Ultima The Ultima Underworld I & II Thread

[Deuce Traveler]

I explored thoroughly inside the encased castle and talked to everyone, I believe. Dupre is the best of the bunch, by far, although it was also good to see Iolo and Lord British. Julia and Geoffrey are as boring as always, but that's alright. One of the charms of the Ultima games is seeing old friends, whether quirky or plain. I went down to the basement (L2), but ran into a locked door. Dupre handed me a key to a metal door that lead to level 3, where I met Fissif. He might be a new favorite NPC. I got to the two nearby monsters that I can't get past, but I figure I'm not meant to pass by them yet, so I retreated back to the stairs to reconsider my options. So far the beginning was slow since you had to chat with quite a number of people, but that didn't bother me at all. It's good to be back in Britannia with my old comrades before Ultima 9 happened to the poor sods. If they only knew what a doomed future awaited them...

 

[octavius]

UU 2 is harder than UU1 in the beginning, and you are definitely supposed to skip some encounters. When you see a trail of bones and broken weapons you know it leads to something a lvl 1 Avatar who has spent the last year getting drunk with Dupre can't handle yet.

I said I wasted some points in Picklock, but it looks like I had a bad memory. I wasted points in repair, which I never used. Ultimately I found track, charm, and swimming to be useless. Repair and Missile and unarmed I never used. I had lore, but it never really told me anything about an item except a couple of times I found an object in my inventory to be magical. Maybe if I had more points.

A few points in Swimming is useful. Repair is useless since you find a smith, but the Avatar doesn't know that beforehand.
High Lore skill is essential IMO, as it saves you so much mana wasted with the Name Enchantment spell.

In UU2 the dynamics are a bit different. You may not find a smith, and there may be wands (that can be recharged for a fee) for most or all of your needs.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I think all the dors in Anu can be Open-ed. Forgot about the Bliye, which is definitely required. So is X, plot won't advance until he/she/it is offed (one of the annoyances of UW2 compared to UW1 - script triggers that prevent the plot from progressing until you do something completely unrelated. The whole business with the Listener is the worst example).

You're forgetting one problem with Anu, while it's possible (but unlikely) for the Avatar to have the required runes at that point, it's impossible that the Avatar will be high enough a level to cast Open at the door. 10th level is required. Playing a pacifist game, by definition, will leave the Avatar XP-starved. In UUW1 it's possible that non-combat XP will yield the required XP (or maybe the spell is on a scroll somewhere) but not in UUW2. For that matter, casting Portal to get past the Liches will be a bit of a stretch, but the 'Doorknocker' might do the job instead.

In other news, I found an interesting list for UUW2 that has all of the 'stats' for the monsters. The monster aptly named 'Destroyer' has almost all stats maxed out, so that one is not to be taken lightly, but what I found the most interesting were the 'Ears' and 'Eyes' stats. Going by 'Eyes', Gazers (and another similar unnamed creature) and Wizard Liches have 'Eyes' maxed out, mainly because they have deadly ranged attacks. Now we know why Spoony got creamed by a lightning bolt out of nowhere. Flesh Slugs and Vorz have the worst sight in the game, which is funny considering the Vorz. 'Ears' is far more interesting. Destroyers have both these stats maxed out, but except for the two species of Bats, most monsters have rather poor hearing, with Gazers being the only deaf creature on the list, and its unnamed cousin having only minimal hearing. The general rule is, the smaller the creature, the better hearing it has.

When it comes to poison, Morpheus (or whatever his name was) wins hands down, with Deep Lurkers and Despoilers taking second place. And according to this list, Fire Elementals are not immune to fire... something to research further.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm now Level 14 on the sixth floor, I've collected all 8 Talismans, angered Warren the spectre and found many things.

But I've also lost things. Twice now when I have dropped an item, it has simply disappeared. First it was a jeweled shield, then it was a backpack containing a few items. Nothing important... yet. :-/

press alt+f7 in-game to see which version it is. Most recent one I think is 1.94.

I tried this, but it doesn't work. Anyone know why?

 

[Excidium]

But I've also lost things. Twice now when I have dropped an item, it has simply disappeared. First it was a jeweled shield, then it was a backpack containing a few items. Nothing important... yet. :-/

This happened to me too. I think it just fell through the floor geometry or something.

I tried this, but it doesn't work. Anyone know why?

Are you using a custom dosbox build? It probably has something bound to alt+f7.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I'm using the Korean SVN-Daum build, which counts as a 'yes' to your question.

A boot from standard DOSBox gave me V1.94S as the version number. Jaesun had already confirmed this for me, but I wanted to be sure.

This is a serious detraction from playing the game, that game-crippling bugs are still ruining people's playthrough, more than 20 years after the game's release.

The thing is, I never encountered this error until I was using a computer that was more powerful than was ever conceived possible for the game. I last remember running into this bug using a P3 500 Mhz computer running Windows 98, but on my 386 40 Mhx DX machine I had no problems whatsoever.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

You have to kill Tyball for a couple of reasons: to get magic back, and to get a required key from his corpse. You could skip the key if you could cast Open... which you can't until you kill him. Otherwise I believe everything other the Roderick is skippable. Ironically the most efficient way to get the Key of Courage is to, well, run through like a coward.

Well, I had a chance to test this just now. I used the orb rock on the orb while Tyball was high as a kite and spewing lightning and fire at me. (Thank goodness I found that ring of Magic Protection or I'd be a pile of dust by now.) I cast Open to unlock the door leading to Level 8, the result being: 'The spell has no discernible effect.' Repeated castings changed nothing, the doors won't open. You HAVE to kill Tyball.

So far the princess is still locked up behind the portcullis, let's see if I have to save her to complete the game...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

And... done. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't get a screencap of the win screen, even though I told DOSBox to do so. Hmph. Or maybe the image ended up somewhere on my computer and I've yet to find it. Anyway, Level 16 Druid with very simililar stats as Deuce Traveler had, and it said "after 2 days in the Abyss". To be fair it was dawn on the third day...

Fun fact: You don't have to free Ariel to win the game, but the end sequence will still assume that you did. Just one of many ways to break the game.

I didn't even bother with Level 8. I went down there, made a direct beeline to Garamon's bones (and his Ring of Invisibility) grabbed both items and Gate Travelled out. Second time round I just snuck into the center chamber, tossed everything in and Bob's yer uncle.

Now on to UUW2.

EDIT: Some assorted notes I had jotted down (and could be of some use to future UUW1 players, and maybe even UUW2 players):

# You don't have to wait until you've found the Vas runestone to cast Gate Travel to get to the Moonstone. There are at least 4 scrolls of Gate Travel in the game, and one of them is found pretty early (2nd or 3rd floor).

# There's no point in hoarding up items for trading purposes except at the very start of the game. By the time you've reached the Mountainmen, there's little reason to carry/hoard anything except what you're carrying or using. The only exceptions are a light source for Zak and some food, mostly fish, for a handful of other vital transactions. There's more than enough gold in the game for Shak (to repair) and Dominus (to identify) to do their stuff, so again there's little need to lug all that around. It's best just to drop off gold in Shak's shop and take what is needed for his repairs.

# Items of 'Toughness' only means that they can take more damage before being destroyed, which technically means that they're useless, due to the rare circumstances that your armour is in any serious danger of being destroyed.

# There are 4 different types of hallucinatory visions. One just blurs the in-game textures (which actually helps spot secret doors), one renders you almost blind except for some bright neon pixels, one makes the whole screen turn a funky kind of blue, and another turns the whole screen a funky kind of pink. Eating mushrooms gives you very brief hallucinations, while drinking potions of Hallucination can make them last up to a whole minute.

# The crown needed to navigate Tyball's maze is actually called "Crown of Maze Navigation" when identified.

# Food doesn't age or spoil if you carry it or put it in a container. Haven't checked yet whether it spoils if you leave it alone OR leave it out in the open.

# One quest 'reward' is a boost to your Casting skill, so don't plan on maxing it out as early as possible.

# I reached the level cap just after I first entered the 7th floor, rendering the rest of the monster encounters in the game useless. That's how much XP you get by hunting down all the Lurkers.

# Around level 7 you'll start to see some real traps begin to appear, with monsters spawning behind you if you walk into certain pre-designated areas. Despite this, the Traps skill is useless.

# Monsters sometimes respawn. Nothing to worry about, though, the biggest monster respawn I've seen was a Grey Goblin.

# While it seems that Fire Elementals take damage from fire attacks, it's negligible. I burned out a whole wand of Fireball on a Fire Elemental, and his health never went below green.


Some useful magical items that are found early on, or are just too useful to be ignored:

# A Ring of Resist Blows (BIS) from one of the thieves on Level 3 (can be obtained through trade).

# An excellent chainmail of Missile Protection from the pool area on Level 4.

# Sir Rodrick's sword is a Longsword of Additional Damage.

# The Ring of Leap can be found hidden among some boulders on Level 4, just east of the Knight's most southern outpost. While easily one of the most useful magic items you can find, there are times where you're better off without it while jumping.

# The Ring of Levitate can be found up some 'steps' in the fire chasm on Level 7. Once you find it, the Ring of Leap becomes obsolete.

# Chain Gauntlets of Additional Protection can be found hidden in a pile of rubble in the SE section of Level 5.

# In the room in the tombs on Level 7 where you find the Black Sword (Of Accuracy), there's also a Helm of Magic Lantern, which is a light source equal to a lantern, and therefore better than the Taper.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I decided to have another go at UUW1, reloading my last save and taking the scenic route through Level 8. Some further notes:

# I've deduced that Fire Elementals are indeed immune to fire. I base this conclusion on the fact that I was fighting a fire elemental to my front, a ghost to my right and a metal golem (uh-oh) to my rear. Killed the fire elemental and the ghost, then turned to the metal golem. I landed one blow and he was already in the red, then he dropped dead right in front of me. Due to the lava. Golems are not known for their intelligence.

# Getting around Level 8 without the Leap, Levitate or Fly spells is going to be a bitch. Getting around down there without the dragonscale boots is going to be a nightmare.

# Among the magic items I've found down there is a servicable breastplate of Additional Toughness (lame) and another breastplate of Tremendous Protection (oooh), a Battleaxe of Tremendous Damage (fuck yeah!), a leather cap of Unsurpassed Toughness (boo), plate leggings of Stealth (LOL?), a Jeweled Mace of Unsurpassed Accuracy (Jeweled Maces are the most damage-dealing weapons in UUW, so cool), a Jeweled Sword of Unsurpassed Damage (double fuck yeah!) and a Crossbow of Unsurpassed Damage (...yay?)

# Some unconventional items are also down there, like an Ankh Pendant (?) and a jeweled bow.

# Having a skill at 0 does NOT mean that you can't use it, it just means that you don't get any bonus modifiers to it. You can spot traps and attempt to disarm them, for example, but they tend to blow up in your face more often than not. Search will be VERY HARD without some points allocated to it, but the plot-vital secret doors are very easy to spot. Tracking works (press F9) but at best you only get a general direction and rough estimate of monsters. On higher levels you're informed what kind of monster it is.

# The Lore skill works by making a check to see if the item is identified. If it fails, another check won't be made unless the skill level is increased. With Lore at 30 there is still a chance that an item will not be identified, so it's possible to use save-scumming to get a perfect identity check on every item. But since Name Enchantment and Dominus are in the game, why bother? (Speaking of which, there's a very useful wand of Name Enchantment somewhere in the game, can't remember where I found it, though.)

# Monster AI in UUW1 is nonexistant. If they can see or hear you, they'll always come straight at you, unless they have a missile attack, in which case they'll use that if they can draw a line of sight to you, but are otherwise out of melee range. They will NOT keep their distance from you to use that missile attack, even if it's 5 times more powerful than their melee attack. They also tend to flee if you fuck them up too badly, but except for (mong)bats they rarely move fast enough to escape. They do not have morale problems from watching you beat up their friends, they'll not consider lava to be hazardous terrain but they'll stay out of water. Some monsters, however, may jump across short gaps to try to reach you.

# There's a Wing Commander reference on Level 8. Makes sense, considering there's also one in Ultima VII... More than that, there's a wisp on Level 8 as well, but it says the same thing as the Wisp on the Path of Courage.

# You cannot use ranged attacks or spells to break down doors. Melee attacks only.

# Food doesn't spoil at all in UUW1. Maybe it does in UUW2, but resting for 14 days changed nothing in the condition of various foodstuffs.

 

[octavius]

Tracking works (press F9)

Damned, I've played UU thrice and I never knew this...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Odd, the Korean build of Dosbox saves screen captures in the standard DOSBox folder. Anyway, hopes this works. (Sorry about the small size.)

 

[Unkillable Cat]

My adventures in UUW2 fare much worse than they did in UUW1. Spoony is right, the game is way too hard at the beginning. While most of the deadly monsters and their hangouts are easily noticeable and avoided, there's one that really makes you stop and wonder what the hell is going on; the first grey rat you encounter. You know the one, it's the one that one-shotted Spoony in his video. I'm level 4 with added training in both Attack and Mace (my weapon of choice) and I just barely beat it with 1 HP remaining and without getting poisoned. What happens next? I'm sorting through its lair, throwing out the moldy cheeses (they break if they hit walls) and suddenly I die! For no reason whatsoever! I'm positive I was not poisoned, so what the hell killed me?

I reached Level 4 this 'early' by grinding bats! They're worth 2 XP each!

 

[Unkillable Cat]

The latest reports of the adventures of Garrett the sticky-fingered Avatar:

# The Lore skill works in UUW2 on items that are on the ground. Just not very effectively...

# You can cast the Repair spell on food and doors to 'repair' them. (Worm-ridden meat getting you down? Just add a dose of RelSanctYlem and they'll turn into healthy nutritious proteins, as if by magic! From the makers of Arm & Hammer baking soda and duct tape!)

# Someone should call the guys at it-he.org and tell them that (at least) Ultima Underworld 2 can be broken rather amusingly. Here's how:

You know that when something important happens in the castle, Miranda is waiting for you nearby one of the exits? This is a good sign that Something Important has happened. What I did NOT know, is that speaking to Miranda is the 'trigger' for many of these events. Such as the event with Lady Tory, which I believe happens when you pick up the blackrock gem from the Ice Caverns. Which I just did.

So what I did was...

Spoiler

... I emerged from the exit that leads straight to the bottom level of the sewers, and saw that Lady Miranda was waiting for me. I turn and run in the opposite direction and enter the castle from another door. Miranda is none the wiser. I walk around the castle talking to everyone, including Lady Tory. Everything is normal, people are happy that I found a water supply.
Here comes the fun part. I push Lady Tory around so that she is in the grand hall. This is not as easy as it sounds, as the woman is stubborn as an ox. But eventually I perservere. With Lady Tory walking around in the grand hall, I find and push her killer into the grand hall as well. Now with both perpetrator and victim within my field of vision, I talk to Lady Miranda. Cue the arrival of the guard to announce her murder by stabbity-stabs. I go through the conversation as quickly as possible, taking roughly about 8 seconds.

In those 8 seconds, the victim and the killer had run all the way to her room, where the killer murdered her so brutally that she's nothing more than several puddles of blood on the floor. Then the killer had time to clean himself up, compose himself, run BACK into the grand hall and stand in the exact same place as before and act all shocked and horrified at the murder. Surely the Guardian's Pawn has powers that surpass even those of the mighty Avatar himself!

But this got me thinking... how far can you get in the game WITHOUT talking to Lady Miranda? At all?

 

[Sceptic]

But this got me thinking... how far can you get in the game WITHOUT talking to Lady Miranda? At all?

Not much. The worlds unlock in a set order depending on scripts you've triggered. If you don't talk to Miranda, you'll never make it past the first three as alien world never unlocks (on the large gem). Same for I think Scintillus, until you get into the Vault and unlock all those scripts Tomb will not open up.

I actually got stuck for a while on Ice Caverns because I hadn't killed the Listener and therefore not triggered the next world opening.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

Wrong person. This was Unkillable Cat that asked the above. I'm still trying to explore the various ways to get down to level 2, although I've taken a short break. So far I've found a way down to level 2 in the south part of the castle, but can't find a key to open a gate there. I located a locked door below the north part of the castle in a basement with food storage that I'm considering applying a blunt instrument against, I found the mage's teleporter to level 2 with his experiments (really, why are the good mages allowed to create dangerous creatures that may breed out of control?) and I found the metal door which Dupre's key opens, which leads to level 3 and a pair of monsters I can't beat yet. I'm probably going to try to break down the basement door in the north during my next session if I can't locate another way down. I need to level before taking on larger monsters. I'm not sure, but I think damage is also associated with character level, since my sword, 30 points in strength, and my 15 skill in sword seem to have little impact against certain monsters.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

But this got me thinking... how far can you get in the game WITHOUT talking to Lady Miranda? At all?

Not much. The worlds unlock in a set order depending on scripts you've triggered. If you don't talk to Miranda, you'll never make it past the first three as alien world never unlocks (on the large gem). Same for I think Scintillus, until you get into the Vault and unlock all those scripts Tomb will not open up.

I actually got stuck for a while on Ice Caverns because I hadn't killed the Listener and therefore not triggered the next world opening.

I am not so certain that you are correct. From my observations, it's fusing the small gems to the larger gems that trigger further worlds opening. Talking to Miranda may be a factor, so the only way to be certain is to experiment. That calls for a replay, which I'll do right after I've finished this playthrough.

Triggering the Lady Tory event requires that you pick up the blackrock gem in the Ice Caverns AND killing the Listener. This I've been able to piece together.

Deuce Traveler : Before trying to open any door by force, Look at it. If it says that it's a massive door, then no amount of bashing will open it. Other means will have to be used... which in this case means finding the Armoury key. If you've found Fissif, he may have mentioned where he dropped it.

The castle has four exits. Two of them lead to the storeroom, smithy and (locked) armoury. The third one leads to a section of this level that is not reachable from this side; you'll have to get there from the other side to open the portcullis. The final door is the one Dupre's key opened, and is your next port of call. Yes, I'm aware that one of the first rooms there contains monsters that are WAY out of your league, you'll just have to ignore them for now. As was mentioned somewhere earlier, passageways to dangerous monsters like these are often marked with skulls and debris, hinting at imminent doom.

I'm not sure that damage scales with level. In fact, judging by your character's stats, you should have a rather easy time killing those early monsters... with a proper weapon. Daggers are poor weapons, try finding a short sword (or even a long sword) before taking them on.

You WILL have trouble levelling up during the early steps of the game. Pick your fights carefully.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Here are some further notes of mine.

Spoiler

# To find the Jeweled Sword of Major Damage in the Reaper's lair in the Britannian Sewers, you must Look at the oversized plant until your Search skill reveals it. For those fighting with swords, this will be THE weapon of choice for most of the game.

# If you can reach the ghost in the Britannian Sewers, you get a chain cowl of Valor. This cowl is more useful than it looks, because according to the Cluebook, Valor "adds +10 (plus one per 5 points of your casting skill) to your weapon skill". How awesome is that?

# There's a new form of hallucination, one that makes only some pixels glow really bright. It's like you're tripping into the ultraviolet!

# Alcoholics rejoice! When drinking booze, if the text says "The drink makes you feel a little better for now", then you've healed 2 hit points! Never been a better excuse to get shit-faced plastered than this.

# Speaking of hallucinations, getting the 'almost blind' hallucination while in the Ice Caverns is one of the most awesome colour displays you'll ever see.

# While You do NOT have to kill Sentinel 868 in the Ice Caverns to get through the door behind him, that is only because the 'Open' spell works on the door. However, playing a pacifist game with minimal kills will more likely than not leave the Avatar XP-starved, and therefore unable to cast the spell until much later in the game. Not to mention that getting the Ex rune is not as easy as it sounds.

# In fact, I managed to get through the door without Sentinel 868 turning hostile. Talk to him and immediately choose the "I will go now" dialogue choice, which end the conversation without violence. Cast 'Open' on the door, and the golem will only be upset when you open it and go through.

# While doing this, I discovered that critters that force you into conversations almost only do so if you are looking at them. If you're avoiding looking at them, you can get REALLY close to them without them doing anything. This could be useful for exploitation purposes at some point. One of the ways to make them trigger conversations is if you moonwalk into their face.

# One other thing regarding the Ice Golem - Beatrice states that the city-state of Anudunos was crushed when the Guardian froze the entire continent. Meaning that it was not a cold near-arctic terrain to begin with. And if Sentinel 868 is the last remnant of Anudunos' former glory, when why have an ANIMATED ANTHROPOMORPHIC BLOCK OF ICE standing guard in an environment that's clearly not suited for ice?

# One of the traps I encountered in Anudunos was called 'Change Terrain' - I'm guessing that it changes the wall behind the door, so that it appears that there's really nothing behind the door. But if you Search the left-hand wall, a button will be revealed down by the floor, revealing a room with a Mace of Major Damage, a broadsword of Poison Weapon and a tower shield.

# You HAVE to kill the Bliy Skup Ductosnore, but only for the purpose of reaching the Ductosnore chamber to use Altara's Rod. As for the Ductosnore chamber... you don't have to follow the instructions to the letter. I switched the two storage gems, and still a new Bliy Skup Ductosnore was spawned, and still both Historian and Futurian thanked me for saving their people. So while they're free of the Guardian, I may have doomed them to a whole new fate altogether...

# On the conveyor belt on Talorus, there are tons of leather boots. One of the pair is 'worn' instead of 'servicable', and this pair are magical boots of Bounce. Wearing them is as hilarious as one can expect...

# Speaking of the conveyor belt, at the top end of it is an unblemished sceptre of Shockwave. You'll need Telekinesis to get it, though.

# The unnamed goblin in the Britannian sewers is not to be overlooked. He's the Tracking trainer for the game, a fact that not many sources seem to be aware of. Even the dialogue option that reveals it is not so obvious. What's more, if you kill all the Bloodworms on the beach around the large lake northeast of his position, he'll reward you with a fresh fish and bestow the title of 'Wormslayer' upon you.

# More than that, check back with the goblins once you're near the end of the game. They'll give you a blackrock serpent. It serves no purpose in Ultima Underworld 2, but will be part of your starting equipment in Ultima 7, Part 2: The Serpent Isle.

 

[Gord]

Since I found out about the awesomeness that are Soundfonts and Bassmidi, I wonder whether it's possible to get the Underworlds to use Midi for music, but Soundblaster for effects.
But even when I use the install routine to set it to Roland for the 1st option ("synthesized sound") and Soundblaster for the 2nd ("Digitized sound"), it's still playing all the effects with midi, as well. Pity.

I guess that means that I really have to acquire Roland ROMs if I want good sound and music...

 

[Sceptic]

Wrong person.

Oops. Good thing I kept it spoiler-free...

I am not so certain that you are correct. From my observations, it's fusing the small gems to the larger gems that trigger further worlds opening.

One at a time, yes. But unless you've triggered the proper scripts as I described, when you go to the large gem and use the small gem from Anu to unlock the next workd, it won't open unless you've done everything the game wants you to do (Miranda, Listener, etc), even though it has nothing to do with gems themselves. That's why I got stuck, I thought (like you) that only using the small gems mattered. TBH it's pretty poor design, but that's what happens when you have a more linear narrative like UW2's.

Triggering the Lady Tory event requires that you pick up the blackrock gem in the Ice Caverns AND killing the Listener. This I've been able to piece together.

Nope. My first playthrough I triggered it without killing the Listener. I don't know if they changed the scripting by patch to avoid complications though... my first playthrough was pre-patch.

I'm not sure that damage scales with level. In fact, judging by your character's stats, you should have a rather easy time killing those early monsters... with a proper weapon. Daggers are poor weapons, try finding a short sword (or even a long sword) before taking them on.

Also keep in mind each weapon has a type of attach that works better than others. Stab for daggers, slash for swords and axes, and bash for maces.

You WILL have trouble levelling up during the early steps of the game. Pick your fights carefully.

Very much this. Keep in mind what your objective, and if a side area is too tough make a note and come back later.

I guess that means that I really have to acquire Roland ROMs if I want good sound and music...

NOTHING compares to the sound from a real Roland module. Forget about Soundfonts, they'll never do any MT-32 game justice. Get the ROMs if you have to.

 

[Gord]

I guess that means that I really have to acquire Roland ROMs if I want good sound and music...

NOTHING compares to the sound from a real Roland module. Forget about Soundfonts, they'll never do any MT-32 game justice. Get the ROMs if you have to.

Managed to get the ROMs in the right place (indeed just the main DosBox folder if you use one of the special builds) and after setting MT32 in dosbox.conf, I get to enjoy good music and sound effects. Yay!

Although quality-wise the music does still sound a little bit better with a good soundfont (not in the intro, though, that doesn't work so well), this way I get real effects instead of Piano footsteps. Great improvement, definitely.

 

[Infinitron]

Rampant Coyote compares Frayed Knights 2 to Ultima Underworld: http://rampantgames.com/blog/?p=5841

With the need to do some upgrades to the tools, I finally hunted down documentation for the Ultima Underworld file formats in a moment of idle curiosity, and took some time to check ‘em out. The information actually came from an attempt to recreateUltima Underworld with modern code.

I dunno – maybe there’s only a few people who find stuff like that fascinating. Like how they stored strings, back in the day when you had to work within a 640k memory “window.” Wow.

But I was mostly interested in the level data. This was amazing stuff for its time for a lot of reasons. Actually, there were some pretty amazing bits even today. You can look at this map image and see that there was a LOT to these dungeons. While I admit that in any modern RPG you are going to have some amazing detail that will blow this away, but your average modern-era dungeon “level” would fit in less than a single quadrant of an Ultima Underworld level. Seriously. With great detail comes great brevity.

But for its era, Underworld offered diagonal walls, sloped floors, underground rivers of water and lava (with currents!), moving floors, variable lighting, and something approaching realistic physics for something of a “dungeon simulator.”

So how did I do? Did I match or exceed what Underworld offered over 20 years ago? Happily, it looks like I did. I was somewhat surprised to see some of its limitations – like slopes could only go in the four cardinal directions, and only a limited height change between them. Walls had to be the width of a full tile. The ceiling height never changed (true story! That one surprised me!). And the levels were of theDoom-style “fake” 3D – traversable areas could not cross over each other (though I seem to recall things like bridges – special objects – that allowed special-case exceptions to this rule).

So yeah. Frayed Knights 2 happily demolishes those limitations even before I resort to custom geometry. Booyah! I managed to improve upon game technology that’s over twenty years old!

Okay, I guess that’s not exactly a super brag-worthy achievement. But I still think it’s pretty cool.

 

[octavius]

Too bad he wasn't able to improve on the artwork, though...

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Dying in UUW2 takes a LARGE chunk of XP off of you, so I'd avoid that at all costs. Now I'm gonna take a small break before doing another playthrough with the sole intent of breaking the game.

More notes:

Spoiler

# Casting spells in UUW2 is A LOT harder than in UUW1. I currently have Casting at 20 and my odds of casting a (high-level) spell is about 50%.

# The Scintillus Academy Exam has a lot of little hidden secrets about. On Level 6, for example, is a secret door that must be opened by a hidden switch. Inside is a Potion of Time Stop, which will come in very handy for tough fights. On the same floor is also a space that can only be reached by the Portal spell.

# In the Exam part where you must jump on the platforms with the arrows, you can prevent the platform being pointed at from disappearing if you land right on the edge of the platform. Getting this jump right is actually trickier than just solving the puzzle and moving on, but still...

# The Cudgel of Entry (aka "The Doorknocker") does not work on locked containers, such as chests. At least, its magical ability doesn't work. Using the cudgel in the 'traditional' sense still works to open chests, even massive ones.

# If you kill the Dire Reaper (grey tree), inspect its remains carefully.

# The chests of Lord British and Lord Thibrish both contain the same... disgusting things. British's chest also contains 3 gems. For some reason, Lord Thibrish's chest is immune to the Open spell. Beats me why.

# In the Tomb of Praecor Loth there is a sloping hallway with lots of Skeletons. These skeletons respawn endlessly, which makes this both a great farm site for XP and one of the biggest drains on the game engine. After a few minutes the game was chugging along at a slow pace from all the corpses that were piling up.

# On the fourth level of Loth's Tomb, pulling the chain to open the first portcullis will release a mist cloud at first. This mist cloud turns all red potions in your inventory into green potions of Poison... eliminating your best bet of curing yourself of poison. Scrolls of Cure Poison are unaffected. I suggest you carry leeches with you.

# One of the magic items you find in your travels is a red wine bottle of Restoration. You'd think that drinking the wine would consume the item and use up its magic properties, but the bottle is labeled as a 'Bottle of Restoration', but it cannot be used. BUT... the recycler in the Scintillus Academy will happily recycle the bottle for you and turn it into a coin... of Restoration! With infinite charges!

# When eating mushrooms, there's a chance that you regain 2 points of mana.

# If you crash Killorn Keep, then go down to the storeroom through the newly-created passage there, and go up the stairs back to the main floor of the Keep, you'll die and be sent back to Britannia, as the other end of the stairs are blocked off by a wall that wasn't there earlier.

# Once you have the Horn of Praecor Loth AND the air elmental trapped in your body, you can 'play' the horn like any other instrument. It sounds pretty much like you'd expect.

# While I didn't try killing everything in the game, the toughest fight I found in the game is Dorstag. His defenses are just through the roof. I burned a scroll of Time Stop on him, and couldn't get him down into yellow before the spell expired. Shame he doesn't have anything of value whatsoever.

# There is absolutely NO REASON to hoard food in UUW2, there's plenty of it around, 2 spells to help you deal with it, and no NPCs ask for food specifically. Hoarding bottles, on the other hand, is a very good idea, as you can recycle them for gold once they're empty.

# While I didn't do a specific count, I'd guess that I amassed about 900 in gold during my world-raiding adventure. That doesn't include the gems and jewelry I collected, though.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I set Ultima Underworld 2 down for a bit so I could finish up Pools of Darkness. Now that that's over, I'm picking it back up again. I know some folks were telling me to go explore more and find a key, but with two big hairy dudes ready to pummel me nearby, I decided 'hell with that' and decided to break down door below the castle kitchen instead in order to explore more of level 2. So I grabbed a weapon, hit the door, and ... my weapon broke.

So I am now exploring like everyone suggested in the first place. I went down to level 4 and found a lurker that I stabbed in the face until he died, got to level 2, went upstairs and put points into sword, and went back down to explore the lurker's lair. Nearby I found a wand I need to identify. Do wands perform damage at a predetermined level or is it connected to my casting ability? I was thinking about using it on a certain monster if it ends up capable of doing damage. I never used wands in Ultima Underworld 1. The wand can't be used at close range, another interesting fact... I had to reload after experimenting with it and think I'll just stick with swords.

Also, after seeing Unkillable Cat's character sheet, it looks like we get less skill points per level than in UU1. I was planning to bump points directly into attack and sword and defense, then buff up my casting and mana in the later stages. I was able to nearly max out my magic abilities in UU1, but it doesn't look like I will be able to do so in this game.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Also, after seeing Unkillable Cat's character sheet, it looks like we get less skill points per level than in UU1. I was planning to bump points directly into attack and sword and defense, then buff up my casting and mana in the later stages. I was able to nearly max out my magic abilities in UU1, but it doesn't look like I will be able to do so in this game.

Considering just how useful magic is in UUW2, and how much harder it is to cast spells successfully, I'd consider buffing magic stats sooner rather than later. Also, I'm not certain that I reached the level cap for UUW2 (like I did in UUW1), so it's possible that there is an equal amount of skill points available.

Oh, one other thing, as part of your adventures you will be given +1 Attack at one point, so don't max that skill out ASAP.