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access to management

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 1:21 am
by Beacon
My contact info is incorrect. Do not try to contact me directly as it will be rejected.


First, let me say that U7 defined my definition of a fantastic gaming experience. I've also played a bit of UO and loved it during the pre-Ren days.

I have DIRECT access to EA management. Not some middle manager, I mean top brass including the CEO. What do we wish to request?

All posts will be considered though I cannot overplay my hand

Re: access to management

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 1:56 am
by Beacon
Sorry for the poor writing. I've had a few to drink with the wife. The substance is legit. I cannot promise miracles, but I can say that your best ideas can be passed on to the correct party.

Re: access to management

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 2:20 am
by Petrell
Reasonable requests? Less see now...

Release source code of Ultima 7 pt1 & pt2 + expansions (and any other ultima if they exist, engine source code is fine ;)).

Offer Ultima IX Dragons Edition for sale at gog.com (Good Old Games).

Possible? :P (I know Hell will melt first before that happens [it froze when Finland won the Eurovision song contest so I quess anything IS possible])

Re: access to management

Posted: Sat Dec 20, 2008 11:10 am
by Salicias
I seem to remember that the source code for U7 was mysteriously lost many years ago.

The only thing I could think of that might matter at this point is perhaps that EA would offer some kind of full ranging permission to the Exult team (and others) to do what they wish with any property enclosed in the original games. That would free up the community to really explore all these modification projects without fear and allow Exult to be a fully packaged game at distribution.

-Salicias

Re: access to management

Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 12:29 am
by Andrea B Previtera
Although I deem Beacon's message credibility as extremely low, mostly for the way he did put it.... I agree with Salicias: freeing the art and data files is important. Having the original source would interest me for the pathfinding only (how the U7 team managed to get a smooth a* on 386 class machines remains a mystery to me and possible to the the Exult team as well)

Re: access to management

Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:05 am
by Warder
Convince them to ask Bioware to make a new Ultima?

Re: access to management

Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 7:00 pm
by Dominus
- Either make Ultima 1-8 freely avallaible or sell them again, perhaps in a similar style as steam, bundled with Dosbox.
- Make the u8 add-on Lost Vale freely availlable, though I doubt anyone still working for EA has it.
- Same goes for the sources of U7-U9 but I'm sure no one with EA has any of that source anymore...

Re: access to management

Posted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:40 pm
by Andrea B Previtera
@Dominus: actually one of the origin employees of which I can't remember the name, a coder who then founded his own game studio, said more than once that he still owns the Serpent Isle code but he can't release it. He also added that Ken Demarest (easy to remember since he's linked to Tseramed ;) ) still keeps bot the code to SI, BG, and the tools they used to build the respective worlds.

Re: access to management

Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 4:18 am
by Dominus
As I wrote, I doubt anyone working for EA has it :)
I never believed it is truly lost, just that the company itself had no more copy of it...

Re: access to management

Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 6:58 am
by Andrea B Previtera
Ah right Dominus, you've got a point here :)
Anyway, let's not forget the juiciest thing! We need the code to the Voodoo Memory Manager to faithfully replicate its pai[segfault]