^C^1AN INTERVIEW WITH RICHARD GARRIOTT
^Cby
^CJon Barnes

^CPart 1

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1  You published AKALABETH right after you finished high school,
^1completed ULTIMA I and ^1began ULTIMA II while you were attending the
^1University of Texas.  How did your success affect your life at the time?

^I RICHARD:^N  It became obvious that school and computers were NOT compatible
in my life because as my income level went up, my grade point average went
down. And I couldn't keep up doing BOTH things.

  To actually drop out of school to play games for a living was a real big-time
decision for me because my father had innumerable degrees, my oldest brother
was a doctor, and Robert, my next older brother, already had his Masters in
engineering and was working on his Masters in business.  And here I am, third
one down the line, and I'm considering quitting school.

  It was a pretty tough decision to quit school to pursue this career. But it
seems to have been a good decision.

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1  Do you have a systematic creative process or do you rely on
^1flashes of insight?

^I RICHARD:^N   More flashes than anything else.  In fact, I program backwards
from what you are taught in the textbooks.  You're usually told to lay things
out ahead of time, to get a good flow chart, and to design significant portions
up front.

  Well... not me, I'm afraid.  The way I design is to first ask "What technical
achievements do I really want in this game?"

  I'll say, for instance, for Ultima V, that I'm doubling the amount of little
tiles used to draw all of the terrain features.  (Graphics are usually one of
the first things I do in an Ultima.)

  So I'm up to 512 tiles now, so I can have curved coastlines and granulated
castle walls -- substantially more variety in the appearance of all of the
graphics.

  Then, now that I have the graphics up and running, I need the players to be
able to walk around the map.  So I'll write the part that lets me walk around
on the map.  Then I need monsters to be there and so I'll write the little sub-
routine that makes the monsters chase me around.

  That's also the way the plot gets done.  Usually when I start, I have a basic
flavor of the plot that I want.  For instance, the plot for Ultima V is still
way up in the air at this point -- but I have a basic idea of the beginning and
ending of the game.  The details are a total void at this point.

  The details will come as I'm lying in bed at night.  I'll say: "Gee, a neat
feature here would be to have the Moon Gates no longer be able to function if
somebody steals the Moon Stones that are buried underneath them."  So I'll write
that idea down and slowly start to implement it.

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1  There is obviously a great deal of artistry involved in
^1writing a fantasy game.  What kind of background do you have?

^I RICHARD:^N   My father is pretty technical, being an astronaut and former
professor at Cambridge.  But my mother is a professional artist-- and so that
really leaves me in the middle.  I really feel fortunate to get a good mix of
the two.

  In school I was always math and science oriented and entered science fairs
every year.  In fact, my senior year I came in fourth place in the
International Science Fair.

  But combined with that I had the lean toward artistic things from my mother.
My mother does both pottery and paints, and sculpture.  You name it, she's into
it.  And so I would periodically get involved in some of those projects.

  Writing fantasy games on the computer is really natural for using both of
those areas.

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1  Are there any books that have influenced your games?

^I RICHARD:^N   Well, that is another unusual thing about my personality: I
really don't read.

  In fact, a while back we worked out that I've read a grand total of about
thirty books in my life.  And this includes children's books.  In fact, the
majority were children's books.

  The only times I ever read anything were the few times I had to do
assignments in English class in high school.  Plus, "The Lord of the Rings" I
actually read on my own.  But that's really about it.

  So I don't really have much inclination for literature.  I absorb most of my
fantasy inputs through things like movies. I'm a big moviegoer; I'm a big media
person.

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1 Do you have a personal philosophy that comes through in your
^1games?

^I RICHARD:^N   "Yes and no" is the answer to that question.  Prior to Ultima IV,
that kind of thought never really crossed my mind at all.

  In each Ultima prior to Ultima IV, it has been not only possible, but
essential, to do things like steal money from people.  It was never intended to
be essential -- it just came about with this "do-it-as-you-go" design
philosophy.

  However, with Ultima IV, I said: "There is really no need for me to reinforce
that kind of action when I can think of just as many kinds of other things to
do that are interesting plot elements."

  So what I did with Ultima IV was to make the player try to become a paladin
or an "ultimate good-guy" type and prove himself to the world.

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1  Have you had any problems with people charging that your games
^1promote the occult?

^I RICHARD:^N   The magic book in Ultima III has a pentagram on the front of
it -- and I had one software store send it back saying: "Hey, I can't carry
this on my shelves -- this is devil worship."

  We also had one printer who did not want to print the Ultima IV magic book
for the same reason.  They could not understand it and thought it was supposed
to be a REAL magic book.

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1  What is a typical "day in the life" of Lord British like?

^I RICHARD:^N  Well, "Richard Garriott" usually doesn't wake up until nine or
ten, and then straggles into the office [at Origin Systems] a little before
lunch -- and then spends most of the afternoon in the office taking care of
office-type tasks and getting very little work done on his own game.

  Then, as soon as five o'clock rolls around, the majority of the office
leaves.  And that is really when I start getting REAL work done.

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1  Do you have any projections for where computer games are
^1headed?

^I RICHARD:^N   Yes, I see a lot of things changing, even with the Ultima
series -- which is clearly the one I know the best.

  It used to be that fantasy games started out with a character that had
attributes and that went around beating up monsters, trying to improve himself
by doing these supposedly "great deeds."

  But fantasy games are moving more into the area where adventure games were in
one sense -- where you are given puzzles to solve.  They are also moving toward
interactive fiction in the sense that you need to have people you can transact
with and have conversations with in the game.

  They are also moving toward the area of arcade games -- because you don't want
it to bog down; you want it to be as fast paced as possible even though you are
cramming all of this stuff into it to make it as realistic as possible.

  Fantasy games are really becoming more and more like movies -- you try to
involve the player in as many sensory ways as possible.  It's kind of like
watching a movie or reading a good book, while being able to change things as
you go along.

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1  What is your advice to would-be authors?

^I RICHARD:^N  When I get asked that question, I say: "If you've got a good idea
AND you can program it (or do most of the work), and if you are a reasonably
creative person, then get something started and send it into a publisher very
early on in the project."

  You want to get a publisher's advice as early as possible because they can
tell you if you are way off track or if they think that you have something
particularly special, and advise you in what direction to go with it.  It's
very rare to see somebody who can take a game to completion on their own.

^I BIG BLUE DISK:^N^1  What will Richard Garriott be doing ten years from now?

^I RICHARD:^N  I wish I knew the answer to that one.  So far it has been
"taking it as it comes."

  It was really only a couple of years ago that I made the decision to do
programming full-time as my real job.

  And how many Ultimas can there be?  Well, I don't really have a plan at this
point because I've given up trying to see the end.

  Each Ultima is currently having double or triple the sales of the previous
one.  At that rate of increase, it is almost inconceivable to say: "ah, poo, I
want to get away and quit." ...Unless I get tired of it.  But I still enjoy
this so much.  Quite seriously, my primary motivation for writing these is not
the money -- it really is the fun of it.

  It really is what I enjoy doing. As long as it stays that way, I'll probably
keep doing it. By the time it stops being fun, I'll hopefully have enough money
built up that I can do whatever I want -- whatever that happens to be.
