New Gallery: Richard Garriott Interview in Family Computing (From 1985)
Reader smack sent me a link to this issue of Family Computing magazine, in which can be found an interview with Ultima creator Richard Garriott. The year is 1985, Origin Systems is still headquartered in New Hampshire, and Lord British has met with two aspiring young journalists to discuss his latest project: Ultima 4.
The interview isn’t particularly long, but it contains a few interesting glimpses into Richard Garriott’s history and his creative drive. For example, have you ever wondered where the “Lord British” moniker came from? Go and find out! Ultima Aiera is indebted to smack, Joey Latimer, Richard Garriott, and everyone who worked at Origin Systems and Family Computing for this glimpse at a small but enjoyable piece of history.
I knew about his nickname (was in TOBOU), but what struck me was that he was already wanting to reuse an existing engine to create future Ultimas. He never did that for anything but spinoffs like The Savage Empire and Serpent Isle, so that’s a hell of a revelation circa Ultima IV. I always applauded the fact that he didn’t use code from previous Ultimas (who knows if that is entirely accurate), and he always bragged about it. Shocking, and yet I wonder why it never really happened. I guess old habits are hard to break.
Could be an overhead thing too. Origin may not have had the spare budget to throw at developing a scaleable, re-usable RPG creation system alongside all their various other projects….or to the temporary exclusion thereof.
True, they were riding the knife’s edge of success and failure most of the time it seems. I often wonder if Robert was responsible for that, and RG just never wanted to call him out on it.
Chris Roberts, you mean?
Initially, I’d say “no”; if he contributed to that factor (and he did, almost certainly) it would have been later on, around the time of Wing Commander 3 and Serpent Isle.
Negative. Robert Garriott, his brother, who was their “business guy” for a period of time. My memory’s foggy, so I don’t know how long he helped Richard with that side of things, or how he would have factored in to Richard having an established publisher (Sierra). It’s an often undiscussed topic from everything I’ve seen.
One of the articles said he had two brothers (which I didn’t know), one who was a doctor and the other who had multiple degrees. I’m assuming Robert had the multiple degrees and I know nothing of the doctor.
Funny though, I never thought about Chris Roberts having a detrimental effect on the business, though it’s all too clear now that I think about it. Amazing how successful (according to my standards) WCI and WCII were, and how far he fell (again, IMHO) after that. Maybe he was bipolar. :/
Don’t discount Roberts’ later work; WC3 and WC4 were massively successful, and great games in their own right.
They were just damn expensive to make, as well. WC4 was, for a while at least, the most expensive game ever made, costing (I think) around $12 million.
I didn’t play them. The live action stuff was so bad that it ruined any chance of enjoyment for me. It was in horribly stark contrast to the beautiful portraits and rotoscoped animations from the first two. Using hyper-shitty CG backgrounds with poorly blue screened has-been actors was just too much for me to take. I compare it to a game with good 2D graphics versus mediocre 3D graphics. I’ll always take the former.
While the deeply satisfying gameplay and the atmosphere created by the impeccably executed cut scenes connecting in-ship segments to missions was utterly fantastic, the character portrayals and stories really added an emotional punch to the series that I’d never seen in a game. Only Ultima V came close with the torture and execution scene in Blackthorn’s castle. When someone died, I really felt it, and it haunted me. It even made me angry. I think I’ve mentioned that I broke a keyboard once by slamming my fist into it after failing a mission one too many times. Very few games evoked that kind of base response from me.
Robert’s insistence on sacrificing something unique and artistically evocative for the sake of a pathetic imitation of Hollywood film making ruined any chance of enjoyment for me in WC’s later incarnations. I think his flawed vision is evident from where he ended up, which is as far as I can tell, nowhere good.
I recently watched some videos of some post WCII games, hoping they’d be awesome gameplay-wise at least, and the biggest difference I noticed (none graphically, despite the polygons) was that it was harder to hit an enemy craft either due to the implementation of polygon-intersection bullet collisions or a smaller bounding box were the old mechanics kept. Maybe the guy playing just sucked, but I really expected more at least graphically.
The MT-32 made a huge difference in sound effect and music as well. The composer was brilliant.
I’m guessing the CIC guys would probably skull fuck me at this point. I really do passionately love the first two though.
They probably would, yes.
You have a delightful taste and appreciation for the anachronistic, Kevin, and none can doubt your love of the old games.
Though I do think you sell the newer games short, from time to time. 😉
Disclaimer: I love WC and everything I have ever said was done purely out of love and for its continued, pure progress. Please do not perforate my living quarters with shots from cannons of molecular or sonic disruption, vaporization, extreme radiation or conventional explosive shockwaves. I am but a poor, humble man, and my shields are always low.
I do often sell newer games short. You’re right. When my memories of the feeling of playing a great new game don’t match those generated by newer games I’m disappointed. Maybe you can never recreate the first time, or maybe I’m just too old. Maybe I’m Poe seeking his elusive Annabel, or worse. I’m just glad I try to make games, as I’m asking and answering the question myself at the expense of my life’s work.
All the time I wonder at what the industry is, and if I’m even relevant in what I think or what I do. It scares me mostly, but I’m excited to think I might be able to do something unique, much like Richard Garriott did by accident way back. Part of me wants people to see all the possibilities that games could offer, and another part of me needs to feel famous, as though I were responsible. I guess that’s the survival instinct. We all need money, which is why I don’t blame RG for anything.
Also:
http://www.eightvirtues.com/music/Gothic%20III%20-%20Track%2026%20-%20In%20My%20Dreams.mp3
The end, as ends often are, sucks, but the setup is the best EVER. The lyrics are great too. I think I posted it here before. Guess I’m just a sucker for romance, since it’s impossible to find outside our imagination and the ever-elusive concept of hope:
Love can´t be wrong,
Love that is so strong.
In you I find the only one
touch my heart so strong.
You gave me this,
it´s magic, think.
I was waiting for so long.
Ref:
In my dreams I think of you
In my dreams I feel so close to you
In my dreams I´m loving you
I´m dreaming like a child at you.
I love you,
I wish I be a part of you.
You´re so far away
I miss you every day.
Ref:
In my dreams I think of you
In my dreams I feel so close to you
In my dreams I´m loving you
I´m dreaming like a child at you.
You´re far away,
so far away,
You´re far away,
so far away
Ref:
In my dreams I think of you
In my dreams I feel so close to you
In my dreams I´m loving you
I´m dreaming like a child at you.
Gothic III, seriously? That’s badass. Reminds me of newer Final Fantasy games recruiting such performers as Aki for solo tracks. Her rendition of Procol Harum’s Whiter Shade of Pale is excellent as well.
Shit, whatever asshole transcribed the lyrics was off. Just sloppy. Will transcribe it more accurately and update if anyone’s interested. Otherwise it’ll stay a local copy. Subtle corrections mostly, and all the the initial lyrics are correct.
Technically, that is the K-Power pull-out of Family Computing. When K-Power magazine collapsed they “merged” the subscriptions of the two magazines.
doh! link is dead to the PDF file. Can you relink it please¿?
thanks,
I’ll take a look at that later, Zygon; thanks for letting me know.
All the Family Computing and KPower archive pdf’s can be found at familycomputingmagazine.com
Yeah, I think I just borked the link to your site. Will try again here in a bit.
Link is still bad — took a minute for me to catch what the deal was, but it should be:
http://www.familycomputingmagazine.com/Family_Computing_Issue_23_1985_Jul.pdf
you had:
http://www.familycomputingmagazine.com%2ffamily_computing_issue_23_1985_jul.pdf/
(The capitalization evidently matters, since switching the %2f to / didn’t fix it.)
Link now fixed.
Thanks for digging that up.