Ultima 9: The Bob White Plot
Thanks to the tireless efforts of Joe Garrity of the Origin Muesum, and courtesy of none other than Bob White himself, Ultima Aiera is pleased to present this document — which has been broken out into fifty three (53) images — which contains the final revision of the legendary Bob White Plot.
Look upon the cover and rejoice!
For those not entirely familiar with the development history of Ultima 9, Bob White worked with Brian Martin, Chuck Zoch, and the late John Watson, under the guidance of Richard Garriott, to put together what was probably the second version of the plot of Ultima 9, after Richard Garriott decided to move the setting of the game back to Britannia in response to fan outcry after Ultima 8. He teased out many details of this plot in a lengthy synopsis released over a decade ago, although many questions were left unanswered even so.
The date on this particular revision of the document — July of 1997 — correlates with the time frame in which Origin was moving the game over to the 3D engine that ultimately powered it. Indeed, this revision to the plot was done after the Ultima Online development team were being pulled back onto Ultima 9 development.
Sergorn Dragon was very helpful in analazying the plot, and he has put together a number of observations about it that will be posted in a separate article shortly. In the meantime, I would encourage you all to read the Bob White Plot thoroughly, appreciating its every detail. There will, I think, be much discussion of it in the days and weeks to come.
Most importantly, though: enjoy! Pull up the images, download the PDF, and pore over them. Search out every little detail, and enjoy a fascinating glimpse into the nuts and bolts of how the plot of the final single-player Ultima title evolved. Ultima Aiera is indebted to Bob White for providing these documents, to Joe Garrity for his tireless efforts in seeking out such treasures, and to Brian Martin, Chuck Zoch, John Watson, Bob White (again), Richard Garriott and everyone who worked at Origin Systems for their amazing vision and creativity.
I think cancelling UO2 (not Ultima X) was their biggest mistake. Had UO2 been released, an Ultima MMO would have stayed at the front of the pack. Instead they cancelled it and bolstered their old game which was already too aged.
Ok, WTF we are both agreeing both Origin and EA are partially to blame. I hold EA more accountable in most regards. Who do you hold more responsible?
At this point it sounds like we’re both arguing the sky is blue, but different shades.
Sergorn, I have the Ultima Collection. I’ve seen the interview on it. I haven’t read all of his articles. I’m sure he was very excited about it, at the time, in 97. This plot rewrite had come out in 97 and it would be a killer game. But then again, this is not the game we get in 99.
If RG was so happy with how EA operated, I’m sure he wouldn’t have left the company.
Micro: Who I view as being “more responsible” depends on what course of action or outcome we are talking about.
Of course this not the game that was release in 1999, but Garriott was still awefully excited about the game that was released and had been defending it even after leaving Origin (unlike for instance Pagan which he has often cited as his biggest professional mistake)
As for his departure from OSI, while the UIX development might have played a role in it – the main reason for is departure is that EA didn’t want to greenlight his followup project, a Futuristic Fantasy MMO called “X” (as in the roman numeral ten because he saw it as the spiritual sequel to the. Ultima series) which was basically conceived as fully instanced MMo game back when instances didnt even exists. He had every intent on doing this game at Origin with the Ultima IX dev team, but EA rejected the pitch and wanted him to continue working on UO2 and future potential followups of UO. Since he did not want to do more UO he left and later revamped his X concept into Tabula Rasa.
I believe we were talking about the outcome of u9 not being what it could have been.
I like how my comment gets posted after Bob White’s, as though I disregarded him.
Editors note: Comments held for moderation are inserted into the discussion at the appropriate place, based on timestamp.
I just noticed this, this is not true as I’ve seen when we were talking about completing u6 in 20 minutes.
This is part of the reason why some here find you to be trollish in nature: you seemingly lack the ability to discern between criticism and hatred, mistaking legitimate examples of the former for the latter in many cases.
Not sure what that actually means. Are you saying that someone is criticizing me and I’m taking it as hatred? Or are you saying there are criticisms of U9 and I’m taking it as hatred?
Either way, I haven’t expressed anything about hatred in this forum. Could you quote an example for me? Or, let me guess, you already have but you won’t quote it again because it doesn’t exist.
On a side note about trolling, gosh, I hate using that word.
When Origin disbanded, it was revealed that the Guardian was meant to be a symbol of EA. Interesting thought process…
That’s interesting! Even in the days of u7 Richard Garriott knew EA was going to contribute to the demise of Origin. He’s so clever!
That’s so Richard Garriottian!
WtF Dragon-
Really, Micro?
Dude.
WtF Dragon-
Heh…I know the reference, darren. I used to be a pretty good EA hater back in the day.
I’m replying to Micro’s bizarre fanboyism, is all.
How am I not supposed to interpret this as inflammatory statement directed squarely at me? Gee, you like to do the name calling huh wtf?
Too vague. And really, I can’t make the call at that high an altitude. Is EA really more to blame, for having imposed a ship-or-kill deadline and for having mandated particular technologies to use? Or is Origin to blame for wasting a lot more time than was probably necessary tinkering with that technology (e.g. the game engine), and for constantly re-writing the game’s plot?
Comments are posted to the site with visible timestamps, Micro. Check for yourself.
Neither, actually. What I meant was that you seem bent on mistaking legitimate criticisms of Richard Garriott for hatred of the man himself; you’ve even called me a “Garriott hater” directly, despite the fact that all I’ve done is point out that the man has made his share of mistakes with this, our favourite RPG series.
If you’ve already forgotten what you said, you’re welcome to go back and re-read all the comments you’ve left on the site.
Quite.
Try applying your faculties for reason and rationality?
If a person’s actions are consistent with a particular descriptor of character and persona, why is it in any way a mistake to describe that person in those terms?
Sergorn, that sounds somewhat strange to me. I was under the impression EA didn’t was uo2 to compete with uo, and from that frustration RG didn’t want to deal with the EA politics of it all.
Richard Garriott left a full year before UO2 got cancelled outof EA’s fear that it might compete with UO – so his departure was completly unrelated to this.
That’s not say he had no frustrations – but had EA greenlighted it hed most likely have stayed to do X. Leaving EA was not exactly a winwin situation for him since he had to stick to a non compete clause for a year.
UO2’s cancellation was actually a blessing to him since that zllowed him to recruit most of its dev team.
WtF. Calm down. I’m asking you where you are coming from with your comments. If it was not intended to be inflammatory, just quickly explain why. No big deal.
If I refer to you being inflammatory, I show you how. When you refer to me being hateful, you say it’s true because it’s true. I’m just asking for the same respect I show you.
And again, I’ve explained to you more than once, when I called you an “RG hata(not hater)” it was clearly in jest. And it was clearly an imitation of what you had called me.
WTF- would be be fair to say that you’re a Lord British fanboy, in the understanding that I use the term “fanboy” in its most stereotypical connotation of the word?
Nooooooo, not inflammatory at all ;P.
Micro- I think someone is Big, Fat, Flaming Paul Barnett fanboy and Richard Garriot hata, in the most stereotypical sense of the words.. And again, from how defensive you are of Mythic, I have this sneaking suspicion you’re somehow connected to them… Paul.
Lawl! I referred to you as Paul Barnett! Man, that seems like a pretty hateful comment to me ;)!
Micro: What in my reply gave you the impression that I was angry or not calm?
For the second time, I’m not accusing you of being hateful; I’m saying you cannot distinguish between the legitimate criticism of a third party and hatred of said same third party.
You are getting what I’m saying, right? It’s somewhat clear that you are not the object of hatred — because there is no actual object of hatred — referenced in the sentence above?
The inherent risk of the text-based medium is that it’s not always easy to properly convey our emotions and intentions to others.
Case in point: you mistook me for upset just now, which I am not.
Exhibit B, your own words:
Oh, yeah…this totally has joking written all over it.
(Just for the sake of clarity, assume I articulated the italicized word in a sardonic tone.)
Try applying your faculties for reason and rationality?
Obviously I showed you what I see in it. I’m asking you what you meant by it. I didn’t think I needed to explain that to you since your logic and reason is vastly superior to my own. What is it? Are you so self-righteous, that you will not explain why you’re not singling out and trying to irritate a loyal fan of your website?
I wonder who ‘they’ refers to in this quote,
“I won’t go into the politics but it was kind of bad and almost all of it came from the dolts they put in charge of Origin at the time. A lot of people ended up leaving or changing around and the game suffered as a result.”
I wonder who it was that wanted the camera down rather than up. If it’s RG then so be it. From the way it sounds to me, I doubt it.
From what we’ve heard here, Herman Miller moved the camera down, and everyone else — Garriott included, it sounds like — was suddenly really excited about the new view of Britannia.
Rightly so, I say! RPGs to this very day still utilize that view, and it’s great for putting the player *right there* in the story.
Brilliant innovation by Origin.
Also: I’m not trying to single you out, and I do try and respond to many people here by name. Not always, but…usually.
Do I disagree with you? Yes…often, and quite visibly. A number of others here also disagree with you. Few of these enjoy conversing with you directly, it should be noted; Sergorn and me are the only ones who typically will.
If you feel in any way as though you stick out, consider the possibility that you may simply be perceiving that your conduct and rhetoric have…little in common with the others who comment here and the normal tone of discourse on the site.
A reply to wtf & mirco.
I’ve done some research and deep examining, and you’re both right.
Unfortunately, you’re not intersecting. You exist on different planes.
I think the bigger issue in U9’s unshininess was more due to the mass exodus of Origin’s greatest. There is little that a company or a creative director can do, when your best people working on the project disappear. Programmers and writers make games. Especially programmers.
The important thing is that both parties learn from their complex and elaborate personal mistakes, and go on to develop good successors to Ultima.
D.
PS – You’re right, WTF IS Paul Barnett. Don’t F* with Paul Barnett, and especially don’t compromise his cover. Else you’ll end up like that EA Louse… Dead.
@WTF – I was confusing Herman Miller with Mike McShaffry, but that’s very much the story I’ve always heard as well. He tried to bring the camera closer and everyone was just blown away – enough so that Richard Garriott decided to restart basically from scratch.
Micro, you tend to forget that Origin had always been about pushing technology forward and innovation – going full 3D was just the new frontier back then.
@Darren – You’re making it sound as it the U9 dev team was just a bunch of talentless, which is both unfair and untrue. As far as programmers go notably, the lead programmer Bill Randolph was a pretty damn awesome one. If anything the fact that Ultima IX (as flawed as it was) was such a groundbreaking game in spite of of its crazy deadline (under two years to basically make a big 3D RPG from scratch ? Yeah right) is a testament to their talent. If it wasn’t for their dedication, the game just wouldn’t have come out at all. I have nothing but respect for the people who developped that game, as flawed as it might be.
You’re absolutely right Segorn — it would have been more accurate to speculate that the team who was involved with the old U9 code wasn’t around, and the new team was faced with the choice of being bogged down in digging through someone else’s code that had been abandoned for a while, or starting something something a little more fresh which could take advantage of the new technology. But it’s all very speculative, and I probably have much less information about this due to my sporadic presence.
The way I see it: An engine was going full steam, making something magnificent — but then it was ground to a halt and resources were reallocated. Trying to get everyone to start again full steam after so much time, with key people missing…
Add the pressures of using a new technology, the desire to push limits and be groundbreaking, and unforgiving deadlines from on high that don’t consider these complex factors.
Again, you’re right Segorn — they won on so many levels, against insurmountable odds. Technically, it had a very good skeleton, and it looked and sounded very nice. I was sad about the story elements that couldn’t survive — but fortunately the plot that didn’t make it into the 1999 deadline was saved and heroically donated to the Origin Museum over a decade later for us to read.
Actually you’ve pretty much nailed one of the major technical issues of Ultima IX: the fact it was all built on legacy code from the old engine which in the end was one of the main cause of the engine’s instability.
Bill Randolph pretty much said so himself while discussing the issues post release and mentionned that if he could have changed one thing in the way the game was developped, it would have been to build the new engine’s code from scratch rather than build it on legacy code.
That’s not to say they couldn’t have improved stability over time, but they clearly didn’t had the time to do this, especially the last month of development on a technical side was mostly focused on getting the game to run in Direct 3D. (Which to be fair kind of showed a lack of foresight in this case, but 3Dfx was so strong it late ’97 they probably didn’t expect D3D to take over so quickly).
Well, WtF dragon, when I say singling me out. I mean, I’ll agree with something someone has said. And someone will also agree with it. But instead of attacking the argument you attack the person, rather, you attack one person, me. Which is one singling out is. In fact you go as far as to comment on agreeing with the other person and continue arguing with me!
You must have some personal grudge against me or something. Or you just enjoy doing it. And I’m sure if you really felt I was -that- offtopic and disruptive, you’d ban, not moderate. You merely moderate so I don’t say something that makes you look bad, like when I quoted your statement that you have trouble being honest in real life.
I believe that’s called an ad hominem. It’s what one does when they’re grasping at straws
Well, when you say you are calm, I don’t really believe that. If you were calm you’d honestly reply to my comments with no sardonicism.
For the second time, I’m not accusing you of being hateful
Actually that’s the first time you’ve clarified that. But…
Either way, I haven’t expressed anything about hatred in this forum. Could you quote an example for me? Or, let me guess, you already have but you won’t quote it again because it doesn’t exist.
wtf-If you’ve already forgotten what you said, you’re welcome to go back and re-read all the comments you’ve left on the site.
This is actually a reference for me to reread my comments and find something that I’ve said that is hateful. So yes, you clearly did refer to me as being hateful.
You are quick to cite examples to support other assertions of this sort that you make, so the lack of examples here is…conspicuous.
But…be that as it may, I think at this point you’re just being paranoid.
Unlikely. I’m not particularly keen to swing the banhammer, and so you’ll find I permit much more in the way of…well, let’s call it questionable content…from my commenters than some would. Not that others have not urged me to ban you, but…well…I won’t. Not unless you really exceed my patience.
And I have to say, I’m starting to feel a bit of wear from this continued back-and-forthing and babysitting that I’m having to do. I would much rather expend my energies adding to the site.
It’s the temptation I find myself most prone to. Whether that’s better or worse than the struggles of others — since we all have something against which we struggle, something to which we are vulnerable — I leave to the philosophers and theologians to sort out.
No, it would be ad hominem to call you a stupid poopy-head.
It would also be ad hominem to attempt to continually reinforce whatever disjointed point I was making by flogging the dead horse, time and again, of your one-time open admission of being dishonest. Or, no, wait, that’s what you do to me. Could it be that you are projecting, then, by accusing me of arguing “against the person”?
Or I’m just a sarcastic person by nature, both when I am calm and when I am not calm. You evidently did not consider that possibility.
Second.
You explicitly called me a “hater”…or “hata”, since you evidently decided it would make your point better to briefly slip into “gangsta” cadence. You then claimed, later and after being called on this point, that you were joking. It was not me who made the accusation that the other person espoused hatred; I was the one accused of espousing it. Do try and keep up.
I mean geeze laweeze! That was the previous comment of yours! Did you forget what -you- wrote?
Darren- When Origin disbanded, it was revealed that the Guardian was meant to be a symbol of EA. Interesting thought process…
Micro-That’s interesting! Even in the days of u7 Richard Garriott knew EA was going to contribute to the demise of Origin. He’s so clever!
That’s so Richard Garriottian!
WtF Dragon-
Really, Micro?
Dude.
WtF Dragon-
Heh…I know the reference, darren. I used to be a pretty good EA hater back in the day.
I’m replying to Micro’s bizarre fanboyism, is all.
So using your bizarre logic and rationality, do you want to clarify how this is not a prime example of you singling out, and an attempt to irritate? I know you hate repetition. So why don’t you clarify it so this is behind us and we can move on. Rather than just arrogantly proclaiming I must be irrational for taking this the way I did.
Just to note something, I don’t call you lacking in rationality and reasoning when you can’t understand a joke. And it’s not a valid example of me mistaking criticism for hatred when I’ve told you in the past it’s a joke multiple times. It’s either your selective memory, or it’s intellectually dishonest. Do you have any other examples?
I also raise the argument that ultima 9 may be the first third person rpg I can think of. But the elder scrolls series did 3d from a “down” camera positions waaaaay before u9. Not very innovative, even for my secret lover, RG.
Oh, and btw, secret lover is a joke, please don’t think me or RG are gay.
If anyone else here displayed this same sort of bizarre fanboyism, I’d respond to it as well. The fact that I don’t have to indicates something, which is left as an exercise for you to figure out.
There’s two parts to telling a joke…well, three. There’s the intent to make a joke, there’s the requirement that the other party receive it as a joke, and there’s a general requirement that the joke itself be…well…funny. What you said surely satisfied the first requirement, but I would submit that it failed on the other two.
And really, you seem to take real issue with the fact that I’m willing to discuss Garriott’s failures and shortcomings, and not just talk about his genius and successes. It was entirely consistent with both your view of Garriott and your apparent dislike of some of the things I’ve said about the man and the mistakes he’s made to legitimately label me a “hater”.
Both Arena and Daggerfall — the two Elder Scrolls games which preceded Ultima 9 — were first-person perspective RPGs, akin to the Underworld games.
Who you want to diddle around with, and how, is hardly my concern, is it? Heck, I don’t even care who you romance in games which give that option!
Oh, please can you not just silence the troll? Or move all those comments arguing a dead horse and accusing of ad hominem (that one is interesting since actually micro was quick to use this in the first thread he trolled) to some other place?
Another interesting discussion thread destroyed. Who do you think would like to still reply to this thread apartfrom you two? Certainly no one still interested in the original topic (sadly that includes RW) and that sucks and only proves that WHBT 🙁
Wtf, consider how many more threads you want to sacrifice to the troll? Or just IGNORE him as I do, the discussions who hates, loves, lies are just frustrating, especially when one subscribed to the comments.
Yeah, I think I’m at that point too, Dominus. I don’t like it, because I’m kind of a “free speech” sort…but I could do without the tedium.
I’ll keep him in the moderation queue for a bit; if he’s penitent at some point in the near future, he can come out again.
P.S. Micro: In response to your last comment (which is still in moderation, but even so), Dominus identified your first act of trolling, noting that it coincided with your first appearance here. Was it necessary to ask him when you started after he had already articulated the answer to that question?
Additional note to Micro: The comments left in moderation can be made visible to anyone who wants to see them; they just need to subscribe the the comments, and I need to elevate their usage rights on the site to anything above the default “Subscriber” level. I’ve nothing to hide, which is why I haven’t deleted the comments, and so can make the offer to make them available in this manner.
However…as you can see, there are others complaining about this discourse, and about you in particular. My actions are entirely a result of the fact that other people are now finding your contributions bothersome, to the point of calling for me to take action about it.
Now, in your most recent (still in moderation) comment, you talk about the value of learning, especially learning from our mistakes. Take note of your own, take note of the fact that I’m basically the only one who will still invest the energy in addressing you, and perhaps consider that for as imperfect as I myself am, you too may need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and resolve to change the manner in which you approach the community in place at this site. Honestly, you do sometimes say things which contribute good value to discussions; it would be a shame if you were not able to continue contributing. But equally, your contributions — the insightful ones, even — are not necessary to this site’s operation, and Aiera will still be here even if you elect to move on.
It is your call at this point in time. It will become mine at some point in the future.
As an uninvolved peripheral observer, I might add that it takes two to tango. Arguments only propagate when both participants keep responding to each other.
I don’t know who started what or whose dad can beat up the other’s, nor do I particularly care. I’ve been coming here hoping to read more insight from Bob in what may be a fleeting opportunity, but instead I keep finding this. I’m not surprised he seems to have stopped posting.