Brad McQauid:
Do you think it's a good idea for us to meet before your game has even
been turned off?



Richard
Garriott:

The only game I recognize as my own is Ultima Online and it's not being
switched off anytime soon.




BM: Fair
enough, I'll scratch Vanguard
off my resume too then.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Let's call a mulligan and
replay our "next big thing" and pretend like the last two shots didn't
count.



BM: It feels
weird being back here where it all ended. I wake up with horrible
dreams of how we let all those people go. Oh wait, I wasn't here when
we dropped the axe. That was such a good call.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: I wasn't even on the planet
when we decided to pull the plug on TR, I think I win for greatest
distance.



**


style="margin: 10px; border-collapse: collapse; float: right; width: 200px;"
border="1">

href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/61390"> src="/image/view/61390/preview"
style="border: 2px solid ; width: 200px;">

The next
game from the Lord and the Vision.

RG style="font-style: italic;">: Speaking of space, when I was
way out there, I saw the future of gaming.



BM: Would
you say you had a "Vision?"



RG style="font-style: italic;">: No, that sounds lame. I had a
true sight of the future. I saw a high fantasy MMO.



BM: I am
cool with that, I think everyone is tired of WoW and there really
aren't any other games in the fantasy genre outside of style="font-style: italic;">Everquest.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Can you pass whatever you're
smoking? WoW just hit 11.5 million players, I think even the four
people tired of the game came back when the expansion hit.



BM: It has
no soul. I want my game to have soul.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Well that is true. Our game
needs soul and a new language to go with all that soul.



BM: The way
I envision it, we really need solid game mechanics, great crafting and
amazing combat.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Man, someone else will figure
that out, let's get an intern or something. I'm a story guy.



BM: That
didn't work out so well for me last time, unless you look at my
consulting contract with SOE, that was a great story.



RG: style="font-style: italic;"> All of that coding and art
stuff is automated now, the only thing that separates games these days
is story. Nobody does stories anymore.



BM: You mean
original stories like aliens invading Earth?



**



BM: This
will be the real successor to Everuest that I've always dreamed of.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: I thought that was Vanguard?
And I thought we agreed this will really be the successor to Ultima
Online.



BM: EQ
trumps UO, ask anyone.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: I did at the game store the
other day, and nobody had heard of either game. One guy asked me if
Everquest was "that online thing like Second Life?" I almost flagged
PvP and kicked his ass right there.



**



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Speaking of PvP, it needs to
be in the game.



BM: That's
fine, we'll add it when we add crafting during the first
patch. 



**



BM: So how
much funding should we run after?



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Well, I need to pay the
Russians before they kneecap me, so that's 10 million. Then I need a
new wing on my castle, so let's just call it an even 15 million.



BM: I've
racked up a few debts of my own since I sold at the bottom, so let's
bump that to 25 and call it good.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Good thing we won't actually
have to deliver a game, there's no way we could make a game for 25
million these days. 



BM: So high
fantasy it is.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Yep, and we should call it
something epic, like "Baneland"



BM: Hrm, I
was thinking of "Everguard" or "Vanquest."



RG style="font-style: italic;">: That is so unoriginal, you
just mashed your other games together. Have you had a new thought this
decade?



BM: We can
decide the name later, let's go get some funding.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Good plan, let's meet back
here with venture suckers, I mean capitalists in tow in two weeks.
Remember to use phrases like "story driven, world changing, PvP
focused, next generation" and maybe lob in a "mini-games" or if you get
desperate say it will be "free to play and supported by
microtransactions" that will hook them.



BM: You lost
me at PvP.



RG style="font-style: italic;">: Nevermind, I'll go get the
funding, you go get Lazik so you can improve your Vision. See you in
two weeks.





And
with that the two figures dissolve into the fog, unaware that the
hatching of the new game has been memorialized forever.


Last Updated: Mar 13, 2016

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