Quick, name the first video game RPG ever. If you guessed Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, or Zelda, well, you were laughably wrong, and I am laughing at you. If you guessed something like Ultima or a Dungeons and Dragons adaptation, you were closer to the truth, and I am not laughing at you. I am just telling you you were wrong still.

While there is no way of knowing if it was the first one, one of the games that holds claim to being the first popular video game RPG ever is Akalabeth. The grandfather of all RPGs, the game was created by Richard Garriott, of Ultima fame, for Apple II. And today, it is available to download, for free, from Good Old Games.

I mean, man, these guys are really living up to their name here, aren’t they. I’m not sure how well the game holds up- my guess is it doesn’t at all- but it’s a piece of history, so I say go ahead and get it.

Hey, do you know who Richard Garriott is?

If you answered with ‘I don’t know,’ then you should be ashamed to call yourself a gamer, and you need to stand in the corner till you realize you have no sense of history for your hobby.

Everyone else, of course, knows who he is: one of gaming’s most influential designers and developers ever (possibly the most influential one), who was behind the much acclaimed and revered Ultima series of role playing games for various computer standards back in the day.

Anyway, he has been working on a brand new game for a while- it’s called Shroud of the Avatar, and it is, as would be expected, a new RPG. It is crowdfunded over Kickstarter (at least in part; it appears its budget now far exceeds the original Kickstarter target), and it is now on Steam Greenlight, with a targeted release some time in the first half of 2015.

We’ll keep you posted.

Who is Richard Garriott? He is the creator of Ultima. Bet you haven’t heard of that. He had a lot to say about game designers and who are credible and who aren’t to PC Gamer.

“I think there’s really very few great game designers. I think Chris Roberts is one of them, Will Wright’s another, Peter Molyneux is another. They clearly exist, but on the whole, I think that the design talent in our industry is dramatically lower than we need, as an industry. It’s a very hard skill to learn,” he said.

“Other than a few exceptions, I’ve met virtually no one in our industry who I think is close to as good a game designer as I am. I’m not saying that because I think I’m so brilliant. What I’m saying is, I think most game designers really just suck, and I think there’s a reason why.”

He also revealed that most designers he worked with were lazy.

“And every designer that I work with – all throughout life – I think, frankly, is lazy,” he recalled.

“But if you follow, they generally say, ‘You know, I really like Medal of Honor, but I would have bigger weapons, or I would have more healing packs, or,’ you know. They go to make one or two changes to a game they otherwise love versus really sit down and rethink, ‘How can I really move the needle here?’”

You can read more about that here. What do you think about what he has to say? Does he make a valid point?

Let us know below.

So far, 15,188 backers has pledged more than $1,055,400 to the Kickstarter campaign and so the game will be receiving stretch goals to accomodate them. The next goal is $1.1 million which will add pets to the mix for players. $1.2 million means a seasonal weather system will also make its way into the game.

The game itself will be releasing first for PC but will arrive on Mac, Linux and tablets later as well. Though not necessarily a follow-up to Ultima, Shroud of the Avatar will be in the same vein. It will feature a single player campaign but also have online features within a persistent world.

Garriott for his part described it as “the antithesis of what people have been doing with MMOs these last few years”, of which it is the first part. Look out for the game next year in Spring.

Source: GIBiz

The famed Lord British’s next venture will feature a full interactive world with its own original lore (with cultural histories and language) along with physical components such as a cloth map and trinkets. Shroud of the Avatar is being billed as a multiplayer online game, but can be played offline in single player.

So far the project has 8,370 Backers with $490,587 pledged of the $1,000,000 goal with only 28 days to go. Considering the sheer amount of fame and repute that Garriott’s name carries, it won’t be long before the goal is met and crossed.