One of the true eccentrics of game design, Richard Garriot (aka Lord British) has been making games since high school. When he wasn't reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons, Garriot spent his formative years creating role-playing games on his school mainframe. In fact, during high school he created no less than 28 RPGs, titled 1, 2, 3... 28. In his senior year he wrote number 28B, later known as Akalabeth, which was published back in 1979. Published games were slightly different in those days - Garriot spent a hefty $200 on photocopies, zip-lock bags and discs, hand copying the Apple II code onto each and every one.

The first Ultima game was created in 1980 (although he updated it for the PC in 1986 after the release of Ultima III) and has gone on to spawn a trilogy of trilogies. Ultima IX is currently in development and aims to tie up the saga of Brittania and the Avatar, although it is rumoured that the stories for Ultima's X and XI have already been written. This comes as something of a surprise to us in light of our recent interview with the man himself. He insisted that everything he does from now on will be multiplayer, following the phenomenal success of Ultima Online.