I've been waxing rather nostalgic for these games of long ago, in particular Ultima VII, my absolute favorite of the series. I remember my father had to fiddle with his PC for several days before the whole "Voodoo" memory system thing to work.
Anyone else play these back in the day?
LOVE the Ultima series. I obsessed over Ultima VII: The Serpent Isle so much I skipped school to play it. Who needs algebra, I need to re-unite the cosmic serpents! :D I loved the reagent-gathering and the serpent gates. So cool. :)
I learned so g@%@+@ned much about computers figuring out how to fit VOODOO into UMB and all that silly jazz. :D
U7 was the pinnacle of the series and Serpent Isle was indeed too cool for words. I replayed it 2 years ago using the new Exult engine and it had lost none of its charm. It's still one of the most interactive and original RPGs ever made. Today's games should take a lesson or three from its design principles, story coherency, NPC interaction and excellent mix of exploratory and narrative sequences.
I replayed it 2 years ago using the new Exult engine and it had lost none of its charm. It's still one of the most interactive and original RPGs ever made. Today's games should take a lesson or three from its design principles, story coherency, NPC interaction and excellent mix of exploratory and narrative sequences.
What he said. I've always looked to that game as what I should be doing as a GM - making NPCs interesting, even if the players never interact with them, make a coherent story that's interesting, always having "something" going on, even if the PCs never see 90% of it.
One of my favorite things about Ultima was the moral choices that you had to make, and that being a person of good character was often more important than being powerful.
One memory from Ultima VII I will always carry with me is discovering the secret cave on Buccaneer's Den where the Fellowship tortures those that fall into their hands, and discovering the perfectly friendly, stupid troll that worked there and didn't realize that what it was doing was evil. I remember feeling bad after slaying it with my party, even though it was sadistically torturing people.
After all: it never attacked me.
Also love the references to Electronic Arts that I never got until years later. Man, I want to play this thing again.
I played Ultima 1-3 on my Apple 2E way back in the day. I miss that green monitor.
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Count me in as an Ultima addict.
Ultima 6 - Fond memories of "Spam, Spam, Spam, Humbug", and having to type out all of your actions.
Ultima VII - Agreed to all those who cited learning about computers (especially DOS and configuring batch files) from that game. It was buggy as all get out, but I loved it. A bit of my anti-social side took glee in being able to attack every NPC and monster in the entire world. Once you got the magic carpet, you were flying! "My Lord, may I suggest you get a mouse?"
I still name D&D characters after my Avatars from U7.
Ultima VII:SI - I didn't think they could improve on U7, but this at least matched it, and had a richer plot. I don't think I have ever been as emotional with a computer game as I was when Dupre sacrificed himself. Text-based emotion? Eat that, FFX! Also, taking down Batlin was priceless.
Ultima VIII - Found it difficult to get into the story, and some of the commands were wonky. It took me about 2 years to figure out how to jump, which sucked because the first story quest involves jumping on hot lava.
Ultima IX - A bit of a return to the dungeon-crawling escapades of earlier Ultima entries, but the graphics were decent (but didn't work on my PC at the time, so I had to wait until 2 years ago to actually play it). Like most Ultima games, full of bugs. A bit unsatisfactory conclusion to the series, as Richard Garriott let a bit of his own personal morality seep into the game.
Ultima Online - Tried it when it arrived, and so far the only MMORPG I have ever played. If I didn't enjoy Ultima online, goes to figure any other entry would pale in comparison to my favorite CRPG.
I also have to shout out the music in Ultima. Some of the catchiest themes ever written for games, and very medieval in feel.
Someday I will have a D&D game that will have teleportation storms in it. Oh yes. Someday.
Sadly, I never played Ultima 8 or 9, because neither would run on my computer at the time, but I think I got the gist from various summaries online. 1 and 2 were before my time, and 5 I never played for some reason... Too late now I guess.
I'd love to see this series redone right. Maybe even made into a book or movie?
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Sadly, I never played Ultima 8 or 9, because neither would run on my computer at the time, but I think I got the gist from various summaries online. 1 and 2 were before my time, and 5 I never played for some reason... Too late now I guess.
I'd love to see this series redone right. Maybe even made into a book or movie?
You can find the Ultima Collection somewhere. It has 1-8. From experience, 1-5 run fine on most PCs. 6 and 7 have some problems with chip clocking speed, so I haven't been bothered to tinker with them.
I've got a mac... Anything you can do for me?
I've got a mac... Anything you can do for me?
You're in luck! Exult works on pretty much every OS including Macs and handles all the muckety-muck with memory, clock speeds and whatnot. It's actually a complete C++ rebuild of the engine, re-using just the graphics. You can play Ultima 7 in 1920x1200 resolution, even.
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I've got a mac... Anything you can do for me?You're in luck! Exult works on pretty much every OS including Macs and handles all the muckety-muck with memory, clock speeds and whatnot. It's actually a complete C++ rebuild of the engine, re-using just the graphics. You can play Ultima 7 in 1920x1200 resolution, even.
Awesome, thanks for the pointer!