Ultima The Ultima Underworld I & II Thread

[Dave the Druid]

Nice, thanks. Is there a hotkey for drawing one's weapon?

F5.

 

[Denim Destroyer]

Nice, thanks. Is there a hotkey for drawing one's weapon?

F1-F6 acts as shortcuts for the hotbar.

 

[calgary.alberta]

https://ultimacodex.com/2023/09/che...lation-for-the-psx-port-of-ultima-underworld/

Looks like the English patch for the ps1 port of ultima world is out finally!

 

[Baron Dupek]

I was waiting for that day to happen.
Wonder if infinite potions/scrolls trick works there too.
Now I can compare this personally with King's Field PS1 trilogy...

 

[Bad Sector]

I tried it for a bit but IMO the controls are atrocious. The "shoulder" buttons act as modifiers for the shape keys to do various actions and the assignment is weird (e.g. the circle button is used to tell you your current status and the right shoulder button + circle button opens the inventory - you certainly need the latter way more often than the former - and the jump button is assigned in two different modifiers, one being useless as the modifier also affects the dpad buttons). Also for whatever reason the game keeps telling you your status after several actions (actually i suspect this is a bug in that they didn't clear the button state after performing an action that needs confirmation - confirmation is done with the circle button - so the game immediately treats it as a "show me the status" command and probably why they put the status command to the circle button as that would be the least intrusive to accidentally enable, though that sounds like a hacky workaround for a bug they should have fixed in the first place).

On the other hand the higher resolution artwork, fullscreen viewport, lack of fisheye distortion and the fact that moving diagonally works as expected instead of the PC version forcing you into 15 degree or whatever increments that often have you walk slightly sideways instead of where you look at are all nice improvements. The 3D models look very King's Field-ish, though weirdly enough their animation, rotation and movement is done in "steps" as if they were 2D sprites instead of being smooth as you'd expect from using 3D models (it is like they simply replaced each 2D sprite frame with a 3D model and left it at that).

One thing i noticed is that enemies are more likely to drop to their deaths while trying to come to you.

Aside from these the conversion seems faithful, though i have the feeling that the English translation often used the PC version text as-is instead of doing a translation of the Japanese text.

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

Aside from these the conversion seems faithful, though i have the feeling that the English translation often used the PC version text as-is instead of doing a translation of the Japanese text.

Yes, they did, from the readme file:

Known bugs are that some character names exceed the graphics box and may write into the dialog strings.
Also, the linebreaks, while working nicely for readables and NPC dialog, do not work for shorter dynamic strings (put together at runtime), like item descriptions.
They may or may not wrap around ugly. This is also the case, when the player´s name is mentioned in a conversation.
This is expected behaviour and cannot be changed within the scope of this project.
Some skill names are too long and overlap with the skill value. This has been kept, to retain clarity regarding to the skill name.

For the most part, it was possible to transfer the text contents largely unchanged from the English version.
However, some strings had to be adapted for size reasons, either for ROMsize, or display size (Japanese strings are usually much shorter than English strings).
Most prominently, the Avatar´s replies in NPC conversiations have only 5 static lines with much fewer characters than in the PC version.
That is why the Avatar´s replies had to be edited down quite severely.
Dynamic strings were often altered, because the sentence construction/word order works differently in Japanese, and it had to be adapted for that.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Underworld for the PS1 has been fan translated:

 

[Bad Sector]

The patch inspired me to install the PC version in DOSBox again and i forgot how nice it is to explore its environments. On the other hand i occasionally get that "problems in object list" error since Level 2 (this is the first time i make a character than can do magic, so i play it differently than the past) which is annoying as it seems to be a gamble if it will screw your inventory data and/or delete mission imporant items (the "object list" refers to *all* the objects in the level, not just your inventory) and there seem to be several causes (one with conflicting remedies - e.g. a common way to avoid it is to throw items in the water to delete them, but a developer who worked on the game mentioned in recent years that actually throwing items in the water can cause the issue and it is in fact how they found about it). From what i understand some are harmless (e.g. objects somehow losing their ownership info but still being around) and they can be fixed with some hex editing, but there is no way to tell apart the harmless from the harmful.

For now my approach is to simply circle through the save slots and move between levels back and forth before doing a save as the object list consistency check is done during level transitions (moving back and forth ensures both levels are checked and you aren't leaving a broken level for a good one or breaking a good level with the items you carry). Who had the idea to use a small static array for all level objects in a game where the player can move objects across levels and even new objects can be spawned? :-P

Regardless, it has been so long since i played the game that i have forgotten most about it. For example i had forgotten everything about the lizardmen and was thinking "did i even do this last time?" but then after solving the quests in there and moving to the next map i remembered the trolls, the fight with the chaos knight and the area he was in, the puzzle room with the switches, etc though i remember none of the details.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Just speaking from my perspective and memory, but a guaranteed way for me to get the error report was to stash all my belongings on the second floor (the king's bedroom, to be more precise).

Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

 

[Infinitron]

This video is a demo of my project GZDoomUW Take Two, my attempt to bring Ultima Underworld into GZDoom.
This video introduces the interface and environment interactions.
There's a whole lot of other feautres not covered in this video, there is a preview of some of them at the end of the video.
Funny thing, I started this video wanting to demo what I'd been working the most on - doors, containers, and passages, and then never got around to showing them off. Oh well, another video...
This video was made with OBS Studio, OpenShot Video Editor, Gimp, and VLC media player

Features Shown or Mentioned in this video:
Default Actions
Actions are Z-Sensitive
Action: Look
Action: Use
Active Pickup
Action: Pickup
(mentioned) Encumbrance
Action: Talk
Timed Actions
Crouch to Alt-Use
Actions are Distance-Sensitive
Timed Action Distractions
Searching a Grate
Keyhole Peeking
(mentioned) Telekinesis
Action: Examine to Identify
Non-Default Actions
Interface in Inventory Bar
(mentioned) Sleeping
(mentioned) Dreams
Combat Mode
(mentioned) Ledge Grab
(mentioned) Swimming
(mentioned) NPC Opinions
Customize Interface
Detecting Mimics
Talking through a Grate
Action: Examine to Search
Hidden Doors
Poking a Grate
Poking a Button
Poking a Mimic
Using Actions on Ceilings and Floors

Features Teased for another video:
Light-Giving Objects
Equipment and the Paperdoll
Passages
Rock Hammer (AKA Pickaxe) and Mining
Fishing
Swimming
Basic Doors
Keys & Lockpicks
Secret Doors
Remote Controlled Doors
Guarded Doors
Sneak Attack, Back Stab
Stealth Doors
Elevators and Platforms, Ledge Grabbing
Fountains, Water, The Silver Sapling
Containers, Nested Inventory
Musical Instruments

00:00 - Intro
02:42 - Default Actions
04:35 - Timed Actions, Crouch Actions
08:20 - Non-Default Actions, Interface
13:44 - Using a Tool
15:17 - Outro
15:50 - More Features Preview
17:41 - Easter Eggs, Get Rocked

 

[Morpheus Kitami]

I hope the guy releases the scripts for the game. IIRC, it isn't possible for people to make new levels for UUW, right? If this works pretty well this might just mean we'll finally see some fan levelpacks.

 

[Spukrian]

If this gets released it would probably be a simple matter to open up the files with an editor to read the scripts.

If they can implement actual stealth then I will be impressed. That said, I'm not up to date on how ZScript or GZDoom actually works, maybe it's easy to do.

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Hello all. I've played UW1 and UW2 a dozen of times each. Here is how I deal with the "Problem in Object" list in UW1:
There is a finite maximum number of items in memory, be it on your character, on NPCs, in containers, or on the ground.
So, Destroying items permanently frees up slots for new items to be created (such as created food, fish, enemy projectiles).
You destroy items permanently by :
1) Throwing them in the lava or water.
2) desintegrating with Fireball, for items you cannot pick up. (turn them to ashes, and pick up and throw the ashes, or destroy the ashes with fireball)

So spend some time destroying items you are sure you will never need.
- Green plants
- Bones (except in Lev3, there is one set of bones next to a book you have to keep).
Don't worry about Garamon's bones, the game won't let you destroy them in the water/lava.
- Extra food
- Badly worn weapons & armor (Shak refuses to repair those. He will only repair Worn or better)
- slings, bows, crossbow, rocks, bolts & arrows are 100% fucking useless (and a waste of skill points to ever invest in them).

Do not destroy:
- Gold and gems (good for trading)
- Light sources (candles, torches, etc)
- Potions, unless you are 100% sure it's useless, like halluciliation or poison
- any Magical items or magical looking item (DUH)

I still see the error message from time to time, but only upon Loading a saved game. If it does, I reload it until it doesn't:
saving AFTER you saw the message appear even once seems to guarantee you will see it more in the future.




This bug has been fixed in UW2, and the way they fixed it is very interesting, as you can actually see the results of their patch in a region like the Pit of Carnage, where items get created by the dozens every fight.
When the item limit is reached, the game decides which items to destroy , and picks and chooses which ones are the most safe to delete: almost always bones.
You can see stacks of bones getting smaller as you fight in the arena, most notably the one near the black rock entrance to the world.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Hello all. I've played UW1 and UW2 a dozen of times each. Here is how I deal with the "Problem in Object" list in UW1:
There is a finite maximum number of items in memory, be it on your character, on NPCs, in containers, or on the ground.
So, Destroying items permanently frees up slots for new items to be created (such as created food, fish, enemy projectiles).

...

This bug has been fixed in UW2, and the way they fixed it is very interesting, as you can actually see the results of their patch in a region like the Pit of Carnage, where items get created by the dozens every fight.
When the item limit is reached, the game decides which items to destroy , and picks and chooses which ones are the most safe to delete: almost always bones.
You can see stacks of bones getting smaller as you fight in the arena, most notably the one near the black rock entrance to the world.

Interesting, thank you for posting this.

I first encountered an inventory-related bug message in UUW 2... in the Pits of Carnage, to be exact.
I didn't encounter this bug in UUW 1 until I started hoarding all the stuff in one place, like mountains of gold and similar items for trading.
I didn't use Create Food much in my first runs, but thinking back I can see a connection between using it, and encountering the bug.

In short, taking up a 'Save the Abyss!'-stance and keeping the place clean, is good for the environment!

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

NO HOARDING!!

 

[Red Hexapus]

I've finished UU1 for the first time a few days ago and I have to say that the game was great. The "sort of open-world" non-linear nature of the game, the puzzles, the species/characters living in the dungeon, the slowly emerging story and goals - it all added up to an excellent adventure, definitely . Really wish someone would pick this up and do a proper modern remake (with the emphasis on PROPER).

Right after finishing, I've started UU2, and I think it is a downgrade in relation to the first one. Yeah, the idea behind the alternate realities and a closer connection to the Ultima lore is great (the presence of LB and your companions), but I don't feel as much freedom as I felt with the first game, the entire game feels very linear.

 

[*-*/\--/\~]

You know, I've played both games multiple times and never encountered the inventory / number of items bug. Maybe you fuckers should stop cheating carry weight.

https://af.gog.com/fr/game/ultima_underworld_1_2?as=1649904300

Look at the gog screenshots, 9 out of 10 have cheated carry weight.

 

[octavius]

Yay, I'm a ten percenter.

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

You know, I've played both games multiple times and never encountered the inventory / number of items bug. Maybe you fuckers should stop cheating carry weight.

https://af.gog.com/fr/game/ultima_underworld_1_2?as=1649904300

Look at the gog screenshots, 9 out of 10 have cheated carry weight.

Amen to that!! I did encounter the bug in my earlier playthroughs, but never cheated carry weight (well I did.. but only by 1 or 2 points, to compensate for a rounding bug that is ALSO present in UUW2), so I never lost any important items (quest items or powerful weapons/armor), even in my first playrhrough.

And thanks all for the many "bro-fists" and "informative" notices to my post above.
For the finite item list, you will notice I said "items carried by NPCs". That includes every single gold coin you gave to Shak for every single repair you've ever had him do.

I'm OCD about carrying perfect quality weapons and armor, so by the end of a typical game, I've had Shak do so many repairs that he carries 50-60 individual piles or small gold goin stacks. I actually can see them by repeatedly trading with him (it picks 4 items at random), or just killing him (reloading afterwards of course).

So unless you throw gold coins in the water/lava, gold coins never gets destroyed!

 

[Unkillable Cat]

...if I have cheated the carry weight, I've done so unintentionally, because I have no idea what all that is about. Can anyone elaborate?

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

with a saved game editor.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Never used one of those in Ultima Underworld.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Yeah, I still think it is a hoarding issue and dropping shit in your own personal cache. Now I want to try and make it crash.

 

[UndeadHalfOrc]

Then your best bet is probably on level 2. Even before you bring tons of coins to this level (Shak), you can let those gray goblins live so they throw infinite rocks at you.

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

AHAHAHA!

ROCK & CRASH!