"I used to be a pretty good programmer." Garriott laughed as we sat in a conference room in NCSoft's Austin headquarters. In fact, Garriott programmed his first few games himself, teaching himself the craft in order to create the games that he wanted to play. "The first few Ultimas were all pretty generic when it comes to storyline and the world in which the games were set." In fact, as Garriott himself admits, both Akallabeth (unofficially referred to by fans as Ultima 0) and the first three games in the Ultima series all had the same "kill the Ultimate Bad Guy" plot that still the hoariest cliché in the RPG developers' arsenal.