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 So, what weird Ultima loose-end do you want tied? |
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 | composed: 05-10-2021 15:56 |
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| quote: |
Original von Keldryn
I don't remember ever hearing about an Ultima VIII Part 2... There was The Lost Vale, the add-in for Ultima VIII where the Avatar supposedly encountered the banished Zealan people. But that, of course, was never released. |
I dont think there was ever a plan for a Ultima VIII pt 2. Serpent Isle only came out because Origin changed plans at the last minute. Read my answer after the last quote.
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Original von Keldryn
The original Ultima IX, as planned when the plans for the entire VII-VIII-IX trilogy were being written up, was to have taken place on the Guardian's home world -- whatever that might have been. The Avatar, having become the Titan of Ether, would now be ready to take on the Guardian on his own terms. It is the Guardian's home world that we see the Avatar (as the Titan of Ether) arrive in during the endgame sequence of Ultima VIII. The "Pentalogy" hint book for U8 even states thus. The endgame cinema of Ultima VIII was "retconned" into the Avatar arriving in the conquered Britannia when the fan response to Ultima VIII was decidedly negative. |
I heard this too.
Im probably one of the few people who thinks having the Avatar going to the Guardian's homeworld would have been a cool idea.
However, there is a dialogue somewhere that says The Guardian cannot be defeated on his homeworld.
Probably the only person these days that still knows the original idea is RG. And only he knows how much of the original idea was used in Ultima IX. It may be (although this is merely speculation) that the end of Ascension is not very diferent from what OSI thought for it.
As for the scenematics... I really dont think they needed retouching unless by retouch you mean deleting scenes. What you see at the end is a vision that can pretty much be on any place in the universe.
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Original von Keldryn
So the original plan for Ultima IX is perhaps what you are thinking of as Ultima VIII Part 2. Ultima IX, as conceived of around 1991-1994, was likely another single-character game, with some action elements and puzzles. The "improved jumping" introduced in Ultima VIII's 2.12 patch was stated to be a development that came about during early stages of U9's development, which at the time was likely built using the same engine as Crusader, which was essentially the same engine as U8 running at 640x480. Around this time, RG had talked about the Guardian perhaps belonging to a race of powerful extra-dimensional beings, and was likely a young member of the race. The goal of Pagan was not only just to leave and return to Britannia, but also to attain the powers necessary to confront the Guardian directly. The way that the official Ultima IX blatantly ignored this has remained one of my biggest gripes with the game. |
I disagree. Ultima IX was to use an isometric engine in many ways similar to what was later used in games like Neverwinter Nights or Dungeon Siege.
It was only about a year before release that they changed to a more real 3d engine.
The part of the powers remains questionable as well if you think about it. If becoming Titan of Ether is so dangerous why doesn't the Guardian do anything? In the other episodes he always a card on his sleeve.
Personally (and im taking a great risk by writting this) I think the Titans are powerless outside Pagan. The Guardian would never allow such powerfull creations to rebel and start messing things up. Keep in mind that even Batlin rebels against the Guardian and he is but a weasel.
There is also the issue of the origin of the Titans power. It could be that part of their power comes from the Guardian. Therefore by becoming the Titan of Ether the Avatar may well be drawing power from The Guardian himself.
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Original von Keldryn
The original plan for the third Ultima trilogy was for three games, each set in a different world. Ultima VII would have the black box, Ultima VIII the red/orange flames on the box, and Ultima IX the sky-blue box. The ending of Ultima VII was changed relatively late in the production of the game. Originally, Ultima VII: The Black Gate was to end with the Guardian bringing the Avatar to Pagan, presumably just as the gate is being destroyed. Serpent Isle was not part of the original concept, and seems to have come about as one last attempt at the "Worlds of Ultima" concept, re-using the existing technology to create a second game. |
No. It was stated by a former OSI employee that SI WAS to be PART of BG. By the time you had destroyed the Black Gate you would be mid game and go to the Serpent Isle. If I recall correctly SI was cuted out of BG because of space, the same reason why the SI intro was heavily edited.
After BG EA bought OSI and most of the original concept was scraped. So SI is actually a cuted version. There are still bits of the original plot hidden in dialogue files.
Tuga Dragon
-==(UDIC)==-
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| Message:
| composed: 05-10-2021 23:33 |
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Keldryn
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| quote: |
Original von Sage
I heard this too.
Im probably one of the few people who thinks having the Avatar going to the Guardian's homeworld would have been a cool idea. |
I think it would have been cool, and that it would have made more sense in terms of the overall plot structure of the third trilogy. After four games in Britannia, it strikes me as odd to introduce a new world for Ultima VIII, only to return to Britannia for Ultima IX. Especially in light of the “spin off” games – Serpent Isle and Ultima Underworld II.
U7 takes place in the traditional Britannia, and introduces The Guardian as the primary antagonist for this trilogy of Ultima games; in fact, the third trilogy was the first time that Garriott planned out the sequence of games in advance. Then in Ultima Underworld II, the Avatar travels to several worlds that the Guardian has already conquered, and then on to Serpent Isle. Then he is imprisoned on Pagan for his meddling. The entire point of Ultima VII’s plot was that The Guardian had convinced the Fellowship members to build the Black Gate, so that during the once-every-800-years planetary alignment, the blackrock would become permeable and he could use it to enter from his own dimension. The official U9 completely invalidated this very important detail, and the “Bob White” plot from the U9 that was previewed in 1996 seemed to gloss over it as well. The progression from U7 to UW2 to SI to U8 naturally suggests that now the Avatar will seek out The Guardian in his own realm.
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| However, there is a dialogue somewhere that says The Guardian cannot be defeated on his homeworld. |
I think that was in U7, and I think it only said something to the effect that The Guardian’s power would be unimaginable in his own plane/realm/world/dimension. However, that was before The Avatar became the “Titan of Ether.”
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| Probably the only person these days that still knows the original idea is RG. And only he knows how much of the original idea was used in Ultima IX. It may be (although this is merely speculation) that the end of Ascension is not very diferent from what OSI thought for it. |
That is true (that RG is one of the only people who would know what the original idea was), but the infamous “fans.txt” that was included with the Ultima VIII 2.12 patch said that customer feedback regarding U8 had resulted in a “dramatic turnaround” towards a “classic Britannian Ultima” and away from their original idea for the game. I think that makes it fairly clear that U9, as conceived of during the development of U8, was not a “classic Britannian Ultima” and was likely another single-character game in a different world that included the same type of physical environmental “puzzles” (ie jumping) as U8.
When talking about Ultima IX, there are essentially four distinct versions (at least) of the game to consider:
1st Version – 1990-1994 - As conceived of during the design and development of Ultima VII and VIII. The basic overall storyline and concept of U9 would have been written up during the early planning stages of U7, and refined during U8. U7 and SI make a few references to Pagan, although you can tell that the concept of the world of Pagan had changed by the time U8 went into production. U8 was designed so that its ending would lead straight into U9.
2nd Version – 1994-1996 – After receiving a lot of negative feedback regarding Ultima VIII, Origin re-evaluated the direction that they were taking with Ultima IX, resulting in that “dramatic turnaround toward a classic Britannian Ultima.” Bob White, the lead designer for this incarnation of the game, posted a plot summary a few years back, which became known as the “Bob White plot.” This version of the game is the first version that the public saw any screenshots of, mostly through print magazines in 1996, and used the (software-rendered) 3D isometric engine. RG did several interviews regarding U9 in 1996. Work on this version continued until Ultima Online’s first beta test caught everyone off guard with how popular it was. EA/Origin moved the entire U9 team, save one or two people, onto the UO team in order to get it ready for release as soon as possible.
3rd Version – 1998 – Once UO was released and the initial problems started to settle down, work resumed on Ultima IX. However, the project had been on hold for nearly a year. Many members of the original team were no longer with Origin. The gaming market had changed a lot over that year, and the 3Dfx Voodoo card had introduced affordable, hardware-accelerated 3D graphics. What in 1996 had been a cutting-edge 3D engine was now outdated before it was even released. Corporate interest in U9 only started when one of the programmers (Mike McShaffry, I think) took the source code home and ported it to the Glide API. The project was once again underway in very late 1997 or early 1998, with a newly –excited team. Garriott brought Ed del Castillo on board to fulfill the role of producer. The first “Tomb Raider” screenshots appeared, the party was cut, the female Avatar option was cut, and the game was re-designed and the story was re-written. Britannia was firmly under The Guardian’s control, Lord British was a withered old man trapped in his castle, and Asylum (Buccaneer’s Den) was the only town that The Guardian didn’t control. Rather than having a party system, the player would take control of , in specific sequences, other characters; the articles mentioned Shamino, Raven, and Lord British. Many of the elements of the 2nd version’s plot still seemed to be intact, such as Lord British’s health being tied to the land, and The Guardian sending visions to LB in order to turn him against the Avatar.
4th Version – 1998-1999 – Confrontations between del Castillo and the design team led to all three designers -- who had worked on the 2nd Version – quitting. Shortly thereafter, del Castillo was let go, and Richard Garriott took a more active role. He and the new lead designer, Seth, re-designed the game again, tossing out most of the 2nd and 3rd versions’ plots and gifting us with the “shrine janitor” plot structure. Some cinematics, originally rendered for the 1996 version were used, but most were entirely out of context and were heavily edited from their original versions. And it really shows, I might add.
The end of Ascension is totally different than what was originally conceived of. RG’s earliest talk of the Guardian’s origins (around 1992-1993, I think) suggested that he was a young member of a race of extremely powerful extra-dimensional beings. From playing U7, UW2, SI, and U8, you can tell that The Guardian is also, compared to The Avatar, a very old being. He didn’t suddenly pop into existence at the moment The Stranger became The Avatar and run around conquering a dozen other worlds. The Guardian does not become the evil counterpart to the Avatar until the 4th Version’s story. In the 2nd Version (and presumably the 3rd as well), The Guardian was using the columns to accumulate energy, eventually to rip apart the entire world. IIRC, the columns became The Guardian’s fingers reaching into Britannia, and he was essentially inhabiting the world itself. The Avatar and Lord British cast the Barrier around Skara Brae after gathering all of Britannia’s inhabitants, and then cast Armageddon from atop the tower of Stonegate, destroying The Guardian, Britannia, and themselves in the process.
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| As for the scenematics... I really dont think they needed retouching unless by retouch you mean deleting scenes. What you see at the end is a vision that can pretty much be on any place in the universe. |
The word I used was “retconning” which is a shortened way of saying “retroactive continuity fix.” They didn’t change or delete anything from the U8 endgame cinematic, but they did change the context and their explanation of it. Originally, the Avatar appeared atop a mountain on The Guardian’s homeworld. The U8 hint book say this as well. It was after they changed the direction they were going with U9 and decided to make it take place in Britannia that they started saying that what you actually saw was the Avatar returning to the conquered world of Britannia.
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| I disagree. Ultima IX was to use an isometric engine in many ways similar to what was later used in games like Neverwinter Nights or Dungeon Siege. |
Yes, that was the engine that they started showing in 1996. It was a software-rendered 3D engine that (barely) ran at 640x480. I was talking about before that; essentially, for the 1st Version of the game. The text files included with the 2.12 patch for Ultima VIII clearly states that the targeted jumping introduced in the patch was one of several gameplay improvements that they had developed in working on Ultima IX. As of the 2.12 patch, Origin was still talking about how they might use a dual-scale map for Ultima IX, like U4 or U5 where each town or dungeon was on a different scale map from the world map. The U8 engine had several distinct maps, rather than one single continuous map (like U6 and U7). And there was one very early, very small screenshot – I think of two characters standing on the coastline – that did not look like the 3D engine. Also, there was a screenshot floating around of Ultima IX’s toolkit, which showed the map of Britannia where the landmass was split in two between Britain and Trinsic; the world editor window in this screenshot was small, but clearly showed a high-res 2D isometric engine. Given that Crusader was built upon the U8 engine, and that UO’s engine was built upon the U8 engine, I would suspect that the U9 that was envisioned around 1993-1994 was also built upon similar technology.
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| It was only about a year before release that they changed to a more real 3d engine. |
It was a little longer than that. Judging by what has been said in interviews, it looks like the software-rendered 3D isometric engine was written in late 1995, and used through 1996, until the project was put on hold. When work resumed in late 1997, the team took the same engine and ported it over to run on 3Dfx’s Glide API. After experimenting with different camera angles, they decided to go with the over-the-shoulder view. Over the next two years, bits and pieces of the engine were rewritten and replaced; I have no idea how much of the original 3D engine remained in the final version.
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| The part of the powers remains questionable as well if you think about it. If becoming Titan of Ether is so dangerous why doesn't the Guardian do anything? In the other episodes he always a card on his sleeve. Personally (and im taking a great risk by writting this) I think the Titans are powerless outside Pagan. The Guardian would never allow such powerfull creations to rebel and start messing things up. Keep in mind that even Batlin rebels against the Guardian and he is but a weasel. |
I think The Guardian is overconfident, for one thing. He probably doesn’t consider the Avatar to be an actual threat to him, only a nuisance. He might think that the Avatar wouldn’t actually screw over everyone in Pagan just to attain personal power, and if he does, he probably enjoys watching the once-virtuous Avatar compromise everything he believes in. Perhaps he wants the Avatar to stray from the path of Virtue in his quest for power, eventually becoming an ally of the Guardian. And there was an old theory of the Guardian’s origin that was interesting… that the Guardian is actually what the Avatar becomes in the distant future. The Guardian thus places the Avatar on Pagan to ensure that he begins to succumb to temptation.
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| There is also the issue of the origin of the Titans power. It could be that part of their power comes from the Guardian. Therefore by becoming the Titan of Ether the Avatar may well be drawing power from The Guardian himself. |
Yeah, I think The Guardian created the Titans, didn’t he? However, I saw the Titan of Ether as being more than the sum of its parts. The Avatar came to possess the power of all four elemental Titans, but also became the Titan of the fifth element. Plus, he would have started Ultima IX as the Titan of Ether, which means that he would have gained in power throughout the game before the final confrontation with The Guardian. The Titan of Ether was the starting point for being able to have enough power to confront him.
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| No. It was stated by a former OSI employee that SI WAS to be PART of BG. By the time you had destroyed the Black Gate you would be mid game and go to the Serpent Isle. |
Richard Garriott stated the idea of three games, in black, red, and blue boxes on a number of occasions. I’m pretty certain that he also said that Serpent Isle as a side story and not really part of the “cardinal series” of games. Either RG or Warren Spector said that SI was a variation on the “Worlds of Ultima” idea. The Savage Empire and Martian Dreams didn’t really sell that well, but they wanted to try the idea of re-using an existing engine one more time, but with an adventure that could be part of the ongoing storyline.
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| If I recall correctly SI was cuted out of BG because of space, the same reason why the SI intro was heavily edited. |
The SI intro was heavily edited because it was a 20MB or so video file, and they still had to deal with shipping the game on floppy discs. Additional game content would not have taken nearly as much space.
Serpent Isle’s plot really has little to do with The Black Gate. I think it’s pretty obvious that they were never a single game split into two parts. It was a way of potentially reducing development costs by re-using Ultima VII’s engine for a second game. Serpent Isle ended up costing more to develop than did Ultima VII, despite using an existing engine.
Serpent Isle could not have been an original part of Ultima VII due to a technical limitation as well. The U7 engine only supports one map. In The Black Gate, the entire world map is continuous and you can sail off of any edge of the map and come out on the opposite side. Every dungeon neatly fits inside the layout of the mountains.
Serpent Isle does away with the player-controlled boat, and if you dig into how the map is laid out, you’ll find that the ocean only extends a couple of screenlengths from the edge of the land. All around the edges of the map are the various dungeon levels from the game. Every stair in the dungeons is actually a teleporter to one of the sections on the edge of the map. There is no way they could have put both landmasses into the same game, as the engine was not designed for it, nor was it designed to handle that sheer volume of game content.
What was cut from Ultima VII: The Black Gate, was the “other voice.” There were originally two voices speaking to the Avatar: The Guardian as the “voice from above,” and the “voice from below,” which was the world itself. It would speak to the Avatar, as the land was ravaged, exploited, and neglected. The interview with RG in the Oct 1991 issue of Computer Gaming World talks about this (wow, I’m such a geek).
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| After BG EA bought OSI and most of the original concept was scraped. So SI is actually a cuted version. There are still bits of the original plot hidden in dialogue files. |
I don’t think most of the original concept of Serpent Isle was scrapped. I know that the last third of the plot was heavily cut down, by having the Banes simply kill most of the population (I have read those dialogue remnants in the data files). Ultima VII was shipped about six months late. Strike Commander had been due in Fall 1991 and was still nowhere near being finished. Serpent Isle was supposed to be a cost-saving project, and ended up running behind schedule and costing more than The Black Gate. With three massive games running behind schedule and going over budget, EA probably stepped in and gave them a mandatory release date for Serpent Isle, resulting in its hacked-up ending. And they did the same to Ultima VIII as well; the undead attack on Tenebrae is still present in unused dialogue in its data files. It’s been reported that anywhere from a quarter to one half of Ultima VIII’s plot was cut in order to make its (March? I think) 1994 release date. And that is probably the reason why it has so many irritating jumping puzzles. A huge chunk of the game’s content was cut in order to meet scheduling deadlines – dialogue, artwork, and scripting all takes a lot of time. But reusing existing artwork to add more jumping puzzles was cheap and quick and also padded the length of the game.
And to get this extremely long tangent back on track, I’d like to see a resolution to the Arcadion sub-plot, because Ascension certainly didn’t even touch on that issue.
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| composed: 06-10-2021 07:28 |
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Keldryn
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| quote: |
Original von Corv
Reading that gave me a lot of flashbacks 
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Hope they were good flashbacks. 
Someday, I'd like to put together a history of Ultima IX's development, gathering up all of the information I can from interviews, magazines, books, etc, and put it online. It was a tragic tale, indeed...
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Anyway, short note: Initially planned or not, I think it makes a lot of sense that Ultima IX ends where it all began, not only because of nostalgia.
Our plot explains very well why all this happens in Britannia. I don't even want to barely touch this topic because it is part of the core of the main plot, something you will slowly uncover and something that will explain a lot more than just that. |
Looking forward to it. Guess I'll need to buy the expansions someday. I have them for the Xbox version, but I don't think that will cut it.
I agree that Ultima IX should end in Britannia, and I would have been a bit disappointed if it didn't. I was just saying that the progression that they were building towards did not have U9 taking place entirely in Britannia (or maybe not at all).
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I wish we had a box. Damit ... a sky blue box would be great. 
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Get one of your artists to do up a box that we can download and print out on labels and/or cardstock. Heck, Tibby arranged for we Lazarus team members to get cloth maps. And this wouldn't even cost anything on your end.
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| composed: 06-10-2021 15:22 |
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Cloth maps are amazing, they're really a nice feature that comes along with a game. I remember when I got my first cloth map with Baldurs Gate, the map wasn't to great itself (interesting wise) but it's got a nice feel of realism.
-Grogdon
Worldbuilder for Titans of Ether
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| Message:
| composed: 06-10-2021 19:05 |
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Keldryn
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Original von Corv
The Ultima maps (and Ultima was the first game taht came with something like that) always were actually usefull too. Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale maps were not more than a colorful cloth. |
And they were generally nice-quality cloth too, other than Ultima VIII. Of course Ultima VIII's cloth map was also the only totally useless Ultima map. The cloth map that came with Ultima VI remains my favorite, as I found it extremely useful during play, it looks the nicest (in my opinion), and it was made of very high quality cloth.
Ultima II was the first game to ever come with a cloth map, and RG had to fight tooth and nail to get Sierra (their publisher at the time) to agree to it. I think Origin started self-publishing with Ultima III, and every Ultima that followed had the cloth map, other than the two "Worlds of Ultima" games. I don't know if the republished Ultima I: The First Age of Darkness came with a cloth map or not though.
Might & Magic VI had one of the worst cloth maps I've ever seen. It was very thin, flimsy cloth and it looked like a T-shirt iron-on. The Dungeon Siege cloth map was nearly as bad.
Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete for the Playstation came with very high-quality cloth map. Unfortunately, it was a little to small to be of much use.
While I love the Ultima cloth maps, I have to wonder if maps were ever historically printed on cloth.
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| composed: 18-10-2021 12:35 |
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Enderandrew
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Ultima history is what it is. It didn't get consistent until Ultima IV, but I still think it needs to be addressed. As silly as the time travel was in Ultima II, time travel is very much a part of Ultima cannon on many levels.
Thusly I really want to see the "races" of Sosaria get explained. There are Daemons, Gargoyles, Goblins, Emps, Cyclops and such that are commonly accepted as Ultima Lore. So why do Ultima fans uninvent the history of Bobbits and Dwarves? Obviously they don't exist commonly in the modern Britannia, but they did exist and they went somewhere.
Even if you never see one, I think there should be some explanation for where they went. I think the simplest explanation is that they predominantly migrated to the other continents that disappeared after Ultima III, and were bred out or died out on the continent that became known as Britannia, but I'm sure a more creative explanation could be developed if one so desired.
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