The Man Who Made Ultima: Lord British | Extra Credits Gaming

Hey everyone, whether you stumbled on this episode via the algorithmic gods or a short on the subject sent you our way, welcome on in lovers of game design history. Today we wanted to try something a little bit different and talk to you about one of the wildest careers in gaming. The man, the myth, the legend, Lord British, aka Richard Garriott, who is famed for making Ultima, wearing rat tails way past the 80s, and being the only game designer to go to space. So with all that said, let's blast off into this inaugural episode of game designers you should know. Thanks so much to Nebula for continuing to be the best deal in streaming. Kick off your New Year's right by treating yourself to all of the ad-free goodness Nebula has to offer, including our two weekly long-form gaming series Design Club Live and Games for Breakfast. Born in Cambridge in the 60s, Garriott's father was an American astronaut who soon took him back to the States, where in high school he discovered a love for computers, Dungeons & Dragons, and

Tolkien. Things I could just simply not relate to. And it wasn't long until he started programming games. He tried to capture the feel of the tabletop RPGs he adored, and by the age of 18, with cover art drawn by his mother and the game packaged in Ziploc bags, he was selling Akalabeth, his first RPG, at local stores. Soon he was offered a publishing contract and the game hit wide release. But before it came out, the publisher learned of a strange quirk. See, Garriott's D&D group called him Lord British due to some of the British mannerisms he'd carried over or adopted. So they immediately suggested he released the game under that name, as it was far more exciting than Richard Garriott, and even ran a competition to see if players could guess who he was. The game was a hit and made him start thinking about making games professionally. Then in college, he and a friend prepared to make their first true commercial release, Ultimatum. Though unfortunately that name was already taken, so they shortened it to Ultima. Now, the game was impressive for

the time, featuring a large top-down world map and first-person perspective dungeons. Oh, and of course, a character named Lord British. This game, too, was a success, and with it, the company Origin Systems was born. They would go on to create games like Wing Commander and publish games like System Shock, but over the '80s, they were focused on releasing Ultima games. Then, jumping ahead to 1985, they released Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar, which was just a sea change for computer RPGs, because it presented a complex morality system and a goal of achieving moral enlightenment rather than just killing a big bad in the story. After a period of upheaval, Lord British, ruler of the land of Britannia, summons a stranger from a distant world to face a series of trials in order to become a paragon of virtue that will guide his people to a better age. The metatextual concept being that that stranger is, of course, the player, and this is where the term avatar for a virtual representation of a person comes from, from Quest for the Avatar. Sorry,

I know I'm geeking out about that a little bit, but that's huge. It changed the space. So, Cameron, you can thank Garriott for that one. Through the '80s and early '90s, Origin grows. They ramp up their publishing and expand their development. Of course, then the sharks start circling. It's an era of consolidation in the video games industry, and EA wants Origin bad. So, in 1992, they buy the company for the, at the time, whopping sum of 30 million in stock. Now, with the resources available at EA, Origin balloons to hundreds of employees, while meanwhile, Richard starts to become fascinated by this strange emerging online game type called multi-user dungeons, or MUDs, because they're truly the closest a video game has ever come to the role-playing of his youth. But, they are also limited. They're purely text-based. He thinks Origin can do better. And so, in 1997, they launched Ultima Online, a fully graphical world with Lord British as its king. And I cannot stress this enough, it is a hit beyond hits. Because

you got to remember, at the time, games were one-off products. You bought the box and then were done with whatever the game was. But Ultima Online was constantly changing and crucially required a subscription. People were paying Origin month after month after month instead of just that one time. But then things did start to go south. EA declared that Origin would be an online-only game company and had them start to work on multiple MMOs at the same time. Meaning the few other games they already had in production suffered. And then ultimately, EA canceled everything Origin was doing except Ultima Online. This included a Harry Potter MMO because they were pretty sure that IP wouldn't last. Ah, EA. It's in the game, you know. Origin was relegated to being a skeleton company forever maintaining Ultima Online and doing very little else. So, by 2000, Garriott quit, taking Lord British with him, which was hilarious because he literally played Lord British in the MMO. And the team

had to weave a mystery around why the in-game main character and king of the realm suddenly vanished. But where did he vanish to, you might be asking? Well, Garriott rode out his year-long non-compete, continuing to work on the literal castle he'd built outside of Austin, Texas. His Britannia Manor was riddled with secret rooms and hidden chambers to house his eclectic collection of historical objects, ranging from 3,000-year-old mummified falcons to 17th-century medical equipment to pieces of the modern space program. He's also probably the only game designer to have his house featured on MTV Cribs back in the day. And I'm told he threw awesome Halloween parties. Ask James how he knows. Soon enough, though, he'd inked a deal with NCsoft to create a new MMO, Tabula Rasa. The vision was impressive. The scope was sweeping. It was going to be an FPS MMORPG with continuous updates. It had its own pictographic language and unique form of dynamic storytelling and it was a total flop. Because in truth, the

world had moved on since the age of Ultima Online. Dynamic 3D MMOs were a whole different beast now. With ever-shifting project goals and continuous arguments about design between NC and Garriott's team, the game took seven years to develop. And by then, well, I'm just going to put this image here and you'll get the gist. But they did still go all out on the marketing, which even involved Richard Garriott going to outer space. Yeah, about a year and a half after Tabula Rasa launched, a lot of personal factors came together, which allowed Garriott to become one of the first private citizens to take a rocket up to the International Space Station, where he, let me just check my notes here, did some science experiments, oh, made a short film, and smuggled James Doohan's ashes aboard the ISS. WAIT. WHAT? YEAH, Richard Garriott smuggled the ashes of Scotty from the original Star Trek aboard the International Space Station. Please just take a moment to let that sink in. And while he was there, he ran a marketing campaign for Tabula Rasa, which led him to make this mortifyingly embarrassing press

statement. Quote, "I'm thrilled we can offer the once-in-a-lifetime chance to millions of gamers to virtually go to space with me. A select few US players will have their DNA digitized and sent. And theoretically, if anything happens to the human race, it could be their DNA that's used to resurrect humanity." I know, Zoey, sign me up. He also got fired while in space. Certainly the only game developer to do that. Now, I don't want to make any definitive statements because NC Soft said the split was amicable and there was a big suit about it, with Garriott claiming it very much wasn't. But what I will say is it sure is awkward when you announce to the world that the developer that you've made the face of your game is no longer part of that team while he's in quarantine after reentering Earth's atmosphere and can't talk to the media. No judgement either way though. The game was a colossal failure, a devastating loss for NC, and certainly not a feather in Richard's cap. Since then he's made a few stuttering steps back into the world of game development, but he's mostly been focusing on his other love instead,

exploration. He traveled to the depths of the Mariana Trench, became a trustee of the X Prize, and was elected president of the famed Explorers Club whose members have included everyone from Ernest Shackleton to Teddy Roosevelt to John Glenn. He even claimed ownership of part of the moon, but that's a story for another time. So, when we look back at Garriott's career in design, MMOs, exploration, space travel, and possibly lunar real estate, one could say a lot of things about this man known as Lord British. But you know the one thing you can't say is that Richard Garriott lived a dull life, making him truly one of the many designers that you should know about. And if you'd like to continue to add more gaming goodness to your internet diet, then check out the new Extra Credits Live channel over on Nebula to see our weekly long-form shows Design Club Live and Games for Breakfast all ad-free. Or check out another of our animated design delves here. Hey y'all, I want to take a moment to thank Ziliat Architectures, Kuyakoy, Joseph Blain, Hunter Z, Fox Doc, Dominic Lenziana, Arclight Games, and Angela

Lenziana for stepping into my old-timey detective shop and becoming legendary patrons.