Ultima VII, Day 3

The game continues apace! First, some brief comments on comments--Bugs, bugs, bugs! I can't say there are very many in Ultima VII, actually--there was a vanishing key bug, a vanishing body bug, and a gate-closing-prematurely bug that I remember. The first was remedied by a patch, the second by careful walking in Minoc, and the third simply by not flying a certain mode of transportation over the isle of the Avatar. I've only rarely heard of game crashes associated with Ultima VII--I suspect other problems for the person whom it crashed on constantly! I also recall Daggerfall being terribly buggy--it's one of those games that was staggering in scope and exciting to play until I realized it was all just randomly generated, at which point I threw in the towl--but only after walking across the ocean on a horse (you could also jump across...) The thing I hated most about that game were the NPCs in buildings. I've heard of NPC's having no personality and seeming like cardboard cutots, but geez, these guys were literally so!

Today was spent in Yew and in Minoc, primarily. I killed a thief named Kleg in Yew,who was masquerading as a monk in Empath Abbey, withou anyone noticing somehow even though there were a grand total of two of them. Yew was otherwise not that exciting--I gave some flowers to a woman there to put on her grandmother's grave, and I neglected to look at the tombstones...I also did a little uninspired painting, as in the screenshot. My original goal for visiting was to drop in on Nicodemus, but he is stuck behind a magically locked door, and I haven't bought the relevent spell yet. I find that in this game, I am more keen on travelling the countryside than using moongates, though actually I think that was my approach in Ultima VI as well.

The road to Minoc was more difficult--I fought slimes, snakes, and alligators on the way, and had to deal with a highly annoying vanishing-body bug, since murders had been committed and I needed to collect evidence. Eventually I found that if I took a back route to the sawmill where the murdere happened, I could prevent them from vanishing before i could examine them. I found a serpent-shaped dagger, and a candalabra that the local candlelady confirmed was from the Fellowship. That beggar in Britain who accused the Fellowship of murder as part of a joke was right! (I'm just pretending as if I haven't played the game before.)

In any case, while in Minoc I prompted the local shipwright to kill himself when he realized that his boats caused countless deaths. It almost makes me curious what would have happened had I given him 1000 gold to buy a deed...I also dropped in on a Fellowship meeting, and was intirgued by the comments of my companions! I almost wanted to go gather up all the ones I can find, and then visit each Fellowship meeting in each town just to see what they have to say...

I didn't do any further exploring in the mines or anything, and I ended my game just near the moongate, which I will probably use to go to Jhelom and find Dupre. Soon maybe I will be strong enough for some more thorough exploring and magic-item gathering! The only frustrating thing so far has been, as expected, keeping my party fed. I swear, if I hear "I could use a little food" one more time, someone will not need food anymore...

I had my fortune told by a gypsy, which sort of gave up a bunch of plot threads at once--gotta talk to the Wisps, gotta join the Fellowship, gotta go to Moonglow...In a way, I wish it had been a bit more subtle, like learning about the new threat to Britannia much more slowly or something, or better yet, having to put the pieces together myself. But it's all good, there's still plenty more out there to do! I also continue to enjoy reding all the random books I come across. If only theyhad been rewritten for Serpent Isle and Ascension...