Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues

I’m not even sure Ultima VII is all that great of a game. It always felt like it was doing everything in its power to thwart my attempts to actually play and enjoy it. I should try the exult version though, heard good stuff about it.

I bounced off of Savage Empire, but I finished Martian Dreams. Of course, I remember virtually nothing.

But one thing I do remember, was there was a type of replicating blob enemy in Martian Dreams. Eventually so many would replicate that it would bring my 286-12Mhz to its knees.

Because Savage Empire was superior? :)

Ehh, Martian Dreams was alright. I remember disliking the oxygen mechanic. Mars wasn’t very interesting, felt less sandboxy than VI or Empires. Also 12 year old me didn’t know alot of the historical figures there, whereas he loved the cover to Savage Empire.

obviously because of the trex

IMO, the best Ultima game was really Ultima 6. But U7 is still my favorite. Not much of a RPG, but amazing world building and exploration.

No one asked, but I’d rate them

VI > Savage Empires > VII > V > Martian Dreams > SI > IV > III > II > I > VIII

Of the ones I’ve played, I’d go V-VI-IV-III*-II-I. It’s been decades since I properly played the first two, though. And I could pretty easily swap IV and VI if in the right mood.

*Tossing aside objectivity, this is my favorite electronic game of all time

Ultima 7 is one of my favorite games of all time. I remember that my family’s 386 couldn’t run it well but my friend had recently bought a 486 machine where it ran like butter. We’d spend all weekend taking turns playing it or an hour at a time. Exploring that world was so cool to me at the time, it’s probably what gave me my love for more open-world / open-ended games.

Sigh. I wish I had a way of recapturing that kind of magic, it was (and is) a truly special game to me.

By the way – and I’m not playing threadcop here – but is there any reason we’re discussing this in the Shroud of the Avatar thread? Again, not threadcopping, just wondering if there was a connection to the recent review to that project (aside from the fact they’re both Richard Garriott games).

Generally I fear threadcopping the other way (as in “why did you start a new thread?!?!?!”) but if there is or should be a thread dedicated to the real Ultimas, I’m all over that. Or I guess it could all get dumped into the Nostalgia thread.

Go for it, but take some time to pick a truly ridiculous Qt3 thread title so nobody without serious old-school CRPG cred would ever realize it’s a thread about Ultima.

VI > Savage Empires > Martian Dreams > VII > V

Haha, Qt3 and our limited supply of threads. :) It’s not like this thread was seeing any other action so seems fine by me, I only asked because I didn’t know if I had missed a connection. LIke if the blog linked earlier was from the same guy working on Shroud or something like that.

I don’t think anyone is still working on Shroud.

I think one guy is.

New thread incoming: “All Avatars go to… um… GoG (That Are Interesting)?”

Chris Spears (their Tech Director / lead) bought it, I believe, and looks like it’s still being actively worked on. One man army, that guy.

This is the busiest and happiest the Shrouds thread has ever been. :-)

I like Savage Empire a lot, too. But the story and characters in Martian Dreams are a whole other level (it does help to know and be interested in the historical figues). And, frankly, I like that MD forces you into a lot less combat.

(Also, Warren Spector says its the best Ultima game, so…)

Yeah but he made Deus Ex, and we don’t cotton to that on this here forum.

Of course he’d say that, he had a much better role in Martian Dreams.

Oh, I forgot he worked on it. Disqualified!

Ultima VII was certainly my favorite game of all time for many years, and may still be if it was judged by enjoyment at the time when initially played, but it’s probably been superseded by the spiritual successors that picked up its world-sim baton (Skyrim/Oblivion and Bethesda Fallouts; Gothics; Divinity games; Witcher 3 – as well as open world sim games that don’t even try to be meaningful RPGs, like GTAV/Red Deads).

I just like exploring living worlds far more than any other gaming activity - ideally in a deep RPG with good systems - my ideal RPG would probably be a world like Skyrim with better NPC density to make cities more vibrant, additional simulation elements like Red Dead 2, and with the combat of Demon’s Souls (making harvesting of reagents and upgrading items rewarded through exploration).

Ultima VII’s combat stinks. Its character development system is shallow and largely irrelevant. Its NPC hunger system is a joke. But it is still an exponentially better game than all the other Ultimas because it really represents the culmination of its “world creation” design philosophy – it took over two decades for the rest of the gaming world to catch up.

(and probably 5 of the other Ultimas would be in my top 10 favorite games, judged based upon enjoyment at the time they were played, so that comment isn’t a slight on the other Ultimas).