Comments on Blogging Ultima: Ultima IX, Day 7

The Pyros summoning is pretty clearly in the game ...

2008-02-12T14:29:00.000-08:00

The Pyros summoning is pretty clearly in the game because they had already made the cutscene for it. Of course, when they did that, it was a dream sequence for Lord British in the other plotline, where the Guardian is trying to get him to distrust the Avatar. But, they had this cool Pyros summoning cutscene, and so they decided they had to use it.

I see what you mean about the disjointed nature of...

2008-02-09T09:15:00.000-08:00

I see what you mean about the disjointed nature of the game, now that you clarify it. I agree, that is a problem, but really not the biggest one. I've experienced far worse in other games.

I still think that the dialogue is the real crux of a lot of the troubles with the game, though. Much of it was probably not read through before being put into the game - the question about the wolf mentioned earlier, the "stealing is always wrong" part in the Well of Souls (especially in regard to his previous previous recent adventures), and the infamous "What's a paladin?" line in Trinsic.

Glad to hear you didn't have any crash issues on V...

2008-02-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

Glad to hear you didn't have any crash issues on Valoria... I certainly did. And I also didn't get the "heroic" version of the island's music when I cleansed the shrine. In fact, I think it's just silent... which is odd, because it's on the files. The WAV extractor tool I used to retrieve them got it with all the others.

Yeah, I agree that the plot feels like it was patched up. Not QUITE as bad as Serpent Isle after the Banes go amok, where the dangling threads are like a carpet.

I'm not sure why they threw in the town of Dawn near the dungeon... there was an old fan fiction story (quite well written, in fact) that was post-Ultima VII where the Avatar finds the lost city of Dawn from Ultima III, which faded into the Void, where it became vulnerable to the Guardian. The Avatar manages to save the townsfolk and destroy the connection to the Void so the Guardian can't use it, and the townspeople build a new village of Dawn. Maybe the U9 developers read that one too...

What always bothered me about U9's design was the general feel of the landscape as you walked around. The Yew area's a good example. It's not so much a living world as an amusement park. Peasants stand out in the middle of nowhere and say nothing relevant. In Ultima VII they were either bandits or full NPC's with something important to say. Very disappointing.

I could be mistaken, but I think the Dragon was ca...

2008-02-08T14:31:00.000-08:00

I could be mistaken, but I think the Dragon was called Talornia.

The talorians are those creatures in UW2, I think...