Ultima The Ultima Underworld I & II Thread

[The people of Duckburg]

It's not random, it's periodic.

The order the sections light up in is random. You can easily test it by saving next to it.

I did some more testing using other gems, and it seems that there's more to it than what I said earlier. As you feed it certain gems, certain sides start glowing brightly, while others give off a much duller sheen. Which side that shines dully at any given time is random, as it cycles in a random order. At the time I wrote the previous post, only the goblin tower was shining brightly in my game. My first guess is that when you feed the big gem a gem that you obtain by completing a certain world, that side will shine brightly, but I can't confirm. Or in other words, worlds that you have unlocked but not completed yet will be randomly available, but once you have completed them, they'll shine brightly and always be available. Technically, this is better than what I previously thought as I'll (presumably) have all sides unlocked permanently once I finish all the worlds, but it's still kind of backwards.

What exactly would you expect them to do? This solution rewards the player (by removing the 10*x seconds long wait), makes the progress easily visible,

Simple; remove the random cycling. You feed it a gem, and the appropriate side glows brightly, allowing you to enter it at any time. It also makes it clearer. The gem is constantly shifting colors slightly, which is why it didn't originally occur to me that the random dull sheen meant that I could enter it. It looks like a generic light reflection. Does this mechanic come from the previous Ultima game, meaning that any returning player would immediately understand it? If that's the case, then it's my fault for jumping into Underworld 2.

 

[behold_a_man]

The order the sections light up in is random. You can easily test it by saving next to it.

I did exactly that, and I always saw the same face lit up, going to the other face after several seconds. It might be something emulation-related, I guess. Do you use the version from GOG?

Simple; remove the random cycling. You feed it a gem, and the appropriate side glows brightly, allowing you to enter it at any time.

And before feeding it a gem? Does getting a gem unlock a location, making the selection of levels linear?

Does this mechanic come from the previous Ultima game

No, I just watched the gem for 15 seconds straight.

 

[The people of Duckburg]

Do you use the version from GOG?

Yes.

And before feeding it a gem? Does getting a gem unlock a location, making the selection of levels linear?

It would work exactly the same except that the pool of sides that it can randomly light up are always lit up. I'm not sure why you think this would affect non-linearity at all, so here's an example: Say I've finished the Prison Tower and unlocked Killorn Keep, Ice Caverns, Talorus and the Academy. Prison Tower is brightly lit at all times, while the random selection cycles between the other four. Side 1 glows, side 2 through 5 randomly glow dimly. Instead, simply make faces 1 through 5 glow at all times, so that you don't need to wait for it to cycle to the one you want to enter. Aside from just being more convenient and logical, it would have the added benefit of making it fully clear which ones you've unlocked.

 

[behold_a_man]

It would work exactly the same except that the pool of sides that it can randomly light up are always lit up.

Then the only reward for finding gems would be progressing the plot, correct?

 

[The people of Duckburg]

It would work exactly the same except that the pool of sides that it can randomly light up are always lit up.

Then the only reward for finding gems would be progressing the plot, correct?

I'm not sure what you mean. Are you saying that removing the random aspect of which side's lit is supposed to be a reward? If so, I would say that that's quite a stretch. True technically, but the entire mechanic is so bizarrely pointless. I think it's like having a main menu where each selection can only be clicked on for a few seconds now and then, until you've beaten the game. Why would someone decide to do it, and spend time implementing it?

 

[Sceptic]

I remember my first time playing the game, I got lucky and the "unstable" worlds opened in perfect harmony for a while, so I didn't realize there was more to the gem than "worlds open one at a time when you use the fragments" until like the 5th one (well, I realized something was off when I used the rock from ice caverns and nothing happened, but that was because of the Listener). It's an already bizarre mechanic, but when you consider it's not even consistent with itself (see Listener, and other triggers) and it's no wonder people are still confused by it, I remember one magazine reviewer back then who had clearly finished the game but whose wording made it clear he thought using the fragments opened up the worlds sequentially and never even noticed the cycling. It's not the worst weird design (again see Listener), and it's still a great game despite those designs, but there were better ways to handle this, especially since so many other design reinforce linearity anyway.