Eli_Havelock
Learned
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2019
- Messages
- 669
When was Garriott NOT in competition with Trip Hawkins for who could be the bigger asshole to their employees and customers? Honestly, never. He was a plagiarist from the start in pretty much all things.
Mandela Effect or HMMMM? Avatar is in the middle of a series of iterative dungeon crawlers for PLATO, but early versions of Dean Takahashi were too busy jumping on the "Lord British" marketing prop while screaming "first!" Akalabeth would have had IP lawyers calling today, which makes Deathlord the thing that would sour the publishing deal for Ultima IV a bit funny - even more so because it would put Origin at a financial disadvantage for EA to later exploit and take Lord Dick's ball(s).
Ultima IV-VI was indeed one hell of a SCA collaborative effort, but then again that was kinda Ultima's second age in a nutshell (the first age or trilogy being whatever Garriott could put a twist on literal hobbits and time lords *). Far from being a one man show, everyone from his classmates as testers to his mother as artist helped him out from the start, with PLATO games and D&D providing a lot of the early design footwork. Even Dr. Cat forgot about Lord Kenneth after a while, it was sad.
Controversial stance: Without the SCA to lean on after the EA takeover, everything in the third age of Ultima 7-9 would become... absolute Decline.
The plot of U7 was basically Blame EA! with some enhanced world systems, but really had little else to do with Ultima. I know that is kind of heretical now, but it was mostly Click & Drool combat mixed with QoL that didn't quite replace the depth of writing that came in the second age and the spin-offs in the Ultima 6 engine. Minus the SCA talent and theme to borrow from, the setting was actually falling apart quickly and becoming a bit "Uh... and ____ happens!" of a Dungeon Master trying to improvise themselves some time by around Ultima Underworld 2. Entire locations made from a Star Trek TNG reference. "Find the thing, place the thing" was basically the latter half of Serpent Isle because of time. Supposedly.
Ultima 8 was blamed on EA, but from having seen him in action with Shroud of the Avatar, that was Richard's own bullshit and makes his later "return" to chasing Ultima a bit ironic. Even down having jumping puzzles from Super Avatar Bros and Virtue Raider as part of the design for Shart of the Avatard. Jumping puzzles weren't the only design idiocy, there was assuming everything would go mobile. He even failed that with Ultimate Collector and got it shut down because it had too much Ultima. FFS, couldn't even do a mobile ripoff right!
Ultima IX's direction was even worse for even casually looking at it, as Richard had more to do with crying in the basement about the fact that EA (and EVERY test audience) HATED his voice acting from Ultima 7: SI compared to other tests - his was literally the worst-ranked. Meanwhile, "What's a paladin?" would become the set-up for Spoony to Judas Goat suckers into believing that Richard's grand design vision was coming in Shroud of the Avatar.
Between early hubris and later failures there was the grand expense of spoiling prime opportunity and a lot of money at NCSoft, like ~$125M total lawsuit included. His brother Robert had a lot to do with that whole mess as CEO of NCSoft NA, and was more than in part responsible for what Richard's collaborator detailed in that archived blog post. Robert also fucked over other NCSoft titles at the same time, and the motive is only obvious.
Richard Garriott never really cared about this employees or company longevity all the way to his end of the world party right after sacking most of Portalarium because Ultimate Collector had infringing IP in it and got shut down, just caring about his next big paycheck and acting like a benevolent king at a party. Reality is that he's probably sniffed more kids than the Chomo in Chief.
* - Who? HAWKWIND, of course! By Ultima's own lore, Roe's personal insert is the actual one pulling the strings, not the dude who chose to sit in a castle fucking mice as part of his isekai.
Mandela Effect or HMMMM? Avatar is in the middle of a series of iterative dungeon crawlers for PLATO, but early versions of Dean Takahashi were too busy jumping on the "Lord British" marketing prop while screaming "first!" Akalabeth would have had IP lawyers calling today, which makes Deathlord the thing that would sour the publishing deal for Ultima IV a bit funny - even more so because it would put Origin at a financial disadvantage for EA to later exploit and take Lord Dick's ball(s).
Ultima IV-VI was indeed one hell of a SCA collaborative effort, but then again that was kinda Ultima's second age in a nutshell (the first age or trilogy being whatever Garriott could put a twist on literal hobbits and time lords *). Far from being a one man show, everyone from his classmates as testers to his mother as artist helped him out from the start, with PLATO games and D&D providing a lot of the early design footwork. Even Dr. Cat forgot about Lord Kenneth after a while, it was sad.
Controversial stance: Without the SCA to lean on after the EA takeover, everything in the third age of Ultima 7-9 would become... absolute Decline.
The plot of U7 was basically Blame EA! with some enhanced world systems, but really had little else to do with Ultima. I know that is kind of heretical now, but it was mostly Click & Drool combat mixed with QoL that didn't quite replace the depth of writing that came in the second age and the spin-offs in the Ultima 6 engine. Minus the SCA talent and theme to borrow from, the setting was actually falling apart quickly and becoming a bit "Uh... and ____ happens!" of a Dungeon Master trying to improvise themselves some time by around Ultima Underworld 2. Entire locations made from a Star Trek TNG reference. "Find the thing, place the thing" was basically the latter half of Serpent Isle because of time. Supposedly.
Ultima 8 was blamed on EA, but from having seen him in action with Shroud of the Avatar, that was Richard's own bullshit and makes his later "return" to chasing Ultima a bit ironic. Even down having jumping puzzles from Super Avatar Bros and Virtue Raider as part of the design for Shart of the Avatard. Jumping puzzles weren't the only design idiocy, there was assuming everything would go mobile. He even failed that with Ultimate Collector and got it shut down because it had too much Ultima. FFS, couldn't even do a mobile ripoff right!
Ultima IX's direction was even worse for even casually looking at it, as Richard had more to do with crying in the basement about the fact that EA (and EVERY test audience) HATED his voice acting from Ultima 7: SI compared to other tests - his was literally the worst-ranked. Meanwhile, "What's a paladin?" would become the set-up for Spoony to Judas Goat suckers into believing that Richard's grand design vision was coming in Shroud of the Avatar.
Between early hubris and later failures there was the grand expense of spoiling prime opportunity and a lot of money at NCSoft, like ~$125M total lawsuit included. His brother Robert had a lot to do with that whole mess as CEO of NCSoft NA, and was more than in part responsible for what Richard's collaborator detailed in that archived blog post. Robert also fucked over other NCSoft titles at the same time, and the motive is only obvious.
Richard Garriott never really cared about this employees or company longevity all the way to his end of the world party right after sacking most of Portalarium because Ultimate Collector had infringing IP in it and got shut down, just caring about his next big paycheck and acting like a benevolent king at a party. Reality is that he's probably sniffed more kids than the Chomo in Chief.
* - Who? HAWKWIND, of course! By Ultima's own lore, Roe's personal insert is the actual one pulling the strings, not the dude who chose to sit in a castle fucking mice as part of his isekai.
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