Lord British Confirms: The Ultimate RPG Will Be on PC
Apparently, the summary text for the Ultimate RPG that graces the products page on the Portalarium website is incorrect:
Ultimate RPG (in development) – Richard Garriott brings back his award winning Ultima-style RPGs to the social media and mobile game space. If you miss the days of a rich, story-driven world, customizable homesteads and a highly interactive environment, then prepare yourself for Lord British’s “New Britannia.”
At least, that’s what I’m pretty sure we can all conclude based on a comment left here on the Ultima Codex by Richard Garriott himself:
Greetings Adventurers!
Fear not! Any “Ultimate RPG” I would be attempting would be first and foremost a PC game (neither console, nor social media). It would be highly story driven as my original trilogy of trilogies. I would hope to also make it such that it can be played multiplayer as well as solo and offline.– Richard “Lord British” Garriott
Which, in turn, jives with what he posted on his Google+ profile earlier today:
For the record… I have been and remain a PC game developer! I have never been in charge of a game that was not first and foremost a PC game! Sometimes we have ported the games to a variety of other platforms, but the PC remains central to my core sensibilities.
Which, in turn, echoes what he said on Twitter yesterday.
So there it is: whatever Lord British is presenting in another four and a half days (by the Virtues, why must we wait so long?) will be a PC game, with both single-player and multiplayer capability (asynchronous co-op, maybe?). He has ruled out the social and console platforms for the time being (although, as Infinitron Dragon notes at the RPG Codex, mobile hasn’t technically been ruled out as a platform), and…well, based on the comments here and elsewhere, it would see that excitement for this game is running pretty damn high.
And rightly so!
This makes me very happy. I’m excited that Chris Roberts and Richard Garriott are making games for us long-time PC gamers . It will be hard to decipher which game I’m going to give the most play time to when Star Citizen and Lord British’s Ultimate RPG are both released.
Anyone have any thoughts on the simultaneous development of an official Ultima title by Mythic and an unofficial spiritual successor to Ultima by its creator? Is this a first in the history of computer games? It strikes me as…I don’t even know what to call it. A great unfolding story, perhaps. A battle for the hearts and minds of Ultima fans between the old guard and the new. Fucking epic in any case.
Honestly, I’m not sure there is a battle. If it was the Ultima name we cared about, then we’d all be playing Lords of Ultima. The fact is we have a mostly depth-less social game (Ultima Forever), and what will potentially be a full Ultima-like game but with a different name (Shroud of the Avatar). In that case there isn’t a competition.
I know which horse I’m backing, but I have to disagree about the Ultima name/IP being irrelevant. I read every post on Aiera/Codex, and while it’s true that Lords of Ultima was generally disavowed here there is a far cry between an official Ultima title and a game influenced by Ultima. RG and IP owner both making Ultima games in their own way at the same time is crazy and awesome. The name to me only means the old games and hope for the future, but for many posters I’ve read here the Ultima name/brand/IP is important too.
Has anyone pointed out that the word “shroud” generally means “burial cloth”? Perhaps this is the Death of The Avatar. Or little “T” as you prefer.
And yes, there’s no competition. Richard is going to feint, duck, parry and stab. Once the blade weaves between his opponent’s ribs they’ll make sounds to haunt his dreams and finally go to sleep…forever.
Sanctimonia, the point you bring up is interesting. The “shroud” image references so many things. The Avatar ascended in UIX sacrificing himself, essentially “dying”, and the single player Ultima died along with it. Also, the emergence of EA as the dominating force behind the IP essentially killed the Avatar, burying it. Not to get religious on these forums, but this image also conjures up thoughts of certain Christian beliefs of the Resurrection.
The history of the Ultima IP, the role of the Avatar in Britannia, and the re-emergence of RG all eerily point to a metaphoric resurrection of the Avatar. Where did the Avatar and the Guardian end up? Are there alternate worlds that are connected to Britannia cosmically? There are so many possibilties, and as a fan of the Ultima series since the 80s, I’m quite intrigued and excited to see what becomes of all this news.
That’s not a first. For instance in the late 90s Origin was developping Wing Commander Prophecy while Roberts was working on spiritual sequels to WC and Privateer (ie. Freelancer/Starlancer).
More recently, Final Fantasy’s creator Hironobu Sakaguchi did his spiritual sequel Lost Odyssey while Square was doing FFXIII and Im sure there are other such exemples.
CR, HS and RG. I wonder if Portalarium and Mythic agreed to not invade the same “social” gameplay space. Like, “You make a casual mobile game, ” and “I’ll make a mid-core Ultima game.” You never know.
I’m thinking the situation,must have changed since RG startes Portalarium. I dont doubt that he still sees potential in social media space – but my gut feeling is that the success of old school KS projects and particulary Chris Robert’s must have had him go : «well why not me ?»
To be frank, I believe his original vision of an Ultima Online successor is more in line with what he’s going to do. Considering he had fired most of his programmers and is using the Ultimate Collector engine and framework.
Either way, I’ll be following both U4E and Ultimate RPG, I’ll play both, and if they keep my interest, I’ll continue to play both.
Heh personally I’m backing both. But you are right: the IP is important. A spiritual succesor from the original creator is of course exciting, especially when he aims zt the same tone and look. But of course Ultima fans would love to go back to Britannia. And I’m sure WC fans would be even more excited if Star Citizen had Kilrathis and the Confederation.
Regarding the leaked title there is a lot we can imagine : perhaps RG’s New Britannia had an Avatar who died and became this christic figure and the story will resolve around his shroud. Perhaps he had forsaken his virtues at one point (failed hero maybe?)
I’d wonder if this could perhaps be a Gothic/Risen situation, where Risen kinda felt like a sequem to the Gothic universe and its background echoing the events of,Gothic 3 – In this we’d have a NB with a era of,legend reminiscent of the core Ultima series.
In light of what I have seen as disappointing news regarding Ultima Forever, this is very exciting news all around indeed.
Greeting fellow citizens of fair lands of Britannia!
I come to you to join in some of the discussions and speculations about where and how new adventures might be created for us to master together. As noted in this thread, any new works I may have brewing, are indeed first and foremost Story Driven and for the PC! It is being built specifically for YOU, here on this site, the long time believers in the vision that made 20 years in Britannia live on, long since.
More details will follow soon. I am reading with great pleasure, all your wishes and concerns. Nothing will please me more, than to create new adventures worthy of your interest and participation. As the creator of the original series, and in strong partnership with you, I have no doubt we can create lands and adventures, worthy of the mantle of those which precede this day!
– Lord British
Thanks again for dropping by, m’lord. I’m sure I speak for all here when I say we welcome and look forward to further engagement from you in these spaces, as well as to what you’re planning to reveal on Friday!
I’m excited to see what you come up with.
My concern is that if this is an MMO, that it becomes almost impossibly difficult to compete with a title like World of Warcraft. Any other MMO to launch since then is held to that standard. Any new title that doesn’t match it for feature parity is panned.
There are simpler, more basic social multiplayer games, but they often lack in both gameplay and story.
I don’t mind playing a multiplayer game, but my primary interest is playing a proper Ultima title. I want to feel immersion in the setting. I want to be challenged as a player to make meaningful decisions. I want a story that I care about.
I imagine you already have a good idea of the type of game you want to make, but ideally I’d love to see something more like Baldur’s Gate in how it blended single/multiplayer. It was a traditional story-centric single-player game. But your friends could join you and take over members of the party to quest together if you wished.
This is really awesome to haev you here on the Ultima Codex!
Story driven and for fans: this what we want to hear!
To me a proper Ultima spiritual sequel just needs two things :
A strong storyline with philosophical depth.
And a living breathing world. That means interactivity, night&day, NPCs that feel alive, schedules for all NPCs, companions and that sort ot things. This is also what makes Ultima unique and has kind of fallen out of use from modern RPGs. This is what I would want and expect in such a game.
Great to have you here! And *very* excited about the upcoming announcement.
If you don’t mind me asking, has this project always been planned for the PC from the get-go or is this something that has changed recently? It seemed for quite some time to be accepted wisdom that what you were working on was going to be primarily a mobile experience.