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General: 'What Is a Lord British Ultimate RPG?'
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In a new post on Facebook, Richard Garriott discusses his 20+ year quest to create the Ultimate Lord British Role Playing Game. In fact, he says, "Ultimate RPG" was what he was aiming for before there was an Ultima.
In the blog post, Garriott traces his game development life through several stages leading up to his most current one:
The First Grand Era of Games: Solo Player Games
Ultimas I, II, & III: Learning to Craft a Game & a World
Ultimas IV, V & VI: The Hero's Journey
Ultimas VII-IX: Unique & Internal Consistent Fiction
The Second Grand Era of Games: Massive Multiplayer
The Third Grand Era of Games: Social & Mobile Gaming
It's a fascinating history that truly leads up to what Garriott's team at Portalarium is working on: A Facebook MMO that will truly be an MMO. Here's what Garriott has to say:
For example, let’s look at two hypothetical versions of Ultima Online. Version A is the version that was shipped. You drive to the store to buy it, pay $50, drive home, go through a lengthy install, subscribe for $10+ / month, create a character, get dropped into the virtual world, and about 4 hours later, you have explored the game far enough to know it’s amazing. Now imagine version B of the same game. You receive a link from a friend and click on it. You start to play immediately for free. The install and intro to the game has been written in a way that you understand the game within minutes…not hours. After you have played long enough to know it’s worth the money, you are asked to pay by whatever method you find acceptable. I would argue that with these otherwise identical games, version B would totally dominate, because it was in fact a better game and better game experience.
Head over to Richard Garriott's Facebook page to read the full post. Let us know what you think!
Comments
A lord brittish RPG atm is basically a large cock sandwich..... seriously ho wmuch more is he going to talk and not do anything...Garriot has been doing this for years now without any evidence of backing it up, i think its just an attention grab...well never seen anything decent from this guy again i feel.
In honesty i hope he proves me wrong and gives true RPG fans a game to fall in love with, that is outside of the normal themepark genre, and delivers where the sandbox games do not.
A facebook MMO worth playing? I'll believe it when I see it.
Richard Garriott is an idiot. If you take the same game, and make it better by improving things, then integrate it into facebook and voila we have a game that's better because it's in facebook. He should be shot with a ball of his own crap.
All of my posts are either intelligent, thought provoking, funny, satirical, sarcastic or intentionally disrespectful. Take your pick.
I get banned in the forums for games I love, so lets see if I do better in the forums for games I hate.
I enjoy the serenity of not caring what your opinion is.
I don't hate much, but I hate Apple© with a passion. If Steve Jobs was alive, I would punch him in the face.
Even the best facebook games so far have been about sending annoying messages out to beg people on your friends list for items. I don't see that changing. You don't need a facebook game. You need a game that has an app that ties it to facebook. Something that lets your friends know how you are doing in the game but doesn't annoy them to the point where they want to block/remove you.
A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true...
My how we've fallen since the glory days of UO.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
A newer/better UO....Could only hope, but yeah it will most likely be some beg friends to join/send stuff, and then some p2w cash shop junk...
I refuse to get hopes up for anything...I will believe it when he delivers, until then hes full of it imo.
" I would argue that with these otherwise identical games, version B would totally dominate, because it was in fact a better game and better game experience"
Well that is a bunch of hogwash if you ask me. As version B would be a very simplex game and end up losing a lot of players after the first month to boredom. If a game is not complex, it will not retain it's players unless it has unending content, which just is not practical.
Again he lends great imagination to designing a game, just needs good people around him to know how to implement it because that is something he cannot do.
If I had to guess, I don't think he will be very successful.
Dont let this guy ever again, lay hands on anything related to gaming.
Thx
Perhaps I'm wrong, but going after the Facebook crowd sort of tells me that he cares far more about the money than he does about creating a fantastic game.
I despise Facebook and its "Me, Me, Me Epedemic". I despised MySpace and I despise Twitter for the same reasons. SOCIAL BACTERIA, IMO.
I won't touch this game.
And as we know, things never change, right?
I bet they used to say, "Online games are nothing but a bunch of games played by geeks connecting on dialup to their BBS'.. A niche audience at best."
Technology can do wonderful things. You have to be thinking of the future, not the present.
Wait am I missing something here? Wouldn't Game B be a dummed down web game and Game A have the full UO game client? Or is he trying to say make believe game B was the same exact functioning game as game A but within facebook?
The obvious difference is Game B sounds like it would be crap and game A was the best MMO of all time.
Disclaimer: This is not a troll post and is not here to promote any negative energy. Although this may be a criticism, it is not meant to offend anyone. If a moderator feels the post is inappropriate, please remove it immediately before it is subject to consideration for a warning. Thank you.
+2
I self identify as a monkey.
If done properly- Facebook COULD be the ultamite tool for an MMORPG.
FIRST, being attached to YOU would mean real consequences for acting like an ass or pulling Leeroy Jenkins type shit. Kind of like how back "in the day" everyone had a server rep.
I could see really intense opportunuties for the "political" aspects of the game, and lots of really cool things being featured (imagine having kingdoms and when your kingdom is attacked your guild is alerted through Facebook/Iphone givng you the chance to try to hurry up and log in.
Trading and AH and the economic side of MMORPGs would also get a nice boon from connecting it through your facebook. Apps which allow you to read the "market" in real time, etc....
BUT heres the thing.. This probably will not happen. Game wil be aimed at casual gaming FB crowd, everything will be cash shop related and it will be dumbed down, bullshit...But it will make alot of money and further move gaming towards Casual ONLY.
-End of story.
-I hope I am wrong but...
@ Richard Garriot thesis
Lol nope you're wrong.
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It is sad actually that he's developing thesis for his own situation at the moment lol.
Richard who ?
;-)
I don't think the third era is "grand" at all. It's the opposite of grand.
It's hard to believe it's about the money when Richard Garriott paid his way aboard the International Space Station. It's probably safe to say the dude isn't strapped for cash.
A browser game would be fine to me because you can do a lot within the browser now but it's just that almost every single one of them is geared towards being a money machine first and game second. There are a lot of ways you could expand the social element of these games (which I think first and foremost is what they're about ultimately).
Ultimate tool.......... facebook.......... garriott
Kind of says it all really.
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Needs to get back to what worked, and worked well !! - then make it better.
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Pay-to-Win / F2P will be the death of real gaming, Boycott it !!
He needs to get together with Chuckles and SJ to make Autoduel the MMORPG....
I miss the MMORPG genre. Will a developer ever make one again?
Explorer: 87%, Killer: 67%, Achiever: 27%, Socializer: 20%
Whats facebook?
Loved Car Wars, but if I had the millions to make a modern version it would be the Interstate '76 IP I would buy and remake.
Always kudos to Steve Jackson though, loved his games.
Isn't this browser-based, facebook game fad over with yet? I mean seriously, how many more of these low-cost, quick shot money-makers that die off within a few months need to be released before the A.D.D. FB crowd stops playing them? Hopefully not many more, because those "Amy found a pig!" messages were seriously getting annoying until FB added a way to block them. As for Garriott's theory that a game that keeps your interest for years is somehow inferior to a game that can be figured out iwithin minutes, at which point you are asked for your credit card # goes to show that he doesn't understand as much about gaming as he apparently likes to think he does.
Who could possibly contain their excitement for Ultima: FARMVILLE?!
I sure as hell can.