GB Feature: Ultima VIII: The Lost Vale/Arthurian Legends RPG Interview

In an effort to share the stories behind some of the role-playing game cancellations that have occurred since the dawn of the medium, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to dig up some of these treasures and quiz the people who worked on them. To kick these efforts off, we had the opportunity to chat with ORIGIN Systems’ Sheri Graner Ray (who now works at Schell Games) about her involvement with two promising CRPGs at the respected developer/publisher – Ultima VIII: The Lost Vale and Arthurian Legends:

GB: Is it possible that anyone out there still has a gold copy of Ultima VIII: The Lost Vale? With the popularity of digital download services and classic RPGs, wouldn’t it be feasible that a working, “as is” copy could be released and even reasonably profitable in today’s market?

Sheri: I know that every Ultima fan out there desperately wants there to be a copy of Lost Vale somewhere, but honestly there just isn’t. It was in the early days of the ORIGIN/EA merger and ORIGIN still wasn’t doing much archiving. Frankly, I don’t even think U8 was archived, so there’s no way Lost Vale was. It was a small project with a small team, for a project that was kind of… well… a disappointment for the company. Add to that, the fact the company’s attention was on the much bigger and brighter Crusader and Wing 3 titles. Plus the looming overhead cuts that were coming. There just wasn’t thought enough of doing an archive.

GB: Let’s switch gears to the Arthurian legend RPG. Based on what we could dig up, it’s unclear as to whether or not it was supposed to be an Ultima game. Did ORIGIN have the intention of creating more games in the “Worlds of Ultima” series? Or was there just an idea for an independent Arthurian RPG? In essence, how did the game evolve into and out of the “Worlds of Ultima” spin-off series?

Sheri: The most interesting thing about Arthurian Legends is it was a completely employee driven idea. It was the brainchild of Brian Martin, a designer on several of the Ultimas and a major player in the Brittania Manor haunted houses. He came up with the initial idea and sold it (upstairs) as a way to reuse the Ultima engine. He convinced Richard that it could be made with fewer people than a traditional Ultima, faster than a traditional Ultima and that it would be different enough from Ultimas to not compete with them. At the same time it could still draw on the popularity of the (ORIGIN) name.

Although (Worlds of Ultima) was mentioned a time or two in the early phases of the game, I don’t think it was ever intended to be a (Worlds of Ultima.) It was always an independent, stand-alone, idea.