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1eyedking What makes Skyrim a worse game than Ultima 7?

Zed Duke of Banville

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Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss is a far superior game to either Ultima VII or Skyrim --- and would have been better yet if it hadn't been shoehorned into the Ultima setting. :M
 

The Wall

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Skyrim's dragons have bad breath. Ultima 7 has tentacles

Elder Scrolls 5 < Ultima 7 (5<7; math also agrees),
ergo: winged turd < whistling lemon pie
 

Grauken

Gourd vibes only
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Yes, I'm kinda trolling but not quite.
Both have the same positives - highly interactive open worlds and NPC schedules.
Both have the same negatives - dumbed down character systems and braindead combat.
Yet one is praised as one of the best Golden Age RPGs and the other is... not. Why?
I guess U7 gets points for better main quest and characterization, but on the other hand that Renaissance fair setting...

Beside the other points mentioned already, you're saying this like the same people praise Ultima 7 and hate on Skyrim, and I'm not sure that's true. I dislike Skyrim (well, basically all TES games, except Morrowind for its aesthetics), but really dislike Ultima 7 at the same time. For me the last good Ultima was 6, and everything after went downhill. There are things about Ultima 7 to like, but the downsides for me don't make up for it (the atrocious combat-thing it offers) and I've seen enough people on this side who had similar comments about Ultima 7.

I think one major difference as JDR13 said, Ultima 7 did what it did in 1992 and really broke new ground. I don't like the game but its hard to deny just what an achievement it was in terms of word simulation. The same can't really be said for Skyrim
 

Mud'

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Skyrim is the Ultima 7 for people who was born in 99's forward, for them who never played anything before, both parties are going to say the same shit of "The world feels alive! The storyline is good! Exploration is fantastic! You can interact with a lot of shit!".
 
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Codex Year of the Donut
Skyrim is the Ultima 7 for people who was born in 99's forward, for them who never played anything before, both parties are going to say the same shit of "The world feels alive! The storyline is good! Exploration is fantastic! You can interact with a lot of shit!".
Skyrim does not feel alive though. The world feels sterile and unchanging.
 
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Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss is a far superior game to either Ultima VII or Skyrim --- and would have been better yet if it hadn't been shoehorned into the Ultima setting. :M
Absolutely, UU1 is one of the most unique and original games I've ever played. It still puts many modern games to shame and was so ahead of its time. Just to imagine that it was released in the same year as Wolf3D... all the details, the living, reacting world, spell system, exploration, the perfect map system, and the fascinating storytelling: This game told its story not with cutscenes and long dialogues but with the design of the gameworld itself, you could "read" the story of the lost dream of Cabirus, his fallen multicultural utopia in the ruins you explored and the ragged people and creatures you encountered. That was the most astonishing part of this game for me. Everything just made sense and felt real.
But you are right and I have the same feelings: They shouldn't even mention Ultima or any connection to it. It's not even necessary to have a story prior to being thrown into the abyss and the Avatar-connection feels total out of place. I just ignored it.
 

taxalot

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Codex 2013 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015
I have played both recently. I will probably make a lengthier post about this somehow.

But to sum up : The comparison only holds if your comparison is merely a list of bullet points of features.

The Ultima VII world feels more alive, has been crafted with more love than Skyrim's. It is mostly apparent in the dialog with the NPCs, who are more than generic questgivers but people with their hope, personality traits, frustrations, family and interactions.
It's a matter of quality versus quantity. This shit cannot be improvised ; ultimately, Skyrim could have been a new Ultima if the Bethesda writers and world designers were on the level. They are not.

edit : actually, come to think of it, the difference between Ultima VII and Skyrim is about the same than the difference between Skyrim and... Morrowind. Both Morrowind and Ultima VII have different answers and ways to apprehend the same qualities. Morrowind and Ultima VII are recipes cooked by a master chef, Skyrim is the same recipe in a cardboard box in the frozen section of a Walmart. It's not going to taste exactly the same, despite what the writing on the box says.
 

Citizen

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Mostly quest compass and the fact that the gameplay is completely built around questcompass (minimum exploration, NPC just giving you a point on a mapinstead of a proper quest directions), which kills the only good thing about open world popamole games - spirit of adventuring
 

Atrachasis

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edit : actually, come to think of it, the difference between Ultima VII and Skyrim is about the same than the difference between Skyrim and... Morrowind. Both Morrowind and Ultima VII have different answers and ways to apprehend the same qualities. Morrowind and Ultima VII are recipes cooked by a master chef, Skyrim is the same recipe in a cardboard box in the frozen section of a Walmart. It's not going to taste exactly the same, despite what the writing on the box says.

A thousand times Yes! Albeit with one reservation: While the world, places, and lore may be on par with Ultima, I feel that Morrowind's NPC writing cannot hold a candle to Ultima 6ff.

I'd be hard-pressed to name a mainstream title with an Ultimaesque quality (using the word to denote a certain flavour, not a ranking) of NPC writing and characterization, but it would certainly not be any entry from the Elder Scrolls series.
 

V_K

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People react to more of your actions (if you light a lamp during the day, if you close their shutters, if you stand in their way, if you enter their room while they are sleeping,...).
Yeah, I'm not sure about that. I think people tend to underestimate the reactivity of Skyrim's NPCs. It's at times hilarious, like NPCs starting a brawl over that loot piece you just dropped, but they did have some rather complex behaviors. Them problem may be more with how little use the game's quest design makes of it. But that could be addressed to Morrowind as well - it gave you all these terrain traversal spells, but except for Telvanni towers, there was very little incentive to actually use them.
- The drag and drop system, while being a bit fiddly sometimes, gives me the impression of having direct control over the game world and its objects.
- The design concept of the users PC-screen as an actual "window" into Britannia was a very clever way to create an imaginative bridge between the real world and the world the gameworld.
But with some reservations (the UI design you mention in a different point), this applies to Skyrim as well.
One tries to appeal to the casual gamer by hanging a dragon attack stick right at the beginning of the game, full of excitement, imagine a DRAGON, how awesome and original, in what is essentially a corridor with cinematics. I can't wait to play the game ! ...

The other one has one of the best "tutorial" areas / starts of a game, ever, with a full investigation that involves you with the game, the lore, its characters, full dialogue options, and hooks you into a much bigger interesting story.
Oh come on, Ultimas cast you as the Avatar, a godlike being second only to Lord Selfinsert in power. You're literal Jesus in his 7th coming.
- You HAD to keep track of what happened. This was critical because remembering who NPCs were, and what they did, was vital in finding out who might know more on a given topic. Without that, you couldn't progress the game. This is already a layer of depth much beyond skyrim's quest giving polygons.
- You also had to figure out who might have new keywords unlocked based on the new information you found. Everything inter related, adding to your immersion.
- NPCs had to be much better characterized because of this. You had to remember their name somehow.
- There was no GPS tracker, hell, in serpent isle you had an inaccurate map, you needed to actually explore shit.
- Puzzles weren't just based on putting the right claw in the right spot
Ok, that's fair.
- The combat was tolerable, you could just equip your party and forget about it. Skyrim's shitty combat forces you to actually pay attention to it
Or you could just summon a couple atronachs and cast invisibility.
Ultima 7 has humor and in jokes and doesn't take itself so seriously (Hoe of Destruction anyone?), but also has an arguably more creepy adversary. I can remember any (deliberate) Skyrim in game humor.
The drinking contest quest off the top of my head.
Beside the other points mentioned already, you're saying this like the same people praise Ultima 7 and hate on Skyrim, and I'm not sure that's true. I dislike Skyrim (well, basically all TES games, except Morrowind for its aesthetics), but really dislike Ultima 7 at the same time. For me the last good Ultima was 6, and everything after went downhill. There are things about Ultima 7 to like, but the downsides for me don't make up for it (the atrocious combat-thing it offers) and I've seen enough people on this side who had similar comments about Ultima 7.
Well, personally I did enjoy U7 more than Skyrim, despite finding TES setting immensely more interesting.
 

Serus

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One was released in 1992, the other in 2011. Pretty sure that's a factor.
If this is supposed to be an argument "ad nostalgia" then it was debunked so many times here on the codex it's not even funny. If not - my bad and sorry.

Skyrim is the Ultima 7 for people who was born in 99's forward, for them who never played anything before, both parties are going to say the same shit of "The world feels alive! The storyline is good! Exploration is fantastic! You can interact with a lot of shit!".
See the answer above - including the part of me being potentially wrong about your argument.
 

mondblut

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Yes, I'm kinda trolling but not quite.
Both have the same positives - highly interactive open worlds and NPC schedules.
Both have the same negatives - dumbed down character systems and braindead combat.
Yet one is praised as one of the best Golden Age RPGs and the other is... not. Why?
I guess U7 gets points for better main quest and characterization, but on the other hand that Renaissance fair setting...

U7 is the Oblivion of 1992.
 

Nyast

Cipher
Joined
Jan 12, 2014
Messages
609
Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss is a far superior game to either Ultima VII or Skyrim --- and would have been better yet if it hadn't been shoehorned into the Ultima setting. :M
Absolutely, UU1 is one of the most unique and original games I've ever played. It still puts many modern games to shame and was so ahead of its time. Just to imagine that it was released in the same year as Wolf3D... all the details, the living, reacting world, spell system, exploration, the perfect map system, and the fascinating storytelling: This game told its story not with cutscenes and long dialogues but with the design of the gameworld itself, you could "read" the story of the lost dream of Cabirus, his fallen multicultural utopia in the ruins you explored and the ragged people and creatures you encountered. That was the most astonishing part of this game for me. Everything just made sense and felt real.
But you are right and I have the same feelings: They shouldn't even mention Ultima or any connection to it. It's not even necessary to have a story prior to being thrown into the abyss and the Avatar-connection feels total out of place. I just ignored it.

If you like Ultima Underworld you should totally play Underworld: Ascendant. Brought to you by its original creators, made with love for its fans, this masterpiece will stay in the annals of history !

.. and you own annals..
 
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If you like Ultima Underworld you should totally play Underworld: Ascendant. Brought to you by its original creators, made with love for its fans, this masterpiece will stay in the annals of history !

.. and you own annals..
Is it playable now? I only remember it being a bug-ridden mess at release and didn't purchase it.
 

Mortmal

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One was published in 1992 was revolutionnary, almost 30 years later we'd still be happy if something similar would be released again, simple fact we are still speaking about it should tell something. Plot was much better, even if combat was brain dead it was a party combat .Ultima underworld was released at same time and was skyrim grandfather, except it had better world building, more challenging and runic magic. Same stuff with better graphics would stand on its own.
This thread is very good cause it clearly shows those interested in gaming and those who arent. Best post from thunar and worse by infinitron.
 

luj1

You're all shills
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"FPU code" means nothing. Are you referring to x87 instructions? What makes you think they actually programmed in assembly rather than the compiler simply emitting x87 instructions?
The latest version of GCC defaults to emitting x87 instructions when targeting x86-32(it's in the documentation) for various compatibility/legacy reasons, I doubt msvc is any different(beyond being an all around worse optimizing compiler.)

And what? Do I have to manually change x87 instructions to SSE instructions to fix performance? They're lazy fucks and there is no excuse
 

JDR13

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One was released in 1992, the other in 2011. Pretty sure that's a factor.
If this is supposed to be an argument "ad nostalgia" then it was debunked so many times here on the codex it's not even funny. If not - my bad and sorry.

I'm not talking about nostalgia per se, but the overall impact of having NPC schedules in a game in 1992. It's a simple fact. Those kinds of things would seem a lot more impressive back then and thus leave a greater impression. Plus the more something is subsequently done the less of an impression it's going to leave, especially if it's not significantly improved over time.
 

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