lord-british posts

Famed game designer Richard Garriott is about to bring back his "Lord British" gaming alter-ego in an upcoming social networking game from his new company Portalarium. Gamasutra is reporting that the game has the working title Lord British's New Britannia. Garriott's nickname turned into a game character when he appeared as "Lord British" inside Ultima Online, the MMO he created in 1997 for Origins Systems. He retained the trademark rights to the name even after he left Origin.

There isn't a release date yet nor much in terms of details about what Lord British's New Britannia will be like. Garriott and Portalarium are currently seeking about $3.8 million in funding at the SXSW Accelerator event in Austin, Texas. Portalarium is also working on another game, Ultimate Collector, which Gamasutra says will tie into a TV series that will be hosted by Garriott. It will be released sometime in the second quarter of 2011.

It's been over a year since legendary game designer Richard Garriott has been officially involved with the game industry. Today the creator of the Ultima RPG series and the first successful MMO Ultima Online has announced his involvement with a new company called Portalarium.

Garriott is the VP and creative director at the Austin, Texas based company which has already released its first product in beta form: It's a Facebook-based game app called Sweet @$! Poker. Garriott has been joined in his new venture by several people who have worked with him at his previous company Origin Systems and later at NCsoft.

In his press release Garriott stated, "This really takes me back to my roots in the game business – small development teams, low barriers to entry, affordable budgets for quality projects, and unlimited new interactive frontiers to explore together with our customers". The goal is also not just to make games, either. Portalarium's press release states, "Together with its player community, the company will be raising money and promoting real-world activities in support of enlightened social causes."

You may remember that after helping to create the sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa, which launched from NCsoft in 2007 after several years in development, Garriott quickly left the day-to-day operations of the game to train for his well publicized space flight to the International Space Station. Soon after returning from his 10 day flight in October 2008 he announced his departure from NCsoft who quickly decided to shut down Tabula Rasa. However in May 2009, Garriott sued NCsoft, claiming he was in fact fired from the company

With his long planned trip to outer space now completed, game design pioneer Richard "Lord British" Garriott is apparently moving onto new things. Today the official web site for his last title, the 2007 released MMO Tabula Rasa, had an announcement by Garriott announcing he was leaving the employment of the game's publisher NCsoft.

In his farewell message, Garriott stated that his recent trip to the International Space Station, "...has sparked some new interests that I would like to devote my time and resources to." He gave no indication on what these new interests might be. Before joining NCsoft in 2001 to develop Tabula Rasa, Garriott was one of the first major PC game developers, creating the Ultima series of RPG titles for his company Origin (later bought by Electronic Arts) which culminated in the first successful PC MMO title Ultima Online.

[Via Massively]

NCSoft's sci-fi MMO Tabula Rasa may not be the sales powerhouse it was predicted to be when it launched last fall but the subcribers to the game seem to have fun with playing it. One of the community driven events is Friday Night Fights where player characters duke it out in hand-to-hand combat.

Now the creator of the game, legendary game designer Richard "Lord British" Garriott, has decided to join in the fun and is bringing in a special guest. Tonight at 7 pm ET, Garriott will be in the game at the C.E.L.L.A.R (Coalition of Enlistees Likely Looking for Aggressive Retaliation) arena fighting against real two time featherweight boxing champ Jesus Chavez. Our sister site Massively has all the details including a funny promo video for the event.