I will always be grateful to Richard Garriott for the Ultimas but I have a hard time believing he and NCSoft and Destination Games are going to make a dent in the American MMORPG market with such a dated game. True, in Korea this game has initiated violent gang wars, but it seems to me that a pretty big chunk of the potential MMORPG market in the U.S. is already occupied with UO, EQ, AO, AC, and DAOC -- and if they are looking forward to anything for the future, it's games like SW:G and WoW.

The only place I could see Lineage catching on is with more casual gamers who have older PC's, but I think Lineage would seem too weird and "hardcore" to draw them in, nor would they care about the Lord British angle.

So again, I wish ol' LB the best, but to my mind this has "fiasco" written all over it.

I just got my free Lineage CD with the latest CGW today. I'm probably going to toss it in the drive and at least try it. I mean...free disc...30 days of free play...why not?

BTW, there's a coupon in the latest CGW for $5 off any game $20 or over at Best Buy. Don't miss it if you already get the mag in the mail.

--Dave

MMOGs that do not give players the opportunity to customize or personalize their avatars ("themselves") will generally be failures in the US market.

In my opinion.

"LB"

Wow, never thought of this before. The abbreviation for Lord British is the same as the abbreviation for "pounds," which is not only a unit of measurement in the English measuring system, but also the British unit of currency!

Well, fuck me in the head with an AOL 9.0 CD!

I tried Lineage briefly, and I couldn't BELIEVE how bad it was. I mean, interface problems, horrible "scrolling", terrible animation, very slow movement, you name it.

I can see how, if this game was released four years ago at the dawn of the MMORPG, people might still be playing because they've invested time and money in it, made friends, etc. But I don't see how it has a snowball's chance in hell of putting a dent in the US market, since it's a "new" game to US players.

Maybe there's something really compelling underneath it all, but I just don't see anyone tolerating the awful surface long enough to find it.

I know Garriot doesn't play a lot of games really, but I can't see how he looked at Lineage and thought it would be a big hit in the US. No matter WHAT the Korean numbers are. I think he's toeing the company line and did the conversion because a company with fat sacks of cash money is willing to fund the expensive development of HIS game.

Just an opinion...

I agree; I think Tabula Rasa is where his real interests lie.

It's possible, however, that Garriott is just out of touch. He was one of the great game designers of the 1980s, but time passes, and not everyone can stay relevant (as, say, Will Wright and Sid Meier apparently can).

No he needed funding for his dev company so he has jioned up with NCSoft. Now to get said money he has to pimp himself for Lineage.

I think the explanation is quite simple: Korean people are crazy. Isn't Margaret Cho evidence enough of this?

"I was not ready for ass on the first page! I expected table of contents, and then ass!"

I think everyone knows it's bad, definitely including Garriott. But the game is a huge hit in Korea, so it isn't going anywhere, and there's probably a decent number of Ultima fans that will try it out in North America solely because of the addition of Lord British. Decent plan.

Garriott's already sold his company to NCSoft. He's just doing his job, which will allow him to make some more cash off of Tabula R.

Stefan

Well, this is one longtime Ultima fan -- the kind of guy who spends his spare time searching the Web for random Sosaria pages just to get a 10-second nostalgia hit -- who has no intention of playing Lineage. And I think most other Ultima fans are savvy enough RPG'ers that they are going to have little interest either in light of all the current and upcoming MMORPG's.

Here's a random Sosaria page, by the way:

http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~rrosengr/ultima/ultima.html

"Korean people are crazy. Isn't Margaret Cho evidence enough of this?"

You're just jealous of her fling with Chris Isaak. You and your wicked games.