[Bandit LOAF]

Origin founder and Ultima creator Richard Garriott, aka Lord British, went back to his roots to soft launch his new Ultima initiative this weekend: DragonCon! There he held a panel about 'what makes an Ultima' that revealed some of his plans for recovering the rights from Electronic Arts and that negotiations with the publisher have already started! It doesn't seem to have made the mainstream press yet, but luckily the Ultima Dragons are a little more thorough! John Hosie posted a great writeup:

So, excellent panel with Lord British, but also with Starr Long and Chris Spears attending.

The first 20 minutes was RG going through the base Ultima history and his experience, with also touching notably on Starr Long's work leading UO's development originally.

The issue with the Ultima IP falls under the 203 Copyright laws where RG notified EA of his intent to reclaim the Ultima copyrights under the 35 year rule as the initial assigner as creator.

This does NOT include trademarks, which is why EA immediately filed after getting notice. They are in further discussion and negotiations to determine if he can fully recapture it.

Otherwise, he's wanting to get the "band" back together, but hasn't fully fleshed what their intention would be, from single player RPG to MMO.

The last 30 minutes of the panel dealt with the use of AI tools ethically, notably for some of RG's own fan projects, but also Chris Spears (Atos) using tools to clean up code for Shroud of the Avatar, as well as converting to recorded voice lines using an AI database that credits and compensates the original actor.

Starr Long is no longer in game development, but works in security based software, and had his own thoughts as any AI platforms he is even allowed to use requires non-cloud access, and using only locally controlled data.

The ultimate point was while they are aware of the dangers and very real ethical concerns, they are also cognizant that the technology is there and will be used in the industry. Their goal is to keep it as honest and transparent as possible.

There's also a booze recipe from LB, which I will post when I get to a good spot 🙂

You can find the booze recipe here! Thanks for being so thorough, Ultima Dragons![/url]




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Original update published on September 8, 2026