[Ultima] In which I scream obscenities at Electronic Arts.

[Kelegacy]

J Arcane will duel me to the death because of his love of U6 (which I never got to play) but U7 is my favorite game of all time.

Most of today's RPGs can't match the features of the Ultima games of old IMO. Graphics are better today, yes, but I think RPGs overall have streamlined (or just ignored) so much of what made some of those oldies awesome.

[Banacek]

This makes me sad more then anything, since it reminds me that Ultima is dead.

[LongStepMantis]

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Yeah, I remember it. It was freaking bad ass. Hell, we were still playing it as a group years after it was released. Shaturday!

Just give me Ultima Online with updated graphics. I miss farming wood in my underwear with my grandmaster fisherman!

I have a confession to make. I was that guy who would PK your naked lumberjack and run off with all the shields he was making. Sorry about that.

[CappinCanuck]

Originally Posted by Ten19

Basically...


So basically: who cares? Let them masturbate with the Ultima brand. It's not worth getting fired up unless they actually try to make a real game with it.

+1. Plus, it's a browser-based game. That doesn't even count as a game in my books.

[Widgetcraft]

Originally Posted by Kelegacy

J Arcane will duel me to the death because of his love of U6 (which I never got to play) but U7 is my favorite game of all time.

Most of today's RPGs can't match the features of the Ultima games of old IMO. Graphics are better today, yes, but I think RPGs overall have streamlined (or just ignored) so much of what made some of those oldies awesome.

I loves me some U6. It was my first taste of the Ultima franchise, with the SNES version (which actually wasn't a bad port).

Originally Posted by Vermillion

Yeah, I remember it. It was freaking bad ass. Hell, we were still playing it as a group years after it was released. Shaturday!

Just give me Ultima Online with updated graphics. I miss farming wood in my underwear with my grandmaster fisherman!

Fuck updating the graphics. Every time they've tried to update the graphics in UO they've ended up killing a little bit of my soul. I just want every expansion beyond T2A stripped out of it entirely. Even private servers don't do that.

[SilentScreams]

Originally Posted by Heretic Machine

Fuck updating the graphics. Every time they've tried to update the graphics in UO they've ended up killing a little bit of my soul. I just want every expansion beyond T2A stripped out of it entirely. Even private servers don't do that.

QFT. I'd quit WoW and go back to Ultima Online tomorrow if they did that.

[nixpayn]

If you love U7, then you know Exult.

I think theres a port of it for winmo phones too

[Primus]

U8 and UO are some of my favorite games.

Factional PvP is for pansies!

[Nura]

*opens the can of gasolin*

So how about that asian Dungeon Keeper game that were supposed to come out to reboot that trademark huh?

*runs*

[LongStepMantis]

Originally Posted by Nura

*opens the can of gasolin*

So how about that asian Dungeon Keeper game that were supposed to come out to reboot that trademark huh?

*runs*

I recently played through Dungeon Keeper 2. That being said, those involved in this project can DIAF. Thank you.

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by nixpayn

If you love U7, then you know Exult.

I think theres a port of it for winmo phones too

Looks like there's unstable versions of 1.4 for WinMo2003 and 5.0, and a stable version of 1.2 for the Zaurus.

I did not know about the WinMo port, I might have to try that when mine gets here, or test it on the iPAQ I've got.

[Chris_D]

Exult worked well on my mac too. I remember having to create a separate boot disc to even get that game running under DOS 5.

[J Arcane]

Originally Posted by Chris_D

Exult worked well on my mac too. I remember having to create a separate boot disc to even get that game running under DOS 5.

The one downside to Exult I think, and it probably has something to do with my disillusionment with the game, is that while being able to play in higher resolutions was nice from a gameplay perspective, it also made it a lot more clear how much smaller the world was than the previous installment.

On the flipside though, I don't think I could've tolerated the combat at all if not for Exult adding a pause option.

[Chris_D]

Another thing, pretty obvious really. U7 is very mouse heavy in the interface and there are quite a few buttons that are quite tiny in terms of pixels. So, my track pad, which I'm completely used to for just about any non gaming application, was quite clumsy. Of course, plug in a proper mouse and you're good to go.
"Everybody dance now!"

[Banacek]

Yeah, Exult is pretty rough with the trackpad. I remember trying to play it on my laptop in classes. It was not fun.

[Felonous]

Ah, good old Ultima. On college break me and a friend would buy 6packs of beer and sit down to plow our way through them.

And then Ultima Online came out and I found I have a deep evil streak when it comes to online multiplayer. I abused every scam, cheat and bug that came along.

Being in stealth mode at the castle NPC deed merchant and pick pocketing the deed from the people right after buying their castle that took them months to save up for. Stacking tables until I could walk into locked player castles and steal everthing inside. Using the teleport runes and bags of flour to teleport through the doors of castles and again steal everything inside.

One of the funnier ones was to use teleport runes and a pen made out of floor bags. Goto the bottom of the nastiest dungeon and lure Lich Lords monsters into the teleport portal so that I could trap dozens of them in a pen near my castle. Then finding the busiest newbie area and opening a portal between my pen of death and the newbie area, move one of the bags and watch the dozens of Lich Lords stream through to newbie land. The cries, oh the cries, I hear them still!

[SilentScreams]

Heh, I used to love portaling people into the crazy Ratman Archer room in the Ice Dungeon. The second they teleported in it was just instant death, then I could stealth in and loot them at my leisure.
I also enjoyed stealing people's bandages, cure potions and cure reagents then slowly poisoning them to death, all the while telling them that all I would leave on their corpse was a recall rune that would take them to a vendor where they could buy all their gear back from me.

I miss good old UO.

[destoo]

Originally Posted by Kelegacy

Wasn't Irrational once Looking Glass studios, or a part of them was? Maybe they could do it.

Yup. "Employees trickled down to studios such as Ion Storm Inc. and 2K Boston where their influences are still visible in the Deux Ex franchise, and BioShock, the spiritual successor to System Shock 2." --mobygames, re:looking glass.

Just get Warren Spector and Ken Levine back together. I'm sure it will be a force strong enough to attract Richard Garriott.

[Kelegacy]

Anyone ever played the Ultima spin-offs, like Martian something and Savage whatever? On Mars and on in a primitive place respectively. Those, I think, were based off the U6 engine and interface. I've heard they were pretty good.

I would have no trouble going back to playing some of the old Ultimas, but I have a feeling they don't hold up well, at least anything before 6. I tried 6 a few years back on an emulator but it seemed broken and I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. I think it started on an old save instead of at the beginning of the game, I don't know. I was lost.

U7 is still extremely accessible today, probably the most playable in the entire series. U8 felt broken with the platforming shit even when it was released (very clunky) and U9 was infamous for countless bugs. The Underworld games were awesome, but I tried to replay them a few years back and the window they were played in was extremely small. So much that it was hard to see what I was doing.

I tried getting into U9 as well, but didn't get too far. This was before any patches. I've heard it can still be tons of fun, but can anyone vouch for it...and are their patches available to make it more playable?

U7 will always be a game I go back to every couple years. The music alone gets me every time. Great fucking score. Memorable--takes me back to when I first played the games, years after their release in a U7 Complete package form, the summer of 1995.

I always thought the audio in a game wasn't very important to me, especially today, but when I play the oldies like Monkey Island and U7, I am transported back in time. So I never realized how much a game's score can have an impact on me.

[Chris_D]

U6 I didn't even like the first time I tried it, just because of the interface. If I recall correctly, the interface was pretty mouse heavy and seemed to be clunky. I did play it around the same time as U7 though. However, I also played U5 at that time and found it a lot more playable, with it's simple keyboard interface and lack of icons.

If I had to list them off it would be something like U7,U5/U4,Underworld,Savage Empire. Never played 1-3, or 9. 8 just didn't feel like Ultima to me.