So how's the quest of the Avatar coming along, /vr/?

>>3734526
I wish there was a version of this game with more intuitive controls, I really did.

the oblique perspective makes me want to vomit

>>3734541
There's xu4 and the SMS port.

>>3734568
Ultima 4 is flat tiles. Only 6 and 7 have oblique projection.

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>>3734541
>>3734568

Don't forget that U5: Lazarus is available too. It was remade on the Dungeon Siege engine.

>>3735010
On second though...
go ahead and forget.
Everyone else has.

>>3735021
It's that shitty?

>>3735010
that is actually extremely cool and I'm glad I just heard about it.

>>3735010
One thing that bothers me about Lazarus is the extra content.
It just isn't the same as the old game with a newer engine.

>>3735021
this is true, sadly. ultima was pretty amazing tho

>>3735261
it's a great game. but especially for ultimafags like me

>>3735335
really? i had a different experience. i found lazarus basically perfect (and on top of that, it was a volunteer project they gave away for free). what didn't you like?

>>3735378
>what didn't you like?
The fan fiction NPCs.

>>3734989
UIV SMS with FM is dope af

>>3734989
>Only 6 and 7 have oblique projection.

Those are the good ones, though.

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ultimafag here.

what I find interesting is how DQ basically borrowed the world-building template and loaded it with tons of new features. DQ is awesome, the quintessential JRPG.

but ultima always had that spiritual/philosophical dimension that I liked. the fact that it was written in runes, and that it used reagents (and words!) instead of just Magic Points always made it feel way more literary to me.

it was actually one of the things i liked the most about Lazarus, was that there were all of these conversations you could have with people. U5 and U7 make the best use of Ultima's Lore, I think, because U4 sets the groundwork for it but doesn't go into the more psychological aspects. U6 is more about the gargoyles than the virtues, and U8 is in Pagan and so on.

i love JRPGs, but when I was a kid ultima just seemed like it was way more serious. it sounds dumb, but conversations with NPCs in lazarus felt more like a real world than just about any other game I've ever played.

and it all comes out of an existential crisis for garriott, b/c he wanted to make a game that wasn't just about killing monsters. killing monsters is great and all but i think there actually was some kid who got killed LARPing Tunnels & Trolls or some shit in the 80s. out of that came all this.

>>3735832
>i think there actually was some kid who got killed LARPing Tunnels & Trolls or some shit

Wasn't he running around some steam tunnels or something? Natural selection there really.

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>>3735858
maybe. but whatever it was it really messed RG up. remember this was the 80s, when people still thought dungeons and dragons would turn your children into satanists. and even if that wasn't the case, people were getting killed.

that's why he created the virtues, why U4 was all about just becoming a paragon of virtue. the first three games are just games, but something changes with U4. and then U4-U7 are developments of that.

so whatever it was, it still fucked him up. and this series acquired its personality because RG was messed up about it.

i think a lot of it is inspired by fairly stolid british RPG fare, like pic related. the different armours, the fantasy stuff that isn't super-imaginative or super-psychedelic or super-dark. but ultima wouldn't be ultima without the virtues, and i guess i always felt like those virtues weren't being obnoxiously rubbed in your face like an ideology. they were part of the game. all of the classes that they created were cool, and there was a sandbox world to go with it.

it's too bad pagan sucked so bad, or that 9 was a disaster, and so on. i don't know, maybe it ran its course. but origin systems, man. they were just special. and britannia is such a cozy world to be in.

>You read the history of Britannia.
>No, really ! Read the history of Britannia !

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>>3735832
>the fact that it was written in runes, and that it used reagents (and words!) instead of just Magic Points always made it feel way more literary
Ultima does a good job of making the player feel like a part of the game's world. Even the game's instructional materials reflect this; they don't read like game manuals, they're like real books pulled straight out of Lord British's library. Like this totally kick-ass spellbook for example.

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>>3735832
where did you get those cards? They're close to but not quite what I got in the Ultima IX:Ascension collector's edition.

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>>3736591
Oh my god. Exactly that book. Those books were *the best.* How about the cloth maps? The fucking moonstones? This is what I mean. Those spellbooks, with the runes and the reagents...and somehow it worked, it didn't feel cheesy or gimmicky at all. It really transported you. The whole thing felt like something mature, something not for kids and squashing monsters and racking up XP. Whole other thing. That's how I felt, anyways.

>>3736608
Just pulled it off google, no big search.

Fun way to burn 5 minutes here too gents, the character generation gypsy questions from U6.

>A mighty knight accosts thee and demands thy food. Dost thou:
>Give thy food unto the hungry knight?
>Refuse and engage the knight
http://www.tk421.net/ultima/

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>>3736641
The cloth maps are mounted under glass on my walls. No joke.

>>3736742
very nice

>>3736742
What was the point of leaving out the cities on the map?

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>>3736909
So you'd explore to find them, but still know where you are in the world when you find them.

>>3736591
wRPGs are good at these kind of things, specially Ultima. Why do you think jRPGs never tried to inmerse the player at this level?

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>>3736804
>now, let's see might & magic's maps

>>3735832

>died LARPing in steam tunnels

Yeah, the thing is, is that event brought about the Satanic Panic against Dungeons & Dragons, since there was a lot of exposure in the media afterward regarding teens committing suicide, who also coincidentally played D&D.

This in turn inspired the novel (and then the made for TV movie) Mazes and Monsters.

The funny thing is, the woman who brought a lawsuit against Gary Gygax (the principle guy who made D&D) and his company TSR, and who basically started the D&D witch hunt didn't even know her son was playing D&D until AFTER he killed himself.

A word to all those parents and would-be parents out there: If you don't know what your kid is doing as a hobby, it's a sign that you're not doing enough to supervise, guide, or take interest in their life.

How does this relate to Ultima? RG based Ultima on his old D&D campaigns, and the prototypes for Akalabeth were essentially attempts to make D&D games. The so-called Satanic Panic that was mostly aimed at D&D swept up games like Ultima because they had images and subject matter that disturbed the alarmists (demonic entities, magic, fun, etc.).

And then later it became old hat, like TV and no one cared anymore. Next it'll be something like LED clothes are corrupting the youth! and people will get all butthurt about that for a decade until everyone is wearing LED clothes.

>>3737627
We never get to see a lot of stuff that was packaged with the original releases there.

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>>3737748
this story sounds horribly familiar. the same kind of shit that people freak out about. kind of amazing that this stuff is still happening today.

i feel like there's something very true here about this. the whole 'become a good person' aspect of ultima having this in the background. it's what separated it from D&D in a way, because the whole concept of the eight virtues is really fucking interesting. in d&d you pick your alignment and that's that. ultima essentially takes Lawful Good and blows it into a million pieces. the towns are all dedicated to these virtues...but no single one of them is *the* virtue of virtues. they're all necessary. and they create the character classes, and the rest...

as an armchair philosophyfag, ultima's whole concept of morality is wickedly interesting. the ethics in U5 as these corrupted virtues, following the letter of the law but not the spirit...*and* they gave you the sandbox world too.

http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Eight_Virtues

i probably would have been a pseud no matter what, but these games really fascinated me when i was younger. they still do. and i'm pushing 30 now.

on top of that what i think was neat was that the developers didn't really the need to make you agonize over becoming the avatar. they didn't torture you with philosophical questions or horrible choices, to make becoming the avatar completely impossible or tragic or whatever. in the end being the avatar wasn't even that hard. you just did the right with your buddies. little things, like not killing a fleeing monster...

just so intelligent, i guess. d&d was fun in its way, that stuff is great too. but being virtuous...i don't know, it never seemed cheesy. it just seemed like the right thing to do.

of course, the developers knew that it was also fun to park a cannon beside lord british's head and blast him at point-blank range in the middle of the night too. or put it on the flying carpet and raise hell.

those guys were so smart.

>>3737748
>And then later it became old hat, like TV and no one cared anymore. Next it'll be something like LED clothes are corrupting the youth! and people will get all butthurt about that for a decade until everyone is wearing LED clothes.

I feel like, to some extend, this is happening right now with feminism and videogames.

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>>3734526
I'm not entirely sure...