So after years of saying I'll get to it someday, I've decided to finally give Ultima Underworld a real try. Do any of you lovely people have any tips or general advice? Any particular classes/skills to avoid, that sort of thing?
Starting Ultima Underworld
- Thread starter Menigal
- Start date
PetrusOctavianus
Retro Gamer
Has this got anything to do with it being 20 years since it was released, and being the featured article on Wikipedia yesterday?
EDIT: Duh, I guess I should have looked at the other threads first.
It's been too long since I asked it to give detailed advice, but I think STR was the most important stat since things could get rather frustrating with low carrying capacity.
Lore skills was also an important skill, IIRC.
Fnord
SasqWatch
I've not finished the game, so take this with a grain of salt.
You want to be able to cast magic during the course of the game, so if you intend to play as a brawler, play as a Paladin, not a warrior. Shepherds are, to my knowledge, the worst class in the game.
Charm is not a skill worth raising. Not is Appraise
Make sure that you have no active light sources (torches and such) with you when going to sleep. They will continuously drain while your character is asleep.
When bashing in doors, unequip your weapon, so that you don't ruin it.
You want to be able to cast magic during the course of the game, so if you intend to play as a brawler, play as a Paladin, not a warrior. Shepherds are, to my knowledge, the worst class in the game.
Charm is not a skill worth raising. Not is Appraise
Make sure that you have no active light sources (torches and such) with you when going to sleep. They will continuously drain while your character is asleep.
When bashing in doors, unequip your weapon, so that you don't ruin it.
GuybrushWilco
Pirate Janitor
I played this game years ago and I quite enjoyed it. I should track it down again 
Fnord
SasqWatch
I played this game years ago and I quite enjoyed it. I should track it down again
That is easy enough
http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/ultima_underworld_1_2
Mmm, wow - your first time? I envy you. I've beaten the first game twice, but the sequel only the once, but it's been a few years now. *beams of nostalgia*.
Pick up as much as you can and use rooms for storage of items throughout the dungeon. Keep notes on the fantastic automap. Be prepared to pixel hunt a bit.
If you're going to play a melee character, decide on what weapon skill you'd like to focus on early. Then any other weapons of different types (swords/maces/axes) you find can be used for bashing things like doors and chests without worry of damaging your main weapon.
Talk to everyone you meet, as you'll find lots of great clues and humour - (take both clans of goblins for instance) Also make note of where they are on your map so you can come back if needed.
Keep an eye out for runes and pop them into your bag. As soon as you have those required for Create Food (check your manual) you can afford to not carry as much of it/store more. You can also rely on many plants to survive.
Be vigilant and organised with your inventory - you'll get to know it very well!
Some more handy hints as well as being a good go to place should you get stuck: http://www.sircabirus.com/uw1walk/pages/uwwalkgeneral.html
Have fun! Enjoy your wanderings throughout the Stygian Abyss.
I've beaten the first game twice, but the sequel only the once, but it's been a few years now. *beams of nostalgia*. Pick up as much as you can and use rooms for storage of items throughout the dungeon. Keep notes on the fantastic automap. Be prepared to pixel hunt a bit.
If you're going to play a melee character, decide on what weapon skill you'd like to focus on early. Then any other weapons of different types (swords/maces/axes) you find can be used for bashing things like doors and chests without worry of damaging your main weapon.
Talk to everyone you meet, as you'll find lots of great clues and humour - (take both clans of goblins for instance) Also make note of where they are on your map so you can come back if needed.
Keep an eye out for runes and pop them into your bag. As soon as you have those required for Create Food (check your manual) you can afford to not carry as much of it/store more. You can also rely on many plants to survive.
Be vigilant and organised with your inventory - you'll get to know it very well!
Some more handy hints as well as being a good go to place should you get stuck: http://www.sircabirus.com/uw1walk/pages/uwwalkgeneral.html
Have fun! Enjoy your wanderings throughout the Stygian Abyss.
Thrasher
Wheeee!
Let us know how it goes, Menigal. I may be in your shoes shortly, as I've never played UU either.
A bit late, but I'll add a few tips.
When creating a character (this is probably too late for you now, but anyhoo) Strenght is very important, even for a mage, as it determines your carrying capacity and, trust me, you'll need every ounce of it. If you want to wear heavier armor, you will need to have STR over 20 (for plate armor, I'd recommend STR 24ish) to be able to wear it and haul some loot with you. Sure, you can drop items and create ad hoc warehouses for yourself wherever you want, but eventually it will get tiresome to run between levels to get that one item you need, that you don't have on you right now.
If you play a mage, you will need good Intelligence to up your mana pool (which powers spells) and base Casting skill. However, you can improve your mana in-game, so INT is not as crucial early on as good STR, in my opinion. YMMV, depending on your character build. Be that as it may, a good INT is required for any character wanting to cast lots of spells and/or higher circle spells as the higher circle ones cost quite a lot of mana (3 x Circle, IIRC).
Contrary to most games, in UU I've had DEX be my "dump stat" as I honestly didn't find it that useful.
Keep in mind, that you cannot improve attributes during the game, so be sure you're happy with them before venturing further into the game.
As to skills, I found that (sadly) most of them are pretty useless. As is obvious, Attack and Defence are of course important, as is a weapon skill (pick one and stick with it). If you want to sling spells, Casting and Mana are important, but you can get by surprisingly well with high INT and only some Casting on the early levels. Besides, you cannot cast spells higher than half your level (or something, can't remember now) anyhow and you're limited by the rune stones you can find, so focussing on Casting before the 3rd dungeon level is a bit of an overkill, IMO. (Again, YMMV on your character build. I've never played a pure mage in UU1.)
Lore skill is useful for identifying magical items and potions, however, some items require really high skill to identify (22+), so it might be good not to go overboard with this and rely on identifying spells for those (Caveat: Identify is a 5th circle spell, so that's a problem for fighters etc.; there are few identifying scrolls around, though). Of course you can just cheat by abusing saving and use whatever you find unidentified, find out its effects and reload. This won't work for magic weapons and armor, though. Search is also good to have a bit, to help you find secret doors. Last but not least, a few levels of Acrobat and Swimming will help you out some, but are not really required. I never did find any good use for the other skills. Missile weapons might be OK, but I found them cumbersome to use and ammo scarce (except sling stones). Repair might be OK, but it needs an anvil to perform and there aren't many of those around, plus you'll find someone who repairs items for you for a modest fee pretty early on (and gives you something to spend your gold on, don't forget to tip him).
This I've talked about before, so sorry for the repeat - remember to NEVER EVER nest containers, i.e. put a container inside a container. THis has been reported as one of the likely reasons for the infamous inventory bug (even with the patched version). I've have had the bug stike me, even when I was not nesting containers, so I'm not sure how accurate that cause is, but it pays to play it safe nevertheless. Also, save before every dungeon level change. SOme people have had problems occur at/right after level transition, so saving right before one is a sound precaution.
This is common sense, but maybe it's worth to note - do not attack anyone not attacking you. Most people are important one way or another, so killing them out of hand is very ill-adviced (and can break the game). Try to talk to everyone (well, not everyone, not the rats, hostile goblins, etc.).
Gotta go, at work.
P.S. A good 1st circle spell for every character is BIS which gives you extra defense/armor and the best 2nd circle spell is IBM which heals you. I found them both very useful early on. OJ (1st circle) is alright too, your basic magic missile that, unfortunately a bit a low in damage.
When creating a character (this is probably too late for you now, but anyhoo) Strenght is very important, even for a mage, as it determines your carrying capacity and, trust me, you'll need every ounce of it. If you want to wear heavier armor, you will need to have STR over 20 (for plate armor, I'd recommend STR 24ish) to be able to wear it and haul some loot with you. Sure, you can drop items and create ad hoc warehouses for yourself wherever you want, but eventually it will get tiresome to run between levels to get that one item you need, that you don't have on you right now.
If you play a mage, you will need good Intelligence to up your mana pool (which powers spells) and base Casting skill. However, you can improve your mana in-game, so INT is not as crucial early on as good STR, in my opinion. YMMV, depending on your character build. Be that as it may, a good INT is required for any character wanting to cast lots of spells and/or higher circle spells as the higher circle ones cost quite a lot of mana (3 x Circle, IIRC).
Contrary to most games, in UU I've had DEX be my "dump stat" as I honestly didn't find it that useful.
Keep in mind, that you cannot improve attributes during the game, so be sure you're happy with them before venturing further into the game.
As to skills, I found that (sadly) most of them are pretty useless. As is obvious, Attack and Defence are of course important, as is a weapon skill (pick one and stick with it). If you want to sling spells, Casting and Mana are important, but you can get by surprisingly well with high INT and only some Casting on the early levels. Besides, you cannot cast spells higher than half your level (or something, can't remember now) anyhow and you're limited by the rune stones you can find, so focussing on Casting before the 3rd dungeon level is a bit of an overkill, IMO. (Again, YMMV on your character build. I've never played a pure mage in UU1.)
Lore skill is useful for identifying magical items and potions, however, some items require really high skill to identify (22+), so it might be good not to go overboard with this and rely on identifying spells for those (Caveat: Identify is a 5th circle spell, so that's a problem for fighters etc.; there are few identifying scrolls around, though). Of course you can just cheat by abusing saving and use whatever you find unidentified, find out its effects and reload. This won't work for magic weapons and armor, though. Search is also good to have a bit, to help you find secret doors. Last but not least, a few levels of Acrobat and Swimming will help you out some, but are not really required. I never did find any good use for the other skills. Missile weapons might be OK, but I found them cumbersome to use and ammo scarce (except sling stones). Repair might be OK, but it needs an anvil to perform and there aren't many of those around, plus you'll find someone who repairs items for you for a modest fee pretty early on (and gives you something to spend your gold on, don't forget to tip him
).This I've talked about before, so sorry for the repeat - remember to NEVER EVER nest containers, i.e. put a container inside a container. THis has been reported as one of the likely reasons for the infamous inventory bug (even with the patched version). I've have had the bug stike me, even when I was not nesting containers, so I'm not sure how accurate that cause is, but it pays to play it safe nevertheless. Also, save before every dungeon level change. SOme people have had problems occur at/right after level transition, so saving right before one is a sound precaution.
This is common sense, but maybe it's worth to note - do not attack anyone not attacking you. Most people are important one way or another, so killing them out of hand is very ill-adviced (and can break the game). Try to talk to everyone (well, not everyone, not the rats, hostile goblins, etc.).
Gotta go, at work.
P.S. A good 1st circle spell for every character is BIS which gives you extra defense/armor and the best 2nd circle spell is IBM which heals you. I found them both very useful early on. OJ (1st circle) is alright too, your basic magic missile that, unfortunately a bit a low in damage.
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The controls are taking some getting used to, but otherwise it's actually pretty fun so far. I find I can't play for very long, though. The movement makes me feel a bit sick after a little while.
I've never played the game, how does it make you sick, does the screen bob up and down or something when you walk? 
I really should play this game one day.
Daniel.
I really should play this game one day.
Daniel.
I've never played the game, how does it make you sick, does the screen bob up and down or something when you walk?
A lot of these early first person games do it to me. I think it's a combination of the small field of vision and some of the distortion that seems to pop up around the edges of the movement window.