Exult Forum

My philosophy is the same as Garriot's - the Virtues are less there to enforce morality in the game, as they are to make the gamer question their actions. As he said, he likes to push people outside of their comfort zones. I do too ^_~

SoulFrost has it right - questions like that are exactly why most people love Ultima .. and I intend in TFL to examing that morality deeply (all while not being at the cost of gameplay).

~ Wizardry Dragon

The Feudal Lands now have a domain name at www.u7feudallands.com ^_^

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

Time to update the book marks, eh?

The long awaited next snapshot of TFL is available:

http://www.u7feudallands.com/viewtopic.php?p=496#496

There's a ton of new additions in it, including but not limited to: a guard barracks and healers in Virtue's Hold, more implementation of the housing system, a number of conversation and scheduling fixes, a new face for Chahiero (courtesy of koloboko), and work on a second level for Destard.

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

Cross posted from the TFL forums to hopefully solicit feedback ^_^
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Not screenshots per se, as these aren't in game; rather, mockups of how I hope to change the interface graphically and functionally.


Did some big graphical finessing on the statusbar. The glow on some of the faces is a way of indicating status - the avatar is magically protected, iolo diseased (new condition - well not new per se, SI had a disease, but it wasn't given a condition handler), Shamino poisoned, Katrina calling for protection, and Jaana protecting.

The speech bubbles are a shortcut to talk to the party members, and the ankh a shortcut to the spellbook (for the avatar), or the spellcasting AI dialogue (for NPCs). The dollar sign by the last party member indicates that's shes a hired mercenary. (yet another thing I plan to add)

The disk icon quicksaves, and the crossed swords icon would bring up the combat modes dialog from SI.



Ztats panel, with some graphical finessing, and two new condition, in this case, poor Iolo is diseased, indicated by the glowing green skull, and bleeding, indicated by the blood drop. Poor, poor Iolo.



Not much to see here, just proving that there IS in fact enough room for SI-style portrait conversation. Party members who interject would be superimposed in the avatar's face area.



My vision of a fixed up spellbook lends itself to eye candy

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

Very impressive! I can't wait for this to be completed so I can play it. i noticed the blue counter on the bottom of some potraits, have you suceeded in implementing spell system for npcs?

Really very nice! Now you've got to convince someone to program all this:-)

If we were to implement this, I wonder if we could make the window bigger so the status doesn't take up landscape space.

Yeah, the status window is nice and all, but it takes up -way- too much space on the screen as is.

am i the only one who thinks the status window is ugly? T.T

Very impressive! I can't wait for this to be completed so I can play it. i noticed the blue counter on the bottom of some potraits, have you suceeded in implementing spell system for npcs?

Marzo's been hard at work implementing a spell system for NPCs, complete with AI, and TFL will include this.

Really very nice! Now you've got to convince someone to program all this:-)

The basics shouldn't be that hard, it just involves changing the status bars into a numerical output, and putting some nice graphics behind everything.

A little more difficult would be the talk and spellcasting buttons, and the conditions.

If we were to implement this, I wonder if we could make the window bigger so the status doesn't take up landscape space.

Could easily have a toggle switch to set the background graphics for the statusbar on an off, which could mitigate it, a little.

TFL itself is designed with 400x300 or 640x480 in mind, but any suggestions towards the end of making a more efficient layout are appreciated.

Yeah, the status window is nice and all, but it takes up -way- too much space on the screen as is.

My approach is to take the screen area from a resolution, and then actually use the resolution above it to get the offscreen area for the statusbar.

For example, that graphics above are a 320x200 game screen, on an actual 320x240 draw area (scaled 2x for the sake of everyone's eyes.)

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

I don't like the spellbook. Original was better.
And why there should be talking and spellcasting buttons? (I don't usually like excessional icons and buttons. That's why I loved UVII. Left button=hands right buttons=legs. How about middle button=something?)

from virtues:

I think these acts should be more like the questions from gypsy in Ultima-introductions.

for example: If someone reveals you something bad he/she has done. and you promise not to keep the secret, like I wouldn't. You gain propably Honesty but lose Compassion.

Like in Nell's case and busting the mayor, I would always tell the truth. Truth is the most important thing! (Still I'm not all heartless. I show compassion when I run away the enemies, because I don't want to Kill them I killed Sprellic though. But bartender suspected that I did it for the bets! Funny ..and truth!

I was wondering if perhaps the story with the Kilrathy would come through a bit better. I got the feeling that Ultima 7 was large, but after walking about a bit, no one ever travels from town to town, so of course no one realized there was a spaceship. The game is soooo localized, can that be at all fixed?

It could, but would require -extensive- usecode modification. I may later, but for now, I'm focussing on getting the next milestone done so I can puit out another snapshot ^_~

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

sorry off topic but for the kilrathi thing didn't the farmer kill it???? it does make a person wonder about that if you think about it

Mmm... Kilrathi

The Kilrathi fighter pictured in U7 has a crew of two, Dark Avatar.

Semi-OT: In one of the Wing Commander games, there is a system that mirrors the planets viewed through the orrery in U7 ^_~

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

oh ok...I always thought a drathli had one pilot... this makes me wonder more on what happend with the other pilot now..lol

The Dralathi had a pilot and a co-pilot.

Always made me wonder in the couple of instances when you flew it alone in WC.

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

Great progress! This thing should be fantastic when it's done!

Anyhow, I got a question regarding your Karma system. Will giving beggars money increase your Karma? I know that many people would probably abuse this by doing all the 'evil' deeds they want and compensating by giving a boatload of money to beggars, but ya know...

I should note that the karma increase is scaled. If your evil, the most you ever get is a single point of karma from any good deed (which doesn't go far)

As for the mod, sorry for the lack of updates, I've been trying to complete the guilds subsystem's framework before releasing another snapshot.

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

Take your time dear sir, I'm sure that many people will prove how much they really want it by waiting patiently for it.

Is it going to be possible to forge a caddelite sword with your forging system? I always wanted one of those....

I'm going to wait until the forging system is fully implemented for normal weapons before I do anything fancy with it. ^_~

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

Hey there everyone,
First of all, I'd like to apologize for the delay between snapshots, I had been trying to have them released on a fairly regular basis, however I want them to be somewhat stable as well, and as such, I have been waiting until major milestones are stably implemented.

As I have been working on the new guilds system for TFL I have been staving off a new development snapshot until it is both A: somewhat working and B: implemented ingame. Now that I have the code for the guilds system written up, it is simply a matter of implementing guilds ingame and testing the code to find any major bugs and fix them. I hope to have the nmext snapshot out within a week, by the end of the month at the latest. I thank everyone for their patience and hope that you enjoy this large addition to the Ultima VII world.

I would also like to extend a hearty welcome to Justin Durban [www.edgen.com/music] and Rick Balentine [www.scorela.com] who have offered to help compose the original soundtrack for The Feudal Lands. Give 'em a hand folks

Finally, I would like to remind people that we are still actively seeking people to help in the development of Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands. We are currently in great need of artists, worldbuilders, and programmers, so if you are interested, please message me on the Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands forums, or email me at twicescorned at gmail.com

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer,
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands


(ps: the original topic from which this is crossposted is here: http://www.u7feudallands.com/viewtopic.php?p=649#649)

Well, just so everybody doesn't go and think TFL is dead, it's not.

Unfortunately as I've noted elsewhere, I don't have much of an internet connection (read none at all) so it's been nigh impossible to really keep the website and updates here at all active and up to date.

I have been working on it, however. The first bit of TFL I was working on (the fortress city) is more or less done, I'm just going through the tedious process of debugging all the basic conversations. After that the next step will be to add in the townplot quests.

Hopefully I'll figure a way to post an updatew here at the library, or even better, get my internet back, lol.

Anyways, to summarize: The Feudal Lands is indeed alive.
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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer,
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

Still am waiting for your return.

There any graphics or tiles you might need for what you've gotten done?

Not much more than I had pointed out before. Some different colours of banners and carpets would be nice. And hewn and such walls for the underwall so we can have variety there - see UU for reference, you could even take screenshots from it and use it as a base as the guy doing the SE mod did, but make sure the end product isn't a straight rip - that leads to copyright problems.

Also, if you could take the demon graphics (which should be kicking around in the CVS, if you need help with that Marzo can help) and fix them up, there's a lot of off-by-one pixels that need fixed so the animations don't look funny.
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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer,
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

On the development of the Virtues...there's a huge amount of time passing between U1 and U7. I think concurrent developments of the same idea by cultures with absolutely no clue what the other side thinks is not entirely impossible? Especially since the big three (Truth, Love, Courage) seemed to have been around before the Serpent Isle was split. If there was shared traffic/tenet between Britannia and the Feudal Lands, then they'd have some partly shared culture, it shouldn't be entirely impossible. I know cultures only tend to diverge with time and seclusion, but that could be the reason why it took the Feudal Lands this long, too? Maybe someone just recovered some ancient records some centuries ago and had a Eureka Moment, and people transformed the ideas over time? Or it developed completely independently from their own growing ideas?

It could just be me thinking of evolution in Australian marsupials, though, and you probably has it fit into a plot already. >_>

(And sir...your project seems like a dream come true. I wish I know how to say these things better. ;_; )

One of the major players in the Feudal Lands is someone that comes from Britannia, and he brings his values with him to TFL. They are NOT universally accepted however - one of the morality type things I want to do with TFL is to contrast the Virtues to another moral system, and unlike U5 I want it to be a valid one.

By the way, the forums are down at the moment - I may have to nuke the database and rebuild, but I'm trying to save things before I go to that extreme ^_^;

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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer,
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

I really enjoyed the comparison/contrast you get in Ultima 6, looking at the Gargish perspective.

Another way of doing that would be really interesting.

Where'd virtues come from?

The Wisps did it.

Everyone knows they traded it to the Feudal Lords long ago in return for some kind of armageddon spell.

What's the point in the Armageddon spell? Other than hearing some dialogue from Lord British and Batlin?

No wait... there IS a point to it... imagine sitting by yourself in your home one day and suddenly, out of the blue, everyone else disappears! The whole city and everything in it is all yours!

Raid the liquor stores, eat everything off the self, all the movies in every video shop are yours to watch. The only bummer is no girls around... but hey! There are alternatives...

I remember in Ultima 9, a scenario like that was mentioned in a book that Richard Garriot wrote in the game (there's one behind the gypsy), it kinda makes me think as to whether or not this fantasy is my own...

But enough of that. It's been a L-O-N-G time since I checked out the Exult stuff and Feudal lands (glad to see it's still being developed), I think I should reorient myself on the changes.

believe it or not, I remember reading a comic book where it happened almost exactly as you described it. You wake up one day, feel like not going to work, so you stay home and when you turn the TV, there is "snow". You go outside, there is no one. Stores, malls, gas stations, they're all empty. Although weird at first, you try to take advantage of it, but very soon you realise it's worth that prison... so finally at night, you decide to go to bed and you wake up the next morning and everthing is back to normal. People on the street, TV is working, stores, mall, gaz station, everybody's there... You finally realise that for some unexplained reason, everybody decided that they would skip work and school the previous day.

In the recent TV series "My name is Earl" was one episode that is similar. Earl and his gang believed the Y2k hype andbelieved the world would end. So they holed up that new years night, thought the fireworks were explosions. Early the next day they went to the super market and met no one anywhere. They took over the supermarket (since they were the last survivors on earth). The next morning the supermarket opened regulary and Earl & his gang were rudely awakened in their supermarket beds

Actually, the whole 'being alone in the world out of the blue' has some complications. You see, at first it would be great! You can do and have whatever you want, when you want it, but the problem is, after a while, things will go bad.

Food and drink expires, and electricity is not unlimited (small power generators are there, of course). So basically there will be a 'happy time' at first and then followed by a period of adaption and finally ending with a struggle to survive on your own in an urban jungle.

This actually makes for good story writing, and I like to ponder things that will never happen and see what I would do...

Food and drink expires, and electricity is not unlimited (small power generators are there, of course). So basically there will be a 'happy time' at first and then followed by a period of adaption and finally ending with a struggle to survive on your own in an urban jungle.

Douglas Coupland (author of Generation X) picked that up in his weird book "Girlfriend in a Coma". Quite nicely, but weird, but also the very first Coupland book I read.

Well, yes, it doesn't sound good at all. There'd be nobody to dance with:-(
Plus, nobody to make beer, run ski-lifts, write music...

I also remember one of the old Twilight Zone's where this mousy guy was constantly being nagged by his wife, and all he wanted to do was read books. After what looked like an atomic-bomb blast, he was the only survivor. He goes to the library thrilled that all the books survived, only to have his glasses fall off and shatter.

Plus, nobody to make beer,

Ever heard of homebrewing?

Also, why not make your OWN music... hey, you're gonna be alone all your life, so you might as well make the most of it...

He goes to the library thrilled that all the books survived, only to have his glasses fall off and shatter.

Now that must really, really suck! He gets everything that he wants except for the tiny little thing that would enable him to get started on it...

Douglas Coupland (author of Generation X) picked that up in his weird book "Girlfriend in a Coma". Quite nicely, but weird, but also the very first Coupland book I read.

Hmm, interesting. I think I'll look that book up.

Stop hijacking my topic!

So any progress with the Feudal Lands? The alpha release seem bit behind schedule...

He said "soon", not "immediately"


....

Nah i'm just kidding... well I know at least i've been sick for a while, but that doesn't much affect the programming side of things so Wiz or Marzo woul dhave to answer there

Marzo decided that he was going to redo the spell system, so that puts other plans, including release, on hold. I also want to hold off the release until Justin Durban is done fiddling with the tracks of the original score for us he is working on.

Having a leg that feels like it's been through a meatgrinder twice has put a dent in my immediate work, though, mostly for lack of motivation. Hopefully that won't be a problem much longer.
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Peter M Dodge aka Wizardry Dragon
Lead Designer,
Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

I'm closing this thread and point to the Feudal Lands forum at http://www.lfs.lfhost.com/tfl_forum/index.php.

This thread always seems to attract our friendly neighbourhood sp...ammers