Origin - Museum

woges

SasqWatch
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EA Mythic have been busy sorting out some inspiration from some old Origin material, including some great Ultima artwork they now have up on their walls. Alec Meer article here, and the site artfulgamer.com piece here, with photographs here.
More information.
 
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A news post with the Origin logo.

Wow.
 
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Make me sad when someone name games like ultima :(
________
Sc2 replays
 
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I'm sure we won't be making too many people sad with the amount of news we'll be posting about Origin. I just thought a few people maybe interested in this, especially as they said that they would try and make some of this public. I'm not sure about the RTS with robot dinosaurs (probably inspired by Zoids?) but you never know.

I just edited the news post with some info on what they found so far and the Museum website url that I didn't notice before.
 
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Very cool! I hope the unreleased draft of Ultima IX is the 3-D iso one that they got halfway done with then scraped!

Man I wish there had been a Privateer 3, P2 is one of my favorite all-time games.

I'd be interested to see also if they have the work that was done on Worlds of Ultima: Arthurian Legends.
 
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Make me sad when someone name games like ultima :(

I'm confused by this statement....are you sad they named it ultima, or that they are all basically gone now. I would give my left nut for another in teh style of U7 with modern tech....Origin can be thanked for the advancement of all g ames in general. They were always known for pushing the boundries, just look at their games and the other games released in their time.

Sad, I hate getting reminded we lost one of the best computer game companies to the EA monster. If EA had halfa brain they would bring back Ultima.
 
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Unfortunately, it would probably end up like Ultima IX if they did.
 
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I'm confused by this statement?.are you sad they named it ultima, or that they are all basically gone now. I would give my left nut for another in teh style of U7 with modern tech?.Origin can be thanked for the advancement of all g ames in general. They were always known for pushing the boundries, just look at their games and the other games released in their time.

Sad, I hate getting reminded we lost one of the best computer game companies to the EA monster. If EA had halfa brain they would bring back Ultima.

Because they are all basically gone now?

With the technology right now, and the right people on the project, it will not be hard to make a awesome ultima game :(.
________
DIGITAL VAPORIZERS
 
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Yeah, check out the U6 Project!! :)
 
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I really hope the Ultima IX material can see the light of day (online). I'm also very curious about anything Arthurian Legends related as well.

Maybe the UVII source code is in there some where...? I can dream right?
 
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What do you need that for? We have Exult! :D

No offense to the hard work of the Exult crew, but no thanks. ;) The Exult engine is a reversed-engineered approximated re-creation of the UVII code base, at best. Since it's largely a work-in-progress, there are many inaccuracies and errors as well - understandably.

In my small opinion, they take too many liberties with the game and its presentation for this purist's taste. I prefer DOSBox over Exult, personally.

DOSBox @ ~6600 cycles + external MT-32 module = UVII bliss :D

If the original source code was available however, it might be possible to properly graft in official fixes and technical updates that Serpent Isle benefitted from, such as the talk and feed buttons, the keyring and the crucial frame limiter for high-speed computers.
 
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I always heard it didn't play well in DosBox. I think my favorite thing about Exult is the scaling features. Trying to play the game at the native 320x240 is REALLY painful.
 
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I always heard it didn't play well in DosBox. I think my favorite thing about Exult is the scaling features. Trying to play the game at the native 320x240 is REALLY painful.

Well, having played the original extensively when it was out, and both DOSBox and Exult versions side-by-side, I feel I can safely say that DOSBox is a far more accurate experience that Exult. There are a few tiny differences that I've noticed from the originals using DOSBox, but they're largely cosmetic - especially by comparison to Exult's discrepancies (combat and AI, for starters.)

The only one that springs to mind is the rendering of the static during the introduction sequence is visually off from the originals. Otherwise, the game is as close to 100% as I've seen outside of a native DOS environment.

Personally, I dislike the blurred scalers and higher resolutions in Exult (where more of the world is visible than originally intended). With DOSBox, you're not limited to 320x200 - you can play in full screen, or use one of the non-blurred upscalers.

I prefer to play the game windowed, in normal3x mode, where each pixel of the original game is simply cubed. This makes the final result crisp and clear like the original, but at a resolution of 960x600.
 
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A news with the Origin logo... havent seen that for ages. It remains one of the greatest gaming history tragedies that their lineage died, and one of the unforgivable sins of EA that they disbanded Origin and the Ultima world.

But we see a Fallout 3, who would have thought. Maybe we will see a proper Ultima X someday. One can dream, right? ;)
 
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Personally, I dislike the blurred scalers and higher resolutions in Exult (where more of the world is visible than originally intended). With DOSBox, you're not limited to 320x200 - you can play in full screen, or use one of the non-blurred upscalers.

Hmm, I always thought the scalers in Exult looked very clear. I may have to try the dosbox scalers and see the difference! I knew you could use full screen in dos box, but with a 19in monitor, it looks pretty bad! I always try to set my scaling in Exult such that it doesn't show any more space (Like scale it 2x then run it at 640x480)

I prefer to play the game windowed, in normal3x mode, where each pixel of the original game is simply cubed. This makes the final result crisp and clear like the original, but at a resolution of 960x600.

I'll have to give that a shot! Any particular scaler you would recommend?
 
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But we see a Fallout 3, who would have thought. Maybe we will see a proper Ultima X someday. One can dream, right? ;)

EA has a secret game project called "redlime" in works. They said its a classic franchise that they are bringing back:

EA Partners to Publish Upcoming Title for PLAYSTATION 3, Xbox 360 and PC
London, UK - February 21, 2008 – EA Partners today announced that it has teamed up with Starbreeze Studios, the award-winning developers of The Darkness and The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay to reinvent one of EA’s most acclaimed classic franchises. The title, with the internal code name Project RedLime, is being developed for the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system, Xbox 360™ system from Microsoft and PC.

“EA Partners is thrilled to hand over the keys to one of EA’s most acclaimed franchises to Starbreeze Studios,” said David DeMartini, vice president and general manager of EA Partners. “Starbreeze’s pedigree is undisputed and we could not be happier to welcome them to the EA Partners family. The team is creating an incredibly innovative take on a classic property and EA Partners is poised to deliver a blockbuster launch on the global stage.”

“EA Partners gives independent developers like Starbreeze access to EA’s unrivaled global publishing infrastructure, letting us focus our energy on what we do best – making incredible games,” said Johan Kristiansson, CEO of Starbreeze Studios. “We’re already deep in development on Project RedLime and the team at EA is giving us the time we need to perfect our vision. We’re excited to bring a new perspective and gameplay innovation to this beloved fiction.”

Additional information about the Starbreeze project will follow in the coming months. For more information about other EA games, please visit http://info.ea.com.

In wing commander cic they made kept taps on the project:
Q: You're working with Electronic Arts on a top secret title. How's that coming along?

Johan Kristiansson: It's going very well. We started working with them last autumn and in February we announced we were working together on Project RedLime. It's a classic EA franchise that we're trying to reinvent and it's great working with EA. They're quite a powerful machine that we're able to tap into, it feels really good.

Q: What are you learning from EA, what are you hoping will help the studio grow for the future?

Johan Kristiansson: A lot of it has to do with how we present our concepts about our game to the market. Definitely, on the marketing side we are impressed by how they think and the long-term planning in terms of marketing the game. One of the biggest challenges is getting the sell-in. If we can pull that off then we feel pretty confident that we can also manage to sell to consumers. Also in terms of production, we're working a lot with agile developments, scrum methodologies and such. They're very open to new kinds of production philosophies and that's been a very good step for us to move in that direction.

Q: Do you feel a pressure to satisfy the fans and the legacy of this classic EA franchise?

Johan Kristiansson: Yes, it's always a trade-off when you work on a classic property in how much you should be true to the original and how much you should reinvent or create something new. It's a pretty tough trade-off and something we're discussing here everyday.

Q: When are we going to hear more about this project - when can we expect an official clarification of what the game is, exactly?

Johan Kristiansson: I'm not sure about that. We've not really decided on when to go public with that yet.
What franchise do you think Project RedLime will belong to?
Crusader 9.61% [134 votes.]
CyberMage 0.72% [10 votes.]
Dungeon Keeper 3.23% [45 votes.]
Populous 1.36% [19 votes.]
Road Rash 3.23% [45 votes.]
Syndicate 4.45% [62 votes.]
System Shock 11.69% [163 votes.]
Ultima 5.88% [82 votes.]
Wing Commander 55.95% [780 votes.]
Other 3.87% [54 votes.]

I voted road rash hoping to be unlucky.
 
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Interesting. I'd love an Ultima, but honestly, I think they'd really mess it up if it was going to be cross platform. If done right, a nice Wing Commander or Privateer could work well cross platform.
 
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Ultima? Isn't that just a spell in the Final Fantasy games? No! Just kidding! Please put down the autoexec bat, I promise I'll be good! ;)

I would very much like to see a new Privateer, largely because I missed the first two. I've seen a few games try to pull off the "space trucker" gameplay but I have yet to see one do a very good job of it.
 
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