5 ms·

I loved Ultima IV. I think I still have the original cloth map and ankh somewhere. I believe it came with 5 1/4" floppys for the C64. You have to remember that

by ascotan 12y ago

I loved Ultima IV. I think I still have the original cloth map and ankh somewhere. I believe it came with 5 1/4" floppys for the C64. You have to remember that at the time, that there were really 3 game media back then. A) board games like DnD, B) the 8-bit Nintendo/Gameboy and C) the PC. The Nintendo was cool and fast paced and was great to play with your friends, but the PC had all the adventure games. Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Bard's Tale II, Zork, etc. PC Adventure games were all MUCH more involved that today's stuff. All the DnD games had decoder wheels and 500 page journals. You were expected to play it slow, read the journal entries, and immerse youself in the game. The closest thing I can think of today that comes close is Skyrim. Most PC games today are built for kids with ADHD that aren't going to sit down long enough to use a decoder wheel. Heck, how many people actually read the quest text in world of warcraft? Ultima IV actually had pretty good graphics for the time. The UI layout was really great. Most of the other games of the time were based on the old "wolfenstein maze" view of a game. Having an top down map was quite innovative. There was a lot of 'searching' in Ultima IV. You had to find party members, you had to find secret doors. You had to find hidden items. You had to run around do /say job, /say name, /say health, /say quest.. to every npc in the game to see if they'd tell you something. Anyway loved the game, but it was built for a different time.

danielweber 12y ago
I'm going through all the Ultimas now. (Currently on U5 but I've been busy for a few weeks.) The sense of world-building is the series is fascinating. With a minimal amount of space a wide world was developed and it feels to persist a lot more than in any modern game, where a bunch of spaz happens and then the game is over. I'm not sure if having to write down notes in a notebook is something beneficial to game play, or just a limitation we had to live with. In a modern game you don't have to remember shit. If Joe tells you to ask Bob, you get a Quest Item reminding you to see Bob, and Bob has an exclamation point over his head to remind you to go to him. (About the article: it bugs me when people alphabetize the virtues instead of the proper order of HCVJSHSH. ;> )
- rstupek 12y ago
  Where did you get your copies of the games?
  - unspecified 12y ago
    Ultima 4+5+6 is on gog.com for $6: http://www.gog.com/game/ultima_456 http://www.gog.com/game/ultima_456 Windows and OSX, how about that? edit: Just 4 by itself is free! http://www.gog.com/game/ultima_4 http://www.gog.com/game/ultima_4
    - danielweber 12y ago
      GOG periodically has sales for the entire Ultima milieu in one big bunch.
- mratzloff 12y ago
  > I'm going through all the Ultimas now. Same here! I've loved the series since I was younger. GOG.com is the best place to get them online, and even though I own physical copies I've purchased most of them from there. One caveat: for the earlier Ultimas, I highly recommend going through the pain of installing fan-made patches that add the Apple II music to many of the DOS versions, upgrade the graphics to VGA, fix bugs, and so on: http://ultimacodex.com/2012/04/patches-updates-for-the-gog-com-ultima-releases-2/ http://ultimacodex.com/2012/04/patches-updates-for-the-gog-c... With the MIDI patches, I'm able to play music for the early Ultimas through my Roland MT-32. :-) You should also take a look at the xu4 project (open source game engine using the original resources: http://xu4.sourceforge.net http://xu4.sourceforge.net) and LairWare's Mac-only version of Ultima III (http://www.lairware.com/ultima3/ http://www.lairware.com/ultima3/). Responding to the article in particular, as much as Ultima VIII is reviled for its gameplay, I do enjoy the idea of turning the idea of virtue on its head: how do you continue as the Avatar (meaning, the literal embodiment of virtue) in a world where you have to do bad things for good reasons?
- PythonicAlpha 12y ago
  Yes, not only space, but also limited hardware. U5 was the last Ultima that still ran on 64kb of memory -- of course with several floppy discs to swap (a second floppy drive was a big advantage for that game) -- I think, there where 6 or 8 of them, but you had to swap mainly two (overworld and town disc). It was the genius of that time, that a game of that size could fit into such limited hardware (64kB RAM, no HDD, only Floppy drives with 180kB size limit, <1MHz clock with unbelievable slow 8bit processor (I guess, today they sell such stuff as a smartcard "SOC" -- but of course with out the Floppy drive -- even the processors on SD-Cards are faster today, I guess) [Specs from the C64 version, but there existed versions at least also for Apple II with similar specs (It could even be, that it ran on Apple II with only 48kB) -- and (later?) of course for IBM PC]. U4 was technically similar to U5 (also several discs to swap and a big world on limited RAM), U5 did just drove the concept to the technical (and swapping-endurance-) limits. I think, they doubled the disc number (and so the content, I think 4->8 discs), improved the combat system (I liked the U5 combat system the most from all Ultimas I know) and made a new story, that showed the other side of "righteous" living. Even, when I never found the time, to finish U5, for me it is still the best of all time.
peterevans 12y ago
> There was a lot of 'searching' in Ultima IV. You had to find party members, you had to find secret doors. You had to find hidden items. No kidding. One of the party members, Geoffrey (who was a fighter and represented the virtue of Valor) is behind a locked door in a game where it's not entirely easy to buy keys to said doors. My father, brother and I had the hardest time of finding the shepherd companion (Katrina). I think in the end we solved the problem by starting the game as a shepherd, which is basically "hard mode" as you have the weakest starting position (level 1 out of 8, whereas other starting characters begin at level 2 or 3), you can never use magic, and you start off on a small island near a ruined city. Much later on, we found the damn shepherd, south of the starting point in said ruined city, entirely off of any road there.
- danielweber 12y ago
  Using Katrina is definitely "hard mode." Her best weapon long-range weapon is the sling. And you need to get her up to level 8 to complete the game. My friend and I had noticed we hadn't found her, so I decided to do a four-corner search of the town, and she turned up very quicklu. To be fair, I had been trained by Ultima III that there were often cool -- but not necessarily required for game completion -- things hiding the corners.
wonderzombie 12y ago
I'm torn as to whether I agree. If there's one thing I appreciate about modern games -- games within the last 10 or so years -- is that they respect my time. There's a lot we could unpack here, so I'll just be brief. Ish. While it might have been awesome at the time (I loved Ultima IV) I'm not a kid anymore. I don't have summer vacation. I also don't have ADHD. What I do have is an hour a day to play a game before bed, so that game damn well better make it worth my while. Besides, the consistent popularity of MMOs and particularly MOBAs belies the whole idea of ADHD as driving factor. Both reward a large investment of time & mastery. And both are practically PC-only.
samspot 12y ago
> Most PC games today are built for kids with ADHD that aren't going to sit down long enough to use a decoder wheel. Heck, how many people actually read the quest text in world of warcraft? I find this ironic, as when I was a little kid I had the time and patience to use a decoder wheel. As an adult it doesn't seem as fun or interesting.
- PhasmaFelis 12y ago
  The decoder wheels were never fun. They weren't supposed to be fun. They were copy protection. Some games liked to dress them up with thematically-appropriate text and images, which was nice, but it was still just a tiresome chore you had to deal with before playing the game.

by ascotan 12y ago

danielweber 12y ago

I'm going through all the Ultimas now. (Currently on U5 but I've been busy for a few weeks.) The sense of world-building is the series is fascinating. With a minimal amount of space a wide world was developed and it feels to persist a lot more than in any modern game, where a bunch of spaz happens and then the game is over. I'm not sure if having to write down notes in a notebook is something beneficial to game play, or just a limitation we had to live with. In a modern game you don't have to remember shit. If Joe tells you to ask Bob, you get a Quest Item reminding you to see Bob, and Bob has an exclamation point over his head to remind you to go to him. (About the article: it bugs me when people alphabetize the virtues instead of the proper order of HCVJSHSH. ;> )

rstupek 12y ago
Where did you get your copies of the games?
- unspecified 12y ago
  Ultima 4+5+6 is on gog.com for $6: http://www.gog.com/game/ultima_456 http://www.gog.com/game/ultima_456 Windows and OSX, how about that? edit: Just 4 by itself is free! http://www.gog.com/game/ultima_4 http://www.gog.com/game/ultima_4
  - danielweber 12y ago
    GOG periodically has sales for the entire Ultima milieu in one big bunch.
mratzloff 12y ago
> I'm going through all the Ultimas now. Same here! I've loved the series since I was younger. GOG.com is the best place to get them online, and even though I own physical copies I've purchased most of them from there. One caveat: for the earlier Ultimas, I highly recommend going through the pain of installing fan-made patches that add the Apple II music to many of the DOS versions, upgrade the graphics to VGA, fix bugs, and so on: http://ultimacodex.com/2012/04/patches-updates-for-the-gog-com-ultima-releases-2/ http://ultimacodex.com/2012/04/patches-updates-for-the-gog-c... With the MIDI patches, I'm able to play music for the early Ultimas through my Roland MT-32. :-) You should also take a look at the xu4 project (open source game engine using the original resources: http://xu4.sourceforge.net http://xu4.sourceforge.net) and LairWare's Mac-only version of Ultima III (http://www.lairware.com/ultima3/ http://www.lairware.com/ultima3/). Responding to the article in particular, as much as Ultima VIII is reviled for its gameplay, I do enjoy the idea of turning the idea of virtue on its head: how do you continue as the Avatar (meaning, the literal embodiment of virtue) in a world where you have to do bad things for good reasons?
PythonicAlpha 12y ago
Yes, not only space, but also limited hardware. U5 was the last Ultima that still ran on 64kb of memory -- of course with several floppy discs to swap (a second floppy drive was a big advantage for that game) -- I think, there where 6 or 8 of them, but you had to swap mainly two (overworld and town disc). It was the genius of that time, that a game of that size could fit into such limited hardware (64kB RAM, no HDD, only Floppy drives with 180kB size limit, <1MHz clock with unbelievable slow 8bit processor (I guess, today they sell such stuff as a smartcard "SOC" -- but of course with out the Floppy drive -- even the processors on SD-Cards are faster today, I guess) [Specs from the C64 version, but there existed versions at least also for Apple II with similar specs (It could even be, that it ran on Apple II with only 48kB) -- and (later?) of course for IBM PC]. U4 was technically similar to U5 (also several discs to swap and a big world on limited RAM), U5 did just drove the concept to the technical (and swapping-endurance-) limits. I think, they doubled the disc number (and so the content, I think 4->8 discs), improved the combat system (I liked the U5 combat system the most from all Ultimas I know) and made a new story, that showed the other side of "righteous" living. Even, when I never found the time, to finish U5, for me it is still the best of all time.

peterevans 12y ago

> There was a lot of 'searching' in Ultima IV. You had to find party members, you had to find secret doors. You had to find hidden items. No kidding. One of the party members, Geoffrey (who was a fighter and represented the virtue of Valor) is behind a locked door in a game where it's not entirely easy to buy keys to said doors. My father, brother and I had the hardest time of finding the shepherd companion (Katrina). I think in the end we solved the problem by starting the game as a shepherd, which is basically "hard mode" as you have the weakest starting position (level 1 out of 8, whereas other starting characters begin at level 2 or 3), you can never use magic, and you start off on a small island near a ruined city. Much later on, we found the damn shepherd, south of the starting point in said ruined city, entirely off of any road there.

danielweber 12y ago
Using Katrina is definitely "hard mode." Her best weapon long-range weapon is the sling. And you need to get her up to level 8 to complete the game. My friend and I had noticed we hadn't found her, so I decided to do a four-corner search of the town, and she turned up very quicklu. To be fair, I had been trained by Ultima III that there were often cool -- but not necessarily required for game completion -- things hiding the corners.

wonderzombie 12y ago

I'm torn as to whether I agree. If there's one thing I appreciate about modern games -- games within the last 10 or so years -- is that they respect my time. There's a lot we could unpack here, so I'll just be brief. Ish. While it might have been awesome at the time (I loved Ultima IV) I'm not a kid anymore. I don't have summer vacation. I also don't have ADHD. What I do have is an hour a day to play a game before bed, so that game damn well better make it worth my while. Besides, the consistent popularity of MMOs and particularly MOBAs belies the whole idea of ADHD as driving factor. Both reward a large investment of time & mastery. And both are practically PC-only.

samspot 12y ago

> Most PC games today are built for kids with ADHD that aren't going to sit down long enough to use a decoder wheel. Heck, how many people actually read the quest text in world of warcraft? I find this ironic, as when I was a little kid I had the time and patience to use a decoder wheel. As an adult it doesn't seem as fun or interesting.

PhasmaFelis 12y ago
The decoder wheels were never fun. They weren't supposed to be fun. They were copy protection. Some games liked to dress them up with thematically-appropriate text and images, which was nice, but it was still just a tiresome chore you had to deal with before playing the game.