Happy Belated Birthday to Ultima 7

[Woodsman]

Ultima 7's birthday was yesterday and I didn't really realize what specific day it was.

There is a huge page about it at UltimaCodex.com:

Ultima 7's 20th Anniversary

My favorite page - seeing the maps for the cities and places: Ultima 7 Design Documents: Map Sketches

I know some of you were old enough to have played it.

 

[BeaIank]

Ultima 7 was the best of the best of the Prime Ultima games.

 

[Ludes]

Might just be time to pull that game back out and play it again. I'll never forget how cool it was to bake my first loaf of bread.

 

[Woodsman]

Even though I have it in a couple of different formats, I bought it off of GOG recently just to have everything packaged up. Plays really well under the GOG package, or under Exult. I have it running in I think 1920x1080 on Exult.

The first time I played Ultima 7...I think it was like 320x240 and it brought my machine almost to a crawl. The interview with one of the designers on UltimaCodex said they were using 33Mhz 386's.

Hard to imagine that Ultima used to be another word for cutting edge.

 

[BeaIank]

Might just be time to pull that game back out and play it again. I'll never forget how cool it was to bake my first loaf of bread.

Oi, I still remember how thrilled I was when we found out that you could... BAKE bread in game. I spent days doing it!
Not that I needed food for the party. For that I sat at taverns at night and "borrowed" food ordered by the patrons.
Which reminds me... day-night cycles, with programmed NPC behavior for both... I need to play it again.

 

[SunWolf]

Actualy was playing it yesterday, I never played it before and messed around some in it and yesterday a friend kept bugging me asking how far I have gotten in it and start playing it more. Had no clue it was it's 20th ann.

 

[Woodsman]

Not that I needed food for the party. For that I sat at taverns at night and "borrowed" food ordered by the patrons.

Which reminds me... day-night cycles, with programmed NPC behavior for both... I need to play it again.

It's still so weird to think how much unique behavior there was with the NPCs in a game that came on floppies, and the day-night cycles. They had some really good programmers. Of course the original memory management was...a pain.

 

[SunWolf]

Found a workable forge, is there away to smith in the game for the hell of it?

 

[Woodsman]

Yes, but there is also a reason to blacksmith (from one of the walkthroughs)

Erethian explained the Black Sword, and how it was started but remains unfinished. He told us if we wished to finish the work, it was ours. We agreed, and the tools were provided - in a fashion typical of a mage.

I soon found out that the work of a blacksmith was a hard task. Taking the hammer in hand I laid the sword blank on the "furnace" and heated it until it was white hot. Before it could cool I moved to the anvil and hammered the blade into shape. I repeated the exercise until the blade was as good a quality as possible. Moving to the trough (which Spark and Iolo had filled whilst I shaped the blade) I dipped the blade to cool it.

What emerged was a perfectly formed two - handed weapon. However it really needed some sort of magic to work "fully".

Erethian was still recovering from his last casting, and I had not the power to imbue the weapon. It was Shamino who noted a possibility. "Avatar, whilst you were away on your last Test I noted a rather strange mirror. Unless I am mad it spoke to me. I believe it to be worth investigating."