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URL: http://www.loonygames.com/content/2.11/feat/
Vol.
2, Issue 11
February 7, 2000
Inside
Origin Systems
An
article by Tim “Damarr”
McAtackney
O
rigin Systems is one of the world’s leading software companies.
Going from hit title to hit title, they have been one of the market
leaders since the 1980’s. In this article, I’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.
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’s quest (Ultima IX:
Ascension) being released last December.
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.
Origin
was purchased by Electronic Arts in 1993, enabling it to have
much greater international support for its games, with Ultima
Online having customer support departments in England, Germany,
the United States and Japan.
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, Ultima Online,
is still running strong at 135,000 players after two and a half
years, despite serious competition from Verant’s EverQuest,
and Turbine’s Asheron’s Call.
Other
successful games published by OSI included Wing Commander,
Privateer, Crusader, System Shock, Bioforge,
and of course, the Ultima series, with Origin’s first
published title being Ultima III: Exodus.
Who makes
up Origin?
Richard Garriot – Vice President of Origin, and the Executive
Designer.
Jack Heistand
– Vice President, and General Manager
Jeff Anderson
– In charge of production
Gordon Walton
(aka Tyrant) – Online Services and Operations
Carly Staehlin
(aka LadyMoi) – Player/Community Relations for Origin
Of course,
there are many more people at Origin who aren’t mentioned
here, but these names would probably be among those best known
to the general public.
The man
behind the company: Richard Garriot
The first
name that would come to anyone’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, Ultima.
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’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 “British”. And naturally, it stuck.
Garriot’s
first published game was Akalabeth 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.
He later
published Ultima: The First Age of Darkness. 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 Ultima IX: Ascension, where the Avatar
left Britannia behind him. Ultima II was also released
before Origin’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.
Garriot
had always wanted to make something more of the Ultima
series, and proved himself to truly be one of gaming’s pioneers
when he released the award winning Ultima Online, 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’t thought it would sell over 15,000
units, and that only one game server would be needed. Today, there
are 20 UO game servers in the US, Asia, Europe and one
opening soon in Australia, and it is Origin’s fastest selling
game ever.
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.
Garriot
firmly believes there is much more to online games than the usual
‘kill everything’ approach that some games take. Co-operation
with other players in Ultima Online ultimately brings greater
rewards than going it alone, or being anti-social towards other
players. Some of the areas in UO can be so dangerous that
going in alone is suicide, unless you’re an expert at running
away. More time is spent in UO talking, trading, skill/stat
building and enquiring than actual adventuring, but then again,
its not as though anyone’s life is non-stop action 24 hours
a day.
His favorite
Ultima games would be IV, because of the strong
use of the “Virtues,” and VII, because it was
the first game with a fully simulated world. After publishing
Ultima I, 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’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’s
making games for the Amiga and Apples.
Technical
Innovations
Origin, unlike many companies, moves with the flow of technology,
and sometimes redefines it. Every game in the Ultima series
scrapped the previous game’s engine, and instead used a totally
new one. It is this attitude to always staying ‘on the ball,’
which has kept Origin ahead of the bulk of software houses. If
you look at Ultima I, 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 Ultima IX: Ascension, 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 Ultima I, the
code used for the dungeons was the same code that had been used
to design Akalabeth, and Ultima II was the first
game he made in assembly language. Ultima III 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. Ultima III was much better
defined, and everything was much more coherent, and was the last
game in what is referred to as the “Age of Darkness Trilogy.”
Ultima
IV 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. Ultima V 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. Ultima VI 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 “Age on
Enlightenment Trilogy.”
Following
this, Ultima VII 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. Ultima VIII was best known for its arcade
style adventure, but lacked real gameplay, and only advanced the
series in terms of its graphical appearance. Ultima IX,
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
“Guardian Trilogy” and the “Trilogy of Trilogies,”
as some had called it, brining the story of the Avatar and Britannia
to a satisfying close.
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’s
Wing Commander 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 Wing Commander games set
the benchmark for other space simulators. The latest (and possibly
last) installment of Wing Commander, called Wing Commander:
Secret Ops was released on the Internet as a free download,
with each level weighing in from 30-50 megabytes each.
For Ultima:
Ascension, 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 Ultima IX’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 “This will not work if you
have already entered the game world” 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.
Current Projects
Current projects under development at OSI include Ultima Online
2 (due for release sometime in Winter this year) and the mysterious
project “X.”
So far,
very little information has been released on UO 2, 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’s
a long wait yet for everyone who’s looking forward to playing
it. The beta will be offered to current UO subscribers
before the general public, so get in there if you want to be one
of the first to get into the beta test.
At the
moment, one of UO 2’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 Asheron’s Call and
EverQuest. OSI is going after the idea of ‘zoning’
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’ll overcome
this problem and keep everyone happy is yet to be seen, and may
well be impossible. Richard Garriot won’t be overseeing
UO 2 himself: instead Starr Long (Lord Blackthorne in the
Ultima 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’s creatures, which RG has
said look amazing at their current stage, so it must be impressive.
Project
‘X’, (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 Ultima X 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:
“For
example, one of the most successful attributes of UO 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.”
So, if
you want a good idea of what it will be like, imagine an online
form of Blade Runner. RG also said that fashion will play
a role in X as well, and it will be interesting to see
how that turns out. In addition, he has said that putting hours
upon hours into X won’t guarantee advancement in character
stats and skills. Instead he hopes to implement a different system,
but no details have been released yet.
Of course,
the original Ultima Online 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’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 “In Concept” 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.
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 Team Fortress
Classic multi-player mod added with a bug fix to Half-Life,
giving players a reward for upgrading their software to the latest
version. Even now, some Dreamcast games offer extra levels, as
a free download. Sonic Adventure 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 Ultima
Online 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’t seem so
tedious.
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
UO, but trying to justify their actions at the same time,
but UO was the first game of its kind, and such problems
were inevitable.
Richard
Garriot decided to do Ultima Online 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 EverQuest and Asheron’s Call,
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 UO servers, and these
are usually a safe heaven for role-players while out in the wilderness.
Many of UO’s best-known players are the people who
run some of the more famous towns, such as Paxlair.
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.
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 X. Whatever
happens to online gaming, Origin will be one of the few developers
at the head of it.
Whatever
they make, like UO, 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:
Company
Motto:
“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.”
-
This is Tim “Damarr” McAtackney's first contribution
to loonygames.
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