25 réponses à ce sujet

[Rawgrim]

Does anyone still play these games, or really love them? Been playing Ultima 7 a bit lately, and having tons of fun. The sheer amount of interaction in the game is staggering. The open world in it works very well too, I think. Kind of amazing for a game from the early 90s.

[Jeremiah12LGeek]

Ultima 4 and Ultima 7, along with the first three Bard's Tales, were the FRP games that I cut my teeth on. I remember really liking Ultima 7, although I only played it a couple of times, and don't really remember what the story was. The only thing I clearly remember was that I named my character "B*tch" and found the dialogue throughout the game to be absolutely hilarious as a result (apparently, I was more easily amused when I was younger.)

[UltimaBACON]

Ultima VII, in particular, is still way ahead of modern open-world RPGs in many respects.

 

Also check out Ultima V Lazarus, the fan remake of U5 using Dungeon Siege 1. Very faithful remake with some terrific expansions of concepts in the original.

[Rawgrim]

Ultima VII, in particular, is still way ahead of modern open-world RPGs in many respects.

 

Also check out Ultima V Lazarus, the fan remake of U5 using Dungeon Siege 1. Very faithful remake with some terrific expansions of concepts in the original.

 

I did check that one out last year. It looked fantastic, actually.

 

Did you know there is an Ultima 6 remake out as well? It uses the Dungeon Siege engine too. People seem to think its about as good as Lazarus is.

[KroganChiken]

Played every title from Ultima IV to IX, thanks to God when UO was released I had not an Internet connection: many friends of mine became addicted and their parents had a not so good surprise in their phone bill!

 

I've heard many people blabberin about "OMG! From Software's made a true revolution about game's Lore and the sensation of deep involving and blablabla..." but - heck! - Sir Garriot has come ahead really looooooong ago!

 

(oh, and in spite of everything I like very much FS works!)

[Althix]

only UO

[KroganChiken]

Thinkin' about, there is an only negative critic that I feel to make concerning Ultima IX: keyboard controls. Gosh! I've a really bad memories about them and I remember the ages passed searching a more - to me - functional config.

[Dominus]

I have respect for IV Especially for creating an RPG that focused on improving aspects of oneself like humility and valor instead of your ability to kill things with a pointy thing. VII didn't do much for me, but seemed nice enough.

[Fast Jimmy]

Started out playing Utima IV, went back and dug through the older ones (although only once a piece). Ultima 7 defined my video game experience as a teenager, that's when it became clear to me what video games could truly be capable of. Serpent Isle was one of the best expansions in video game history ever.

Ultima 8 was a bit of a letdown, although I really did like the different magic systems. Lots of wasted potential there, not to mention the devolution into bad action mechanics. Story was handled pretty well, but unfortunately it was so far removed from the rest of the series that it loses a lot of punch.

Ultima 9... pfah. It took everything Ultima 8 did wrong and quadrupled it, while also introducing huge story and plot holes (why are gargoyles suddenly mutant ants? We're just going to act like Dupre isn't dead? Did we just put the entire geography of Brittania in a blender and hit purée?) and ending the series in the most bizarre way possible.

Great series. Lots of people can't handle the dated graphics (though I'd say U7 still holds up really well) or the dungeon crawls of the older titles (and the requirement that you actually read the instruction manual, especially the parts that deal with lore), but if you can, it's an amazing milestone experience everyone who considers themselves a big RPG fan should partake in. IMHO, YMMV, AYBABTU.

[Rawgrim]

I bought the whole series on GoG last year. Been meaning to play them all, but I have to say the earlier ones haven't aged that well. Especially 1-3. I don't see myself managing to get into those at all. Ultima 4-5 might be a stretch for me too, but there is that remake of Ultima V. I will probably play that one to death. Whoever made it did it right - more than right, really.

 

Ultima 6-7 and the Underworld games are deffinately playable to this day. Never played U6, so I might play through that one soon.

[Puzzlewell]

Been meaning to try out the fan remakes for U5 and 6 but that whole section (4-7) is fab for me. Even to this day, I can't think of a ton of games that reach U7's level of interactivity. Dom hit the nail right on the head for me as to why 4 stands out even by today's standards. Aside from the whole it's a really good idea to keep notes for all the little direction hints thrown around, becoming the Avatar was less about level grinding and bashing monsters, and more about improving yourself as a person.

[Fishy]

only UO

 

Yup same. Still have fond memory of it. I only played it pre-trammel though. I still remember getting pk'ed while mining North of Britannia cemetery and being so pissed about it( I lost all my weatlth to that guy. I had a full bag of reagent ) that for the next month I hunted the red that killed me lol. ( I was young and new to online gaming ). Yeah. I was a mage/blacksmith/ miner . Leave me alone .

[Rawgrim]

I think Ultima might have been the first crpg that had companions. They had some pretty cool ones too.

[Fast Jimmy]

I think Ultima might have been the first crpg that had companions. They had some pretty cool ones too.

Iolo, Shamino and Dupre... bros worthy of an Avatar.

[UltimaBACON]

Yes, VIII and IX were awful. VIII at least had an interesting premise but failed miserably in execution, especially the gameplay. IX, on the other hand, took a giant dump on all the previous games' canon, in addition to being a terrible game that proceeded mostly like a Zelda ripoff.

 

Here's the classic Escapist article that goes in depth of how EA screwed Origin and the development of Ultima IX in particular, btw, if you haven't read it. http://www.escapistm...quest-of-Origin

[Rawgrim]

I've watched Kikoskia's entire LP of Ultima 7

 

Looked like a reeaaly fun and a groundbreaking game for the time.

 

It was mindblowing when it came out, really. I am not even sure any modern games has the same level of interactivity that U7 had.

[Rawgrim]

Yes, VIII and IX were awful. VIII at least had an interesting premise but failed miserably in execution, especially the gameplay. IX, on the other hand, took a giant dump on all the previous games' canon, in addition to being a terrible game that proceeded mostly like a Zelda ripoff.

 

EA at its best.

[Endurium]

I started with Ultima III after watching it played at school on an Apple IIe. Subsequently played it and Ultima IV on a C-64, which at the time was the best way to play those two games. I could never get into Ultima II, but I did enjoy the Ultima I remake on PC later. I also played Ultima V a lot on PC when it came out. When playing Elder Scrolls games I always wonder if the devs were also fans of the earlier Ultimas. The way the world works is the same (small grid loaded out of entire map), two moons, open world, just enough dialog for quests and clues.

 

I played a little Ultima VI and Ultima VII when they were new, but never finished them. Was more into 3D games at the time. Have finished Ultima VIII and IX several times. Ultima IX still runs on modern hardware though the textures show their age and there's a book-opening pause due to some glitch in the code; apparently running 16-color desktop reduces the delay, but nothing gets rid of it. This wasn't a problem when the game was new and hardware was barely capable of running it.

 

These days I still have the games. Ultima 3 and 4 in a C64 emulator (for music as well as nostalgia), 5 through 8 in DOSBox, and 9 runs under native Win7.

 

Never played UO but might play Shroud of the Avatar someday (up in the air on that game).

 

Still remember the bitter feelings over Ultima IX's release and subsequent complaints on the forums, which were eventually shut down. A few years ago I saw one dev's online resume, and curiously enough their work on Ultima IX was missing from the list of accomplishments. Thankfully the team mailed us a new install CD at one point, and later someone rumored to be a former dev released an unofficial code patch.

 

Anyway, a lot of the mods/tools I use for the games come from here: http://reconstruction.voyd.net/

 

Great game series. They along with the first Bard's Tale game got me solidly hooked on CRPGs.

[TheChris92]

Richard Garriot: The Game.. meh

[Fast Jimmy]

Richard Garriot: The Game.. meh

For the record, the Kickstarters Garriot has done recently have illicited negligible interest from me, despite being a huge fan of the series. They seem to just be stroking his ego rather than games with merit to them. While I do admire the gutsy vision and scope he has had, in retrospect I view Garriot as the Molyneaux of his generation, except he managed to recruit some genius level talent to Origin that actually let him pull off some of the insanely ambitious goals for his games.

[Rawgrim]

I dunno. Shroud of the Avatar looks pretty good so far.

[Fast Jimmy]

I dunno. Shroud of the Avatar looks pretty good so far.

To me, I immediately lost interest when I saw one of the Kickstarter stretch goals involved Virtual Reality.

That may be petty, but between silly KS backer goals and saying he's the only game designer out there who doesn't suck at their jobs, I've just grown pretty jaded on the whole thing. I may pick it up far after release, but this is one I'm prett convinced will go under my radar.

[Rawgrim]

He does make some good points, though. Even though he sounds "over-confident".

[Fast Jimmy]

He does make some good points, though. Even though he sounds "over-confident".

I don't really agree with his conclusions, though. I don't think people who can't draw and can't code have nothing to bring to the table in terms of design, for instance. By this metric, writers for video games aren't worthwhile, or combat designers or level designers... there's a lot more talent that goes into making a game than coding and drawing. And being able to manage large scale projects and departments is more of a criteria of being a lead designer these days than being able to actually program the ideas you have.

But beyond that, I'd the issue with what he calls "lazy designers" has more to do with corporate funding than anything else. Big name publishers want safe bets to put their money behind. To do that, the pitch often needs to have familiar features or concepts the suits can relate to, especially that relate to other successful games. This results in stale formulas and poorly implemented features, but I don't think its an issue of people being lazy or incompetent.


Being the creator of one of the most iconic PC franchises in the world and practically inventing the CRPG genre, Garriot gets a pretty big free pass on his projects these days in terms of pressure to conform to other successful titles. That's not true of many developers and their design teams, who are working to prove themselves on likely one of their first designer titles (since turnover in the industry is notoriously high).

In today's world, Garriot would have never been a lead designer. He might not even have been a lead programmer, to be honest. It's more of an indictment of the corporate nature of game making these days than the idea that he is the most unique snowflake in the industry.