Shroud of the Avatar - Interview with Garriott

[Silver]

Gamezone interviews Richard Garriott about Shroud of the Avatar and asks him how the game will change RPGs.

Tom: That is clear in your games, and I'm sure Shroud of the Avatar will have some sci-fi tendencies.

Richard: What's interesting is, it originally started as sort of a steampunk historical future, but at first my core fanbase was like "What are you doing?! We really want medieval!", and so I kind of hid the steampunky, clockpunky stuff and we promoted the medieval stuff and everybody felt comfortable. Now that everyone's comfortable, we're actually putting back in the steampunk and clockpunk. Because after a while we were like "This is too traditional. What can we do to mix it up?" but we had this [steampunk] right here, so we pulled it back in. So yes, we will sort of see a historical future edge to it.

[...]

Tom: Shroud of the Avatar is your latest project. That was funded through Kickstarter, with Forsaken Virtues being the first in a series of five episodes. It’s been deemed a spiritual successor to Ultima: in fact, you even said you’d call it Ultima if you had the rights to it.

Richard: Yeah! In fact, every year I give EA a call and say “Look. It wouldn’t be hard to make it an Ultima! You’re not doing anything. We could make a deal. Let’s do it.” And every time I called their executives go “Yeah. That’s a great idea!” And then they shop it around internally, and there’s always some group internally that goes “No. Someday, I’m gonna use it.” And so EA understandably favors their in-house studios, and so the potential deals have fallen apart every time. And so I’ve been very careful to make sure it’s not a derivative work. There're no references in Shroud of the Avatar to names, places, events that happened before. But Shroud of the Avatar is clearly a Lord British, medieval game that includes virtues as a core concept and is not incompatible with anything I’ve done in the past. And therefore, in your own mind’s eye if you don’t want to break the continuity I’m not forcing you to break that as a player.

More information.

 

[rune_74]

Why do you guys do this to me?

I had nothing to do with this post Chein so don't get started.

This interview is a bit older I think?

Anyways, this is the same guy who is launching a second kickstarter sometime next year for episode two, the team dropped that bombshell on the community this week.

Tell me folks, who would back a 2nd episode to a game they changed after the kickstarter?

Edit: Here is a thorough look at the current game for those interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjP8pz6VSNQ&feature=youtu.be

 

[Silver]

Why do you guys do this to me?

I had nothing to do with this post Chein so don't get started.

This interview is a bit older I think?

Anyways, this is the same guy who is launching a second kickstarter sometime next year for episode two, the team dropped that bombshell on the community this week.

Tell me folks, who would back a 2nd episode to a game they changed after the kickstarter?

Edit: Here is a thorough look at the current game for those interested:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjP8pz6VSNQ&feature=youtu.be

That was informative. Thanks!

 

[JDR13]

I found this section that was apparently cut from the original interview.

Tom: Richard, can you share any insight on why you turned into a big stinky douchbag?

Richard: Pfft… I'm Richard Garriott, the greatest game designer that's ever lived, and I've been to space. Would you like to purchase some virtual real estate?

 

[Korplem]

RG: The fans said they didn't want steampunk so we told them we wouldn't do steampunk. But we are totally doing steampunk.

 

[TomRon]

I prefer Steampunk to Medieval. On the other hand I'm no fan.

 

[Darkheart]

How anybody can play a *RPG* with a chat box like this was always beyond me. WTS/WTB/WTF

This game might have had a chance in the 90s, now it's just a big joke!

 

[rjshae]

Tell me folks, who would back a 2nd episode to a game they changed after the kickstarter?

Does it come with a virtual bridge I can buy?

 

[Myrthos]

Perhaps it contains a virtual single player RPG.

 

[Wisdom]

Sarcasm from Myrthos? What is this world coming to?

 

[rune_74]

Perhaps it contains a virtual single player RPG.

Good show, Sir, good show.

 

[Caidh]

All the developers of my childhood seem to have done so poorly in this generation. I always used to hope for Ken & Roberta Williams to come back and do some games - but they probably made the right choice to stay out of the industry.

They'd probably end up making a f2p mobile game (as Jon van Caneghem seems to be doing now).

 

[rune_74]

All the developers of my childhood seem to have done so poorly in this generation. I always used to hope for Ken & Roberta Williams to come back and do some games - but they probably made the right choice to stay out of the industry.

They'd probably end up making a f2p mobile game (as Jon van Caneghem seems to be doing now).

I seriously wonder if the richard garriott I remember from my youth is more a youthful mempry then truth.

 

[Lucky Day]

Perhaps it contains a virtual single player RPG.

To be fair, they always said the virtual single player game was always virtually secondary.

All the developers of my childhood seem to have done so poorly in this generation. I always used to hope for Ken & Roberta Williams to come back and do some games - but they probably made the right choice to stay out of the industry.

They'd probably end up making a f2p mobile game (as Jon van Caneghem seems to be doing now).

It was a dispute over lack of royalties from Sierra that caused RG to form Origin and create Ultima ]I[.

--

Is anyone else scratching their head over of EA employees blocking RG from creating another real Ultima?

 

[Saxon1974]

Agree with most of you, at this point the less I hear from Garriot the better. Just gets sadder and sadder.

 

[crpgnut]

If Garriot would give me 8 pints of blood all at once, I'd take him up on it today

 

[HellRazor]

Calling call Dragons! Spend more money and fund episode 2! It's going to be a single player RPG spiritual successor to Ultima this time, with just a small multiplayer element that you can easily ignore! I promise! Trust me! Send cash!

 

[SirJames]

And every time I called their executives go “Yeah. That’s a great idea!” And then they shop it around internally, and there’s always some group internally that goes “No. Someday, I’m gonna use it.”

He probably thinks this is actually what happens when they really just laugh.

I mean, what intellectual property is even in the Ultima brand? He's already pinched back the virtues. There's plenty of orcs and elves in the public domain, but he seems to be copying Daikatanas robot mosquitos.

All EA can do is damage the Ultima brand by associating it with SotA. If they were being honest this is all we'd hear. Way more believable than "we're going to use it!", coming from EA.

edit: I mean use in any AAA way, dare I say, worthy of the Utima name. I'm sure the possibility of more Lord of Ultima style trash phone games is high enough to make what they're saying honest enough, but I dream of something with impact of Ultima Online.

 

[Caddy]

I'm still hoping that one day, the Ultima franchise gets into Larian's hands.

Also, let's cut off Garriott's rat tail when he's sleeping, and hold it for ransom until he makes a proper game.

 

[Capt. Huggy Face]

People are still drinking the Kool Aid over in the Garriott compound. They quasi-launched the game with "blanks" where quests and events are supposed to be and now they're doing another Kickstarter after raising millions the first time?

And the guy in that thread up there wants to make sure he gets his coconut horse and replenishing box of snowballs? Hey, Garriott, I have an endlessly replenishing box of something for you right here…