Ultima VI, Day 8

I am pretty sleepy so I will keep this short and post screenshots in the morning. Or in the later morning :-) Today I spent about two hours exploring the dungeons Wrong and Destard. Wrong was strange--there is a electrical field blocking a door in the northeast corner of the first level, but I never did find a swich that would turn it off. Wrong was also strange because its bottom level is just a big, pointless and empty room. It was clearly intended to have once been a jail, with lots of rooms including some with the ever popular murderous children in them. I found the map piece in a hidden chamber behind a hydra. I forgot the story of the guy who lost it, but it seems odd that the dude managed to escape and survive since there was no easy way to get away.

After this I was briefly confused because I had only six pieces of the map, and I thought I should have seven. This was incorrect! After searching uselessly for awhile in places I had been, I spent more than three seconds thinking and realized I already had it. The next task was to hit Trinsic and speak to the cook, who again sent me to Destard. My Destard strategy was to explore in solo mode while invisible, then make a dash for the ladders. This worked well until the third level, which led down to a fourth level full of dragons and which was simply gigantic in size. Huge open caves are a much bigger pain to map than smaller caves, so I didn't even bother once I found the room with the eggs. Surviving this was tough. My strategy was pretty violent: I killed all my party members, save myself and Dupre, put on some rings, and hit the treasure trove. Then I went back to the corpses and cast help. Had I been more keen on reasonableness I might have simply killed them with lava or turned invisible while fighting a dragon.

The cook gave me directions to the final few map pieces--a dude on Dagger Island and a dude somewhere in the woods near Empath Abbey. I remember Crazy Dagger Isle Hermit guy, but I don't remember the Empath Abbey person. Humorously, a small amount of brainpower pretty much gives away where the treasure is at this point, and I remember finding it with ease the first time I played simply by following a partial map. However, it will be amusing to find the last few pieces this time I think. From here I think the game proceeds rapidly to its conclusion--a lot of talking, but not so much mapping huge dungeons.

To answer some questions--yes, after this comes Savage Empire and Martian Dreams, then Underworld. I will try to follow release dates in a rough manner, though I don't know the precise dates for the Runes of Virtue games with respect to the other games--ROV 1 follows Ultima VII by a few months, but both Ultima VIII and ROV 2 were released in March of 1994, and I'm not sure who was first. I have played Savage Empire, but gave up towards the end, while I came extremely close to finishing Martian Dreams, but a bug forced me to quit. Both games seem vastly more difficult than Ultima VI.

Ultima VI, Day 7

Today's gaming took far longer than expected--I decided to hit the anthill in the desert. It's not very dangerous, but it is ridiculously convoluted. It has four levels, and I mapped all four without finding the piece of the map that I was looking for! How frustrating. As it turned out, there was a small alcove on level four which housed the queen and the dead body with the map on it--but sadly, no other treasure worth having. I missed it the first time around.




Unfortunately, there's really not much to say about the ant hill--it's just a big dungeon without much in it! Therefore, I'll scatter screenshots around here while I discuss other things. Specifically, I think it would be interesting to discuss the ways in which the Ultima series changed over time. In my mind, it was all about increased depth--each game added new features which draq you into the game more thoroughly than the last one. Ultima VI is the game where this focus became most obvious, I think, and it lasted only one more main-series game, sadly, with Ultima VIII and IX trying to be more action-RPGs than anything else. In some ways, I think Serpent Isle, even in its broken state, is the height of the style of RPG gaming emphasized by Ultima VI and VII: A detailed world filled to the brim with unique locations, and particularly a world that reacts to the behaviours and choices of the player.


Of course, Serpent Isle is far from perfect--the world's reactions are all pre-programmed and you must win the correct way or never finish the game at all; the game is not open-ended. Also, it is comically linear in places, with chests appearing out of nowhere with quest items in it. I won't even mentioned all the quests deleted in order to get it out on time. It seems to me this development style was cut short after Electronic Arts began to exert more control over Origin, and then their overall direction shifted radically until the company went under. RIP. The Ultimas were basically a niche product, and trying to make them appeal to the masses was a big mistake.

I will correct something I said earlier--the "world reacting to player choices" actually began in a rudimentary way with Ultima IV. I think that's why it's so important to gaming history, because even if just in a very rudimentary way, the world became more dynamic and responsive in a way other than experience points and treasure to the particular "role" you play in this supposed "role-playing" game. Before that, computer RPGs could be simply called "roll playing games," in that your ole is only defined by numbers used in combat and stealing. The later games take that to an extreme.

Ultima VI, Day 6

First off, I had seen the computer-generated Ultima maps before--but I am specifically not using walkthroughs, maps or other cheating methods while playing these games (besides the memory in my brain!) so they are not too useful. Also, Dino suggested his site for hosting my handdrawn maps, etc, but unfortunately, it is the scanner and not the web space that I am lacking ;-)

Thanks to family visiting, I haven't been eager to play as mch Ultima this weekend. I squeezed some in yesterday, though, mostly spent exploring dungeon Shame, where I was told a pirate had gone to seek treasure. Paulon asserts that Despise is connected to other dungeons besides Heftimus cave, but I haven't seen it--Shame seems totally self-contained. It did have some nice treasure, if you like gold nuggets--I found something like 30 or 40, but did not find much in the way of magic items or other cool stuff. Overall, I am disappointed by the magic item quantity in Ultima VI--You've got magic bows, some wands...armor and helm and some rings. There are also a few storm cloaks somewhere, but I don't think there are many of those at all! And I am loath to use them because they vanish eventually, as I recall.

Anyway, Shamewas fairly fun--lots of very long tunnels. I found Ybarra eventually, as well as some amusing bugginess. Sometimes when you kill a monster, you can continue attacking the same location and get a "charge broken!" response. The game designers seem to have athing for putting violent kids in dungeons, too (this tme with a reaper; note its odd appearance) because I found yet mre of them in Shame. Ybarra gave me his map in trade for some food, though he ate his belt. I don't see why he doesn't just eat some rats because they are quick to slaughter.

There comes a time in this and future Ultima games where your characters are heavily encumbered by all the junk youpick up during your quest. In Ultima V it wasn't a big deal--who cared if my party was carring 15 bows and 12 short swords and 19 sets of leather armor? But in Ultima VI, having more party members has the advantage of carrying more stuff, including a skiff for convenient water travel. With that in mind I picked up Blaine the jester gypsy, who now carries nothing but a skiff and a powder keg. I also organized the rest of my party. Zachary carries some needed items, the spellbook, reagents and whatever quest items I am currently working on (map pieces for the moment). Iolo is devoted to carrying gold, and all the not-so-useful-now quest items (rues and moonstones). Shamino is my adventuring gear man, with piles of gems and torches, spare swamp boots (for future party members) and so on. Supre carries all the heavy gear, things I might conceivably need: rope, pick, shovel, bucket and so on. Sherry is a weakling who does not carry much. Her main purpose is to crawl through grates and fences, which is very useful later in some situations. Blain, as mentioned, is about the skiff and poder keg. Weaponwise, Blain has a sling and Sherry a boomerang. Iolo and Shamino have crossbow and magic bow, respectively, while Dupre has a two-handed sword. I personally carry a halbred, which I think is the best weapon in the game--It attacks over several squares and does a pile of damage. The first time I played, I never went into combat mode for my whole party and I just killed things all alone.

I guess the next quest will be to tackle the ant hill off in the desert, and then Wrong and Covetous. That should get most of the map pieces, save one whose location I am unsure of. I think t might be Sandy, the cook, and if I get him a dragon egg perhaps he will be satisfied, but I am unsure. That means I'd have to tackle Destard, though. Aye carumba. Will Ultima VI take longer to finish than Ultima V? I would wager so--the final couple of quests are quick, but I know I have at least three more dungeons to explore after the ones I mentioned, so we shall see.

As a side note, it seems like the Shrine of Humility moved a long way from its old spot, as did the Codex shrine. I have been trying to visit the shrines without the orb of the moons (which makes the game ridiculously easy), but I gave p trying to find the shrne of Humility.

Ultima VI, Day 5

First, some exciting news--My blog has attracted the attention of Lord British himself, who sent me a greeting and wished me well on my quest, and promised a rhyming tombstone if I fail. I will thus give some free advertising to his current project, Tabula Rasa, a multiplayer action-RPG in a sci-fi genre. I grant I have never been a fan of the huge online games--seems like too many people find too many ways to cheat or exploit bugs--but I will give this one a shot, if for no other reason than I appreciated the email. I hope the genre has matured since I last tried Ultima Online many years ago.

Trivia factoid: If you have the original Ultima Online strategy guide, you can find a news item concerning yours truly and my desire to entertain the inhabitants of Britannia with song!

My quest in Ultima VI continued with several dungeon mapping expeditions. I began with the sewers underneath Castle British, which are brimming with rats and gazers and other beasties. No monster in the Ultima universe changes so much between games as the gazer, which in Ultima VI looks like a hovering green UFO with little red dots all around. The reaper also changes a lot--they're supposed to be big posessed trees, but in Ultima VI they look like really goofy amoebas or something, but with flapping arms They finally look reasonable around Ultima VII, and in Ultima Underworld--although looking like a tree seems a silly disguise underground! In any case, they are fearsome foes, somming swarms of non-deadly but *REALLY* annoying insects and charming party members. Underneath the castle I also found a nest of daemons, but the were guarding literally no treasure, so I didn't stick around long. I also found Phoenix, the thieve's guild member whose guild belt I was ordered to steal. Since she prances around her house with two glass swords, the best approach for dealing with her is to either pickpocket the belt, or kill her by pushing her into her own poison field and waiting...In the screenshot you see one of the charming things about Ultima VI and beyond--your party members directly interact with other people and sometimes pop in with comments, like Sherry in this case after Phoenix pins a mouse in her home to a wall with her knife.

I also explored a cave near Jhelom, called....Heftimus Cave, I believe. Turns out it is connected to dungeon Despise, which it turns out is not an inspiring dungeon. Dungeoneering in this game is depressingly unrewarding, save for a gold nugget here and there and some rings. Ultima V had more treasure--but I have to admit, getting rid of the 3-D dungeons improved Ultima a lot, allowing for a consistent interface and making map-drawing *far* simpler for me. I wish I could scan in some of my hand-drawn maps of the sewers, etc. I try to leave no stone untouched, but I may be less thorough as I try to gt through, say, Hythloth.

In terms of the main plot, I cleansed another shrine, in this case Sacrifice. When I had to go get a stupid set of panpipes made to get the rune, I assumed it was only because the doofball who was making me do this inane chore was not aware of the gargoyle threat. Yet, when I tell him how to play panpipes he hands me the room and tells me he hopes I can do something about the gargoyles! Thanks, buddy. Amusingly, I had been worried about where to find the sawmill, but emerging from a moongate near Minoc, I happened to walk right into it. Overall I find the plot of the game pretty easy to follow--I know previous comments have sid hat playing them previously means I tear through them, but honestly I find it is usually pretty clear what needs to be done next in the games, and even when I don't random exploring usually nets me some useful things!

The final thing I have been working on, after joining the Thieve's Guild, is gathering up the pieces of a treasure map associated with the ship Empire. I found one in Trinsic, and one via a hunch in Buccaneer's Den. I am wondering if there might actually be two in Trinsic--the mayor had one, and the cook at the local bar was formerly ship's cook on the Empire, but is that a high enough position to deserve a part of the treasure? I'm not sure. Eventually I'll fetch the dragon egg he demands and perhaps I will find out...Pictured on the right is my visit to the Empire itself, where I found a piece of the map.

Ultima VI, Day 4

I am keeping up my habit of titling each post with the "Day" associated with it, even though as I continue the plan is nuttier and nuttier. In this case, my "day" is a few hours played off and on since Monday, my time being otherwise occupied by pre-interview nervousness. Anyway, one thing I had liked, in theory, about Ultima VI was the idea that dungeon exploration is more fun and rewarding than in previous games. With that in mind, last night I explored and completely mapped dungeon Deceit. Previously I had explored and mapped the libraries underneath the Lycaeum (now Dupre is carrying a dozen books or so...), but Deceit was my first official dungeon-delving! I didn't think much of the books that chronicled my own history, though, because they were awfully vague. For example, the first one just said I went and killed Mondain and that was that. But what about the time machine nd the rescued princess and so on? I guess the later games just sort of plaster over some of the weirdness of the originals--it's particularly hard to make Ultima II fit in with its time travel and the fact that it didn't take place in Sosaria in the first place ;-)

The exploration turned out to be pretty disappointing, although I was amused to find a bunch of children being attacked by giant rats. Given I've only met about 4 kids otherwise in Britannia, it would seem that crazy mages are the prime killer of children in Britannia! That and the mortality rate for kids is imply staggering, with over 70% or o killed by rats in a mage's prison in Deceit. At any rate, deceit was simply filled with spikes and caltrops and such traps, and in the whole place the only treasure to speak of was a few rings and a staff. Thus I left and headed on to Jhelom, where I learned of a rune stolen by a mouse. On a tip from the gal at the bar, I hit Lord British's castle (via moongate, of course!) and picked up Sherry, and fetched the rune, and cleansed the shrine. Oh yeah, Jhelom's pub is interesting because I walked in at night and it looked like everyone was dead, but they simply knocked one another out while brawling. I understand yu can get them to kill each other duing the brawls, but I don't think that's too useful a project...

This calls for a nice paragraph devoted to our good friend Sherry. First of all, she's a talking mouse, but her strength of two was sufficient to give her a boomerand and some swamp boots to wear. This suggested she would be a good enough companion and I didn't need to dump her off back in the castle! When I visited Rudyom the mage in Cove (see below), I used Sherry to go take revenge on the drake that wizard has locked up in a cage. Doing this multiple times got Sherry up to level three, so now she has plenty of hit points and a strength of seven! This will work out well. On a different note, I understand Sherry was Richard Garriott's girlfriend at the time when the game was made. I'm not a woman, but if I were I'm not sure how I would feel about having a mouse in a game named after me by my boyfiend. I guess it's superior to having, say, Lord British's talking cow or monkey named after me.

I was also told in Buccaneer's Den, where I was sent to ask about the missing silver table, that I needed to join the guild and steal a belt from underneath British's castle--hence my trip to Rudyom, to buy pickpocket! I figure I can steal it off of her that way. if that fails, maybe I can push her into a poison field or something like that. Then I can joing the thieve's guild, and after that get to the treasure trove that includes the other piece of the silver tablet I seek. Of course, I am well aware that this part of the quest is somewhat pointless in the end--I don't think it's even necessary to complete the game--but it's fun nonetheless, and makes for a good story. So my next trip is into the sewers to map things out!

FYI

I am still around, but I flew off to a job interview on Tuesday and got back today. Tonight I explored dungeon Deceit, to no particular purpose! I'll go into more detail tomorrow + screenshots.

Ultima VI, Days 2 and 3

Well, I played several hours today and yesterday--maybe three and a half or so. I tackled most of the plot threads I picked up in Britain, visiting Moonglow and learning about the missing silver tablet, and collecting a few more runes. I used those runes to cleanse a few shrines--Compassion, Honesty and Justice (the latter I did invisibly due to the mass of gargoyles eager for my doom). Most difficult is Honesty, because I invariably forget that you have to get a key to the crypt, so I go down there and kill some adventurers, but immediately have to return to the surface. However, I did make a nice map of the crypts. It is a boring place, overall. The next "dungeon" I will visit is the library in the Lycaeum, which for some insane reason is guarded by a bunch of energy fields. What kind of library is this? More interesting is that a book I am hunting for is wanted by a fellow who offered to buy it from me, which means I may be selling someone a library book--not exactly just or honest. I may lose an eighth.

In honor of the fact that gaygamers.com has linked to my blog, I hooked up with both genders of prostitutes outside Trinsic. Prior to our uncomfortable activities, the guy provided many swordplay puns. Hey, speaking of puns, I used "honor" in a sentence with Trinsic. Ba da bing!
I played Nim a few times with a guy named Dr. Cat in Paws, a bit north of Trinsic, and eventually realized that the key is to get the other player down to four beads, which I did a few times. But his cats made me angry by getting in the way, so I killed all of them, and then went on a rampage and killed the whole population of Paws. Then I decided it was time to reload the game, because after that the shrines probably would not say I am "an inspiration to all."

The most interesting part about Ultima VI is the *huge* variety in the quality and quantity of conversation items between individuals and towns. People in trinsic, for example, are practically mute, whereas nearly all the characters in Skara Brae will go on and on, about each other and about the Quenton murder (Quenton is a ghost who haunts the city). This makes it all the more absurd that you can't solve the murder! From what I can gather, Quenton's daughter is infatuated with the bully Michael who lives outside town, and somehow Quenton got killed by Michael.

This leads to some insanity in terms of the Britannian timeline. Several people in Skara brae insist that Marney's mother was killed by Mondain's henchmen! I assumed that this just meant maybe some monsters associated with Mondain, but no, another character, an armless guy in Empath Abbey, specifically said "Mondain had to be thwarted." What!? Guys, your memory must have been addled by Blackthorn, except none of you seemed to exist in Blackthorn's time....but anyway. My usual explanations for the fact that almost everyone from Ultima V is dead are twofold:

1) Gargoyles kill people (even though te bards in Minoc are sufficiently unconcerned about the gargoyles to make me go get wood for a panflute and play a tune to give me the rune...) and a bunch of people might have died.

2) Britannia may have some sort of civil service, such that the populace is drafted as guards--so nameless guards in Ultima V might now be characters in Ultima VI, and vice versa.

3) The world map of Ultima V suggests that some people who were adventurers or who lived in the woods etc. would have never been met.

4) They went to check out a book at the Lycaeum and fell into a fire field!

Nevertheless, there seems to be a dearth of children in Ultima VI and all the games for that matter, so it's not clear how the population replaces itself! So we've got people who didn't exist 20 years ago talking about events from 100+ (?) years ago as if they were yesterday, plus we have a woman in the mint whose mother was at the celebration of the Codex before she was born. I think multiple developers must have written these conversations for them to get so confused...