Lord British inducted into Hall of Fame
 

Recently, Richard Garriot, aka Lord British of Ultima fame, was inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) Hall of Fame. Gamespot has an interview with his Lordship regarding the award.

Browsing the AIAS Hall of Fame, Garriot is in good company with many of the greatest developers of all time, including Shigeru Miyamoto, Sid Meier, Will Wright, and Hinorobu Sakugichi (just to name a couple).

Congrats to Mr. Garriot. The Ultima series and Ultima Online were revolutionary and genre defining, but it will be really great to see if this old timer's blank slate (Tabula Rasa) will be as ground-breaking and fun.

Who would you nominate to next year's Hall of Fame?

Congrats to Garriot. Well deserved.

Thats a tough one. I can't decide between John Romero or Derek Smart.

Garriot... the man who has the life I dream of. He lives in a castle, works as a game designer, and goes on adventures. Not only that, but his name begins with "Lord"...

wtf!

Ultima Online is nothing like Everquest! WOW is everquest done for the masses, but Ultima Online was a completely different game when it came out. It was 2D, no lvl system and PvP was superb. It had no group tactics like buffs and debuffs in WOW/EQ. It was also non-item driven and an economy/social simulator. EQ/WOW is an item collection simulator with endless PvE grind. They made no attempt to create a living breathing world simulator, but made threadmills for people to run around in.
I cannot believe he does not acknowledge the fact that UO was something unique and special as he made it (or did he?). When EQ came along it become the model for every MMORPG and all have since been boring lvl grinds.

The only thing they have in common is the fantasy setting and alot of people online!

Personally I think Richard Garriot is a jerk after he blatanly lied and made me buy Ultima9. I love the guy for doing UO, but every statement I read from him about the game reveal that he knows nothing of why it was good and what the problems were. I'm left thinking it was pure luck.

is Bill Roper there yet? he definitely gots to be.

re: Garriot, good for him - although his final Ultima was a complete disgrace to his name and reputation. His earlier work was revolutionary in driving the RPG genre.

I'd nominate me. Working behind the scenes as part of the Gaming Illuminatti, I have single handedly changed and influenced the world as you gamers know it-- FOREVAH.
So therefore I should be nominated... but secretly so no one knows for sure. Because I am the hidden hand, it can't be made public knowledge!

-TNC-

How on Earth can you say that Garriot ruined Ultima 9? That has the Electronic Arts handy work written all over it. The Ultima’s Mr. Garriot created from 1979 to 1994 never shipped with a txt file called “known bugs”. Just with EA (electronic arts) do you see that kind of trash.

So, you have always dreamed of being a crazy narcissist?

He, dont get me wrong, I grew up on Origon games, and U4 is still one of my all time favorites. That said, Rich Garriot is truly a loon!

You know what, people bash on EA all the time over this incident, but frankly both parties were guilty. EA wouldnt have pushed the game out the door if it wasnt what... 2 years over due and way over budget. EA may be heartless bastards that care only about the bottom line. That said, Origon was a HORRIBLY run company.

Blame em both for U9's suckage.

Richard got messed up really bad by EA. They slowly ruined UO, canned UO2 and destroyed U9. I'm sure he was manipulated and overruled in many cases.
But that doesn't change the fact that he claimed U9 was ready and very good a few days before it was released. And that game was probably the worst release of a game ever. It did not work! And no patch could fix it. After they released it (and RG hyped it) the forums were filled with angry customers. So they closed the forums down, released a patch (fixed a few serious issues but the game still crashed and lagged) and withdrew support for the product in the future. Talk about going for the quick buck and then getting the hell outta there.

How can a game designer write such things a few days before releasing a major bugfest? He must have lied intentionally. You can only ponder as to what the motive was. To boost sales? Personally I don't think he is such an evil person. I just think he got pushed into it by a corporate guy and never really knew how bad the game was. Either way he seriously screwed up. Everyone was waiting for him to deliver and he used that last bit of credibility to screw the fanbase. I don't care if it was unintentional - he did it.

If you actually followed U9's development through those years before it was finally released, Garriot was touting the game to be THE greatest Ultima/CRPG ever. All them (video) interviews speak for themselves.... shameful, dishonest, and a damn crook to his fanbase.

Its ORIGIN

And I nominate STEVIE CASE'S KNOCKERS to next years hall of fame.

I would bet dollars to donuts (mmmm... donuts) that Garriot's compensation package as part of the Origin/EA deal included performance metrics for all unreleased Ultima titles in Origin's stables. Hence his bold faced lies regarding the state of the game.

Either way, lesson learned is do not trust game publishers when they tell you their game is good.

Or producers, or developers, or for that matter, gaming press. And sure as hell dont trust that dweeb behind the counter as EBGames.

Here are some of the developers that came to mind for future nominatons (I'm sure I'm missing some good ones but Romero and Smart are not on here because they wouldn't be on MY list. . . not that they aren't good, but just not "Hall of Fame" worthy in my opinion):

Tim Schafer - Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle, and Psychonauts

Hideo Kojima - Metal Gear series

David Jaffe - Twisted Metal series, God of War

Warren Spector - Deus Ex series, Thief series, System Shock, Wing Commander, Ultima VII, Frequency

Yuji Naka - Nights, Sonic the Hedgehog, Phantasy Star Online

Rob Pardo - World of Warcraft, Warcraft III, Diablo II, Starcraft, Descent, Cyberia

Bill Roper - Many of the same titles as Rob Pardo. Pardo had the lead for World of Warcraft while Roper was the lead for many of the games that led to World of Warcraft. In the end, they are both influential, but I'd go with Roper first since Pardo should be able to get his ten years later after we get even more cool Blizzard titles out of him.

Gabe Newell - Half-Life series, Counter-Strike: Condition Zero

Mark Cerny - Ratchet & Clank, Jak and Daxter, Crash Boondicoot, Spyro the Dragon, Heart of Darkness

John Howard - Halo, Day of Defeat, Mech Commander, Crimson Skies (not sure of lead designer credits other than Halo)

I'll add the full list of previous Hall of Fame folks so they don't seem obviously missing:

1998 - Shigeru Miyamoto - All things Mario
1999 - Sid Meier - Pirates, Railroad Tycoon, Civilization
2000 - Honorobu Sakugichi - Final Fantasy series
2001 - John Carmack - Wolfenstein 3D, Doom
2002 - Will Wright - Sim City, The Sims
2003 - Yu Suzuki - Virtua Fighter, Hang On, Outrun, After Burner, Shenmue
2004 - Peter Molyneux - Populous, Theme Park, Dungeon Keeper, Black & White series, Fable, The Movies
2005 - Trip Hawkins - founder of Electronic Arts (I didn't know that suits could get in the Hall of Fame. Whatever.)

I guess the one that seems the most missing to me is Yuji Naka.

nice roundup bean19.

I think the man knows what Ultima Online is and isn't you crazy.

Ack, forgot Dragon Warrior creator, Yuji Horii. Bah.

I also think Cliff Bleszinksi will earn one ten years from now, but he just hasn't done quite enough yet.

The only people worthy from your list to me are:

Warren Spector and probably Gabe Newell for making not only good games, but influencial ones. Most made good fleshed out game, but are just too young, Newell included (who only has one original frachise title really).

So Warren Spector :)