Ultima The Ultima Series Discussion Thread

Yeah. I listened to those.

I really do not know what to say. It is true the game was a technical achievement, and WTF is right when he says it predated a lot of gaming trends.

But they all fail to mention what was the actual game like, besides, you know, beyond its time.

You can be ahead of your time and shit. Ultima IX proved that.

edit : okay, I'm harsh. U9 was not THAT bad. But it was still the biggest disappointment of my gaming life.

 

Yes, it fucking was. With bells on.

 

I do not think so.

It was a very strange game. Bugs aside, it was great technically and the first non procedurally generated 3D open world of this kind I can remember.

It was also a more than decent Ocarina of Time clone. The game is structured exactly like a Zelda game. New town, new dungeon filled with puzzles, unlock new abilities. Once in a while, a plot development happens. Then, a final dungeon. Overall weakly structured and shallow story.
It would have been great as any title, except an Ultima. I replayed Ultima 7 recently, to completion. After redoing this game, it's no wonder fans had different expectations for Ultima IX. Ultima IX showed the finger to everything that made the greatest game in the series, great, to do its own thing. And this happened because poor management.

 

I blame Garriott

 

What kind would that be exactly?
Also, from what I remember it wasn't really open. There were no loading screens, but progression was extremely linear, with only a small portion of the world accessible at any given time.

 

It was the Underworld Ascendant of it's time. A rush job thrown together because they ran out of time, money and ideas. It was fucking dreadful as a stand alone game, let alone as a conclusion to a story begun with U7.

 

While Ultima 9 was terrible, it still was a fully functional game. The Underworld Ascendant of it's time was more Descent to Undermountain or other barely functional "games"

 

I'd agree that U9 was nowhere near as bad or broken as UA, but I don't think functional is really the right word to describe it. U9 had some horrendous bugs - some of which actually broke the game. I remember that, when I was playing it at release, a teleporter in a dungeon near Minoc basically just crashed the game and broke my save file. So that is as far as I ever got in that game.
However, the big difference between UA and U9 was, that Origin knew how to pull off an asset-based exit strategy - that means, you take everything you made (scripts, 3D objects, sounds, textures, etc) and you somehow punch it together into a game that works just well enough so it can be sold. That's also why the dungeon of Hythloth is based on assets of the (originally planned) Britain sewer system.

UA, while also trying to pull off the same trick, couldn't even get that right. I can't really tell what on earth they were thinking and my memory of the release version is slowly fading away like a bad dream.
Maybe it was this: U9 had competent programmers, with too little time (to finish the last version of the game) and bad direction, while UA had incompetent programmers, with too much time and bad direction.

I do have to say though: Today I like U9 just for the fact of how much of a mess that project was. It's outright interesting to dig through it and come up with reasons why they did things in a certain way.
Also, quickly putting together a game brought about some hilarious results like the pirate of Austin, Texas. You can somehow reason over it (like the pirate somehow fell out of the moongate like the gazer) but it's just so silly.

 

You're right, I remember the original release version was horribly bugged, but with all the patches over time it became playable

 

this is neat, for those who liked the weebified NES version of Ultima 4

a hack of Ultima 3 NES in the same style

https://www.romhacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=29700.0

 

It's out: http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4949/

 

At least u9 had a save game feature.

 

u9 also had paladins

 

So did Charlemagne.

 

I will be in dosgameclub.com 's podcast about Ultima VII

 

Is there any reason to play those games in ScummVM over Dosbox?

 

Scumm implements each game or game engine individually, whereas DOSBox emulates the system itself. The end result is that the former tends to be easier to use and more feature rich (e.g. it interprets Amiga versions, has intuitive graphic mode and/or sound switching, better saving etc.) and the latter more versatile, compatible and fiddly. I usually go to ScummVM first and DOSBox otherwise, but you can't really go wrong with either.

 

Second part is up.

 

Not as good as his last video, but I'm glad he's making a series about Ultima.

 

It's out.

https://www.dosgameclub.com/ultima-vii/

I'm the guy with the horrible accent. I refuse to listen to it.

 

Hi!

Gosh who does not likkszx the Ultima games grewing up together and adverntugin we let our children grow up to ghem we have the books and even boxes still!!! They loveed looking at them and reading the mnauls an d history like in uLtima 5 and right into Ultima 6. taxalot very good work during the stream and jkust hearing the music again is fantastic takes me back for su

Thanks,
Sherry

 

Just had it on and was about to post it here. Been listening to the podcast and Anatoly's DOS Nostalgia before that too.

Didn't know any of you guys were codexers.

 

That's a quality Youtube channel right there. I've skipped the 2016 indie retrospective but every video so far is good. Unironically liked and subscribed. It's a crime that his views are so low.

 

he has a funny accent