Ultima creator tackles ultimate frontier
Jul 30, 2008
Celebrated game designer Richard "Lord British" Garriott plans to conquer a new frontier this fall: he's heading into space, and he'll be taking data from his most recent game with him.
Garriott, most recently credited as executive producer on sci-fi massively-multiplayer online game Tabula Rasa, will become the sixth space tourist in history when he visits the International Space Station in October, and plans to take with him a device called the "Immortality Drive" -- a time capsule bearing the DNA of selected humans, and data on all Tabula Rasa's characters.
If you want to "virtually" accompany Garriott into space, you have until September 2 to create a Tabula Rasa character for inclusion on the device. If you're extremely lucky, you'll become one of the few Tabula Rasa players chosen to have their DNA sequenced, digitized, and shot into orbit -- raising the slightly worrying possibility that in the event of a colossal global catastrophe, the only remnants of humanity might be the genotypes of a handful of gamers.
Space flight is in Garriott's genes, but he still had to undergo a rigorous training procedure before his flight. "My father was a Skylab and shuttle astronaut, which makes me a second generation spacefarer," he told Yahoo! Games in an interview last week. "In 2007, I passed my medical and physical pre-qualifications. And since January, I've been spending all my time in Russia training. We're basically covering all the ways there are in space to injure or kill yourself. Even very simple procedures like going to sleep can be surprisingly hazardous."
Garriott's flight, which is estimated to have cost a cool $30m, will tie in closely with events taking place in his game. "We do plan a whole series of events to occur in-game during the time of my flight: new missions, new objects, all of which directly relate to what's happening in space with me and with that data."
He won't actually be playing the game from orbit, although he'll still be able to chat to Tabula Rasa players. "Inside the Immortality Drive is a full copy of Tabula Rasa, and while the space station would allow us to have internet capabilities, they were understandably concerned about hackers doing damage from below, so to speak," he said. "But I will have a way to connect through a satellite, through Mission Control, back here to Austin and then into Tabula Rasa so I can communicate with players in the game while in space."
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