Ultima The Ultima Underworld I & II Thread

[BlackGoat]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/am...r-wyomings-second-trailer-is-a-soothing-drive

It shows the same attention to detail as all of American Truck Simulator, of course. I'd recommend the game on the strength of its indicator-clicking-off sound effects alone.

Ah yes, no time for classics like Ultima Underworld tho.

 

[A horse of course]

I just don't get the point of posting something like that, and not just once but twice in quick succession. And phrasing it in a way like he's rubbing it in.

It's not like if he said "You guys should play Ultima Underworld it's a classic" everyone would run out and play it, but he might get a handful of people genuinely curious. Instead he basically shits on it and reinforces what people are already doing anyway. His shitty readers don't need to be convinced to play whatever new bullshit just came out instead of classic masterpieces.

Like I said, he's proud of being a retard. Angry boomers will engage with the blog (increasing ad revenue) and he will act smug about it. It's a mix of cold-blooded short-term financial gain and cultural/political reasons.

 

[Humbaba]

UU1 does have a lot of useless skills and general lack of skill parity, but it’s still not a hard game. You have to be actively trying to gimp yourself to make a completely unviable avatar.

Understood, will roll a shepherd.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

UU1 does have a lot of useless skills and general lack of skill parity, but it’s still not a hard game. You have to be actively trying to gimp yourself to make a completely unviable avatar.

Understood, will roll a shepherd.

FWIW shepherd is objectively the worst, but it doesn’t really matter; stat distribution is far more important than starting class.

 

[SharkClub]

If you don't have 30 strength straight out of character creation you are gimping yourself.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

reading advice on how to play a game before playing it is gimping yourself

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/ea...list-syndicate-and-ultima-underworld-from-gog

As I said last time, I wouldn't really recommend you go play any of these games. They are classics, historically significant, and I value their continued availability. I'd wager a lot of future game designers could still learn from them. But as a player, there's probably a hundred more modern and enjoyable games you haven't played which you should prioritise first. Me? I've still not got round to Dishonored 2. Keelhaul me immediately.

What a dick

He's a dick. Even funnier is the EA minion in the comments being belligerent to all the people who dare take umbridge with stopping people from buying games they like.

"security issues" my sweaty OAP arse. I really want to know how a game released two and a bit decades ago poses a security threat to modern EA. Is the hacker known as 4chan going to use UU to defraud EA of their hard earned sheckles? Is the big nosed money man of EA sitting. Rocking back and forth wondering when the sapient AI birthed from Lord British of Ultima Underworld will finally rise up and take control of EA's defense systems and nuclear arsenal?

Did the same idiot who unironically thought "surprise mechanics" was a great deflection in a fucking court room write this bollocks. I'm old and jaded. I shouldn't be this angry at this level of bullshit but here we are. The world finds ways to make me disgusted in all new ways at the folly of men.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

reading advice on how to play a game before playing it is gimping yourself

Reading advice on character customization / party composition in RPGs is a sensible idea, particularly for skill-based games such as The Stygian Abyss where several skills might be more or less completely useless (or simply not functioning properly) and others might be invaluable, but without any means for the player to determine this at character creation without consulting external information.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

reading advice on how to play a game before playing it is gimping yourself

Reading advice on character customization / party composition in RPGs is a sensible idea, particularly for skill-based games such as The Stygian Abyss where several skills might be more or less completely useless (or simply not functioning properly) and others might be invaluable, but without any means for the player to determine this at character creation without consulting external information.

Eh. Yes and no. Again, UU is a pretty easy game; even if you over-invest in one or two useless skills as long as you’re not really stupid and trying to make a completely pacifist build with no combat or magic ability, you’re probably going to be fine. Also the standard

Spoiler

just keep rerolling stats until you have 30 strength

advice you find on the internet kind of completely trivializes what difficulty there is.

UU1 is much more forgiving in this regard than, say, Realms of Arkania.

 

[Mortmal]

reading advice on how to play a game before playing it is gimping yourself

He's right as it may considerably hinder your enjoyment of the game . Back then there was absolutely no info and you had to discover everything by yourself . Trust the experts there, try it, and only come back after to disccuss it , that make the experience greater. It was an era full of creativty, profit was clearly not in everyone's mind, absolutely not designing for mainstream , most often really weird games to discover all by yourself with no handholding at all.

 

[Sinatar]

The only reason people recommend rolling 30 strength is for the carrying capacity, you have to lug a ton of shit around in the game, so the more carrying capacity you have, the less time you have to spend running back and forth to your junk pile.

 

[Inconceivable]

UU1 is much more forgiving in this regard than, say, Realms of Arkania.

Realms of Arkania... I forgot these games existed, even though I finished 1, 2 and 3 way back. I will have to replay them one of these days. They nail the feeling of being a fairly insignificant band of adventurers in a large, mysterious and perilous world. Not many RPG's manage to pull that off as effectively. Such epic adventures. The games were easy for me to get into, since I played the pen and paper version with my friends. It was the D&D of Germany.
I wonder if the newer games are any good.

Also love the Underworlds. Finished UU1, never finished UU2, despite enjoying it more. I'll have to get back to that too, one of these days.

 

[Cael]

UU1 is much more forgiving in this regard than, say, Realms of Arkania.

Realms of Arkania... I forgot these games existed, even though I finished 1, 2 and 3 way back. I will have to replay them one of these days. They nail the feeling of being a fairly insignificant band of adventurers in a large, mysterious and perilous world. Not many RPG's manage to pull that off as effectively. Such epic adventures. The games were easy for me to get into, since I played the pen and paper version with my friends. It was the D&D of Germany.
I wonder if the newer games are any good.

Also love the Underworlds. Finished UU1, never finished UU2, despite enjoying it more. I'll have to get back to that too, one of these days.

Shadows Over Riva's last 10% or so was rage inducing.

 

[Inconceivable]

UU1 is much more forgiving in this regard than, say, Realms of Arkania.

Realms of Arkania... I forgot these games existed, even though I finished 1, 2 and 3 way back. I will have to replay them one of these days. They nail the feeling of being a fairly insignificant band of adventurers in a large, mysterious and perilous world. Not many RPG's manage to pull that off as effectively. Such epic adventures. The games were easy for me to get into, since I played the pen and paper version with my friends. It was the D&D of Germany.
I wonder if the newer games are any good.

Also love the Underworlds. Finished UU1, never finished UU2, despite enjoying it more. I'll have to get back to that too, one of these days.

Shadows Over Riva's last 10% or so was rage inducing.

I hardly remember anything, except the quest when you are in some kind of manor, and the place is completely overrun by orks. It's just one battle after the other, and I just managed to complete the quest and get out, by the skin of my teeth. Maybe that was the ending?
And I remember spending a disproportionate amount of time in certain establishments...

 

[Cael]

UU1 is much more forgiving in this regard than, say, Realms of Arkania.

Realms of Arkania... I forgot these games existed, even though I finished 1, 2 and 3 way back. I will have to replay them one of these days. They nail the feeling of being a fairly insignificant band of adventurers in a large, mysterious and perilous world. Not many RPG's manage to pull that off as effectively. Such epic adventures. The games were easy for me to get into, since I played the pen and paper version with my friends. It was the D&D of Germany.
I wonder if the newer games are any good.

Also love the Underworlds. Finished UU1, never finished UU2, despite enjoying it more. I'll have to get back to that too, one of these days.

Shadows Over Riva's last 10% or so was rage inducing.

I hardly remember anything, except the quest when you are in some kind of manor, and the place is completely overrun by orks. It's just one battle after the other, and I just managed to complete the quest and get out, by the skin of my teeth. Maybe that was the ending?
And I remember spending a disproportionate amount of time in certain establishments...

No. That was the dwarven mines overrunned by orcs. You can do that right from the beginning.

The last one was...

Spoiler

...where you are shrunk to go into the insect nest, but your equipment was not shrunk with you. That's right, all your loot you have gathered over the entire game GONE! Just like that.

 

[Junmarko]

you mean the Unity remake?

2:34 / 24:25 / 52:18

Enemy/NPC A.I seems bugged, pathfinding & aggro specifically.

Last release was 2018.

 

[Inconceivable]

The last one was...

Spoiler

...where you are shrunk to go into the insect nest, but your equipment was not shrunk with you. That's right, all your loot you have gathered over the entire game GONE! Just like that.

Yeah, I can hazily remember. I guess that was the beast from the box art. Fortunately the mages can't lose their spells.
So much nostalgia... even though the game worlds were practically "empty" in the sense that you never encounter NPC's, and everything is conveyed via text, it worked surprisingly well. I can remember the eerie feeling of walking around Riva at night. I think at some point there's a vampire on the loose.
But overall, I think I enjoyed the second game "Star Trail" the most. It allowed you to explore a large area, without confining you to a single city, but with the improved graphics and mechanics than the first game.
But maybe I should stop fawning all over the Arkania games now and stop derailing this thread. =)

 

[vota DC]

I noticed that you get only 1 skill point for level up in uw2 while in uw1 level up seems slower. When you train you get something like 1-2 points while in uw1 you get more points from shrine and you can choose more training.

Also Is unarmed skill formula (for chance to hit and damage) different from other melee weapon skill formula?

 

[Cael]

I noticed that you get only 1 skill point for level up in uw2 while in uw1 level up seems slower. When you train you get something like 1-2 points while in uw1 you get more points from shrine and you can choose more training.

Also Is unarmed skill formula (for chance to hit and damage) different from other melee weapon skill formula?

UW2 has unlimited skill points. The XP counter keeps going up after you hit max level, and skill points gained are based off that. Technically, you can grind to max out all skills if you go crazy in the arena.

UW1 has limits. Once you hit max level, you stop gaining skill points.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

I have been playing through Underworld 1 and ran into the object limit error. Turns out the area with the goblins in level 2 had around 80 sling bullets laying around as a result of my earlier encounter with them.

 

[unseeingeye]

The last one was...

Spoiler

...where you are shrunk to go into the insect nest, but your equipment was not shrunk with you. That's right, all your loot you have gathered over the entire game GONE! Just like that.

Yeah, I can hazily remember. I guess that was the beast from the box art. Fortunately the mages can't lose their spells.
So much nostalgia... even though the game worlds were practically "empty" in the sense that you never encounter NPC's, and everything is conveyed via text, it worked surprisingly well. I can remember the eerie feeling of walking around Riva at night. I think at some point there's a vampire on the loose.
But overall, I think I enjoyed the second game "Star Trail" the most. It allowed you to explore a large area, without confining you to a single city, but with the improved graphics and mechanics than the first game.
But maybe I should stop fawning all over the Arkania games now and stop derailing this thread. =)

I just started playing the Realms of Arkania games, and regret very much that I did not know about them earlier. They are remarkable and absolutely gorgeous. I've also been replaying the Underworld games; I recently decided to try the mouselook patch and am going through from the beginning again. This is my first post, I'm so glad to see the enthusiasm for games like this and Wizardry &c is still going strong.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Underworld definitely has my favorite version of the Avatar because of the great writing and PC dialogue options. Even though you're the morally pure paragon of all virtue, you have so many asshole things to say. I like to imagine that the Avatar is so irritated by his situation that the rude dialogue options are what's popping into his head, and he has to restrain himself to pick the polite option.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

There was another reimagination of UW I saw the other day. It could be old so I'll tryto refind it.

 

[EruDaan]

Too bad that no multi-billion company / publisher / indie developer has the balls (or skillz) to do an first person RPG adventure like the both Underworlds.