Ultima 7 Part 1 - The Black Gate - Richard Garriott Interview @ Crispy Gamer
- Thread starter woges
- Start date
Ergonpandilus
The Preacher
Interesting, as always to read Lord British's interview, but I've pretty much heard all about Ultima VII hundreds of times. There is also lot of interesting interviews with Richard Garriot in YouTube.
I find it interesting that this can be seen as some kind of promotion:
To me, it looks as if they had done these interviews in order to get more attention for their walkthrough.
A walkthrough which involved killing everyone.
Nice.
To me, it looks as if they had done these interviews in order to get more attention for their walkthrough.
A walkthrough which involved killing everyone.
Nice.
Grandor Dragon
Sentinel
Absolutely no new information in that interview. At least if you already know a bit about the background of the Ultima games.
I wish RG would talk more about Ultima VIII and Ultima IX, but I guess he won't because that's when the series went downhill.
I wish RG would talk more about Ultima VIII and Ultima IX, but I guess he won't because that's when the series went downhill.
Ergonpandilus
The Preacher
And that's pretty much when EA took the "reins" in their hands over Origin.
Though I still like Ultima VIII: Pagan, because there is some unique ideas there and wonderful distinctive music.
Grandor Dragon
Sentinel
I do not want to get into the same old discussion again. Let me say that while I think that EA did not do the series good at all, some failures were simply bad choices made by RG and the other designers. I would rather have a shorter U8 than an U8 with all the filler dungeons.
As for U9, it is even worse. No bad treatment by EA can excuse the plot (EA wouldn't have cared about plot changes).
As for U9, it is even worse. No bad treatment by EA can excuse the plot (EA wouldn't have cared about plot changes).
skavenhorde
Little BRO Rat
One theme to every RG interview dealing with The Ultima series is "Virtual World". It was great he concentrated on it with SP games before the technology became available to have MMOs, but once it became available he ditched SP in favor of MMO. I never did like that about him. To me he basically said "See ya" to his core fans in favor of the shiny new technology.
It worked out for him in the end I guess, because UO was a big hit. It didn't work out so well for us though. We got Ultima IX.
It worked out for him in the end I guess, because UO was a big hit. It didn't work out so well for us though. We got Ultima IX.
P
pibbur
Guest
I liked U8 (but didn't finish it), U9 was terrible IMO, but I can't make up my mind whether it's a bad game or just a bad Ultima.
BTW, "Grandor Dragon". You're a member of Ultima Dragons? - I found a Grandor Dragon on the roster.
skavenhorde
Little BRO Rat
Both, if you ever finished Ultima 8 then you know you were supposed to go to the homeworld of The Guardian. The preview looked awsome at the end of the game. I still remember it and it's been at least 10 years since I finished it. Too bad they decided to stuff that ending and go with their OLOI/IOLO/twisting the meaning of the Virtues AGAIN.
Gameplay because of the damn bugs. After about the 20th crash when casting a fireball I gave up. My avatar will never ascend. He is forever in limbo unless Corwin and his great team decide to redo Ultima 9 with their engine. Hopefully a "reimagining" of Ultima 9.
Now if someone could just reimagine a better ending to Ultima 9 and Battlestar Galactice then my two favorite series can finally be whole
Grandor Dragon
Sentinel
Yes, I am an Ultima Dragon since 1998 I think. I haven't played all the Ultimas, and have finished even fewer of them (Ultima 6-9, Ultima Underworld 2, Savage Empire and Martian Dreams). I used to be quite involved in the scene though. I have written some dialogues and one music track for the U5 remake using the Dungeon Siege engine, and worked on the German translation. Before, I was head of the U9 dialogue patch team. Ultima had a tremendous influence on me, though it is getting weaker over the years.
skavenhorde
Little BRO Rat
That was YOU. Dude a MAJOR thank you for all your efforts on the dialogue patch. I used that on my last playthrough and it improved the game tremendously. Still was a bad game, but at least it tried to make sense out of things. Unfortuantly I never even saw more than half of your improvements because of the bugs in the game. Still my hats off to you for all your hard work.
Grandor Dragon
Sentinel
The U9 fan project will have nothing to do with Ascension. I am looking forward to it.
U9 is an okay game with a beautifully designed 3D world. Unfortunately the world is small, the code was buggy, and the gameplay was severely flawed. For example, none of the attacks you learn actually make additional damage. We were trying to fix this (as well as the laughable falling damage and the loot lists), but that project never got finished. It is a pity, since we were proud of our loot lists. Animals wouldn't drop gold anymore (they would drop meat instead), and the giant crabs had a very long loot list with a lot of surprises. We imagined them to eat random crap from the ground, so there were always chances of them dropping some very funny items.
U9 is an okay game with a beautifully designed 3D world. Unfortunately the world is small, the code was buggy, and the gameplay was severely flawed. For example, none of the attacks you learn actually make additional damage. We were trying to fix this (as well as the laughable falling damage and the loot lists), but that project never got finished. It is a pity, since we were proud of our loot lists. Animals wouldn't drop gold anymore (they would drop meat instead), and the giant crabs had a very long loot list with a lot of surprises. We imagined them to eat random crap from the ground, so there were always chances of them dropping some very funny items.
Grandor Dragon
Sentinel
Thank you for the kind words skavenhorde. We were a small team (three people), and while I did the most writing, I am not an English native speaker, so the others contributed a lot. They also contributed some great ideas. Maigo Dragon wrote all journal entries, which turned out great. He now works for Square Enix.
blatantninja
Resident Redneck Facist
Which U9 fan project are you talking about? The one in the Oblivian engine (IIRC)? Personally, I'd much rather see one that reintroduces party based adventuring.
skavenhorde
Little BRO Rat
Could of fooled me that your not an native English speaker. The writing was great and the journal entries were a huge improvement. Glad to hear that you both are doing well. I see from your profile your going for your PHD and Maigo is in the biz now. Hope it works out for you both.
Anyways, thanks again. One question: When I installed the dialogue changes it came with an economy fix as well. Was that your team as well?
Grandor Dragon
Sentinel
No, that was someone else going by the name of Novum Dragon. Unfortunately none of us could dig too deep into the code, otherwise we could have done more. All changes, even to the dialogues, were rather superficial. For example, we couldn't change the branching of the dialogue trees, which posed quite a challenge since the new content needed to fit into the pre-existing trees.
For our later plans we had some very professional help. The later patch would also have included a full rewrite into "Ultima"-Elizabethan English (Maigo was working on that). But as I said, we all ran out of steam at some point. Ultima IX was not *such* a great game that it deserved even more of our energy, I guess.
For our later plans we had some very professional help. The later patch would also have included a full rewrite into "Ultima"-Elizabethan English (Maigo was working on that). But as I said, we all ran out of steam at some point. Ultima IX was not *such* a great game that it deserved even more of our energy, I guess.
Grandor Dragon
Sentinel
It will use the Morrowind engine, which allows some limited party based gameplay:
http://www.cfkasper.de/ultima/
I don't know if it's going to have a party, though. Still, I hope it gets finished. I would definitely like to see what the team came up with.
I'll have to dust of my old copy of Morrowind for this U9 remake. Aside from the U5 remake with the Dungeon Siege engine, I thought all the ultima remakes were dead at this point.
In the FAQ of the U9R website it states that they expected U9R to be finished in 2006... hopefully now that it's 3 years later they are almost done as I look forward to playing this.
In the FAQ of the U9R website it states that they expected U9R to be finished in 2006... hopefully now that it's 3 years later they are almost done as I look forward to playing this.
The U6 Project has just released Milestone 6 and we expect to have the final version ready for release by the end of this year. It too uses the DS engine and it's bigger than Lazarus. While there are still some side quests, etc yet to implement and there's a need for more polish and minor bug fixing, the game is now virtually playable from beginning to end. We've added several new quests which weren't in the original and tried to complete some of those which were incomplete as well. Check out the News page for the relevant links!!
Melvil
Super Duper Super Sweet
Sometimes I feel like the only person who liked U9. Granted I played it years after release with a patch and a pc that could run it, but hell, it was a precursor to the Gothic series. I found the world well realized and the dungeons more thought out than most games these days. The fact that I can't really remember the story might say something, but I enjoyed tromping around in that game nevertheless.