Today we’re finishing off our traditional countdown of MassivelyOP’s weirdest MMORPG stories of the year!
Coming in at #1 on our list is…
Richard Garriott improving his diving and treasure hunting skills
Listen, Richard Garriott is a character, and that’s one of the reasons people trusted him to make Shroud of the Avatar. The fact that he was a rich guy who lived in an actual castle and shot a dude once and went to space and then sued NCsoft and won because they tried to rip him off while he was in space but also kept building weird MMOs? That insanity is why people liked him. Of course, the problem is that Shroud of the Avatar is in shambles, and Lord British all but abdicated his throne – and his responsibility to Kickstarter backers as well as equity crowdfunding investors – when the game didn’t take off. He seemingly sold it for a pittance to a lead developer, and now it’s just malingering.
So what is Richard Garriott doing that is not the game you paid for? Just this year, he went on an expedition to dive to the bottom of the Mariana Trench and joined an Antarctic expedition to locate the 1915 wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance. He also admitted that he smuggled the ashes of Star Trek’s James Doohan to the International Space Station, which is good, actually. It’d be super awesome if he could find his way back to his MMO next. Maybe he could pay back the people who invested in SOTA‘s equity crowdfunding campaign while he’s at it. We’re confident his checkbook’s good for it.
That’s a wrap on our weird stories for the year… don’t forget to check out our annual MMORPG awards and our Golden Yachties!
