What's happened to....?

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Tue Jul 16, 2002 7:04 pm

Hello All,

Since Origin is now one of the many "dearly defunct" game developers, I was wondering what has happened to their "vault" of old programs and games. What has Electronic Arts done with the original programs that Origin backed up, and put in storage? There was supposedly an effort while U9 was being made to recover some of the lost stuff that was left out of some of the Ultimas (U7 included). This effort was dropped when all of those staff changes occurred in conjunction with Ultima Online, and the mass bailing out of significant game programers, and developers thus creating the historically inaccurate, and devoid of character substantive plot of U9.

A further question is, Who is now in control of this storage area? Obviously someone in Electronic Arts, unless they've vacated Origin's former building. I know that at the bonfire that the Origin employees attended at the company's demise, some material was burned. So, is there anything left? I know that talking to Electronic Arts is like talking to a brick wall, but I was wondering if anyone knew anything about this.

Andy
aka Grimlock Dragon

SB-X · Post by **SB-X** » Tue Jul 16, 2002 7:58 pm

> I was wondering what has happened to their "vault" of old programs and games.

And source code!?

Post by **Dominus** » Tue Jul 16, 2002 10:02 pm

Well supposedly the source to the Ultima 7's was lost and I suspect for the Ultima's before the same holds true. As for U8 I guess the source should still exist, just no one ever asked about it as most people thought that u8 sucked...

During the development of U9 there was much talk that the sources to U7 might be made availlable (despite being lost...

) along with the source to u9 after some time. AFAIR Lady Moi was the one who said something in this fashion but it was all a big maybe and after the non-success of U9 nothing was ever heard of it again. (Remember? the boards of the Origin-U9 webpage were closed up pretty soon and none of the staff answered any more questions...)

So, I think we will never see the code of any Ultima. As sad as it is...

Telemachos · Post by **Telemachos** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 1:01 am

Well, who knows if that's really a sad thing

I talked to one of the U8 programmers and he said the source was a mess..

- Tele

Post by **drcode** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 7:17 am

Heh. All good programmers say their source is a mess:-) It's the ones who talk about how good their code is that you have to worry about.

IgnitusDragonn · Post by **IgnitusDragonn** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 7:20 am

Then theres those who say their source is crap because they expect you to say its great

Thats what I like to call, the-teenage-girlfriend phenomenon.

Post by **artaxerxes** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 7:27 am

It still happens even when they passed the teenage age, boy !

Artaxerxes

MagicMop · Post by **MagicMop** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 8:31 am

Hehe, I remember the Ultima IX boards and the discussions with Lady Moi and CaptnBill - was that his name?

I was so excited about Ultima IX that I got sucked into all the hype - until the game got released, the boards got closed down and the angry fans were all silenced... I was quite annoyed about the whole thing for a while. Thankfully stinkers like U9 don't make classics like U7 any less fun to play...

I still often think about the incredible opportunity that Origin missed with Ultima IX. I guess from a buisness point of view at the time RPGs were not very popular at all. The thought of releasing a game without full speech seemed unwise, so dialogue was kept brief to keep the game size down - the RPG elements were "cleverly" hidden so that "regular" gamers wouldn't be scared off, and worst of all, refereces to previous games were kept at a minimum to keep from scaring off non-Ultima fans. etc etc etc.

And what did it get them? A flop - thats what!

And then Buldurs gate came along with a complex plot, thousands and thousands of lines of dialogue (very little with speech), no flashy 3d engine, unashamedly complex RPG elements and a giant back-history. The game sparked the RPG revival that we still enjoy today.

I guess the reason I'm going over all this stuff that everyone already knows is - I think Ultima IX could have the RPG to spark that revival, if the designers hadn't tried to make the game something it wasn't - and had kept true to the Ultima "spirit."

Oh, we were talking about source-code... ? Ooops.

*rant off*

MM

SB-X · Post by **SB-X** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 8:58 am

SB-X <- says his source code is bad because it really is
^--- never played Baldur's Gate

MV · Post by MV » Wed Jul 17, 2002 5:10 pm

Baldur's gate was out before u9 was.

Origin really screwed up as a company.

They used to release all the cutting edge games. Their last great game IMO was wc3.

Look at what we play now. NWN.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Wed Jul 17, 2002 8:18 pm

Still though, nothing definative has been said about what happened to their storage area that Lady Moi mentioned. I remember well the information Lady Moi let out in Ultima Horrizons tavern. I don't think that she would have said what she did, if the Ultima material did not exist. Yes, it has been said that the U7 source had been lost, but she also led us to believe that it could have posibly been found in Origin's storage area. I can only guess that Origin suffered from poor archiving once a game was finished and produced. A person would think that Origin would have been more professional about storing files that they might need later to prove copyright infringment, should someone unauthorized have utilized them. I do think that there was at least a storage area. They wouldn't have been able to revamp Wing Commander 1,2, and 3 for Windows 95 without orginal files.

Origin also hinted that they might make all the previous Ultimas playable in Windows as a part of the Dragon Edition of U9. Instead we got the (already released) Ultima Collection CD with U9 which in many cases must be modified in order to play in Windows (ala Exult). This Windows playability was yet another promise that they were unable to implement due to release pressure from EA. BUT, they would not have made this promise had they not thought that they could find the former Ultima material. That's one of the reasons they had Lady Moi searching for it in the first place. It also may have made the Dragon Editon more expensive. I think RG had good intentions with U9, but was forced to do to many things because of pressure from EA. He was also short sighted about Ultima Online and deviated too many resources to it. That has all been said before, so there's no need to rehash it.

Once again, there is no reason to believe that this "vault," "storage area," or "archive" has been destroyed, especially as tight fisted as EA can be. Until someone who truily knows its fate comes along, in my opinion it still exists. We just have to figure out the right people to ask, who will talk to us.

On a side note, has anyone else noticed in U9, when the Avatar hums from boredom, it is sometimes a female voice? This is probably from the cut Female Avatar. Is there any way to listen to all of the speech in the game files to see if there is any other recorded speech not used in U9?

XxVenomxX · Post by **XxVenomxX** » Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:58 am

You make it sound like NWN is a bad game. Keep in mind, NWN is Dungeons and Dragons in a computer medium. Richard Garriot was at least partially inspired by DnD to make Akalabeth, and Ultima.

It all comes full circle!

Hacki Dragon · Post by **Hacki Dragon** » Thu Jul 18, 2002 5:44 am

On a side note, has anyone else noticed in U9, when the Avatar hums from boredom, it is sometimes a female voice? This is probably from the cut Female Avatar.

Never noticed it. But I don't think that any female Avatar voices have been recorded anyway. The female Avatar was cut *very* early in development.

Is there any way to listen to all of the speech in the game files to see if there is any other recorded speech not used in U9?

I think the data format hasn't been decoded yet.

IgnitusDragonn · Post by **IgnitusDragonn** » Thu Jul 18, 2002 6:23 am

Let me just say, no one should ever call Richard, RG.
Its sacrilige

Post by **drcode** » Thu Jul 18, 2002 8:17 am

What I recall Lady Moi saying is that there was a big pile of unmarked tapes in unknown format. It could be costly to figure out what's actually there. And, it's also possible that the tapes have degraded to the point where they're no longer readable.

My guess is that the group that did the Wing Commanders may have done a better job of archiving their source code, and that is why they were able to update it for Windows95.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Thu Jul 18, 2002 8:50 am

"Never noticed it. But I don't think that any female Avatar voices have been recorded anyway. The female Avatar was cut *very* early in development."

No, every once in a while, it is definately a femal voice.... It seemed to happen more when I had a Voodoo 3 plugged in than a Voodoo 5 for some reason. It definately was female "hmm"ing. As I recall they did have a voice actor for the female Avatar. She even has it in her resume, but I can't remember what her name is.

"What I recall Lady Moi saying is that there was a big pile of unmarked tapes in unknown format. It could be costly to figure out what's actually there. And, it's also possible that the tapes have degraded to the point where they're no longer readable."

That's possible, but that still means they exist or existed. We need to know who to bug about the tapes and files that will talk.

MV · Post by MV » Thu Jul 18, 2002 1:38 pm

You make it sound like NWN is a bad game. Keep in mind, NWN is Dungeons and Dragons in a computer medium. Richard Garriot was at least partially inspired by DnD to make Akalabeth, and Ultima.

Not my intention. I love NWN. Great game.

If only ultima was developed as good as after u7.

Yep, they really screwed up. The old utopia of Origin games has gone. I mean, what's their latest game? An 'expansion' (READ: Bugfix compliation pack) for UO?

/me misses the old days when they actually did create worlds and not just $$$ for EA.

Post by **Darke** » Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:27 pm

My gripe about NWN (and the reason I'm not likely to ever actually
create anything in it), is in the EULA that apparently says to the effect that
anything you create and put up for download, you automatically grant
the rights to Bioware to use for free.

This rant if you page down to near the bottom of it, explains things
'nicely':
http://www.waterthread.org/news/arc5-20 ... 3921,61646,

It also mentions that you 'can't' create anything in it using copyrighted
material from 3rd parties too...

Darke
(Who _was_ looking forward to the game, unfortunately.)

XxVenomxX · Post by **XxVenomxX** » Thu Jul 18, 2002 3:44 pm

Yeah, I knew about that from the get go

Doesnt bother me any.

Post by **Dominus** » Thu Jul 18, 2002 10:38 pm

About U9 file formats and decoding: http://home.alphalink.com.au/~froods/u9tools.html

All you need is there. I have a whole collection of tools collected since the U9 release which allow you all kinds of editing...

Post by **Colourless** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 5:23 am

Darke, that is generally a fairly standard clause written into the EULA of mod tools. It's because it's easier for the company to protect their own property if they get you to give them ownership of any modification you make to their game. Other companies have this in their EULA as well (i.e. id Software and people were complaining about it when Quake 3 was released). While some people take it to mean that the company is doing it so they can do whatever they want, originally such clauses were first introduced to prevent unauthorized selling of mods (by shovelware companies). It's too difficult to sue the shovelware manufactures otherwise if no content owned by the original game manufacture is in the mod. id Software and 3d realms, AFAIK, both encounted this problem. There are a number of CD's of Quake Levels out there that are full of levels, used without the level makers permission, that have had all of the textures by id Software removed to stop there being any thing that had been copyrighted by id Software on the disc. Just FYI Quake bps files (levels) contain all of the txtures that are used by level.

Not using 3rd party material (copyrighted) is something that is just to save their ass. If a company doesn't put it in their mod tools EULA they are stupid. It allows them to sue you if you use copyrighted material in your mod, and the copyright holder tries to sue you and them. They can then sue you for the lawyers fees that were incured defending themselves, when they had nothing at all to do with the copyright infingement.

-Colourless Dragon

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 5:57 am

Thanks Dominus... how much trouble would it be to get a program to extract the speach in U9. I would have thought that it would have been in the same format as the music and sound effects....

Hacki Dragon · Post by **Hacki Dragon** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 7:21 am

It's a different format. Unfortunately, I'm no coding wizard, or I'd have tried it myself.

Post by **Dominus** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 8:20 am

the speech is in a different format? damn. Then the link must be quite useless. Have you tried a google search on: U9 speech format ?

Hacki Dragon · Post by **Hacki Dragon** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 8:34 am

More than once. No results.

Post by **Dominus** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 8:59 am

Yeah, it seems no one did write a tool for this... too bad...

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 10:05 am

Yet another mystery for U9 then. I'm very sure that I heard a female voice "hmm"ing. If that's there, I wonder what else is?

Uh, in addition to the sloppily kept archive of previous Ultima material that Origin had, and EA may still have.... (per this thread :0)

SnowyThing · Post by **SnowyThing** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 10:08 am

I read on some interview with Warren Spector, that he had a whole shelf full of Serpent Isle stuff. I'm not sure what it is... but he may still have it.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 11:04 am

As far as SI, that would be good, if we could get Warren to answer us...., but I haven't had any luck. Has anyone heard a peep from him?

Post by **drcode** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 11:44 am

Not here, although I haven't tried to contact him either.

IgnitusDragonn · Post by **IgnitusDragonn** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 4:37 pm

Hey Dr.Code, you never know, maybe he'll fall into your ceiling and land before your computer and start throwing floppys and usecode manuals at you.

Whats his email? I saw it somewhere, I'll bug him a little. Beg...more likely.

SnowyThing · Post by **SnowyThing** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 5:25 pm

Here's his email address. I did a quick forum search.

Colourless Dragon submitted it way back when on here.

wspector@ionstorm.com

See ya!

Chris Schumacher · Post by **Chris Schumacher** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 6:17 pm

I remember hearing rumors that some of the BG/SI team made copies of the
sourcecode just in case (on magtape, I assume) and probably still have them.
Oh no, it was an encoded CD... Damn, does anyone remember reading that? I think
it might have even been Warren Spector who mentioned it...
I hope I'm not confusing this with the Saturn V plans again...

IgnitusDragonn · Post by **IgnitusDragonn** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 6:36 pm

...again?

Chris Schumacher · Post by **Chris Schumacher** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 7:26 pm

I was talking to someone about it on IRC once, and I realized something was wrong
when I talked about the sourcecode being on Microfilm.

IgnitusDragonn · Post by **IgnitusDragonn** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 7:35 pm

Heh, we could read it under a microscope.

Post by **drcode** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 9:57 pm

I heard that each developer got a CD with the code.

SnowyThing · Post by **SnowyThing** » Fri Jul 19, 2002 9:57 pm

Meecro Film, like on Loaded Weapon.

IgnitusDragonn · Post by **IgnitusDragonn** » Sat Jul 20, 2002 5:34 am

"Aren't you suppose to be dead?"
"Oh yeah..."

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Sun Jul 21, 2002 11:22 am

Who are all the significant developers then? Warren Spector obviously...., but who else? I've emailed Denis Loubet, and he doesn't appear to have any extra material. He is very nice to talk to, however. Also, if each developer had a CD, that doesn't necessarily mean that they would have very much other material on it, other than the source and a few other things. Their significant work (if they did some at home) would have been stored on their computers.... CD burners costed a fortune back then, so I doubt they would have burned any extra files onto CD. More than likely they would have transfered any work they did at home via peer to peer network.

But that doesn't mean that more than one CD version was made with work add by the developers at Origin headquarters.

My money is still on Warren Spector. I know he worked for Ion Storm and it was bought out. Who bought them out, and where is their headquarters located at? I also know he is working on Deus Ex 2.

IgnitusDragonn · Post by **IgnitusDragonn** » Sun Jul 21, 2002 12:06 pm

I asked Spector for a brief "interview" type thing, I asked him how he was doing, his memorys of Serpent Isle, what he was working on now and whether it was true he had source, beta copies or etc.
Hopefully he'll email me back...

Post by **Dominus** » Sun Jul 21, 2002 12:13 pm

not to take away your hopes but I doubt anyone who worked for Origin/EA would risk to plublicy give away code he doesn't own.
Asking doesn't hurt of course I just wouldn't get my hopes up too high.

IgnitusDragonn · Post by **IgnitusDragonn** » Sun Jul 21, 2002 6:26 pm

I agree totally, if he gave it away, he'd probably let only close programming friends take alook at it. I suppose theres not much they(EA)could do, if he owns the only copies, even if you told EA that Warren Spector gave you the source, they couldn't really prove it(to the best of my understanding) unless you sent them the code, and even still it would probly be hard to prove it was indeed written by and Ultima designer. Knowing corporations, they'd probly latch on to anything(even some simple "hello world" program) as long as it had the word "U7" in it just to get the chance to sue someone.
However, it'd be nice to just know if he's got anything...
Maybe he could give helpful advice or something.

Andy · Post by **Andy** » Sun Jul 21, 2002 8:29 pm

Or, if he can't give us code. He might be able to give us the script for the entire plot. Cut things included.

We still need someone in EA that we can talk to about the entire archive though.

IgnitusDragonn · Post by **IgnitusDragonn** » Mon Jul 22, 2002 7:02 am

I don't think you could get anything out of any EA employees, from the written conversation between player and seller, the employees are probly brainwashed with their corporate blah blah blah...I lost my thought...forget it.

Grimlock Dragon · Post by **Grimlock Dragon** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 6:02 pm

Well, I guess it will have to be waters that should be probed from time to time. Persistence in asking questions can be good, especially when you've got nothing to loose.

I've once again sent an email to Warren Spector. I wonder if he actually uses that account.

About U9 speech... Lord British should know what file format the speech was saved under. I don't have his email address. If someone who has it, reads this thread, would that someone be so nice as to ask him? So many unused things where left on the U9 CD, it would not surprise me at all to find that there is some unused dialog on it. Granted, it would be a pain to listen to all of the dialog in one sitting.

While we're at it, what about U8 and it's designers?.... maybe they could show us, or tell us a few things.

Post by **Dominus** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 6:19 pm

Easier said than done.
Asking LB about the games after u6 (if even) won't do any good. He hasn't been involved in the "dirty" work, meaning programming and such. I wager he knows nothing about the format of anything used for U9.

And about mailing other people involved, I'm not sure if harrassing them with mails again and again will do any good. I'd say if you wrote once and didn't get an answer leave them be or you might get the opposite effect...

Post by **Dominus** » Wed Jul 24, 2002 6:22 pm

Btw, if you are doing a groups search on gooogle on the words U8 and Jason Ely you might find a lot of help already (and please don't mail him for more questions - the team of Pentagram might very well decide to ask him some very precise questions and I think it's better to not get him in a bad mood).
You might also want to check out the cvs of Pentagram as there is already a lot knownand documented about U8.

Grimlock Dragon · Post by **Grimlock Dragon** » Thu Jul 25, 2002 4:46 am

Okay. I'll stop asking Warren. I've only emailed him 3 times about SI. The first was some time ago. These last two were in the last couple of days, and all were polite, and relatively short. I also wouldn't want to jeopardize what this dedicated group is doing here. In fact, I had been asked by some here to ask him. Perhaps I can figure something else out. Hey Ignitus, you didn't call him any names did you?

Thanks for the info on U8.... I'll look into it, and no, I won't ask Jason Ely. It could be said that I like uncovering stuff, especially if it could be of benefit to others.

Post by **Colourless** » Thu Jul 25, 2002 5:40 am

You could also come to #exult on irc.openprojects.net and talk to us about things, in particular about U8. We know a lot of things about U8 that we haven't yet documented.

Also, Pentagram no longer uses the Exult CVS repository. If you want access to the Pentagram CVS repository go here: http://sourceforge.net/cvs/?group_id=53819

-Colourless Dragon