Tag Archives: richard garriot

Shroud of the Avatar developer Richard Garriot has explained that he wasn’t trying to ‘toot his own horn’ when he recently said that “most game designers just really suck”.

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Richard Garriot’s Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter campaign has succeeded, making $1,025,824
of its of $1,000,000 goal with 19 days left spare. The developer has now added stretch goals into the mix.

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Shroud of the Avatar creator Richard Garriot will deliver a keynote speech at Quo Vadis ’13, one of Europe’s biggest game conferences. The event takes place between 23-25 April in Cafe Moskau, Berlin.

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Richard Garriott, creator of the popular RPG series Ultima, claims that his new social gaming project can be viewed as a spritual successor to his previous works.

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Old school gamers around the world felt a chill run up their spine a few days ago as Richard Garriott made comments that indicated he was in high-level talks with EA to revive the Ultima franchise. However, that may not be the case. More »

According to this Tabula Rasa dev update, the MMO is going to get an FPS view.

It doesn’t say when the feature’s going to be added, but there are some screens there to prove it’s real. Astonishing. Take a look.

Thanks, MaxConsole.

Talking to Eurogamer, NCSoft has rebutted recent talk that Richard Garriot’s MMO Tabula Rasa is in dire straights.

“Tabula Rasa has a dedicated player base, which is growing month on month,” said NCsoft Europe’s David Blundell.

“Tabula Rasa offers players a different kind of MMO experience, enhancing our portfolio of game titles. The game play mechanics are very different to that of a typical MMO – those who have experienced the game have recognised these innovative features and applauded them.

“A recent European trial promotion was met with great demand; we will be doing a similar promotion later in the year.”

The comments come after the game was seen to barely feature in a Q1 financial report.

Lots more through the link.

According to this, Korean journalist Cho Jin-seo has published a piece in the Korean Times about Tabula Rasa, saying that “some downsizing in Austin is inevitable” after the game has “has proven to be a financial disaster”.

“NCsoft CFO Lee Jae-ho did state that some downsizing in Austin is inevitable. But he also indicated in the conference call that he has hope that TR will improve its revenue stream over time.

NCsoft has committed to putting several million dollars more into further developing TR.

TR is launching in Japan later this year. Considering that Richard Garriott’s games have done well in Japan, this will only help to bolster the game’s population.

There will be some reduction at the Austin Studio, but only on the TR team. This isn’t shocking by the way. MMOs normally ramp up their staff during development and leading up to launch, then reduce it after. Fact is, some of the TR team has already transitioned over to other internal dev teams.”

Tabula Rasa was shown in recent financials to have taken over $5 million in revenue since it launched last autumn.

NCSoft’s just reported full year 2007 results, showing sales of $355.1 million and an operating profit of $53.3 million.

Although the company saw its sales drop 3 percent year over year, operating profit, pre-tax profit, and net profit increased 14 percent, 24 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

The report reveals that Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa has grossed $5.4 million since launching last year. Lineage and Lineage II increased revenue by 35 percent and 4 percent respectively in the fourth quarter compared to the third, while City of Heroes and Guild Wars fared less well, seeing sales drop 6 percent and 29 percent respectively.

Not much forward-looking stuff in there, just confirmation that Aion, as well as some casual games, will hit in the coming year.

The next major content update for Tabula Rasa is to include “eagerly awaited” features for the MMO’s spy class, lead designer Paul Sage has told VG247.

“The team is working on many varied projects; our release schedule for new content is at about every three weeks right now,” said Sage. “I would say the team’s next major update is going to include some eagerly awaited changes to the spy class, and we have some changes in the works to make sure all summoned or controlled AIs respond to battle better, which will help a lot of our classes, not the least of which is the exo-biologist.”

Sage fell short of detailing the exact additions the the class’s functionality.

He also revealed that the team is in very early stages of working on new faces and costumes for the game’s female characters.

“We do have very early plans right now to work on getting some new outfits and faces for our female characters,” said Sage. “Especially with the Hybrids, we want to make sure there are options players find attractive.”

Hybrids are alien-human crosses just released into the game.

Tabula Rasa is Richard “Spaceman” Garriot’s latest game, an action-heavy sci-fi MMO from developer Destination Games and NCSoft. Sage said that the game’s userbase has now stabilised after a surge of players during the launch period last year, but wouldn’t be drawn on an exact number of current players.

“The community had a massive influx of players around game launch and now has settled itself, forming a strong, dedicated base,” he said. “The recent 1.4 update has encouraged new players to give Tabula Rasa a try, so we are seeing a good number willing to fight for humanities survival.”

More info on the game here. Read all of Paul’s answers to our questions after the link below.

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Richard Garriott – most recently the development lead for MMO Tabula Rasa – is currently training in Star City, a highly restricted facility just outside Moscow, where cosmonauts have been trained since the 60s.

“Richard is currently in Russia, training for his flight later in the year, when he will be travelling to the International Space Station, and in dong so will become the Earth’s sixth private citizen to conduct a space mission,” NCSoft told us. “Over the course of several months, he will be training for this flight, following in the footsteps of his father Owen Garriott, a former NASA astronaut.”

The spokesperson added, “The flight is scheduled for October this year and he will be travelling onboard the Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the International Space Station as a client of Space Adventures.”

We’re trying to be stoical, BUT THE GUY’S GOING TO THE INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION. We’re living the dream through you, Richard. Keep up with his practically unbelievable adventure right here.

Look. There they are. The latest update for Richard Garriot’s sci-fi MMO was announced a few days ago, but we didn’t report it because we couldn’t get this stupid video to work. But now we can. According to the press release:

“There are three human-alien hybrids; taking the best characteristics of the Forean, Brann, Thrax and merging them with humanity. For a player to obtain a hybrid character they must follow and complete a mission chain; each race has their own distinct chain to complete. Hybrid characters have increased attribute points in certain key areas, like Mind, Body or Spirit over a normal human. These are dependent on the alien race merged with, for example a Thrax-Human has increased physical attributes (Body), which allows them to absorb more total damage. There are of course weaknesses to the joining.

“This is the first stage of development for the inclusion of Hybrid’s into Tabula Rasa. In the future, the development team will be adding hybrid-specific weaponry and armour and may also be adding hybrid specific missions.”

Watch away.