Chapter 19 The Design Document .................
Chapter 19 The Design Document...................
“It wasn’t untilUltima IV: Quest of the Avatar, thatUltimasreally started having
compelling, purposeful stories, and it was the first game in the series to have a
social commentary subtext. Not only did I want to build worlds that were large,
epic, and meaningful, I also wanted to add a subtext to each game which
might not necessarily be obvious in the actions your characters took in the
game, but one which ultimately would give the game a more lasting meaning.
So inUltima IVyou had to prove yourself to be a good person, one who could
be an example to the people of Britannia. The game acted like a ‘Big Brother,’
requiring gamers to behave in a ‘heroic’ fashion in order to win the game. I
thought that design was pretty cool, since gamers were accustomed to pre-
tending to be the hero yet they would beat up all the townsfolk in order to
become powerful enough to beat up the character who was supposed to be
the big bad guy, even though he generally didn’t do anything bad in the
game.”
— Richard Garriott355