Spiritual Successor

Am I sad to leave Ultima behind? Sure. But fear not.

Irrational Games couldn't get the rights to do a direct sequel to System Shock, even though Ken Levine and the Irrational Games crew created System Shock while working for Looking Glass Studios. They were forced to leave it behind and merely do a spiritual successor. They ended up creating the Bioshock series, which is even better.

Brian Fargo and Interplay couldn't get the rights to do Wasteland 2 from EA, despite the fact that Interplay was still Interplay and they created Wasteland. So they were forced to do a spiritual successor instead of a direct sequel, and they created Fallout instead, which is even better.

(Note it is EA that effectively killed RG doing a new Ultima, Kev Levine doing a new System Shock and Brian Fargo doing a new Wasteland. I don't know why gamers continue to support that company).

It is possible that a spiritual successor can surpass the series that inspired it.

 

You have made some good points, I think that this game has a ton of potential. I hope they are able to market it and the word gets out because we need to be SOTA hipsters and tell all the n00bs that we played before it was cool.

 

EA made Lord of Ultima. Who cares? That is 0% Ultima. The companes are not games. The creators are.

 

Mark Jacobs is also hard at work on the spiritual successor to DAoC titled "Camelot Unchained." I am very much looking forward to that game because DAoC got its claws in me and pulled me away from UO.

His company was also bought by EA, then he was stabbed in the back by his business partner, and now he is trying to make a spiritual successor with a lot of the original team behind DAoC. I wonder what Lum's thoughts on it are since he worked with Jacobs for a while with DAoC.

He recently contacted EA in regards to getting the IP for DAoC since they aren't doing jack with it, and they told him to pound sand.

 

It's also like Star Citizen's Squadron 42 module being the spiritual successor to Wing Commander, and its persistent universe being the spiritual successor to Chris Roberts' less well known, Freelancer.

(Most people just lump the whole thing into being, "the spiritual successor to Wing Commander" which isn't wrong, but it's a bit more nuanced than that, as per the above...)

 

I backed it and wish him and his team well!

 

Now can we please geta spiritual successor to crusador?

 

Or, how about Darklands? I wasted many of my teenage hours on Darklands. Good times!

 

I think it's also important to consider that the Ultima series is much more than just Ultima Online, so when people banter on about a "spiritual successor" but only quote their experiences with UO, that's only a small piece of the Ultima pie.

 

A very small piece. UO itself was a big break from Ultima tradition. It had to be because of the technical limitations of the time, but hey, that's life.

 

One of the things that defined the single player games was player freedom, including the ability to kill all the NPCS and rob them, so I don't really mind that UO-only players associate Ultima with a free and open world.

 

Free and open are two different things....in the ultima games you had much larger consequences to your actions.

 

Not two different things entirely. But, yea, there was less of a sense of danger in the single player games, because even though it was open the world felt more moderated and less anarchic. UO players often seem to think the anarchy was a feature and not a bug.

 

Bioshock better than System Shock 2?

Not a chance.

 

Agreed. I seem to spend a lot of time in new member's welcome threads, which generally reference UO above and beyond everything else, reminding them that UO is only about 1/3 the inspiration behind this.

(And yet in a recent thread where I made the point that a lot of people seem to be here for the multiplayer experience, via the way so many cite UO in that manner, I was told I was wrong...?)

 

I dont care. UO ruled.

 

I've listened/read dozens upon dozens upon dozens of CR SC themed interviews and he has mentioned Wing Commander, Privateer and even Star Wars more times than he has mentioned Freelancer or Starlancer, it reminds me of when someone comes on these forums and says SOTA will be UO2, not quite heh.

 

I'm not sure how well you know the games in question, however, the reason for that is Freelancer is a bit of a sticking point for Chris Roberts, given he was bought out of his company during its production and only ended up an advisor on the game; and it was released incomplete, to boot. So it's not his favourite game, compared to the others, but that doesn't mean it's not the closest thing to what the Star Citizen persistent universe is trying to be -- because it is.

He does reference Freelancer in the original video announcing the game. See https://robertsspaceindustries.com/about-the-game There's even a ship in Star Citizen called the Freelancer in a nod to the game. And if you read the Development and Gameplay sections of the Wikipedia entry here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer_(video_game) - you can see just how 'Star Citizen' it was going to be. People do actually call SC the spiritual successor to Freelancer.

As for Wing Commander, like I said, it's closest to the 'Squadron 42' module of Star Citizen, via being a single-player game, recreating one's role in the military, fighting in a war. Again, that's the clearest reference point in his past games.

 

I didn't say Freelancer isn't part of the inspiration to the multiplayer element of Star Citizen but to say it's the one and only main inspiration would be like saying Ultima Online is the one and only main inspiration for the multiplayer aspect of SOTA. We'll just have to wait and see, if it's Freelancer 2 to you that's cool, but to many it won't be.

 

Of course. That goes without saying. It would be absurd to think that no other idea has gone through Chris' mind since Freelancer came out in 2003, or that there wasn't more than on inspiration to the PU component of SC. Hands down, no debate from me. However, when you look at what Freelancer was and, more importantly what it was trying to be, it's basically the spot Chris reached before realising, "Hell, computers can't do what I'm wanting to do in games now..."

So he's being completely honest in that video where he says technology is at a point where he can now make the game he wants to make, because when he last tried that -- a decade ago in Freelancer -- it didn't go so well. In turn, the game he's trying to make now is basically Freelancer on steroids (plus influences from other games, yes!), and the more millions that have rolled in, the further he's expanded it to stuff he originally hadn't planned on doing at all in any shape or form.

If you didn't read the Gameplay or Development sections here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freelancer_(video_game) please do so. Even the intro alone could be re-worded to describe SC via being a game with a single player mode and a multiplayer mode and being all about trading and dogfighting and being able to forge a career of your choice in the game. It's basically the blueprint he started with for the initial, less well funded, version of SC he was imagining.

Wing Commander, by comparison, was a very linear, story-based series. Not a game where you can just fly off and do what you want. That's why it's closer to the single-player Squadron 42 module, not the PU itself.