Ultima The Ultima Series Discussion Thread

[Jaesun]

Is it worth it to play Ultima 1 thru 3?

For nostalgic reasons, sure. But if you just want the Ultima experience start with IV and play up to VIII...

 

[mindx2]

However, BaK had a gripping story, which makes the modern player such as myself interested enough to keep playing it despite the shit interface.

Now your opinions make sense...

 

[Daemongar]

Is it worth it to play Ultima 1 thru 3?

Trust me, 1 & 2 you could knock off fairly quickly.
U1 is worth playing just to see where it started.
U2 had a lot of memorable points (the mixture of space and classic rpg.)
U3 is worth trying, but it gets a little dull later on in the game. I finished it a long time ago, but it's not very memorable.

 

[Kem0sabe]

For nostalgic reasons, sure. But if you just want the Ultima experience start with IV and play up to VIII...

Up to but not including.

 

[Malignant Manor]

The magic systems are one reason to play Ultima 8. Ultima gets more casual the longer you get into the series. Then you get to Ultima 8 which has instant death jumps and 4 different magic systems with one requiring a lot of positioning. The 4 spell systems are not mutually exclusive nor do they have level requirements. Ultima 9 goes back towards casual and gets rid of reagents.

Mixing from earlier games has returned in a graphical interface with necromancy (I believe this also only consumes mana on mixing) . You put the proper reagents in the bag and use the key of the caretaker on it. Some necromancy spells are in books. Others need to be learned by talking to dead necromancers. Theurgy just requires getting silver ore, having it made into the proper token, and placing each one on the altar of focus. You have to manually select each token to be forged, and I think there is only one extra ore.

Reagents are mix automatically with thaumaturgy by clicking on an uncharged spell book. I think all but one thaumaturgy spell are bugged to always stay charged, and meteors and lightning can stay glitched on screen. Sorcery requires the use of a pentagram with a combination of 5 black or red candles on the outer points, a spell focus in the center, and reagents that go between a candle and the center. You are given text instructions on how to charge each sorcery focus. Many people have problems with reagent placement even when shown diagrams.

There are 5 different types of sorcery focuses and some spells only take one of them, excluding the symbol which can be used for all of them but is unstable for most spells. Weaker focuses yield lower charges. There are 4 infinite use symbols which work until they explode and need to be charged again.

 

[Count Zero]

I'd rather start with U4 - but that's just me

 

[Infinitron]

Richard Garriott continues to bare all: http://gallery.ultimacodex.com/richard-garriotts-collection-of-letters/

Richard Garriott’s Collection of Letters
WtF Dragon December 23, 2015 Gallery

Over the course of the development history of the Ultima games, Richard Garriott received many letters from people who had played different entries in the series. Some of these were very complementary, some of them criticized the games as evil, some featured interesting requests, and some were just downright weird. Garriott held on to many of the letters, and in late November/early December of 2015, he began putting up scans of some of them on Twitter.



And here are links to the tweets in which Lord British revealed each letter:

• I have received many interesting letters down through the years… Some have made interesting requests
• I have received many interesting letters down through the years… Some downright angry with me for my evil ways
• I have received many interesting letters down through the years… Some are, well, a bit less, well, coherent
• Moses followed up a bit later with this letter
• I have received many interesting letters down through the years… Some a bit more excited, such as this example
• I have received many interesting letters down through the years… Some just sweet like this example
• I am proud of creating stories about virtue and borrowing ideas from world religions. Others are offended. Too bad.
• Where are you Paul Rogers? My earliest known “Report thy feat!” for completing Akalabeth in 1981.
• First “Fan Mail”, which as always, is really 6 pages of “let me tell you how to make your next game”. Richard Fowell
• Tom, I hope I am not too late… Vertical lines done with the BASIC command HPLOT & http://SCA.org works.

The Ultima Codex is, as always, grateful to Richard Garriott for sharing these glimpses into the many and varied ways in which the Ultima games have touched peoples’ lives. Hopefully, there are more letters to be revealed in the future; if so, they will be added to this gallery as time and opportunity permit.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Damn, and I thought my drunken email to TSI was embarassing.

That one with the yellow markings sounds like he'd fit right into GD, Neighbors! Why did LB even reply to that crazy talk? It was probably a standard 'thank you for your support, our fans are so important to us' letter and Moses felt the need to respond again. The Galactic Empire Headquarters inside the sun? Mkay.

That last one is pretty cute, I can not image a whole family of four sitting in front of the computer and playing Ultima 5 together as a family event. I guess those were different times.

 

[Infinitron]

More! http://gallery.ultimacodex.com/the-donald-glinkie-letters/

The Donald Glinkie Letters

When the Ultima Codex interviewed Mike McShaffry, he mentioned someone by the name of Donald Glinkie, an individual who played just about every Ultima game. Of course, there are many of us who have done likewise; what distinguished Mr. Glinkie was the letters he penned to Origin Systems:

Before the days of forum posts and Twitter, you had mail…and we got mail! Of course, we would always post them up on a board and…some of our Ultima players were just…we got letters from them every time we released, and they became almost famous within the team.

I think this guy’s name was Donald Glinkie, and I think he lived in Florida, and we relished everything he wrote. And he always just ripped us a new one every single time we ever shipped anything.

So yes, of course, we expected…actually, I think we expected Donald Glinkie to set himself on fire when we shipped Pagan, but I don’t think that ever happened.​

You can also see here for a bit more information about Mr. Glinkie’s letters, and do be sure to check out the character in Ultima 5 that he probably inspired.

Anyhow, in late November/early December of 2015, Richard Garriott posted scans of a few of Donald Glinkie’s letters on his Twitter profile.



Here are the links to the tweets in which Lord British revealed each letter:

• Now by popular demand (Iolo asked). Behold – Donald Glinkie! Favorite disgruntled player! 1st wrote on Ultima III
• The disgruntled Donald Glinkie Liked Ultima IV and wanted to Buy Ultima V when it was still in development!
• When we were with EA, they got disgruntled Donald Glinkie letters too
• EA CEO Trip Hawkins saw our Glinkie letters then got the standing stones letters, so wrote Donald back like this

The perpetually-irate Mr. Glinkie passed away in 1997, but it’s good to see his…unique and memorable contributions to the history of the Ultimaseries still exist. The Ultima Codex is, as always, grateful to Richard Garriott for sharing these pieces of history with us.

lol at the letter from Trip Hawkins. This guy was a troll before trolling was a thing.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

The perpetually-irate Mr. Glinkie? I think LB might have just doxxed hiver, the first letter sure reads a bit like him.

Favorite line in the second:

I wouldnt recommend this to a dog.

:D

Codexians before the creation of the Codex.

 

[Infinitron]

That guy was old enough to have been a World War II veteran: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/donald-k-glinkie.612/

What a character.

 

[taxalot]

Shit, these look like the letters I sometimes get at my job (tax administration, figures) ; I get some of that stuff from an old guy who keeps repeating the same thing over and over again sometimes inside the same letter. This guy probably has some kind of pathology.

 

[Infinitron]

This is getting a bit esoteric: http://gallery.ultimacodex.com/richard-garriotts-hand-written-ultima-1-debugging-notes/

Richard Garriott’s Hand-Written Ultima 1 Debugging Notes

Richard Garriott emailed this image to the Ultima Codex in November of 2015. It’s a scan of a printout of some of the code for Ultima 1 (printed on tractor feed paper), with some hand-written debugging notes.



A few people have been able to reverse engineer the BASIC code out of the original Ultima 1 game data files; I wonder how closely the code here aligns with what made it into the final game?

As always, the Ultima Codex is grateful to Richard Garriott for sharing this glimpse into the development history of the Ultima series.

 

[Infinitron]

http://gallery.ultimacodex.com/hand-written-assembly-language-for-ultima-3/

Hand-Written Assembly Language for Ultima 3

Here’s another pair of images from the early history of the Ultima series shared by Richard Garriott. In this set, we are treated to a glimpse of hand-written assembly language code for Ultima 3.



You may also take note of the reminder note to “Call Steve Jackson” on the cover page of the notebook, which Richard Garriott also sent along when he emailed the scan of the code to the Codex.

To say that the code is dense is…probably accurate. If you’ve never been exposed to assembly language before, it will probably be almost indecipherable to you. Still, from these notes, the third entry in the Ultima series sprang, spinning for us the tale of the Third Age of Darkness. (And given the resolution to that game, and the revelation of just what Exodus is, it’s somehow fitting that the game began as a set of written-down processor instructions.)

As always, the Ultima Codex is grateful to Richard Garriott for sharing with us this piece of the development history of the Ultima series, and we look forward to seeing what else he is able to unearth from his substantial archives.

 

[Infinitron]

The new Digital Antiquarian post finally explains just why Richard Garriott hated EA so much: http://www.filfre.net/2016/02/the-road-to-v/

While it’s been vaguely understood for years that the Origin and EA had a mid-1980s distribution agreement that broke down in discord, the details have never been aired. I’m happy to say that I can shed a lot more light on just what happened thanks to documents housed in the Strong Museum of Play‘s collection of Brøderbund papers. (The reason I was able to find them in a Brøderbund archive will become clear shortly.) I unfortunately can’t make these documents publicly available, but I can summarize and quote extracts from them. I do want to look at the contract that EA and Origin signed and the dispute that would eventually result from it in some detail, both because it’s so very illustrative of how the industry was changing as it entered the second half of the 1980s and because it provides a great example of one of the most dangerous of the potential traps that awaited the small fry who still tried to survive as independents. Origin would escape the trap, but many another small publisher/developer would not.

At first glance the distribution contract might seem more generous to Origin than to EA. Origin is obligated to remain the distributee only as long as EA has bought product from them totaling a stipulated amount over the course of a rolling calendar. By the end of the contract’s first year, which comes on September 1, 1986, EA must have bought $3.3 million worth of Origin games. The goal for the second year of the contract doubles; EA must have bought games worth $9.3 million in total from Origin by September 1, 1987, in order for the latter company to be obligated to honor the third and final year of their distribution contract. That’s a very ambitious sales goal for a little company like Origin whose entire reason for existence was a single series of games with a sporadic release schedule. (Origin had already released some non-Ultima titles and would continue to do so, but it would be years yet before any of them would make an impact on their bottom line to even begin to rival that of Ultima.)

All went well between Origin and EA for the first eighteen months. The trouble started shortly after Richard’s move back to Austin, when he got word of EA’s plans to release a rather undistinguished CRPG called Deathlord that was even more derivative of Ultima than was the norm. As Strategic Simulations, Incorporated, had learned to their chagrin a few years earlier in the case of their own Ultima clone Questron, Richard didn’t take kindly to games that copied his own work too blatantly. When EA refused to nix their game, and also proved uninterested in negotiating to license the “game structure and style” as SSI had done, Richard was incensed enough to blow up the whole distribution deal.

Richard and Robert believed that Origin would be on firm legal ground in withdrawing from the distribution agreement at the onset of the third year because EA was projected to have purchased just $6.6 million worth of product from Origin by September 1, 1987, way short of the goal of $9.3 million. Origin informed EA of their intentions and commenced negotiating a new distribution agreement with another of the big boys, Brøderbund, currently riding even higher than EA on the strength of The Print Shop and Carmen Sandiego.

The notice was greeted with shock and outrage by EA, who felt, and by no means entirely without reason, that it was hardly their fault that they were so far from the goal. That goal it had been predicated on not just one but two or three or possibly even four new Ultima games being released during those first two years. Foreshadowing the way that Origin would handle Ultima VIIyears later, Richard’s plan at the time the contract was signed had been to release an Ultima IV Part 2 that would reuse the same engine in relatively short order, and only then to turn to Ultima V. But those plans had fallen by the wayside, undone by Richard’s idealistic need to make eachUltima clearly, comprehensively better than its predecessor. And now Ultima V was taking even longer than had Ultima IV. Having long since missed the original target of Christmas 1986, it now looked almost certain to miss Christmas 1987 as well; it still looked to be a good six months away from release as of mid-1987.

Yet it was the Ultima I situation that most ruffled EA’s feathers. When the rights to the first gameof the series, having passed through the hands of the long-defunct California Pacific and thenSierra, reverted back to Richard in 1986, Origin assigned several programmers to rewrite it from scratch in assembly language rather than BASIC, adding graphical upgrades and interface enhancements along the way to bring it at least nominally up to date. It was now ready to go. Already a semi-legendary game, long out of print on the Apple II and never before available at all on the Commodore 64 or MS-DOS, the new and improved Ultima I carried with it reasonably high commercial hopes. While not the new Ultima, it was a new Ultima for the vast majority of Lord British fans, and should ease some of the disappointment of not being able to get Ultima V out that year. But in the wake of the Deathlord dust-up it became clear to EA that Origin was deliberately holding Ultima I back, wanting to tempt their prospective next distributor with it rather than give EA their fair share of its earnings. This… well, this pissed EA right the hell off. And, then as now, pissing off EA wasn’t usually a very good idea.

EA’s lawyers went through the contract carefully, looking for anywhere where they might knock a few dollars off the requirement of $9.3 million in orders inside two years.

The original goal for 9/1/87 was stated in Exhibit A as $9,300,000. This amount “is reduced by $40,000 for every month in which any of the software products listed in Exhibit B are not available according to the schedules set forth in Exhibit B.” Moebius/Apple was listed as being available in September 1985, and was not available until November 1985, a slip of two months. Ogre/Apple was listed as being available in November 1985 and was not available until June 1986, a slip of seven months. Moebius/C64 was listed as being available in November 1985 and was not available until October 1986, a slip of eleven months. Taking into account only those titles listed in Exhibit B, a total of 22 months are applicable to the $40,000 provision, equaling a deduction of $880,000 from the $9,300,000 goal mentioned earlier, leaving a net goal of $8,420,000 for 9/1/87.​

The adjusted goal of $8.4 million still left EA $1.8 million short. No problem. They attached to the same letter a purchase order for a random hodgepodge of Origin products totaling the full $1.8 million. EA didn’t really care what Origin shipped them, as long as they billed them $1.8 million for it: “If Origin is unable to ship any of the products in the quantities stated on the purchase orders, please consider this an order for a similar dollar volume of any of your products that can be shipped in sufficient quantities to meet our 9/1/87 objectives.”

You’re probably wondering what on earth EA is thinking in throwing away almost $2 million on any old anything at all just to retain Origin as a distributee. Far from cutting off their nose to spite their face, they’re playing hardball here; what they’ve just done is far more dangerous for Origin than it is for them. To understand why requires an understanding of “overstock adjustments,” better known as returns. It’s right there in the original contract: “Vendor [Origin] agrees to issue credit to EA based on the original purchase price for the return of resalable overstock made any time beyond 90 days of original receipt.” This provision gives EA the ability to crush Origin, accidentally or on purpose, by over-ordering. Origin can honor the order, only to have it all come back to them along with a bill big enough to bury them when EA doesn’t sell it on. Or Origin can refuse to honor the order and get buried under a nasty breach-of-contract lawsuit. Or they can come back to EA hat in hand and ask nicely if both parties can just forget the whole thing ever happened and continue that third year of their agreement as was once planned.

Many small publishers like Origin were becoming more and more angry and/or terrified by the logistics of distribution by the latter half of the 1980s. This is why. Nevertheless, with the big publishers squeezing out any other means of getting their games onto store shelves, most of the small companies were forced to get in bed with one of the big boys against their better judgment. Although several other big publishers had affiliate distribution programs, Activision and EA became the most aggressive of the bunch, both in recruiting and, if things didn’t work out, destroying affiliated labels by returning hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars worth of product along with a bill for same. The battlefield of the industry’s history is fairly littered with the corpses of companies who signed distribution deals much like Origin’s with EA.

 

[V_K]

There's a Russian saying that could be roughly translated as "Once a toad fucked a viper". That's roughly how I feel about this story.

 

[Shin]

I only bought and played Ultima Online, before I figured out you had to pay a subscription for it and I was way too young/poor for it (probably was in 98/99). Loved the free month though. I tried playing U7 a couple of times but was always turned off by it's horrible font and shitty UI.

 

[Excommunicator]

I wasn't aware Origin's relationship with EA went so far back.

It seems to have been ingrained in EA's corporate culture from the start, to be as malicious and parasitic as they can to get what they want.

To think that EA could potentially have crippled Origin before even Ultima 5 had arrived.

 

[taxalot]

I only bought and played Ultima Online, before I figured out you had to pay a subscription for it and I was way too young/poor for it (probably was in 98/99). Loved the free month though. I tried playing U7 a couple of times but was always turned off by it's horrible font and shitty UI.

I was such an Ultima nerd that I bought the damn thing to play it offline with a server emulator.

 

[The Nameless Pun]

Guys, the entire ultima series is on discount on gog, worth buying?

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Guys, the entire ultima series is on discount on gog, worth buying?

Is this some kind of joke?

Spoiler

Yes, it is worth it. Although skip 1 and 2 unless you're a completionist, and you may find the wheels coming off around Ultima 8. If the Underworld games are included and the Worlds of Ultima as well then it's an even easier decision.

 

[Leitz]

Guys, the entire ultima series is on discount on gog, worth buying?

You can get most games of the series for free in under ten seconds; the maps and manuals will take another minute, so no! What's up with this foolish behaviour of buying blindly into a whole series of games that will take you years to finish? Steam has brainwashed you into thinking that a discount is a reason to buy.

 

[The Nameless Pun]

Lol, I guess that's true, although I don't understand what you mean by saying for free, I know ultima 4 is free, don't know anything about the others.

 

[Infinitron]

Lol, I guess that's true, although I don't understand what you mean by saying for free

Excellent crimestop, comrade The Nameless Pun.

Look, your question is hard to answer if we don't know how open you are to playing really old RPGs in general.

 

[V_K]

If EA are the ones getting profits from contemporary Ultima sales, than it remains to be seen what is the worse crime here.