Don’t get me wrong: I greatly enjoy running the Ultima Codex, much as I enjoyed running Ultima Aiera before it. Some amazing opportunities have come my way as a result of it, including all the various bits of interaction I’ve had with Mythic regarding Ultima Forever, and the chance to speak at length with Richard Garriott. Wonderful experiences, all, and yet…and yet.

The problem with running an Ultima fansite is…branding, more or less. Even when talking about another game development company (besides Portalarium, Mythic, or Origin Systems, of course), there always has to be some tenuous link back to Ultima that I can draw. If I want to talk about BioWare, I’d better be able to refer to their drive to implement complex moral decision-making as a gameplay element…and tie that back to Ultima 4, which arguably pioneered the concept. If I’m going to talk about Piranha Bytes, I’d better be able to refer to the way the early Gothic games were openly inspired by Ultima 9. And of course I have to be ever-cognizant of the wispy thread of history that connects Ultima Underworld to BioShock Infinite.

Not that I always have to explicitly draw out these connections, invoking their existence every time I want to wander off the Ultima brand and discuss what other game companies are doing in the RPG(ish) space. But if I’m going to discuss these other things on what I refer to, in my discussion with those who help run the site, as Codex Main, that connection — however tenuous — needs to be there.

Because branding. This is an Ultima fansite, a community hub for the Ultima fandom. People don’t come to the Ultima Codex because it links to articles in which Ken Levine complains about all the Elizabeth porn online, or in which Paul Sage assures us yet again that The Elder Scrolls Online is manifestly not the Skyrim 2 it seems to be.

And that’s good, as far as it goes.

My problem with that paradigm, such as it is, is that it basically defines the success or failure of what I write in terms of its contribution to building the Ultima/Shroud of the Avatar/Ultima Dragons brand. There isn’t room to wander too far off those brands and just have a chance to speak honestly about other stuff that interests me.

I mean, who knows…maybe I want to point and laugh at people who for whatever reason feel the need to turn this:

BioShock Infinite’s Elizabeth

…into this:

Click to view

…and/or find that sort of thing even remotely titilating. It hasn’t got a damn thing to do with Ultima, really, if we’re honest about it. It’s a stupid phenomenon that happens on the Internet and a keen example of just how debased aspects of online culture have become. There’s a rich vein of commentary to make there…and in the past, I’d have to pass up on it. Maybe I still will, to some degree; I can only write so much about so much, after all. But at least I’m affording myself an opportunity and venue for doing so, whereas previously I was not.

Don’t get me wrong: I intend to keep running the Ultima Codex, and running it well. I just want the opportunity to step away from the brand for a bit and talk about other stuff. Stuff I find interesting. Stuff that’s true. I like what I do, but a lot of what I do is just…shilling. And that’s fine; there’s some great stuff happening right now that I want to promote, to (in effect) shill for. But doing just that gets tiring after a while, especially because I end up passing over other content, and other topics, in pursuit of it.

Hence, this blog.

And with a little luck, I won’t drive all of you away for good.