The SIMS obsession in U7

William · Post by **William** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 5:12 pm

I was curious to know if anyone else has suffered "The SIMS" bug when playing U7.

1. Common symptoms involve clearing out a house or castle of its inhabitants and/or junk and claiming it as your own.

2. Becoming the biggest kleptomaniac gathering anything of interest or value and then "decorating" your house you claimed in part 1

3. Reprogramming NPC's to become living inhabitants of your home.

I think this was one of the first things I started to do in U7 when I got bored questing.

My favorite place to clear out and claim was Shamino's Castle.

what the · Post by **what the** » Sat Nov 13, 2004 5:42 pm

despite the attitudes of some of the people in fawn,
i usually take one of the captains houses (lower right of the city) and make it my own
or the on in the top leftish of the city with all the barrels and creates

CK · Post by CK » Sun Nov 14, 2004 7:52 pm

I like to own realestate in Trinsic, I use Spark's home as a watch tower, the house just above it as a treasure room. Plus! To the south of trisic I built the Avatar HQ from scratch and added some guards and a weapons and ammo cache.

Belial · Post by **Belial** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 1:57 am

the white dragons castle i find is a good location. although the banes are annoying at times.

MV · Post by MV » Mon Nov 15, 2004 4:26 am

I just used the house that shmed used to live in.

But when I went on the boat, I then used the treasure room in the magelord's castle to store stuff.

In the black gate I just used the treasure room in the castle.

Yea, nothing fancy here.

Thepal · Post by **Thepal** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 3:04 pm

I claimed the White Dragon castle too. Though I furnished it (adding items by cheating) so much that I got the too many objects bug and things kept disappearing from the world.

Withstand the Fury Dragon · Mon Nov 15, 2004 10:11 pm

In the original U7, I used the Wisp Castle behind the Serpent's Spine mountains.

In Serpent Isle, I didn't really get into this, although when I did, I converted the Knight's Test to my personal 'secret mountain base'.

author · Post by **author** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:17 am

when i first got serpent isle i ran around collecting all the wooden planks in the game to sort of complete that house out in the middle of the field (there werent enough) i never actually beat the game I just ran around stealing stuff

i also stole the computer monitor and a ton of gold bars to put inside the house.

shazza · Post by **shazza** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:43 am

How would I program the NPC to live in my house exactly.. Heh.

Post by **Dominus** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 3:19 am

with Exult Studio it is relatively easy. Start Exult, then enable mape-editing and Exult Studio will start (as long as you have it installed and enabled cheats). Doubleclick on NPCs in the game and change their schedule to follow it at your place. Save

Remember, for Exult Studio you need to use snapshots of Exult.

trevor_clim3 · Post by **trevor_clim3** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 4:40 am

come on guys, make some screenshots and show us your homes! i would like to see them

SB-X · Post by **SB-X** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 6:29 pm

Not as fascinating as your stories I'm sure, but since you insisted...

I just wait until Owen decides he doesn't want to live there anymore, so I don't have to kill anybody. Then that became the SB-X HQ.

Holly · Post by **Holly** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 8:44 pm

In the Black Gate, I actually used the house that the groundskeeper of the graveyard in Yew used, until I learned how to use the hack editor, after which I began using the hidden tower just south of the bridge that leads into Yew (where the anti-Fellowship highwayman can be found sometimes). I just hacked off the doors, removed almost everything, and even edited the chunk of land so it had a well and very few trees around the east side (so I could come and go with visual ease). It was tricky though because I never managed to use the hack editor properly because all of the text was blotched out (anyone else have that problem using Exult?)

In Serpent Isle, I just used one of the empty homes in the first city. After that though, I usually began using the abandoned huts in the northern forest (by the blind guy's home kind of, except east). Took alot of cleaning, but if I wasn't using any of my party mates, I programmed them to live in that area.

Tristan de Inés · Post by **Tristan de Inés** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 7:11 am

My first U7 experience was also much more like playing Sims than playing Ultima. I lived in South Africa back when I first bought Ultima 7, and couldn't speak a word of english jet.

So I walked around, having absolutely no idea about what was going on and what all the people where saying. I couldn't understand the manual, so I had no idea about combat mode and I kept getting killed when walking outside cities, so I just staied in Britain, moved into some house and played around with Ultima more as a toy than a game.

It was actually pretty cool, since back then, Ultima seemed so big, mysterious and dangerous...

trevor_clim3 · Post by **trevor_clim3** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 8:18 am

Tristan, this is an impressive experience!

i have experienced similiar feelings. I was 7 years old back in 1992 when I first played Ultima 7 BG and i had problems with the language itself (although it was german, but at this time i only could read easy texts).

So Ultima seemed very mysterious for me, too. And was totally fascinating. i preferred staying in the houses, too. and i played primarily games in the game (like playmobil). I made stories by myself in the game with the lots of places and items. for example some picnic (with cool bedroll!!

)

memories...

Post by **artaxerxes** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 8:38 am

I wonder if I'm the only one here who NEVER seized a home to make it my home base.
I've never had a home base. I've always carried with me whatever I needed and dumped the rest.

The closest possible home base would be the Dark Path in SI where I dropped some items for later use.

Artaxerxes

Gradilla Dragon · Post by **Gradilla Dragon** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 9:05 am

You are not alone, Artaxerxes.

BH4 · Post by **BH4** » Fri Nov 26, 2004 10:23 am

Almost. ;-D I almost didn't have a "home base." However, the Magelord's house (Mansion. 0_o ) was just too irresistable. Oh man, I added so much to it.. Candles, meals, a few (Vertical-oriented) tables in the main hallway, I stocked the treasure room's chests (I added about thirteen chests, some brass, some wooden.) with some nice items Six chests were stocked with gold, (About 2000 apiece, I think.) two with about one hundred gems, two with some of the major weapons, four with some of the major armor pieces, and at least one with some unique items. I stuffed some other unique items on the table. The problem was, I had to remove the walls to see most of the stuff. :-Þ Heh.

PanSola · Post by **PanSola** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 6:09 pm

In SI, the Dark Path was my homebase.

In BG, the flying carpet loaded with barrels was my Mobile Base (-:

and when I say "base", it really just means "warehouse" for jewels, money, ingrediants, food, and scrolls.

Natreg · Post by **Natreg** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 7:44 am

When I first played Ultima VII (without Forge of virtue) my "base" was my ship. But I always wear every important thing with me.

With the Forge of Virtue, My base was the ISle of Fire where I had my ship. It was a place I could get from wherever Iwas using Arcadion´s powers

In Serpent Isle I used the inns in towns

eris · Post by **eris** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 5:49 pm

I kept all my loot at Sentri's place in Britain. I even made sure to lock up the money and magic items in the vault. Sentri's place just seemed appropriate since, as he was a party member, I felt I had permission to use it. Some other place would have to have been stolen, or taken from vanquished foes, and that seemed a bit un-Avatarish. Being based out of Britain was also convenient because it meant that at the end of an expedition I could moongate back to the throne room, get healed, get food from the kitchens, dump extra treasure at Sentri's, and sleep in his bed to rest up for the next day.

As for Arcadion, though, I never felt comfortable using it, since trafficking with demons also seemed un-Avatarish to me. Sometimes I would unequip my weapon for some reason and then find my unexpectedly attacked. The demon sword, being the most powerful weapon, would then be automatically equipped and I would discover to my horror that I was killing people with it. It lent a mysterious quality to the sword. (It *wants* to be used! It *will* be used, even if you don't want it! Bwah! Ha ! Ha!)

Eris

Soule · Post by **Soule** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 5:59 am

The Sims had a great interface for building and furniture. It would be great if Studio had similar features?

SB-X · Post by **SB-X** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 2:10 am

Maybe the demon sword even resizes itself to fit the wielder's hands.

The Sims had a great interface for building and furniture. It would be great if Studio had similar features?

EStudio has groups where you can organize types of objects, like The Sims catalogue groups. It could use "Rotation" too, see the other topic about it.

Post by **Dominus** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 3:35 am

Rotation...
judging from tonight's CVS comitt it has that already

Jets Connor · Post by **Jets Connor** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:13 am

Serpent Isle was much easier than the Black Gate when it came to bases. In BG, I usually went with Bee Cave, (Iolo's? Hell no!) Spark's house (Upper story - no longer in use, not full of stinky teenager clothes, no parrot, and it had a chest) or just dropping things in LB's castle. Not that LB gave me a room...
In Serpent Isle, there were tonnes of places to commandeer, as there are lots of people whose lives you cause to, er, cease. Nasty tattoo lady, for example, and Nasty Goblin Innkeeper, nasty beauty priestess and nasty ice queen (Did anyone find it ironic that someone named Frigidazzi was the loosest woman in the game?). I didn't do much with the castles, as they were a hackmoving renovator's dream and I didn't want the rest of the Isle cluttered with debris. There's also a great place to have a camp if you follow the Northern wall of Monitor westwards and south through the little gap between the mountain and the wall. You can set up a nice bedroll, have a chest for keeping booty in... good for outlaws.

Gradilla Dragon · Post by **Gradilla Dragon** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 5:48 am

Yea, it's hilarious. The name Frigidazzi makes you think about a frigid woman, but this one never thinks twice on getting naked and going to bed with any stranger she feels attracted to; she even takes the initiative

Jets Connor · Post by **Jets Connor** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 4:20 pm

I'm not that kind of girl!

Tylius · Post by **Tylius** » Mon Dec 06, 2004 6:49 pm

I remember when I was around 8 or 9, and my father brought home U7 for me. I stocked up on ketchup, all sorts of cooking supplies, hell, I even carried a couldron with me (or maybe it was a pot, I'm not sure if I remember correctly). I remember that at that time, I had been thinking I was going to need all of those things for when I left town, so I get set up camp and stuff to survive. I had been picturing in my head that camping and stuff was going to look similar to Herman Toothrot's camp (in Monkey Island II). No idea where I got those ideas, but that's what I though, and I had everything you could think of.

I even carried around that saw that's in the Blacksmithy (in Trinsic), so I could chop down trees and get wood for my campfire. I tried for *ages*, to figure out how to make my own sword using the blacksmithing tools.

Ahh, the wonders of being young, the game was so exciting then, when I had no idea what was possible in it

Post by **drcode** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:30 am

Hmm... saws, trees, lumber. Maybe there are some ideas for playing with the script...

Tylius · Post by **Tylius** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 12:41 pm

I've never actually looked at any scripting for U7, but is that actually possible?

Soule · Post by **Soule** » Tue Dec 07, 2004 9:24 pm

Is it possible to build a house and stock it, and later decide to shift the entire house by a drag and click to another area?

SB-X · Post by **SB-X** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 2:52 am

Exult Studio is supposed to let you group things together or something right? You should be able to select them all but I don't remember.

I was going to ask the same question about usecode. Seems like it would be. Just write usecode for each of those objects. The problem is do you get vertical facing boards or horizontal facing boards after sawing? Sure ES has rotating now but if you're using ES then you don't need the in-game usecode to begin with. Maybe it could be random or based on the direction you're facing.

Post by **drcode** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 11:36 am

SB-X: Yes, I can imagine that each time you use the saw on a tree, you get a random piece of lumber. Maybe then you'd use a hammer on the lumber to get random building pieces or furniture. This might be fun to implement, though I'm not sure how much fun it would be for the player:-)

tetzlaff · Post by **tetzlaff** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 12:58 pm

I remember playing Ultima 7 for the first time. I thought I could take an iron rod and place it over the forge. Then run the forge. The iron rod was supposed to turn red. Then I wanted to use a hammer on the iron rod to make my own sword. It never worked, but I always seem to try that anyways.

Slo · Post by **Slo** » Wed Dec 08, 2004 4:42 pm

I definately went around collecting items and making houses. I used many of the places mentioned above. One of the reasons I liked U7 so much was because of the little details such as furniture, tools, and even knives and forks. Making bread and cloth was a nice touch of detail too. Most characters in the game had a dwelling that was outfitted with neat stuff so why not the Avatar?

Tylius · Post by **Tylius** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 10:41 pm

Tetzlaff - I tried for ages to do the very same thing, I seem to remember one part of the game where you could purchase directions on how to make a sword (or maybe it was a book I found), try and try as I might, I could never get it to work!

Post by **Dominus** » Thu Dec 09, 2004 11:10 pm

You can only make one sword in BG and only if you have the FoV-add-on.

Axel DominatoR · Post by **Axel DominatoR** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 5:30 am

Wow
UO-style job system for Exult
You wake up in the morning... go to the mine and start extracting ore/smelting/creating daggers or other rubbish until you fall asleep on your keyboard.
Then, repeat the loop hehehe

Seriously talking, I like games where you can interact with almost anything...
I didn't hack Exult deeply but a theoretical uo-style manufacturing system would be done almost all in usecode, right?

Salicias · Post by **Salicias** » Fri Dec 10, 2004 10:38 pm

On the subject of keeps in Britannia, I tried to build a castle in the desert once, but the wall objects wouldn't stay. This was back in the day and with hackmover. I ended up building it using those curtains as walls. The main keep had a fully furnished bedroom, kitchen, treasure room, and several others.

Outside I used fencing to build farm land complete with eggs for animals like sheep and cows, then some enclosures for monsters... like a zoo. I pretty much had a space for everything, from a tailor shop to mining machinery for ore. My empire took over the whole of the desert at its height. But, eventually after returning from a visit to Castle British, I walked into a void apon entering the desert and never saw that space again.

Post by **Darke** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:41 am

>I didn't hack Exult deeply but a theoretical uo-style manufacturing system
>would be done almost all in usecode, right?

Yes.

Though no doubt most of it would be almost cut&paste once you've done
the first couple of parts of the chain. ('If X is used on Y, then delete X and
Y, and create Z', etc)

Most of the 'trade item for something else' (think purchasing something
with gold, or selling flour, only simpler) would no doubt be already written
in the original usecode if you knew where to look, as would the 'use item
on object' (fishing, bucket-on-well-gets-water, etc) stuff.

It's certainly do-able. You'd probably want to enumerate all the currently
handled cases, draw up a state transition diagram (aka, flow chart) of the
entire state, then decide if you *really* want to drive yourself insane by
trying to code this, and if so, then attempting to do so. *grin*

Darke
(Don't thank me, driving people insane is merely part of the service we
offer here on the exult forums.)

WWWWolf · Post by **WWWWolf** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 6:21 am

In BG, somewhere near the end of Cape of Heroes is a pirate island with a small house on the cliff, with stairs leading to it, and it has chests and crates full of stuff. And a really fancy gold-on-black carpet too. I killed the pirates, then used the cheat commands to delete the eggs whence they spawned (I don't know if they're continuously spawning or whatever, but I thought squatting was more realistic this way - confiscating the obviously plundered property and claiming it as property of Kingdom of Britannia, hence property of Lord British and hence property of the Avatar, hey, it's an obvious case, no need to drop by in Yew to argue and all =)

The only problem with this place was that it was a little bit remote, but I thought it was pretty good.

I'm now playing the game through the second time. Now I know the ship also has a hold (wish the flying carpet also had a hold! =), so I don't think I need a private island anymore =)

Now, I have another question: How many of you who forcibly took a home for yourself from Britannia or Serpent Isle have played The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, or The Wind Waker? And how many were disappointed that you can't drop your extra loot to the "homes" there? I know I kind of was, not that there was that much "extra loot" in the games, but still =)

Post by **Dominus** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 6:50 am

About Zelda: Haven't played Wind..., but Ocarina and Mask of Majora, and I really didn't ever wanted to be able to drop loot. Apart from a ruppee or so that you wish you could put somewhere for later use there isn't anything else.

SB-X · Post by **SB-X** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 12:21 pm

I enjoed Zelda: OoT but I don't consider an RPG and since I played the previous Zelda games, didn't expect to be able to store any items. It's all arranged for you, with no "Drop" command. Can't kill anyone either. In fact, there aren't even any evil people are there? Ganondorf transformed into a monster. The closest is the thieves tribe, but they hop away and can only be put to sleep.

M.W. · Post by **M.W.** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 2:54 pm

I used to use Sentri's house as my personal home/storehouse. I just figured that it worked really well, and it was pretty central.

I also once stole some cannons, a ton of crates, and picked up any planks that I found laying about and made a log cabin-style fort on the island to the east of Trinsic. That was a really fun thing to play around with.

Ali J · Post by **Ali J** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 9:31 am

I'm amazed, I'm the only person who used Iolo's cell in Monitor as my base.

Throw a few crates in there, get a plank of wood and a plate and you have a dining table!

Achenar · Post by **Achenar** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 6:05 pm

Just on the topic of rotation, it's good that the feature has been added to Exult Studio, but I was wondering why it couldn't be added to the game itself as well?

Perhaps someone has already suggested it, but it seems to make sense that the Avatar should be able to 'rotate' things in-game, just as in real life

. It would just be something like a keystroke that brings up cross-hairs allowing the player to choose the object to rotate. Then again, perhaps this feature would have some negative implications on the game mechanics - not sure.

Anyway, this might help with a range of things, including SB-X's example of cutting up wood and getting the planks facing the right direction etc.

Post by **Dominus** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 9:38 pm

why would it make sense to rotate things in the game? The only reason for rotating is when you want to build things and that makes more sense doing with Exult Studio.

Gunnar · Post by **Gunnar** » Wed Dec 15, 2004 10:17 pm

Dominus, you're talking to the same people who want to make their own planks from trees. Next thing would be to be able to build boats, houses, etc.. Then you would need that in game

ps: I know I want to be able to do all those things.

Tylius · Post by **Tylius** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 2:35 pm

Also, it would be nice to not have to pull up Exult Studio just to rotate a crate or a plank that you're carrying around

Ken Oh · Post by **Ken Oh** » Thu Dec 16, 2004 6:18 pm

Ali J, I've used Lydia's room/shop as my base before, but in this current turn around I'm pretty much using the whole jail.