“Virtuous Things” Afoot In San Francisco
In addition to his tweet about Ultima and GOG.com, BioWare Mythic’s Ultima Franchise Producer, Jeff Skalski, was in San Francisco this week showing off…”virtuous things”:
Off to SF to show off some virtuous things.
— Jeff Skalski (@Jeff_Skalski) May 16, 2012
It was just a short trip, which Mythic’s creative director Paul Barnett may also have been a part of. But it would seem clear that something decidedly Ultima-related was getting shown off in San Francisco…perhaps at EA Redwood Shores?
On a semi-related note, Paul Barnett also tweeted this just a few hours ago:
Old games reborn, forgotten games returned, expansions reconnected…a good day!
— thatbarnettbloke (@thatbarnettblok) May 18, 2012
Now, some of that would seem to be related to this conversation:
@AKA_Qthulhu not so fast… Magic is happening! We have EA GOG and the community all moving together!
— thatbarnettbloke (@thatbarnettblok) May 18, 2012
Which in turn is related to Jeff Skalski’s remarks about GOG.com and Ultima. That said, the “expansions reconnected” remark could be a reference to the missing Wing Commander add-on content that GOG.com has yet to publish, and the “Old games reborn” remark could be related to Mythic’s rumoured Ultima Forever project. Time will tell and we’ll see, I suspect, soon enough.
The Lost Vale? Somehow I doubt that.
If only, eh?
But yeah, somehow I doubt it.
[...] “Virtuous Things” Afoot In San Francisco May 19, 2012 · by WtF Dragon · in Aiera [...]
I’d love to know what the reasoning is for posting intentionally vague, cryptic and ambiguous shit to Twitter feeds. Granted I mentioned something about a Blue Tape, which truly is irrelevant and random, but I at least have the excuse of being slightly faded at the time.
Is this how fan hype is built? Reminds me of people touching Michael Jackson’s pant leg at a concert and going into seizure-laden, speaking-in-tongues style conniptions, except the desired response was not reciprocated.
Anyway, it would be nice to know what actually happened, such as, “Gotta meet and greet then make sure they understand exactly how the graphics are going to fit in to the engine. We don’t need any more conversion inefficiencies caused by deviations from production protocol (as outlined -here-) at points A, B and C.”
I hope the IP holders will leverage existing in house libraries which work well together along with a modest budget: 50% allocated to gameplay-related design, 25% dedicated to graphics and sound and 25% to publish (digital distribution and marketing). It’s a conservative market now, with news old and new haunting us. Mid budget, conservative focus on graphical fidelity, and extreme attention to depth of Ultima-like gameplay. Something like Ultima VII with polygons, smooth play control, familiar music and engrossing story borrowed from timeless tales.
Is this Virtuous!?
Um, all this leading us on I mean. Is it going to last for years of slow secret production, or will we have answers before long?
If they actually found and could release The Lost Vale….. I would be so happy.