Im totally up for it
Joe Garrity Teases a Lost Vale Diskette
Yes, your eyes do not deceive you; that’s a photograph of a 3.5″ diskette with Lost Vale written on it; it’s one of the more recent additions to Joe Garrity’s horde of treasures, otherwise known as the Origin Museum. And the good Mr. Garrity was quite giddy to share this find with the folks in the Big Box PC Game CollectorsFacebook group:
ULTIMA 8-THE LOST VALE
Is this for real?!–YES! (almost)
This is an actual disk, donated by Origin developer Sheri Graner Ray, which contains data from the legendary unreleased game. Unfortunately, it is not all of the game, just some of the UNK files used to create the character scripts. I’ve shown these files to a few experts (some EXULT members), in the hopes that I may have struck gold–alas, it was not meant to be, and there is not enough data to rebuild this lost treasure.
What it contains, however, is the only data ever recovered of The Lost Vale. It’s quite interesting, and one can examine the basic functions and actual dialog of characters who made up some of the plot of the game. I am planning on releasing the data in the near future, in hopes that people will be able to see what might have been. Special thanks to Sheri Graner Ray for donating the disk, and to Dino for the pics of the box.
As it happens, I’ve been talking with Joe about this; the material found on the diskette — which, I hasten to disclaim, isnot the full Lost Vale expansion, and is not in any way, shape, or form a complete executable — will be released via the Ultima Codex in the near future.
But first, I have some Arthurian Legends-related findings to share with you all, which I really need to get around to publishing.
A Hilarious and Charming Origin Systems Customer Service Call
BY WTF DRAGON · SEPTEMBER 15, 2016
Who says every customer service call has to be a negative experience? I mean, okay, probably a lot of them are…but as this excerptfrom an email chain between Sheri Hobbs (now known as Sheri Graner Ray) and Rebecca Heidt (an Origin Systems customer service representative) demonstrates, not all of them have to be:
From: Rebecca Heidt
Date: 01/29/93 08:11 AM
Priority: Normal
TO: Sheri Hobbs
Subject: Re[2]: And now for a PHONE CALL
------------------------------- Message Contents -------------------------------
Yesterday was the WORST day I have had on the phone in a long time. I had
more than my usuall quota of BUTTHEADS. I mean downright RUDE people. So,
as you can imagine, this call made my day. Unfortunatly, I was so busy, I
did not get an address. I am sorry I didn't. We could make them The
Avatar's Honorary Grandparents or something. I'm sure a few of them would
also make GREAT NPC's in one of our games.
- Rebecca
What great fun! It's calls like these that must make all the Moses Bernards
worth it! Did you get an address? It would be fun to send this group some
posters or something!
-)---- SHERI ----(-
I got a call from an elderly gentleman today, he needed hints for U6. Then,
and elderly woman got on the phone, and she needed a hint for U4. Then, a
REALLY old guy, (He said he was 93!) got on the phone and wanted a hint for
WC2, SO1. ("Them blasted Neutron Guns! Those damn Cats are getting awful
Hi-Tech.") It turns out, this call was from a Retirement Center that had
PC's with CD ROM drives in the Recreation/Education Area. They were passing
the phone around, getting hints for our games. I talked to 8 of them,
total. After I talked to Mr.James (or 93 yr old Wing Fan.) They put me
on speaker phone. (They let the folks who were hard of hearing have the
handsets first, then switched to speaker.) They kept saying things like,
"Oh, I feel SO SILLY asking you this, but...." and "My mind must be going,
I JUST DON"T GET THIS, what do I do next?" They were SO CUTE! This one
older gal had a bad case of the giggles, when I told her she was being bad
when she stole things from NPC's. She said, "Well, I just don't get the
chance to BE BAD very often anymore!"
I really got the feeling that our games in some way contributed something to
these people's lives. There's a therapist who works there who is what sounds
like a pretty hardcore gamer, and "tech head", and he got them started on
our games. But, he is on vacation, and they needed hints NOW! As Mr. James
put it, "I dont know if I am going to BE HERE to finish this TOMMORROW, so
please excuse me if I am a little impatient for help with this darn thing."
They also wanted me to tell EVERYONE who works here "Hello", and THANKS for
giving them hours of fun! Because, as we all know.....
"BIG KIDS NEED TOYS TOO,
AND WE HAVENT OUTGROWN THE URGE TO PLAY YET!"
( I hope I feel the same way if I live to be 93.)
- Rebecca The Strange
This was passed along to the Ultima Codex by — who else? — Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum; he sent it along with someArthurian Legends-related content that you should be getting a look at next week. You can grab a copy of the Word document from the Origin Gallery, if you like.
So, as always, a big thanks to Joe Garrity…and to Sheri Graner Ray, who passed this (and numerous other materials) on to him when they chanced to meet up earlier this year.
Check Out the Planned Introductory Sequence for Arthurian Legends
BY WTF DRAGON · SEPTEMBER 22, 2016
Arthurian Legends was a cancelled project, briefly in development at Origin Systems. The idea for the game, which was co-designed by Sheri Hobbs(now Sheri Graner Ray) and Brian Martin, would have used the Ultima 7 engine to re-tell the legend of King Arthur. Although the game would have likely been released under the Worlds of Ultima brand, it doesn’t seem to have featured many (if any) of the trappings of the series.
Several design documents for the project were discovered on a diskette given to Joe Garrity by Sheri Graner Ray, which Joe then shared with us here at the Ultima Codex. The first of these, a Word document entitled INTRO.DOC, contains an outline of the planned opening of the game. Here’s a sample:
INTRODUCTION
INT – MACSEN’S TAVERN, 20 YEARS AND ONE DAY AFTER THIS GAME TAKES PLACE-NIGHT
A busy, prosperous tavern scene
An elderly man sitting in corner by fire plucking a mandolin.
JOEL THE BARD
So, come again, hast thou? Dost thou wish to hear another tale? Ye youngsters never can get enough of my tales of our good King Arthur can ye? Very well then, tonight I have a special tale. One that began twenty years and a day ago this night. On that particular night, a young fighter, much like thyself, came into this very tavern.
And it goes from there. As always, download and enjoy this document; there’s a new entry over on The Origin Gallery that hosts it, and which will host other Arthurian Legends-related documents in the near future. The Ultima Codex is grateful to Joe Garrity and the Origin Museum for unearthing these files, and to Sheri Graner Ray for handing over the diskettes on which they were found.
Arthurian Legends Plot Documents
Arthurian Legends was a cancelled project, briefly in development at Origin Systems. The idea for the game, which was co-designed by Sheri Hobbs(now Sheri Graner Ray) and Brian Martin, would have used the Ultima 7 engine to re-tell the legend of King Arthur. Although the game would have likely been released under the Worlds of Ultima brand, it doesn’t seem to have featured many (if any) of the trappings of the series.
The documents available here were discovered on a diskette given to Joe Garrity by Sheri Graner Ray, and so come to us courtesy of the Origin Museum. They are all Word documents, and have been upgraded from their original format (Word 2.0) to Word 97-2003. The contents of the files haven’t been altered; the format upgrade was to ensure that you’ll all be able to open the files in modern versions of Word without having to deal with security errors.
Arthurian Legends Plot Plan
A summary of the introductory sequence planned for Arthurian Legends.
Download Now!
As always, download and enjoy these documents; pore over them and look for all the interesting little details that are contained therein. TheUltima Codex is grateful to Joe Garrity and the Origin Museum for unearthing these files, and to Sheri Graner Ray for handing over the diskettes on which they were found.
