why has nobody since ever been able to make a game that approaches

I don't know but someone needs to. Btw what is your favorite Ultima game?

>what is your favorite Ultima game?
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar

Thinking about that game it is 30 years old now and I think there still aren't another RPGs that does NOT feature a villain for you to fight but only resolves around bettering yourself. Things like this alone makes me consider answering yes to OP's question.

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>>3368531
> Ultima I
> or Questron ?
it wasn't brilliant, just different
You might say Ultima III was brilliant because of how many lights Japan shone upon it. or if you are using "sublime" to mean inspiring then yeah Ultima III and Wizardry I inspired an entire industry over there.

Because it was overshadowed by other games and suffered badly from poor design choices.
Who is going to appreciate a game about time travel when all you do is grind in a boat?

Ultima V is the best in the series hands down. It took forever to beat and the underworld was brutally hard.

>>3368590
>tfw no modern games about Aristotelian virtue ethics

The NES port of V is bad.

>>3369086
Well, that's for two reasons:

1. It was ported by Pony Canyon one of the worst NES devs
2. The port was done in 1991 or some late date like that, so they used the Ultima VI engine instead unfortunately it suffered the same problems as C64 Ultima VI being that the thing was designed for 16-bit hardware and the game had to be severely trimmed down to fit on 8-bit hardware

>>3369092
>The port was done in 1991 or some late date like that, so they used the Ultima VI engine instead unfortunately it suffered the same problems as C64 Ultima VI being that the thing was designed for 16-bit hardware and the game had to be severely trimmed down to fit on 8-bit hardware
True...but at least it didn't look like a retarded DQ clone like Ultima III, though the irony being that DQ was in of itself an Ultima clone.

U5 is a great game and highly influential on the CRPG genre, unfortunately it's one murderous son of a bitch. Probably one of the hardest CRPGs ever. Might & Magic Book 1 which IMO is one of the top 5 hardest isn't even as tough as U5.

>get attacked by enemies at the start of the game and have no clue what to do

Kind of a problem with the Ultima series in general; it's very unintuitive and you can be left scratching your head at how to accomplish something.

NES Ultima III is pretty good actually if you can overlook playing with a gamepad and the graphics. The biggest flaw with it was censoring the dialog to conform with NOA's content restrictions. NES U4 however is a butchery with tons of missing stuff and U5 is just a bad joke.

I know the Ultima series were originally developed around the Apple II, but holy god are the Apple versions ugly as sin and they have no sound without a Mockingboard which still isn't as good as the C64 or Amiga.

Personally I like the classic Ultimas (up to 5) better on the 8-bit versions as the graphics have more charm than the 16-bit versions.

>giving characters actual faces instead of letting you imagine what they look like

Ultima VI I also felt ruined the feel of the games as the graphics got too good at that point.

Ultima V and VI are best on the PC. The Amiga versions were kind of half-assed and I never believed that Origin took that platform seriously. VI especially is the first Ultima of the 90s, it was designed around PC hardware for the first time instead of the Apple II.

The C64 version of U5 is torture due to the amount of disk access/swapping although some of it is mitigated if you have a C128 and/or two disk drives.

>>3369118
what about the Apple II version?

>>3369125
The Apple version has faster disk access though the C64 has fastloaders. No music though (unless Mockingboard) and uglier graphics.

>>3369118
5 is only good if you get the patch that adds music. PC98 is prettier but Japanese only.

6 has voice acting on the FM Towns. The quality is poor but it's amazing given the volume of text.
There's also nuvie which allows you to include the voice acting as well as update the interface for higher resolutions and move comfort.

>>3369092
The biggest issue is that it also runs slow as molasses.

>>3369079
The length and difficulty aren't really what makes it so good. The atmosphere is amazing and the plot captivating.

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>>3368876
I guess there were a bunch of these games. Here's the only one i played (briefly) on a friend's C64. Don't remember a damn thinga about it though.
Then there's earlier games like Temple of Apshai, Telengard, and Dungeon of the Necromancer's Domain.
But the more time passes, the more I find these old games interesting, and less I give a damn about graphics. Ultimately I have to write my own such game, it's a must.

>>3369109
>>3369097
>>3369092
We all know the greatest console Ultima is Runes of Virtue...
At least the music is amazing.
https://youtu.be/RD8LsjiQmvs

>tfw can't get into any 80s CRPGs
Betrayal at Krondor is the oldest I've been able to get into

Kill me

Does anyone know of a mod that translates all the runic script in the signs in U5 into normal English?

>>3369601
Just learn the script already.

>>3369654
I have, but it's a bitch to read it a la a second language, especially when playing with my gf. Sounding out every word on those gravestones gets old fast.

>>3369743
It's not a second language, it's an alternate script for English. It's also used beyond Ultima since it's essentially standard Germanic runes.
There is a patch that's part of the patcher packet but I can't recommend it.

>>3369118
The Amiga U5 isn't actually that bad except that it has no music outside the title screen. Swapping disks is annoying although it is hard disk installable.

Well I like the music in C64 U5 but back in the day I imagine most people never heard it because you needed a C128, but then the Apple version didn't have music unless you had a Mockingboard. FWIW I think the Apple music is better and they didn't quite do the SID chip justice when converting it.

My dad used to play the shit out of U5 on his C64 back in the day. Later on his wife's son convinced him to spring for a C128, might have been just for this game.

>>3369128
Ultima on the Apple // and C64 look pretty much the same. Maybe a few extra colors on the Commodore, but nothing that takes it to new levels.

>>3369118
The Apple II U5 is on one less disk than the C64 which is a little odd since I'd assume Apple games are more code dense due to the lack of hardware graphics acceleration. Otherwise it's played similarly in that you boot the game using the Program disk and on a two-drive system, the Overworld disk is left in Drive 0 at all times while the other disks are swapped in and out of Drive 1. Overworld is also used for your save game. The Program disk is copy protected, all of the other game disks can be backed up.

Aside from the Mockingboard, a couple of less well-known Apple II sound cards are supported like the Phasor and Passport MIDI Interface.

An Atari 8-bit port of U5 was also started but never finished. Two game disks have been located, but not the remainder of the game. In an online chat back at the time, Richard Garriott stated that the game was being developed for the Atari 800XL and done by an outside contractor, but it apparently never went anywhere.

>>3369118
PC U5 still has no music in its original unpatched form, also no mouse support like the Amiga port, which is lazy because contemporary LucasArts and Sierra adventures had it.

>>3370231
Why would there be mouse support in Ultima V? It was still in the era of every-key-does-something.

>>3370238
Read the last part of the post. There were PC games out in '88 with mouse support, there was no reason to not have it.

>>3370223
I'm pretty sure the market for Atari 8-bit software was 404 not found by the time U5 came out.

They also had an FM Towns port of U4 with CD audio and 256 color graphics but only for the intro while the in-game graphics are 16 color.

>>3370246
But for what purpose would having a mouse benefit U5? (How did the Amiga utilize it?) The interface was developed around using the keyboard. It was also developed first on the Apple // where mice were uncommon.

The earlier Ultimas (2 and 3) were on the PC as well but they're CGA only and do not do any speed throttling which means they're incapable of running on anything but an 8088. They're notably DOS games and not self-booters which is rare for PC games of this time, though they're designed for DOS 1.x and so don't support subdirectories. Also quite buggy; the games are prone to getting Divide By Zero errors and crashing out to the DOS prompt.

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C64 Ultima III has been patched to fix assorted bugs, also compressed better to fit on one side of a 1541 disk instead of the original flip disk.

BTW, the best console version of U4 is the Master System one which is a nearly flawless conversion and embarrasses the NES U4.

Yeah in IV, if you're playing on the 8-bit versions it will do a forbidding amount of disk access.

>any time you cross a 16x16 tile block
>any time you talk to a NPC
>any time you enter/exit a dungeon, you have to flip the disk over
>the C64 U4 also does not have a fastloader--ouch

>>3370379
The PC port also has no music, but then in 1987 there were no sound cards yet available (Adlib was still a year away). The VGA/sound card patch requires a 386 to run in which case the faster CPU speed will prevent you from hearing the original PC speaker sfx.

As for the rest, the C64, Amiga, and Atari ST ports have music, and the Apple II if you have a Mockingboard. The Atari 8-bit version sadly does not because Origin decided to convert it for the 48k Atari 800 rather than the 64k 800XL.

>>3370379
Go to main map, walk around.
Swap out disk to any other.
When the game loads the next segment, the map turns into gibberish, including a functioning treasure chest that never goes away.

>>3370450
not very good error checking because I know that Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken won't let you do that. If you insert the wrong disk side, it will simply ask you for the correct one. Origin didn't seem to have particularly good programmers and their classic games do have a lot of bugs/poor programming in them.

>>3370335
U3 didn't get on the PC until 1985, two years after the other ports came out, but for some reason it still wasn't upgraded to support DOS 2.x.

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Why they couldn't actually have the original title screen on the C64 I don't know.

>>3370754
Apparently it was rushed out the door before the programmer could finish. This is the worst C64 Ultima after VI. Go play it on the Apple II instead.

I think I spent the entire summer of 1989 playing C64 Ultima V.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdEcUi0Q_6k

Ultima V C64 (well, really C128) soundtrack. This does kind of demonstrate the unfortunate tendency of NTSC devs to not do anything interesting with the SID and just stick to the default envelopes.

I spent an uncomfortably large sum of money on an original copy of Apple II U2 only to find that some nimrod had used the original game disk for his save game instead of making a copy like you were supposed to.

>>3370861
huh?

>>3370868
Ultima II was on a flip disk. The first side is used to boot the game and has copy protection. The second side is unprotected and you're supposed to create a backup copy which you then use to save your game progress to. Problem is that once done, you cannot erase your save game. You only have an option to create a new "player" which will overwrite the previous contents of the disk.

BTW, Ultima II was published by Sierra and has the stock Sierra Apple II protection scheme which involves putting self-modifying code on track 0. It's easily cracked and once you figure it out, you could de-protect about 75% of Sierra's Apple II games.

Ultima III was trickier; this had a custom disk format, but copying it was actually pretty easy.

Ultima IV actually used the standard DOS 3.3 format, but had custom disk routines for lighting-fast access time.

Also some Apple II protections used illegal 6502 opcodes which broke them on the //e and IIc because the 65C02 has them removed. .

>>3370173
>Well I like the music in C64 U5 but back in the day I imagine most people never heard it because you needed a C128, but then the Apple version didn't have music unless you had a Mockingboard.

You also need a 128k Apple II model for the music. U5 will run on 64k models but no music even if you have a Mockingboard.

Ultima V apparently even still runs on an Apple II+ if you have a language card installed to boost it to 64k.

>>3370247
>>3370223
The guy who worked on that had posted on AtariAge. Actually it wasn't an officially licensed port at all, he was a 22 year old Ultima fanboy with an Atari 130XE who loved U4 and wanted U5 but Origin didn't release it for the Atari 8-bit so he decided to try a port himself. He said he contacted Origin and asked for official permission to do the port, but they said they had already ruled out the idea of an Atari version apparently due to concerns over piracy.

>>3371094
Piracy was just a lame excuse commonly used back then for "Oh, this system is dead and there's not enough of a market share to justify porting the game for it."

Because let's be honest. Probably less than half of all C64 and Apple II games were legally purchased.

>>3371098
Yeah the piracy excuse was lame. The Disk II controller was so low-level that there is literally no Apple II copy protection in existence that you can't copy with the right software. Less so for Commodore drives as a few protections like the scheme used on Bounty Bob Strikes Back were apparently uncopyable with standard hardware.

It had more to do with the potential market share than anything. For one thing, by 1985 every computer on the market had minimum 64k of memory, 16-bit machines like the Amiga were just coming out and those had 512k out of the box. Atari were no exception, unfortunately most devs chose instead to support the 48k Atari 800 because there were a lot more of those around than the 64k 800XL. Also Atari used two different disk formats (90k and 130k) while Apple and Commodore only had one. This led to games also being released on 90k disks so as not to exclude owners of 810 drives. Besides, there were a lot fewer Atari 8-bits around than there were Apple IIs and C64s.

Trying to shoehorn a game designed for 64k of memory onto a 48k machine wasn't going to be that fun or easy, much less when there was less than 100k of disk space. Of course nothing stopped them from supporting the 800XL+1050 drive other than that there was a significantly smaller userbase for those.

It's not the only factor of course but one of the bigger ones.

>>3371094
Why couldn't the Apple or Commie (or both) be dis-assembled, re-written for the POKEY/ANTIC, graphics and sounds copied, etc.?
There's several people doing that for other games. Those guys have even done (very good) Z80 to 6502 translations.

I don't see why you couldn't just copy the data files verbatim, unless there's executable code in them.

>>3371120
>implying CPUs are the only thing that matters
The Mac Plus and Mega Drive share a CPU. Let's see you port Strider to the former and see how well that works out.

it was pretty disappointing how much the Atari 8-bit market eroded after 1985

>>3371116
I find it hard to believe there was more piracy on the Atari 8-bits than the C64 or Apple II.

If anything, it was a negative effect for Atari to be Jews and not release tech info for the 400/800 until a couple of their programmers leaked it out. They couldn't penetrate the market as fast and early as they might have.

i still can't entirely get my head around why there wasn't a massive influx of homebrew/indie developers around the time the commercial giants pulled out of the market though.

It all boils down to market share. At the peak in 1981-82, Atari had 20% of the personal computer market and then it sunk like a rock. Apple II market share peaked at 15% between 1981 and 84, but also stayed on the market longer and having lots of top-shelf 6502 coders to develop software for it. The C64 had a whopping 40% of the market by late 1983 and retained double digit figures to about 1987. Then of course obviously 16-bit computers took yet more market share. Atari didn't have a chance.

Atari 8-bits were supported by most game devs until 1986. It might have been nice to have Ultima V on the 130XE but there just wasn't enough of a market to justify it. That and the storage issues mentioned above. Most devs released stuff on 90k disks and even the 130k format was pretty small. Since the Atari 800+810 drive combination was the one with the most installed user base, that was the most logical one to support.

There were also a lot of 400s but as they really didn't have enough memory for most disk software, that was also out the window.

>>3370238
>>3370274
It's a thing that's sorely lacking in 5 since you have free targeting in combat instead simply choosing an attack direction.

The implementation on the Amiga is poor since it emulates a keyboard. i.e. Clicking above your character registers as pushing up.

Lowest common denominator aka 48k Atari 800. Atari sold significantly less 64k-128k models as by the time those came out, their market share was collapsing.

>>3371125
Reminds me of the C64 port of Exodus
>U3 is one of the worst pieces of C64 code I've ever seen. The port, if you can call it that, is downright horrible. For example the graphics data was stored in Apple II format in RAM, and converted on the fly when blitting tiles and characters, making the game pathetically slow.

>>3371116
>>3371098
I don't agree with it and anyone who actually lived through the 80s wouldn't either. The Apple II and C64 had lots of piracy yes, BUT the sheer size of the userbase meant you could always sell enough games to make a profit regardless. This wasn't true for Atari games. The market was smaller to begin with and assuming on average that 50-60% of all copies were pirated, you just couldn't develop for the system profitably.

>>3371180
http://www.lemon64.com/?mainurl=http%3A//www.lemon64.com/games/details.php%3FID%3D2749

Gee, you wouldn't know it from the comments here.

>>3371181
Also the Atari magazines at the time all had extensive editorials about piracy and its effect on software development for the platform.

>>3371189
That's because piracy makes for a good, controversial, inflammatory subject that guarantees you can sell a lot of magazines. Also I might as well point out that magazines and sometimes even software devs themselves employed active pirates, often as beta testers or reviewers.

whilst Spectrum was a (bad) gaming computer, you did other things than playing games with the A8, WP, graphics, music, business etc....

>>3371197
Kind of true. In fact Clive Sinclair actually rather detested video games and wanted a computer that was limited enough to discourage gamers. Well, it didn't exactly work, did it?

You have to consider several things when you look at this. We can look back and say Atari 8 bit machines were produced until 1992 but developers had no way of knowing that at the time:

*Atari didn't have stable management after 1983
*Atari came out with the 5200 then pulled the plug after only two years on the market
*The short-lived Atari 1200
*The 600 and 800XL were more price-competitive, but Atari were slow to come out with a 64k machine when that was becoming the industry standard, also Apple were soon preparing to release a 128k machine.
*Atari were very slow to have double density floppies; most personal computers had them by 1980-81. Since you'd exclude owners of 810 drives by releasing software on 1050 format disks...
*The Tramiel-led Atari put all their weight behind the next-gen Atari ST and lost interest in the 8-bit line entirely
*Apple, Tandy, and then Commodore all came out with 128k machines that had 80-column text and superior ability at running business software
*The ZX Spectrum evolved from a rubber-keyed toy to a credible and dirt-cheap home computer

So in short, Atari's future was uncertain. The company was in turmoil, the 8-bit line was falling further and further behind technologically, and so nobody wanted to risk it.

>>3371208
My cousin worked at a computer store in '86 and complained to an EA sales rep about the diminishing number of Atari 8-bit releases and she said "Sorry, too much piracy. It's not profitable to put games on the Ataris." He told her "WTF. There's probably double to triple as much piracy on the C64." and if they didn't start delivering more Atari stuff, they'd cut back on orders for all EA games, which they did. He didn't accept this sales rep's explanation after she'd told him that they were selling more Atari games than Apple II games.

>>3371208
>*Apple, Tandy, and then Commodore all came out with 128k machines that had 80-column text and superior ability at running business software

Wut. Sorry, but Tandy was a near-non factor in the home computer market. You couldn't find software for them other than at Radio Shack itself, hard to find joysticks, etc. At the store where my cousin worked, Tandys were among the handful of machines they would not accept for trade-ins, the others being the Coleco Adam and IBM PCjr (lyl). He said even at that time, they were selling plenty of 800XLs.

>>3371224
Maybe where you lived, but around here nobody had Atari 8-bits. The local Fred Meyers stopped carrying 800XLs after selling about three of them. They also never even bothered stocking the XE line.

Also Tandy had up to 40% of the market for personal computers in 1979 and the TRS-80 Model I was the best selling computer of its day (250,000 sold between 1977 and 80). However, the personal computer price wars caused their market share to erode to just 9% in 1983. They countered with the CoCo 2 and then a bit later introduced IBM compatibles which were major sellers in the late 80s and Tandy reported the CoCo was their biggest selling computer line almost up until its discontinuation.

Tandy may have not had the highest market share but their distribution system meant they couldn't not make a profit on computers and that held true until the 90s when several poor decisions led to their exit from the computer business. Tandy's 1983 profits totally about $2.5 billion and about 75% of that came from computer sales. By the early 90s, Tandy was making about $6 billion a year.

Atari at their maximum made $2 billion in profits and most of that came from the Atari 2600. I don't have figures for Commodore but I don't think they ever topped $2 billion in annual profits. Apple didn't reach that figure until 1985.

The point is, Atari and Commodore were small potatoes compared to Tandy. Even Apple didn't reach $5 billion+ annual profits until 1993. Meanwhile, Atari never made more than $500 million a year during the ST's height and that also factors in the alleged high 8-bit sales in Europe.

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>>3371247
My dad traveled the country back then attending CES events and visiting distributors. He said you didn't see any Tandy gear anywhere. They were completely irrelevant except at your friendly neighborhood Rat Shack. Basically a nonentity when Commodore and Apple were king.

Shit, how many of the major game developers even supported Tandy machines? Not Broderbund, not Sierra, not Origin, not Epyx, not Activision. Not anybody.

>>3371254
Huh? Tandy never attended CES events. They didn't need it. Lots of products were on display at CES events most of which bombed. Appearing at a CES show =/= a relevant product. Besides, the huge profits Tandy were taking in from their computer line back then don't lie.

It wasn't base memory size, it wasn't legacy hardware - it was pure and simple "smaller install base" than the other popular platforms (C64, Apple II, ZX Spectrum etc).

The sole reason developers (both US and UK) did not develop for the A8 was the install base size - contemporary accounts from publishers and devs all confirm this.

Any given game needs sell to X% of the user base of a piece of hardware, the base number of units of software you aim to sell so you can at least break even, if you shift more then it's gravy!

Many companies in the late 80s could sell enough units of games to do that on the other platforms, and get into profit quickly (most games have a hot sales window of around 6 weeks, so you gotta do the business quickly) - whether it was original or ports - but struggled to do that on the A8.

>>3371259
it is too bad because a lot of programmers really liked the Atari 8-bits and were sad that the userbase wasn't big enough to profitably release games for the thing. Andrew Braybook for example did a port of Gribly's Day for the Atari and it never got released due to projected low sales. Software houses that did support the A8 later down the line struggled, Brian Jobling of Zeppelin once commented in an interview that they sold something like 5 copies of one of their releases.

TRS-80 sales can't necessarily be taken as an indication of the worth of producing games for it - there were clones of the machine through it's life, probably selling significantly more as a percentage than the Apple II clones so the market would have been bigger than you might think.

sn't it fairly safe to assume the smaller user base was an effect rather than a cause though? We'd need to look at reasons why there were less sold and i still stand by my previous point about lack of documentation (so less indie software to make things look "busy" for potential buyers) and what others have said about Atari's marketing; John Harris recounts a tale of them being approached by a firm wanting to port popular productivity software and saying no, because it would "will ruin [the A8's] game machine image" - that's just daft if it's true.

http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/HARRIS.HTM

>>3371259
Ultima was never ported to the ZX Spectrum. Probably because you couldn't put it on a tape.

I'm pretty sure the small user base was a factor because the major British software houses at the time all held the same opinion - we can't put games on the Atari because we'd sell all of 5 copies. System 3, Psygnosis, Microprose, Grandslam, Elite, Domark, Virgin, Ocean, all of them said this at one time or another. It wasn't profitable and devs who tried making Atari games lived to regret it.

>>3368531
There's an old game I'm looking for that has graphics similar to that... It's not related to ultima, and if I remember well, turn-base battles looked like those you'd see in classic Final Fantasy games. The characters had capes I believe, but that last aspect was just a vague memory. Any idea, /vr/?

>>3370495
The data involved with MM and ZM I imagine are a much different beast than Ultima's map data. To load the map segments, I imagine I'd either doing direct disk reads or pulling from specific sections of files. I don't think what they did there was particularly poor programming as it doesn't break the game or reveal anything.

>>3370861
If you're handy with a sector editor, you can try blanking out the character disk. When I got a copy of the game way back when, there was already a character on the disk. So I looked around, found the character data (search for the character's name) then zeroed out the sector. Worked nicely. Though I think the map data stayed intact with whatever ships were on it.

Unfortunately I wasn't as successful with the Ultima I copy I had, and had no choice but to play as a fighter.

>>3371173
Fighting wasn't a particular chore in U5, the maps weren't particularly large. I don't see it too worthwhile to to add mouse support for just for those scenes. And at that, just for targeting, you're still hitting keys to issue commands.

>>3371283
This seems to be quite common with used Ultima II copies btw, a lot of people ignored the game instructions to make a copy of the disk and just used the original one after cutting a write protect notch in it.

>>3371283
>Unfortunately I wasn't as successful with the Ultima I copy I had, and had no choice but to play as a fighter.
Ultima I used a protected 13 sector disk and I think the format on each track differed slightly. The disk was copyable with DOS 3.2 so you could make a "play" disk to save games on.

Also, they messed with the catalog track, so that cataloging the disk
would show a message instead of a list of files.

>>3371264
TRS-80s lacked third party support because Radio Shack required a special license from devs to sell software in their stores which most objected to. It also wasn't profitable to release software outside of a RS shelf.

The CoCo had mostly a cottage/indie software development scene with games sold through mail order and there being a lot of clones of arcade games which you could do without being sued because there was no money to be made from that.

Ok - still from the UK point of view only -

I have a good example to here - Mastertronic was a UK based budget software leader. They didn't spend a fortune on adverts compared to the big guns and they sold their software at petrol stations and newsagents (and of course computer outlets) - practically they had nothing to lose by taking chances with both titles and also platforms alike.

Here's the statistics for the number of titles released for the 8 bits:

Amstrad CPC: 0 (1984), 8 (1985), 20 (1986), 48 (1987), 25 (1988), 21 (1989), 15 (1990)

Atari 8-bit: 0 (1984), 1 (1985), 12 (1986), 18 (1987), 3 (1988), 4 (1989), 1 (1990)

BBC Micro: 4 (1984), 0 (1985), 3 (1986), 12 (1987), 3 (1988), 1 (1989), 0 (1990)

Commodore 16: 0 (1984), 8 (1985), 17 (1986), 15 (1987), 4 (1988), 0 (1989), 1 (1990)

Commodore 64: 21 (1984), 22 (1985), 28 (1986), 69 (1987), 58 (1988), 35 (1989), 11 (1990)

Dragon 32: 1 (1984), 1 (1985), 0 (1986), 0 (1987), 0 (1988), 0 (1989), 0 (1990)

Acorn Electron: 0 (1984), 0 (1985), 3 (1986), 0 (1987), 0 (1988), 0 (1989), 0 (1990)

MSX: 0 (1984), 3 (1985), 6 (1986), 21 (1987), 0 (1988), 0 (1989), 0 (1990)

Spectrum 128: 0 (1984), 0 (1985), 1 (1986), 2 (1987), 0 (1988), 0 (1989), 0 (1990)

ZX Spectrum/Amstrad duo-tape: 0 (1984), 0 (1985), 0 (1986), 0 (1987), 18 (1988), 10 (1989), 0 (1990)

ZX Spectrum: 17 (1984), 26 (1985), 30 (1986), 68 (1987), 42 (1988), 27 (1989), 16 (1990)

Commodore VIC-20: 12 (1984), 5 (1985), 0 (1986), 0 (1987), 0 (1988), 0 (1989), 0 (1990)

Total releases: 55 (1984), 78 (1985), 120 (1986), 253 (1987), 133 (1988), 98 (1989), 44 (1990)

t. even at £10 a tape at the local Tesco's, the Atari 8-bit still wasn't a profitable computer to produce games for

>>3371283
> And at that, just for targeting, you're still hitting keys to issue commands.
You make that sound like it's a bad thing.

I wonder if the increase in titles released for the Atari was linked to the cheap 800XL deals (then XE?) through the Dixons chain in the UK? Another issue affecting Sales in the UK would have been retail shelf space, there were games that I didn't know were available at the time as they didn't get displayed.

>>3371338
Shelf space is directly related to sales numbers - these figures were centralised and distributed by Gallup and drove the stocking decisions of the high street. So the same issue, few users = few sales = little shelf space.

The Dixon's deals generated little demand since they shipped the systems with a bundle of games (usually) and the cheapness of the systems did not attract enthusiasts or committed users to invigorate retail activity beyond the initial sale.

Ocean is a great example - they developed some A8 games in the guise of Imagine Software (whom they purchased in 1984) - but all were financially very poor performers. I know this from the horses mouth as it were (Mike Hutchinson, Arkanoid Developer and Gary Bracey ex Ocean).

I think another factor of the fail in the UK was the really slow tape drive. I remember at school back then common consensus was that the Atari's was REALLY slow, and unreliable to load. And of course back then the UK market was dominated by tape. I guess by the time disk drives were around cheap, no-one cared as the ST and Amiga had pretty much taken over the higher end & Speccy 128+2 had the low end.

>>3371345
Interestingly in commie Eastern Europe, they came out with a custom cartridge that could load Atari tapes at 6000 (!) baud but this never made it to the free side of the Iron Curtain and if it had would have been too late to have much impact anyway.

I'll say that the demise of the 8-bit Atari's were inevitable - and you could not expect 16-bit games to be converted to the 8-bits. That only very few could have been, and even then, the 16-bit version would probably look and play better?
You got to be realistic about conversions as such - and the limitations of the Atari 8-bit hardware.

Big name companies offering home computer versions of popular arcade games - were for the most part ripping off the consumer. In that if only a poor home version was offered - it would have been a poor purchase. The Spectrum (and others) could not offer fine scrolling and other such abilities/qualities - and could only produce very few worthwhile conversions as such, which their hardware could cope with. Likewise the Atari 8-bits face this hurdle as well - the earlier coin-ops, were of course simpler games - which could lend themselves towards a home computer version. Trying to port late 80s arcade games like Double Dragon and Strider to the Atari was asking for too much.

>>3371348
>I'll say that the demise of the 8-bit Atari's were inevitable - and you could not expect 16-bit games to be converted to the 8-bits. That only very few could have been, and even then, the 16-bit version would probably look and play better

Not always. Many PC compatible arcade ports were very awful compared to the 8-bit NES or C64 versions. Even some Amiga ports were bad.

Let's talk about Atari's poor marketing. They didn't seem to know just who to target their computers at. In the early days in 1980-81, they were going after Apple and trying to pitch the A800 as a professional computer for the small business market, then when that bid stiffed, they 180-degreed and went after the home/gamer market.

"Hey guys, let's to fight it out with "Honest Jack" in a race to the bottom, instead of Jobs and company for the higher end more margin market!" XD

>>3371356
I'm not a Tramiel apologist, but Atari did everything completely wrong from day one when they refused to release any technical data for the 400/800 which meant that for the first 2-1/2 years on the market, nobody could program the things except in BASIC.

Also, didn't Atari want to focus on the "Computer" aspect of their systems. If you look at their marketing focus, etc. you can see productivity, office use, education was promoted.
Not to belittle the great games, and the systems that can play, that came out of their effort, but gaming was not what the Atari platform was to be "just" about.

They wanted it to be taken seriously, removing the Atari 2600 gaming stigma.

>>3371362
Well, yeah, but then again if you wanted to be taken seriously as a computer manufacturer, you needed to target the business market first and foremost. Radio Shack, ever since day one, pitched the TRS-80 at businesses first, schools second, and hobbyists third.

>>3371361
I agree. The damage was done early on. I mean, let's be honest. Warner Bros had deep pockets. If they'd played their cards right, they could have bled Apple white.

It's debatable whether the Atari ST killed the 8-bits or gave Atari a new lease on life until the end of the 80s. Definitely by 1985, the 8-bits were on death's door and many of the userbase upset at the lack of new software releases. The ST probably kept the 8-bits going for years longer, since they hung on into the early 90s when they might have been killed off in 1986 otherwise.

It's pretty well-known that the Ray Kassar management team had no clue how to run a technology-based company (Kassar had spent most of his career working in the garment industry prior to being hired as Atari CEO in 1979). The management didn't particularly care about the computer line, considered it a distraction, and wanted to keep raking in $$$ from Atari 2600 sales. The computer division were eager to start work on a next-gen 68000 machine, but Ray and friends weren't having it.

Ultima VII was a mess to get running since it used a custom DOS memory manager and chokes if you try to run the game within Windows.

In an online chat in 1988, Richard Garriott said that they had contracted out to port Ultima V for the Atari 8-bit, but it would likely require 64k of memory and probably a double density floppy drive like the XF551. Of course it only got done halfway.

>>3371116
I don't buy the Atari 800 excuse because Origin did have 800XL releases such as Autoduel.

>>3371510
It runs in DOSbox or you can play it via Exult.
Or you play the SNES game with the same name.

>>3371532
Good memory, Anon! Autoduel is a pretty obscure game and it does require an 800XL to run. And yes, most devs did not want to support the 800XL for fear of not getting sufficient sales. The Atari 8-bits were almost unique in that devs were not eager to support the next-gen models the way they were with Apple or PC hardware.

>>3371527
I'd seen that chatlog and Garriott is pretty vague other than his comment about U5 "probably needing 64k" and an even more vague remark about "high density drives". Note he says "drives" in plural, which could hint at either an XF551 or dual 1050s which would have had a very hard time finding customers. If the game had also needed a 130XE to run, that's a still smaller market yet.

All the same, it's too bad Atari 8-bits never did get U5 although at least the ST got both 5 and 6.

>>3371549
>8-bits were almost unique in that devs were not eager to support the next-gen models the way they were with Apple or PC hardware.
Next to nobody supported the C128. At best it got treated like a C64 with more RAM and a better drive.

Ultima 5 probably wouldn't be that hard to port from the Apple II or whatever given that they're both 6502 machines.

>>3371554
As I understand, all the 6502 versions of Ultima shared a common code base; they were written first on the Apple II and then the game logic/algorithms reused on the Atari/C64 ports with the sound/graphics/disk code being redone. I'd be willing to bet the Amiga/Atari ST ports also shared a code base.

>>3371565
>As I understand, all the 6502 versions of Ultima shared a common code base; they were written first on the Apple II and then the game logic/algorithms reused on the Atari/C64 ports with the sound/graphics/disk code being redone
Forgot the keyboard/joystick input.

>>3371565
CPUs are far from the only factor. The hardware on an Apple II and an Atari 800 is otherwise completely, drastically different. You'd need an in-depth knowledge of the hardware on both machines plus extremely good knowledge of programming if you're going to convert anything other than a text adventure.

>>3371565
Weren't 16 bit+ games written in C instead of assembler?

>>3371578
Most games on the Amiga/ST were written in 68000 asm. Some stuff used C, but asm was much more common especially for action games where it was essentially a requirement.

>>3371565
The NES also had a 6502. Would that have reused any of the Apple II code?

>>3371581
In theory the NES Ultimas could have, but they probably didn't because they were done in Japan by Pony Canyon who likely didn't have access to the original source code. Still, it's not completely impossible to believe Origin could have licensed the original code to them.

It depends on the game. Some games can be ported to the Atari easily, but anything with lots of sprites will be like running up against a brick wall. It's kind of like how they ported Castlevania to the C64 pretty easily because it doesn't have that many sprites moving around at once while something like Mega Man would have been damn near impossible.

>>3371585
>done in Japan by Pony Canyon who likely didn't have access to the original source code.
I'd assume they did since they also handled the PC98 and x68000 port.
The weird thing is that Ultima V was never released for the Famicom in Japan.

In most cases, the original version of a game was developed around that particular hardware and will be better on it. For example, the Atari versions of Jumpman, Boulder Dash, and Archon came first so they're better than the other ones. The C64 ports had to omit certain graphics effects designed around the ANTIC display line system.

Meanwhile of course a game like Ghostbusters was designed for the C64 first so it won't be as good on the Atari.

I always hated the C64's load time and the Atari and Apple II feel more "polished" in that you just stick the disk in the drive, reset the computer, and it boots up instead of some inane command like LOAD"*",8,1.

>>3371608
But that's one of my favorite things about C64s. No OS disks, no special boot floppies, no bullshit. Just plug it in and turn on the power. On the Apple II, you'd need to typically write your own boot loader and custom disk code if the game needed multiloads. Not necessary at all on the C64 as the drive ROM contains the DOS and it doesn't take any of the computer's memory.

A lot of Atarisoft games are better on the C64.

>Ms. Pac Man
>ghosts actually have eyes
>no sprite flicker
>Donkey Kong
>brighter and more colorful
Pac Man is an exception since they just reused most of the Atari code while translating the sound/graphics/keyboard routines for the C64. Q*Bert is also better on the C64, in fact a lot better.

When it comes to games designed primarily around the C64 like Summer Games, Ghostbusters, and the Microprose "Command" series, the Atari versions fall short.

It's commonly asserted that Ballblazer on the C64 was a bad port because it was designed around the ANTIC display list and this is mostly true BUT the C64 port runs faster due to using character mode and not bitmaps like the Atari original.

Pole Position is better on the Atari. The C64 port has a nice framerate but they fucked up the 3D and overall it doesn't look as nice.

Galaxian? The C64 port is a joke. Don't even bother with it.

Space Invaders got a really good and almost arcade perfect clone Avengers while the Atari 8-bit port of the game is a rushed-out POS.

The C64 Missile Command is trash compared to the Atari.

>>3371620
The following games are all superior on the Atari 8-bit compared to any other version:

*Frogger
*Pac-Man
*Ms. Pac-Man (the C64 version looks nicer but the Atari doesn't sound like a chimpanzee being thrown into a grain thresher)
*Dig Dug (C64 port looks nicer but it's missing a lot of music and plays so slow compared to the 2nd Atari version)
*Pitfall II

>>3371608
Did they add that with the C128? Because I remember games doing that.

Alternate Reality is one example also most early EA games before they dropped the Atari 8-bits like a hot potato.

Electraglide, Pole Position II, and all early LucasArts games. Also Shamus. A lot of the early C64 ports had terrible sound (like Ms. Pac-Man as you noted)

IMO most of the early stuff from 83-84 is better on the Atari. After 1984, the C64 version wins and of course most later games like Maniac Mansion, Pirates!, Ultima V, and Arctic Fox weren't even on the Atari at all.

>>3371620
Ghostbusters for the Atari isn't bad but again, it's designed for 48k machines so doesn't have the "You slimed me!" speech clip from the C64.

I just got through playing the C64 version of Jumpman Junior for the first time... have to say, I still like the Atari 8 version best.

Was Jumpman Jr. ever released on the Apple II? I've got a IIc around here somewhere, could hook it up and try it out.

>>3371648
>Was Jumpman Jr. ever released on the Apple II?
No. Actually Randy Glover said that game was just meant as a "baby" version of Jumpman for Atari/C64 users with cassettes and no disk drive.

>>3371552
Next to the C64 itself, the C128 was Commodore's biggest selling computer line and they sold 4 million of them. This is too bad really.

It would have been nice to have Sierra games like King's Quest on the Atari 8-bit. How come they never bothered with that?

>>3371640
>Alternate Reality
I love this games, really awesome concept and execution.
It's a shame Phillip Price had to stop working on the game industry due to him not seeing any of the money the publisher was doing with his games.

>>3371707
Again, KQ came out in 84 right before the Atari market collapsed but mostly because the AGI engine needed 128k of memory. I mean, shit, game devs couldn't even be bothered to support 64k machines, let alone 128k ones.

>>3371710
Sierra never did really give a shit about the Atari 8-bit or C64 for some reason, which is very unusual when most all game devs were C64-centered.

Didn't they have King's Quest on the Apple II? I know I saw it running on one once.

>>3371716
They did but the games require a IIe with the DHGR card or a IIc, so 128k. I think all the earlier AGI games were on the Apple II but probably not the later ones as they might have needed too much memory or else required stuff that was more than the Apple II's hardware could handle.

>>3371723
Manhunter was on the Apple II but due to memory constraints, the game won't let you save while in the sewers, so it gives you the option to skip that part.

Those AGI ports for the Apple II kinda sucked anyway. They're ugly, very slow, and have absolutely no sound.

>>3371715
I guess probably Sierra just considered the Atari and C64 as cheap toys and not a real computer like the Apple II or IBM PC.

Memory constraints were one problem, but more importantly the AGI engine is designed around a system with bitmap graphics. The C64/Atari have character/sprite graphics, so they're not suited for that shit.

>>3371201
i thought it was more so they could have a really cheap computer to increase computer literacy in poor children

>>3371613
yeah but the routines were insanely slow, that's the problem

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Reminder that there's a demoscene remaster of C64 Ultima IV: https://magervalp.github.io/2015/03/30/u4-remastered.html

>>3374919
pretty good but shame the cartridge version only works on that flash cart

i'd buy a separate homemade cartridge

>>3374919
C64 versions of Ultima III and IV were the best ones. II was rushed and shows it, V requires too much disk access/swapping and also a C128 if you want music, and VI...don't even go there.

>>3375263
C64 Ultima IV still has too much disk access in my opinion.

They were made for the Apple II first and it really shows.

>>3375273
It does support two disk drives but it's still annoying.

Ultima IV and V are also good on the PC except for the lack of music. These were the first games in the series properly done for IBM compatible hardware instead of the sloppy rush-job Apple II conversions done on U2 and U3.

>>3375263
Ultima V is 100x better on the C128.

>music
>faster disk access
>less disk access since that extra 80k of memory provides a nice amount of storage space

The only thing that could have made it more perfect was putting the game on 1571 disks which would eliminate having to flip them over.

In an online chat in 1984, before U4 came out, Garriott mentioned as well the Mac as being a platform they were going to put the game on but nothing ever came of that.

>>3368531
I loved ultima VIII, is there something wrong with me ? Only played VIII and IX though.

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>>3369115

>>3375431
You probably played the fixed version. It was still subpar but at least playable.

>>3375338
I do think the C128 was not supported as much as it could have been; it did definitely benefit larger multiload games. It would have been nice if LucasArts had put C128 support in Maniac and Zak since the amount of disk access in those games is pretty punishing.

>>3375446
It's frightening just how much Dragon Quest stole from Ultima.

>>3375453
the original japanese DQ1 even looks like ultima down to the art style

>>3369115
They look pretty much identical between the Apple and C64, any graphical enhancements aren't significant.

>>3375451
Probably because most people had a C64, so they just coded to that and called it a day. They didn't have enough 128 owners to warrant the extra effort.

>>3375795
Still the second best selling Commodore 8-bit (4 million sold)

>>3375801
4 million is as much as all sold Amigas combined.

>>3375805
Though Amigas were produced for 9 years while the C128 was only out 4-1/2 years so Amiga sales were definitely more...spread out.

>>3375795
>>3375451
Somebody ought to ask Ron Gilbert about that; why they didn't include C128 support like Origin did in their games.

>>3375850
Actually...Origin didn't support the C128 until U5 and 6, and mostly because the games started requiring multiple floppies. Maniac and Zak aren't nearly as huge as U5, the former is on one floppy while the latter is on two.

I mean, shit, Ultima 5 is 1.5MB. That is freaking huge for an 8-bit game. Even the biggest NES game (Dragon Quest IV) is still only 1MB.

>>3375856
NES games aren't as code-dense as C64 games though.

>>3368590
Ultima IV's storyline was actually more just a reaction against 80s parent/church groups who, in between burning Iron Maiden cassettes, decided that video games were bad for kids, so Garriott decided to try a radically different approach where there isn't an actual villain to fight and you instead improve your morals/character to win.

>mfw cant enjoy mediocre 2D strategy games anymore
>mfw the more i have, the least i enjoy
whats wrong with me

Expected: Ultima Thread
Got: Old PC thread.

Fair enough

>>3376136
I'm curious what their reactions were.

>>3376136
What did he have in mind in making the final villain in Ultima III an ATM?

>>3378917
The final villain in Ultima is the floor.

>>3369359
You're not missing anything.
>>3370167
Get the pre installed version and run it on classic workbench via winuae. http://www.whdownload.com/
>>3371183
Lemon64 commenters are quite braindead.

>>3380018
>You're not missing anything.
In 20 years they'll say the same about all games from before 2016.