It's your last chance to get part of former Origin employee Rhea Shelley's collection of classic games and artifacts! He is auctioning the unsold games and items through eBay and the lineup includes everything from Ring Quest to Ultima IX! Highlights for WingNuts include a mint first edition Wing Commander I and a nice copy of Kilrathi Saga. I'll be bidding, and so should you! You can find the full list here. It all ends in just four days!
The rumor mill has been quiet since news first broke about a possible new Wing Commander project in development by Chris Roberts, but st3lt3k has uncovered one more interesting tidbit. He's located an entry at the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs website for Wing Commander Productions, Inc. It links to a filing endorsement submitted on January 10, 2011 that certifies the company with the state. That's about as much as can be gleaned from this piece of the puzzle, as most fields on the document are blank and it was submitted by a third party filing company.
It's a different story when it comes to Origin founder Richard Garriott, who was recently interviewed by Eurogamer. In the article, he's quoted as saying that he would be interested in rejoining the Ultima franchise and that high level discussions on the subject have taken place. However, several days of back and forth have cleared things up quite a bit. Garriott's spokesman has confirmed that any talks between the two have been in the past and general in nature, and Portalarium projects such as Ultimate Collector and Ultimate RPG are the current focus.
"Sure," answered Garriott, when asked whether Ultimate RPG could become UO2. "Yeah - theoretically that would be possible.
"We've actually talked to Electronic Arts about [Garriott leading Ultima Online again]. I would love to have access to the Ultima property. We've had discussions at very high levels with Electronic Arts about access to the property.
"So far we've not put a deal together, but of course, yeah, I would be very open to it." Regardless of whether an EA deal is struck, Garriott said Ultimate RPG will "clearly" be a spiritual successor to Ultima Online.
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Update: We've now gotten clarification from Garriott's spokesperson, who stated, "Richard is not CURRENTLY having conversations at high levels with Electronic Arts regarding the Ultima franchise. He never said that he is. I can assure you, however, that those conversations have taken place in the past."
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