I want a modern take on Ultima II. Why doesn't anyone make games like Ultima II anymore?

[Grumpy Grognard]

... this kind of absolute clusterfuck of a setting was rare ...

I think it could be done well - time travel as allows for a lot of freedom, but I suspect you'd need a unifying aesthetic and a decent plot, and a bloody good writer to keep the setting scope in check and make it sing.

Might have some issues with balancing the different eras as well as the character's skill set.

For example, if you start in the past and have skills for swords and spears, how will the character get to a viable guns skill when he finally hits the modern age?

Great points.

Mechanically, I'd say a combat system designed with melee and ranged combat balance at its core can negate the need for a viable guns skill - or at least create a dynamic where melee is still viable when facing powerful ranged enemies.

On the flip-side: time travel! What if you could, for the right 'price', access a wormhole to a WW2 commando training camp, for example?
On the flip-flop-side: what if ammunition is rare?

(etc)

Is there a way to prevent the Navarro type thing from happening (i.e., the savvy player beelines to the future to get his ray guns then zip back to the past for a banging good time)? How will you balance a sword with a gun, or will you not bother? Would the player be able to grab a M1 tank and drive it back to the Stone Age, because that would cause all sorts of hilarity...

Time travel shenanigans is a lot of fun, but unless it is a relatively simplistic game like U2 where there is almost zero environmental reactivity, it is going to be a LOT of work in the background to ensure there isn't all sorts of lulz of the wrong sort.

You can prevent all those things of course - but it might be more fun to let it happen, and see how well the systems hold up =)

I think of it as a 'what is the cost of time travel' and 'how can/do I use it' kind of problem, really - if you can jump a howitzer into medieval times, the cost / consequences should be significant.

https://youtu.be/H6yzRt2Y_10?t=36

 

[Ninjerk]

What's Ultima?

 

[Cael]

What's Ultima?

 

[aweigh]

- First person
- QTEs
- Inspired by CoD
- Multiplayer component
- AAA graphics
- Half the content of the original
- Game is shit

Alternatively:

- KickStarted-isometric game
- Poll that decides battle system
- 10 million words of dialog
- Game is shit

Bonus round:

- MMO
- featured in GameRanx
- anime spin-off
- Youtubers hired as voice-actors

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Take that big three, how they began and how they went into their sequels, Mario 2, Metroid 2 and Link's Adventure were all very different from their predecessors in ways they never will be. Now today certain things HAVE to be in them with time effectively frozen in place.

The actual Super Mario Bros. 2 (1986) was pretty much the same as the original except with new, much harder levels. Nintendo decided not to release it outside of Japan, instead taking another platformer (Dokidoki Panic) and reskinning the protagonists into Mario, Luigi, the Princess, and a Toadstool.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Why doesn't anyone make games like this anymore, where everything is mashed up with everything?

Because it's retarded?

People these days are just putting too much importance on making sense!

 

[Morkar Left]

It's got literally everything. Magic! Monsters! Swords! Guns! Sea travel! Time travel! Space travel!

Why doesn't anyone make games like this anymore, where everything is mashed up with everything?

It's too bad Ultima II is so archaic, with really simplistic graphics and gameplay. Goddamn, I'd pay 1000 eurobucks for an RPG with 90s to 00s era graphics and... honestly I don't even care about the RPG subgenre, it can be a Fallout-like, a dungeon crawler, an Elder Scrolls-like, a Baldur's Gate-like, whatever.

Just give me a proper complex RPG with decent graphics with a similar setting and story as Ultima II and I'm happy.

But even back in the 80s this kind of absolute clusterfuck of a setting was rare. Guess there's just not that much interest in it.

ELEX!
Wasteland 2
Divinity Original Sin
Breath of Death VII
Cthulhu saves the world
South Park

there are dozens of indie rpgs with a rather silly / unconventinal world which are rather retro. But often more jrpg-like...

Just play a good (party) rpg and larp that you are a dimension traveller always incarnating in a new body. If it's partybased then your dimension travelling friends join you. Because originally you all were from earth on a club when suddenly the light changed and lightning appeared or some other shit and you and your friends got sucked into other alternate realities / dimensions. Sometimes you find each other in the same world and sometimes you're alone. Always trying to get back home (to your teenage love or something). No need to thank me, it's a pleasure.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

ELEX!
Wasteland 2
Divinity Original Sin
Breath of Death VII
Cthulhu saves the world
South Park

An they all suck, with the exception of ELEX. You would expect that that would prevent people from pushing the irrationalist dogma that decline in cRPGs was caused by seriousness as opposed to more pertinent factors such as rushed development, superficial combat system, bad encounter design, streamlined gameplay to attract a wider audience, among other things. No, let's blame the serious setting instead, because a retarded setting is all we need in these difficult times, especially if it is accompained by cringy humour.

 

[Viata]

Go play Wizardry 7.

 

[JarlFrank]

ELEX!

Yeah this one counts, I'll definitely play it once I got a better graphics card, this is exactly the kind of setting I want.

Wasteland 2

Pretty standard Fallout-style postapoc. Yes it's sillier than Fallout (even Fallout 2) but there's no mashups there, it's pure postapoc.

Divinity Original Sin

The setting is pretty much the most standard generic fantasy ever.

Breath of Death VII

Never heard of this one, checked it out on Steam and it looks decent, but more like a parody of straight-up fantasy, no sci-fi elements in it at all.

Cthulhu saves the world

What does it mash up the Lovecraftian themes with? Only humor or does it mix it up with fantasy and scifi too?

South Park

Not really what I'm looking for, either.

there are dozens of indie rpgs with a rather silly / unconventinal world which are rather retro. But often more jrpg-like...

Just play a good (party) rpg and larp that you are a dimension traveller always incarnating in a new body. If it's partybased then your dimension travelling friends join you. Because originally you all were from earth on a club when suddenly the light changed and lightning appeared or some other shit and you and your friends got sucked into other alternate realities / dimensions. Sometimes you find each other in the same world and sometimes you're alone. Always trying to get back home (to your teenage love or something). No need to thank me, it's a pleasure.

LARPing is retarded and not gameplay, and I'm not looking for silly but specifically for awesome mashups of fantasy and scifi and everything in-between.

 

[Morkar Left]

LARPing is retarded and not gameplay, and I'm not looking for silly but specifically for awesome mashups of fantasy and scifi and everything in-between.

Cthulhu saves the world and Breath of Death are both on the humorous side.

Mashing up fantasy and scifi is basically the later Wizardry and Might & Magic. And a lot of jrpgs (which i don't like).

Oh and if you like Metal Brütal Legend has definitely the setting you want!

 

[Serus]

Why doesn't anyone make games like this anymore, where everything is mashed up with everything?

Because it's retarded?

People these days are just putting too much importance on making sense!

Making sense is important within the game once the parameters are established. The gameworld needs to be at least somewhat coherent internally. However the setting itself ? Say a setting that includes all of the following as example: magic, spaceships, time travel, fantasy races and age-of-sail ships and piracy - why not ? It's all a matter of putting it together in a smart way.

 

[mondblut]

Making sense is important within the game once the parameters are established. The gameworld needs to be at least somewhat coherent internally. However the setting itself ? Say a setting that includes all of the following as example: magic, spaceships, time travel, fantasy races and age-of-sail ships and piracy - why not ? It's all a matter of putting it together in a smart way.

Being incoherent and idiotic is the whole point of the OP, otherwise he'd bring Wizardry 7 and Might & Magic as reference points, not Ultima "I'll cramp in everything I liked when I was ten, yay! Can Gandalf riding Godzilla beat Star Destroyer or not?" II.

Also, anything is retarded with time travel.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Making sense is important within the game once the parameters are established. The gameworld needs to be at least somewhat coherent internally. However the setting itself? Say a setting that includes all of the following as example: magic, spaceships, time travel, fantasy races and age-of-sail ships and piracy - why not? It's all a matter of putting it together in a smart way.

If the creation of a compelling fictional world that relies on just one of these elements is already difficult imagine putting them all together. The odds that this wacky choice will be even remotely interesting are astronomical. This is not like my hypothesis. You can’t have any modicum of accuracy or plausibility that way. Why should I care about the gameworld if the developer himself doesn’t think it requires any serious thinking and planning? You can also try a more light hearted approach, but this is even harder because as Malcolm Muggeridge said, good humour is an acceptance of reality while bad humor is an evasion of it. The other resources, e.g., pastiche, are really hard to do and can easily degenerate in unintentional parody.

 

[Beastro]

Might have some issues with balancing the different eras as well as the character's skill set.

For example, if you start in the past and have skills for swords and spears, how will the character get to a viable guns skill when he finally hits the modern age? Is there a way to prevent the Navarro type thing from happening (i.e., the savvy player beelines to the future to get his ray guns then zip back to the past for a banging good time)? How will you balance a sword with a gun, or will you not bother? Would the player be able to grab a M1 tank and drive it back to the Stone Age, because that would cause all sorts of hilarity...

Time travel shenanigans is a lot of fun, but unless it is a relatively simplistic game like U2 where there is almost zero environmental reactivity, it is going to be a LOT of work in the background to ensure there isn't all sorts of lulz of the wrong sort.

You could mix thing up in that you'd suddenly not be friends with most people in the past walking around looking like an alien/supernatural entity. Most Sci-Fi assumes less advanced people bow down and worship those with advanced tech while history points more towards "Kill it! If we can't we run and hide, if we can then it's obviously nothing special to have worried about in the first place). IIRC, this is what's suspected is what ended the Norse in North America, that they kept killing Indians to make sure they were not supernatural (If it bleeds it's human, but Norse being Norse couldn't just ask people to knick a finger to show it) and it just wound up rallying the Indians to drive them away.

You have conventional faction drops in the game if you come back looking/fighting too differently, while normal RPG situations would suddenly be turned on their head if people found out and understood what tech you brought back. Such as in the Middle Ages, a guests property defaulted to the owner of the house in which they'd stayed - you decided to restore your health at an inn back in 1258AD and then find your throat slit by the guy who runs it so they can get their hands on the cool bangstick and strange armour you've been sauntering around with.

Tanks aren't that great without infanty support, especially if they don't have a place to refuel at). You bring one back in time, suddenly an army is shadowing you and unless you can make it back to your time jump point again then you run out of gas, suddenly are mobbed by hundreds or thousands of people banging on the hull waiting for you to come out and fight until they find a way to light the thing on fire.

 

[Serus]

Making sense is important within the game once the parameters are established. The gameworld needs to be at least somewhat coherent internally. However the setting itself ? Say a setting that includes all of the following as example: magic, spaceships, time travel, fantasy races and age-of-sail ships and piracy - why not ? It's all a matter of putting it together in a smart way.

Being incoherent and idiotic is the whole point of the OP, otherwise he'd bring Wizardry 7 and Might & Magic as reference points, not Ultima "I'll cramp in everything I liked when I was ten, yay! Can Gandalf riding Godzilla beat Star Destroyer or not?" II.

Also, anything is retarded with time travel.

I think the OP - our favourite German foot (and blood ?) fetishist - is to my knowledge fond of Wizardry and Might & Magic mixing of SF with fantasy as well. Honestly - I never played U2 (U5 and U7 are the only two games of the series i played more than a moment) so you might get a point about it being too derpy.

As to time travel:

Spoiler

Terminator 1 (and only 1) might be retarded but is still a great flick. Time travel might be derp as a concept but within that concept it can be done in a logical and coherent way. As in T1.
Back to the Future 1 - is not even particularly coherent and is still a good comedy.

So go away with your .

 

[JarlFrank]

I think the OP - our favourite German foot (and blood ?) fetishist - is to my knowledge fond of Wizardry and Might & Magic mixing of SF with fantasy as well.

YES

 

[Naveen]

It's got literally everything. Magic! Monsters! Swords! Guns! Sea travel! Time travel! Space travel!

Jack Vance's Dying Earth has all of those too, not in the same story or by the same character, but they are there. It's a pity nobody has tried making a game based on that setting (it wouldn't be easy, though.)

 

[Darkzone]

... this kind of absolute clusterfuck of a setting was rare ...

I think it could be done well - time travel allows for a lot of freedom, but I suspect you'd need a unifying aesthetic and a decent plot, and a bloody good writer to keep the setting scope in check and make it sing.

Time Travel is a can of worm that you do not want to open if you want to make a great coherent game. If you want to make time travel (that includes greater time spans of 1000 year) then you have to make several resulting time lines and each element from a previous time has to have an effect on the future and generates its own future. So you are fucked by this per default.
There is an other form of travel between societies on different development stages and it functions quite well and it has been made before: Different societies in different development stages separated not by time but due to geography.
Fallout 2 is one very good example where you start in an stone age society, go to the modern times with modern weapons and armor. And you end up with futuristic weapons and power armor.
In film and television this was done in Logan's Run (film and series), Thundarr the Barbarian (cartoon series) and many other cheap 80s films.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Time Travel is a can of worm that you do not want to open if you want to make a great coherent game.

Unless you are one of these retarded people who never takes the setting and the characters seriously and thinks that coherence is too limiting. In this case you can throw a bunch of unrelated shit together and praise it for being so cool and imaginative.

 

[Dorateen]

In order to rescue Cron from destruction, and to complete other Lord’s Quests, "the party should be on good terms with Lord Peabody and be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time travelling."

 

[Beastro]

BTW it occurred to me just now that, while more solidly rooted in fantasy and not RPGs, the Legacy of Kain series is a mix of what you're looking for right down to heavy use of time travel being a key plot point.

Also, anything is retarded with time travel.

The above is a rare series that handles it well, and all because it adhered tightly to established rules around how time travel can alter history: That only one item/person was capable of altering history. Everything/one else else was bound by fate and even at that, those could only alter time when they run into a past or future version of themselves in history effecting violating the rules of the worlds physics that briefly allows room for free will to exist for a moment.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Ultima II's story needed some work. Check out the japanese Artwork on ultima ii if you can.

https://ultima.fandom.com/wiki/Earth_(Aftermath)?file=U2fm3.jpg

I swear there was a manga as well or instructions but i can't find them.

https://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Ultima_Manga

Sort of close was Wrath of Denenthenor.


no sci fi and those portals weren't time travel. No space travel either. Yeah, a remake need yesss?

 

[purupuru]

Play Xenoblade Chronicles.
But the sad truth is JRPGs are not immune to the creative bankruptcy of modern gaming industry. The old IPs are getting more and more stagnant, and the newer ones rely too much on anime for inspiration which can only lead to inbred abominations.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I still don't understand what people see in the later trails of steel or w/e series. The first in the sky looked charming but the later modeling reminded me of neptunia series and that type of gfx gets old on me. It seems so old Laura croft with a anime look but maybe a bit smoother. I aint seeing too many angles but just enough. Then again, Dragon Quest is too round and every chick makes me think Bulma DB. I just didn't picture early DQ like that.

Spoiler

blonde bulma

2 Bulmas & a android

And this just kind of creeps me out.