Ultima The Ultima Series Discussion Thread

[KeighnMcDeath]

I actually think Ultima 3 could be more brutal tbh esp the game gear home-brew mod (the second part after destroying Exodus)

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Bah! I lost a whole post because of stupid lag. Screen refreshed and it was all gone.

I like to look at updates from content modders and creators to see what they've been doing. Recently The Datk Unknown posted on facebook.

One that has been silent is The Exodus project. I liked the options he was making for the dos versions.

The Ultima Codex keeps me mostly up to date on fan projects.

Eldiron is still going on. I haven't looked to see if there is an updated download yet.

The old Lazarus Ultima 5 project for Dungeon Siege.

The old Ultima 6 project for dungeon siege.

A reddit thread talking about fan-made projects.


Remember the working remaster of Ultima 1 through the NES EXODUS version?

I'm not sure how far along Ultima 5 Redux is either.

I'm obviously skipping the U9, Exult, and such news since it has been posted pretty regularly. Maybe there are other projects I have overlooked.

 

[Daemongar]

The Ultima Codex keeps me mostly up to date on fan projects.

I forget this site exists - nice to see someone working on another U9 patch, as I like messing around with that game every couple of years. Would be nice to have a few more quests. Doubt it will be released, but nice they are working on that game anyways.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

...

If you haven't been down them, you're really going to HATE the dungeons, then. Especially the final one.

Oh I don't even try to solve them with my own brain juice. I use the nifty solutions from Ultimacodex.

Actually, enemies can strike one of 8 directions. Certain spells affect the entire battlefield. The Sega Master System allows diagonals and targeting like Ultima 5 so perhaps beyond the simple 8 directions. It is pretty faithful to the original except dungeons. They are all top down view like everything else. No first-person dungeon crawling like the original.

At first I pondered if I should instead play the Sega version. I played one or two hours with it but decided to go for the XU4-version to be able to transfer my char to UV and after that to UVI. Hell I purchased all these games boxed with all the fancy extras for an arm and a leg so I just have to play them the right way.

...

The big—albeit silly—advantage of Quest of the Avatar's combat system is that it's very fast—you can just mash a + upwards most of the time with ranged weaponry equipped. Warriors' need to constantly position attacks (given a similarly sluggish combat system) got on my nerves far more, as combat got much slower.

That's what I do most of the time as I don't want to save up on my valuable tremor spells. Best thing to do is is to bulk them in two rows, close your eyes and just mash the buttons like a maniac. I hate it when they move in a different row out of my line of fire.

 

[Jaesun]

I forget this site exists - nice to see someone working on another U9 patch, as I like messing around with that game every couple of years. Would be nice to have a few more quests. Doubt it will be released, but nice they are working on that game anyways.

Interesting. Just was not aware there were people still trying to fix all the bugs in Ultima IX. Working on fixing 63 bugs is impressive (it says they now have 54 complete).

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Hell I purchased all these games boxed with all the fancy extras for an arm and a leg so I just have to play them the right way.

Did all the extras come with. That sega master vid where the guy had a mint set was damn impressive. The huge crazy collectors get each box for every platform and every release. Their shelves are just OCD fanaticism. I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't envious.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

Hell I purchased all these games boxed with all the fancy extras for an arm and a leg so I just have to play them the right way.

Did all the extras cone with. That sega master vid where the guy had a mint set was damn impressive. The huge crazy collectors get each box for every platform and every release. Their shelves are just OCD fanaticism. I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't envious.

Yeah, I now have Ultima III, IV, V, VI, VII Part 1, VIII and (horribile dictu) IX plus the two Worlds of Ultima titles with all the extras (ok almost all: UIV misses the Ankh but I purchased a good, actually better looking, substitute and pretend it's the real one). All are PC versions, except for UIV (Atari). I really love the cloth maps, they are the most important part for me.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Getting the awesome Ultima II box like the later ultimas is tricky. I widh I still had my Sierra box which was oh... pretty meh.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

Goddamnit, I'm stuck again. I ran through all dungeons, just to get the stones, ignored everything else in there after I had maxed out my Avatar with the orbs. Now I want to create that darn three part key (I have no clue where I should have gotten the information about that thing), so I go to the first altar (Altar of Courage) and "use" the "stones" in the following order: A: red, B: orange, C: purple D: white. Alas the game states "not a usable item". Is there an additional step I have to do before I can try creating that key thing?

edit: Ah forget about it. It worked, the part is in my inventory.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

I don't recall. You weren't supposed to make Truth, then Love, and finally Courage or did it really matter? God it has been a long time.

Eh. I believe you need to stand on the altar (pretty sure the avatar not just any character but you could try anyway just to verify).

Use:
stone Not stones

And it should blather some crap and then you type the first stone etc.

Game is very finicky on spelling and words. Like when I typed the wrong word at the very end. Oh it was close but NOT EXACT! Bah!

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

It was only the "not a usable item" message that confused me. It actually worked. On a side note I have to add that I can live with the 3D parts, but the 2D parts in the dungeons are really clunky and awkward. Extremely painful and tedious to move the whole party around and do stuff. Using the stones on the altars in this turn based combat mode felt totally wrong. Now onward to the Great Stygian Abyss!

"stones" or "stone" is the same as the game only reads the first four letters, if I understand it correctly.

EDIT: Ok, I'm through. Wow, what a ride. I confess that I shamelessly used debug mode, the endless combat in the dungeons and especially in the abyss was too much to be even remotely enjoyable anymore (plus movement during these sequences, as mentioned above, is majorly tedious). The final quiz was really cool however and felt important for the serie's philosophy (which is quite thoughtful for a game and unique even today). So overall I'm glad I could see the ending despite of my negative experiences with some of the game's base mechanics. Tomorrow I'll start UV with my character.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Debug mode?

You know, the quickness spell was always weird imho. Sometimes I only got one attack and a few times I swear I had a guy get up to 5. I must be misremembering.

I've always wondered what tactical ultima would have been like if it have action like wizard's crown, goldbox, shard of spring or say fallout.

The game was designed early for that critical everyone gets a turn but usually or always Players go first. Now, imagine if Ultima 3-5 had surprise attacks (well camping is and can be a surprise attack).

I need to mess around with Eldiron more or period but damn my situation.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

Debug mode?

You know, the quickness spell was always weird imho. Sometimes I only got one attack and a few times I swear I had a guy get up to 5. I must be misremembering.

I've always wondered what tactical ultima would have been like if it have action like wizard's crown, goldbox, shard of spring or say fallout.

The game was designed early for that critical everyone gets a turn but usually or always Players go first. Now, imagine if Ultima 3-5 had surprise attacks (well camping is and can be a surprise attack).

I need to mess around with Eldiron more or period but damn my situation.

XU4 features a debug mode which helps in every situation. I decided to use it as I recognized the problem wasn't that I couldn't beat the game (there was basically no challenge left really) but the game's mechanics would simply prolong everything by the way they work: Movement, at a certain point, was just tedious, by its slow nature but also because of the constant attacks. Or waiting for a ship to appear somewhere to be able to reach the next otherwise unreachable dungeon. Or the dozens of combats in awkwardly constructed dungeon rooms where manveuvering is the real challenge. Not a single one of these combats was difficult per se, but simply terrible to play. Situations like that made me use debug mode without bad conscience. So teleporting and skipping the endless combats was the option for me. I recogized that either I'd concentrate on the story and leave gameplay (and all the frustration that came with it in late game) aside or I'd quit the game. I'm damn glad I didn't and I thank the Gods for this debug mode that allowed me to experience the whole game.

I'm not even sure if I'd like a more tactical Ultima. For me personally Ultima is more about the story, about exploration, a bit like an adventure more than a "serious" RPG. That's why I actually don't have major problems with Ultima VII's passive combat system.

Ultima IV's box is closed and back on the shelf and Ultima V's box lies here in front of me, waiting to be opened. I'm a week off from work, so I know what I have to do the next days - saving Lord B.'s sorry ass.

 

[Ludwig von Eisenthal]

In other news: Just got SI for a relatively reasonable price, the real big box (not that cheap one in the slide box with paper map) with all extras and the lovely cloth map. Now I can rest easy for my Ultima collection is finally complete (I regard UUW as an Ultima in name only, so I don't get these. Don't get me wrong, UUW 1 it's a brillant game, but I feel it stands better on its own legs without the rather artificial connections to the Ultima canon. UUW 2 I find broken and never enjoyed it at all. I also won't get U1 and 2 as the prices are astronomical).

 

[behold_a_man]

So, I've finished the False Prophet:

ending

I think I found this game more entertaining than its predecessor.


I The world

The game's plot got far more explicit. The chain of characters sending me to the next ones looks like this: Nystul -> Mariah -> Homer -> mapfellas -> Mariah -> Sin Vraal -> Hythloth/ Captain John -> Beh Lem -> Valkadesh -> ... -> Naxatilor -> Temple of Singularity -> Gargoyle shrines -> Temple of Singularity -> Codex. Only creating the balloon is not mentioned by the aforementioned characters (and about ten of Britannia's characters mention it, so it's not some esoteric machinery—unlike the secrets of grapple in Warriors). Even if some auxiliary goals can be achieved in any order (map, runes and moonstones, gargoyle shrines), and some parts of the game can probably be avoided (the entire first half of the game if you find Captian John first), the linear chassis of the plot stays the same.

Furthermore, there were a few points where linearity felt forced. For example, after receiving a call from Codex to get both a convex and a concave lens, I went to a lensmaker in Lycaeum to create them, but when asked about "lens" or "concave", the guy replied,

What sort of lens do you want?

—which didn't make sense—until I got another lens from gargoyles, and then he got more

talkative

. The fact that he couldn't answer my question made sense (he needed a proper gargoyle one rather than a broken one as a starting point), but the answer itself made no sense, and then it turned out I was expected to consult my steps with Naxatilor, even if the Codex's expectations seemed obvoius.

There were only a handful of quests except for those related to the main one, and the rewards for doing them were oftentimes mundane—gold, gems, or generally things that are obtainable by other means. Also, quest chains turned into quest segments - Excluding the main quest, most quests were effectively either fetch quests or 2-3 interactions without any need to connect the dots. There was nothing quite like the Oppression quest in Warriors of Destiny.

With banal rewards and things getting telegraphed explicitly, the game loses the investigative feeling the earlier Ultimas had, as discoveries (and resolutions to quests) felt less meaningful.

Dialogues got longer (I documented 2.5 times as many screenshots as in Warriors), and the options to speak got highlighted, which seems preferable given the breadth of dialogue and rather mundane nature of picking keywords already mentioned by the other party. The dialogues became far more dynamic; people could remember previous interactions (for example, Gherick refused to create me another Serpent Order's shield); the results of interaction could differ depending on the state of the world (like the interaction between Glen and Mole at Empath Abbey; or the already seen interaction with Ephemerides). While the amount of content was higher, much less was important—quite a lot of NPCs could be cut from the game without consequences to the gameplay.

It was fitting the end of the game took place in a completely safe environment—high up on the ground, surrounded by grassy volcanic fields of Isle of the Avatar, finishing with a pair of trash-talking kings. Generally, this game never really forced a huge dose of combat on me like the previous entries did with the Stygian Abyss or the dungeon Doom, and I like this change thouroughly.

As a side note, the interesting thing about the plot I noticed is that the game is about the redemption of a person who could, for all we know, have been very 'virtuous' during previous entries of the series. I don't think I ever saw anything like that implemented, midway through a series of games - and it made sense.


II Combat and party

The combat got faster. I could automate companions during battle, which is a paramount improvement, especially given the usual simplicity of Ultima combat. Also, it was not much more challenging than in Quest of the Avatar—I could tackle most enemies from the very start, and in the end only dragons and demons needed more fine-grained tactics than simply rushing at them.

The character progression was also much more rapid than in the previous game; I finished it with the Avatar on level 8 (which is important, as the level determines the spells I can cast) with no grinding and a full party.

Aside from respawns, encounter density was about the same as in Warriors (so, sparse). And while enemies dropped about as much gold and stuff as before, everything got significantly cheaper—so, by half the game, I already had superior equipment.

Leading the party as a set of characters moving around the world map separately (rather than as a single tile) had some neat, previously impossible implications—for example, I could use a single character to scout the surroundings with an invisibility ring and leave the rest of the party somewhere.

I hated the fact that monsters respawned very quickly, even in dungeons, even amidst my party. It led to comical situations—Avatar leaves the rest of the party to scout around, and meanwhile, three drakes appear right in front of the rest of my party. Even better, I couldn't start the battle with my party split, so I needed to fight using only a single character.


III Fluff

It's nice the dungeons remained unique to some extent—some driven by simple corridors, some watery, some built on open spaces filled with dragons and lava—even if the tileset barely changed. I also liked the fact that the game didn't force me to go through all of them, as there was not much to gain from them once I had supreme armor.

Exploration of dungeons got way more entertaining; I didn't have to rely on guessing where a switch might be, as combat and exploration interface got unified, and secret entrances were always parts of the wall they led through—which, combined with spells like X-Ray or Wizards' Eye, gave me all the data I wanted and needed.

One of the noteworthy changes from the previous entries was the need to purchase spells (a major money sink for the game) from different merchants, with the best spells only available after solving a minor hassle with wisps. This was offset with lower prices of reagents. I preferred this system to the previous one, as it encouraged intense use of few spells rather than being stingy with all spells. Also, the casting system was simplified, without the need for mixing reagents, which is nice, as it never really presented any challenge, was fundamentally menial, and felt pointless (it would be meaningful if, for example, the amount of available mixed spells during combat was limited, but that was never the case).

I hated some aspects of the interface; with assigning each item to a character, the inventory got unordered. When I had the interface open on the inventory of the sixth character and wanted to drop an item, after clicking 'd' I was switched anew to the first character. If I wanted to use a sextant every few seconds of sailing, I needed to have it on top of my inventory; otherwise, I had to scroll for it. The previous entries were more ergonomic, with most keys having some meaning.

Graphics were just as vibrant as before. I loved the detailed, distinct portaits of each character. While the soundtrack may seem unnecessarily corny, it did build just the right atmosphere except for the repulsive ship track (as a side note, I believe an overdone soundtrack is almost always superior to a subdued soundtrack, like the one in Human Revolution). And I adored the intro of this game.

Generally, the main part of the game's challenge for me was figuring out the game's systems—what I can do with some companions (that I can't do with others), how spells can affect the world, or what I can take with me that I wouldn't expect to be able to.

I liked subtleties: brawl starting at dusk at Bucs' Den tavern; the total eclipse occurring once in several months;

moonstones

the ability to take moonstones only when the moon is not visible on the horizon

. I guess there are tons of secrets or mysteries I didn't find out in this game (and, well, there are a few "quests" I didn't finish—like Matt's muteness, among others).



Overall, the game's systems got more interactive than in the previous entries of the series and introduced a few new challenges with a brand-new engine, the combat got faster and easier (which I found preferable to sluggish and grindy Ultima V, or sluggish and just as easy Ultima IV), but the former mainstay of the Ultima experience—figuring out the plot, trying to interpret dialogues, and seeking clues—was streamlined dramatically.

 

[weirwood]

I appreciate the detailed write-up.

I'm completely biased, because VI was the first Ultima I played, and that at an impressionable age, but it has a warmth, for lack of a better word, to it that neither its predecessors nor the later parts share.

It feels like it encapsulates the post-Cold War hopeful optimism of the early 90s.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

There are quite a few wats to play VI now.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Eldiron Creator v0.8.14 Release​

Yeah, but I can't find the bloody download if any.

 

[Atrachasis]

Eldiron Creator v0.8.14 Release​

Yeah, but I can't find the bloody download if any.

Just a hunch, but the Download link at the top right of the page might have something to do with it... points at https://github.com/markusmoenig/Eldiron

In any case, thanks for this pointer! I had never heard of this project before, but it looks great.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Bah! Under the green CODE BUTTON TAB there is download. Derp is me.

 

[behold_a_man]

The first part of the seventh entry took me a while.

Finale:

The Black Gate is probably the least linear RPG I've ever played. The order in which I moved through the main quest was arbitrary, and there were lots of threads. If I'm not mistaken, I could even

do some nice things.

finish the main antagonist (but not the game) in two carpet flights across the world (one to Bucs' Den for a key to the final dungeon, the second one for the final dungeon)

Take finding Hook as an example.

You could either:
1) Follow Elizabeth's and Abraham's trail to the Den
2) Follow the Time Lord's advice after getting the Cube
3) Stumble upon Rutherford in Minoc and ask him.

With mostly banal combat, the main limitation for completing subsequent objectives was the lack of information. This time, there was nothing like runes, mantras or stones in previous games; no quest forced me to do something particular in each dungeon or city, and, in fact, most of Britannia was optional.

Each city was a microcosm with some associated elaborate story or quest, like the problem of outsiders and a locket in New Magincia or the insanely complex story of a necromancer and a dead city in Skara Brae, solvable without getting out of the city. It marked a shift from previous games, where most information was not immediately applicable, and the amount of side gigs was far smaller. Also, the world was less subservient to the main quest; only a few NPCs were important plot-wise. The world was way more degenerate than before, filled with snake venom and its addicts, bath wenches,

romances

(note that Avatar also oftentimes served as a matchmaker) and other ignoble pursuits - and far more interesting. It even had some

more

or

less

intentional comedy.


The interface got far worse. Let's say I want to open the inventory of the sixth character. Normally, I would click '6' or 'F6', and then maybe something. Here, I either need to click 'i' six times or click 'i', and then double-click the sixth character. The problem? Well, I need to find him on a screen, and he might not be there, or there may be only

his head protruding from behind someone else

. Also, if I decided to use 'i' six times, I had to deal with

six windows on the screen

(which wasn't fun if I only wanted to use some item the sixth character had on the environment - when the environment is cluttered with inventory screens). It seems to me that the developers got fixated with replacing a proper keyboard interface with a mouse, even when it was cumbersome or outright sadistic, while not figuring out simple improvements most modern games have (character icons, for example - this was already present in a year older Isles of Terra, mind you).

Inventory and associated disasters deserve a long paragraph. Just as before, each party member can hold a container. This time, the items are

not necessarily ordered in any systematic way

. Also, it's not possible to order those items in a way I see fit. This applies not only to containers, which are mobile (like backpacks), but also to chests or barrels placed on the ground. This bewilders me: one could think that, with the unordered containers, Lord Irish simply went for immersion - but he didn't give the player the most natural way to circumvent the associated problem. Even when I have a backpack (whose items can change places), I would expect to be able to place some items at its bottom, some at the top. But my woes don't end here: how to manage keys? Of course, the enigmatic technology of keyrings was alien to the lands of Britannia, so I had to remember which key I obtained last in order to use it. It was convenient to set a separate container (like a sack) for my keys; however, I could only store a single such container in a backpack, which was infuriating, as it was one neat way of ordering things among inventories. Also, items (like money or gold nuggets) sometimes couldn't be moved into a single stack, cluttering everything.

There were a few other things, seemingly dictated by 'immersiveness', that drew my ire. One of them is that when a party member is escaping, he can drop equipment. Great, so, after the combat, I have to figure out whether any companion could have lost any equipment and then search for it in case they lost it. Why can't they inform me of their misfortune? Similarly to the equipment, a game posits a problem that possibly makes sense in a "real world" but does not give the player tools to solve it in a way that would make sense in the "real world" - even when the solution seems obvious.

By the end of the game the economy got kind of broken - spells remained money sink just as previously, but I roughly got similar amount of money per hour of playing as before with much longer game - as expected I had way more money than I needed for all spells (and I only used ~10 spells, all up to fifth level). This time, only a handful of items (like gems or gold bars) could be sold. However, one of them is mutton, which you can sell for a rate of return equal to 2/3 if you buy it where the quest giver sends you. And with a pair of virtue stones, you can generate an arbitrary amount of money very quickly.

The game became a bit more interactive, though not as much as I expected it would - I could, for example, beat up parrots, craft swords, bake bread, or distill some potions - but the gameplay implications seemed pretty mundane, as they were usually useful exactly once per game. Caltrops could be fun if companions were capable of noticing them and if combat was good.

Combat was, however, some absolute delirium:
1) In normal real-time with pause RPGs, with a melee weapon, when you try to attack an enemy, your character comes towards the enemy and then delivers a blow. Here, your character only takes a swing, even if 10 meters away. If you want to hit, you have to move closer first. Maybe there is some way to walk up to a character and hit it; if so, it would be nice if it were described in a manual or a reference card.
2) I couldn't find a proper tempo in which the combat is playable. It's either so fast I have a hard time reacting (and the combat usually ends in a matter of seconds) or so choppy I have to wait eternity after each miss for the game to unfreeze.
3) Good luck using area-of-effect spells. Giving Firedoom staff to your companion results in your party being doomed. You can't control your companions, so short-range genocidal spells are not very useful (unless you're soloing, of course); and for long-range ones, the enemies usually move towards the Avatar faster than the spell gets to them.
4) Well, at least I can automate the Avatar too. But there is this silly remark in

the reference card

. If you think the last sentence refers to the six mentioned spells, you're wrong - the Avatar casts any marked spell. So I either have to hide the spellbook in my inventory (suffer), play combat manually (suffer), or lose reagents every time I enter combat (suffer).
Also, character progression didn't seem meaningful, though it's to be expected in Ultimas.
The combat was even more shallow with the inability to effectively split the party (all you could do was leave all other characters in some place, then re-recruit them, which took a bit, as you needed to do it one-by-one, unlocking their 'join' dialogue option each time). It was not that important, as dungeons got simplified; still, companions had a penchant for walking into malediction fields (fire / poison / caltrops / whatever), so it was unfortunate.


Concerning exploration, there were a few nice things the game added, like the telescope covering the entire map, the mark+recall mechanism, or the returning carpet. Dungeons became one-leveled, which I think was preferable given the misfortunes of the combat system and a respawn policy - enemies spawn in the spot they're supposed to spawn whenever this spot is out of field of view. The respawn policy implies that cleaning a large room in a dungeon is usually impossible, as the enemies spawn whenever you move to the other corner of the room. Thankfully, the toughest enemies (golems and the stone harpy) didn't respawn. Spells didn't help with exploration as much as before - I didn't have anything similar to Wizard's Eye or X-Ray, as exploration-related spells only showed outdoors. One neat addition to already established tricks was the ability to stack some boxes and climb them, though it wasn't useful so often. The invisible passages infuriated me in this game, especially given missing exploration spells and peer gems; thankfully, they were present in only a handful of places (but you had to figure out which ones - and in

one of them

the Test of Truth from the add-on

, it seemingly made no sense, except to make player suffer).

The soundtrack was even better than before, with tracks associated with buildings, places, or events (there was even a single item - a musical box - with its own track). Graphically, I think Ultima VI was more gorgeous -

take portraits as an example

- although I do appreciate the change of portait border depending on a city. Other neat detail - ships could be recognized by their prows. This time, in the night, the world gets darker rather than the field of view limited - comically enough,

this also applies to dialogues

. One remarkable improvement compared to the previous game is the graphical representation of the

spellbook

- spells got individuated, everything looks pretty.

This Ultima was also extraordinarily buggy.

My trip to Minoc was an example

as I didn't see the crime scene there; the items were unavailable, but I could still ask a lady about an item (which I never saw)

;

Alagner was pretty lively for a dissected fellow

,

Jillian tried to assassinate Lord British

, and items generally tended to disappear, sometimes even from my inventory (I once lost 40 pieces of sulphorous ash). Boarding any vehicle was an adventure, as it was successful about once per three attempts. And even then,

people sat on each other's lap

. Some minor issues followed the transition from a keyword-based dialogue system to picking an option from available ones - oftentimes chunks of dialogues had to be repeated to sell something to merchants (the jeweler in particular). Also, as far as I know, I could make the game unwinnable with my carpet (not that I tried).

There were a few other things quite unique to this game worth mentioning, like the quality of each weapon or a piece of armor being described in a

book

; the add-on featuring a talking, demonic sword able to kill important characters with special dialogue; or the cube that forced people to tell the truth, allowing to make the initial mystery less hazy.


Summarizing, the story and plots were superior to those in earlier Ultimas, exploration had its shortcomings (as each Ultima before), the combat was an atrocity, the interface (especially the inventory) is better forgotten, audiovisuals were as good as expected from Garriott, and the game is severely bugged. It feels like this game was made analytically (as if in a laboratory setting) with no playtesting, given the sharp discrepancy in quality between the more artistic aspects of a game (writing, plot, audiovisuals) and its gameplay.

 

[Jaesun]

I assume you played this via DOSBox noting the Minoc bug (which is well known). That issue and a lot more is fixed with modern computers with Exult. DOSBox still.... just doesn't play this game very well. Would be fascinating to play this on an actual old... 386 computer and see how it actually runs/plays.

It's a bit sad that you can't see from a perspective of how the inventory was quite innovative at the time. But can only see it from the view of modern gaming. And that's fine. I do enjoy your writeups of this. I hope you continue to Serpent Isle. That and Ultima 8 are my 2 favorites.

 

[behold_a_man]

It's a bit sad that you can't see from a perspective of how the inventory was quite innovative at the time.

I'm sure it was quite innovative; the fact that no one else seems to be willing to implement it in a game with an abundance of items does not surprise me either. No other game forced me to rampage through the entire backpack sorting things to get that one item, only for the backpack to be assembled in a completely different fashion next time I open it. I would expect (and, if a modern game would implement something similar, it would probably do it that way), that:

1. Each item has (x, y, z) coordinates, where z denotes depth in the backpack.
2. If I click on an item, its z becomes bigger than any other item's in the backpack.
3. The coordinates are remembered when I close the backpack.
4. The items are drawn (in the backpack) starting from the one with the lowest z.

If I understood the inventory implemented in the Black Gate correctly, if the third coordinate was needed to represent the set of items (or some similar condition was given), then the container got reshuffled after opening and closing it. It's sadism. I guess that implementation could make sense given the technological constraints of the time, but the idea is still batty. Even if it worked the way I enumerated, if items didn't disappear, I would like to have some other functionalities:

• Backpacks generally have pockets of sorts. Also, why only one subcontainer in a backpack is permitted?
• I want to automatically put some items in certain containers (it doesn't make sense to keep gold in a subcontainer if I will still have to manually move gold there each time I sell something) rather than have them clutter my backpack.
• When can I store an item? Did the game use some sort of volume along with weight? Sometimes items didn't fit in the container, and I had no means of inspecting how much I should remove.

Note that solving the above problems should suffice to make an immersive backpack with functionalities inventories in modern games have: the first two bullets are subcategories, and the third is inventory tetris.

I think there are a few things needed to implement the idea in an entertaining way, and they didn't do it. I believe those issues would come up had they properly playtested it (or had more time, I guess).

 

[Grauken]

It's a bit sad that you can't see from a perspective of how the inventory was quite innovative at the time.

It was innovative at the time and still considered shit, just like the combat. The reason people loved it then was just how massive the world was and how alive it felt. But stuff like combat and inventory was a sore point even at the time