about U8

[artaxerxes]

Since Exult also has an CVS entry for U8, I think it is worth noting this little prog:


http://www.uo.com/archive/ftp/programs/u8mapper.tar.gz

It is used to see the map of U8 in 2d and 3d according to the uo site.

Artaxerxes

[nadir]

yes, but pentagram's viewer is superior

[RazorBlade]

A humble question, is there anybody working on something similar to Exult for this game? Or what have you in mind for it? I liked it very much the time it came out; IMHO it was only too short, but nontheless a good game..

[lanzz]

the u8mapper, sadly, is an a.out binary, and a dynamic-linked one at that. i doubt everybody has a.out versions of libXpm and libX11.

[Colourless]

As Nadir said, Pentagram is better. Here's a screenshot:


From the Official Petagram FAQ:

1.1 What is Pentagram?

Pentagram is not Exult. Any similarities between Pentagram and Exult are purely coincidental.

1.2 Is it Exult for Ultima 8?

Of course not. As stated in 1.1, "Pentagram is not Exult". Anyway, what sort of fool would attempt such a thing anyway.

1.3 When will Pentagram be playable?

Well unless someone actually writes some code, never.

Of course, that hardly answers any questions does it.

-Colourless Dragon

[artaxerxes]

Does it support the patch for jumping ?




Artaxerxes

[Colourless]

A better question would be, "Does it support jumping at all?"

The answer of course is, "No, not yet."

-Colourless Dragon

[HellRazor Dragon]

Is there a compiled version of this available somewhere?

HellRazor Dragon

[drcode]

Sure is pretty. I can't wait to play:-)

[wjp]

play? hmm... *checks*... no, we don't support that either

[Karlos]

Hmm interesting ... is the plan to reuse as much of Exult's code as possible then? I really believe the U7 engine was superior to U8's in many ways.


-Karl

[suraimu]

Where is this Pentagram program at? I even went to the lengths of
copying a line from the faq you pasted into google and got nothing.

[Dominus]

sure it is. You just need to know how to compile it. It can be found at http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=2335
(if you want to compile it you can take a look at readme.win32 in the exult source, roughly the same applies to building Pentagram)

But notice, as nice as Colourless' screenshot looks (and you had to make it that big, didn't you ) for now it's just a map and shapeviewer. As long as no one wants to put some real work into it, it's not being a replacement for the original game.

The funny thing is, I already mentioned Pemtagram in the FAQ (http://exult.info/faq.php#pentagram) almost two weeks ago and no one realized it
What do we learn from this? ALWAYS read at least the changes to the FAQ!!!!

[suraimu]

>Pentagram is not Exult. Any similarities between Pentagram and Exult are
>purely coincidental.

Pentagram != Exult

Exult != Ultima

therefore

Pentagram = Ultima

What? False Logic? What are you talking about?

[Colourless]

What's with all this interest in Pentagram. I thought everyone was meant to hate Ultima 8.

-Colourless Dragon

[gruck]

Ultima 8 wasn't so bad... sure it had some flaws and was inferior to Ultima 7 in some ways, it was still a good game. If it had a few little things like character portraits and more lengthy conversations with more NPCs, and a more advanced combat system, and a little more world interaction it would have been an excellent game. Also the story could have used a little more fleshing out, which supposedly the Lost Vale add-on would have done if it had ever seen the light of day. With the most patched versions of Ultima 8, there really isn't any huge problems with jumping. The game really did shine in several areas though. The magic system was very in depth, and for its time the ingame graphics were beautiful. As for the thought of an Ultima 8 Exult, theres allready U8 Windows out there that runs the game quite smoothly, though its near impossible to get sound working properly for many. though all in all Ultima 8 is easier to get running the Ultima 7 using Windows. I'm sure a dedicated group of people could improve Ultima 8 though, I mean look what the Exult team has done for Ultima 7, taking one of the best games ever made and making it even better, the team has allready surpassed many of their wildest expectations, even getting Serpent's Isle playable, which they once stated was basically an impossibility (now if only they could get combat not so hokey:)

[Dominus]

Yeah you are right about U8 in Windows patch bt realize the same thing exists for U7 and still Exult is way better (IMHO of course ).
And notice the best thing about Exult: It's multi-OS. Would you have imagined a year ago that Ultima 7 is playable on Amiga?

So if someone puts some effort into Pentagram the chances are that it will be just as portable (as Pentagram is already btw.)

[gruck]

I'm a Windows man myself, I need if for many of my University applications, and partitioning my hard drive for Linux and Windows is more trouble then its worth in my case. Though I'm sure theres Amiga users out there who are estatic about the ability to play U7 on their machine.

As for U7 for Windows, it of course suffers from the same difficulties of it being very difficult/impossible in some cases to get sound to work properly. Thats why we all love Exult! Besides Exult just plain looks nicer. I hadn't played Ultima 7 for a few years, and when I played Exult, I didn't notice the graphics look nicer, until I tried U7 Windows and realized the graphics just didn't look as good. Theres really not a whole lot of reason to play Ultima 7 any other way except using Exult actually...

As for pentagram being multi- OS, I suppose you're right on the money, there must be some people out there who want to see Ultima 8 playable in Linux/Macintosh/Amiga/Unix/Atari . Besides I bet a Pentult (You can thank me for the name later) would have windows sound support

Any way, what can I say besides I love you work!

[Soule]

I have great hopes about Ultima 8. If it were improved I will love it. Can I request not to have any jumpings and the avatar not being so helpless. I actually hoped Ultima 8 to be built on U7 engine so you can have companions and such...

[suraimu]

Don't take out the jumping, that was the most fun of the entire game!

Besides, that would make lots of areas totally inaccessible anyway.

[Kurt]

after the last patch for U8 there was actually less stupid jumping than in previous versions - a lot of the moving plates that you had to jump to were frozen, which saved a lot of pain. when you're running on a 486, saving and loading games took a long long time... it was nice to not have to save every single time you needed to jump somewhere...

[Colourless]

It's quite impossible to remove jumping from the game. If jumping were removed, the game wouldn't be completable.

Ignore my facetious 'Official Pentagram FAQ' that I posted about. I think it's pretty obvious that Pentagram is intended to be a sort of Exult for Ultima 8. The comment about no code being written yet is partly true though. Pentagram doesn't exist as a program yet, it's just ideas and a few tools and some documentation.

The screenshot I posted is deceptive. Yes, it shows the avatar and the mouse pointer, but they are just somes bits of fun that Fingolfin and myself had. They are mostly just for show. The mouse though does work, as it can be used to scroll around the map.

-Colourless Dragon

[Clock Nova]

Speaking as someone who played through both Ultima 7 and Ultima 8 (as well as Underworld 1) on a 100 Mhz PowerMac using VirtualPC, you don't need to tell me how long it took to save! Fortunately, I had the latest CD release of both games, as well as the Ultima Underworld Collection.

I was extatic when I found out I could finally play Ultima 7 native on my new Mac. It would be great if I could do the same with Ultima 8. In fact, let's see if we can get Ultima 6 and both Underworlds going as well

[FitzRoy]

You can play u6 in windows, and I think there is a project going on dealing with Ultima Underworld remakes. Here is a link: http://www.twistsoft.co.uk/Home/index.shtml

[Clock Nova]

My point was that I wanted to be able to play them all natively on my Mac.

[MagicMop]

Pentagram's humble beginnings as a map viewer sound very similar to exult a few years ago...

With enough interest, I'm sure it'll end up just as functional as exult in a year or two. If only I knew enough about C++ to contribute to the project.

*pulls out learning C++ book*

back to the drwaing board...

MM

[nadir]

Exult is now > 3 years old... so maybe it will be a bit more than 1 or 2 for Pentagram. We also need another $3M.

[MagicMop]

Well, 3 years will at least give me enough time to get my C++ a little more up to scratch...

And hey, I'm sure another $3M grant wouldn't be a problem from those swell folks at OSI...

HAHAHAHAHA!!! *sniff*

Seriously...

MM

[gruck]

uh sure.. 3 million you say... let me just write you a cheque for that... my chequebook is just right in the car... let me get it for you... VRRROOOOOOM