Drunken Irishman
Augur
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2007
- Messages
- 119
It is astonishing in how much it manages to achieve with it's technological limitations. What could modern game designers learn from Ultima V?
What Ultima V does right?
1) World and setting
Ultima V throws you into a very compelling situation. The world is governed by an oppressive government and you are the outlaw.
A modern game designer could just take the same idea and situation, because the setting of Ultima V is just such a good idea, that it easily creates a potential for a lot of interesting situations and moments.
A modern game designer can also learn from U5 how to connect a gameworld and it's theme in such a way that they complement each other. Connect your world with the theme of your story and it can create a powerful narrative experience.
Hide secrets inside the world, but give them a reason to exist in that world. Make the player search and discover.
In Ultima V, the player has to really engage with the world. For example, the player notices some of the villagers behaving strangely. They are not going home after the evening in the pub. So he follows them. They have a weird midnight meeting beside the well. Now the player knows that these people are more than what they seem.
Ah, but the player hasn't joined the resistance yet. They are not going to reveal their secrets to anyone.
Where could the resistance leader be hiding?
This sort of engagement with the gameworld was really lacking in Witcher 3. And I believe that's why Novigrad didn't work. It was just a background for the neatly scripted cutscenes interrupted by combat. You didn't actually engage with the town or it's residents in Novigrad.
2) Shades of Grey
It's not perfect, for all it's achievements, it is still just a game from 1988. The npc's don't have that much text to really go deep into the themes.
But there is a little bit of that. Some characters think that the oppressive regime is doing the right thing.
A lady working in the clinic supports the regime because it has decreased violent crime.
However, people on the resistance consider Lord Blackthorn to be just evil and self-serving.
And then there was that one contemplative old man, who considered, that Blackthorn is not evil. Just misguided.
If you give the inhabitants of your world different perspectives and opinions, it creates layers of complexity.
A modern game designer with the same setting, would hopefully flesh out the characters more, flesh out their perspectives. For example he could notice that many of the resistance are the upper class of the former regime. Why do some peasants love Blackthorn, but the resistance is mostly nobles?
You can really hit on some profound insights into human condition when you follow it through.
3) Feeling of desperation
Towns are supposed to be safe havens. But Ultima V changes that. You are not safe. Anywhere. You can not trust the people in the towns. You can not trust law enforcement. You should actually avoid law enforcement, because they collect taxes. In Minoc, it's half of your money.
In the beginning, it's really hard to get ahead. You need better weapons, better armour, you lack money, and the little you earn you need to spend on basic necessities like on food and spell reagents.
Okay, the player says. If towns are not safe, I guess I'll just go dungeon exploring. But it's not that easy. Dungeons are locked for public safety. And the people who know the secrets to open them, are hiding from the regime.
That creates a feeling of desperation, where every discovered secret feels like an achievement.
A modern game designer can consider creating a similar feeling of desperation in the player. If done rightly, it can be very fun. It should be done in the way that encourages the player to explore other options, to take risks, to try out the different tools the game world offers him. Because if done wrongly, it can actually kill the motivation.
You need to give the player the feeling like he's barely holding his head above water, without actually making it hard work.
4) The Illusion of a Living World
Npc's schedules. Day and night cycles. Characters sleep during the night, eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in the pub, and work in their job during daytime. Some npc's behave oddly, like sleep during the day and walk around the town in the night. They probably have a reason for odd behaviour. Skyrim's npc schedules were not more complex than Ultima V's. It adds to the game. It really does.
What is flawed in Ultima V?
1) World progression
The world doesn't really change.
Once you've destroyed the Shadowlords, done the resistance quests, collected all the crown jewels.... nobody reacts.
To it's credit, there are some things that the game remembers. Like when you release the prisoners in Yew, they will be gone from the game. (It's noteworthy, because in previous Ultima's the towns reset every time you leave) Or how people will remember your name, and some characters will even approach you, “...remember the thing we talked about?“
Ultima V does give you the illusion of world progression. As long as you are still in the process of figuring things out, discovering secrets, learning about the key players, it will feel like the world is progressing along with your actions. After all, finally destroying a Shadowlord is a big change.
But then there comes that moment just before the endgame dungeon, when you have done all this, and then you look around and see... nothing has changed, the world is still the the same.
Ultima V will be forgiven this, because it is just a game from 1988 with technical limitations.
But Skyrim erred in the exact same manner.
Once you defeated Alduin and came back from Sovnagarde... no one cared.
And if you hadn't done faction quests yet, they will still play out like nothing had happened, being their own little pocket worlds.
A game like Witcher 3 works around it, by giving you restrictive quest order, thus the key characters will move around the world, depending on how far you are in the quest trail. But that's also an illusion.
This is a problem a modern game designer needs to find his own solution to. In some sense, all game worlds are static. The trick is in how well you can maintain the illusion of world progression.
2) Experience and Level up
Experience points are only gained by combat and killing. All the cool open-world questing and secret discovering doesn't give you experience. Or if it does, it's so little that it doesn't really help much.
And to level up, you have to wait for a random visitation during sleeping, which will then randomly raise one of your stats. You have no say in the matter.
This is a major design flaw in Ultima 5.
So, realistically speaking... when you've done with all the quests, and you only have the endgame dungeon ahead of you, you are about level 5 to level 6. That's either 800 to 1600 experience points.
To get to level 7 you need 3200 experience points, and to get to level 8 you need to have 6400 experience points.
You don't actually need to be level 7 for Dungeon Doom. I did it with level 6 characters. It might be possible with level 5 too.
But if you really really want to be level 7 or 8, just that you could get those level 7-8 spells... well there's nothing else for you to do than start grinding.
It's like Ultima V is simultaneously the platonic ideal of open-world rpg's incarnated and just a game from 1980's. However, the ideal was indeed captured in this incarnation.
A modern game designer could just copy the entire game, make a few changes (i.e, Lord Bloodthrone), introduce some modern features and designs... and he could say, “Ultima V? Never heard of it,“ while basking in the admiration of millions for creating the best open world rpg ever made. And only few would know that he just copy-pasted an older game, a game that did it right.
This is a serious post for serious people. Thank you for your time.
What Ultima V does right?
1) World and setting
Ultima V throws you into a very compelling situation. The world is governed by an oppressive government and you are the outlaw.
A modern game designer could just take the same idea and situation, because the setting of Ultima V is just such a good idea, that it easily creates a potential for a lot of interesting situations and moments.
A modern game designer can also learn from U5 how to connect a gameworld and it's theme in such a way that they complement each other. Connect your world with the theme of your story and it can create a powerful narrative experience.
Hide secrets inside the world, but give them a reason to exist in that world. Make the player search and discover.
In Ultima V, the player has to really engage with the world. For example, the player notices some of the villagers behaving strangely. They are not going home after the evening in the pub. So he follows them. They have a weird midnight meeting beside the well. Now the player knows that these people are more than what they seem.
Ah, but the player hasn't joined the resistance yet. They are not going to reveal their secrets to anyone.
Where could the resistance leader be hiding?
This sort of engagement with the gameworld was really lacking in Witcher 3. And I believe that's why Novigrad didn't work. It was just a background for the neatly scripted cutscenes interrupted by combat. You didn't actually engage with the town or it's residents in Novigrad.
2) Shades of Grey
It's not perfect, for all it's achievements, it is still just a game from 1988. The npc's don't have that much text to really go deep into the themes.
But there is a little bit of that. Some characters think that the oppressive regime is doing the right thing.
A lady working in the clinic supports the regime because it has decreased violent crime.
However, people on the resistance consider Lord Blackthorn to be just evil and self-serving.
And then there was that one contemplative old man, who considered, that Blackthorn is not evil. Just misguided.
If you give the inhabitants of your world different perspectives and opinions, it creates layers of complexity.
A modern game designer with the same setting, would hopefully flesh out the characters more, flesh out their perspectives. For example he could notice that many of the resistance are the upper class of the former regime. Why do some peasants love Blackthorn, but the resistance is mostly nobles?
You can really hit on some profound insights into human condition when you follow it through.
3) Feeling of desperation
Towns are supposed to be safe havens. But Ultima V changes that. You are not safe. Anywhere. You can not trust the people in the towns. You can not trust law enforcement. You should actually avoid law enforcement, because they collect taxes. In Minoc, it's half of your money.
In the beginning, it's really hard to get ahead. You need better weapons, better armour, you lack money, and the little you earn you need to spend on basic necessities like on food and spell reagents.
Okay, the player says. If towns are not safe, I guess I'll just go dungeon exploring. But it's not that easy. Dungeons are locked for public safety. And the people who know the secrets to open them, are hiding from the regime.
That creates a feeling of desperation, where every discovered secret feels like an achievement.
A modern game designer can consider creating a similar feeling of desperation in the player. If done rightly, it can be very fun. It should be done in the way that encourages the player to explore other options, to take risks, to try out the different tools the game world offers him. Because if done wrongly, it can actually kill the motivation.
You need to give the player the feeling like he's barely holding his head above water, without actually making it hard work.
4) The Illusion of a Living World
Npc's schedules. Day and night cycles. Characters sleep during the night, eat breakfast, lunch and dinner in the pub, and work in their job during daytime. Some npc's behave oddly, like sleep during the day and walk around the town in the night. They probably have a reason for odd behaviour. Skyrim's npc schedules were not more complex than Ultima V's. It adds to the game. It really does.
What is flawed in Ultima V?
1) World progression
The world doesn't really change.
Once you've destroyed the Shadowlords, done the resistance quests, collected all the crown jewels.... nobody reacts.
To it's credit, there are some things that the game remembers. Like when you release the prisoners in Yew, they will be gone from the game. (It's noteworthy, because in previous Ultima's the towns reset every time you leave) Or how people will remember your name, and some characters will even approach you, “...remember the thing we talked about?“
Ultima V does give you the illusion of world progression. As long as you are still in the process of figuring things out, discovering secrets, learning about the key players, it will feel like the world is progressing along with your actions. After all, finally destroying a Shadowlord is a big change.
But then there comes that moment just before the endgame dungeon, when you have done all this, and then you look around and see... nothing has changed, the world is still the the same.
Ultima V will be forgiven this, because it is just a game from 1988 with technical limitations.
But Skyrim erred in the exact same manner.
Once you defeated Alduin and came back from Sovnagarde... no one cared.
And if you hadn't done faction quests yet, they will still play out like nothing had happened, being their own little pocket worlds.
A game like Witcher 3 works around it, by giving you restrictive quest order, thus the key characters will move around the world, depending on how far you are in the quest trail. But that's also an illusion.
This is a problem a modern game designer needs to find his own solution to. In some sense, all game worlds are static. The trick is in how well you can maintain the illusion of world progression.
2) Experience and Level up
Experience points are only gained by combat and killing. All the cool open-world questing and secret discovering doesn't give you experience. Or if it does, it's so little that it doesn't really help much.
And to level up, you have to wait for a random visitation during sleeping, which will then randomly raise one of your stats. You have no say in the matter.
This is a major design flaw in Ultima 5.
So, realistically speaking... when you've done with all the quests, and you only have the endgame dungeon ahead of you, you are about level 5 to level 6. That's either 800 to 1600 experience points.
To get to level 7 you need 3200 experience points, and to get to level 8 you need to have 6400 experience points.
You don't actually need to be level 7 for Dungeon Doom. I did it with level 6 characters. It might be possible with level 5 too.
But if you really really want to be level 7 or 8, just that you could get those level 7-8 spells... well there's nothing else for you to do than start grinding.
It's like Ultima V is simultaneously the platonic ideal of open-world rpg's incarnated and just a game from 1980's. However, the ideal was indeed captured in this incarnation.
A modern game designer could just copy the entire game, make a few changes (i.e, Lord Bloodthrone), introduce some modern features and designs... and he could say, “Ultima V? Never heard of it,“ while basking in the admiration of millions for creating the best open world rpg ever made. And only few would know that he just copy-pasted an older game, a game that did it right.
This is a serious post for serious people. Thank you for your time.
