It's not actually called "Ladies of Ultima", as EA obviously own the rights to the brand. So it's called "Mystik" instead. But it does depict characters and events from the series, and even has the blessing of Ultima's creator, Richard Garriott.

We've posted a selection of shots here, but to see all of them, as well as read up on just who/what they're depicting, visit the calendar's site below.

Mystick [Enrico Ricciardi, via GameSetWatch]

The Ultima and Tabula Rasa creator brought some of his prized automata and rat tail to the Martha Stewart set, talking about his massive collection of antique and modern day self-operating machines, some of which were previously featured on Kotaku.

Of course, that post didn't feature the lovely and talented Martha Stewart, nor did it offer video of Garriott holding a tiny fully-functioning crossbow. But, like that post, there's very little video game discussion here. Instead, expect more than 11 minutes worth of talking about Richard's expensive toy lot and lust for outer space.

Thanks, Tamiko!

Automata Robot Collection [Martha Stewart Show]
Richard Garriott on Martha Stewart - Automatons [YouTube]

Here are the pictures from the blessed event. Note the lack of vomit and the lack of upskirt shots on the fabulous wedding dress.

The bride and groom, New York couple Noah Fulmore and Erin Finnegan, are huge sci-fi fans according to a June 2 press conference the couple held to discuss their extraordinary wedding plans. They wanted to do something sci-fi-ish and weird for the wedding — so who better to oblige them than the creator of Tabula Rasa?

The zero-g ceremony was facilitated by the Zero G Corporation, a federally-approved tourist flight service that simulates spaceflight by flying in parabolic arcs between 36,000 and 24,000 feet. (Flying up, then dropping down and then going back up again.) The flight costs $5,200 per person.

Couple married in zero gravity [Reuters]

GameDaily writer and occasional Kotaku contributer N. Evan Van Zelfden (possible robot) got a chance to speak with Garriott about his future gaming plans during The Game Business Law summit founder's dinner.

Do I have a plan that I can tell you now? No. I'm still finishing my space flight. I am literally still in the middle of NASA and ESA medical experiments. I am literally still in the middle of my earth observation analysis, as well as the particle crystal growth stuff we're wrapping up. And that's going to take me some weeks and months to wrap up. But, some day in the future, it's hard not to assume I will get back into gaming. I still personally believe I have lots of great ideas and desire to build games. It's just today, it's space.

Hit up the link below for the rest of the interview, in which Garriott bemoans the early closure of Tabula Rasa and expresses interest in returning to the Ultima property somewhere down the line.

Richard Garriott Talks Games After Space [GameDaily]

Perilar is a nostalgic nod back to the early Ultima games, without which we would arguably not have Fallout 3, Ultima Online and Richard Garriot being sick all over a cosmonaut. Turn-based RPG adventuring, quests, leveling up, the whole kit and kaboodle.

The iPhone bereft need not despair - Perilar is a conversion of a freeware Java game - JPerilar - still available for download here. If only there was a decent Java VM for the iPhone you could save yourself $5.

Perilar RPG for iPhone, a Tribute to Early Ultimas [Touch Arcade]

It's one thing to adjust to life in Star City—but quite another to endure the confounding, confining, and sometimes just plain goofy training regimen. The first challenge is the language. Garriott is an autodidact wunderkind who persuaded his high school teachers that learning Basic code counted as fulfilling his foreign-language requirement. He won't be as fortunate at Star City. All of the instructions, instrumentation, and communications in space will be in Russian. So, for four hours a day, Garriott and Halik slave over fat, dusty language books in class, then tote them back to the Prophy to study more at night.

Great stuff. Click below to check out the full piece.

Going to Space? [Wired]

Consider any game you've played recently. At least some information was conveyed to you in a symbolic manner. What makes this information intuitive? What makes it counterintuitive? Studying these languages, even to a limited degree, made me more conscious of exactly what the difference is.

What is particularly fascinating is the fact that games have already formulated parts of a learned symbolic language for games. Consider the life bar. A life bar is completely alien and counterintuitive, but we'd all recognize and assimilate one instantly. By agreeing on a symbolic notation for health, game developers have acclimated players to it and taught them to recognize it whenever they encounter it. Developers have expanded their toolbox of symbols and added to what can be instantly expressed!

I'm far from arguing that the common video game conceits should be codified into a common symbolic language, but it's interesting to note that, without trying, we've done exactly that to a limited degree.

It's a quick read, but interesting. I can't say I ever pay much attention to in-game languages, other than when I'm more or less forced to, but that's probably one mark of a good one — something that adds color and 'authenticity' without being in your face.

In Tongues: Richard Garriott on In-Game Languages [GameCareerGuide]

1971 - Gary Gygax and Jeff Peren create Chainmail, a fantasy miniatures game implementing rules from standard medieval gaming, adding elves, giants, halflings, and other elements borrowed from sources such as Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.

1972 - Dave Arneson visits Gygax in order to demonstrate the game that would become Dungeons & Dragons.

1973 - Gygax and Don Kaye found Tactical Studies Rules - TSR.

1974 - TSR publishes the first edition of Dungeons & Dragons.

1976 - Willie Crowther, an early D&D player, creates a text-based game called Crowther's Colossal Cave, which would eventually morph into Adventure, which was a direct influence on the creators of the ultimate text-based game, Zork.

1977 - Young Richard Garriott attends a sumer computer camp, where he earns the nickname Lord British and is exposed to Dungeons & Dragons for the first time. Soon he would be hosting popular D&D weekends at his parents house.

1978 - Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle create the first MUD - Multi-User Dungeon. It is the precursor to the modern MMO.

1980 - Richard Garriott releases one of the first computer role-playing games, Akalabeth: World of Doom. This year also sees the release of Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game, the first computer game using the D&D license. as well as Garriott's Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness - a game that influences the RPG genre to this day.

1982 - The first Dungeons & Dragons console game is released for the Intellivision, simply titled Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. Dragonstomper is released for the Atari 2600, widely considered to be the first console RPG. Dragonstomper included gathering experience points and gold, random battles, and multiple ways to solve problems in the game.

1985 - TSR lets developers know that the AD&D license is up for grabs, with big names like Electronic Arts, Origin, and Sierra being beaten out by SSI (Strategic Simulations, Inc.). SSI would go on to create 30 AD&D games.

1988 - SSI releases Pool of Radiance, the first in the Gold Box series of D&D games, which allowed you to import your characters into subsequent games to continue your adventure.

1991 - The first graphical MMORPG is released via America Online - Neverwinter Nights. Based on the Dungeons & Dragons setting The Forgotten Realms, the concept of clans and PVP in online role-playing started here.

1996 - Ultima Online is released, its popularity paving the way for the enormous glut of MMORPG games we're experiencing today.

1998 - A small company called BioWare gets put on the map when it releases the Forgotten Realms game Baldur's Gate - incidentally the first computer game I ever reviewed on a professional basis.

2002 - BioWare releases a new version of Neverwinter Nights, featuring the ability for players to create their own modules and run them via the internet, effectively bringing the tabletop experience online.

2006 - Gary Gygax lends his voice as the Dungeon Master to Turbine for certain quests in Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach, bringing the whole thing full circle.

While certainly not a complete listing, you can easily see how the creation of Dungeons & Dragons influenced the video game industry. Every time you gain hit points, or generate your numeric attributes, or choose what type of elf you want to be in the latest fantasy MMO, you're dealing with concepts that spawned from that weekend in 1972. Even when you play a game that isn't an RPG, there's a good chance that someone involved in the creation of that game wouldn't be here today if the works of Gary Gygax hadn't inspired them to dream up their own fantastical worlds. He will be missed, but more importantly - he will forever be remembered.

Portions of this article were referenced from Brad King and John Borland's excellent 2003 book Dungeons and Dreamers. The book explores gaming from those early days in Wisconsin up to today's massive online communities, and is a must read for anyone interested in the roots of gaming.

I love when you chided everyone [at GDC Austin]. I watched Sulka Haro [of Habbo Hotel] talk, and ... I could feel this slightly electric vibe of tension between the MMO guys in the audience and Haro. I don't want to overgeneralize, but... I got this "We don't like you, and you don't like us," kind of feeling, because they feel like he's doing something different.

RK: Sulka has been coming to GDCs for years! He's a guy who has been bridging the gap all along. Honestly, it's more cases like... Nexon never comes out and talks, because they really do think that they're just a different industry, as far as they're concerned. I don't want to ascribe motives — I don't really know — but they just don't do the talks! Because honestly, how relevant would many of the talks here this year be to them? Not very! I think it's really, really, really important that people in any industry get out of their village and go anywhere else and check out what's going on. Travel is broadening.

It's an enjoyable interview to read with some different ideas on a number of aspects of the industry.

Defining Games: Raph Koster's Game Grammar [Gamasutra]

How do game developers spend their Saturdays? They probably gather at Richard Garriott's lakeside estate, feast on BBQ, listen to live music, engage in padded sword fights, toss water balloons, and start very small bonfires.

You are driving down a road. Ahead of you are two immense wrought iron gates. Normally they are closed. Today, they stand open and deserted. On either side, the rock walls are dripping water. The canyon descends at the end of the road, the road itself appears to drop off into space. Slowly, you drive through the gates...

This isn't some role-playing game. This is, in fact, Richard Garriott's real-life estate in Austin, Texas. The Ultima designer has built a little piece of Britannia-on-earth. And on this Saturday, it's hosting the local International Game Developer's Association BBQ picnic.

The road winds and descends impossibly for some time. It narrows and turns to gravel. On the left is a sheer wall of rock. Finally, volunteers in bright yellow shirts can be seen up ahead. They're directing cars to parking spaces on the flat bottomland, under enormous pecan trees. "Hey!" one of them calls, "The party's down here."

Once parked, the first thing to explore is the miniature village. There's a jail, lighthouse, tavern, church, watermill, town hall, and endless houses. Across a brook, there's a lawn with a castle facing off against a ship. In the distance is one small house, nestled by a large rock.

At the edge of the woods, there's a sign warning of the haunted forest, and noting the witch's castle is one mile away: I'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU.

Richard Garriott told Kotaku the full story behind the buildings. "A lot of the early Ultima characters - Iolo, Dupre, Sentri, Mariah - they were all my college buddies here at the University of Texas, which is where I wrote the first few Ultimas."

He'd borrowed their personalities, likenesses, and Society for Creative Anachronism names. "Years later when I bought this property, a lot of them were still pretty active in the SCA, so I built these cabins in homage to the history we have together."

"The first one that I hand-built myself with my girlfriend Kelly was for Iolo," Garriott said. "Then, this gypsy wagon you see over here was for Mariah. Iolo was really a guy who makes crossbows here in town. Mariah is my assistant Michelle who's worked with me since Origin, and now NCsoft."

Garriott builds another cabin every three months or so. And the bigger structures, such as the theater, the castle, the ship, those are built once per year. "Based on whatever party theme we're throwing that year, I'll add another structure for that event," he says.

That infrastructure comes in handy when Garriott has various parties, from his big Fourth of July event, to company parties, to the SCA, or, like today, the IGDA event, where the developers got cold drinks, spots in the shade, and talked shop while waiting for BBQ.

While a Frisbee was seen, the most popular pastime was Chanbara, which is a very fancy way of saying "hitting each other with padded sticks." Or, fencing with non-metal swords. Which is all a very therapeutic way to challenge co-workers to a duel, and still be able to work when Monday rolls around.

Things took a surreal turn when a dozen-and-a-half costumed crusaders arrived. They happened to be in town to audition for the Sci-Fi original series "Who Wants to Be a Superhero?" One of them was good enough to make the cut (we can't tell you who), and will appear in the July 26th premiere. And when it came to super powers, all of them had Chanbara skills.

Moments before lunch was served, a small speech was given to the crowd of 300. Rodney Gibbs, a studio head of Amaze Austin who acts as the IGDA-Austin front man, thanked the vendors - barbeque from the Saltlick, drinks from Opal Devine's, and ice-cream from Amy's - as well as the sponsors and volunteers.

Richard Garriott said a few words, joking about being the "old fogey" of the Austin game industry, having worked with some of the assembled developers before, adding "if I haven't worked with you, it's a pretty small community, and I'm sure I will in the next decade or two."

Garriott then introduced the event sponsor by saying, "I don't know about you guys, but at NCsoft, we're a 100% Dell shop. In addition to being a great sponsor, these guys really do make great products."

Glen Robson, Dell's director of gaming was brought up in a small town in Scotland. He joked that, were it not for the game industry and coming to work in it, his career choices were limited. "I'd be tossing a caber, or worse, I'd be knitting."

An indescribable BBQ lunch was followed by a lazy afternoon of talking, water balloon fights, and ice-cream. As evening settled in, torches were lit, and people began to gather in the replica Shakespearean theatre for a musical performance by The Captains of the Chess Team.

The band is a spontaneous game-industry ensemble consisting of famous audio guru George Sanger, his intern on keyboard, game designer Josh Hamrick on drums, Linda Law on bass, guitar by W. Scott Synder, and fronted by Midway Austin's audio director, Marc Schaefgen.

"You've all been beautiful," Schaefgen told the audience between songs, adding, "We are the captains of the chess team, and we will pwn you!" The set list included Safety Dance, a rousing performance of Video Killed the Radio Star, the ever popular Numa Numa (originally "Dragostea din tei"), and the Star Wars-centric parody Yoda.

There would be a warming fire later on, following the encore, and people would slowly go home. But the band was the culmination of a good day. The audience was into it, and the feeling prevailed upon one developer so hard he just had to mount up on the stage and get to gigging with the band.

The ones that get into it are definitely the kings of the party.

Special thanks to Clay Hillhouse and John Henderson for additional photographs.

It seems that one of the MMO's that popularized the genre will continue to receive some life support, this time in the form of a totally new client. Yep, massively multiplayer online role playing game Ultima Online will see a considerable graphics overhaul and a reworked UI.

Some of the changes players can expect courtesy of producer Aaron Cohen (aka Darkscribe):

1. We are completely re-building the Ultima Online client with new graphics and a new easier-to-use interface.
2. It is an in-place upgrade. That means you will be able to keep your characters, items, houses and everything else you've earned over the past nine years.
3. We are committed to maintaining extremely low system specs. They will be higher than what UO launched with in 1997, but will still be far lower than almost any other MMORPG on the market.
4. The launch will happen in 2007.
5. There are many, many more surprises in store.

Hopefully they'll continue to address the problematic cheating and gold farming issues in UO, despite the massive hilarity both can cause. Michael McWhertor

Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn