Richard Garriott aka Lord British just announced via a live broadcast a brand new adventure from his development team.  Titled Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, Richard Garriott is going back to his roots with his latest adventure since 1998.  Garriott will utilize crowd funding site, Kickstarter, to allow backers the opportunity to participate in the development.  Shroud of the Avatar has a new website which includes game information, forums, player interaction.

Some interesting tidbits from the live stream interview with Richard Garriott: 

Richard Garriott’s brother coined the Origin Systems slogan “We Create Worlds”

Richard wrote his first adventure game, pre-Akalabeth, in highschool using teletype tape

Richard numbered and sold Akalabeth in a zip lock bag. #12 is still framed on his wall.  Only 11 copies of Akalabeth were sold the first week.

Richard still has a running Apple IIe in their office running Akalabeth in their office to remind everyone where this all began.

Ultima 3 was the first Ultima published by Origin Systems.

Lord British appears in all the games and could be killed except for in Ultima 7.

The term avatar was first used in Ultima 4.  He discovered the term researching virtues, Hindu writings, the incarnation of a god or thought or belief in physical form.

Richard submitted stories about his D&D games in his English class.  These stores became the basis for all his Ultima series.

Shroud of the Avatar, Demo Gameplay:

Interactive world.  Castle in the center of town contains city services.  Bad guys are out with a purpose and a plan laying siege to surrounding towns.  Why?  Combination 3D 1st person and overhead (outdoor) perspective with clouds of war.  Combat takes place in close-up 1st person view.  Towns can utilize protective shields, expensive to build there, but siege proof.  It has DRAGONS, roaming Gypsy Wagons and DUNGEONS.  SOTA can be played akin to a classic numeraled Ultima solo player game.  It will have an online persistent world, constantly updated.  It is not an MMO.  Your friends will be seen on the map and you can join them; real time ad hoc play with friends.  This is the first campaign, with one new episode launching one per year for five years. There will be fewer clues in the game (no arrows to follow, for example).  Richard wants to bring back the discovery process lost on many of today’s adventure games.

Visit the Official SOTA Website.

Visit the Official SOTA KICKSTARTER PAGE.

** Already up to nearly $100,000 in the first few hours!  WOW!