. Sometimes we
> have to make a decision as to whether it is better to sacrifice a little
> pride and continue working on something that we don't believe in or to quit
> and risk going homeless.
Yes. And some people have a bit more courage, it seems, than others.
Because you choose to compromise, calling someone who doesn't 'bohemian'
sounds a little ... sour grapish?
>
> In these NG's, it's easy to be idealistic. But in the real world we all (at
> least the adults of the group) have jobs to do, bills to pay, families to
> support and professional reputations to uphold.
A good way to do the latter would seem to be maintaining a degree of
integrity. Sooner or later a lack thereof comes back to haunt you - not
now, when times are good but later, when jobs are hard to come by it
seems to be the ones who hung onto their ethics and didn't cave in with
a bunch of excuses that get the jobs.
> Sometimes your artistic
> reputation has to suffer to preserve your means of income...
Which makes a modicum of sense - except that when you start to
compromise, where do you stop?
--
Disoriented Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-
DisDefinition: "No offense, but.." = brace yourself/retain
a lawyer
Musashi Dragon
following Twist material...
> Of course, he wasn't totally wrong to call Musashi an American... after all,
> he lives in North America doesn't he? Is he ashamed of his continent now?
> <smirk>
I'm a North American. Not an American. That's the definition of a
Canadian, BTW. :)
> Of course, supposing the use of "American" to be continental, such as
> "European" or "Asian," what word, then, would we use to refer to us folks
> from the USA?
Then it would be incorrect. Canada and the US are part of *North*
America. :P
--
Musashi Dragon Graduate student of Innuendo and Twisting
-==(UDIC Greybread)==- Official rgcud NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!-sayer
Angle of Hot Sex GSD's Brat Child
Extremely Sic Linux Junkie
MdmeDis
> In the beginning was the Word, and then Fortran Dragon
> <for...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > The Mike McShaffrey interview from CGW, "What Happened to Ultima
> >IX": <http://www.gamespot.com/features/ultima9/index.html>
> >
>
> What really fascinates me is this line:
>
> "Things weren't all bad, however, because Electronic Arts had given
> Origin a mandate to make sure that the Ultima franchise was
> reestablished by Ultima IX, no matter how long it took."
The whole article fascinated me. This is the one that caused him to go
on the "CGW is out to get me" thing, pull his ad and actually said that
the people who wrote the article were ex-origin employees and were
retaliating. Remember it was his long time 'friend' Mike McShaffrey who
wrote the article...
He did it on the U9 page, but it has long gone.
Remember Mike coming here and comp.sys and setting the record straight?
--
Disoriented Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-
Having finally opted for it being the rest of the
world that's screwed, after all.