"Ultima Online" is the product of Richard Garriott's idea for a fantasy game involving several thousand people who can all play in a shared fantasy world. Prior games allowed hundreds of people to play at the same time, including "Habitat" (beta-tested in 1986), "The Realm Online", "Neverwinter Nights" (the AOL version) and "Meridian 59"; however, "Ultima Online" significantly outdid these games, both graphically and in game mechanics. Garriott commented that "it was very important to us that "Ultima Online" be a game with a theme, and story, and quest - and then support larger, grander activity. We don't want it to be just player controlled and dominated; we want it to be an "Ultima" experience, with all the qualities that people expect from that. "Ultima Online" will be, I believe, the very first ever completely virtual world for the mass public to go live out alternate lives in." The goal was to offer the player as much freedom as possible. The initial team was composed of Garriott, Starr Long, Rick Delashmit, Scott Phillips and, a bit later, Raph Koster, who became the lead designer. Koster wrote public "designer letters" and usually went by his nickname of Designer Dragon. Koster drew inspiration from prior online games, such as "DartMUD".