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[drcode]

I've started playing Black Gate again, in Exult of course. The last time was a couple years ago, mainly for testing, and I spent a lot more time fixing bugs than playing. This time is mostly for fun. I've found that if you play full-screen, with the original 320x200 size, and don't cheat, the world is still as huge and complex as ever. And it's still one of the best games ever made.

Of course, I am seeing a few problems:

1. NPC's snoring ("Zzzzz") while walking around. (Fixed)
2. Following the Mayor to his tryst: He got to the house, but couldn't figure out how to get in:-) (Fixed)
3. You start hearing combat music when walking outside dungeons.
4. At taverns, people are served food directly onto the tables. Might be nice to provide plates.
5. Saw one NPC sitting in the air in a tavern. This is an old bug that I thought was fixed...
6. Game slows down noticeably when there are monsters nearby.
7. Caltrops look kind of funny, but I can't remember how they looked in the original game.

I'll occasionally take time out to fix some of these. The one that concerns me most is #6.

[SB-X]

In case more information can help you here; I played through BG with Exult around July 2002 and didn't notice most of those problems, with the exception of 3, 4 (but many people reported this), and 5 (could never reproduce it and provide a savegame where they were still sitting).

[Trevor_Clim (damn Log in)]

i have the following bug with the latest version:
on every chest or general container lies the content on the container and in the container the content is again, so you have twice all things...
pretty annoying

[Dominus]

Trevor, search the forum. This was a bug in Beta2. It is now fixed in Beta3 but all the stuff that happned due to the bug (the many doubled(or more) items) still remain. The only way to clean up is to start a new game with Beta3.

[drcode]

I feel pretty foolish: The game is supposed to slow down when monsters are near, so you can't run away from them as easily.

However, 3, 4, and 7 are fixed now. I've also fixed the problem with the overly hostile Wisps (that was getting to be REALLY annoying), althought this change could break other things, such as having monsters that don't attack when you're near.

[Trevor_Clim (damn Log in)]

oh thx Dominus! didnt see that!

[Warder]

Errr... the game is -supposed- to slow down like that? I have to say that it's a very annoying feature, since you can't even pass near a mountain without slowing down to a crawl because of all the monsters inside the dungeon passages. Maybe there could be a toggle?

[SB-X]

Sounds similiar to bug 3.

[suraimu]

Caltrops were transparent one-color things like all invisible items.

[XxVenomxX]

not all of them were, though. The visible ones were meant to look like tiny metal spikes. IIRC, they were grey in colour.

[Kagehi Kossori]

The visible ones are grey. I found a few here and there, but not a lot of them.

[Andrea B Previtera]

Memories: I think that "caltrops" is the first english word from a game I searched for on a dictionary...

[Tristan de Inés]

I still don't know what caltrops are... never bothered to look the word up. I only know that they're tiny thingies that hurt when you walk over them in ultima...

[Tristan de Inés]

But apart from that, Ultima 7 tought me english. I first played U7 in South Africa. We just arrived there from Germany and I went to a german school but everone there already knew perfect english, since most of them grew up there and had had it since first grade. Well, I knew how to say "hello" and "bye", and english class was always very frustrating to me. I had to take extra classes to catch up, but I was very annoyed of being put in the same classroom with people alot more advanced then me, it was a hard time...
Well, then came Ultima, and within six months I had advanced to one of the best english students. Learn by playing, it really works.

[artaxerxes]

that's also how I got to know english. At the time, my brothers were playing ultima 3 and would not let me play, pretending that being in english I wouldn't understand a thing. So they had full use of our computer (Amstrad PC 1512, with no hard drive!), while I could only watch them playing. Eventually when U6 came out, I decided to pick up a dictionnary and when they were gone, I would play U6 and look up (at the time) every single word since I had no clue. Pointless to say that my pocket dictionnary knew nothing of "thou", "calltrops" etc !

Artaxerxes

[Kagehi Kossori]

Catrops are basically one of several types of nasty things that in there simplest form consists of 4 sharpened spikes that are welded together in such a way that no matter how they fall on the floor, one point always stick up. They look a bit like jacks. They where apparently used by some to throw off persuers or in some cases to line the floor on the inside of a window, so that a thief would get a nasty surprise when climbing in through it. Ironically now you can't really use that, so instead you plant thonr bushes on the outside of windows, so that the thieves stay away, but you get stabbed relentlessly once a year when you have to trim the bushes. I am not sure this qualifies as an improvement... lol

[artaxerxes]

and actually, the original caltrops were designed to prevent _horses_, and thus cavaliers and riders, from crossing a certain field.

Artaxerxes

[dag]

Artaxerxes:

i began to learn english seriously way back with ultima 6 and an amstrad
pc1512, too! it was my first crpg at all and all my friends wondered why
i was so fascinated by a game with cga-graphics on a b/w-display, where
i had to change disks every 2 minutes. i had only one floppy drive, no
hd! but that gave me enough time to use my dictionary...
after a while i had to work hard on not saying things like 'thou dost see...'

[Green Bamboo Mystery Peanut]

Video games are great for learning how to speak, or at least read a different language. I think I learned more Japanese from playing an import of Chrono Cross than from any book.

I'm dying to find a copy of Ultima VII in German, or at least some sort of translation patch- it would do wonders for my German courses .

I might be crazy, but I think I remember brownish caltrops in Serpent Isle as well...

[Upright Dragon]

Caltrops are also an Australian weed. The seeds are the caltrops and the spikes can get up to 1.5cm long. They get stuck in cattle and peoples shoes to spread. Very nasty little buggers. I've had them stick me in the foot through my thongs (flip-flops to the yanks)

[drcode]

How about making Ultima 7 a language-learning game, by having it support multiple languages, with a hot-key to switch?

(Just a thought, in case anyone's looking for a project.)

[artaxerxes]

all it would take is a new hotkey to switch which following file is used:
* usecode
* text.flx
* fonts.vga (because of different accents I guess)
* gumps.vga (spellbook, save/load, etc)

some synchronisation issues though (like not reloading usecode in the middle of a scripted scene).

Artaxerxes

[drcode]

Actually, as a user (ignoring how hard this might be to do), I wouldn't care as much about switching languages in the gumps (dialogs). But what would be nice is to be in a conversation, and have a hotkey that switches the currently displayed text between languages.

[drcode]

A few more fixes:

1. Caltrops (and other invisible items) look correct now.
2. The slow walking only occurs when monsters start attacking, so you no longer slow down when walking outside past dungeons.
3. There was a crash if your party members died when walking on caltrops.
4. If you were attacked just after starting up Exult, there wouldn't be any combat music.
5. "Light" and "Great Light" spells were lasting far too long, maybe 15 times as long as they should.

U7BG is still a lot of fun. I'm playing really leisurely this time, trying to do most of the subplots, and am only about half-way through. My only wish for improvement: Have more involved subplots and conversations.

[Steven-J-S]

Any chance we could have a "Beta4" binary build with all these great fixes in?

[Dominus]

snapshots?

[drcode]

I think that if we don't need any major changes, the next release will be 1.1.

[Steven-J-S]

Dominus: Sorry.. should have mentioned I'd like a MacOSX version with all these improvements.. which is why I can't just use the latest snapshot.

DrCode: OK, thanks.

[drcode]

One more thing fixed:

- Sitting on a boat or magic carpet should no longer take multiple trials.

And another problem noticed:

- When I equipped Iolo with the Firedoom Staff (or whatever it's called), the explosions it created during the next combat instantly killed most of my party. Anyone remember how it worked in the original? Maybe the explosion Exult creates is too big.

[dag]

> When I equipped Iolo with the Firedoom Staff (or whatever it's called), the
>explosions it created during the next combat instantly killed most of my
>party. Anyone remember how it worked in the original? Maybe the explosion
>Exult creates is too big.

when i remember it right, the firedoom staff was very anoying in the original.
not because of killing the whole party instantly, but because of doing
random damage to party members. i think, the explosion in exult is too big,
but someone should check it out, because it's years ago that i played bg/si
without exult.

[Emperor]

I played the original about a year ago or so and as far as I remember, the firedoom staff has always been as devastating as it is in Exult. Never liked this 'portable nuclear strike' thing.

[Neutronium Dragon]

I do remember that Firedoom staves seemed less party-unfriendly in Serpent Isle, probably because they were round about useless in BG unless you were going at it solo.

Neutronium Dragon