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[CastChaos]

Origin - We create worlds
Lord British productions
The PC's answer for Zelda...
Ultima
The quests of the Avatar

In the dawn of videogames, there was a clever, talentful student, Richard Garriot, who earned the nickname, Lord British through his college years. He created a catchy little DOS game, which was later renamed to Ultima 0, thus beginning the ultimate Ultima saga, the videogame serie which showed us the battle of morality and immorality through the battles of the Traveller (later Avatar) in Britannia.

A quick summary of the story:
Sosaria was the land of cruel civil wars and immorality, but one Lord British arived from another world througha red moongate. This was the time, when Mondain, an evil wizard concentrated the powers of evil and tried to make Sosaria fall against the complete darkness... But Lord British called the Traveller, who defeated Mondain and later his student (and love), as well as their diabolical creation... Exoddus. After that, Lord British united Sosaria under the name of Britannia and called the Traveller to go on a quest of Avatarhood. Avatar then returned to Earth and thought he will never see Britannia again. Little he knew that his fate was already written... The Sahdowlords, whos were born at the reign of Mondain corrupted Lord Blackthorn while Lord British was away. The Avatar needed to return, banish Blackthorne and destroy the Shadowlords. At this time, the Gargoyles misread their prophecies and thought that they need to sacrifice the Avatar to avoid their own destruction. Avatar's friends saved him and eventually they together made peace between Gargoyles and Humans... Things were really quickened up when Avatar was dragged back to Britannia again just to face a series of murders and a fishy organization which eventually turned out to be the welcoming party for the... Guardian. The Guardian was the most perverted and corrupted disaster ever known, fortunately Avatar and his eight companions destroyed the way that would enable the Guardian to enter Britannia and then they destroyed the "plan B", too. The Guardian went furious and dragged Avatar into Pagan, the world of no virtues. Avatar barely escaped from this land and thought that his life will be simple from now on, but on a fateful day, he wakes up for a message of his friend, Hawkwind who tells Avatar that the Guardian actually entered Britannia! And what exciting things happened next? Go and play UltimaIX: Ascension!

These games involve time travel, fighting against mythical beasts and all kind of already known things besides a lot of uniqueness, like the virtue system: you can't loot any treasure chest you see, because your Honour an d Honesty lowers!

Let's see the games I played:
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar
This the part when the Traveller collects the Virtue Runes, sanctifies the Virtue Shrines and eventually becomes the perfect (but still human) Avatar, wielder of all virtues. Yay! The game involves just a few colors and some stickmen, but provides great gaming experience and Richard Garriot uses the engine to it's extent. The searching of runes and shrines is awesome, but the best part is when you need to increase your virtues... For example, you can give blood to increase your Sacrifice, but not just by walking up to somebody and saying that you want to give blood... About "saying", you can type words in and if people has anything to say about it, they say it! "Name", "Job" and "Bye" are mandatory, but you can ask for "Rune", "Shrine" or even "Mantra". Plus, if you see a beggar you can say "Beggar" or if you are virtuous, "Give"!

Ultima VII: The Black Gate; Ultima VII-2 Serpent Isle
In this game, there is the Fellowship which looks like an organization of good will, but secretly they help the Guardian in approaching Britannia. Their leader, Batlin, is controlled by the Guardian and has a very funny speech style. His Fellowship speech is worldwide classic. Avatar destroys the Black Gate, only way for the Guardian to come to Britannia, and later he restores "Balance between Chaos and Order" at Serpent Isle. There is also a murder mistery plot line. The enemy behaviour is funny, sometimes you can no-damage a dragon, other times a pack of bandits pwn you to death. The transportation is very comfortable, you ca travel by ship, on horses or you can net yourself an amazing Flying carpet, as well as use some Virtue Stones for an unique way of teleporting. The game is loaded with secrets and full with sidequests. Your decide which companions to take and every one has different abilities. Near the end of the first part, it's mandatory to travel dungeons and net yourself three magical objects whiches can be used for very funny things... Far the most interesting thing is that the dungeons are GIGANTIC, but you only need to travel little part of them. For example Deceit. If you enter this dungeon at the "crater entrance", then you only need to go a few corners and you are at the boss. This also means that there are a lot of ways for tackling a dungeon. Then comes Serpent Isle with it's deep drama. Death and grave danger everywhere. Plus that wacky guard who thinks magic is useless.

Ultima VIII: Pagan
Avatar is dragged to Pagan, world of the Guardian. The people here don't know Avatar and can't be converted into the virtues. Avatar's goal is to escape from there. He needs to defeat the Titans of the Elements. Some breathholding events here. However, seems like there is too much emphasis on the story. Avatar don't have his companions with him and item interaction is not colourful. One great advantage is that area exploration is very exciting.

Ultima IX: Ascension
Oh, Le Grand Finale! The Avatar somehow finds his way to Britannia and teams up with another evil just to toy with the Avatar through the cities and dungeons... Gigantic Evil Columns corrupt the virtues, create whirlpools and such... Sadly, the companions of Avatar don't join him, but at least they are in the game... and play important role! Lots of big secrets get revealed. The enmies have very different behavior: the vultures circle around you and swipe donwn when you look away, the giant rats wait in the darkness then home in on you from the side, the goblins survey a certain area pretending they don't see you then SWAM, your skull is broken. The skelettons are the most fearful, I willfully avoid all possible places where they are. They hit big and come back to life fast, while they are VERY SCARY! The dungeons are astounding, every one is completely different. The first is a regular warm up, but the second is already very hard with unique traps (Poisonous spider!!!) and an optional extra part which is as big as the first one! Covetous is the scariest, since it's full of skelettons... Let's see if you can find all secrets in this unique mine! There are some very big secrets and it's very hard to find them. And how things turn out? Play the game, you will be glad you did! You may think it's an old game, but even nowadays computers have problems running it.


Ultima inspired a lot of other things, like my ZCing. I made just today a screen which resembles Skara Brae from Ultima VII and I plan a whole area which will resemble Skara Brae from Ultima IX.

There are also two games (Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld II) which I never played and don't know how they connect in the timeline. They evoke Avatar's adventures in the Abyss, so they must be around Ultima VI: The False Prophet, since it's the one that involves going into the Abyss. (Plus Ultima IX, of course.)

My virtue is the Honesty!

The virtues are: Compassion, Humility, Honesty, Justice, Sacrifice, Valour, Honour and Spirituality. They evolve from the three Main Virtues: Truth, Love, Bravery.


(techical info: this is my 999th post and this post was written in more than 45 minutes)

Edited by CastChaos, 16 June 2007 - 09:29 AM.

[Taco Chopper]

That's a big post.

So that explains why you love Ultima: Whatever so much.. how many are there?

[ShadowTiger]

Plus that wacky guard who thinks magic is useless.

What? lol, where?

Avatar is dragged to Pagan, world of Avatar.

Did I miss something here?


I've played Ultima 1 on my Tandy 1000. It wasn't half bad. There are aircars and space shuttles in it. I swear. ... I mean, seriously, how the hell is it that over the ages, Britannia SHRINKS and becomes less technologically adept? In Ultima 7, Britannia is HUGE. In Ultima 9, it's like, .. .. anywhere from a fourth to an eighth as large. And it's freaking Britannia. Capital city! Geez...


I seriously think that Ultima 7 PII Serpent Isle is by far the best of all of them. It has the most compelling plot, the most interesting areas, the best item interaction by far, and any archaeologists playing the game would be in heaven. (I know I was. ) So many interesting things to find... Plus, again, the drama factor is through the roof.



BTW, if I had one, my virtue would be Honor. I tend to be/play the Paladin type in Ultima games, although I tend to steal a whole lot of stuff. I'm too curious for my own good.

[CastChaos]

There are 13 Ultima games altogether, as far as I know.

First there is that little DOS game, which was later renamed to Ultima 0.
Then there are the 9 main episodes, but the 7th has two (big) parts.
Finally, there are 2 Ultima Underworld games.
This is 13 altogether.

I could have made a poll about who is everybody's favourite. There isn't any Ultima game which wouldn't be favored over every else by somebody. Some like the feeling of Ultima 7 the best, others say that the dungeons of Ultima 5 the best dungeons ever made, others think that the virtue system of Ultima 4 is the best thing that ever were in a videogame. Maybe every one of them is right in some way...

Also don't forget the Ultima Online. As far as I know, it's not supported in Hungary (I remember checking it a few years ago.), but there are some people whos marked it as their #1 favourite MMORPG. It has the virtue system, too!

Also, if I can't answer a question, don't fear to ask ShadowTiger. He has fine tastes, too.

[ShadowTiger]

First there is that little DOS game, which was later renamed to Ultima 0.

Ah, Akalabeth. I think it's in an "Ultima Deluxe Pack" or something like that, coupled with Ultimas 1 through 8.

Then there are the 9 main episodes, but the 7th has two (big) parts.
Finally, there are 2 Ultima Underworld games.
This is 13 altogether.

There is also Ultima: Martian Dreams, and Ultima: The Savage Empire. I played (And enjoyed, for the most part.) Martian Dreams. It's done in the direct style of Ultima 6. (Engine-wise.) I think you can even get it at Abandonia. The Savage Empire, I don't know nearly as much about, but I think it's done in the style of Ultima 4 or 5.

Also, if I can't answer a question, don't fear to ask ShadowTiger. He has fine tastes, too.

Heh, thanks. XD You too. ;-p I couldn't help but take it up. My dad was very much into it, I think, when I was a kid. These things get beaten into us early on, after all. I remember a time several years ago in which I couldn't remember that one greatest game I'd ever played. When I saw a screenshot of it, my eyes did that thing when they went all sparkly and stuff, and I even printed out the image and hung it up next to my bed. I believe it's still there in my room. These days though, I've discovered the joys of Exult and Ultima Wizard, and Pentagram, and all that wonderful stuff. Both Ultima Underworlds work like a dream under DOSBox.

[CastChaos]

About that magic-hater guard... He is the first guard you meet in Ultima VII-2. If you don't sneak in monitor through that cave (If I remember that's possible.) That guard near Monitor starts to brag about how good the fighters are and does a full speech on how magic useless. "Why have magic when we have swords." As a mage, I was greatly insulted.

I got UltimaIX for Christmas in about 2000. But my computer wasn't up to the task and both me and my family were computer noobs. Later we swapped our crappy videocard for a powerful ATI one and the game started to run, but was extremely slow. It was 5 minutes to go to Lord British from the entrance of the castle. This sounds ridiculous, but I put up with it. After a RAM enhancement, the game was almost fast. It absolutely wasn't cloggy near watery areas.

Later I played some other Ultima through Abandonia. Ultima 8 was weird, pressing directional butons let me fly through anything and it crashed very frequently.

As for the little map of Ultima IX, it was like this, as I heard:
The game was far from completion when EA Games decided that they want to release it before Christmas. So, developers rushed this whole thing. Plus most of the team never knew the earlier episodes.
If you write "u9.icd" in google, the first result will be an Ultima forum with a lot of interesting links. However, the board is quite deserted.

I never could utilize DOSBox to play any games...
Ultima IV was running without any utilities, Ultima VII needed Exult and Ultima VIII needed Pentagram. I never knew Ultima Wizard.

There are a lot of misteries in Ultima IX.
1. There are levers through the whole place. There is one under the Shrine of Humility and there are 4 above the Shrine of Honour. Maybe the engine require they to trigger events? (Like the appearing of the Shrine of Humility.)
2. Near the end of the last dungeon, there is a very small room with 4 candles and a bird bath. Playing with Ignite and Douse on the candles makes the bird bath diappear and so it reveals a ritual pentagram (that red flashy thing). I don't know what this does...
3. Why is it good to wear skeleton armor? It's so hard to get it, yet it provides quite low defense.
4. What about the girl soon be sold as slave and the letter in a ship? And the option to buy that girl? Giving the letter to Seymour and then talking to the girl seems like the end of the sidequest, yet I don't remember getting Karma. However, buying the girl seems like nets you Karma, but she doesn't always disappear (which means her freedom).
5. There is a crystal in a goblin cave in Verity island. Why the goblins need such thing? There are a lot more exciting caves, too. For example the one near Yew with the little brute.
6. The game is full with keys, some are very hard to find and no reward! One opens the empty hut near Yew, another opens the backdoor of the mad mage (but not fully because a non-movable chair), another opens the backdoor of Vasagralem in Yew. But no reward or anything.
7. There are a lot of Stones of Spirituality, but most of them don't makes Shamino speak. I succeeded making the one at Trinsic lake speak, never again. Maybe they need to be approached in order? The one near Yew looks totally like a "speakable one".

[RyanBlazeheart]

The first Ultima game that I played was Ultima: Exodus. You are summoned by Lord British to do something about Exodus and I don't really remember the whole story cause I had to give the game away with my old NES when I was little. I quite sucked at the game, but hey I was young remember? I sucked at a lot of games at that time. Even Super Mario Bros. and Zelda.

[CastChaos]

One of the best things with Ultima are the 3D remakes. Ultima V is already finished (and then upgraded) in 3D. Ultima I&II are in the works probably along with some other. Too bad these mostly require another game (Neverwinter Nights, Oblivion, etc.). I'm waiting forward to Forgotten World. It requires just the game (Ultima IX) with the 1.18 and 1.19f patches and will do only neccessary changes, like overdetailing the overworld. The earliest demo probably comes at the end of this year. Or later.

[RyanBlazeheart]

I've been having loads of fun with Ultima Online and I can't wait for Kingdom Reborn to come out!