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              <h5 align="right"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#00025E"><img src="../../images/cover2.11_sml.jpg" width="280" height="219" align="left"><loonystart>Vol. 
                2, Issue 11<br>
                February 7, 2000<br>

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              <div align="center"> 
                <p align="center"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000FF"><i><font color="#904C10" size="6">Inside 
                  Origin Systems</font></i></font></b></p>
                <p align="right"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">An 
                  article by <a href="mailto:tim@damarr.freeserve.co.uk">Tim &#147;Damarr&#148; 
                  O'Malley</a></font></p>
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              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="../../images/letters_new/o.jpg" width="25" height="39" align="left"> 
                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.</font></p>
              <h3 align="left"></h3>
              <h3 align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Who are 
                they?</font></h3>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"> 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. </font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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. </font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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>. </font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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>.</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <h3 align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Who makes 
                up Origin?</font></h3>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br>
                Richard Garriot &#150; Vice President of Origin, and the Executive 
                Designer.<br>
                </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Jack Heistand 
                &#150; Vice President, and General Manager<br>
                </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Jeff Anderson 
                &#150; In charge of production<br>
                </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Gordon Walton 
                (aka Tyrant) &#150; Online Services and Operations<br>
                </font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Carly Staehlin 
                (aka LadyMoi) &#150; Player/Community Relations for Origin</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
              <h3 align="left"></h3>
              <h3 align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">The man 
                behind the company: Richard Garriot</font></h3>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">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.</font></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
              <p align="left"></p>
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<p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2">Credits: Illustration 
  &copy; 2000 Joachim. This article is &copy; 2000 Tim &#147;Damarr&#148; O'Malley. 
  All other content is &copy; 2000 loonyboi productions. Unauthorized reproduction 
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