Name: Scot Salmon
Character Name: Seer Hearadh
Shard: Sonoma
Inspired by a childhood spent playing Dungeons & Dragons and reading fantasy novels, Scot Salmon dove headfirst into Ultima Online’s world of adventure and rich lore. Living in close proximity to Origin System’s Austin, Texas offices, Salmon began organizing lunches where players could interact with the game’s developers. While the meet ups were created strictly for the fun of adding to the game’s community, Salmon’s skills for bringing people together were called upon when the Seer Program opened its doors.
Salmon found himself surrounded by interesting characters and stories that helped him sink further into the virtual world. In the process, it changed his entire viewpoint on the “game.”
“UO is a world, and treating it like a game misses the point and misses half the fun,” he said. “The more you treat it as a complete world, the more complete the world becomes. You and your friends can make your own games, quests, economy, everything.”
It didn’t take long for Salmon’s enthusiasm for UO to bleed over into the real world. Living in Austin, Texas—not far from the Origin Systems offices—he came up with the idea to hold a player lunch at a Tex-Mex spot called “On the Border.” As Salmon saw it, the meet-and-greet would allow players to form deeper connections that the computer screen might allow.
Realizing his proximity to the game’s development offices, he came up with a bright idea that would make the event even more special.
“Somehow, I got the idea to reach out to the dev team in Austin and see if they’d be willing to come out for lunch one day and meet some players,” Salmon said. “It was a huge success, with many attendees for that first event, and then more and more as time went on.”
Read more of Scot Salmon’s story in Braving Britannia: Tales of Life, Love, and Adventure in Ultima Online.
BRAVING BRITANNIA 