Good for him. I'm glad he won, the evidence I've seen was clearly against NCsoft. Now of course, NCsoft will likely tie things up for years on appeal. Thats one of the reasons that in most of these cases, only the lawyers on both sides really win. As for TB, I quite enjoyed aspects of the game. But it needed much more work before it was worth extended time. I ran a sniper and spy up to cap, but then there wasn't much to do.
There are plenty of mmorpgs that deserve to be shut down imo. TR wasn't one of them. It needed a lot of work, obviously more than NC wanted to sink into it at the final stages, but I loved certain aspects of it and had a lot of fun playing it.
In any event, I am happy to see Lord British win this one. I do not believe that he deserved to go out the way they put him out.
to keep myself from getting banned ill simply say grats to Rich for the cash and hope he evolves the gaming genre like he wants to on other platforms (facebook, Phones).
Although he was "awarded" the money by the jury, because of the appeals I am sure are coming, he won't be getting paid for several years yet, and, I'd bet his award will be further reduced.... asking a jury to determine damages based on complex financial formulas is very difficult and practically never withstands further judicial review.
Does the man even need the money?
Honestly I don't know how the transfer of cash after its awarded in court works nor do I care.
I just hate that people give a guy shit for TR when his vision for TR was scrapped by the nooblets at NCsoft in favor of that pos release client.
Check youtube for richards version of TR it looks much more interesting.
to keep myself from getting banned ill simply say grats to Rich for the cash and hope he evolves the gaming genre like he wants to on other platforms (facebook, Phones).
Although he was "awarded" the money by the jury, because of the appeals I am sure are coming, he won't be getting paid for several years yet, and, I'd bet his award will be further reduced.... asking a jury to determine damages based on complex financial formulas is very difficult and practically never withstands further judicial review.
I seriously doubt they will appeal this verdict. Why? Because accountants will have taken this "loss " ( in fact they'd have considered the total amount : 47 million ) into account when budgeting and chances are they'll be pleased he was only awarded half of it . Chance is signinificant that when they do appeal , the new verdict would be harsher for them. It's worth considering that RG kept copies of pretty much every d**n document from that period so his evidence will be profound.Tthere's also the fact that immediately after this debacle , NCsoft fired the one responsible for the entire communication with RG and the subsequent community relations . That's pretty much an admission of guilt for any juror or judge .
And I agree with Rockgod99 about the respect we should all have for people like Richard Garriott. Fact of the matter is that NCsoft now has zero folks with vision in their management .They replaced Chung with a d**n accountant from Korea . And it shows : both in the way they handled Aion in western hemisphere and in the recent decision to cancel Exteel. The entire company has no long term vision at all and the sooner they sell everything they own in the west, the better ( both for them and us , imagine having GW franchise at a good company ? )
Man I miss Tabula Rasa!!! I wish it would go F2P or atleast have someone open a private server for it... Man I would love to get my sniper back in action!!!
Man TR was the worst 65 bucks i ever spent.... it was fun for like a week but i guess i got suckered into by my friends.... He got my money and then he gets another 28 million... game was going to fail either way tbh... complete crap that you can get money for anything now a days.
I think he was milking NCSoft and they figured that out so they got rid of him. I don't blame them one bit.
I played TR and it was ok after launch but for a 6 year development time the game was no where near it should have been. I think him getting fired is what he deserved, I mean hell look he put on some big show at his house for the launch day and than decides he wants to go into space and pretty much drop sight out of the game. He is lucky I wasn't the CEO he would have been gone soon before he got the axe.
Garriott got lucky on some of the UA series games and UO was only popular because it was browser based and you could put graphics with a chat system. Anything anyone brought out at that time would have succeeded.
Not sure what game you played. TR had great graphics and I never lagged a bit, even on base defense capture. As to you saying Garriot sucked money from NCSoft, lets see an article link.
I have a hardtime dealing with people that disrespect a man that helped create amazing single player Rpgs and one of the greatest sandbox mmo ever.
to keep myself from getting banned ill simply say grats to Rich for the cash and hope he evolves the gaming genre like he wants to on other platforms (facebook, Phones).
goodluck.
I don't have a hardtime with it.. In my opinion it's comparible to a washed up athlete that really should quit before they do more damage to the legacy they leave behind. IE: You can have a wonderful 10 years in the NFL, but continue to play beyond your prime, and play rather poorly for 6 years straight and then choose to continue to play even when all your fans want you to stop because they want to remember you for how you were, not what you've become. There comes a time with everyone where just don't have what it takes to produce like you used to.
Well, I guess those that tried saying Gariott abandoned Tabula Rasa back when it was getting shut down feel like idiots now.
actually, he DID abandon it. He sold his stock to become a "space tourist" i can't believe they gave this guy money. I used to love TR until he left to go launch himself into space and left everyone else to try to pick up the pieces.
Tabula Rasa was supposedly a Double billed game in development but unfortunately private test markets were less than kind with the reviews of the Space Fantasy game Tabula Rasa
So they scrapped the original and took another 2 1/2 yrs to pump out Tabula Rasa the SciFi FPSesque MMORPG
I liked the game it should come back in a varied form imo. It wasn't sub worthy but it was definately Guild Wars worthy.
There's no denying his contribution with UO in the RPG world. But there's no denying he hasn't done SH*T in years, and now the only reason his name has popped up in so long is that he's sued his former employer for millions.
He isn't on the news for:
"Lord British to revitalize Ultima with a sequel! More to follow!" or "Richard Garriott, creator of the fabled Ultima series, to head development of an upcoming MMO titled, _______."
No, he's on the news after being gone for so long for suing for millions. That is all.
That is, IMO, a washup as far as video game development goes.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
This is good to hear,i always cried foul wrong doings by NCSOFT,while the majority on MMORPG put all the blame on Mr.Garriot.
IMO NCSOFT should have been sued for MUCH more,They pulled the plug on thousands that were there to play,they would or could have owed Mr.Garriot far more than 28 million if you realize that he could have been there forever,and he was obviously fired in a roundabout way.
Now imagine if it was you or I,or someone that could not afford to take them to court,big business would have won as i am sure many of these giants get away with murder[papa roach] every day.
What bothers me is that this was basically what Mr.Garriot was owed,this is an unfair judgement.If NCSOFT got away with it ,they win bigtime,if they don't ,they just end up paying Garriot what they owed him anyhow,they were in a win win situation.The punitive damages should have been far superior ,idk maybe 56 million?What i am saying is that there is no detterent here,nothing to keep NCSOFT or any other giant from trying to rip off it's employees again in the future.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
This is good to hear,i always cried foul wrong doings by NCSOFT,while the majority on MMORPG put all the blame on Mr.Garriot.
IMO NCSOFT should have been sued for MUCH more,They pulled the plug on thousands that were there to play,they would or could have owed Mr.Garriot far more than 28 million if you realize that he could have been there forever,and he was obviously fired in a roundabout way.
Now imagine if it was you or I,or someone that could not afford to take them to court,big business would have won as i am sure many of these giants get away with murder[papa roach] every day.
What bothers me is that this was basically what Mr.Garriot was owed,this is an unfair judgement.If NCSOFT got away with it ,they win bigtime,if they don't ,they just end up paying Garriot what they owed him anyhow,they were in a win win situation.The punitive damages should have been far superior ,idk maybe 56 million?What i am saying is that there is no detterent here,nothing to keep NCSOFT or any other giant from trying to rip off it's employees again in the future.
He did sue for more. He sued for 47 million but was only awarded 28 Million
Well, I guess those that tried saying Gariott abandoned Tabula Rasa back when it was getting shut down feel like idiots now.
actually, he DID abandon it. He sold his stock to become a "space tourist" i can't believe they gave this guy money. I used to love TR until he left to go launch himself into space and left everyone else to try to pick up the pieces.
I will *always* respect RG for the wonderful Ultima series that he created. I suspect that with TR it was a combination of business and design issues that finally doomed TR. I played a sniper and a spy to level cap. I will always remember the fun that base defense against the waves of Bane was. But once to cap, there wasn't all that much to do.
As for the space angle, from what I understand, getting into space had always been his dream. One has to follow ones dream when possible. He certainly had the money, and given NCsofts past history, its debatable if his not going would have made any difference. NCsoft has now axed four games(and managed to damage Aion in the western markets). I suspect no matter what RG had done, that things would have turned out pretty much the same.
Mr Garriott never sold his stock. His stock options were a form of payment via contract. NCSoft faked his resignation letter makeing it look like breach of contract to get the shares back. Richard was flat out fired.
Why does everyone think hes so talented ? His first idea of the game sucked and he realised that so he went to plan B and made a totaly diffrent game that still sucked or it would still be aroud .
Mr Garriott never sold his stock. His stock options were a form of payment via contract. NCSoft faked his resignation letter makeing it look like breach of contract to get the shares back. Richard was flat out fired.
Actually, the whole case reads more like a "They said... He said..." scenario, so it depends on who you want to believe is lying. From a public standpoint, not a whole lot of specific evidence has been offered. I suspect that NCSoft was a bit generous when drawing up agreements with Garriott, agreements they could no longer sustain when what General British released didn't generate the financial return that NCSoft so desperately needed at that time.
And for those who keep pointing to Garriott's space adventure as him trying to promote the game, you're way off base. His offer to take player's messages into space with him (I think the only celebrity endorsement he got was Stephen Colbert) read more like a prima donna's rationalization for dodging responsibility to feed some inner itch. A leave of absence to pursue a childhood dream so soon after the release of a product so blatantly stamped with your own name is nothing more than a complete shirking of responsibility. Garriott didn't care as long as NCSoft kept signing the checks. I don't blame NCSoft for being pissed. Any company worth its salt would be too. Small wonder they would be anxious to be rid of him.
NCSoft's main negligence in this was relying too much on Garriott's self-promoted talent. The man didn't deliver what he promised, but apparently the agreement wasn't airtight enough to enable them to sue him for breach of contract.
I had the chance to beta play TR and quite enjoyed my engineer untill level 32, at that point the bottom fell out so to speak so I took a break hoping to come back to a fleshed out game.
Unfortunately I came back to check on it to late and saw that it had went under.
I will be the first to admit I love sci-fi theme gaming and TR seemed to hit that spot, I really wish it could be given a second chance with proper development cycles without the tug of war so we might see its' potential.
I don't remember any real gamebreaking problems other than the very lacking craft system and unfinished skills past 32 but surely that could be handled with minimum investment, if the powers that be would choose to try.
Comments
Good for him. I'm glad he won, the evidence I've seen was clearly against NCsoft. Now of course, NCsoft will likely tie things up for years on appeal. Thats one of the reasons that in most of these cases, only the lawyers on both sides really win. As for TB, I quite enjoyed aspects of the game. But it needed much more work before it was worth extended time. I ran a sniper and spy up to cap, but then there wasn't much to do.
There are plenty of mmorpgs that deserve to be shut down imo. TR wasn't one of them. It needed a lot of work, obviously more than NC wanted to sink into it at the final stages, but I loved certain aspects of it and had a lot of fun playing it.
In any event, I am happy to see Lord British win this one. I do not believe that he deserved to go out the way they put him out.
Does the man even need the money?
Honestly I don't know how the transfer of cash after its awarded in court works nor do I care.
I just hate that people give a guy shit for TR when his vision for TR was scrapped by the nooblets at NCsoft in favor of that pos release client.
Check youtube for richards version of TR it looks much more interesting.
Playing: Rift, LotRO
Waiting on: GW2, BP
I seriously doubt they will appeal this verdict. Why? Because accountants will have taken this "loss " ( in fact they'd have considered the total amount : 47 million ) into account when budgeting and chances are they'll be pleased he was only awarded half of it . Chance is signinificant that when they do appeal , the new verdict would be harsher for them. It's worth considering that RG kept copies of pretty much every d**n document from that period so his evidence will be profound.Tthere's also the fact that immediately after this debacle , NCsoft fired the one responsible for the entire communication with RG and the subsequent community relations . That's pretty much an admission of guilt for any juror or judge .
And I agree with Rockgod99 about the respect we should all have for people like Richard Garriott. Fact of the matter is that NCsoft now has zero folks with vision in their management .They replaced Chung with a d**n accountant from Korea . And it shows : both in the way they handled Aion in western hemisphere and in the recent decision to cancel Exteel. The entire company has no long term vision at all and the sooner they sell everything they own in the west, the better ( both for them and us , imagine having GW franchise at a good company ? )
Man I miss Tabula Rasa!!! I wish it would go F2P or atleast have someone open a private server for it... Man I would love to get my sniper back in action!!!
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Man TR was the worst 65 bucks i ever spent.... it was fun for like a week but i guess i got suckered into by my friends.... He got my money and then he gets another 28 million... game was going to fail either way tbh... complete crap that you can get money for anything now a days.
28 million is a lot of money.
Ah Lord British. My hero for Ultima IV-VII. So many hours disk-swapping on my C64/Amiga.
Maybe he should take the money and develop the old Ultima series for the iPhone or something.
I think he was milking NCSoft and they figured that out so they got rid of him. I don't blame them one bit.
I played TR and it was ok after launch but for a 6 year development time the game was no where near it should have been. I think him getting fired is what he deserved, I mean hell look he put on some big show at his house for the launch day and than decides he wants to go into space and pretty much drop sight out of the game. He is lucky I wasn't the CEO he would have been gone soon before he got the axe.
Garriott got lucky on some of the UA series games and UO was only popular because it was browser based and you could put graphics with a chat system. Anything anyone brought out at that time would have succeeded.
Tabula Rasa had great potential. I think they cut the cord before they could work the kinks out.
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Not sure what game you played. TR had great graphics and I never lagged a bit, even on base defense capture. As to you saying Garriot sucked money from NCSoft, lets see an article link.
I don't have a hardtime with it.. In my opinion it's comparible to a washed up athlete that really should quit before they do more damage to the legacy they leave behind. IE: You can have a wonderful 10 years in the NFL, but continue to play beyond your prime, and play rather poorly for 6 years straight and then choose to continue to play even when all your fans want you to stop because they want to remember you for how you were, not what you've become. There comes a time with everyone where just don't have what it takes to produce like you used to.
actually, he DID abandon it. He sold his stock to become a "space tourist" i can't believe they gave this guy money. I used to love TR until he left to go launch himself into space and left everyone else to try to pick up the pieces.
Tabula Rasa was supposedly a Double billed game in development but unfortunately private test markets were less than kind with the reviews of the Space Fantasy game Tabula Rasa
So they scrapped the original and took another 2 1/2 yrs to pump out Tabula Rasa the SciFi FPSesque MMORPG
I liked the game it should come back in a varied form imo. It wasn't sub worthy but it was definately Guild Wars worthy.
There's no denying his contribution with UO in the RPG world. But there's no denying he hasn't done SH*T in years, and now the only reason his name has popped up in so long is that he's sued his former employer for millions.
He isn't on the news for:
"Lord British to revitalize Ultima with a sequel! More to follow!" or "Richard Garriott, creator of the fabled Ultima series, to head development of an upcoming MMO titled, _______."
No, he's on the news after being gone for so long for suing for millions. That is all.
That is, IMO, a washup as far as video game development goes.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
This is good to hear,i always cried foul wrong doings by NCSOFT,while the majority on MMORPG put all the blame on Mr.Garriot.
IMO NCSOFT should have been sued for MUCH more,They pulled the plug on thousands that were there to play,they would or could have owed Mr.Garriot far more than 28 million if you realize that he could have been there forever,and he was obviously fired in a roundabout way.
Now imagine if it was you or I,or someone that could not afford to take them to court,big business would have won as i am sure many of these giants get away with murder[papa roach] every day.
What bothers me is that this was basically what Mr.Garriot was owed,this is an unfair judgement.If NCSOFT got away with it ,they win bigtime,if they don't ,they just end up paying Garriot what they owed him anyhow,they were in a win win situation.The punitive damages should have been far superior ,idk maybe 56 million?What i am saying is that there is no detterent here,nothing to keep NCSOFT or any other giant from trying to rip off it's employees again in the future.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
He did sue for more. He sued for 47 million but was only awarded 28 Million
not sure Garriot sold his stock to flew to the space station, he was a millionaire way before that...
About Tabula success, the bottom line is NCSoft was responsible for marketing and providing player support. they did neither.
Good for Garriot. Hope he revives tabula in some sort if he can get the IP back.
If TR gets back, they can count on me!
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I will *always* respect RG for the wonderful Ultima series that he created. I suspect that with TR it was a combination of business and design issues that finally doomed TR. I played a sniper and a spy to level cap. I will always remember the fun that base defense against the waves of Bane was. But once to cap, there wasn't all that much to do.
As for the space angle, from what I understand, getting into space had always been his dream. One has to follow ones dream when possible. He certainly had the money, and given NCsofts past history, its debatable if his not going would have made any difference. NCsoft has now axed four games(and managed to damage Aion in the western markets). I suspect no matter what RG had done, that things would have turned out pretty much the same.
OBJECTION!
Mr Garriott never sold his stock. His stock options were a form of payment via contract. NCSoft faked his resignation letter makeing it look like breach of contract to get the shares back. Richard was flat out fired.
Why does everyone think hes so talented ? His first idea of the game sucked and he realised that so he went to plan B and made a totaly diffrent game that still sucked or it would still be aroud .
Actually, the whole case reads more like a "They said... He said..." scenario, so it depends on who you want to believe is lying. From a public standpoint, not a whole lot of specific evidence has been offered. I suspect that NCSoft was a bit generous when drawing up agreements with Garriott, agreements they could no longer sustain when what General British released didn't generate the financial return that NCSoft so desperately needed at that time.
And for those who keep pointing to Garriott's space adventure as him trying to promote the game, you're way off base. His offer to take player's messages into space with him (I think the only celebrity endorsement he got was Stephen Colbert) read more like a prima donna's rationalization for dodging responsibility to feed some inner itch. A leave of absence to pursue a childhood dream so soon after the release of a product so blatantly stamped with your own name is nothing more than a complete shirking of responsibility. Garriott didn't care as long as NCSoft kept signing the checks. I don't blame NCSoft for being pissed. Any company worth its salt would be too. Small wonder they would be anxious to be rid of him.
NCSoft's main negligence in this was relying too much on Garriott's self-promoted talent. The man didn't deliver what he promised, but apparently the agreement wasn't airtight enough to enable them to sue him for breach of contract.
I had the chance to beta play TR and quite enjoyed my engineer untill level 32, at that point the bottom fell out so to speak so I took a break hoping to come back to a fleshed out game.
Unfortunately I came back to check on it to late and saw that it had went under.
I will be the first to admit I love sci-fi theme gaming and TR seemed to hit that spot, I really wish it could be given a second chance with proper development cycles without the tug of war so we might see its' potential.
I don't remember any real gamebreaking problems other than the very lacking craft system and unfinished skills past 32 but surely that could be handled with minimum investment, if the powers that be would choose to try.
Heres to hoping..