Exult Forum

lol How cool is that!?

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b103/ ... g~original

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEtRoZ5FWNc

Well, that's a very nice photoshop I guess. O_o

This is amazing. I don't think that's a photoshop.. is it? That looks like it would be the source material.
Is there a story to this? Google doesn't yield much, though this band (Bangkok Shock) from the same time has a similar aesthetic:
http://fnarecords.net/index.php/the-cul ... ction.html

I was always reminded of Henry Rollins in his long haired days, myself:
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/403 ... ollins.jpg

Well, I know the Serpent Isle portraits were basically made after real people, but Origin wouldn't have taken portraits from people without asking, right?
...
Right? >_>

I hope someone can provide more info about this mystery.
If that isn't a photoshop then I am very intrigued and wonder if there are any other semi-famous people walking around in Serpent Isle. (Apart from the obvious developers ofcourse.)

I just feel like the image quality is so low in the game that it would be incredibly difficult (if not impossible) to have it appear at the same quality level as an actual picture. I feel like it would have to be a one way trip...
But I don't really know anything about photoshop, so what do I know.
I think development teams do a lot of things for fun/out of boredom.

Wow...they really are dead ringers if that picture is real. I'm intrigued!

Origin has based their characters on real life people before...

http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Mortegro

"The model for Mortegro's character portrait is Emmy Award-winning composer/producer/engineer, BZ Lewis."

Thanks for the info. This is pretty neat to know and I will never look at Mortegro the same again.

Unfortunately I now have to check out every other character on that wiki to see if they have any trivia attached.

Who did the photoshop? That was pretty good....

From the wiki

"According to the original design documents for Serpent Isle, Mortegro's mansion is flooded with the angry ghosts of the dead, following the coming of Shamino the Anarch. These spirits would have included Blackthorn, Elizabeth, Abraham, Hook, several dead gargoyles, Mondain and Batlin. The player would likely require the spectral orb (an artifact which Vasculio stole from Mortegro) to dispatch them. [3] "

That would have been pretty damn awesome! I guess you'd have to nix Blackthorn since technically he was still alive... but the rest would have been great to have their spectral revenge!

Does that Spectral Orb do anything at all in this script?

It breaks my heart whenever I hear about all the content that was axed... if I can love the game as much as I already do, imagine if it was expanded on...

re: I still don't see how you can take a U7 quality image and make it look like it belongs in that photo. Anyone know if that's even reasonably possible?

Here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/user/bzrocks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0A4G8T2 ... 4-overview

The picture is real. BZ Lewis was in a band called Culture Shock.

@Dale: Same here. I can't count the number of times I've cursed EA to .
The original ideas for Serpent Isle would have made this already great game simply brilliant. /sad

I don't know but if it's a photoshop I wish the creator would help us out on some portaits in the U6 mod!

the Spectral orb did nothing that I know of. That part of the plot would have been awesome to put into a Serpents Isle mod that re-opens some of the old plot while keeping the rest intact. Wouldn't be too difficult to do I'd imagine

I wish I could be helpful with this kind of thing. How much programming background do you need? While I have a major in comp sci, I haven't programmed in a decade...

Actually Dale it isn't too hard to pick up if you are at least somewhat familiar with programming at all. I changed majors from Computer info. systems to history cuz i sucked at it back then lol. I seem to have figured most out with trial and error though

Maybe I'll try digging in next week! Do I need to download something other than the Exult? Is there a separate development tool?

I think to get started you will need to make a "movie script" first:
- at what point of the storyline will this new plot begin (e.g. which flags need to have been set, which npcs you need etc)
- what is about to happen in the script?
- which NPCs will you need? Which are going to be new?
- dialogs need to be written
- do you need a new area?

After you figured these things out then you need mainly Exult snapshot, Exult Studio snapshot, Exult Tools snapshot. For graphics you will need Gimp or photoshop, I'd recommend Gimp.

I think if I were to toy with anything, I'd probably start with something more simple like I had mentioned in another thread... maybe just try and come up with some fun new equipment ideas and make them. From there see if I can find a good place to dump them and add some dialogue or a character giving hints on where it is. Just something simple to start off.
I'll install Tool and Studio this week and see what I can figure out. Gimp overwhelms me a bit, so I may see if I can just do the images in paint since to start I would likely just be changing the colours of pre-existing items.
I know this isn't something everyone else may care about.. but if I follow through, and maybe even SUCCEED, I may become helpful with other things. I give it a 27% chance.

I forgot to mention, Ernesto the Ranger is Billy Cain. Who was also part of Culture Shock ATX band. And the guy who was used for Sethys is Jared the drummer from Culture Shock.

Also forgot to mention a producer of Origin/EA Warren Spector was Spector from Monitor and he also appeared in Savage Empire. I think he is in Martian Dreams too... but I haven't play it yet to find out.

That's pretty cool, how did you find all this out? I figured the Spector thing, but had no idea about mortegro/sethys/ernesto being in a band haha

Warren Spector

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Spector
http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Spector
http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Spektor

Being a Mortegro fan I decided to research his character. His wiki is the one of the few that tells who the actor is...

http://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Mortegro