Random nerd thread unrelated to orig. topic. Current: Tanks vs Mechs!

[Trippy]

The big question is: what is RG qualified to do outside of develop games?

LARP?

[sam, an eggplant]

Actually no, he's not allowed to call himself an astronaut, only a "space tourist". There was a bit of to-do over this in a "we've got your $30m now shut up and take it like a good little girl" kind of way.

Garriot was responsible for ultima7, which remains the best game ever made, and nobody can take that away from him. But I've got to say, it sure must suck to have peaked in 1992. All we ever wanted was a real sequel to ultima7, and we never got it. All of those origin franchises were all left to rot. They were bestselling titles in the early 90s at an astonishing sixty dollars apiece, and EA just let them all die. It's a damn shame.

[Lucas]

Actually no, he's not allowed to call himself an astronaut, only a "space tourist". There was a bit of to-do over this in a "we've got your $30m now shut up and take it like a good little girl" kind of way.

Garriot was responsible for ultima7, which remains the best game ever made, and nobody can take that away from him. But I've got to say, it sure must suck to have peaked in 1992. All we ever wanted was a real sequel to ultima7, and we never got it. All of those origin franchises were all left to rot. They were bestselling titles in the early 90s at an astonishing sixty dollars apiece, and EA just let them all die. It's a damn shame.

I'm deeply saddened by this news, especially if that means leaving the industry altogether. I don't give a fuck if this is considered rose-tinted glasses, nostalgia or whatever, but lots of my favourite games have seen Garriott involved, in one form or another, from 1984 with Ultima IV, when I was six, 'til now.
-------
Still, when we talk about Ultima VI-VII and the Underworlds, which are arguably among the best roleplaying games ever made, we should not forget that guy called Warren Spector, a creative force on par with Garriot's (as shown years later with Deus Ex).

Damn Spector and his seekret project at Junction Point.

[schild]

The big question is: what is RG qualified to do outside of develop games?

I'm not even sure he's qualified to develop games with the current state of technology.

Damn Spector and his seekret project at Junction Point.

They were bought by Disney. Harvey Smith and others involved with Deus Ex are worth keeping an eye on, not to mention folks from Planescape: Torment, but that's all I'll say on the subject.

Garriot does NOT in any way, shape, or form rank up there with those people. The industry left him behind a long, long time ago.

Edit: I don't hate Garriot or anything like that. It's simply a matter of respecting reality. Also, Ultima VII is not one of or the greatest RPG ever made, that is simply insane. Back then, pretty great. It did not age as well as some of the other games from that period.

[Yegolev]

The big question is: what is RG qualified to do outside of develop games?

Venture capital.

[sam, an eggplant]

No, you misunderstood. U7 isn't merely the best RPG ever made, it's the best game ever made. All-inclusive.

[schild]

No, you misunderstood. U7 isn't merely the best RPG ever made, it's the best game ever made. All-inclusive.

lol

[Tale]

Why doesn't anyone else think the alien parasite he carried back from space is making him act this way?

[Trippy]

Cause he was already mostly out the door before he went into space.

[Slyfeind]

Edit: I don't hate Garriot or anything like that. It's simply a matter of respecting reality. Also, Ultima VII is not one of or the greatest RPG ever made, that is simply insane. Back then, pretty great. It did not age as well as some of the other games from that period.

Honestly you're the first person I've heard who doesn't rank Ultima 7 "among the best." I'm curious what your criteria for greatness is.

[Reg]

Honestly you're the first person I've heard who doesn't rank Ultima 7 "among the best." I'm curious what your criteria for greatness is.

Big eyes.

[Signe]

Also, he wears a tiara, you know.  Only important people wear tiaras.  Like queens and Paris Hilton.

[Oban]

Actually that was not mentioned once in general chat and I was online in TR for a lot of today.

[1. General] SirT: Anyone else online?

/who 1-50

SirT

[Ratman_tf]

Also, he wears a tiara, you know.  Only important people wear tiaras.  Like queens and Paris Hilton.

I want a tiara. 

[WindupAtheist]

Honestly you're the first person I've heard who doesn't rank Ultima 7 "among the best." I'm curious what your criteria for greatness is.

Being Japanese. He'll trash the early Ultimas and then heap praise on the Japanese imitations that came out a couple years later on the NES.

[schild]

Honestly you're the first person I've heard who doesn't rank Ultima 7 "among the best." I'm curious what your criteria for greatness is.

Being Japanese. He'll trash the early Ultimas and then heap praise on the Japanese imitations that came out a couple years later on the NES.

Final Fantasy IV came out before Ultima VII.

Also, Street Fighter II came out in 1992. Simply put, better games consumed my time. Remember, I was 10 years old when it came out and I hadn't been slobbing Garriots knob for a decade as I thought his shit looked and played piss poor - and still does. 

Seriously though, the first western RPG that even blew my hair back was probably Daggerfall. I was blessed enough to have access to just about any game I wanted while I lived with my parents, I'm sure if I had been more limited, I would have narrowed my scope and ended up loving shit like Ultima VII but that just wasn't the case.

[Ingmar]

Honestly you're the first person I've heard who doesn't rank Ultima 7 "among the best." I'm curious what your criteria for greatness is.

Being Japanese. He'll trash the early Ultimas and then heap praise on the Japanese imitations that came out a couple years later on the NES.

Final Fantasy IV came out before Ultima VII.

Also, Street Fighter II came out in 1992. Simply put, better games consumed my time. Remember, I was 10 years old when it came out and I hadn't been slobbing Garriots knob for a decade as I thought his shit looked and played piss poor - and still does. 

Seriously though, the first western RPG that even blew my hair back was probably Daggerfall. I was blessed enough to have access to just about any game I wanted while I lived with my parents, I'm sure if I had been more limited, I would have narrowed my scope and ended up loving shit like Ultima VII but that just wasn't the case.

Ultima VII is not an "early Ultima".

[schild]

Ultima VII is not an "early Ultima".

How did you extrapolate that from what I posted?

[Merusk]

You're not alone, Schild.  I bought a package of Ultima VII & Serpent Isle years ago (I want to say 1997ish) and played it and was unimpressed.  I had more fun with the SSR D&D games like Menzo or Eye of the Beholder than I ever did with Ultima. That game just dragged on and on, hell I never even bothered to finish it. 

[WindupAtheist]

I'm speaking specifically of having previously heard Schild trash the Ultima series, then heap praise on shit like the original Dragon Warrior, which was literally just a Japanese Ultima-knockoff. I'll say again what I did at the time: Ultima V came out in 1988, could be played on a Commodore 64, and made every single pre-SNES console RPG look like bullshit designed for retarded kids.

[Bzalthek]

I played U7.  92?  I was 15 then I suppose.  I really enjoyed it.  I didn't see, however, anything deific about it.  I played most of the Ultimas, and as I recall, they didn't have a certain pull for me to want to keep paying more and more.  It was a quick burn to 'meh.'  First time through, pretty damn enjoyable.  Not much in the repeat.

[schild]

I'm speaking specifically of having previously heard Schild trash the Ultima series, then heap praise on shit like the original Dragon Warrior, which was literally just a Japanese Ultima-knockoff. I'll say again what I did at the time: Ultima V came out in 1988, could be played on a Commodore 64, and made every single pre-SNES console RPG look like bullshit designed for retarded kids.

Find where I heaped praise on the original Dragon Wariror. Oh please do. Please please please do.

I would not call this heaping praise on it.

[Selby]

Might and Magic II-VIII for the win bitches.

Seriously, I played U7 back 11-12 years ago and while it was all right at the time (for what I can remember) I seriously don't remember much about it or it being great.  It just wasn't me or stellar in my opinion.  I actually enjoyed U4 better despite never finishing it.  I enjoyed the Eye of the Beholder series, the M&M series, and Dragon Warrior\Quest more than Ultima.  I probably just wasn't in the right place or the right time for it.  Same with the Final Fantasy series as I felt the games peaked with the first and went downhill from there (which every single person on this planet disagrees with me on).

And yes, it is sad that a man who influenced so many others realizes he peaked years ago and hasn't had any interest or desire to make or work on revolutionary games anymore.  Despite how people may feel about his products now, he did influence quite a few game developers in the 80's to get us where we are.

[schild]

it is sad that a man who influenced so many others realizes he peaked years ago and hasn't had any interest or desire to make or work on revolutionary games anymore.

It was sad until he burned through somewhere in the ballpark of $80 million USD and cost a shitload of people their jobs. Then it's no longer sad, it's corporate murder.

[Selby]

It was sad until he burned through somewhere in the ballpark of $80 million USD and cost a shitload of people their jobs.

Obviously.  It's not exactly a great way to go out.  But then when you look at Hollywood and musicians who do one amazing album\film and then spend the next 20-25 years trying to re-live that one hit all the while failing miserably, it's pretty much the same thing.

[UnwashedMasses]

I'm speaking specifically of having previously heard Schild trash the Ultima series, then heap praise on shit like the original Dragon Warrior, which was literally just a Japanese Ultima-knockoff. I'll say again what I did at the time: Ultima V came out in 1988, could be played on a Commodore 64, and made every single pre-SNES console RPG look like bullshit designed for retarded kids.

 

Checking out the list of games released in 1988: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1988_video_games

Wow.  Besides U5, it's MM2, Wasteland, Nobunaga's Ambition, Battle Chess, F-19, Pools of Radiance and more.  Countless hours of my childhood.  Even played that War in Middle-Earth game.

I had no idea these games all came out in 1988.  

[Slyfeind]

Heh, I remember when a bunch of JRPGs settled out of court for directly copying Ultima stuff. Yeah, the M&Ms were pretty good. I still go back to World of Xeen once in a while. Some of this is about personal tastes, big open sandboxes versus tight directed experiences. But honestly, too much of this sounds like "I knew he sucked back when you guys liked him and that makes me insightful!" Garriott is clearly the Lucas of video games....

[schild]

It was sad until he burned through somewhere in the ballpark of $80 million USD and cost a shitload of people their jobs.

Obviously.  It's not exactly a great way to go out.  But then when you look at Hollywood and musicians who do one amazing album\film and then spend the next 20-25 years trying to re-live that one hit all the while failing miserably, it's pretty much the same thing.

Not really. How many of the people around them lose their jobs? Do they keep working at whichever studios or does the whole thing basically shut its doors because one person leaves? Does it take 5 years worth of funding to make films and movies? Are you saying Cuba Gooding Jr. and Richard Garriot are somehow alike? I don't understand. Either way, I disagree because I get the gist of it.

[Selby]

Not really. How many of the people around them lose their jobs? Do they keep working at whichever studios or does the whole thing basically shut its doors because one person leaves? Does it take 5 years worth of funding to make films and movies?

United Artists and Heaven's Gate. While not 100% exactly the same thing, a project that bankrupts the studio to the tune of $40M in 1980 and nearly puts everyone out of work associated with it because of one person (Michael Cimino) is a similar situation.  Yeah he made Deer Hunter which was a stellar movie in its day, but that doesn't excuse the debacle that was Heaven's Gate.  He got another chance sometime in the 1980's but thankfully the studio at the time saw a repeat and fired him before he screwed up their business too...

[WindupAtheist]

I thought Ultima was trash. Still do. Console RPGs - even starting with the NES with stuff like Dragon Warrior, Scheharezade, Startropics, etc - it was simply light years beyond what was being done on the PC.

StarTropics and Scheharezade were at least different enough that I can chalk your inclusion of them up to a matter of taste. (Personally I found them both very unremarkable games when I played them as a kid.) But putting an Ultima knockoff like Dragon Warrior on a list of games "light years beyond" was just head-explodingly ill-informed.

[Triforcer]

But putting an Ultima knockoff like Dragon Warrior on a list of games "light years beyond" was just head-explodingly ill-informed.

Is this one of those times you say something obscenely stupid to get people to pay attention to you? 

[Rasix]

But putting an Ultima knockoff like Dragon Warrior on a list of games "light years beyond" was just head-explodingly ill-informed.

Is this one of those times you say something obscenely stupid to get people to pay attention to you? 

Looks like it.  I don't even know how you go from Ultima to Dragon Warrior ( a series I don't hold in high regard).  Seems more intentionally incendiary. At least I hope it is, otherwise it's just pure myopia (oh, hey, grief title) or ignorance of the genre. 

Hell, I think I'd put U7 on a list of mine.  It's not a real favorite, but I liked what it did. Hasn't helped that I really haven't liked the environments I've had to play it in (Exult) and that the graphics have aged worse than any of the great SNES RPGs.

[LC]

It's not like Garriot actively participates in the development of games anymore. He's just a figurehead that gets his name printed on the package.

[Slyfeind]

But putting an Ultima knockoff like Dragon Warrior on a list of games "light years beyond" was just head-explodingly ill-informed.

Is this one of those times you say something obscenely stupid to get people to pay attention to you? 

JRPGs are a result of game designers in Japan ripping off artwork from Origin in the 80's. Garriott sued, they settled out of court, and thus Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy/etc were born.

[schild]

JRPGs are a result of game designers in Japan ripping off artwork from Origin in the 80's. Garriott sued, they settled out of court, and thus Dragon Quest/Final Fantasy/etc were born.

I'm not saying I don't believe you, I'm interested in the details...

SINCE I CAN'T FIND ANY OF THIS ON THE WEB. I strongly suspect we're going to be the top google result for some bizarre combination of final fantasy, origin, and "garriot" pretty soon.

Edit: Seriously, you'd think I'd have heard of this. The common story for the origin of Final Fantasy is that it was a game born out of desperation and Origin isn't mentioned anywhere near it.