<html>

<head>

<title>loonygames - print happy version</title>
</head>

<body leftmargin="10" topmargin="10" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<table width="100%" border="0" height="58" bordercolordark="#000000" bordercolorlight="#000000">
  <tr> 
    <td height="57" width="26%" align="left" valign="top"> 
      <div align="left"> 
        <h1><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b><i><a href="../../index.html">loonygames</a><br>
          <font size="1">a <a href="http://www.bluesnews.com">blue's news</a> 
          publication</font></i></b></font></h1>
        </div>
    </td>
    <td height="57" width="74%" align="center" valign="top"> 
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<p><a href="../2.11/feat/index.html">&lt;&lt; Back to Normal View</a></p>
<p>URL: <a href="../2.11/feat/index.html">http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.11/feat/</a><br>
</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>Vol. 
                2, Issue 11<br>
                February 7, 2000<br>

                </b>
              <b> 
                </b>
               
                <b><i>Inside 
                  Origin Systems</i></b></p>
                An 
                  article by Tim &#147;Damarr&#148; 
                  O'Malley</p>
                <p></p>
              
              

<!--
       function gotoSite(obj)
          {
          var s;
          s=obj.options[obj.selectedIndex].value
                         location.href=s;
          }
// -->


              <?
              
              include("/home/loonygames/loony.timedoctor.org/includes/issues_new.htm"); 
              
              ?>
              
              
              O 
                rigin Systems is one of the world&#146;s leading software companies. 
                Going from hit title to hit title, they have been one of the market 
                leaders since the 1980&#146;s. In this article, I&#146;ll be taking 
                a look at what got the company where it is today, who got it there, 
                the main man behind it (Richard Garriot) and where the company 
                will be going in the future.</p>
              
              Who are 
                they?
               Origin 
                Systems Inc. (OSI) is based in Austin, Texas, founded in 1983 
                by Robert (now retired) and Richard Garriot (aka Lord British), 
                and spent many years publishing the Ultima series of games, with 
                the final installment of the Avatar&#146;s quest (<b>Ultima IX: 
                Ascension</b>) being released last December. </p>
              </p>
              Today, 
                OSI is made up of over 200 employees, with QA testers, programmers, 
                artists and an extensive customer support team, so it has clearly 
                come a long way from the small company it was in 1983.</p>
              </p>
              Origin 

                was purchased by Electronic Arts in 1993, enabling it to have 
                much greater international support for its games, with <b>Ultima 
                Online</b> having customer support departments in England, Germany, 
                the United States and Japan. </p>
              </p>
              To date, 
                OSI has published well over 50 games, and is currently concentrating 
                on what they see as the future of entertainment: online massive 
                multi-player games. Their first project, <b>Ultima Online</b>, 
                is still running strong at 135,000 players after two and a half 
                years, despite serious competition from Verant&#146;s <b>EverQuest</b>, 
                and Turbine&#146;s <b>Asheron&#146;s Call</b>. </p>
              </p>
              Other 
                successful games published by OSI included <b>Wing Commander</b>, 
                <b>Privateer</b>, <b>Crusader</b>, <b>System Shock</b>, <b>Bioforge</b>, 
                and of course, the <b>Ultima</b> series, with Origin&#146;s first 
                published title being <b>Ultima III: Exodus</b>.</p>
              </p>
              Who makes 
                up Origin?
              <br>
                Richard Garriot &#150; Vice President of Origin, and the Executive 
                Designer.<br>
                Jack Heistand 
                &#150; Vice President, and General Manager<br>
                Jeff Anderson 
                &#150; In charge of production<br>
                Gordon Walton 
                (aka Tyrant) &#150; Online Services and Operations<br>
                Carly Staehlin 
                (aka LadyMoi) &#150; Player/Community Relations for Origin</p>
              </p>
              Of course, 
                there are many more people at Origin who aren&#146;t mentioned 
                here, but these names would probably be among those best known 
                to the general public.</p>
              
              The man 
                behind the company: Richard Garriot
              </p>
              The first 
                name that would come to anyone&#146;s mind when thinking of OSI 
                would have to be Richard Garriot, co-founder of Origin and the 
                man behind the longest running RPG series of all time, <b>Ultima</b>. 
                Operating under the alias of Lord British in all his games, and 
                naming the capital of his world Britain, you start to wonder what 
                is going on. Richard Garriot was born in Cambridge in England, 
                and less than two months later, moved to Texas where he lives 
                to this day, in his very own special house, which is made up like 
                a castle on the inside, but wouldn&#146;t appear too odd from 
                the outside. His monicker dates back to his days at college, where 
                all of the new students were given nicknames on the first day. 
                It was thought he had a British accent, and so he was given the 
                nickname &#147;British&#148;. And naturally, it stuck.</p>
              </p>
              </p>
            
            
            
            
              <br><br>
              <p>
              For <b>Ultima: 
                Ascension</b>, Origin choose to design their own 3D engine rather 
                than license one from another company. While they may have needed 
                to do this due to <b>Ultima IX</b>&#146;s special needs, it did 
                prove costly. The engine was seriously incompatible with some 
                3D cards, and only people with 3dfx-based video cards had any 
                real chance of getting it to run properly. On top of that, there 
                were many crippling bugs in the game, such as invisible walls, 
                or blocked entrances. Indeed, in one dungeon, the entrance refused 
                to open again, and a bottomless pit was behind the player, leaving 
                them stuck, with no choice but to restart the game with patches 
                in place. Even now, while looking at the release notes for the 
                patches, there are still many &#147;This will not work if you 
                have already entered the game world&#148; beside many fixes, but 
                none of those bugs are very serious, and it has to be said, the 
                patches so far have fixed virtually all problems with the game 
                for those with fresh installs of the game.</p>
              <br>
                Current Projects
              <br>
                Current projects under development at OSI include<b> Ultima Online 
                2</b> (due for release sometime in Winter this year) and the mysterious 
                project &#147;<b>X</b>.&#148;</p>
              </p>
              So far, 
                very little information has been released on <b>UO 2</b>, let 
                alone any screenshots, but the game looks as though it will be 
                every bit as fun as its predecessor, but with a new 3D engine, 
                although its not known what view/perspective the game will use. 
                The beta is expected in late Autumn/early Winter, so it&#146;s 
                a long wait yet for everyone who&#146;s looking forward to playing 
                it. The beta will be offered to current <b>UO</b> subscribers 
                before the general public, so get in there if you want to be one 
                of the first to get into the beta test. </p>
              </p>
              At the 
                moment, one of <b>UO 2</b>&#146;s biggest issues is whether or 
                not the game will contain a PK (player killer) switch, so people 
                can choose whether or not they want to become involved in battle 
                with other players, as is used in <b>Asheron&#146;s Call</b> and 
                <b>EverQuest</b>. OSI is going after the idea of &#145;zoning&#146; 
                the game, with non-player vs. player (PvP) areas that contain 
                much smarter monsters, and PvP zones, which will of course, be 
                rampant with player killers and thieves. How they&#146;ll overcome 
                this problem and keep everyone happy is yet to be seen, and may 
                well be impossible. Richard Garriot won&#146;t be overseeing<b> 
                UO 2</b> himself: instead Starr Long (Lord Blackthorne in the 
                <b>Ultima</b> games) will be the producer. In charge of designing 
                the characters will be cartoonist, Todd McFarlane, creator of 
                the Spawn series of comics. McFarlane has been commissioned by 
                RG to design several of the game&#146;s creatures, which RG has 
                said look amazing at their current stage, so it must be impressive.</p>
              </p>
              Project 
                &#145;<b>X</b>&#146;, (X being the Roman numeral for 10) is said 
                to be a futuristic style online game, and it may even have a name 
                change to <b>Ultima X </b>at the last minute according to Richard 
                Garriot. But as he has said before, Britannia and the Avatar are 
                gone and finished, so it will be interesting to see what story 
                line the game will take. According to Garriot, identity will play 
                a large part of the game. He recently told GameDaily: </p>
              </p>
              &#147;For 
                example, one of the most successful attributes of<b> UO</b> is 
                the personal identity of the characters; you can tell who the 
                cool players are because they are well accessorized and they act 
                well. That's one of the features I really want to push.&#148;</p>
              </p>
              </p>
              </p>
              </p>
            
            
            
            
              <br><br>

              
              Technical 
                Innovations
              <br>
                Origin, unlike many companies, moves with the flow of technology, 
                and sometimes redefines it. Every game in the <b>Ultima</b> series 
                scrapped the previous game&#146;s engine, and instead used a totally 
                new one. It is this attitude to always staying &#145;on the ball,&#146; 
                which has kept Origin ahead of the bulk of software houses. If 
                you look at <b>Ultima I</b>, you can clearly see its simplicity. 
                As you go through the games, they change rapidly, with color, 
                proper graphics, new views to see the action from, a bigger game 
                and finally with <b>Ultima IX: Ascension</b>, a full-blown 3D 
                view for a 3D world. Despite its many bugs, no one who has played 
                the game can deny how impressive and large its world can seem 
                at times, with hundreds of animals and NPCs (Non Player Characters) 
                just walking about, living their lives. In <b>Ultima I</b>, the 
                code used for the dungeons was the same code that had been used 
                to design <b>Akalabeth</b>, and<b> Ultima II</b> was the first 
                game he made in assembly language.<b> Ultima III</b> was the first 
                game that Garriot actually got to do exactly what he wanted, as 
                his lack of experience in code meant that the other games were 
                all very rough around the edges. <b>Ultima III </b>was much better 
                defined, and everything was much more coherent, and was the last 
                game in what is referred to as the &#147;Age of Darkness Trilogy.&#148; 
                </p>
              </p>
              <b>Ultima 
                IV </b>was the first game to penalize players for bad behavior, 
                with NPCs treating you badly if you were a known psychopath, but 
                at the other end of the scale, if you were a hero who went around 
                helping people out, NPCs would be more willing to do you favors, 
                showing a clear advance in computer AI and understanding of the 
                player. <b>Ultima V </b>challenged the traditional good/bad scenario, 
                as it introduced characters with many shades of gray, and so it 
                was no longer obvious what side someone was on. <b>Ultima VI </b>was 
                the first game were continuity was a concern, and was more a game 
                of personal exploration, as the Avatar was killing gargoyles only 
                to find they saw humans as monsters, just as humans saw them. 
                This was the first game that concentrated heavily on storyline, 
                and a step forward for the series in establishing itself as a 
                true RPG epic. This was also the last game in the &#147;Age on 
                Enlightenment Trilogy.&#148;</p>
              </p>
              Following 
                this,<b> Ultima VII </b>was released. This was a major step forward 
                for the series, as it was the first Ultima to contain a truly 
                impressive world, and would set the standard for the titles to 
                come after it. <b>Ultima VIII </b>was best known for its arcade 
                style adventure, but lacked real gameplay, and only advanced the 
                series in terms of its graphical appearance. <b>Ultima IX</b>, 
                as many people will know, brought the series to a close, but was 
                a massive leap forward at the same time. No 3D game has ever had 
                such a large and detailed world, with something interesting around 
                every corner, and it is on a truly huge scale. This ended the 
                &#147;Guardian Trilogy&#148; and the &#147;Trilogy of Trilogies,&#148; 
                as some had called it, brining the story of the Avatar and Britannia 
                to a satisfying close.</p>
              </p>
              FMV being 
                used in a game, although now a largely disused form of telling 
                the story, was seen being displayed to its full affect in Origin&#146;s 
                <b>Wing Commander </b>series of games. Featuring Mark Hamill, 
                the sequences were used as a new form of storytelling for a video 
                game. Aside from the FMV, the <b>Wing Commander</b> games set 
                the benchmark for other space simulators. The latest (and possibly 
                last) installment of <b>Wing Commander</b>, called <b>Wing Commander: 
                Secret Ops</b> was released on the Internet as a free download, 
                with each level weighing in from 30-50 megabytes each. </p>
              </p>
              </p>
              </p>
            
            
            
            
              <br><br>

              
              
              Garriot&#146;s 
                first published game was <b>Akalabeth</b> in 1979, which he put 
                together while in college, at the age of 19. It was a simple game, 
                and the first few editions were actually made by Garriot himself, 
                with photocopied instruction manuals and the containers put together 
                by hand, each disk individually copied. The total expenditure 
                for the first few copies was the grand sum of $200, and they were 
                put up for sale in a local shop called Computer Land. A week (and 
                5 copies) later, a publisher contacted Garriot and offered to 
                publish the game for him. He agreed, and his first game was now 
                on the market, ultimately selling over 30,000 copies in total.</p>
              He later 
                published <b>Ultima: The First Age of Darkness</b>. On its original 
                release, it had no overall plot whatsoever, but when later remade 
                for the PC, it introduced the story of the Avatar, that ran all 
                of the way up to <b>Ultima IX: Ascension</b>, where the Avatar 
                left Britannia behind him. <b>Ultima II</b> was also released 
                before Origin&#146;s creation, and it continued the story of evil, 
                and the Avatar being sent to put a stop to it. The first few games 
                were made for Apple computers, but were soon been made for the 
                PC, which was becoming the prime choice for games designers to 
                work on. </p>
              </p>
              Garriot 
                had always wanted to make something more of the <b>Ultima</b> 
                series, and proved himself to truly be one of gaming&#146;s pioneers 
                when he released the award winning <b>Ultima Online</b>, which 
                was the first truly massively multi-player game ever released 
                to the public. It suffered many teething problems, but that was 
                because it was the first of its kind, and a massive leap forward 
                for online gaming. Origin never really expected the game to do 
                as well as it did. It wasn&#146;t thought it would sell over 15,000 
                units, and that only one game server would be needed. Today, there 
                are 20 <b>UO</b> game servers in the US, Asia, Europe and one 
                opening soon in Australia, and it is Origin&#146;s fastest selling 
                game ever. </p>
              </p>
              Garriot 
                only ever once had an ego problem that usually comes with all 
                the fame, but he quickly realized it after some friends pointed 
                it out to him and changed his ways. Garriot, along with the likes 
                of John Carmack, Sid Meier, Peter Molyneux, is a rare breed of 
                game developer who can be instantly recognized when you see him, 
                and is known to almost every hard-core gamer on the planet. </p>
              </p>
              Garriot 
                firmly believes there is much more to online games than the usual 
                &#145;kill everything&#146; approach that some games take. Co-operation 
                with other players in<b> Ultima Online</b> ultimately brings greater 
                rewards than going it alone, or being anti-social towards other 
                players. Some of the areas in <b>UO </b>can be so dangerous that 
                going in alone is suicide, unless you&#146;re an expert at running 
                away. More time is spent in <b>UO</b> talking, trading, skill/stat 
                building and enquiring than actual adventuring, but then again, 
                its not as though anyone&#146;s life is non-stop action 24 hours 
                a day.</p>
              </p>
              His favorite 
                <b>Ultima</b> games would be<b> IV</b>, because of the strong 
                use of the &#147;Virtues,&#148; and <b>VII</b>, because it was 
                the first game with a fully simulated world. After publishing 
                <b>Ultima I</b>, he and his friends all thought that the entertainment 
                software phase would just blow over, and he would have to go back 
                to college to get a real job. Quite to the contrary, despite a 
                serious drop of interest in games in the mid-80&#146;s, the gaming 
                industry has grown now to be comparable to the film industry, 
                and a long way from the handful of developers in the 70&#146;s 
                making games for the Amiga and Apples. </p>
              </p>
              </p>
            
            
            
            
              <br><br>
              <p>
              So, if 
                you want a good idea of what it will be like, imagine an online 
                form of <i>Blade Runner</i>. RG also said that fashion will play 
                a role in <b>X</b> as well, and it will be interesting to see 
                how that turns out. In addition, he has said that putting hours 
                upon hours into <b>X</b> won&#146;t guarantee advancement in character 
                stats and skills. Instead he hopes to implement a different system, 
                but no details have been released yet.</p>
              </p>
              Of course, 
                the original <b>Ultima Online</b> is still an ongoing project 
                at Origin. The game boasts a support team of over 100 Game Masters, 
                thousands of volunteers, dedicated to providing game support or 
                plots, and a team of 12 people constantly working on the game&#146;s 
                programming. They are constantly adding new, and sometimes controversial, 
                elements to the game. Putting anything in, or taking something 
                out, is always considered very carefully before its put into action, 
                as it may seriously upset the players and their society. More 
                recently, a page called &#147;In Concept&#148; sprung up on their 
                web site, outlining future plans, and asking players for feedback 
                and comments on the proposed changes. It may have its fair share 
                of problems, but the people who complain are a vocal minority, 
                with the vast majority of players usually agreeing to changes 
                in the game. </p>
              </p>
              A large 
                aspect of games in the future will be putting in modifications 
                after the game has been released. Almost every game these days 
                has patches, which fix bugs and add new features. Perhaps one 


                of the best patches ever added to a game was the <b>Team Fortress 
                Classic </b>multi-player mod added with a bug fix to <b>Half-Life</b>, 
                giving players a reward for upgrading their software to the latest 
                version. Even now, some Dreamcast games offer extra levels, as 
                a free download. <b>Sonic Adventure</b> has a downloadable Christmas 
                level, and this has been done on some PC games before, and will 
                happen many more times in the future, as people realize the benefits 
                of patching a game. Origin seems to have noticed this, and <b>Ultima 
                Online</b> receives patches on a monthly basis, while mostly fixing 
                bugs, also giving players some extra items at the same time, making 
                the patching process worth the wait, so it doesn&#146;t seem so 
                tedious.</p>
              </p>
              It does 
                have a lot of problems though. Anti-social players, cheaters and 
                indiscriminate player killers have driven many people away from 
                the game. $10 is a lot of money to pay just for the privilege 
                of being harassed, and harassment problems rarely ever result 
                in the offending player getting banned. The system for reporting 
                incidents is just too dodgy, with some players afraid to use it, 
                as miss-use can result in a ban if you do it 3 times, so most 
                people just stay away from it all together. And on top of that, 
                there are some websites out there, which seem hell-bent on destroying 
                <b>UO</b>, but trying to justify their actions at the same time, 
                but <b>UO</b> was the first game of its kind, and such problems 
                were inevitable. </p>
              </p>
              Richard 
                Garriot decided to do <b>Ultima Online</b> because he believed 
                that socializing has always been an essential part of any RPG 
                experience, and he hoped to deliver the best social experience 
                online anyone could get. He most certainly succeeded with his 
                plan. Unlike <b>EverQuest</b> and <b>Asheron&#146;s Call</b>, 
                a very strong community exists between the players of UO, and 
                this is partially due to the ability to build homes. Many player-built 
                towns have sprung up all over the <b>UO</b> servers, and these 
                are usually a safe heaven for role-players while out in the wilderness. 
                Many of <b>UO</b>&#146;s best-known players are the people who 
                run some of the more famous towns, such as Paxlair. </p>
              </p>
              The Future 
                of Origin
               It seems 
                that without a doubt, the future of games lies with online gaming, 
                and Origin intend to be at the spearhead of this concept. Richard 
                Garriot has announced that Origin will now be making online games 
                exclusively, and Electronic Arts, their parent company, said they 
                would be investing heavily into the new market for online only 
                games. </p>
              </p>
              The developers 
                at Origin seem to firmly believe, that human interaction is really 
                the best element any game can offer. In the future, children will 
                probably laugh at the idea of having to play a game by yourself, 
                with no other humans taking part in your adventures. Who knows 
                what they may do in the future. Maybe in 20 years they will be 
                producing games with a Matrix-style level of reality, with people 
                being able to use virtual reality to actually enter the medieval 
                world of Britannia, or the sci-fi settings of <b>X</b>. Whatever 
                happens to online gaming, Origin will be one of the few developers 
                at the head of it.</p>
              </p>
              Whatever 
                they make, like <b>UO</b>, it will be a massive world filled with 
                people, both real and computer generated, and putting painstaking 
                detail into everything that they create. I believe the following 
                sums up everything that Origin is, and hopes to achieve in the 
                future: </p>
              </p>
              Company 
                Motto:</p>
              <i>&#147;ORIGIN 
                creates worlds of immersed simulation and technological innovation. 
                We create worlds with unparalleled attention to detail, setting 
                new standards in interactive entertainment. But most of all, we 
                create worlds of fun.&#148;</i></p>
              </p>
              <i>- 
                This is Tim &#147;Damarr&#148; O'Malley's first contribution 
                to loonygames.</i></p>
              </p>
              </p>
              </p>
              </p>
              </p>
            
            
            
            
              <br><br><p>&nbsp;</p> 
<p><a href="../2.11/feat/index.html">&lt;&lt;Back to Normal View</a></p>
<table width="100%" border="1" height="29" bordercolordark="#000000" bordercolorlight="#FFFFFF" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
  <tr> 
    <td height="20" width="99%"> 
      <div align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><b><i>loonygames 
        - the best damn gaming magazine online </i></b></font></div>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>
<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Print CGI is 
  &copy; 2000 <a href="http://www.square8.com">Square Eight</a>. Used with permission. 
  Article is &copy; 2000 its original author. All other content is &copy; 2000 
  loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited. You got that??</font></i></p>
 