Editing Update of the Avatar/Update 246 (section)

===<span id="6">In The News: Dragon Con Interview Part 2 and More</span>===
'''Dragon Con Interview Part 2 with OperationRainfall'''

[[Image:promo-sqaure-dragon-con.png|200px|right|link=http://operationrainfall.com/2017/09/15/dragoncon-shroud-of-the-avatar-interview/]]
Take a look below at the great stories told between Richard and Starr in this in-depth interview while they were at [http://www.dragoncon.org/ Dragon Con]!

:'''''OperationRainfall:''' One of the more unique things in the game is when you die, there is a skill decay. Why did you choose to utilize this in the game, versus a gear repair system, for example?<br><br>'''Starr Long:''' Well, we also have a gear repair system. But the reason we have a decay system – which we’re considering some alternatives – but it goes back to because we’re a classless system, and we have a lot of different skills, and let we let people level up those skills independently of each other. The other alternative is to let people level them up infinitely, so at some point, if we did that, then everyone would have every skill maxed out and they would basically no challenge left in the game and they would basically be gods. And at that point, we would have nothing to give them that would be challenging. And there would also be no interdependency between players. There would be no need for me to adventure with anyone else because I would have all the skills. Also, there would be no need to have any specialized gear because any gear would work with me.''

Read the complete interview at [http://operationrainfall.com/2017/09/15/dragoncon-shroud-of-the-avatar-interview/ OperationRainfall.com]!

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'''Break Out: Ultima III and the familial origins of Origin Systems'''

[https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/16/break-out-excerpt-ultima-iii-and-the-origins-of-origin-systems/ VentureBeat.com] featured an excerpt from David L. Craddock’s book [https://www.amazon.com/Break-Out-Launched-Gaming-Revolution/dp/0764353225/ Break Out: How the Apple II Launched the PC Gaming Revolution], which talks about Richard “Lord British” Garriott and his family coming together to found Origin Systems.

:''The partnership between Richard and Robert was not the first instance of the Garriotts pitching in to help their own. “When I was younger, my mom did all different kinds of art,” Garriott remembers. “Silversmithing, pottery, etching. Of all the art she did, there was one piece of art that became incredibly popular by local standards. Don’t forget, my family was a NASA family. All our neighbors were astronauts. So my mom made this cookie jar called an earthrise pot.”''

::<br>[[Image:helen-garriott-pot-silversmithing.jpg|700px]]

:<br>''Above: One of Helen Garriott’s earthrise pots, whose creation helped lead to Origin Systems.<br><br>Helen’s earthrise pot started as a token of friendship given to neighbors. Her design is elegant and elaborate. The pot, cratered and pockmarked, resembles the craggy surface of the moon, and boasts extraordinary detail and accuracy. Holding it up to the light reveals twelve glimmering rhinestones, each set in a location where a manned landing on the moon’s surface took place. She paints the lid pitch black, and then, using a small brush, paints earth’s continents along the lid’s rounded finial. In summation, the jar is a to-scale model meant to capture how an astronaut standing on the moon (painted on the pot) perceives Earth (painted on the finial) from across the blackness of space (the base of the lid).''

Read the complete story at [https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/16/break-out-excerpt-ultima-iii-and-the-origins-of-origin-systems/ VentureBeat.com].

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'''How Richard Garriott got started in games'''

[[Image:breakout-Apple_II.jpg|175px|right|link=https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/9/15/16304980/how-richard-garriott-got-started-in-games]]
[https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/9/15/16304980/how-richard-garriott-got-started-in-games Polgyon.com] also featured an excerpt from Craddock’s book this week.

:''Richard Garriott took it as a matter of fact that every kid his age had parents who flew to outer space. To him, that was normal. “It wasn’t until I went to school at University of Texas that I ran into what I now describe as ‘the Sesame Street people,'” he says.<br><br>“I never specifically thought of people who watched Sesame Street as a cross section of my neighborhood until I moved out of the neighborhood I grew up in and came here to Austin and realized, ‘Oh, wait. My NASA upbringing was the fantasy; the Sesame Street fantasy is, in fact, reality.’ It was quite a culture shock.”<br><br>Although born in Cambridge, England in 1961, Garriott spent most of his formative years in Houston, Texas. His neighborhood was practically an extension of Johnson Space Center, the Houston-based outpost of National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Most of his neighbors were astronauts, contractors and engineers at NASA. There was Joe Engle, one of the first astronauts to join the Space Shuttle program, a manned-vehicle launch initiative; and Robert Gibson, better known to his friends as Hoot, who went on to join STS-27, a team of astronauts who orbited the earth 68 times in just over four days.<br><br>Read the complete story at [https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/9/15/16304980/how-richard-garriott-got-started-in-games Polygon.com].

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