Richard Garriott: "Ultima type game coming soon"…to iOS
Richard Garriott posted a tweet earlier today teasing a very…intriguing piece of information:
[singlepic id=2214 w=560 h=190 float=center]
How soon is soon, my lord?
Presumably this refers to an upcoming Portalarium game, and presumably that means New Britannia. Either that…or another developer is preparing to release an Ultima-like game using the Portalarium framework, which will itself soon be pushed out to iOS.
Either way…stay tuned!
Oh how I desperately wish for a new UO.
There’s things happening on that end as well; check with Deckard’s excellent site periodically to keep in the loop on updates and changes to UO.
As to whether Portalarium will produce a kind of spiritual successor to UO, that’s somewhat more up in the air. Such an undertaking would be massive, probably more than the company (which is presently still quite small, in terms of manpower) could reasonably handle.
Well I’m pretty sure Richard Garriott envision “New Britannia” as a spiritual successor of sorts to UO from the way he’s describing it.
What I wonder is whether this “Ultima-type game coming soon” is something else, or if he’s just talking of New Britannia (which as far as I understand still has a long way to go since Portalarium aims to release Ultimate Collector first).
I’ve still not convinced Ultimate Collector will be any good. Don’t see Facebook and other social mediums a good way to play games. Don’t get my wrong, building Facebook integration into a game or using it to find friends etc is a good way of using existing system to communicate.
I’m going to be very worried if Ultimate Collector will be a browser base game, though saying that all things seem to be pointing to this.
Maybe the problem is us old school gamers. We just want something as good and life changing as Ultima IV but with Witcher 2, Skyrim graphics and game play.
I have no real interest for Ultimate Collector – it is basically conceived as a game to appeal to the Zynga kind of crowd and not gamer so *shrugs*. But once it’s released, it means Garriott will finally be focusing on New Britannia… which will most likely be more interesting for us gamer.
And Ultimate Collector is a browser game. I mean that’s the ghist of Portalarium. I think the plan is for the Portalarium player to work on a variety of platform (including smartphones, tables even perhaps consoles ?) as a form of cloud gaming so that you could basically play your Portalarium games anywhere on any platform through a simple plug and play system.
Basically don’t expect Portalarium to ever release a “regular” game. They won’t – they’ll always be a part of Portalarium’s system.
I’m honestly not a “I just need top notch next gen graphics” kind of guy, as much as I love them. And as skeptical as people can be over browser based game (and personally my skepticism has lowered a lot since trying out A Mystical Land), I actually feel a browser game like Garriott and (supposedely) Mythic are doing are actually more likely to recapture some part of the old school Ultima feel than any big budget AAA game.
meh. I have no interest in mobile or facebook games.
Granted, most of the social space is dominated by Zynga’s fluff, and much of the mobile space is dominated by the likes of Angry Birds or Plants vs. Zombies.
However, outliers exist in both spaces. Sergorn has spoken at different times about A Mystical Land a lightweight but quite enjoyable browser-based MMORPG. I’ve looked at a few mobile titles — Galaxy on Fire 2 and Dungeon Hunter, to name a couple — that are quite well-made, enjoyable games in their own right, in spite of the fact that they feature OpenFeint integration.
And on the mobile side, there’s more and better. I’m just cracking into Aralon, an open-world RPGS for iOS that features as much as 80 hours of story, if what I’ve read on Twitter and elsewhere is true.
Both mobile and social gaming have a reputation — not entirely undeserved — for being mostly filled with fluff games for unserious players. But some games are entering both spaces now which, to degrees large and small, challenge that perception and push the boundaries of both platforms.
In other words, don’t be too hasty in passing judgement. Lord British may well have something of interest to you up his sleeve!
I actually wouldn’t put mobile and social games in the same boat. I think Mobile games at this point are pretty much comparable to portable consoles (eck I’ve seen some NDS games ported to Android or IOS with better graphics), and will likely take over the market in time.
Social games are a different beast altogether.
But still I’m rather puzzled as to why there is such hostility to either concept, especially from RPGs fans. Do we really need AAA graphics/budget to enjoy a game? There’s likely more room to experiment to more old school gaming/approach in social medias and mobiles games that there’ll ever be on big AAA games.
I’m with Serg. Social media games may not be what we like now, but I think (hope) the simplicity of the medium provides a lot of room for game design experimentation compared to titanic budget titles.
We all grew up watching — or at least lived through — the evolution of games from text and very basic line-and-pixel art into what we have now: complex AAA 3D DX11 blockbusters.
Social and mobile gaming aren’t starting from quite the same humble beginnings that desktop gaming did, but a not-dissimilar evolution is underway in both spaces, moreso on the mobile side, but also on the social side.
In some ways, it’s like watching history unfold all over again. And it’s kinda cool, I think.
I don’t need next gen graphics but don’t really want to play a game on my phone in a tiny little window. Browser based game? Maybe. I wish they would just make a multiplatform single player rpg. I don’t really have any interest in an mm even if its ultima
When Windows 8 comes out I think you’ll see a very sudden merger between social games and AAA games (or at least AA games). Microsoft actually seems to have some good ideas to get itself back in the ring with Apple, and they’re ideas that are going to change the industry – considering most people still have a PC.
There will be a lot of apps that will run on the PC, tablet and phone, working together (you play on your phone on the way home, sit down on the PC when you get there and continue to play/create from where you were). Social stuff can be very easily implemented into the games (Microsoft has built all that into Windows 8). HTML can be used just as easily as C++ to make an app (also has been built into Windows 8). I see the lines being blurred very, very soon.
I played around with the developer build of Windows 8. I am *so* considering buying an upgrade on launch day for how impressed I am by all that MS is bringing to the table. Metro is a UI revolution.
It is. I crippled my internet for a few days downloading Build conference videos after I saw it, am now officially signed up as a Windows developer (which has given me free copies of everything Microsoft, which is nice), and will be throwing together my first game in the next couple of months (to get used to the platform… or the prequels to the platform). It impressed me enough to finally get me off my ass and start making stuff (apart from Serpent Isle). Plus, in the last week I’ve reformatted my computer to create dual boot Windows 7/Windows 8 Dev Preview.
Pity I can’t build anything in Visual Studio on Win 8. Keep getting an error. I think because I have a _ in my email address, which sucks.
I have no idea about what the next Windows will offer, however my understanding is that the whole “app running on different platform” is basically Garriott’s plan for Portalarium.
What I got from interviews is that the idea is for the Portalarium player to be available on all possible platforms, so you could basically play the games anywhere: on the PC, your mobile, your tablet and so on…
That’s the obvious future of gaming there I think, he’s not the only one aiming for this – Hideo Kojima is a big proponent of Cloud gaming for instance, and Sony is planning similar stuff for PS Vita/PS3 games.
The difference is that Microsoft is kinda mandating a lot of this. And since most people use Windows, apps will have to change.