Ultima VII style UO

[Razimus]

Ultima VII is by far the greatest Ultima ever made, I play Exult regularly, it's a great program. I just started a project transforming UO into an Ultima VII era world, the project is called UO to U7. There are many free UO shards out there but none have the zing that Ultima VII had, simply because of the great features in Ultima VII that were never used in UO, my goal is to re-create the enviornment, quests, npc interaction, storyline of Ultima VII and adapt them to the online UO engine. What made U7 so great was the tiny details like the living schedules of the NPCs, NPC companions, quests that made a difference in the world, a rich storyline that would rival most movies today. Intelligent gargoyles, 4 types of currency. The goal is to have the 2 maps Britannia and Serpent Isle. For more info visit the page thanks.

http://razimus.com/u7

I post this here because I know there are actually real Ultima VII fans here, only these type would be interested in the initial stages of the project, hopefully it can become the first free shard with an actual Ultima twist making it an enjoyable shard from the oldest vet to the newest newb.

[Madoc]

Hello Razimus,

this is great! I think the world of Ultima fans needs a project like this. In U7, there was a detailed world that You could actually "fall in love with". But in UO, there were means to actually have a virtual live in this world - having a house, a pet maybe, selling some things that You made on the marketplace. If both worlds would be joined, this would probably be the greatest Ultima fan project for me.

Are You using the Exult engine for that?

Madoc.

[Razimus]

Hey Madoc, thnx for the interest and joining my forum, if anyone wants updates info or is just interested I sugguest you join my forum at http://razimus.com/forum and the site again is http://razimus.com/u7

I have a question about the U7 map, is there a way for me to get a full size resolution U7 map, and Serpent Isle map, in full resolution in BMP or any paint program readable format?

I was not too familliar with the programs that can convert BMP to UO's MUL files but it's out there so now all I need is a full rez U7 map and I'll attempt to convert it to MUL and see what it looks like, if a full size map isn't available I'll try to adjust the size lowering the resolution and maybe it will work. I know there are large U7 maps on the net but they aren't full resolution, is there a map extraction tool to extract u7's map into a paint program readable format like bmp? thanks.

[Nicodemus]

Try this one bud....hope this is what you are looking for.


http://ian-albert.com/misc/ultima7maps.php

[Razimus]

They thanks a lot Nicodemus that's exactly what I needed.

I don't understand the technology but apparently I can use a UO map converter tool and bam, the tiles supposedly adjust themselves for the most part, of course height and level is non existent so I'll still need to do a ton of touch up and re-build work but the overall general map will be done.

[Stefan Malmlund]

Funny, back in 1995 i had this idea of making a multiplayer version of Ultima VII - serpent isle. I wanted it to have the posibillity to have several players at the same time moving around in the world, like a MUD but with graphics from Ultima! The same graphics, the same sounds, etc and the same engine. I was then told i should skip the engine since it was going to be impossible to use any of it or even to reverse engineer it. And just a few months later i was told Origin was working on the very same thing and it was called OWO. I dug up what it was and later became a beta tester of the Ultima Online game and forfeited the idea of a multiplayer game.

Now ppl are trying to do the other way around - making the very same Ultima 7 but with the help of the multiplayer version called UO!

I hope you'll proceed with the project since i never did mine and still regret it! =)

[SB-X]

Did you give up on UO when you were still beta testing, or after it had opened? I'm curious what you didn't like most about it.

[Razimus]

I beta tested UO as well, from phase 1 june 1997, I played it for around 6 months after it's release but it was so boring by then, UO gameplay is the exact opposite of Ultima VII gameplay.

UO:

In UO you craft, collect, horde, build, even with the pk'ing it was towards the same goal, to own a house and load all your crap in there, even owning the rarest rare it wasn't fun playing with the repeditiveness of collecting and bank sitting.

Ultima VII:

In The Black Gate & Serpent Isle, you work through the storyline, defeat the enemy by passing elaborate quests, and even the meaning of the word quest is lost in UO, most players think it's GM run events with old english, in Ultima VII it's NPC automated, and if you didn't complete the quest, your progression is stuck, so you have to complete them or you go nowhere. The level of concentration and detail in the quests, not losing a single key, figuring out a puzzle is there, and those with too little patience lose the game. Whereas in UO even the most mindless repeditive player can rise to the top. In the single player Ultimas at least a level of intelligence is required, sure eventually people would rise to the top but I think the community of an Ultima VII online game would be less mindless and it would give the world a more Ultima feel.

I don't think I'll add crafting or houses to my version of Ultima VII online, those things while can be fun and motivating can also kill the whole point of the game. And instead of player vendors there would be a market where you can put your items up for sale but I'd like it to be more about playing and less about bank sitting or collecting crap. The details are not set in stone but I'd like to add a bounty system, and NPC companions, not make it easy to complete quests either, those with no patience will hopefully stay away.

[Paulon]

So no baking bread or just living in the world then? Pity.

[Wizardry Dragon]

It's the small interactions like baking bread and such that made U7 stand out, remember. The point and beauty of U7 was that it simulated a WORLD.

[Razimus]

Hey if you took the time to actually read my page you'd know that the project is called "Ultima 7 Re-Creation" that's exactly what it is, Exult is great but I've heard some people call it a re-creation and thus making any other re-creations meaningless, Exult is an emulator not a re-creation. There has never been a u7 re-creation that I know of that has ever been successfull, if anyone would be in support of one I would assume you people would.

The *focus* will not be on crafting, there will be crafting but no bod rewards for example, if you want to bake bread all day go ahead, and I've decided to add houses but only placeable by GMs to avoid real estate exploitation, anyway my ideas are not written in stone, the project is in it's infancy.

[Paulon]

Quote: "I don't think I'll add crafting"
This gives the distinct impression that you're not going to allow the use of craft skills, and when I last looked at your site there didn't seem to be anything specific to contradict that impression.

Personally, based on the info on your site, I don't think it'll be my cup of tea, since it seems like you're trying to mix two rather different game concepts, the U7 type adventure with a plot and the ongoing multiplayer world together in ways that feel a little forced to me, with the additional promotion of PKing to put me off further, but I do wish you luck with it.

BTW, you're not the first UO emulation server to try it. Ultima Legacy lasted about 5 years before it went down the toilet. It's still active I think, but I doubt there's much going on now.

[Razimus]

What Ultima did this 'Ultima Legacy' re-create? I'll look it up, but I seriously doubt it's a re-creation of any Ultima in any detail on the scale I'm looking for. If anything like my idea already existed I'd drop it and play that but nothing even close has ever existed.

Like I said my ideas are subject to change don't assume anything is concrete until the project is finished, and are you so opposed to pk'ing? Did you have a bad experience getting killed? I love the ability to fight for something that ability is lost without pk'ing, without it everything is just la-la land, The single player version of pk'ing you know is evil monsters, npcs attacking, or would you rather play a game with no violence at all I have the game for you it's called furcadia, but it's online so you wouldn't like it I guess, they've yet to make a single player version sorry.

Does anyone here like multiplayer games? It's the year 2007, just because UO is considered dead with the coffin nails under 6 feet of earth it doesn't mean the client itself has to go to waste, I'm only making good use of something that always had potential. I don't blame the OSI team that created UO they did a good job considering they were under pressures of EA deadlines and pressures of creating the first major mmorpg, but anyone that has ever played UO would know it was always lacking in Ultima style quests connected with a storyline that couldn't be ignored.

An official update on the project, "It will be multiplayer initially, it will later be converted into single player." The process is so simple I should have thought more about it from the beginning, also if anyone is a suck up of the corporate borg EA, it should be fine for them to play the single player version as it wouldn't break the terms of service or whatever creed they believe in.

[Adam Mcintosh]

Hey Razimus,
You're pretty combative dude. Maybe ease off a bit? Most ultima mods and remakes etc. don't end up finished - often for lack of dedicated community support. Maybe you shouldn't pick fights with one of the only Ultima communities to have a finished product to its name. Just a hint.

[SB-X]

Agreed. I don't see where the hostility comes from.

[Wizardry Dragon]

The vitriol is astounding. Exult is a kind community established around one of only two finished Ultima remakes I know of (the other being Lazarus). If you want to appeal to your peers, this is the place. But fighting and arguing isn't very appealing.

[Paulon]

Yeesh. Settle down already. If you can't handle someone just saying that your idea doesn't personally appeal to them you're not going to be able to handle what happens if someone actually starts to attack you or your project.

1) Ultima Legacy is/was an attempt to recreate Britannia set some years after Serpent Isle, while the Avatar was in Pagan. Quests and events were GM run rather than scripted, though there was some talk among the staff of automating some basic quest events. The biggest technical problem was that the server was started when Sphere 0.51 was state of the emulation art, and half a decade of world decoration and custom scripting would have been a real pain to copy or replicate in a more modern or functional emulator. It was at www.ultimalegacy.net as of the end of last year.

2) PKing just for the sake of killing simply doesn't appeal to me in any context, much less when cross-linked to Ultima. Roleplayed killing, such as bandits attacking other players in an IC fashion is reasonable, but killing and combat just for the sake of it doesn't interest me. I don't play any of the online games where that's the whole point. And with full time work and other RL stuff I don't get much time for any gameplaying, much less online stuff.

3) Good summation of the lacks built into the original UO. I bet some people here like online games, but others don't. It's a matter of personal taste. As I said above I don't have time for them _and_ RL stuff like work. The bills need to come first, much as I'd like to spend all day playing games, whether online or offline.

4) Personally I think that the single player version is the one which is going to work best. I just can't see a way to make areas restricted for one person and not another in a multiplayer environment that doesn't feel forced.

[Dominus]

I only played UO for three months in the last millennium (I was highly addicted and it laid waste to the first half of my university years, then I finally decided to have a life again) but I really did not like PK'ing. Mostly because I wanted to explore the world, have some fun, kill some monsters with other like minded people and such. Getting robbed and killed by other players really did not appeal to me.
Personally I stay away from any online game since then. I rather play games with definite goals than waste time on an online thing (not to mention that you normally pay for the client the same amount as for a game and then you have to additionally pay monthly). WoW nearly sucked me in, but the birth of my little girl prevented that nicely

[Razimus]

Well I checked out Ultima Legacy I see you were involved in working on it Paulon, maybe it was a fun free shard, it looks pretty cool like the gargoyle paper doll, but the map is not custom and like you said it was GM run events, making it purely a free shard decorated and roleplayed in an Ultima theme which is better than most free shards out there but not a re-creation.

I'm sorry about sounding aggressive, I was attacked at another board not this one and maybe I took it out on you guys, but I'm really seriously doubting
any of you would have ever wanted to join my team anyway, from the very first reply it was obvious. Exult is great but I'm one that can figure out how to play u7 from a boot disk so I've only really used it in the past to make screenshots like this one:

But it'll be very useful in easily comparing and re-building the world. I've just ran into a lot of ppl that were skeptical that it wasn't even a re-make but only a UO mod with a few lazy customizations. I don't think I was ever a dragon accepted by the Ultima community in large, but if you knew anything about me you'd know I was never a pk unless provoked, never a k3wl-d00d, I was one to roleplay and be the odd one out, the forced quests will hopefully force all kewl doods away and pk'ing will never be a problem. The Hybrid shard for example, the most active freeshard, their response to my request to add roleplay quests was 'go play everqueer'. I too have no interest in paying a monthly fee, even if I were Bill Gates I'd still continue to stay away from games like Wow.

[Razimus]

forgot the image:

[SB-X]

Hey Dr. Pepper Dragon, were you there when Lord British was assassinated?

[Petrell]

You may or may not be interested but Ultima Iris (a 3rd party Ultima Online client) team has been working on new client (Iris2/Iris-Ogre) for past 6+ months, building it over Ogre 3D engine. The progress has been astonishing compared to few years it took them to get the original Iris client to state it was in when abandoned. First release is planed for the end of March so with any luck it’s out in a week or two.

You can check screenshots and follow development here :
http://www.iris2.de/index.php/Iris-Ogre_Development

[Petrell]

Oh, and Wizardry Dragon, there are other completed ultima remake projects beside Exult. Besides the few completed Akalabeth remakes there are three completed remakes of Ultima IV : Ultima IV : Virtue of Humility, Avatarship - Ultima 4 Remake Re-Polished and Ultima IV Reborn. There are also couple almost complete ones (xu4, Ultima 5 for Ti Calculators) and few that will quite likely make it to complete state (at least The Ultima 6 Project and Ultima 9 Redemption). There's even one just recently released commercial port of Ultima III : Exodus for Mac OS X.

Of cource there are also the 50+ projects that never made it. Some of the still active projects are also strugling.

Links to various projects can be found on my site (link in profile -> Links -> Ultima) or at Ultima : Aiera, The Reconstruction or Dino's Ultima page.

[Wizardry Dragon]

I don't mean to be negative, but you really think Redemption will make it to finished?

I hold out more hope for TFL, and I'm not exactly the most optimistic about TFL's chances of getting fully finished as I envision it, I just find it fun to work on.

[Razimus]

SB-X, yeah I was there on top of Mental4 when LB died heheh... so some of the shots don't show me but you can see me before and my feather and halberd, British said something like "I see there are mages among us", and he walked into the flame and I was gonna say something stupid like "indeed mages" but didn't get to heheh, Blackthorn summoned about 4 daemons and I got killed, Rainz musta had a good connection cuz he got away, I only took 1 shot I was in full screen mode but you can see all of the shots at my page Raz's Ultima Page: http://razimus.com/uol

I guess there are just tons of Ultima re-makes, and the involvement with UO people are skeptical that what I'm trying to do is a re-make but time will tell that it'll be set apart from the free shards, like Hybrid they have a cool texas hold'em script and casino yet they don't have a casino in Buc's den... that alone tells me nobody involved in hybrid has ever played ultima7.

I prefer to be involved in a strictly 2d project because I'm a 2d artist with no coding experience...

[TdI]

I've played UO on some free servers for a while. At first, it was fun. Then I realised that to progress I had to become stronger and earn money. I was performing some repetitive task for over an hour to achieve just that, when at some point I just asked myself "wtf am I doing?". And I never touched it again since.

The gameplay in UO is/was flawed.

Anyway, I don't like playing RPGs online. I just don't have that kind of dedication to put into it anymore. When playing online you're mostly competing against kids who spend 10 hours a day on the game, and there is no way I could keep up. The only things I play online are games where I can log in, play a quick match or two, and log out again. Games that don't constantly demand my attention, but that I can play for a while whenever I feel like it.

I still love playing huge single player RPGs like The Elder Scrolls and Gothic. With those games I know that the world will be waiting for me until I get back and I don't have to keep up with anything.

I think that many long-time RPG gamers that are starting to grow up feel the same way.

[Wizardry Dragon]

RPG = Role Playing Game.

No PK in there. Forcing anything on players is GOING to ruffle feathers. I would suggest rethinking that.

[Petrell]

WD, Yes, In my opinion Redemtion seem to be one of the projects that will likely to reach completion. It may take another year or two but they'll likely make it.

Then again, what do I know I've been proven wrong before.

As for my experience with online RPG's, I have never played UO (or any other commercial MMORPG for that matter). I played some MUD 15 years ago, then few of those text based OL strategy games and finally (dont kill me for this ) Runescape (Gasp! ) from its infancy up to its commercialisation. People have pretty much summed up the flaws I saw in all of them : those with free time will always advance faster, you have to do a lot of repetive tasks to raise your stats (wether its spawn point champing, fishing or crafting) and pvsp is almost exlusivly small guy getting whacked by the big guy(s). There's rarely any way for weaker guy to best stronger one. No strategy, tactics or guile. It'll eventually get boring unless you're at the top and to get and stay there you have to play 24/7.

Single player cRPG's all the way

[drcode]

Dominus: "WoW nearly sucked me in, but the birth of my little girl prevented that nicely "

A belated congratulations! It's funny to think that this project has existed so long that members have gone on to have children:-)

[Razimus]

"No PK in there. Forcing anything on players is GOING to ruffle feathers. I would suggest rethinking that."

"you have to do a lot of repetive tasks to raise your stats (wether its spawn point champing, fishing or crafting) and pvsp is almost exlusivly small guy getting whacked by the big guy(s)."

Q: What's all this about "forced quests" and not being able to go everywhere instantly from the beginning?

A: If you've ever played The Black Gate or Serpent Isle you would have your answer, go play it and you will see you can't progress in the storyline very far or go everywhere if you avoid quests.

In Ultima 7 if you want to do anything you must participate in the NPC automated quests, it is 'forced', you have no choice to avoid the main quests if you want to get anywhere, from the very beginning in both The Black Gate & Serpent Isle you're stuck in a city until you prove to the city leader that you are worthy to leave by completing a task or two. I'm surprised I have to explain the gameplay of a game you all know by memory but the second you leave those towns you are faced with many more story driven mandatory quests, and side quests, you can ignore the side quests but not the main ones if you want to complete the game.

I personally hate grinding, the repetitive tasks of killing a million rats and moving onto a bigger monster and killing 10 million of that etc.. Like in U7 this will not exist in my project.

RPG, a game in which you play in the role of your character. In 99% of UO shards you will see few even in the RPG only shards, players that play the role of their character as opposed to using the inteface as a graphical chat room but roleplaying will be a major part of the u7 re-creation, pvp will exist just as it did in the duel pit in u7, but if I exclude the ability for pirates to be pirates on buc's den I exclude 50% of the equation from the beginning and that would be un-wise, a shard with dominant evil or dominant good would be unbalanced and boring. The single player version will have no pks, and
I do intend on making the single player as exact as possible, no crafting, no skills that didn't exist in u7, but the online version will have a few additions such as possibly taming and crafting, but nothing is written in stone you can join the forums and add your ideas the final project will be a group effort.

[Dominus]

@Dr.Code, you know, you DID congratulate me on my baby daughter back then
http://exult.info/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26335#p26335
(sorry, the picture got lost with my old ISP, when we recently moved into a house)

[Paulon]

To Razimus:
Yes, I did a lot of work on Legacy. It was about as close to U7 as was possible to be made with the tools of the time, though in many ways it was still a work in progress. I left in the middle of 2005.

These are my general thoughts on your project, sorted by topic.

Crafting:
I would personally recommend not removing it from either the multi-player or the single player version. You won't find me arguing over the UO skillgain implementation, which does indeed fail the acid test of being fun. However the main point of using a new engine to recreate a game is to make improvements. One of the big features available to a UO emulator is the ability to set up skills needed to interact with the world. Remember that what people love about Exult is the ability of some people to improve the world interactivity.

In your place I would look at switching off skillgains due to the 'grind' entirely, and instead have a combination of optional use training points like those in U7 and training quests to earn more skill in training from craftsmen, available as you go through the game. The best method would probably be to allow quest based training up to a given degree of competence, then require use of training points to reach GM level.

Probably I'd set it up with two separate pools of points from level gain or quest experience, one which you can only use for training on combat/magic skills so the player has the ability to complete the game without accidently making a totally noncombatant character, and a second smaller set that the player can use to improve any skill, combat or crafting.


PVP:
I think we'll disagree on the necessity for it in many ways, but there are an issue you'll need to consider if quest objectives are in areas where PVP is encouraged: Consentuallity and whether it's acceptable to attack players who are simply trying to complete the quests. If someone is willing to fight, especially IC, that's one thing, but I would be unsurprised to find people who would deliberately target questers for non-consenting PVP. In other words, griefers. It's something you'll need to think about, whatever your decision might be.


Online, scripted quests:
I mentioned that the Legacy staff had been considering setting up simple scripted quests. There are some issues you'll need to look at here too. I had to think about these, as I would have been the one doing the scripting and trying to avoid any problems.

Team play: Will it be possible for a group of friends to cooperate to handle quests, and share in the rewards and complete the main plot objectives? One attraction of online multiplayer games is for friends to get together and play as a group. Having to repeat the same quest 4 or 5 times over, once per buddy, could really put them off after a while.

Separate Players, Same Quest: Can two people be doing the same quest at the same time? Or does someone have to complete a quest before it can be reassigned? If the quest is, for example, to retrieve an object from a dungeon, what happens when two people are on the same quest? Two items, then what if the first player there picks up both? Things like that.

Outside interference: If a quest is automatically set up by the script when it's assigned to the player, what happens if another player stumbles across it? Using the above example, what happens if another player happens to stumble over the item in the dungeon and picks it up, or defeats the villain in his camp who the questing player was supposed to challenge?

[Garrett]

Razimus, have you tried Ultima 6 Online? It's a full duplicate of U6's single player as far as I can tell. You might want to check that out if you haven't as you might get some ideas from its successes and failures.

The biggest problem with any conversion is that the original game has finite quests. Even if you've only got a few people playing you'll want to add more quests and new islands and things to keep them interested.

As for housing, would it be possible to set up a shared "Avatar's House" that, when entered, teleports the player into their own particular house interior? It's cheap, but it would allow for a buyable house in each town without affecting the feel of the town as much. U6O adds an "apartment" floor to the castle with individual rooms, which is another possibility.

One problem, as TdI pointed out, is the feeling that the world is moving on without you if you don't do things. During the brief time I played U6O I completed the early stages of the and got some decent equipment, but in the meantime other players will have surpassed me and I've probably been evicted from my rented room too. These are the sorts of things that make people without definite regular times to play shy away from MMOs. If you can somehow foster multiplayer camaraderie without people feeling they need to keep up with the power of the others that will help attract casual players.

[randy]

I know some people also making a Ultima 7 inspired free shard, its hosted and everything, just being spawned and having scripts finished. Well its more a homage to all the Ultimas, but mostly 7.

[MW]

I played UO from the Beta until about 2001, and I thought that it was the only game I've ever played that was as fun as U7, especially in the early years up until about the T2A expansion.

I'd imagine that a lot of it had to do with who you were playing with, but I was lucky enough to have a crew at first who were really into just having fun exploring the world and adventuring around together instead of concentrating on hording items and gathering gold. It was a lot of fun wandering around with them and having great adventures and misadventures.

As they started to fade away from the game I fell in with a crowd in Skara Brae on Pacific as they were just getting a player-run government up and running, and were putting on the first Moongate Feste, and other great events. Again, this was a group of incredible players who were out to have a great time in the game instead of just collect items. I honestly had some of the most fun I've ever had in those days, and it again felt like I was playing U7 online, as there were always goals being worked towards, fun people to talk to, and good adventures to be had.

I took a bit of a break from the game for financial reasons, and then when I came back to it, EA had changed it so much, and it just seemed horrible to me. They really killed it as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, unless there's a UO client for OSX (Thankfully Exult for OSX exists, or I'd go insane!), I doubt I'll be able to participate any time in the near future, but good luck with this, as it's a worthwhile endeavour.