Geez official confirmation that one of my heroes has truly lost his mind. Can we have the 80s/90s Garriot back?
He has always collected automatons, skeletons, torture devices, etc.
He was always a little "avant garde".
He was also progressively more hands off with each new Ultima game after Ultima V. He was running a company and letting other Origin staff make games at his loose direction. He is also open to suggestions. Ultima VIII was an interesting concept with shit execution because of EA.
Ultima IX was again EA. They started on a 2D game with a sane plot, only for EA to steal the entire development staff and force them to work on UO because it was a surprise hit.
When they went back to work on IX again, EA now suddenly demanded a 3D engine, scrappy everything other than plot. But the move pissed off the design lead, who quit over EA's fiat. So now the plot was gone as well. They were still short staffed and EA wanted a huge game out quickly, but starting over from scratch. And it had to have mass appeal, thusly the big focus on explaining everything so someone brand new to the series could play the series ending ninth main installment.
I believe RG was the first guy I ever heard discuss concepts of instancing in MMOs (when he was first describing his vision for Tabula Rasa). And then games stole those concepts from him that have been critical to the success of the MMO industry. I still think he has good concepts even if he hasn't had a GREAT game since Serpent Isle.
FWIW, I'm a little biased as I submit crowd-sourced writing to SotA. But I'm also quite critical of several aspects of SotA. I try to be objective about the project.
But if you play the game and talk to an NPC in Owl's Head, Kingsport, Ardoris, Solania or Aerie right now, you're talking to an NPC written by me (a fan). I am exceedingly grateful that I ended up with this opportunity because he didn't intend to allow any crowd-sourcers to work on dialogue. It is too important and he didn't assume a hobbyist was up to the task.
