Exult Forum

Given that the Exult forum seems to be home to the greatest experts of Ultima history and timeline...

just out of curiosity, when and how was exactly extabilished that Dupre, Shamino and Iolo are the most intimate companions of the Avatar? How did they stand out of the crowd of other joinable npcs like Jaana, Mariah, Geoffrey and so on?

Shamino is Richard Garriot's alternate personality from P&P RPGs and the Society for Creative Anacronism, and Dupre and Iolo are based on his two best friends.

And Gwenno is based on the real Iolo's wife. Jaana is based on another friend. In fact, of the companions with long histories in the games (which means I'm excluding characters like Spark and Tseremed), I think the only one not based on any of Garriott's friends is Gorn. But I could be wrong.

Dupre: Richard Garriot's best friend

Geoffrey: OSI's first employee, in charge of the game shipping and packaging; remained in the company at least until after Ultima 8

Gwenno: The wife of the real Iolo

Iolo: One of Richard Garriot's closest friends from the Society of Creative Anachronism; wrote stones and made some of the music for the Ultimas

Jaana: A close friend of Richard Garriot's; probably a veterinarian in real life

Mariah: Richard Garriot's personal secretary

Shamino: Richard Garriot's alternate personality/character based off of his Pencil&Paper gaming

Katrina: ????

Gorn: A character from one of OSI's non-Ultima games IIRC

Tseremed: Ken Demerest, lead programmer on U7

I know him as Tseramed, and Ken Demarest, if i'm not mistaken.

I knew the real life counterparts of the characters, though I wanted to know from who played Ultimas earlier than VI, when exactly the three were raised to the "closest companions" rank.

In Ultima VI, the first I ever played, they are the ones that save you in the beginning, and your default party. In Ultima VII you start with Iolo only but it's clear from the amount of dialogue and egg interaction that him, Dupre and Shamino are your closest pals. Then in Serpent Isle not only they're once again your default party, but they're even explicitly called "The Three" by ancient prophecies.

I didn't play much of the Ultimas before VI, but I suspect that the title "Warriors of Destiny" may refer to them perhaps? That would put their escalation to a prominent position in Ultima V... of which I don't know very much

In Ultima V, the first characters that join you are Shamino and Iolo. Also, both of them appear since Ultima I.

About Dupre, he first appeared in Ultima II.

So technically you meet this 3 before any of the other main companions.

The "best friends" thing started in Ultima 6, when they were part of the "permanent" party, and couldn't be kicked out unless they got killed and you didn't resurrect them.
But as other people have suggested, it's most likely due to their real-world analogues that they developers came to think of them that way.

And then there's Warren Spector, who I think was lead designer for U7 part II, the underworlds, and the worlds of ultima. He appeared at Dr. Spector in the worlds of ultima, and as a 'gost named spector' in one of the underworlds. I cant remember his SI persona, but he was aways lurking around somewhere.

I was fortunate enough to squeeze a bit of an email interview out of him back when I made my little 'The Dragon Herald' fansite 6 or 7 years ago.

-Dantec Dragon

> 'gost named spector'

Wasn't that rather 'spectre named Warren'?

>I cant remember his SI persona, but he was aways lurking around somewhere.

I think that was the treasurer in Monitor (forgot his name).

Artaxerxes

Spektor.

NON-COMPANION RELATED

--Sir Kenneth: One of the composers of Ultimas 5-7
--Lord Blackthorn: One of the programmers for Ultima 5
--Capt. Johne: IIRC he was one of the programmers for Ultimas 5 and 6, but I can't remember for certain.
--Toshi: I think he was a programmer, but I can't remember for certain.

TRIP HAWKINS
Trip Hawkins was the head and founding CEO of EA from 87-91, replaced by the much more evil Larry Probst (who left EA in 06, hooray!). He appears in Ultimas 5 and 6. In 5 he is an evil shipwright who runs a sweatshop headed by child slave labor. In U6 he was a pirate so evil that his pirate crew conspired to kill him, and succeeded. Obviously, Richard Garriot did not have a high opinion of the guy.

How can anyone forget Chuckles, aka Charles Beuche? I probably spelled his last name wrong, I always messed that up even when I worked with him in Dransik (and a few others, *W*).....he signed my AutoDuel box as "Chuckles".....the doofus, lol.

Sure, Chuckles wasn't part of the team, but neither was Smithy.... Just part of the Ultima history.

Now Andrew "Artek" Hoffman's profile in SI...oh man, it's been about 9 years since he told me. I forget the char's name, but he worked in a lil lab of sorts and had red hair. I believe he was an assistant.

I used to have a lot of data about the SI personalities that Andrew had sent me, but last year I was infected with a virus called Virut...ended up having to delete everything, nothing was salvageable.

Katrina: ????

It's possible that Katrina isn't based on anyone. Except that at least once RG remarked that in 'real life [she] often goes by Trina' which either means there is a real person named Katrina that the character was named for (just as the real Jaana is really named Jaana) but he could just as easily have been making an assertion about the character. The remark could be taken either way. RG, I find, often seems to blur the distinction between the real people and the characters based on them (which makes sense since in a way he was just projecting the people into the games).

BTW, I think that David Watson (Iolo) died a few years ago. Although maybe it was his wife (I forget her name) who died. I can't remember which now.

I heard they both died.

Oh, man, in a way I wish Ultima had survived a little longer in better form. I would have loved to see how he casted Larry Probst (the head CEO who replaced Hawkins. Seems he was a pretty nasty guy, responsible for EA's evilness. The new CEO seems respectable, if a tad imcompetent though and is trying to clean up EA's image)

>>Although maybe it was his wife (I forget her name) who died. I can't remember which now.

Kathleen Jones, she died a couple of years ago.

David Watson is still alive and well AFAIK, or at least his website functions properly: http://www.crossbows.net/

Baskar: might Hoffman's character have been Vasel, Erstam's assistant? That's the only lab with an assistant that I can bring to mind, but he didn't have red hair.

That's it Jet, thank you.
I can never remember that char's name. Ultima 7.5 has never been a game I could immerse myself into. Regular Ultima 7 on the other hand.....
Used to know who Jason "Lothgar" Ely and Doug "Zarquon" Gesler were as well. Hrm...

I find Serpent Isle very immersive, although it always had a very different feel to what The Black Gate had. The cities never felt so real or alive in Serpent Isle, presumably because there were only about a dozen people in each. Moonshade I might be able to imagine, because they have magic and automatons doing all the work for them. But Monitor? Fawn? Where does anyhing -come- from? Where does food come from? No wonder Harnna doesn't have much time to talk, her vegetables are nearly all that stands between South Serpent Isle and famine. The meat and dairy products all come from Sleeping Bull. Everyone else in Monitor is concerned only with fighting, selling weapons to fighters, selling food to fighters, selling camping supplies to fighters, making statues of fighters, cremating fighters and telling fighters who to fight. Fawn's worse, because half the town is in the government.

Yeah, the unfinished-ness does kinda shine through. Also for some reason SI, even before the Banes are released, has a lonely and dreary feel to it (lonely probably because your other companions aren't there)

Yeah, there's no sign of commerce between the three cities. Obviously this is in part due to the storms, but still... Of course Moonshade, despite being the most fleshed-out city, is also the least finished; there is no port, there are no signs.

Dreary best sums it up, in my opinion. It just has a different aura than BG/FOV. I've finished the game before, but in the end of 7.5, I ended up with a VERY "blah" kind of feeling. But hey, some people like 7.5 better than the other one. Me, I'll stick to the other one.

I can still remember getting the magazine to Chips and Bits and paying $55 bucks for two cd's. I think that was 13 years ago. I still have one of the cd's, it's just been eaten by an old cd drive.....refuses to open up, lol.

I think we got spoiled on the shrines, the land of Brittannia, and the development of the world.....they tried to branch off (Ultima 8 was a major disappointment in my eyes) and ended back up in Brittannia with an unfinished game. Much to the displeasure of many of it's programmers.... Wasn't Richard Garriot's idea to release an unfinished game either (u9).

...dangit, i went 'a'ramblin. sorry bout that.

Inserting the point of a paperclip into the little hole on the front of the cd drive should allow it to open..