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KickStarter Shroud of the Avatar - Lord British's Not-Ultima Online 2
- Thread starter Infinitron
- Start date
Well. If he starts a Kickstarter at least we know there's a possibility that he won't fuck it up. Yes Ultima 8 & 9 were the worst of his series...because that was when EA got involved.
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Actually, EA is NOT the reason those were bad games. Origin just got tired of making proper CRPGs. Early 90s EA would have funded whatever Ultima Origin wanted to make.
I see what you did there.
I've heard people everywhere say EA forced Origin on time constraints with both games. U8 was even planned to have an expansion which never got made because EA made them start work on U9.
Whatever the case...it can still be seen that with EA's intervention the games suddenly lost their character. Coincidence? It's EA. I think not.
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Time constraints, yes, but U8 was still designed as a hack and slash action-adventure with platforming elements, not as a U7-style CRPG. Polished shit vs unpolished shit, which is better and why?
They cancelled the expansion because the original game sold poorly, not because of U9. U9 didn't really start production until a couple years later.
Yeah, Spoony in his Ultima retrospective about Ultima 9 pretty much explained how EA forced them to start developing the game from scratch with a new 3D engine (when half of the game was already done) but they didn't extend their deadline. If that's true then fuck EA.
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Spoony is wrong too. As far as I know, rebooting the game in a new 3D perspective was 100% Origin's decision. EA didn't force them to do shit.
Remember, this is the same EA of the late 90s that funded System Shock 2. They were still pretty nasty, but they were capable of funding good games back then.
Sacred_Path
Unwanted
now I'm only waiting for a kickstarter by D.W. Bradley. Bro, where art thou?!
Your knowledge of the land is great.
Shifting to a 3D perspective was not what made U9 bad. EA's help, lead to the future games lacking polish, and being released before they were complete.
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Yes and no.
A third person 3D perspective in and of itself does not make a game bad, but in Ultima IX's case, the programmers completely failed to get a handle on the technology, which forced them to cut the game down drastically. The engine simply couldn't support the complex, "epic" plot and detailed world they originally had in mind (political intrigue, uniting Britannia's armies to war against the Guardian, party-based gameplay, NPC schedules, etc).
The cutting down of the plot also forced them quickly rewrite and rerecord all the dialogue which is why it's so shitty. (why even have fully voiced dialogue when a successful 3D CRPG like Morrowind didn't have it even three years later? WHO KNOWS)
So the 3D perspective basically led to a spiral of dumbing down which ruined the entire game.
But Garriott still has one of the better resumes in the gaming industry. Fuck...I really hope his trip into space enlightened him a little.
My God, it's full of stars!
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Benefit of the doubt.
Wait 6 days. Then, depending on the revelation from British, things may change.
Jarpie I would respond to your post but instead I'll just quote another user, that you probably agree with.
Xavier0889
Learned
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Fixed.
Well, shifting into 3D wasn't a bad choice per se. It was a nice update for the series, and it looked better than most of that time's 3d games (and to some extent, still does). In fact, when they announced that 9 will have such a polished graphic presentation, and, allegedly, Garriot himself said it was going to be better than 8, I was like
when waiting for the full game to be released.We all know what happened then.
I don't think this is Ultima X. It's a complete reboot of the whole.... Ultima setting (using virtues etc...) but minus any of the IP stuff that EA owns.
Doesn't the "lost" U9 ending include the nuking of Britannia and the survivors flying off on a floating island? You could start from there.
But that is a story that EA owns.
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