Ultima Dragons

Hey hey everyone!

I am still in San Francisco, but GDC 2017 is finally over. In the coming days I will be making a few posts about things I have learned, saw and did. But at first I will talk about a few days about the Ultima Dragons.

Who are the Ultima Dragons you may ask? Well, taken (stolen) directly from their homepage is the following definition.

“The Ultima Dragons are a large virtual club founded in 1992 on Prodigy who have since moved to the Internet due to Prodigy’s outrageous rate structure. The club is dedicated to helping others with their Ultima questions, discussing Ultima, and, most obviously, sharing information and creative exploits.”

Do not know what Ultima is? Shame on you! (Not Shame the Dungeon… that is a little inside joke there) Ultima in this context means the Ultima series of games by Origin Systems, Inc.

I joined in 1995 around the time they jumped to IRC, but due to my shyness and general social awkwardness, I just lurked and even if someone hit me with a virtual pie or anything.. I just remained quiet. But I still followed them over the years and this summer they had a kickstarter for their 25th anniversary. Yeah. You read that correctly. This internet club that sprouted up around a computer game has been around for 25 years. Pretty impressive I’d say.

As fate would have it… it started the weekend before GDC, so I could go there, pretend I am cool and still have time to head to GDC and look for a new career. All I will say, is I am so super happy I went. I met a lot of fantastic people, had some great laughs. Even met Lord British (aka Richard Garriott) again. I used to see him quite a few years at Gen Con when it used to be in Milwaukee.

Oh, I forgot to mention… it was at Disneyland! I never been to Disneyland before so that was an experience. But true to my nature… instead of going on rides and seeing things… I sat and worked on the Grim Future/ Blac Arth computer game in my spare time. As you will see in the pictures below.