The story of Origin/Ultima/EA

[wraith808]

Very interesting reading on one of the largest acquisitions in gaming that led to the current monolith that is EA.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_14/87-The-Conquest-of-Origin

http://hardcoregaming101.net/ultima/ultima8.htm

[Deozaan]

Very interesting reading on one of the largest acquisitions in gaming that led to the current monolith that is EA.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_14/87-The-Conquest-of-Origin

Necro post? That first article was written in 2005.

[Paul Keith]

Complimentary post: http://asia.gamespot.com/john-madden-football-ii/videos/video-game-history-month-trip-hawkins-6314337/

You want necro-posting? Someone find me the Trip Hawkins quote for High Heat Baseball. I can't find that in Google anywhere.

Never has a bad game had that high of a testimonial pasted everywhere in it's ad.

[wraith808]

Necro post? That first article was written in 2005.

Perhaps, but I just came across it, and found it interesting.  Should I not post links to something that was written long ago that I come across just because its old?

[TaoPhoenix]

You want necro-posting? Someone find me the Trip Hawkins quote for High Heat Baseball. I can't find that in Google anywhere.

This one?
http://www.ign.com/articles/2003/03/04/high-heat-2004-is-up-to-bat
High Heat 2004 is Up to Bat
"Since its debut on the PC in 1998, High Heat Baseball has garnered critical acclaim and an enthusiastic fan base," said Trip Hawkins, chief executive officer of The 3DO Company. "By recreating the foundation of High Heat for the PC, we intend to reward those fans by continuing to take the game to new heights."

[Deozaan]

Necro post? That first article was written in 2005.

Perhaps, but I just came across it, and found it interesting.  Should I not post links to something that was written long ago that I come across just because its old?

That's not it. I just read it with the assumption that it was a new article about EA's Origin software (the Steam competitor) and was thrown off by all the seemingly out of date information found within the article. It wasn't until the last page when the article mentioned Tabula Rasa being in its fourth year of development that I knew for sure something was fishy.

I guess what I'm saying is that some sort of notice about the date of the article would have been nice to help prevent confusion. (c:

[Paul Keith]

You want necro-posting? Someone find me the Trip Hawkins quote for High Heat Baseball. I can't find that in Google anywhere.

This one?
http://www.ign.com/articles/2003/03/04/high-heat-2004-is-up-to-bat
High Heat 2004 is Up to Bat
"Since its debut on the PC in 1998, High Heat Baseball has garnered critical acclaim and an enthusiastic fan base," said Trip Hawkins, chief executive officer of The 3DO Company. "By recreating the foundation of High Heat for the PC, we intend to reward those fans by continuing to take the game to new heights."

Nah. It's as outlandish as the cover quote in the official box cover on Gamefaqs.

It went something like... 5/5 or best baseball game or something like that.

This from a PSX videogame who was going 3d for the first time and looked like a 3do baseball game on the PSX (meaning it was not only the ugliest baseball game, it was also one of the ugliest game of any genre for the console)

[wraith808]

Necro post? That first article was written in 2005.

Perhaps, but I just came across it, and found it interesting.  Should I not post links to something that was written long ago that I come across just because its old?

That's not it. I just read it with the assumption that it was a new article about EA's Origin software (the Steam competitor) and was thrown off by all the seemingly out of date information found within the article. It wasn't until the last page when the article mentioned Tabula Rasa being in its fourth year of development that I knew for sure something was fishy.

I guess what I'm saying is that some sort of notice about the date of the article would have been nice to help prevent confusion. (c:

Ah.. I didn't relate Origin to their new Origin platform.  Whenever I hear Origin, I still think of Origin Systems.  Hmm... I guess perhaps that's the reason that they used that for the name, though I never even thought of that relationship, though it seem that Ultima would be a telling bit, and the fact that their Origin platform wasn't an acquisition...

[Deozaan]

I never played any of the Ultima games, so I was never familiar with Origin Systems.

[40hz]

I stayed with Ultima up to the end of the second series: The False Prophet (VI). I still thought Exodus (III) was the most clever and probably the best story arc. Especially the eerie theme music which the C64 SID chip rendered beautifully.

Later on I didn't really care for where Garriott was taking the story. It got a little preachy to my ears. Oh well...

Sure do miss those lovely cloth maps and other accessories that used to come in Ultima boxes.

[attach]

[wraith808]

Ultima 7 was the best for me... I spent way too much time with that game.  They were the definition of overproduced with all of their nice extras.  It seems that would be a good way to cut down on piracy- start making the game worth having the physical product again.

[40hz]

Ultima 7 was the best for me... I spent way too much time with that game.

I spent way too much time with all of them.  

They were the definition of overproduced with all of their nice extras.  It seems that would be a good way to cut down on piracy- start making the game worth having the physical product again.

Exactly right. Most people don't mind paying if they feel they're getting their money's worth. And for most people that means nice packaging and some "spiffs" thrown in to make it seem special. That was something Lord British (aka Richard Garriott) understood all to well. Everybody else was packaging games in skinny paper folders like the old LP records came in. The Ultima series came in boxes. Nice colorful boxes with all this neat stuff in them! It was like Christmas opening up a new Ultima title. Forget they cost significantly more than other game titles during that era. We happily paid it because it was worth it. Getting that stuff along with the disk made Sosaria seem more real. Almost like it physically brought that imagined world into our own somewhat - and we had the map to prove it!

Better times!

[Crush]

I never saw the old Ultima games and had no really big interest to do it in the past. This perhaps could change now. In my games collection there´s the deluxe edition of Ultima 9 Ascension (and 7+8), but I still haven´t really played it, yet - only testing an hour if it works. On my old machine at this time it was extreme heavy stuff and ran like a slideshow as Outcast at its time. I want to dive into it more intensive one time. Nowadays it should play as it was meant to do or even better (with a 3DFX Glide Wrapper of course).