Retronauts Episode 156: Ultima (feat. Richard Garriott)
Added 2018-06-11 21:47:47 +0000 UTCThis episode is appearing slightly out of sequence. The normal routine, as you've probably noticed, is a "core" Retronauts episode (e.g. a Bob & Jeremy joint) every other week, with one Retronauts East and one interview/wild card episode per month on the off weeks. This time, it's two core episodes in a row — GameCube and this one. That's because, due to some schedule disruptions, we didn't record the next Retronauts East episode until about [checks] an hour ago. But also... this episode accompanies a feature that will be going up at USgamer next week, so I wanted it to hit the public feed at the same time.
Anyway! It's another developer interview episode. But this one's a little different than usual. Since my conversation with Richard Garriott only ran about 45 minutes, I decided that it would be nice to bring in some studio discussion in order to provide context for the interview segment. This episode, then, consists of about 45 minutes of chat about the Ultima game featuring Bob, myself, and experts Jason Wilson and Rowan Kaiser. After the mid-break, enjoy Lord British regaling everyone with tales of, essentially, inventing the CRPG.
There are quite a few more developer interviews on the origins of RPGs coming down the pipelines. Please look forward to them! And next week, of course, Retronauts East. — Jeremy
Comments
I really enjoyed this episode. I hope you do more on individual, or groups of, Ultima games. I have been a fan of Garriott since I was a kid. Interviews with him talking about reaching new levels of simulation in his games formed a lot of how I thought about games when I was young (more detailed simulation = better). In fact, he was the first person I ever saw voice the idea that there was no evil people in the world (I was raised Catholic). Obviously, many other people said this before him, but he was my first exposure. It was an idea that was floating around half-realized in my head at that point, seeing it fully expressed was a big deal for me. I can remember my mom, who was very nervous about D&D, encouraging me to learn more about him when she read about Ultima IV. Published interviews with him played a large role in me finally getting to play D&D, a game that I have enjoyed for over 30 years. Plus, he is one of the few people who get to cosplay as themselves. I really like the format of an introductry discussion followed by an interview. I hop you do more of that as you cover other RPGs. Please tell me there will be stuff with SSI.
Rich McKee
2018-06-19 02:53:23 +0000 UTC
