And speaking of Richard Garriott…
Yeehaa, my lord. Yeehaa.
David Ribeiro sent me an email a few days ago with a link to the listing of what are called The Richard Garriott Papers at the University of Texas at Austin.
Of course, the name is something of a misnomer, seeing as how the collection “includes papers, hardware, software, published videogames, design documents, production materials, promotional material, oversize art and artifacts that document Garriott’s career in game design and production, the daily business of his former company Origin Systems, Inc., and various personal adventures.
The bulk of the collection relates to the development, production and promotion of Origin videogames, including the entire Ultima series. Design binders document games both published and unpublished at various states of development. Hand-drawn maps on graph paper represent Garriott’s earliest attempts at designing and coding a videogame, dating to Garriott’s first published game Akalabeth: World of Doom and earlier.”
I found the original press release for the creation of this treasure trove of Origin documents and items; it’s interesting to look at the one small picture of people who attended the inaugural event, and I’m sure many of the faces will be familiar to you Dragons and Dragonettes. That news release led me to what appears to be the official website of the University of Texas’ Video Games Archive, where The Richard Garriott Papers currently reside.
I also managed to locate the archivists’ blog, which is (appropriately enough) named Continuous Play.
I highly recommend at least parusing the index of the Garriott Papers; some of the stuff they have in their collection is simply amazing. I mean…the original Apple II Plus that Lord British used for his early coding work? Get out.
There’s also Underworld 3: Design Document,” 103 pp., includes annotations 8/27/97
“Underworld 3,” prelimary draft of design document, 84 pp., 8/25/07
Later date might be mistake or did Garriot have plans for Ulitma Underwolds 3 in 2007?
Could be a typo; we’d have to see the document, perhaps, to know for sure.
I can’t see Garriott having been particularly interested with the idea of UW3 back in 2007…he was kind of still riding high on the private astronaut thing then.
It may not be a typo.
My sources tell me that Ultima Underworld 3 as a concept has been pitched every 3 to 4 years since 1993.
I heard rumor that Underworld’s lead designer (Paul Neurath) and lead programmer (Doug Church) were working together on a new Underworld 3 pitch in 2007. I had confirmation of this, but I heard nothing else. It would not be unusual for them to send a copy to R.G. for review–just to get his input on general continuity, and as a common courtesy to Ultima’s creator.