U5 - Lazarus - Post Mortem Interview

In our second exclusive article, we speak to Team Lazarus in a huge interview about the trials and tribulations of bringing Ultima V to life using the Dungeon Siege engine. This massive article delves deep into the development and provides new insight into the project:

RPGWatch: Certain aspects of the game were quite noticeably changed from the original game. One example of this was Captain Johne's underworld abode. In the original game he lived in a keep whereas in Lazarus, he dwelled in a meager tent. These changes add a lot more realism into the game, however, some purists may contend this, and other changes made, may change the game too much from its original concept. How difficult was it for the team to determine when changes such as this were needed vs. changing too much of the game itself?

Team Lazarus: For the most part, I don’t feel that we particularly changed anything that was intentional in the original game, but rather rebuilt the game “as they would have if they could have.” Take your Captain Johne example: in the original game, his abode (the wreck of his ship, The Ararat) looked like a keep when viewed on the underworld map, but when you entered into it, it looked like a ship (which is also backed up by Johne’s dialogue). Clearly this wasn’t supposed to be a boat hiding inside a small building, but was simply a case of not having enough graphics to convey a shipwreck on the main map.
In the end, most important decisions in terms of purism vs. new content were effectively determined by committee—there were certain members of our team who I considered to be the most rabid of purists, and by gauging their response to specific proposed design elements, I could generally determine what was safe to toy with and what wasn’t.

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You guys are the best at producing articles I want to read. It's good to see you maintaining that quality even through this transition period. Thanks so much!

Good interview.

U5 Lazarus is by far the best RPG I've played this year. Great Interview about an great Remake.

You guys always ask great questions! Great interview. Also, I love the layout of RpgWatch soooo much better than RpgDot!

Originally Posted by Amasius
U5 Lazarus is by far the best RPG I've played this year. Great Interview about an great Remake.

I couldn't agree with you more!! Drop in to their forums and pass along your comments. There's a thread already started.

I'll state the obvious … I really need to make the time to play this. I barely got started before I sidelined and never returned …

Oh, I've praised them already over there.

From JRink, over at their forum:

Originally Posted by JRink
Just a quick correction…
The interviewer wasn't a member of Team Lazarus - just a fan of the game.

Wouldn't make much sense otherwise, who would interview their own team?

We actually knew that, but it got lost in the rush!!

Okay, I've read through the interview now too, instead of only looking at layout issues - that was indeed a great and interesting read. I've been trying a mod project myself, albeit for a very short time. I wanted to re-imagine Ambermoon with the Morrowind engine, and building was quite fun. Everything was fitting so nicely, but then I tried some outside structures and found out they were too limited compared to what you could do inside so I gave up.

Lazarus is one of the few "old game re-imagined in a new engine" TC's I've heard of that were actually finished. Kudos to the team.

And now I'm busy trying to find my Dungeon Siege box so I can try the mod. I'm ashamed to say that I totally missed it when it was released, as I was kind of lost in other worlds.

I never bought Dungeon Siege, so I missed out on this great mod. I may have to scrounge around the bargain bins and see if I can find a cheap copy. I bought DS2, but I don't think it works with Lazarus.

No, DS2 won't work for Lazarus. I actually bought Dungeon Siege just to play Lazarus; fortunately it's now bargainbin-priced.

You can definitely get it cheap - I had seen it as a jewel-case thing in one of those Best Buy / Walmart / Target racks a few months ago. And eBay is your friend for this.

The U6 project is coming along nicely too and it uses the DS engine as well, so buying the original will be a great bargain. Check out my review of Laz as well if you're still in any doubt!!

Love the game so far. I've explored all eight towns and met most the of the NPCs from Ultima IV (I played through that before starting Lazarus) My one gripe is the 6 NPC party limit. I wish I could get all the NPCs I had in Ultima IV in my party.

Love the story and events in this one. It's a nice contrast from Ultima IV, which had no villian, no oppession, or similar threat. It was about the virtues, while in V the same virtues are being corrupted. Nice twist there.

Six was the limit in the original U5!!

Yeah, I realized that. Too bad for Mariah and Geoffrey. They got the cut

Current Party:

Katrina
Jaana
Julia
Iolo
Shamino

I just found Dupre, what a pain to find. Alas he is much too feeble!

I agree, by the time you find Dupre, he's not worth it!! Katrina is always a MUST though!!