BORLAND: You play one of the characters in the game, correct?
LONG: Yes, that's correct.

BORLAND: Tell me who your character is and what role he plays in the world.

"The game is continuing to evolve and change and to happen whether you're playing the game or not."

LONG: The character's name is Blackthorn. One of the things with Ultima Online is it's based on the Ultima series of role-playing games, which is like the longest running, one of the most successful computer role-playing games ever. Blackthorn is one of the characters from that universe, along with Lord British, who is Richard Garriott's character.

Lord British's character represents the Virtues. There are eight of them, and they're like Love, Courage, Compassion, Truth ... things like that, that are these virtuistic, sort of orderly ways of behavior.

My character Blackthorn, while a member of Lord British's Council, one of the nobles who helps govern this virtual world, does not agree with the Virtues. He believes in chaos. I believe that while I understand the goals of the Virtues, I don't think anyone should be dictated to, what kind of behavior they have. As long as they're not harming others, then they should be free to pursue whatever role they want. C O N T I N U E D . . . 2 of 2
BORLAND: That's one of the most interesting things to me about this game, that the players really seem to develop their own communities; their own social and political agendas. Could you talk a little bit about what kind of community has come about, and what you see some of the players doing?

"One of the things we quickly realized ... was that players were really going to determine the final feel of this game"

LONG: One of the things we quickly realized, even two years ago when we did our first public test, which was our pre-alpha test, was that players were really going to determine the final feel of this game. They were going to really run the game. And we saw that right when the test started.

This guild, which is a group of players with a common goal, formed to assassinate Lord British. Well, immediately following that, another guild formed to protect Lord British. And whenever he would come into the game, this guild that formed to protect him would be this bodyguard group, while this other guild would try and attack him. Since that time, we've had over 500 guilds form. They run the whole game, and anything you can think of that has to do with human nature is a guild in our game.

"We've had over 500 guilds form. They run the whole game, and anything you can think of that has to do with human nature is a guild in our game."

Some of them are serious, and some of them are light-hearted. Some of them are devoted to helping new players. Some of them are devoted to killing as many people as possible in the game. From the very highest aspirations ... For instance, we have a thespian guild. These players actually produce and perform plays in the game. For instance, they did "The Emperor's New Clothes."

And then there's a group which has raves -- dances in the dungeon -- where they light torches all around and they set off spell effects to simulate a lighting show, and they have musicians that play. And then you have gangs of people who are modeling themselves after gangster rappers, who talk that way and go around in gangs full of that. Then there's like the town council, this group of players who formed their own town council in one of the cities, where they have council meetings and they plan civic improvements, and they determine how they're going to handle certain problem people. Etcetera, etcetera. So, everything you can think of is happening in this game.

BORLAND: A series of protests, I believe in front of Lord British's castle, which involve essentially people getting drunk and rolling around naked in their virtual world, is this something that wound up happening?

"We just found it interesting that they would choose to hold the protests within the game"

LONG: Yeah, it is. And contrary to popular belief, we were actually sort of pleased with the whole protest, because it actually happened in the game, and it was the first time anywhere that there was a virtual protest where people could get together online, in this online environment, and visually represent what they were doing by drinking, and getting naked -- and we thought it was great.

You know ... Yes, we understood the issues in the game that they were protesting, although most of their protests were really vague and not very constructive. But that's okay, and it didn't change us one way or the other. What we were doing. But for the most part, we just found it interesting that they would choose to hold the protests within the game.