Ultima The Ultima Underworld I & II Thread

[made]

UW has bridges, and 45° walls.

 

[Ruprekt]

Underworld had no problem with z axis. Underworld was pretty advanced, it even had item physics.

It was Doom that couldn't do z axis, all the apparent z axis stuf in doom was the result of 'tricks', you could never have anything passing under anything else (player or monster). I think Doom's level format was superior in some ways tho? You could etch-a-sketch arbitarary 2d shapes for walls with Doom.

 

[Sceptic]

UW has bridges, and 45° walls.

And slopes. I think the one thing that blew me away most with UW was the presence of slopes.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Actually, UW was on my 'to play' list, and this thread finally made me kick off.

It's pretty cool so far. I've just got through like half or 3/4 of the second level. Although so far it seems a little too easy, but I guess that's what you get for a little clunky real-time combat with only one character, yet I suspect there are many more things waiting ahead.

Also, I'd love to see some of the next-gen fags play this game, I'd really do. Complete lack of any 'inherent' information (even the manual doesn't say shit), have fun uncovering the functions of everything. I find some leeches. 'Why the fuck would I want to carry leeches around?' I ask myself. Well, what do you know, they drain poison.

Fun.

 

[Serious_Business]

Ultima Underworld - how a good game killed a whole genre in the end

Come on asshole come back we want to hear how this single game is the cause of all ulterior design decisions (fuck nuance)

 

[Sceptic]

Although so far it seems a little too easy, but I guess that's what you get for a little clunky real-time combat with only one character, yet I suspect there are many more things waiting ahead.

Just wait until you get to the elemental valley on level 7

Complete lack of any 'inherent' information (even the manual doesn't say shit), have fun uncovering the functions of everything.

The manual is excellent (2's was even better) at telling you exactly how to play the game, what everything on the UI does, and so on. It will not tell you anything about what in-game stuff does. It's entirely up to you to figure things out. It's ideal IMO.

 

[SCO]

There are secret rune spells aren't they? To have a chance at finding them from root you had to understand what the runes meant, or bruteforce it (only 12x11x10 combinations i think. - not sure they repeated anywhere)

 

[Unkillable Cat]

IIRC, all the secret rune combinations in UU1 are either hinted at or revealed by in-game sources.

I think there are a couple spells in UU2 that are left to the player to discover on their own.

 

[Sceptic]

I don't remember any spells in UW2 that you had to brute-force either. I think all have hints in-game. But even if you don't find the hint you can get the spell by thinking about the roots (or get the spell earlier than you're supposed to)

Anyway it might be cheating, but if you look at the UW2 manual you'll have a few more of the UW1 "need to find hints" spells (don't expect all the UW2 spells to work in UW1 though).

 

[FeelTheRads]

MAYBE BROS WITH SOME BRIANS MIGHT REALIZE THAT INCREASING PRODUCTION BUDGET MADE RISKIER GAMRES LESS JUSTIFIABLE AND AS BUDGETS AND STAFF INCREASED FOR GAMES THE QUANTITY AND CREATIOVITY IN RELEASES DECLINED

BRO MAYBE YOU CAN TELL ME WHY EXACTLY SHOULD I CARE AND HOW IS THIS THING GOOD FOR ME

 

[mountain hare]

Actually, UW was on my 'to play' list, and this thread finally made me kick off.

It's pretty cool so far. I've just got through like half or 3/4 of the second level. Although so far it seems a little too easy, but I guess that's what you get for a little clunky real-time combat with only one character, yet I suspect there are many more things waiting ahead.

I started off with a mage character with 15 strength. By the third floor of the dungeon, I quickly realised that I couldn't carry what I wanted to carry due to the low encumbrance. This is incredibly annoying in a solo dungeon crawler, which revolves around amassing useful loot and armouring yourself up the wazoo.

I scoured the manual to determine how to raise strength/encumbrance, and found nothing. A quick perusal of a walkthrough revealed that encumbrance is the only stat that cannot be raised at the shrines. What the hell?

So I restarted with a warrior possessing 25 strength. Gameplay was much improved, since I could lug heaps of stuff around, and smash through all opposition. However, I dumped a bunch of goodies I'd scavenged on the floor, only to return later and find that they had disappeared.

FFFUUUUU.....

That's sort of killed my incentive to play on.

Also, I'd love to see some of the next-gen fags play this game, I'd really do. Complete lack of any 'inherent' information (even the manual doesn't say shit), have fun uncovering the functions of everything. I find some leeches. 'Why the fuck would I want to carry leeches around?' I ask myself. Well, what do you know, they drain poison.

Fun.

As someone already mentioned, the manual is excellent. It tells you how to use the interface, it's up to you to determine what some of the in-game items do. Hell, the manual even has all the spells that you can cast, as well as the three most important stat improving mantras.

 

[Admiral jimbob]

Elzair's rage at this game puts me off trying it

 

[SCO]

Your mistake. Though i admit looking at strategy guides after restarting because my mage couldn't carry the cool stuff.


IIRC things left inside containers in the world don't disappear?

Still a smother gameplay than arx fatalis in my opinion (that is fantastic too, if you have some motor coordination and know the way to store spells, ie : read the manual).

BTW using magic in UU and Arx feels pretty badass. When you're floating around throwing lightning bolts at mundane peons, no doubt about it, you are the avatar.

But UU is fantastic mostly because of great levels/environment (i would say ambiance, but we are all spoiled now about that here now)

 

[Darth Roxor]

So I restarted with a warrior possessing 25 strength. Gameplay was much improved, since I could lug heaps of stuff around, and smash through all opposition. However, I dumped a bunch of goodies I'd scavenged on the floor, only to return later and find that they had disappeared.

FFFUUUUU.....

Really? I have one general 'storage room' in the dwarf compound on level 2, and nothing disappeared from it so far.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Ultima Underworld - how a good game killed a whole genre in the end

Come on asshole come back we want to hear how this single game is the cause of all ulterior design decisions (fuck nuance)

You should already know skyway NEVER comes back, ever

 

[mountain hare]

So I restarted with a warrior possessing 25 strength. Gameplay was much improved, since I could lug heaps of stuff around, and smash through all opposition. However, I dumped a bunch of goodies I'd scavenged on the floor, only to return later and find that they had disappeared.

FFFUUUUU.....

Really? I have one general 'storage room' in the dwarf compound on level 2, and nothing disappeared from it so far.

Yes, it never happened before, so I went back and checked. I always dump my stuff near a staircase going up to the preceding level, and mark it on my map.

Turns out I was looking around the wrong staircase. There is more than one staircase back up to Level 1.



I guess I assumed the worst, because in Spiderweb Software games, if you stash too much stuff in one place, it disappears over time.

Oh well, looks like I'm going to be continuing with that character after all.

 

[Sceptic]

Yeah I was wondering for a second. Stuff you leave on the ground never disappears in either UWs. I think it's one of the reasons they had monstrous save game sizes at the time.

It's not just encumbrance you can't raise, IIRC all 3 stats are fixed (and encumbrance is derived directly from STR). The mantras only raise skills. BTW the mantras that raise multiple skills at once are usually MUCH better, IF you're lucky enough and they raise the skills you want.

 

[mountain hare]

It's not just encumbrance you can't raise, IIRC all 3 stats are fixed (and encumbrance is derived directly from STR). The mantras only raise skills. BTW the mantras that raise multiple skills at once are usually MUCH better, IF you're lucky enough and they raise the skills you want.

That's right. I wasn't being clear. Encumbrance is derived directly from strength, therefore it cannot be raised in-game. All other values are skills, which are multiplied by the three base stats. So while you can not raise intelligence to boost your mana, you can raise the skill 'mana' so that you're not stuck with 1 casting point for the whole game if you have 15 intelligence.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Another little piece of info is that when rolling the stats for your character, the numbers are not random, but always come in the same order. So if you're feeling pedantic, you can count how many times you have to roll your stats until you get 30 Strength (if you do not want encumbrance to be a problem) and jot down that number for future reference.

 

[Elzair]

Actually, UW was on my 'to play' list, and this thread finally made me kick off.

It's pretty cool so far. I've just got through like half or 3/4 of the second level. Although so far it seems a little too easy, but I guess that's what you get for a little clunky real-time combat with only one character, yet I suspect there are many more things waiting ahead.

Also, I'd love to see some of the next-gen fags play this game, I'd really do. Complete lack of any 'inherent' information (even the manual doesn't say shit), have fun uncovering the functions of everything. I find some leeches. 'Why the fuck would I want to carry leeches around?' I ask myself. Well, what do you know, they drain poison.

Fun.

Why bother when sleeping automatically cures poison?

 

[Sceptic]

Another little piece of info is that when rolling the stats for your character, the numbers are not random, but always come in the same order. So if you're feeling pendatic, you can count how many times you have to roll your stats until you get 30 Strength (if you do not want encumbrance to be a problem) and jot down that number for future reference.

Or make a table of all the values for each class (after a while they start looping again) and see which one is the best for the particular type of character you want to play. In fact I'm surprised no one has made such a table before (might do it myself...)

Why bother when sleeping automatically cures poison?

Did it? I remember dying a few times to poison because I had no leeches or the runes to cast the spell (or maybe I had the runes but not the mana). I don't remember if that was UW1 or UW2 though.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Why bother when sleeping automatically cures poison?

Heck, I dunno. Might be because I tried that a few times and died in my sleep

 

[mountain hare]

Actually, UW was on my 'to play' list, and this thread finally made me kick off.

It's pretty cool so far. I've just got through like half or 3/4 of the second level. Although so far it seems a little too easy, but I guess that's what you get for a little clunky real-time combat with only one character, yet I suspect there are many more things waiting ahead.

Also, I'd love to see some of the next-gen fags play this game, I'd really do. Complete lack of any 'inherent' information (even the manual doesn't say shit), have fun uncovering the functions of everything. I find some leeches. 'Why the fuck would I want to carry leeches around?' I ask myself. Well, what do you know, they drain poison.

Fun.

Why bother when sleeping automatically cures poison?

Time cures poison (after you take a load of damage), not sleeping. You can die in your sleep if you go to sleep while poisoned.

What I find surprising is that the 'Cure Poison' spell is a Level 5 spell. In previous Ultima games, it was a Level 2 spell.

 

[Konjad]

I'm trying to run this papamole next-gen shit, but when I start it I just get a message "EMS allocated" and nothing happens. Windows XP SP3. I cannot use dosbox (although it would probably give me the same results). Wasteland runs flawlessly without fixing anything.

 

[Konjad]

Also: Jaesun, please be so kind to not retardo this thread, at least until someone helps me to resolve this issue.

 

[made]

in before retardo lololol

"I cannot use dosbox" - why not? Runs UW np. If you're using XP you probably have a PC that can run dosbox so what's the problem?

 

[Gord]

There's also DosEmu.