If I still had my signed ( Lord British!) completion award certificate that Origin mailed you when you finished, I’d scan it for this thread.
Anyone still have theirs?
It was Ultima IV where one member of your party was executed, wasn’t it?
I think that was Ultima 5, if you get caught in Blackthorn’s fortress.
SPOILERS!!!
Just don’t pick Humility in the character creation quiz!
I need to see one of these, someone!?
I was 16 in 1986 and played this game on my c64. I really feel that this game played a major role in molding the person I am today, from a moral perspective. This game made me a better person.
And as silly as it sounds completing it is one of the highlights of my life. When I finished it I put the Ankh on my keychain feeling that I truly earned it. That Ankh is still there, 24 years later.
The tip has broken off, but every day when I take my keys out I still get a tingle of joy when I see it.
Thank you Lord British for making a game that was a work of art and life altering.
I really feel that this game played a major role in molding the person I am today, from a moral perspective. This game made me a better person.
I think Garriott got some of the ethical stuff from Kahlil Gibran’s book “The Prophet,” but I’m not sure where the 3-in-8 virtues thing comes from. I think it’s amusing to note that the three sidekicks’ quests in Wizard of Oz (“If I only had a brain/a heart/the noive”) correspond to Truth, Love and Courage, though!
I think there is a lengthy discussion in the Adams book of how Garriott arrived at 3-in-8 (and it’s really 1-3-8, since Truth, Love, and Courage make Hope!). He talks a lot about the design that would appear on the coin that came in one of the boxes, IIRC.
Ultima IV also had a huge impact on me at the time, and remains one of top 5 or so gaming experiences. I played it almost every night for 2 months in my last year at high school, and was somewhat disappointed I was finished that quickly (I spent a full year on the much smaller Ultima II, my first RPG).
After playing Ultima 2 I played all of the other RPGs available at the time, at least on the c64 - Temple of Aphshai games, Oubliette, Questron, Bard’s Tale, Phantasie, Autoduel, and Ultima 3 — but Ultima IV was so technically far ahead of all its peers it was almost its own genre. It was the only RPG that felt like a real place you could freely explore and “live in” - the world was truly massive: http://www.dengler.net/xedragon/hrump/u4-200.jpg
Other aspects that made it notable at the time – this sounds so trivial now, but it was the first Ultima (and perhaps the first RPG) to feature “mixed enemy groups” – so instead of just running into a bunch of skeletons or orcs, for the first time you could run into a few skeletons led by a gazer. It also had creatures which had more than one colour to them, which was new for the Ultima series, although not entirely new to the genre (but it was still rare).
It cribbed so liberally from 1st Edition D&D monsters - Beholders became Gazers; Ropers became Reapers, Xorn became Zorn…and Ettin, Mimics, Wisps were thrown in…but there were also creatures unique to the series that returned, like Headless & gremlins & Balrons…and there were the first signs of where Ultima was headed in terms of having ordinary creatures as well, like squids, pythons, insects, lizards.
Ultima IV also completely changed dungeons in the series – while previously dungeons were solely simplistic 1st person perspective jaunts (that were unfun and deadly), Ultima IV added distinct top-down rooms in between the 1st person parts. Those rooms had puzzles, traps, could be strung together for tough encounters (so that you could be trapped in rooms with sleep-casting Balrons or Ropers, etc.
It was also the first game (other than adventure games like Zork) where you could type anything you wanted to NPCs, and had to figure out how to extract information from them using key words. That gave the game a natural feel unlike anything else in the genre.
other quick hits: the amazing music - the virtue system - the lack of a big bad - Smith the talking horse and other memorable NPCs - the intro screen, the gypsy character creation, the moongates and their timing synched to the actual moon rotation – such an amazing game.
I’m enjoying reading the recollections you guys have. I’m still hoping that someone will post an image of one of those certificates. It’d be pretty amazing if anyone has one intact.
Fooling around with the earlier posted revamped flash version caused me to search out a bit more online - I found a quality sourceforge project page that contains the full game with modern fixes/graphics update. I can’t post links yet, but it’s simple enough to find.
Wow, phenomenal. Thanks for this – and it seems they’ve even improved on some stuff too.
Without checking dates or replaying the game, I think the first Bard’s Tale featured mixed enemy groups, as did the first Phantasie (or at least one of them did).
Was Sherry the mouse in IV too or was that V? I still love the ghost and poison infest ruins of Skara Brae, where every other town was majestic in its own way with the associated virtue, Skara Brae exemplified what happened when said virtue was ignored.
There’s also the adventures of Sausalito the Little Shepherd.
I started with Ultima VI, not knowing anything about the series. I remember the time my jaw hit the ground when I realized just how enormous the gameworld was. I became an instant fan. The rest of my memories are supported by stacks of late-night scribbled notes about NPCs, quests, characters schedules, whereabouts and whatnot, and they are actually a funny and endearing read today. Sherry the mouse was a recruitable character in VI, for those wondering.
Hey, I even liked Ultima VIII. The atmosphere was great. Ultima IX was a massive disappointment and a sad end to the franchise. After this series, RPGs in general felt like drudgery… until a little game called Gothic came and felt “magical” enough to respark the old flame.
Wizardry featured mixed encounter groups in 1980. I might be crazy, but I kinda got the feeling Desslock was speaking about CRPGs with Tactical Combat (a la Gold Boxen games, Vogel’s games, Ultima III+, WC, etc). Wizard’s Crown did come out in 1986 but I don’t know if it was before or after Ultima IV. I’m pretty sure it had mixed combat groups.
Either way, that was a big deal at the time. So few RPGs had tactical combat (Ultima III had it. Wizard’s Crown came out that year and had it. What else?), and it really spiced things up.
Desslock, Balron were Balrog inspired weren’t they? So yeah they were unique to the series but they were just a knockoff like gazers (not that I don’t love them!). I wondered if Gremlins stealing food was inspired by the movie? As far as I know Jeff Vogel is the only developer who has used Gremlins that steal food in a CRPG outside of the Ultimas (and later, they got really crazy and did all sorts of mind-altering things. Pesky, they was).
Sherry was VI, I believe.
Wonder how they manage that, and the adaptation of the Space Alert board game, without getting sued?
Hard to say. Ultima IV was released for free (several times) but I cannot recall if it was specifically released into the public domain or what. If it was then I assume the flash game might be ok.
Ultima III was my first. It was so mind blowing on the C64. The gameplay depth, scope, the music, oh man the music was amazing. My father played with me and he was the one taking notes and drawing the dungeon maps.
Ultima IV came and it was a much tighter experience and I really enjoyed it but I don’t think it overcomes my feelings towards Exodus. IIRC the C64 version didn’t have music which may have had a factor. The dungeons were a lot more interesting. The conversations were a lot of fun (Name, Job, Bye). It definitely holds up the best of the old Ultimas because of how well structured and polished it was.
Ultima V was so awesome with so many improvements it makes Ultima 4 feel like ancient history. The day/night cycles, the NPC schedules, the complex storyline, the underworld (f-ing mongbats), the spells, the flying carpet, the Shadowlords, waterfalls, ticking clocks, playing instruments, and best of all you can attack diagonally!
Ultima 6 was always a bit odd for me. It was the game that finally made me move my gaming habits to the PC. I think it only supported Ad lib at the time and I didn’t have the sound card. The graphics were great though and I love that every item had a detailed icon. This was the first time where the overworld was seamless with no town or dwelling instances (take THAT Oblivion & Dragon Age). Personally it holds up the least of the modern Ultimas, which is a shame because it was the engine that became the basis of two more great games: Savage Empire and Martian Dreams. The latter one sadly I never really played.
Ultima 7 and on… well that’s for another day I could write books on that.
Frankly, unless somebody is actually trying to make money off of it, I doubt Richard Garriott cares. Which reminds me of his licensing terms for the Apple IIGS remake of Ultima I: a case of beer.