KickStarter Shroud of the Avatar - Lord British's Not-Ultima Online 2

[Micmu]

The dude is rich enough to fund his own space travel vacation.

Why does he need a kickstarter?

Someone who calls himself "corporate jew master" should know this is the new jewish market research / free publicity thing. He already has all his shit funded and doesn't care whether shitstarter campaign succeeds or fails.

 

[Stabwound]

That's true enough. Even if this hit $3,000,000 it would still be less than the amount invested in this privately. And obviously by the state the game is in, it's going to come out no matter what, and I'm willing to bet Garriott wouldn't have a hard time getting more private money if he had to.

Still free money, though. And it would be some pretty bad publicity to have a kickstarter fail with your name and your game strapped to it.

 

[Capitalism]

The dude is rich enough to fund his own space travel vacation.

Why does he need a kickstarter?

Someone who calls himself "corporate jew master" should know this is the new jewish market research / free publicity thing. He already has all his shit funded and doesn't care whether shitstarter campaign succeeds or fails.

Corporate Jew Masters with high skill of capitalism do not support such obvious schemes. They create more elegant and complex plans of turning people into happy mindless slaves.

 

[Popamolio]

I'm beginning to wonder how much of Ultima IV-VII's good features and story elements were actually Garriot's doing, and how much of it was a George Lucas thing, where things turned out really excellent despite him/ because there were still people directing him and editing his stuff. But once he's rich enough to put himself in charge, you'll get failed products.

 

[Corporate_Jew_Master]

The dude is rich enough to fund his own space travel vacation.

Why does he need a kickstarter?

Someone who calls himself "corporate jew master" should know this is the new jewish market research / free publicity thing. He already has all his shit funded and doesn't care whether shitstarter campaign succeeds or fails.

Still a pretty uberjew move. Guess Tabula Rasa left it's mark in him.

 

[Stabwound]

I'm beginning to wonder how much of Ultima IV-VII's good features and story elements were actually Garriot's doing, and how much of it was a George Lucas thing, where things turned out really excellent despite him/ because there were still people directing him and editing his stuff. But once he's rich enough to put himself in charge, you'll get failed products.

Yeah, I wonder the same thing, especially since other guys like Warren Spector were on the team for 6/7. By the time U4 came about there were full teams working on them; it wasn't just Garriott typing away on his Apple 2 anymore. I respect the man for having a big part in some brilliant games, but it really does lead one to wonder if he's a George Lucas, like you said. Everything beyond U7 (save maybe UO, I have never played but most people seem to think it was great) was utter horseshit and a complete failure. The more control he got the worse the games got.

 

[Zetor]

The lead designer of UO was Raph Koster, btw... I don't know if Garriot did much there at all.

 

[Infinitron]

I'm beginning to wonder how much of Ultima IV-VII's good features and story elements were actually Garriot's doing, and how much of it was a George Lucas thing, where things turned out really excellent despite him/ because there were still people directing him and editing his stuff. But once he's rich enough to put himself in charge, you'll get failed products.

Yeah, I wonder the same thing, especially since other guys like Warren Spector were on the team for 6/7. By the time U4 came about there were full teams working on them; it wasn't just Garriott typing away on his Apple 2 anymore. I respect the man for having a big part in some brilliant games, but it really does lead one to wonder if he's a George Lucas, like you said. Everything beyond U7 (save maybe UO, I have never played but most people seem to think it was great) was utter horseshit and a complete failure. The more control he got the worse the games got.

IIRC, Ultima III was the first Ultima that Garriott didn't create almost entirely on his own.

Ultima V was the last one he actually really worked on. From then on he had a purely administrative/production/design role.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

So it's basically WoW without the raids: endless daily quests.

*shiver*

"If you want a vision of the future, imagine a noob grinding on a daily quest -- forever."

 

[Sceptic]

Ultima V was the last one he actually really worked on. From then on he had a purely administrative/production/design role.

No, it's the last one he did programming on. He still designed and wrote a fuckton on 6 and BG. SI was Spector's with RG only as production/main design. 8 was supposedly RG's but by then it's hard to tell how much is his and how much isn't (though the move to Super Mario arcade and the focus on graphics over substance are definitely on him, at least in part).

Of course he was mostly uninvolved in the specifics of the designs of the Worlds, which is one of the reason they're not "real" Ultimas, and he had almost nothing to do with UW1 and little to do with UW2 (which weren't developed in-house obviously).

 

[Infinitron]

Ultima V was the last one he actually really worked on. From then on he had a purely administrative/production/design role.

No, it's the last one he did programming on. He still designed and wrote a fuckton on 6 and BG. SI was Spector's with RG only as production/main design. 8 was supposedly RG's but by then it's hard to tell how much is his and how much isn't (though the move to Super Mario arcade and the focus on graphics over substance are definitely on him, at least in part).

Of course he was mostly uninvolved in the specifics of the designs of the Worlds, which is one of the reason they're not "real" Ultimas, and he had almost nothing to do with UW1 and little to do with UW2 (which weren't developed in-house obviously).

I did say "administrative/production/design".

I doubt he did any writing for U7, though. That game and SI both had crack writing teams headed by author Raymond Benson. His absence in U8 was immediately apparent.

 

[FrancoTAU]

I forgot about Raymond Benson's work on the Ultimas. I just looked him and up and sadly he was done with the gaming industry 15 years ago. He's written a ton of novels since than though.

 

[Blaine]

I just looked him and up and sadly he was done with the gaming industry 15 years ago.

That's not sad. If he'd stayed in the industry, he'd be mugging for the camera in a Mountain Dew Code Red t-shirt to promote Dragon Age 3, being fed Doritos by a soon-to-retire former car show model with plastic teats. THAT would be sad.

...Eh, who am I kidding? Hamburger Helper would have eaten him long since.

 

[Infinitron]

Interesting note from KS comments:

Nicolas 2 days ago
1/3 of the funding is coming from 663 people (less than 5% of the total backers). This game isn't appealing enough to the common user due to the direction of the game and how it's being presented.

Nicolas 2 days ago
For T: ToN, there are 888 people who donated to the $500+ brackets (like I calculated for SotA), but it only accounts for 12% of the total. It's more skewed to the left (common users) than right (big supporters) which is probably healthier.

 

[Jaesun]

Derek Gray ‏@darkskwerl
And just because, sound off on reddit with your Stretch Goal ideas: http://www.reddit.com/r/SotA_Official/comments/1aitzs/were_getting_close_to_stretch_goals_on_the/ … #LBSOTA #Kickstarter

100$ stretch goals?

 

[Stabwound]

The more I look at this, the more it looks like Guild Wars. I'm not sure why Garriott acts like he's being so innovative because he was employed at NCSoft and surely knows a lot of the multiplayer aspect is influenced by GW. I'm very skeptical he can pull of an enjoyable game with this format, but I'll give it the slim chance that it's "good for what it is" even though I'm sure it won't be. It looks like Fable x Neverwinter Nights x Guild Wars.

Oh, and it has regenerating health according to the demo Garriott's been showing off.

 

[Taxnomore]

That is because Richard Garriot CANNOT DIE. EVER.

 

[Stabwound]

Wow, this thing is sure blazing toward the finish line!

Also, Richard Garriott donated toward it. Doesn't that violate the rules of Kickstarter? http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/788463773

 

[Infinitron]

Wow, this thing is sure blazing toward the finish line!

Also, Richard Garriott donated toward it. Doesn't that violate the rules of Kickstarter? http://www.kickstarter.com/profile/788463773

To be fair, Brian Fargo donated to Torment too (so he could talk to people in the comments?)

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah more than likely.

Also yesterday was the first time it is actually outdoing torment in daily total dollars.

 

[Stabwound]

Yeah, I guess they aren't going to care much if you donate a buck to talk in the comments.

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with this thing. It's like watching in horror as someone drives your new car off a cliff. Judging by the responses I've seen, the Ultima Online crowd is by far the most enthusiastic about this and the offline Ultima crowd hates it. I wonder if he's going to push it more in that direction or if he's just going to charge through with his "vision" of a crappy mixed genre game.

I'm kind of interested to see their stretch goals, not that they're going to be hitting many. I wish this thing would crawl over the finish line sooner.

 

[Blackthorne]

The only thing that's really against the rules is the specific creator backing it's project. If you look, carefully, the creator of the KS is Portalarium (or whatever it is)... not Garriot himself. Technically, it just has his name on it.

Still, I hope he falls into his moat and chokes on a lilly pad.


Bt

 

[Jaesun]

You should sneak an easter egg of that in your game.

 

[Blackthorne]

You know, that is entirely doable. I just so happen to have a river someone could fall in....


Bt

 

[Stabwound]

Good, I can't wait to see the pixelated demise of Ricardo Garriath.