Ultima The Ultima Series Discussion Thread

[Daemongar]

Yeah but if you think about it this makes sense doesn't it, wi Ultima you had a shitload to do other than combat, nowadays combat is the only gameplay in most RPGs.

Yes, I guess it does. Without coming at U7 from the vector of "it's all new, the interaction, schedules, the freedom, the mass..." you may not understand what made U7 unique. It is about quests, fighting, and dialogue, but folks miss the random wandering that was not only allowed but expected. If you approach it with a walk-through in your lap to get this one out of the way, you miss really what made this game special.

 

[Viata]

nowadays combat is the only gameplay in most RPGs.

If this was true, we wouldn't have Sheep's stupid thread about storyfags.

 

[Neanderthal]

Is he still on wi that? Aye I suppose you got conversation an all, but dialogue wheels all lead to same result now, I reckon they'll be next feature removed an you'll just decide your script at beginning o game. Snarky and mean, snarky and cute, snarky and retarded etc.

Daemongar: Damn right.

 

[Excommunicator]

You mean the point-and-click, drag and drop interface that is still in use today?

The one in use today came about in late 90s and is significantly better and easier to use than the one in Ultima VII. You can move by simply left/right-clicking a spot, instead of holding down the button like in u7. Characters also move too fast, even when you hold the cursor close to them, making you lose control. Then there is stuff like lack of quick-save, and in general, the ton of clicks you have to do to get anything done (to save, to feed your party, to manage inventory, etc).

I don't know what you're playing the game on but in Black Gate the speed of objects/actions in the game world (including character control) is tied to the speed of the processor. It wasn't that fast when it was released. You're using newer tech. This is largely fixed in Serpent Isle though. Same with feeding party members which is done with the F key, among other things.

If you actually read what i posted, I was comparing their stories, not their navigation.

What's difficult to navigate with the story? Ultima 7 does it exactly the way a game should "You will find it in Dungeon X which is in the mountains north of Town Y, go and find it". With the help of your map and a sextant, you can do just that.

Also remember that Ultima is based on a long heritage of recreating the same game world. Most of the locations of towns, dungeons and other features became common knowledge for the average player.

 

[Count Zero]

I loved U4 since I first played it on my Commodore when it came out. The game box was beautiful with a cloth map and a real ankh, simply great. The atmosphere of the game was so cool, the book with the story of Britannia and describing the cities and inhabitants, set the mood for a great gameplay and you could totally relate to the Avatar and his struggle with the Virtues. You had the feeling of doing something decent and important, at least for yourself. A similar experience were Moebius (the "Karma" system) and Alternate Reality the Dungeon (good-evil personality).
The simple graphics gave much room for the player's fantasy. I played hours and hours and weekends and holidays, sometimes 24 hours and could't get enough.

 

[octavius]

I loved Ultima IV as well. Great intro with a very moody harpsichord music on the Amiga version. It had great exploration, atmosphere and what is probably the main virtue of U4-7: the whole puzzling together of all things needed to complete the game.
The dungeon crawling was quite good too, and the combat was tolerable for me at the time, but when replaying it, it was rather painful; simplistic combat and far too many random encounters is not my cup of tea.
U4 also had a few of my most memorable CRPG moments: wall to wall pirate ships guarding the harbour Isle of the Avatar, and meeting dopplegangers of your own party in the Abyss.

 

[Count Zero]

the combat was tolerable for me at the time, but when replaying it, it was rather painful

You're right, back then it didn't bother me or at least not so much, but when replaying I only used my own char to minimize the elaborate combat (lots of reloading save games though).
Yeah the wall of ships was great and the combat seemed endless. It was also cool to have the feeling of a real explorer when finding cities like Vesper and Cove not on the map
I didn't make it to the Abyss yet.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Ultima 5's combat is hardly better than 4s in my mind, only in as far as it is less tedious by being able to attack diagonally and having just one character active. but thats not really a compliment, is it? yes its turn based but its not really tactical, as combat is piss easy in both games, even for a scrub like me. In that sense, I consider U6 an advancement since combat is over even faster due to the party AI. Haven't gotten to U7 but from what I have seen its possible that I'll like the combat, if only cause its very fast and simplistic.

 

[octavius]

Ultima 5's combat is hardly better than 4s in my mind, only in as far as it is less tedious by being able to attack diagonally and having just one character active. but thats not really a compliment, is it? yes its turn based but its not really tactical, as combat is piss easy in both games, even for a scrub like me.

What made combat better in U5 was in large the encounter design. Random encounters only happened at night, for example, and there were less sea monsters, so the tedium was greatly reduced.

 

[Alex]

Ultima 5's combat is hardly better than 4s in my mind, only in as far as it is less tedious by being able to attack diagonally and having just one character active. but thats not really a compliment, is it? yes its turn based but its not really tactical, as combat is piss easy in both games, even for a scrub like me. In that sense, I consider U6 an advancement since combat is over even faster due to the party AI. Haven't gotten to U7 but from what I have seen its possible that I'll like the combat, if only cause its very fast and simplistic.

Ultima 7's combat is definitely simplistic. Equip your characters well enough and the combat will fly so fast it is almost like an auto-win button. I don't see a problem with that, though. It is just a question of how involved and important you want the combat to be. In games like Planescape and Arcanum, the combat is bad and actually gets in the way of playing the game. Here, the combat is just simple and doesn't overstay its welcome. Sure, people might want to have something a bit "meatier" to play with, but that is just not the kind of game Ultima 7 is.

One aspect of the combat that is a let down, however, is the combat magic. There are a lot of combat spells in Ultima 7. And a few of them look pretty fun. You can use invisibility to take enemies by surprise. You can use the usual assortment of ranged spells, with a few being area spells. You can create fields with special effects. You can put enemies to sleep, etc. But none of these things actually matter. There just isn't a point in using these spells in any combat, even if you use the speed casting system to avoid having to open the spellbook each and every time.

 

[Infinitron]

Alex It might not be incorrect to say that one reason U8 turned out the way it did, was that U7 was actually developed in a similar fashion and it worked. They just rushed to develop content ASAP, without spending enough time making the systems and core gameplay "fun".

The difference is that U7's differences over U6 were much more incremental, so 1) The systems were still a lot more solid 2) They managed to create content that was a lot better 3) The combat systems happened to be, as you said, bad but non-annoying.

 

[SquidLord]

Or maybe Ultima 8 and 9 are the logical conclusion of them not making good games and they are just when everyone caught on.

 

[Alex]

Alex It might not be incorrect to say that one reason U8 turned out the way it did, was that U7 was actually developed in a similar fashion and it worked. They just rushed to develop content ASAP, without spending enough time making the systems and core gameplay "fun".

The difference is that U7's differences over U6 were much more incremental, so 1) The systems were still a lot more solid 2) They managed to create content that was a lot better 3) The combat systems happened to be, as you said, bad but non-annoying.

I guess the platforming part of U8 might be explained as an attempt to make the 3d gameworld actually mean something. In Ultima 7: The Black Gate, I think there is just a single point where you actually need to use the third dimension to do something:

Spoiler

Stacking crates to get the notebook for the wisps.

If that is the case, I suppose it was well intentioned, even if it failed miserably. Still, I think having spells or other abilities that allow you to explore otherwise unreachable areas in Ultima is a great idea. And this kind of thing is better done if the exploration is somehow an aspect of gameplay, rather than just a gate. For instance, having a spell like air walk that allows you to jump much further and possibly reach places based on your capacity to jump is a more interesting idea than, for instance, having a open spell that allows you to open a couple of doors hand-placed by the developers exactly so that the open spell wouldn't seen useless.

The issue is that platforming gameplay isn't a good match with Ultima, and the platforming in U8 was pretty bad. This exploration aspect would have been better made, I think, if it was tied to the adventure like gameplay of Ultima. In fact, Ultima 8 does that in a few places, like with the secret portal spell. Different from Ultima 7 where magically locked doors were obvious, you actually had to find the (unfortunately only two) spots where open magic portals work. And their location is inferred (or directly told) by the game's plot. That would have been a good way to do it, if there were a lot more of them and the world had been as interesting as U7's.

 

[Infinitron]

Richard Garriott's original D&D character sheet: http://gallery.ultimacodex.com/richard-garriotts-shamino-character-sheet/ O_o

 

[Alex]

Illusionist? Nice!

 

[Gentle Player]

The people who think Ultima is bad because "crap combat, crap systems", etc, are missing the forest for the trees. Fact is, that big open world isn't "LARPy". Travelling it is a challenge. Figuring out where to go and how to get there is a challenge. It's a big puzzle to be solved.

Well said Infinitron. I've pages of notes written down from my playthroughs of Ultima games. Therein lies the gameplay, as far as I'm concerned. I didn't have internet when I played them for the first time, and they were bloody challenging. Figuring out what to do, whom to speak to; learning the Mantras. That sense of discovery and learning is what has been lost from contemporary games.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

I don't know what you're playing the game on but in Black Gate the speed of objects/actions in the game world (including character control) is tied to the speed of the processor. It wasn't that fast when it was released. You're using newer tech. This is largely fixed in Serpent Isle though. Same with feeding party members which is done with the F key, among other things.

I am glad that some of that was fixed in Serpent Isles. But since my comment was made about The Black Gate, I don't really see how that's relevant.

If you actually read what i posted, I was comparing their stories, not their navigation.

What's difficult to navigate with the story? Ultima 7 does it exactly the way a game should "You will find it in Dungeon X which is in the mountains north of Town Y, go and find it". With the help of your map and a sextant, you can do just that.

Put the booze down, man.

If you actually read what i posted, I was comparing their stories, not their navigation.

If you actually read what i posted, I was comparing their stories, not their navigation.

If you actually read what i posted, I was comparing their stories, not their navigation.

... Figuring out what to do, whom to speak to; learning the Mantras. This sense of discovery and learning is what has been lost from contemporary games.

I agree with that, and I've enjoyed that particular part of Ultima games. But that's more like the gravy in an RPG, you still need the meat and potatoes first (story, combat, exploration), and those parts of Ultimas just don't hold up as well today, in my opinion anyway.

 

[Gentle Player]

PorkyThePaladin the only thing I find lacking in the Britannian Ultima games is combat. Though I consider combat to be important, it was never intended to be a priority in those games. Bearing that in mind, the meat and potatoes are absolutely there as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Excommunicator]

If you actually read what i posted, I was comparing their stories, not their navigation.

You mean this?

The obsolete interface and the small screen without a map also make exploration less fun than it might be otherwise.

You'll need to learn the meaning of your own words before formulating criticisms, Porky.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

PorkyThePaladin the only thing I find lacking in the Britannian Ultima games is combat. Though I consider combat to be important, it was never intended to be a priority in those games. Bearing that in mind, the meat and potatoes are absolutely there as far as I'm concerned.

I dunno. In 1980s and early 1990s, I could see Ultima storylines being somewhat impressive, with their focus on virtues and that sort of thing while other contemporary RPGs were about looting dungeons, but today, with the likes of Torment, MotB, Arcanum, and so on, Ultima storylines don't really stand out in the same way. And exploration is hampered by the interface.

You mean this?

The obsolete interface and the small screen without a map also make exploration less fun than it might be otherwise.

And where is BaK mentioned in that sentence? Since you seem to be having trouble understanding what I wrote, let me break it down for you:

Ultima VII-BG has a shit interface by modern standards.
BaK also had a shit interface by modern standards.
However, BaK had a gripping story, which makes the modern player such as myself interested enough to keep playing it despite the shit interface.
Ultima VII-BG lacks such a gripping story.

Do you see how I am NOT comparing UVII and BaK's interfaces at any point? They are both shit. My point was about something else entirely.

 

[Daemongar]

Richard Garriott's original D&D character sheet: http://gallery.ultimacodex.com/richard-garriotts-shamino-character-sheet/ O_o

I saw this and the first thing that jumped out was that the quality of the DM dictated some of the most interesting series ever created. That is, a tough DM fostered the Bard's Tale series, a weak DM (human (looks like) ranger/illusionist? max hps? almost impossible ability scores? artifact staff?) influenced Ultima.

 

[octavius]

You can't expect Lord British to have the stats of a mere peasant, now can you?

 

[Neanderthal]

Personally I found the storylines of the earlier Ultimas to be equal to anything made now, Ultima IV was fairly simple but very strong with its focus on a never ending quest to become a better man, to acknowledge your flaws and know that you'll never reach perfection but to always strive for it. That's pretty deep shit for an RPG, a quest that you can never win but are always pursuing, aint nobody got the balls to design a storyline like that now. V was a fucking mastrepiece, with so many themes explored including moral absolutism and past actions never being forgotten, and that for every virtue there is an equal and opposite. VI was simple again like IV but still so strong, with its simple message of racism and xenophobia being all too easy to fall into, and the Avatars actions coming back to haunt him again.

The Black Gate storyline is the story of the Fellowship to me, and fucking brilliant in its narrative approach, to see the Virtues supplanted so easily because of their essentially unreachable nature, and to see the easy answers of the Fellowship gain so much power so quickly. That's so fucking real to me, and i've not seen a religion/philosophy presented so well in any game before or since. Lots o games try and make better narratives now but to be honest I don't think they're doing anything revolutionary now, you rarely get games as convoluted as Ultima, and yet so powerfully simple. It's like Beethoven, simple rhythm and melody well put together making a masterpiece, rather than trying to be complicated from the get go.

In fact thats what i'd say is problem with a lot of modern narratives, far too heavy handed and preachy, unsubtle and blatant, whereas Ultima could do a much better job with a simple beginning such as Name, Job, Bye.

Fuck me, thats some deep fucking thinking for me, I need to lie down and rest me noggin.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

What you describe is not really technically 'storylines' rather than themes but you are certainly right, when it comes to depth and ideas the Ultimas really are about as good as it gets for RPGs.

 

[RPGMEN]

Is it worth it to play Ultima 1 thru 3?