Garriott Lawsuit Raises Questions
Richard Garriott is suing former employer NCsoft for 24 million dollars. This move,which claims that Garriott was dismissed by the publishing giant, prompted MMORPG.com to take a look back at the events surrounding Garriott's departure and Tabula Rasa's closure.
General Article By Jon Wood on May 06, 2009
It’s Goliath vs. Goliath in the courtroom these days as new details are beginning to come to light surrounding the recent revelation that Ultima creator and well-known industry leader Richard Garriott is suing his former employers, the MMO publishing giant NCsoft, for an amount of 24 million dollars according to Justia.com’s Federal District court Filings and Dockets.
According to an article at Gamasutra, Garriott was dismissed by the publisher shortly after returning from his trip to the International Space Station. The details of the court case revolve around the circumstances of that dismissal.
According to Gamasutra, Garriott was dismissed by the president of NCsoft’s North American operations, Chris Chung. Garriott claims that he objected to his dismissal. The suit also claims that at some point, the internal reason for dismissal was marked as “voluntary.” A voluntary dismissal meant that Garriott had to sell his stocks sooner than he would have liked or risk losing them. This fact seems to be what the lawsuit is about.
The specifics of the court case aside (the Gamasurta article covers this aspect quite thoroughly), this civil suit merits another look at the order of events surrounding Garriott’s departure from the company and the cancellation of Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa.
Here is a breakdown of the order of events as they were known at the time:
October 12th 2008 – Richard Garriott travels to the International Space Station. The space flight itself (though paid for by Garriott) was used as a promotional tool for Tabula Rasa via the “Operation Immortality” project. Minutes before Garriott went into quarantine for the flight, he appeared via phone on the Colbert Report as a part of this campaign.
;)
October 23rd, 2008 – Garriott returns to Earth
November 11th, 2008 – Garriott makes the surprising announcement that he would be leaving NCsoft to pursue “new interests.” It was noted at the time as a very sudden and surprising move for the game developer. While strange, the announcement contained nothing that would have pointed to an unpleasant parting of ways.
November 21st, 2008 – NCsoft cans Tabula Rasa. Only ten days after Garriott’s departure, NCsoft announced that the game that bore his name would be closing down due to the game’s failure to meet performance expectations.
February 28th, 2009 – Tabula Rasa closes down
Looking back at the events surrounding Garriott’s departure from NCsoft and the eventual closing of Tabula Rasa, the only thing that can be said for sure is that the events left a lot of questions unanswered:
Why, if Garriott planned to leave the company only two weeks after returning from a trip to space (which NCsoft later confirmed that it had no financial stake in), would he use the trip to promote the game? Why was Garriott so cryptic in his letter when it came to his departure as to what he would be doing next? Why did he praise the development team so thoroughly and yet not mention NCsoft? Did NCsoft intend to close down Tabula Rasa before Garriott’s space flight ever took off?
Whatever the case, this most recent news is yet another blow for the publishing giant to withstand as it prepares for the North American launch of Aion, one of this year’s most anticipated MMO titles.
Garriot's ego is getting bigger the more he grunts and groans. I say it's time for him to just let it go.
Devil, do you intentionally try to make your posts hard to read??? I would recommend reading the complaint (I posted some links to the document in some other threads on this topic.) I'm not claiming everything in it is true, because I couldn't possibly know, but if it is, then letting it go is not a reasonable option for anyone to expect. Would you jut let tens of millions of dollars go?
Devil, do you intentionally try to make your posts hard to read??? I would recommend reading the complaint (I posted some links to the document in some other threads on this topic.) I'm not claiming everything in it is true, because I couldn't possibly know, but if it is, then letting it go is not a reasonable option for anyone to expect. Would you jut let tens of millions of dollars go?
Yeah I read the link. If everything that is stated is true, Garriot has this in the bag.
After reading the news on GameSpot, then here... I actually believe that NCSoft would fire Garriott and forge a letter of resignation to the public on the Tabula Rasa website. Why? Because its a business and businessmen can be very ruthless. NCSoft is an MMO giant and they can't take a severe loss like what TR became.
What an ass Garriot is. He wanted to go into space because his father was an astronaut NOT to promote Tabula Rasa. That is his cheap excuse to use for tax purposes. IRS probably kicked it back saying its not allowable so he wants someone else to pay. Garriot Quit NC soft and now wants them to pick up the tab for his space travels. This is a joke and he is looking for a free ride. He knows NC will probably settle beind cheaper than paying legal but I hope they fight him all the way for the principle of the thing. I played and liked Tabula Rasa but it failed to be profitable enough to keep running. Yea going into space really did a lot for Tabula Rasa didnt it. His ego is making him a liar and a cheat.
Devil, do you intentionally try to make your posts hard to read??? I would recommend reading the complaint (I posted some links to the document in some other threads on this topic.) I'm not claiming everything in it is true, because I couldn't possibly know, but if it is, then letting it go is not a reasonable option for anyone to expect. Would you jut let tens of millions of dollars go?
You do realize he pull some major BS while developing the game and even cost over-runs to the mmo. After launch he was pig headed about needed changes the players voiced about but never planned to implement. It's only after he left did NCWest try to salvage the game, but with only so many subs the game was not profitable enough to keep it going. I for one was glad he got fired.
I hate Richard Garriot So Much this is not helping him at all
Edit: Also after reading the article again i believe NCSOFT wont ever hire an american to spearhead their games anymore, i know this may sound a bit racist, but when so much money is involved it will leave a bitter taste in anyones mouth. Especially when Aion another korean developed game is a highly anticipated game in US/EU.
The fool is the reason the game failed in the first place.
He really is an incredible asshat. He should be so embarrassed over his complete and utter failure with Tabula Rasa that he should feel compelled to refund most of what they paid him. NCSoft should be the one doing the suing, if anyone was going to sue.
It's a complete joke. The game was a horrible failure, complete waste of time, money and resources. Garriot not only has done severe harm to NCSoft, but his spectacular and expensive failure has impacted the funding of other MMO development efforts. He's done more damage to the genre than any one person could ever have been imagined capable of doing.
Now, with his spin that his trip to space was somehow business related, we finally see why he scrapped the years of work that went into TR the Fantasy Game and saw the game retooled into the POS sci-fi themed game it became. He wanted an excuse for a write off!
How the mighty have fallen.
His legend is forever tarnished and I can't see any game developer touching him with a ten mile pole. His failure with TR was possibly career ending. This frivilous lawsuit will make him untouchable.
Haha, Your probably right. Only in American can you sue your employer for such a chickenshiot reason. And remember not one dime of his money went into making Tabula Rasa. Never his money and thats why he wants someone else to pay for his wanna be astronaut adventures. I really bet he found out IRS wouldnt let him deduct that against his tax return and now looking for another way to cover the cost. You know thats the reason he claimed it to be promoting the game. What promotion? few free pr releases and taking a dna sample the size of a dime up with him to throw out the window haha. Its so funny its ridiculous, but then again, only in America do we have more lawyers than anyplace else on earth.
I just read the full articles. I don't think he has a leg to stand on. He agreed to leave with out a fight when he was told he "must go". They twisted his arm into resigning, but he still resigned, they never fired him. He approved his "open resignation letter", but now wants to rescind it, because "in hind sight" it shows his departure was voluntary. He also could have filed an injunction to challenge the status of his stock options, but instead voluntarily sold them because he was afraid if he didn't, he'd end up with nothing.
I'm guessing he left so easily, thinking that "The Great Richard Garriot" could readily find himself another company dumb enough to pay him millions to fund his next, brilliant project. Now, finding himself unmarketable, he's trying to recast himself as the victim.
Unbelievable.
NcSoft being somewhat shady here or is Richard Garriot being idiotic here ? I honestly belive it is both. I wouldn't trust either one of them with anything.
Richard GarriotSo now the US gets blamed for the actions of the British? Fascinating!
Richard GarriotSo now the US gets blamed for the actions of the British? Fascinating!
Everyone hates the US now, Its just how it is. People forget how much good the US has done for the world. Sure we are not perfect, nor do any true Americans claim other wise but nobody gives the US credit for all the good things we do. Its only the bad that people care about. That is true human nature.
Richard GarriotSo now the US gets blamed for the actions of the British? Fascinating!
Garriot isn't British. I am quite sure his passport is American.
Everyone hates the US now, Its just how it is. People forget how much good the US has done for the world. Sure we are not perfect, nor do any true Americans claim other wise but nobody gives the US credit for all the good things we do. Its only the bad that people care about. That is true human nature.
The trouble with that remark is the US has done much damage as well. Especially recently. No matter how wonderful someone is long ago if they hurt others, people are going to be pissed with them. Canada also does a lot of good, and so do other countries but no one toots their horn more then America. In my immediate living area the Bush administration is indirectly responsible for shutting down one town and killing the life blood of another. That's when they decided to not buy our lumber and our coal sales took a major hit as well.
But anyway...
Yes to me Garriot proves once again he may be a creative genius but is otherwise an idiot. NCsoft was shady true, that's how it is when you see a letter like the one on the Tabula site you know it's doesn't mean "I am leaving", "But I got canned".
And what would you do when an employee that seemed so promising pisses away time and money?
Tabula Rasa was a good but underrated MMO, and now it's over. Garriot made good job with it, but now his ego is little bit to big. BTW don't blame him for going into space, you would make same call if you were on his place I know I would.
both of them suck .. end of story , its quite simple tbh , it was probably that ncsoft saw tobula rasa going downhill, gave garriot another chance with this spacetrip, which was promoting tr all over internet, noone could miss it, without actuall involment with it, , but with some promice probably, then they saw no increase in subs, in event time.. and after it.. and just scraped.. and trew garrot away, breaking theirs promise, he used his own money for a trip he wanted, but he might not took it, if it wasnt for the game too,
so who knows.. ncsoft is secondary mmo publisher in my eyes.. garriot is someone i dont care about.. third rate creator.. as i never played any of its game.. so for all i care.. they both can go down to hell
Richard GarriotSo now the US gets blamed for the actions of the British? Fascinating!
That is a good point. Damn I didnt even take into consideration he is british. Duh, Lord British. My bad. Well that even further explains his stupid oversized Ego.
I do Apologise heartly, i am pure british (and glad of it) what i was originally goign to write was the western world and i should. I am so very so sorry i did not meant to offend anyone, its just the garriot is now operating in america and he was working for NCSOFT NA im so sorry !.
But yeah NCSOFT KOREA wont hire anyone from the western world (very unlikly refer to original post) as he was representing US/EU.
I aologise once again <3
Edit:
Originally posted by LordSherpa
Tabula Rasa was a good but underrated MMO, and now it's over. Garriot made good job with it, but now his ego is little bit to big. BTW don't blame him for going into space, you would make same call if you were on his place I know I would.
and for this i would have done the same. BUT REFERRING TO OP i would not have sued NCSOFT for what i did, i would have taken advantage but .........wait yeah i would sue them oh snap im just contradicting myself oh man what are we british like :(
The space trip had puzzled me before, but now my previous puzzlement is much more relevant:
I don't claim to have good knowledge of the training required for a trip to space. Is it not an intensive regimen of weeks or even months? Where in the world did the 'creative director/core designer' of a relatively new MMO find the time to do all of that? Even vacation time is not enough to cover it.
Assuming he didn't take vacation time, the training and trip itself must have been submitted to NCsoft higher ups as a relevant and useful marketing tool, and they would have had to sign off on it for him to proceed. How should they have responded to Garriot's request? They had no choice, deny his trip and they are left with a disgruntled lead for a major investment. I imagine there was a great deal of resentment towards Garriot during the whole ordeal, coupled with a failing game and his apparent lack of dedication to saving his own vision, the dismissal was the natural resolution.
There are three zones around the earth - the ISS is on the first around 12000KM from the earth which does not require much training at all especially if your not staying there for long, at that distance you have no gravity and so you would experince that , however that is also the distance VIRGIN is trying to achieve with their 'Out of Space' commercial flights i would say a few weeks of training would qualify you to go on that flight.
Edit in bold : man i shouldent be on the forums when im drunk ><
Off topic, sorry, but "everyone" seems to hate America yet they have NO problem taking the billions of dollars the dumb ass politicians throw their way. I say to hell with the haters, reel in the money and take care of our own damn country!
Z
I dont think a lump sum of money in the hand is better than alot more money over time
I dont think a lump sum of money in the hand is better than alot more money over time
actually, it usually is, as the money is worth more now then it will be due to inflation. As I understand it. 10 million bucks now is worth more then 10 million bucks 20 years from now. So having a smaller, lump sum now and investing it well should earn you More cash then the slow payout of the original amount over time.
It all assumes that the lump sum value is not absurdly lower then the overall payout. like 100 mill over 20 years or 10 mill now...that might not be good to take as a lump. /shrug, i wish i had these problems for real :-)
I was as upset as anyone with what happened with TR...
But some of the comments here just show a servere lack of intellegence (or at least appear to).
We don't know what was going on at NCSoft... We don't know if the leave of absence was taken (yes to go into space) more due to escape something.. than because he thought it was the best thing to do at the time.
Regardless if the claim is true that they fired him.. then reclassified it as voluntary (for their own good) I think there is probably some breach of contract law there. I'm not a lawyer...
So I'm more than happy to sit back and see what comes out. I had made my conclusions when TR failed... and when I saw the headline I thought "wtf"... but when you read the complaint... it should at least get your mental gears in motion that there may be more here than we know about.
In the end maybe Garriott is that big of an arse.. but to make that claim before we know "the facts" and what other things might have been going on.. at this point just seems stupid.
Actually Garriott was born in England and raised in the US. He might have dual citizenship.
This is actually kind of sad to see. I grew up following his career. I have fond memories of the Ultima series which I played as a kid. I'm saddened to see him failing to make a comeback after Ultima. It just hasn't seemed to be happening for him. Even though he does seem to have an over inflated ego with the space station thing I still think he was one the giants that helped make the gaming industry what it is today and I take no pleasure in hearing of his struggles.
Garriot graduated from HIgh School a year ahead of me. That would be in Texas, right by NASA in Houston. From there he went to Austin and was a Lord, God, high muckety-muck in the local SCA where I got to see him every weekend. He was always a bit of a prig. Well, OK... He was almost 100% prig. Now, he's middle aged and balding, but he's got one heck of a spiffy rat tail ponytail! Oh, and he's still a prig.
What a rat! Wasn't the cost of his space trip 24 million dollars? I remember it being quoted as that expensive so he is trying to bilk NCsoft for the money HE WASTED on a space trip! If I were NCSoft i'd be pissed to. He was supposed to make this great MMO game and all he did was waste millions of dollars, redesigned the game twice and cared more about a space trip then fixing the game. No wonder everyone but NCSOFT CEO despised RG.
Wait... so NCSoft invests more time and money into this game than they had any right to simply because of the Richard Garriott name attached to it.
He fails to deliver and the game launches with major issues.
At a crucial point where the game neads clear leadership and a major overhaul, the guy leaves the f***ing planet.
And once the game tanks he's suing NCSoft for the money he spent on not doing his job?
If Richard Garriot spent 24 million dollars on food for the homeless and hungry pplz i bet tabula rasa would be the most selling game ever :) and he would look good in the paperz all around the world :)
There are three zones around the earth - the ISS is on the first around 12000KM from the earth which does not require much training at all especially if your not staying there for long, at that distance you have no gravity and so you would experince that , however that is also the distance VIRGIN is trying to achieve with their 'Out of Space' commercial flights i would say a few weeks of training would qualify you to go on that flight.
Edit in bold : man i shouldent be on the forums when im drunk ><
Just a quick nit pick.
For one, ISS is at about 300km. There is also gravity too, you just don't feel the effect of it as much because of the rate you're 'falling' around the earth. The correct term is, microgravity not 'no gravity'
*edit* When thinking about microgravity look at it this way...You know how it feels when you're riding a rollercoaster and you feel a moment weightlessness? That , really is the best example I can give...
Just to nit pick the post above me there is a plane that does that for training astronaughts, that oes exactly what a rollercoster does biut toyu actuall yfeel zero gravity for about 30 seconds. Sorry been watching a shit series called 'The Universe' in season three atm :D
Not sure how that is a nit pick...But what you are talking about is the(a) Vomit Comet... NASA uses a Boieng 727 btw.
*edit* The Universe is a fun show, I like Dr. Michio Kaku. If you liked him in The Universe you should check out some of his other stuff...You can find some of his videos and interviews on YouTube
Couple of points:
* Richard Garriott wasted over 100 million dollars in Tabula Rasa costs. (I would like to know how one spends that kind of money anyway?)
Link: Financial Disaster
* His brother Robert Garriott works for (and leads) NCSoft. (Perhaps thats why Richard had free run with the funds?)
Maybe this lawsuit is a good thing - NCSoft will get a chance to counter-sue and the press and players will get a chance to see (perhaps) the true story of behind the biggest MMO financial fiasco in history.
It's clear NCsoft did breach their contract, now whether they can save face and have something to negate some of Richard's claims we'll have to see, but just from reading the claim it is sound if it's all provable on paper which it very well may be. (probably is)
Of course NCsoft was trying to get rid of Tabula as soon as the game hit the market, they wanted to get rid of the whole of Destination Games in a fell swoop and restructure everything. I don't know why specifically, maybe it had to do with NC Austin's poor handling of Lineage 2 (were they responsible, I think so??) I know there was a lot of grumbling about Tabula's development to the point of being unprofessional. Something crucial went missing about that game and my gut feeling tells me it was RG's attention and that's why he was told to go.
I don't agree with how NCsoft dealt with it, NCsoft execs keep proving they are ruthless in that sense, but they are a big business.... You have to be an ass to get rid of an ass? /shrug.
*puts head in hands* :(
Maybe if he focused his time and energy on the development of Tabula Rasa instead of playing douchebag Astronaut, the game would still be around. He spent millions on that space flight. He probably expected the game to turn a profit and cover his pipe dream costs. Now, he is butt hurt. What an asshole.
Garriott won't get his case, I could definitely forsee NCSoft going all out, not barring anything to win this suit, they don't have anything to lose by going all out. The MMO community doesn't like Richard Garriott.
I don't know about that, COH/COV didn't hurt ncsoft one bit..
The only question this raises for me is: Why is this man still allowed in general population?
Garriott lives in his own personally created world now and it is difficult to separate what is real and what is fictional at this point.
Garriott screwed over NCSoft in many ways during the TR development and I can understand NCSoft wanting to be rid of him ASAP. That doesn't excuse NCSoft's actions if Garriott's claims are accurate, but I can sympathize with NCSoft more at this point.
I still play Ultima games (primarily NES releases), but Garriot hasn't created anything good in a long time. NCSoft has always have decent releases, but nothing that really drew me in. neither is exactly a winner at this point.
In the end seeing either Garriot's name or a NCSoft logo on any release is more of a deterant than anything at this point. I don't think I am alone in thinking that way.
At this point in time, I cannot really say who's side I'm on, especially since we don't know much information. Yes, we know NCSoft's point of view, and we know Richard Garriot's point of view, but how would we know if they hadn't fabricated information in order to furthur their own interests. We don't actually know what happened, all we know is certain accounts of what happened, and yes, they certainly would be biased.
At the same time, if Guild Wars 2 is delayed even furthur, I would get very annoyed indeed.
It's clear NCsoft did breach their contract, now whether they can save face and have something to negate some of Richard's claims we'll have to see, but just from reading the claim it is sound if it's all provable on paper which it very well may be. (probably is)
Of course NCsoft was trying to get rid of Tabula as soon as the game hit the market, they wanted to get rid of the whole of Destination Games in a fell swoop and restructure everything. I don't know why specifically, maybe it had to do with NC Austin's poor handling of Lineage 2 (were they responsible, I think so??) I know there was a lot of grumbling about Tabula's development to the point of being unprofessional. Something crucial went missing about that game and my gut feeling tells me it was RG's attention and that's why he was told to go.
I don't agree with how NCsoft dealt with it, NCsoft execs keep proving they are ruthless in that sense, but they are a big business.... You have to be an ass to get rid of an ass? /shrug.
*puts head in hands* :(
True enough and what do ypu think will happen if NcSoft gets guilty of being accused of foul play here. Will people want to go buy Aion and Guild Wars 2 knowing how the company does business ? I don't know what will happen but when you see millionaires argue over money and the "he said she said" deal there obviously has to be something bad going on here.
I bet Kim Taek-jin, the idiot NCSoft CEO who hired Garriott
www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/biz_view.asp
is really congradulating himself on his fine business sense in wasting millions of dollars on a washed-up developer who lives in his own little fantasyland.
There are many questions raised by this but there is one outstanding fact - Kim Taek-jin and Richard Garriott are both tools who don't know the first thing about making a entertaining modern game (not one that might have sold a decade ago). Their business antics have been the only thing to provide the MMORPG community with any recent entertainment.
Yes Richard is a douche anyone thats met the man has had to greet both the man and the ego,anyone that wears leather pants cmon -_-
Him and his brother ruined TR,from the two people I know at NCSoft they both agree that Garriot left on his own free will,so it's gonna be an amusing court case Im sure.
Also NCSoft has lawyers for their lawyers,so I find it even harder to believe that they dismissed him in the manner purported in the complaint filed,located here.
Did it even cross your mind to actualy read the article before you make very funny asumtions that do not make much sense other then showing you reply without even knowing what this topic is about.
Kinda shows HOW people are these day's with games or MMORPG's
The guys a waster, a one hit wonder and totally clueless about modern MMOs. The only reason he put his name to
TB was to fund his jolly into space, he had no interest in the game further than that - NC dismissed him because people were realising this.
He needs to stop embarrasing himself further and slip away quietly...
While I do not like him as a person, I personally think Modern MMOs suck, horribly. But that's not the discussion here. Honestly, I loved Ultima Online though. I wish there were more games like that. Haha
He has a viable reason to sue.
Garriot says they fired him, but instead they said he resigned.
When it was released he resigned he lost 25+ million in stock options.
I dunno, I really believe he quit and has now realised what that cost him and this is a desperate attempt to get more cash out of NCSoft. I can't help but notice that this is filed sometime after he claimed he was looking to get back into the MMO market but found no other backers. Just my opinion since it's pretty much a she said/he said situation.
Love him or hate him Garriott represents what the industry is like.
He resigned. Most all companies that deal with software and intellectual property always release the resigning employee immediately once notice is given. Its a fact. Companies do not want employees gathering more of their information to be taken with them elsewhere.
Would TR still have been abandoned if Garriot had not been fired? Well, the abandonment happened sometime around launch. So yeah, TR would have failed regardless of how this suit turns out. I hate how executive contracts work here. It's sheer stupidity. He's saying that, even though he went AWOL on his game, they shouldn't have been able to fire him? Or rather, he's saying that they fired him the wrong way? WTF ever man. He didn't seem too concerned about that when droves of negative feedback flowed in about TR and he ignored it all. As far as I'm concerned, he's lucky they aren't suing him for damages related to making the game. With any luck, they will.
Garriot and NC are both responsible for the TR fiasco. It could have been a good game too. NC shot it out tried to recoup as much money as possible from selling boxes and aborted it like an unwanted fetus. This lawsuit just is another nail in the coffin of what was once a great career for Garriot. I no longer trust any game connected to either one.
Richard Garriott has become the biggest joke in the industry and can take a firm place next to Brad "Junky" McQuaid.
I have been in Closed Beta of Tabula Rasa for a very long time till about 2 months after release.
Even back then he was hardly around and more with his head into Space, then putting all his attention to the game and it's development.
Remember that Garriott tried to trick NcSoft into funding his Space expedition, but luckily NcSoft CEO wasn't a fool.
This was going on already, before the game was even released and still in a pretty much horrible state in Closed Beta.
I think it was after that, that the CEO of NcSoft got fed up with the many millions that went into TR's development already and forced Garriott to release the damn thing. Wich pretty much sealed it's fate.
Garriott screwed up and failed to deliver! Just like Brad McQuaid screwed up and failed to deliver!!
He lost all his credit in the industry due to his stupid wet fantasy to get his ass into Space and put that fantasy above his focus and attention to the game Tabula Rasa in wich NCSoft paid him a shitload of money for.
The only blame on NcSoft is that they were blind, bought into the hype around his name and let him go on for so long, sucking them dry of cash.
At least Brad McQuaid went of the radar. It's about time Richard Garriott is going to do the same.
Cheers
Why was Garriott so cryptic in his letter when it came to his departure as to what he would be doing next?
---
***snort***
My apologies for the fluff comment, but this was the most interesting thing about the article for me. While I would feel badly for Mr. Garriott if he was indeed unfairly let go, I don't really care enough to stop playing CoX. I never played TR and I don't plan on playing Aion. Just hoping that the outcome of the case doesn't destroy Paragon City.
Just to nitpick, it's "McQuaid", and I absolutely agree with you.
Though I despise McQuaid more because it's entirely his fault that all we have today are MMO's that follow the quest-level-getphatloot paradigm.
Heh sorry about that. Fixed it :P
The problem with Richard Garriott, he thinks he is a great game designer, yet it was the people under him that were great in UO, he was just a figurehead by that time. Not to say that he did not have good people under him at TR, he just evidently did not listen to them.
I think that NCSoft will put him in his place. You won't see anyone else offering him a contract after this, he is pretty much finished in this industry. Knowledgible people will avoid any self financed projects he decides to do.
True enough and what do ypu think will happen if NcSoft gets guilty of being accused of foul play here. Will people want to go buy Aion and Guild Wars 2 knowing how the company does business ? I don't know what will happen but when you see millionaires argue over money and the "he said she said" deal there obviously has to be something bad going on here.
Honestly I don't think it's going to have much of an impact. People buy products for the product itself not because of who makes it, generally, only a small portion of people really do boycott or support someone because they believe in them.
Also if you look at it in an unbiased light, no one involved is a saint. You'd only be hurting yourself to decide to not play NCsoft games because you don't like how they handled one of their most prominent employees, or partners.
How is it Brad McQuaid's fault? Last I check he had nothing to do with WoW which is the reason that all MMO's today follow the quest level grind paraadigm.
I fully support Garriot and hope he takes NC to town, hopefully Garriot will hook up with Trion, or rebuild a resemblance of origin.
i do know that after actually playing tabula rasa ill never touch anything gariott helps to "design" the game was a disaster it was like someone just threw ideas at the wall and whatever sticked they stuck in the game.
as for suing the company for 24 million because he was "forced" to sell his stock early. well he has free will, he has a backbone if you dont use either then i dont think that should be suable.
Gariott went into space for his own choice i didnt see pictures of him kicking and screaming while they locked him in his space suit.
I think the astronaughts should counter sue for being stuck with him in orbit for so long without the option to space the egotistical maniac.
did a write up on this issue that covers some of the legal questions.
Under Development
so essentially garriott instead of doing his job . ( with tabula rasa ) decides to go into space .and now wants ncsoft reimburse him for his trip into the final frontier . this guys so finnished he should wair a red shirt . :P
True enough and what do ypu think will happen if NcSoft gets guilty of being accused of foul play here. Will people want to go buy Aion and Guild Wars 2 knowing how the company does business ? I don't know what will happen but when you see millionaires argue over money and the "he said she said" deal there obviously has to be something bad going on here.
Honestly I don't think it's going to have much of an impact. People buy products for the product itself not because of who makes it, generally, only a small portion of people really do boycott or support someone because they believe in them.
Also if you look at it in an unbiased light, no one involved is a saint. You'd only be hurting yourself to decide to not play NCsoft games because you don't like how they handled one of their most prominent employees, or partners.
I'm a Saint, I think.....
Perhaps most would overlook on how NCsoft does business because they like Aion but you have to admit that NCsoft has really looked bad since the Worlds.com scandel and now Mr Spaceman's claims. I guess when someone costs you millions you would forge a note too! LOL!
What worlds.com scanadal? Worlds.com is a failed MMO platform that's trying to get some attention by suing a company vastly more successful than itself.
Either way the suit will likely be dismissed under prior art and the locusts will move on to WoW or FunCom or whoever else is in the business of running an MMO with a chat client.
What worlds.com scanadal? Worlds.com is a failed MMO platform that's trying to get some attention by suing a company vastly more successful than itself.
Either way the suit will likely be dismissed under prior art and the locusts will move on to WoW or FunCom or whoever else is in the business of running an MMO with a chat client.
True but I wouldn't just quckly dismiss Garriot's claims here. NCsoft was clearly supportive of Operation Immortality and other stuff he has done for NCsoft. My guess is that NCsoft was thinking that Richard Garriot's great space adventure (which they were totally supportive of at the time) that their stocks would go up and when they found out nothing has changed they had to find a way to get rid of him. Now I'm not saying Richard Garriot doesn't deserve what he got but doesn't anyone find it odd that NCsoft was mostly in favor of all his doings and all of a sudden we see the letter and a lawsuit ? I think there is more to it than what we know.
Honestly I don't doubt that Garriott's trip was initially supported by NCSoft as a stunt to get publicity (He paid out of pocket, so why not?) In fact, it seriously backfired with alot of fans. There was a game in dire straits that needed clear vision and leadership, and the guy at the helm was out wasting millions on space tourism.
I think what happened was that NCSoft saw during the trip that the publicity wasn't bringing in extra subs, decided that the millions it dumped into the whole fiasco was already enough, and planned to cancel the project sometime during the trip. Canning Garriott after he got back and putting plans in motion for a permanent shutdown.
Was it sleazy? Hell yeah, I'm sure even a man rich as Garriott wouldn't spend 24million had he known he wouldn't have a job a few months down the road. But in all honesty, it was still a major vanity project. He can't just turn around and claim that he was chained to the space ship and shot off into orbit purely on business.
Personally, I think of it this way.
I ask myself who stands to gain more out of this conflict. Garriot or NCSoft?
NCSoft isn't sueing, and they were forced to pull the plug on TR because it was hemoragging money. Did they just cut the game though? No, they actually gave the players stuff and added content for the game though it was dieing and even after they announced its closure.
~Or~
Garriot, who, I remember reading, mainly took the job as a way to earn enough cash to get his little space wet dream to come true. Everyone knows the game had to be trashed at least once during its design process, most likely not forcing him to pay out of his pocket for those costs. Then, when he's gotten enough from his paycheck he starts on his journey to get out of earth's atmosphere. And when exactly was this? Around the time TR really started going down. Now that he's come back, no longer has a job because he resigned, and thats what I believe, he doesn't have much cash. So, he throws whats left of it into a lawsuit against NCSoft in order to recupperate.
While NCSoft's ethnics and reputation are at risk, Garriot is close to the gutter, both reputation-wise and financially. He's trying to dress himself up as both victim of a cruel company, and as a paragon of good by standing up to said cruel company. He's hoping that whoever is still loyal to him will fight for him.
Personally? I wish his craft burned up in re-entry, and upon impact, some odd coincidences led to exposed wiring inside the craft and just enough water to fry him. The way I see it is him trying to patch up the damage he did to himself by projecting it upon NCSoft and saying that he could of saved the game, but NCSoft gave him the bird and kicked em all to the curb.
All speculation? Yep. Could I be completely wrong? Oh yeah. But I base what I say on what I see, and what I see is some pompous ass trying to fill his wallet back up.
How bout you do your research before you start bashing someone? Garriott helped advance the single-player RPG genre with his (mostly successful) Ultima series (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Series), and then helped pioneer the MMO genre with Ultima Online. If you don't already know this then you know nothing of the history of RPGs and MMOs, or you simply don't like Garriott and jumped at the chance to spout some nonsense. I don't even like single-player RPGs but I can certainly respect the role Garriott's games played in helping us to enjoy the games we play today.
To say that Richard Garriott is a one hit wonder would be as moronic as saying John Carmack was a one hit wonder with Doom.
Next time do your homework.
Sorry but I have to side with NCSoft on this one.
If I had to guess I would say that TR was canned not only for the low sub numbers, but because it had Garriott's name still attached to it. Kinda awkward to keep a game running with the name of a guy that no longer works for you. I also think that Garriott himself didn't do much to get TR rolling. He seemed more concerned about going into space than working on the game.
What most likely happened is his "special project" sank and now he wants some money. Easiest way to do it is to sue, since I'm pretty sure NCSoft wouldn't hire him back considering how he suddenly bailed on them in the first place.
I find it remarkable that people feel inclined to "take sides" on people they dont know personally and about a matter they know only out of third hand. Were you present in ANY of the ongoings between NCSoft and Garriot? I am taking the luxury of taking no side. There once was a concept that a person is innocent until proven guilty and not the other way around as many of you see Garriot guilty without knowing heck about the details. You turn the entire idea of justice upside down!
You do realize he pull some major BS while developing the game and even cost over-runs to the mmo. After launch he was pig headed about needed changes the players voiced about but never planned to implement. It's only after he left did NCWest try to salvage the game, but with only so many subs the game was not profitable enough to keep it going. I for one was glad he got fired.
Devil...You do realize that your sentence structure reveals what your first language is?
I played TR for a few months after launch, then left. The game had potential, but it was just too badly flawed. I went back last year for a few months. While they had corrected some of the problems, they had lost too many players to be able to recover. Its too bad, as some of the basic concepts could have been fun. Who is "right" in the current fight, who knows?.<shrug>. But it wouldn't be the first time that suits had backstabbed a developer. Looking at the personalities involved, ego no doubt played a good part on both sides.
And they do like NCsoft?...
What planet are you posting from? Korea? 
RG has had his ups and downs over the years. But he was once a very talented developer. Anyone who played the Ultima series, and UO knows that for a fact. What happened with TR is known only to those directly involved. It had a troubled origin, and no doubt ego on both sides was involved. If you've dealt with NCsoft, you would know that as well.
What morons, people just seem to love turning any debate into anti U.S.A.
Sad but true. But given the past history of the actions of our Dear Leaders(both parties), the only wonder is that we aren't more hated than we are. Our country has strayed FAR from the orginal vision and principles of the Founders/Framers.
Oh come on!!
What do you expect. It’s not as if any other country would be so stupid as to let Garriott make re-entry. :D
lol, listen to you all.
If you were Fired, sacked, made redundant from your job and the employer in question says "he left voluntarily" I think you would be extremly upset too
It doesnt matter how much of an asshat he is, or why the game failed or whatever, the point is NCSOFT are the ones bullshitting here.
Why do you think cryptic sold off CoH to NCSOFT and went off on their own?... NCSOFT are a terrible company, on the same kind of level as codemasters are, the single only reason why I will be giving AION a wide birth is because NCSOFT are involved.
You guys just have no idea how much of a cunning, deceiving, lying company NCSOFT are.
Garriot is a nob, but he is one man, NCSOFT are many men and I hope he wins and learns them a lesson.
You do realize he pull some major BS while developing the game and even cost over-runs to the mmo. After launch he was pig headed about needed changes the players voiced about but never planned to implement. It's only after he left did NCWest try to salvage the game, but with only so many subs the game was not profitable enough to keep it going. I for one was glad he got fired.
Devil...You do realize that your sentence structure reveals what your first language is?
I played TR for a few months after launch, then left. The game had potential, but it was just too badly flawed. I went back last year for a few months. While they had corrected some of the problems, they had lost too many players to be able to recover. Its too bad, as some of the basic concepts could have been fun. Who is "right" in the current fight, who knows?.<shrug>. But it wouldn't be the first time that suits had backstabbed a developer. Looking at the personalities involved, ego no doubt played a good part on both sides.
Oh i have no doubt that both parties are responsible in it's demise, but RG has the majority of the responsibility for what happened.
Garriott was born July 4, 1961 in Cambridge, England,[3] and raised in Nassau Bay, Texas. Native Britain, scandalist American, well he is the best of both worlds.... NOT! I don't care where he is from, he screwed the pooch this time round...
TR started off as a fantasy themed game then did a huge about face and became sci-fi. Unfortunately, its release was very badly timed but NC really had no choice but to releast it when they did..it was so massively over budget, that backers would wait no longer. By the time the game closed, its newbie area had been revamped and is what i believe it should ahve been in the beginning. It had some cool concepts taht were not polished by the time of release and no end game content...I dont think NC thought people were gonna finish all the content in a week but they did and then teh complaints started. The classes were itneresting but a few of them were so expensive to operate few tried which caused the profesion base to become lopsided. and before you start roasting me, I played from first beta to close.
This game closed because they coudlnt retain membership due to lack of content. They should have used the GW marketing model and released add ons for it or do like they did with Dungeon Runners..that woulda retained members and probably saved the game
Those that think Garriott is a 'jerk' don't know him, he's the smartest game developer on the planet, if he thinks he has a case he's going to win. I'm sure NCsoft will claim he just wants some money to pay for the expensive space trip which I heard was either 20 or 30mil, but this is a too obvious excuse, Garriott isn't a greedy person, he's the type of guy that spends 1million dollars on making his house a haunted house over the years just for the kids free of charge, anyway I still think he's gonna win. About all of you claiming he isn't a genius because Tabula Rasa wasn't a financial success, the game industry is politics but even if the game was not great I would say it's because it's the first game Garriott had full control over since the Ultima series, and since he sold the rights to that series in the early 90's to EA he legally couldn't use his best ideas, he had to legally do something radically different, it just happened to be too different, I heard Garriott is going to produce a new next generation fantasy mmorpg to exceed UO, I believe this will take place, EA has no chance of exceeding UO because they never made it, Origin did and they laid off the entire staff of that original company like the idiots they are. WoW is crap because it's endgame content is capture the flag, WAR is crap because it's mostly capture the flag, Darkfall is crap for other reasons, but lets face it, no mmorpg has yet to even scratch the surface of UO, and I'm not talking about graphics for those too superficial to know what I'm talking about. For those who have played Ultima VII, you know that game is amazing, and for those that know Richard Garriott know most of his inspiration for the Ultima series was from Dungeons & Dragons, a game I've never played but, the inspiration for that game is generic fantasy myth and lore of old, lore that isn't copyrighted, Garriott can easily build a new Ultima-esque game without breaking any of the copyright laws, I'd like to help Garriott build this next generation mmorpg, do you know Garriott coined the term mmorpg? he did. He is the father of the mmorpg, UO was the first mmorpg, not online rpg but massive being the key, UO was the first online game that had 12k people on 1 server at the same time I was there when the historic event took place in 1997, don't remember the exact date but it was in phase 2 of the beta test. Garriott once said, and I paraphrase, 'to make a good game you need to be inspired', Perhaps his experience with EA drained a lot of his inspiration, but his trip to outer space likely jump started his inspiration, whether he wins this lawsuit or not I believe he will head the next generation mmorpg, blowing phoney superficial copycat mmorpgs like WoW out of the water.
Raz... your incompetence is frightening... I might of actually believed a bit of what you are saying then you said
"WoW's endgame is capture the flag"
... wow... just... no... didn't bother reading much after that.
{ Mod Edit }
Sorry but it's just easier this way.
Originally posted by Razimus
"Those that think Garriott is a 'jerk' don't know him, he's the smartest game developer on the planet, if he thinks he has a case he's going to win. I'm sure NCsoft will claim he just wants some money to pay for the expensive space trip which I heard was either 20 or 30mil, but this is a too obvious excuse, Garriott isn't a greedy person, he's the type of guy that spends 1million dollars on making his house a haunted house over the years just for the kids free of charge, anyway I still think he's gonna win.
About all of you claiming he isn't a genius because Tabula Rasa wasn't a financial success, the game industry is politics but even if the game was not great I would say it's because it's the first game Garriott had full control over since the Ultima series, and since he sold the rights to that series in the early 90's to EA he legally couldn't use his best ideas, he had to legally do something radically different, it just happened to be too different, I heard Garriott is going to produce a new next generation fantasy mmorpg to exceed UO, I believe this will take place, EA has no chance of exceeding UO because they never made it, Origin did and they laid off the entire staff of that original company like the idiots they are.
WoW is crap because it's endgame content is capture the flag, WAR is crap because it's mostly capture the flag, Darkfall is crap for other reasons, but lets face it, no mmorpg has yet to even scratch the surface of UO, and I'm not talking about graphics for those too superficial to know what I'm talking about.
For those who have played Ultima VII, you know that game is amazing, and for those that know Richard Garriott know most of his inspiration for the Ultima series was from Dungeons & Dragons, a game I've never played but, the inspiration for that game is generic fantasy myth and lore of old, lore that isn't copyrighted, Garriott can easily build a new Ultima-esque game without breaking any of the copyright laws, I'd like to help Garriott build this next generation mmorpg, do you know Garriott coined the term mmorpg? he did.
He is the father of the mmorpg, UO was the first mmorpg, not online rpg but massive being the key, UO was the first online game that had 12k people on 1 server at the same time I was there when the historic event took place in 1997, don't remember the exact date but it was in phase 2 of the beta test. Garriott once said, and I paraphrase, 'to make a good game you need to be inspired', Perhaps his experience with EA drained a lot of his inspiration, but his trip to outer space likely jump started his inspiration, whether he wins this lawsuit or not I believe he will head the next generation mmorpg, blowing phoney superficial copycat mmorpgs like WoW out of the water."
Heh, thanks Sov, thats actually readable, though after reading through it all, I"m sticking by what I said in my previous post.
Edit: Bah, my previous statement was mod-edited, though if you are curious what I said, just youtube "Beelzeboss" from the Tenacious D movie, and the statement can also be heard somewhat when JB is trying to convince Kage to fight back against the devil's mad rifts, and before they start singing.
I woulldn't call him a douche... Everytime I have ran into him here in Austin, he has always been polite and open.
I love these people calling him an "idot" or "retard" or whatever name their 13 year old minds can make up. This guy has done more in his lifetime then any of the people here who think they could do better. I swear, no one even knows what exactly what went on behind the scenes.
Did Garriott make mistakes?????? Probably
But man, let the guy live.
Funny thing is most people flaming him would switch spots with him in a second!
Hope Garriot wins, he is a landmark in the industry and his abilties are worth more then 24mil. NcSoft is the lamest company , and is pretty much the Korean version of Sony. As far as john last sentence, the only anticipation for Aion , is by NcSoft. No one outside of the NcSoft circles gives 2 flying F#$%s about Aion.
My favorite R.G. game was Bioforge. that was an amazing title.
People here seem to be posting based on personal emotion rather then on cold hard facts. It is a lot like the Bank pay structures that are being playing out, despite Governments stumping up billions to save them from collapse. It is in the contract. To break the contract would be to invalidate every contract everywhere. If we can just wipe them away, then no one is safe. Not you with your local builder or plumber, not you with your employer, which you have a contact with, not with your school that is contracted to educate your children.
The same argument applies here. RG is arguing over a contractual matter, a matter that relates to whether he is entitled to monies that were tied up in shares of NCSoft as a part of his pay package which became part of his severance package. Whether NCSoft mistated his reasons for leaving and thus left him out of pocket by forcing him to unload shares before he was ready to do so.
The comments on here that he is a asshat or whatever are rather irrelevent and one has to wonder why so many people seem to have such high emotions about a man that, it is likely,none of them knew. Simply put, why do you care about RG so much, regardless of his gaming history or what he has or has not done in the gaming industry, does this really compel you to make a post about him on a forum in an emotional manner?
I am more interested in the questions the Lawsuit raises and on whether NCSoft, a company I have a personal dislike for after dealing with them several times, gets stung for $24m dollars. Personally, I hope he wins.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You think those of us who dislike Richard Garriot are biased but then you turn around and say you hope NCsoft has to pay RG the money just because YOU don't like them. This seems to be the common attitude of nearly everyone rooting for RG, which leads me to beleive the only people who want to see him win are people that have decided they hate NCsoft more than RG.
Anyway, I would like to respond to a perticular question that Jon Wood made in his article:
"Why, if Garriott planned to leave the company only two weeks after returning from a trip to space, would he use the trip to promote the game?"
The anwser to that question seems simple to me. He DIDN'T use his trip to promote the game. He used the game to promote (and pay for) his trip which was really just an effort to promote himself. The whole trip was nothing but one giant ego booster for him. His father was a REAL Astronaut (and by "real" I mean that he actually spent a lifetime training to go into outer space and was sent there to conduct scientific exploration which would benefit mankind) and Garriot just wanted to hype himself up in such a way that he would appear to be an astronaut was well. That is why Garriot put up his "Richard in Space" website to brag about being a "second generation astronaut" even though he isn't a real astronaut, he is just a rich guy who paid for a trip on a Russian tin can.
And before someone like Dafong goes off on a rant about how I don't know anything and I'm just being unfair to Richard Garriot because I didn't like Tabula Rasa, let me tell you that I can PROVE exactly how Richard felt about Tabula Rasa. I asked him a question about Tabula Rasa on his space trip site and HERE WAS THE "ANWSER" HE GAVE ME. I think that tells us all we need to know about just how interested RG was in Tabula Rasa and how much concern he had for the people paying subscription fees.
Its my opinion that RG never gave a crap about Tabula Rasa. He created the concept for the game and sold it to NCsoft (for 40+ million dollars) but as soon as he got the money he ran off to Russia with it so he could buy his space trip and show everyone that he was just like his daddy by going into space. Its always been all about him and his ego. The game never had a chance, the customers never had a chance and NCsoft never had a chance. Richard has already gotten WAY more than his fair share out of this deal, he doesn't deserve another 24 million.
Lol blame Blizzard and WoW for that , if anything everquest was the last MMORPG that made you earn what you have. Its very easy to trash Garriott for the TR debacle, ( thank god i got to play beta and see the trainwreck inc ). Garriot and McQuaid over all get a free pass from me for 3 simple reasons, EVERQUEST ULTIMA ONLINE AND the Ultima series of games.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You think those of us who dislike Richard Garriot are biased but then you turn around and say you hope NCsoft has to pay RG the money just because YOU don't like them. This seems to be the common attitude of nearly everyone rooting for RG, which leads me to beleive the only people who want to see him win are people that have decided they hate NCsoft more than RG.
Anyway, I would like to respond to a perticular question that Jon Wood made in his article:
"Why, if Garriott planned to leave the company only two weeks after returning from a trip to space, would he use the trip to promote the game?"
The anwser to that question seems simple to me. He DIDN'T use his trip to promote the game. He used the game to promote (and pay for) his trip which was really just an effort to promote himself. The whole trip was nothing but one giant ego booster for him. His father was a REAL Astronaut (and by "real" I mean that he actually spent a lifetime training to go into outer space and was sent there to conduct scientific exploration which would benefit mankind) and Garriot just wanted to hype himself up in such a way that he would appear to be an astronaut was well. That is why Garriot put up his "Richard in Space" website to brag about being a "second generation astronaut" even though he isn't a real astronaut, he is just a rich guy who paid for a trip on a Russian tin can.
And before someone like Dafong goes off on a rant about how I don't know anything and I'm just being unfair to Richard Garriot because I didn't like Tabula Rasa, let me tell you that I can PROVE exactly how Richard felt about Tabula Rasa. I asked him a question about Tabula Rasa on his space trip site and HERE WAS THE "ANWSER" HE GAVE ME. I think that tells us all we need to know about just how interested RG was in Tabula Rasa and how much concern he had for the people paying subscription fees.
Its my opinion that RG never gave a crap about Tabula Rasa. He created the concept for the game and sold it to NCsoft (for 40+ million dollars) but as soon as he got the money he ran off to Russia with it so he could buy his space trip and show everyone that he was just like his daddy by going into space. Its always been all about him and his ego. The game never had a chance, the customers never had a chance and NCsoft never had a chance. Richard has already gotten WAY more than his fair share out of this deal, he doesn't deserve another 24 million.
Not really.
The whole point was, people were making comments about a man it is unlikely that any of them have had any dealings with, beyond simply playing the games he helped create.
I have dealt with NCSoft, quite a lot in my working career and I have come to dislike them based on experience of actually dealing with them. Not walking past the building they work from. Not from seeing their logo occasionally. Which is about the strength of some of the dislikes of RG.
So its not pot calling kettle black at all. If you MET RG if you KNEW him had worked with him, dealt with him, then fair play if you don't like him then at least you have a reason. Apparently people don't like him, simply because he is a somewhat celebrity in the gaming industry and people just love to hate people for reasons they have created in their mind, probably out of jealousy.
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You think those of us who dislike Richard Garriot are biased but then you turn around and say you hope NCsoft has to pay RG the money just because YOU don't like them. This seems to be the common attitude of nearly everyone rooting for RG, which leads me to beleive the only people who want to see him win are people that have decided they hate NCsoft more than RG.
Anyway, I would like to respond to a perticular question that Jon Wood made in his article:
"Why, if Garriott planned to leave the company only two weeks after returning from a trip to space, would he use the trip to promote the game?"
The anwser to that question seems simple to me. He DIDN'T use his trip to promote the game. He used the game to promote (and pay for) his trip which was really just an effort to promote himself. The whole trip was nothing but one giant ego booster for him. His father was a REAL Astronaut (and by "real" I mean that he actually spent a lifetime training to go into outer space and was sent there to conduct scientific exploration which would benefit mankind) and Garriot just wanted to hype himself up in such a way that he would appear to be an astronaut was well. That is why Garriot put up his "Richard in Space" website to brag about being a "second generation astronaut" even though he isn't a real astronaut, he is just a rich guy who paid for a trip on a Russian tin can.
And before someone like Dafong goes off on a rant about how I don't know anything and I'm just being unfair to Richard Garriot because I didn't like Tabula Rasa, let me tell you that I can PROVE exactly how Richard felt about Tabula Rasa. I asked him a question about Tabula Rasa on his space trip site and HERE WAS THE "ANWSER" HE GAVE ME. I think that tells us all we need to know about just how interested RG was in Tabula Rasa and how much concern he had for the people paying subscription fees.
Its my opinion that RG never gave a crap about Tabula Rasa. He created the concept for the game and sold it to NCsoft (for 40+ million dollars) but as soon as he got the money he ran off to Russia with it so he could buy his space trip and show everyone that he was just like his daddy by going into space. Its always been all about him and his ego. The game never had a chance, the customers never had a chance and NCsoft never had a chance. Richard has already gotten WAY more than his fair share out of this deal, he doesn't deserve another 24 million.
Interesting and quite revealing rant you have there, Raltar. Of course, it couldn't be envy/spite thats coloring your perspective on this... After all, you'd not wish to have a trip into space yourself, and know that you are very unlikely to ever have that opportunity...
Of course, we can thank our Dear Leaders for a good part of that missed opportunity. Absent governments heavy handed intrusion into the space area, we'd likely be MUCH further along. Look at the development of the personal computer as just one example.
Left to government, we'd likely still be using something like the Commadore PET, and it would be so expensive that only a relatively few people would be able to afford it. There are gigantic profits to be made in space. Look at the VAST riches to be had in the asteroid belt, as just ONE example. But it does take a large upfront investment in R&D, said investment being unlikely, as long as government is spending billions and billions(not to mention strangling the private space industry with an endless tide of red tape and regulation).
As for RG, I suspect its always been his dream to go into space. Growing up with his fathers example(and first hand tales of his fathers experiences in space) would be quite the motivation. But such is entirely understandable.
As for the conflict between RG and NCsoft, I suspect that ego is involved on both sides. Many. MANY people who have dealt with NCsoft have come away with a BAD taste in their mouth from the experience. In general, lacking specific details, I tend to come down on the side of individuals, when the other side is a corporation like NCsoft.
Interesting and quite revealing rant you have there, Raltar. Of course, it couldn't be envy/spite thats coloring your perspective on this... After all, you'd not wish to have a trip into space yourself, and know that you are very unlikely to ever have that opportunity...
Of course, we can thank our Dear Leaders for a good part of that missed opportunity. Absent governments heavy handed intrusion into the space area, we'd likely be MUCH further along. Look at the development of the personal computer as just one example.
Left to government, we'd likely still be using something like the Commadore PET, and it would be so expensive that only a relatively few people would be able to afford it. There are gigantic profits to be made in space. Look at the VAST riches to be had in the asteroid belt, as just ONE example. But it does take a large upfront investment in R&D, said investment being unlikely, as long as government is spending billions and billions(not to mention strangling the private space industry with an endless tide of red tape and regulation).
As for RG, I suspect its always been his dream to go into space. Growing up with his fathers example(and first hand tales of his fathers experiences in space) would be quite the motivation. But such is entirely understandable.
As for the conflict between RG and NCsoft, I suspect that ego is involved on both sides. Many. MANY people who have dealt with NCsoft have come away with a BAD taste in their mouth from the experience. In general, lacking specific details, I tend to come down on the side of individuals, when the other side is a corporation like NCsoft.
You understand that the Internet, GPS, HTML....a handful of items that were created by the "Government".
What is it about some people that they seem to think Government project = Lack of Creativity or Innovation?
Garriot isn't British. I am quite sure his passport is American.
Garriott was BORN in England. He was RAISED in Texas. He's an American.
Interesting and quite revealing rant you have there, Raltar. Of course, it couldn't be envy/spite thats coloring your perspective on this... After all, you'd not wish to have a trip into space yourself, and know that you are very unlikely to ever have that opportunity...
Of course, we can thank our Dear Leaders for a good part of that missed opportunity. Absent governments heavy handed intrusion into the space area, we'd likely be MUCH further along. Look at the development of the personal computer as just one example.
Left to government, we'd likely still be using something like the Commadore PET, and it would be so expensive that only a relatively few people would be able to afford it. There are gigantic profits to be made in space. Look at the VAST riches to be had in the asteroid belt, as just ONE example. But it does take a large upfront investment in R&D, said investment being unlikely, as long as government is spending billions and billions(not to mention strangling the private space industry with an endless tide of red tape and regulation).
As for RG, I suspect its always been his dream to go into space. Growing up with his fathers example(and first hand tales of his fathers experiences in space) would be quite the motivation. But such is entirely understandable.
As for the conflict between RG and NCsoft, I suspect that ego is involved on both sides. Many. MANY people who have dealt with NCsoft have come away with a BAD taste in their mouth from the experience. In general, lacking specific details, I tend to come down on the side of individuals, when the other side is a corporation like NCsoft.
You understand that the Internet, GPS, HTML....a handful of items that were created by the "Government".
What is it about some people that they seem to think Government project = Lack of Creativity or Innovation?
LOL... You obviously mistake the internet as it exists today for the VERY limited system that was ARPANET... Do you really believe that it would exist in ANYTHING like its current form, lacking the free enterprise profit seeking of millions upon millions of people? As for the second, DECADES of personal experience. I've seen the waste, fraud, abuse of power and CYA mentality that defines government operations. It would be wise to remember the old saying; "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach, and those who can't do either work for the government"...
@Wraithone: First of all, I don't care about space. I don't care if the goverment is keeping us out of space. I don't want to go there. I don't feel "envy/spite" (I think "jealousy" was the word you were looking for there) towards Richard Garriot for having gone into space. None of that has ANYTHING to do with the discussion at hand or Richard's lawsuit aginst NCsoft.
The reason why I dislike Richard Garriot and the reason why I feel he does not deserve to win his lawsuit are based on the facts of the events that took place during the development of Tabula Rasa. Richard Garriot SOLD the rights to Tabula Rasa, the rights to use his name and his services as a game developer to NCsoft for 40 million dollars. That part I'm okay with, although I surely wouldn't have paid him that much money. Then Ncsoft put another 70 million into the game for development costs. Again, while it might seem a little excessive to me, I'm okay with that part. Here comes the part I'm not okay with. Once Richard Garriot had his 40 million dollars in his pocket he lost all interest in Tabula Rasa. While the game was in development he ran off to Russia with his money and started training for his trip into space. While he was doing this, Tabula Rasa had no direction or leadership as far as their dev team was concenred. As a result of that huge sums of money were wasted on the development which went slowly and poorly. When the game finally released in a largely unfinished condition with no end-game content of any kind, where was Ricahrd? Space. Where should he have been? On this planet, hopefully doing his job.
You see, I do not mind that Richard went into space. He had the money to afford the trip and apparently the motivation to do it. Good for him. My complaint with him is that he was in space during the time when Tabula Rasa needed him most and the game failed as a result of his negligence. Ncsoft invested over 100 million dollars into his game with the understanding that he would be there through the entire development process using his expertise as the famed creator of Ultima Online to ensure the success of the game concept which he had created. Instead he went off to screw around in space.
When Tabula Rasa failed it was not only a disaster for NCsoft who ended up losing all the money they had invested into the game but MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY it was a disaster for the customers who bought the game. If a rich guy screws over a Korean game publisher that is not really my problem. But when that same rich guy also screws over thousands of paying customers (of which I happened to be one) then that is when he goes down in my book as being a very bad dude.
So its my opinion that he does not deserve to win his lawsuit aginst NCsoft based on the fact that he failed to do a proper job as the creator and developer of Tabula Rasa. If he left the company of his own free will (as he himself originally claimed before changing his story) or if he was fired for failure to do his job seems beside the point to me. He didn't do his job, so I don't think he deserves to get paid. If anything he should give back some of the money he took from NCsoft or use it to give refunds to people that bought his failed game.
@Dafong: Unless you are about to reveal that you were one of the employees who worked on Tabula Rasa, I can't imagine how your "personal experience" with NCsoft could be relevant to this lawsuit. You may not like NCsoft but that does not make them wrong nor does it make Garriot correct.
For example, lets say you have two neighbors who live on either side of you. Across the street lives an old lady. One day the old lady is found murdered and both of your neighbors are suspects. You tell the police that although you didn't witness the crime you never liked the neighbor who lived in the house to the right of yours. Do you think that alone will be enough evidence for the police to charge him with the crime? Do you beleive your dislike of this man is enough evidence for him to be convicted in court? Probably not.
The case between Ncsoft and Ricahrd Garriot is the same. You may not personally like one side or the other, but unless you have actual evidence to back up your opinion that one of them is wrong, you really have nothing to offer this discussion. Your personal feelings are not evidence. So unless you are about to blow us all away be revealing that you personally witnessed every single agreement between Richard Garriot and NCsoft then I have to say that nothing about your "experience" is going to change my mind, nor should it change the minds of anyone else here.
Raltar, thats a cheap stunt(the colored text) and it reflects poorly on you. I said nothing of the kind. I stated quite clearly why we are no further along in space development than we are, and compared it to the development of the personal computer. Your raving about some government conspiracy is entirely a figment of YOUR imagination. Further attempts by you to proceed in this fashion will only make you look more immature and dishonest.
I did not say that those people hating on Richard Garriot were wrong. Please show me where I said that at all? Oh you can't, because I never said anything like that.
What I said was that I couldn't understand how people could become so emotionally distraught over someone that they had never met and did not know beyond a tertiary knowledge.
Nor did I say that my deep insider knowledge had revealed that NCSoft were right or wrong....what I said was that my personal experience of NCSoft has brought me to the point where I don't really like them and would revel in any suffering they had to endure as a company and therefore HOPED that they lost.
You seem to have taken what was actually said, completely ignored it and created your own reality in which people have said entirely different things.
Yes, you did rant about personal computers and space development. Two topics which are completely unrelated to Richard Garriot and his lawsuit. Did I slightly "exaggerate" what you said? Yes, obviously, for the comedic value. But did my exaggeration alter the fact that you were trying to drag this thread and everyone in it into an off-topic subject that only you care about which doesn't matter in the slightest? No, it didn't.
The point I was trying to make, in a humourous fashion, was that you are off topic and your opinions on space travel are not relevant to this discussion. So sorry you didn't like it, but if you can't find something to say about Richard Garriot then I think you should go find a forum about space travel to continue your rant.
Okay:
Funny, I typed up half a page of facts about how Richard Garriot abandoned his post during the development of Tabula Rasa. Neither you or Wraithone made any attempt to reply to them. But I guess in your world you have facts and emotion reversed so you just blew me off as one of those overly emotional types who you say is wrong.
And see here is where you, working on nothing but your own personal feeling towards NCsoft, jump to the conclusion that they must obviously be wrong, must obviously have done something inappropriate to Richard Garriot and that he obviously deserves to win. I obviously saw this as being completely hypocritical considering you just accused everyone in this thread of using too much emotion and not enough facts.
When I confronted you about it you began talking about your PERSONAL EXPERIENCE with Ncsoft:
To which I said:
And now here we are. I'm still waiting to hear your reply to that...
How on EARTH is that me coming to the conclusion that NCSoft are wrong?...to quote....I HOPE he wins....not, he should win, not, he is right, I merely hoped that he won.
Since your interpretation of the English language differs from EVERYONE elses, you will understand when people look at your 'facts' and don't bother to respond.
Perhaps when you can deal with reality, grasp the understanding of the language you are reading and respond to what is actually being said, rather then what you wish was being said, then people might take the time to respond to your 'facts'
Yes, you did rant about personal computers and space development. Two topics which are completely unrelated to Richard Garriot and his lawsuit. Did I slightly "exaggerate" what you said? Yes, obviously, for the comedic value. But did my exaggeration alter the fact that you were trying to drag this thread and everyone in it into an off-topic subject that only you care about which doesn't matter in the slightest? No, it didn't.
The point I was trying to make, in a humourous fashion, was that you are off topic and your opinions on space travel are not relevant to this discussion. So sorry you didn't like it, but if you can't find something to say about Richard Garriot then I think you should go find a forum about space travel to continue your rant.
Nonsense. RG's trip to space was part of the original discussion. My expansion on that tied in two very relevant points. Your concepts of "off topic" are not a valid excuse for your feeble attempt at humor. Ridicule is a standard propaganda tactic, usually brought in to play when the party in question can not debate the merits of the argument. Final point, you are NOT a mod here, hence, you do NOT get to determine what is and is not "off topic".
More irony. You both seem more interested in hurling insults than in actually talking about the subject at hand. It seems to me that you two are the ones who cannot debate the merits of the arguement since neither of you have made any attempt to do so.
RG going into space and your opinion that goverment is holding back space travel are hardly related subjects. Thats like saying because NCsoft is located in Korea we might as well start talking about the Korean War while we are at it. Perhaps instead of promoting your private agenda you could find something to say about Richard Garriot or NCsoft? Nobody needs to be a mod to see that this thread is about the lawsuit between RG and NCsoft, not these other side topics.
@Dafong: Once again you repeat your flawed arguement. You think RG should win more money simply because you don't like NCsoft. Your dislike of NCsoft does not justify RG getting any more money for a job he never did in the first place. You are letting your personal feelings blind you to the actual facts of the case, which has been my point from the very beginning of this debate.
More irony. You both seem more interested in hurling insults than in actually talking about the subject at hand. It seems to me that you two are the ones who cannot debate the merits of the arguement since neither of you have made any attempt to do so.
RG going into space and your opinion that goverment is holding back space travel are hardly related subjects. Thats like saying because NCsoft is located in Korea we might as well start talking about the Korean War while we are at it. Perhaps instead of promoting your private agenda you could find something to say about Richard Garriot or NCsoft? Nobody needs to be a mod to see that this thread is about the lawsuit between RG and NCsoft, not these other side topics.
@Dafong: Once again you repeat your flawed arguement. You think RG should win more money simply because you don't like NCsoft. Your dislike of NCsoft does not justify RG getting any more money for a job he never did in the first place. You are letting your personal feelings blind you to the actual facts of the case, which has been my point from the very beginning of this debate.
You are obviously immune to the total irony of your above, given your previous feeble attempt at humor. Looking back on this thread, its obvious to anyone with basic reading comprehension, how the topic flow has emerged. Its also obvious that this is a total waste of time.
It is not a flawed argument to have a desire one way or the other without relying on the facts of the case to justify that desire.
As to the Original matter, as a student of Law in London I will repeat what I said in the first post. IF, and this is a hypothetical, because NONE of us have the facts at hand, but IF Richard Garriot had a contract with NCSoft that related to a share option as a part of his payment AND within that contract it stipulated that Richard Garriot would have to immediately sell his shares IF he voluntarily left the company...AND IF Richard Garriot can show that he did not leave voluntarily and was therefore entitled to keep the shares.....he will likely win his case because NCSoft would have broken the contract and the courts like to enforce contracts as they are quite important to business.
Regardless of what else has happened, regardless of whether you like RG, regardless of whether you think he did this or you think he did that as an outsider looking in. He will have a claim in contract and he will likely win IF those facts are true. It will be for a court to decide whether those facts are correct or not, not some anonymous person looking at half of the facts through the eyes of reporters.
Since NONE of us know the full facts of the case, all we can do is express our opinion about the people involved. My original argument was merely that people here seemed incredibly emotional about a person they had likely never met. I then expressed my hope and then justified that hope by pointing out that I had worked with NCSoft and disliked them because of that.
Now I am sure you will spin that into whatever the hell you want it to be, as that seems to be what you do, we write replies, you don't bother to read them you obviously just guess what people have written about then spout some nonsense as an answer.
Wraithone, I see you are still only interested in throwing insults. So yes, it would be a waste of my time to continue to speak with you.
FINALLY Dafong, you seem willing to actually talk about Richard Garriot. If you dial back your insults a bit we may be able to get an intelligent conversation going here.
First of all, "IF" Richard had a contract with NCsoft is not really an IF as far as I'm aware. He says there was a contract and I doubt he would have even filed the lawsuit if there wasn't a contract of some kind. Its possible that he lied about having a contract, but as much as I dislike the man I can't honestly see any logic in putting foreward a lie like that when the court will obviously ask to see the contract and if he can't produce it then he will have instantly lost his case.
So I'm going to operate on the assumption that there is a contract. Now the question becomes did NCsoft viloate that contract by forcing Garriot to leave the company? Well, this is exactly what the news article that started this thread was all about! See, Garriot made an announcement when he left the company that he was doing it of his own free will to presue other interests. If he did not leave of his own free will, then why did he make that announcement?
So my theory is that after he returned from his space trip NCsoft confronted him (it was probably the first oppertunity they had to speak with him in private because he had been away in Russia for so long) and explained to him that they would like him to leave because the failure of Tabula Rasa was an embarassment for their company. They gave him the option to save face with the public by leaving on his own rather than having to be fired for his negligence. He took that option and made the public announcement. BUT, several months later after announcing his intention to return to game development and his intention to develop another MMORPG, he asked himself where he was going to get the funding (I doubt anyone will simply give him the money again after what happened with NCsoft and TR). He knew he didn't have the money to make another MMO on his own, so he came up with this scheme to sue NCsoft by claiming that they fired him and tried to cover it up.
So he probably does have a contract and if his version of events is true then NCsoft might owe him some money. BUT, he made that public announcement which said he was leaving of his own free will. That announcement is a FACT in this case, not just a feeling, not just an opinion, a FACT. And because of that fact its my personal belief that Garriot left the company of his own free will and his lawsuit is just a way for him to try to get the money for his next MMO.
Lastly, you say that because we haven't met Richard Garriot in person we aren't in a position to judge him. I disagree. I have played and payed for games that he created. I followed Tabula Rasa during its development, I played it after it was released and I was there the day Richard Garriot announced he was leaving. I was there the day the game was shut down (in fact, I remember quite clearly that on the day they announced the game was shutting down I was in the middle of posting on another forum about my experience with the game and while posting a link to the TR website I saw the announcement which had just gone up about an hour before). So I may not have ever met the man in person but I have had a lot of experience with the products that he creates and the impression I have gotten from that experience is that he is not nearly as good of a game designer as he would like us all to believe. That is my judgement of Richard Garriot. Now I'm not sure what experiences a law student in London could have with a Korean game publisher, but I think its a pretty safe bet that my experience with Richard Garriot stacks up aginst it pretty well. (Unless of course you are going to blow us all away by revealing the CEO of NCsoft is your dad or something.)
No you didn't read what was written...again.
It was not If he had a contract, it was IF he had a contract that related to the share option.
It is also not a matter that NCSoft violated the contract by forcing him to leave, it is whether the contract stipulated that he must sell his shares if he leaves the company voluntarily and whether NCSoft presented that scenario to force his hand.
IF that is the case, which is the ACTUAL story, not the story you have concocted for yourself about whether he is suing for being fired, then RG will have a legitimate claim under contract law.
As to your last paragraph that is a tenuous link. You know NOTHING about him, you know nothing of his opinions or what he is like as a person, you have merely experienced what he has created.....that is like hating the guy that designed the Ford Focus cause you don't like the design....look feel free to not like the design, but its a bit of a stretch to hate the guy cause you didn't like the car or you did and Ford cancelled it. That is a ridiculous reason for not liking someone.
From the original article.....
"The suit, filed by Garriott's attorneys yesterday in a U.S. District Court in Texas, says that South Korea-based NCsoft breached its stock option agreement with the game designer, which was established when NCsoft acquired Garriott's Destination Games in 2001."
"The suit said if Garriott was terminated by NCsoft, the options would remain in effect until June 2011. However, upon a voluntary resignation, NCsoft would terminate those stock options unless exercised within 90 days of his departure."
Exactly as i said earlier, and I hadn't even bothered to read the original article cause it was bleeding obvious from the first post what was going on.
You accuse me of not reading what you said, claim I made up a story, then pretty much repeat exactly what I said? If this is the way law works in London I can see why America revolved aginst your country.
Yes, it is a question of if he had a contract with NCsoft (and yes, "IF" the contact covered his stock options). My theory on what happened is that he does in fact have such a contract, but now he is looking for a way to make a quick buck so he can fund his new MMO so he is trying to sue NCsoft for forcing him to leave the company (and thus lose the stock options).
Here, I can quote from the article as well:
"According to an article at Gamasutra, Garriott was dismissed by the publisher shortly after returning from his trip to the International Space Station. The details of the court case revolve around the circumstances of that dismissal."
So there you have it, exactly what I said: Garriot is trying to sue NCsoft because he claims they forced him to leave the company which caused him to lose his stock options. If he wins the lawsuit or not all depends on his ability to prove that his departure from the company was forced by NCsoft and not of his own free will.
Now, let me repeat my theory on what happened for you: Garriot came back from space. NCsoft was pissed. They asked him to leave on his own rather than be fired. Garriot agreed to leave and announced on the Tabula Rasa site he was leaving to presue other interests. However, he later discovered he needed money to fund his new MMO so he decided to change his story, say that NCsoft forced him out and that he wants his stock options back. I am not "making up a story" that is just my theory on what happened based on the evidence I have seen.
And your Ford Focus analogy is terribe. The difference between a Ford Focus and Tabula Rasa is that I didn't buy a Ford Focus. I DID buy Tabula Rasa, I saw first hand that it was not a very good game and it is my honest belief that it is not a very good game because the head developer was off screwing around in space when he was supposed to be working on the game. As I tried very hard to explain to Wraithone in one of my previous posts:
"The reason why I dislike Richard Garriot and the reason why I feel he does not deserve to win his lawsuit are based on the facts of the events that took place during the development of Tabula Rasa. Richard Garriot SOLD the rights to Tabula Rasa, the rights to use his name and his services as a game developer to NCsoft for 40 million dollars. That part I'm okay with, although I surely wouldn't have paid him that much money. Then Ncsoft put another 70 million into the game for development costs. Again, while it might seem a little excessive to me, I'm okay with that part. Here comes the part I'm not okay with. Once Richard Garriot had his 40 million dollars in his pocket he lost all interest in Tabula Rasa. While the game was in development he ran off to Russia with his money and started training for his trip into space. While he was doing this, Tabula Rasa had no direction or leadership as far as their dev team was concenred. As a result of that huge sums of money were wasted on the development which went slowly and poorly. When the game finally released in a largely unfinished condition with no end-game content of any kind, where was Ricahrd? Space. Where should he have been? On this planet, hopefully doing his job.
You see, I do not mind that Richard went into space. He had the money to afford the trip and apparently the motivation to do it. Good for him. My complaint with him is that he was in space during the time when Tabula Rasa needed him most and the game failed as a result of his negligence. Ncsoft invested over 100 million dollars into his game with the understanding that he would be there through the entire development process using his expertise as the famed creator of Ultima Online to ensure the success of the game concept which he had created. Instead he went off to screw around in space.
When Tabula Rasa failed it was not only a disaster for NCsoft who ended up losing all the money they had invested into the game but MUCH MORE IMPORTANTLY it was a disaster for the customers who bought the game. If a rich guy screws over a Korean game publisher that is not really my problem. But when that same rich guy also screws over thousands of paying customers (of which I happened to be one) then that is when he goes down in my book as being a very bad dude."
I admit I don't know Garriot as a person. Maybe he is a very nice guy. Maybe he takes good care of his kids and loves his wife and gets along with all his neighbors. Thats all fine. But I DO know him as a game developer and in that respect I think he sucks at his job, doesn't care enough about the people who buy his products and is more interested in grabbing cash to fund trips into outer space than anything else.
You do realise people can read your earlier posts.
I am bored with your revisionist re-writing of history and of what other posters have said. You can argue on your own, I am sure you will find it quite easy to change what you have originally said often enough to hold a decent argument with yourself.