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Reply 2940 of 5847, by clueless1

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Shreddoc wrote on 2021-04-17, 18:23:

How would people describe the unique appeals of the Ultima games?

Because I could never get into them as a youngster in the 80s/90s. Despite playing tons of other role playing games and loving fantasy novels, etc. I just felt like a complete bored, clueless idiot in any Ultima game I tried.

I would like to at least know what I missed out on, from experts.

Well, their appeal is not unique anymore, but at the time, they excelled at:
-large (for the time), open world exploration with a combination of perspectives. First person in dungeons, above or 3/4 perspective above ground.
-NPCs with personalities, that carried over from game to game. They became familiar and when you encountered them again in the next game, it was like meeting an old friend.
-great graphics, sound effects, and music (again, for their time)
-neat ideas like gate travel and time travel
-high quality packaging, including cloth maps, manuals that looked like aged parchment, and "feelies" (pendants, coins, stones that represented important facets of in-game play).

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Reply 2941 of 5847, by clueless1

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appiah4 wrote on 2021-04-17, 18:26:

Try Ultima V I would say. If you dont like it the series is not for you..

Not necessarily. I was a big fan of II, III, IV, and VII but for whatever reason could not get into V or VI. I do agree that reviewers probably praised V and VI the most, though.

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Reply 2942 of 5847, by appiah4

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clueless1 wrote on 2021-04-17, 19:49:
appiah4 wrote on 2021-04-17, 18:26:

Try Ultima V I would say. If you dont like it the series is not for you..

Not necessarily. I was a big fan of II, III, IV, and VII but for whatever reason could not get into V or VI. I do agree that reviewers probably praised V and VI the most, though.

Interesting. For me, IV is probably the weakest of the lot, though I must say I am not familiar at all with I, II, and III. For me it is V > VII > VIII > VI > IV.

I rather like Ultima VIII too, which is not a very popular view.

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Reply 2943 of 5847, by Shreddoc

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clueless1 wrote on 2021-04-17, 19:47:
Well, their appeal is not unique anymore, but at the time, they excelled at: -large (for the time), open world exploration with […]
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Shreddoc wrote on 2021-04-17, 18:23:

How would people describe the unique appeals of the Ultima games?

Because I could never get into them as a youngster in the 80s/90s. Despite playing tons of other role playing games and loving fantasy novels, etc. I just felt like a complete bored, clueless idiot in any Ultima game I tried.

I would like to at least know what I missed out on, from experts.

Well, their appeal is not unique anymore, but at the time, they excelled at:
-large (for the time), open world exploration with a combination of perspectives. First person in dungeons, above or 3/4 perspective above ground.
-NPCs with personalities, that carried over from game to game. They became familiar and when you encountered them again in the next game, it was like meeting an old friend.
-great graphics, sound effects, and music (again, for their time)
-neat ideas like gate travel and time travel
-high quality packaging, including cloth maps, manuals that looked like aged parchment, and "feelies" (pendants, coins, stones that represented important facets of in-game play).

Sounds cool, thanks. I have vague memories of being a teenager browsing the local PC shop and seeing The Black Gate - notable as the first time I ever encountered a game my (286) computer literally was not able to run. Spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about that "386 required" sticker!, and imagining how wonderful this strange new world of superior-next-gen must be!

I do remember those game boxes being quite substantial but, as I got the vast majority of my games back then via sneakernet (bicycle-net, more like!) like most of us did, the excellence of the packaging and maps etc was something I largely missed out on.

I also remember that the screenshots we'd see back in the day, in the computer magazines and such - the Ultimas, especially the later ones, used to always really stand out as really "woah that looks amazing!". I was disappointed when I found that I sucked too much to play them, at that age! But it's good to understand their place in the scheme of things.

Reply 2944 of 5847, by newtmonkey

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Ultima III: Exodus (PC)
Getting pretty addicted to this! I was afraid that getting the Mark of Kings (which allows you to advance beyond a certain level) would cause some havoc with the level-scaling enemies, but that hasn't been the case at all. Land-roaming enemies seemed to top off in difficulty once I reached level 5, and dungeon enemies seem to be scaled by dungeon level rather than character level.

My plan now is to save up enough gold that I can go to Ambrosia and max the wisdom score for my cleric, so that I can gain access to cure poison which will help when exploring the lower levels of the caves.

---

The more I play the PC version, the more I think the NES version is just broken. In addition to the outrageous level scaling enemies in the NES port, I've noticed that my party is way more effective even at much lower stats/levels in the PC version (same classes/races). I've also noticed that the thief class is way more effective in the PC version; even with just 25 Dex she seems to disarm traps something like 80% of the time, as opposed to what seemed like 50% of the time in the NES port with Dex boosted to 50.

The PC port is also much faster to play, since the world moves tile-by-tile nearly as fast as you can press the movement keys. Finally, it's MUCH quicker earning gold in this version. You seem to get much more gold on average per chest than in the NES port, and you can also find equipment in chests after encounters (this never happens in the NES port). I've found that selling the equipment I find in chests basically pays for my food, so all gold I find can basically be spent on upgrades, etc.

Reply 2945 of 5847, by clueless1

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newtmonkey wrote on 2021-04-18, 14:08:
Ultima III: Exodus (PC) Getting pretty addicted to this! I was afraid that getting the Mark of Kings (which allows you to advan […]
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Ultima III: Exodus (PC)
Getting pretty addicted to this! I was afraid that getting the Mark of Kings (which allows you to advance beyond a certain level) would cause some havoc with the level-scaling enemies, but that hasn't been the case at all. Land-roaming enemies seemed to top off in difficulty once I reached level 5, and dungeon enemies seem to be scaled by dungeon level rather than character level.

My plan now is to save up enough gold that I can go to Ambrosia and max the wisdom score for my cleric, so that I can gain access to cure poison which will help when exploring the lower levels of the caves.

---

The more I play the PC version, the more I think the NES version is just broken. In addition to the outrageous level scaling enemies in the NES port, I've noticed that my party is way more effective even at much lower stats/levels in the PC version (same classes/races). I've also noticed that the thief class is way more effective in the PC version; even with just 25 Dex she seems to disarm traps something like 80% of the time, as opposed to what seemed like 50% of the time in the NES port with Dex boosted to 50.

The PC port is also much faster to play, since the world moves tile-by-tile nearly as fast as you can press the movement keys. Finally, it's MUCH quicker earning gold in this version. You seem to get much more gold on average per chest than in the NES port, and you can also find equipment in chests after encounters (this never happens in the NES port). I've found that selling the equipment I find in chests basically pays for my food, so all gold I find can basically be spent on upgrades, etc.

I remember beating this somewhere around 1984. I was somewhere between 13 and 14 years old. I had recently gotten my Apple ][e but was limited to copying games from my friends since I had no money. So I was playing Ultima II a lot. My older brother had recently gotten an Atari 800 and bought Ultima III. He'd let me come into his room and play it when he was doing other things. It didn't seem like it took me very long to beat, but i remember pretty vividly inserting the four cards and defeating Exodus as my bro was napping on his bed. 🤣. It looked and sounded really good on the Atari 8-bit.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 2946 of 5847, by newtmonkey

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Yeah, I can't see this one taking too much longer to finish. It seems massive at first, but the land of Sosaria is actually quite small and, once you get going, exploring the dungeons is pretty quick. The game starts out pretty brutal, but once you make a bit of progress your overall power begins to snowball.

Reply 2947 of 5847, by appiah4

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clueless1 wrote on 2021-04-18, 16:21:
newtmonkey wrote on 2021-04-18, 14:08:
Ultima III: Exodus (PC) Getting pretty addicted to this! I was afraid that getting the Mark of Kings (which allows you to advan […]
Show full quote

Ultima III: Exodus (PC)
Getting pretty addicted to this! I was afraid that getting the Mark of Kings (which allows you to advance beyond a certain level) would cause some havoc with the level-scaling enemies, but that hasn't been the case at all. Land-roaming enemies seemed to top off in difficulty once I reached level 5, and dungeon enemies seem to be scaled by dungeon level rather than character level.

My plan now is to save up enough gold that I can go to Ambrosia and max the wisdom score for my cleric, so that I can gain access to cure poison which will help when exploring the lower levels of the caves.

---

The more I play the PC version, the more I think the NES version is just broken. In addition to the outrageous level scaling enemies in the NES port, I've noticed that my party is way more effective even at much lower stats/levels in the PC version (same classes/races). I've also noticed that the thief class is way more effective in the PC version; even with just 25 Dex she seems to disarm traps something like 80% of the time, as opposed to what seemed like 50% of the time in the NES port with Dex boosted to 50.

The PC port is also much faster to play, since the world moves tile-by-tile nearly as fast as you can press the movement keys. Finally, it's MUCH quicker earning gold in this version. You seem to get much more gold on average per chest than in the NES port, and you can also find equipment in chests after encounters (this never happens in the NES port). I've found that selling the equipment I find in chests basically pays for my food, so all gold I find can basically be spent on upgrades, etc.

I remember beating this somewhere around 1984. I was somewhere between 13 and 14 years old. I had recently gotten my Apple ][e but was limited to copying games from my friends since I had no money. So I was playing Ultima II a lot. My older brother had recently gotten an Atari 800 and bought Ultima III. He'd let me come into his room and play it when he was doing other things. It didn't seem like it took me very long to beat, but i remember pretty vividly inserting the four cards and defeating Exodus as my bro was napping on his bed. 🤣. It looked and sounded really good on the Atari 8-bit.

I actually owned an Atari 800XL and never knew there were ports of Ultima games to the system to this day..

Retronautics: A digital gallery of my retro computers, hardware and projects.

Reply 2948 of 5847, by newtmonkey

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Ultima III: Exodus (PC)
Another day, another dungeon. I mapped out the firs three floors of Doom and finally earned enough gold to max out my Cleric's wisdom stat. I traveled to Ambrosia, spent the 7400 gold, and now I'll be able to explore deeper levels of the dungeons thanks to getting access to higher level cleric spells.

I can't say for sure, but it seems like I won't have to artificially grind too much in this one. I know from past experience that most of the treasure hordes are on lower levels of the dungeons, so I should start earning gold even more quickly now that I can go deeper than level 3. My Paladin is already at level 14, just through fighting as I explore the dungeons.

One of the biggest differences between the NES port and the PC version is how level scaling works. In short, it's absolutely broken in the former, but fine in the latter.

In the NES port, reaching level 6 replaces all the easy enemies with hard enemies both above ground and below ground. That means that enemies have more HP, do more damage, and even begin having ranged/poison attacks, when all you have is an extra few hundred HPs and possibly some better equipment. You can easily get into a situation where the enemies become too difficult to earn enough gold to make any progress—and can no longer rely on REPEL (i.e. REPOND) and UNDEAD (i.e. PONTORI) for easy experience and gold.

In the PC version, level scaling only really applies above ground, and instead of enemies being outright replaced, the "level range" of enemy encounters increase. In other words, you encounter only "level 1" enemies when your highest character level is 1, then "level 1-2" enemies once you reach character level 2... and so on, but it seems to max out at "level 1-5" no matter how high you go.

---

I am really liking this game now! Whenever I get a chance to play, I'll put on an old episode of Coast to Coast AM in the background, and explore another 2-3 levels of a dungeon. My next goal is to max INT for my wizard, then DEX for my thief and probably STR for my paladin.

Reply 2949 of 5847, by clueless1

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Kingdom Come Deliverance

I somehow ended up inadvertently starting a DLC while visiting Peshek and Theresa in Rattay on my way to looking for Reeky. The DLC is called A Woman's Lot and has actually been pretty decent. What I didn't like was the game didn't warn me I was about to start a DLC and I wasn't given the option of backing out. So this will probably be a 5 hour side quest before I can get back to the main quest. If I had a choice, I would've saved it til after I finish the main game. I'm currently 29 hours into this game (including the DLC). I'm still really enjoying this game. Way more than I expected to.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
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Reply 2950 of 5847, by badmojo

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Excellent! I dislike stumbling into DLC too, it upsets the order of things 😁

I picked up my old save of KCD the other day after talk of it here and was really digging on the slow pace of it - it's almost a walking simulator at times and I often choose to wander along a stream on foot instead of galloping to my destination on a horse, because it's just such a damn nice world to be in.

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Reply 2951 of 5847, by newtmonkey

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Ultima III: Exodus (PC)
I ended up exploring all of the Dardin's Pit dungeon, and ended up seemingly maxing the level of two of my characters. I still have only explored half of the other six dungeons at this point, so that was pretty surprising.

I am still enjoying the game, but am also starting to find some annoyances. I spent all this money maxing WIS for my cleric and INT for my wizard to max their spell points (99)... but casting a single "advanced" spell costs at least 50 spell points. SPs regenerate quickly above ground (1 per turn) but much more slowly in dungeons. This means you still cannot really rely upon spells underground, even with maxed out spellcasters! This means, then, that combat becomes extremely boring quickly. I had a similar issue with Ultima IV, where combat eventually got to the point where all you were doing was hitting A+Up four times every round because your ranged attacks were simply the best option at all times.

I initially planned on mapping all of the dungeons just to do it, but some of the lower levels are a real pain to map/navigate, so I am seriously considering buying a handful of gems to automap the dungeons, run in and get the remaining marks (fire, force, snake), and try finishing the game. We'll see!

Last edited by newtmonkey on 2023-10-29, 16:01. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2952 of 5847, by DosFreak

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Faintly remember something about installing the morrowind dlc and an assassin coming after you not sure if that was a bug or not. Haven't played since it first came out but will need to go through again with the port and rebirth

I did start KCD 2 yrs ago maybe and yeah the beginning was ridiculous, think I stopped a bit after that due to other games and wanted to wait till all the dlc was released.....and bugs fixed

Last edited by DosFreak on 2021-04-22, 01:24. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 2953 of 5847, by Shreddoc

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newtmonkey wrote on 2021-04-21, 17:05:

where combat eventually got to the point where all you were doing was hitting <insert thing here> x times every round because your <insert thing here> were simply the best option at all times.

This to me fundamentally describes the type of grind which makes a subset of older games (and no doubt, newer ones too) difficult to commit to. Particularly certain old RPGs.

Not all, by any means!

But there are some where I'd enjoy the graphical and sound and other excellence on display, but the monotonic grind x 5000 to get to experience it, makes the cost too high. Guess that's where video longplays and things like that are cool, so at least a proxy experience can be sampled - a modern luxury.

Reply 2954 of 5847, by newtmonkey

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I think this is more a problem specific to the Ultima series, which has always placed more importance on exploring a nonlinear world and gathering information to solve a multi-step quest than on compelling combat. I guess this is why the combat strikes me as so annoying in Ultima III and IV—the combat seems like an afterthought in both games (the latter especially) but there is SO MUCH OF IT! 😀

Reply 2956 of 5847, by RandomStranger

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kolderman wrote on 2021-04-22, 08:48:

Starting Prince of Persia Sands of Time (GOG release) on my WinXP box after finished NFSU on it.

Great game. One of my all time favorites. Though I think a little under appreciated after Warrior Within.

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Reply 2957 of 5847, by appiah4

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kolderman wrote on 2021-04-22, 08:48:

Starting Prince of Persia Sands of Time (GOG release) on my WinXP box after finished NFSU on it.

You are in for a treat. The combat is quite cookie cutter but the platforming and art is great.

Also try the 2008 Prince of Persia if you like this one.

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Reply 2958 of 5847, by newtmonkey

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Ultima III: Exodus (PC)
Finished! I used the fanmade upgrade patch to play through the game*. The patch also adds MIDI music, and it sounded great playing through my Roland Sound Canvas—I especially liked the creepy dungeon music!

Even though I complained a bit about combat earlier, I did really enjoy this game. I played it "honestly" even though I generally knew what to do. That meant mapping the dungeons by hand and only doing something once I got an in-game hint telling me to do it; for example, I knew the order in which to use the cards to defeat Exodus at the end, but forced myself to track down the Time Lord to get his hint about the cards prior to finishing the game. I found that playing it this way resulted in my party being more than powerful enough to explore the lower levels of the dungeons and ultimately complete the game.

The overall quest structure is really good. It's a lot of fun getting the lay of the land, gathering information in towns, and slowly figuring out what you need to do. I found the game to be pretty fair in terms of providing hints on what you need to do to complete it. I even enjoyed figuring out how the moongates work, which is something I nearly completely avoided when I played through Ultima IV.

Overall, an excellent game and I'm very happy that I've finally completed the PC version (I had finished the NES version back when I was a kid). I also love the twist at the end where Exodus is not a devil summoned from the abyss but instead a supercomputer built by sorcerers! It's a very clever end to the game; you can't help but think how people will tend to view advanced technology as some kind of magic (today it would be "AI" instead of supercomputers of course), and it's great that Richard Garriott just put this in there without any explanation, assuming that you'd either get it and get a chuckle out of it, or you wouldn't and would assume it's some kind of magic ritual (which it definitely is in the NES version!). It really gives you something to think about, without coming across as preachy (as in a lot of other games with a "message") or random and kind of dumb (as in the twist explaining the worlds of the Might & Magic games).

---

I'm not sure what I'll play next, but I have a few options, all of which I've made some progress in previously:

  • Realms of Antiquity
  • Ultima V
  • Might & Magic II: Gates to Another World
  • AD&D: Curse of the Azure Bonds
  • Baldur's Gate
  • Planescape: Torment
  • The Magic Candle
  • Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge
  • Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire
  • The Elder Scrolls: Arena

I'm heavily leaning toward M&MII or Azure Bonds since I've made a great deal of progress already in both of these, but I might go with Planescape as a more story-focused change of pace.

Another possibility is to just cheat my way through the abominable Ultima II (i.e. follow a walkthrough to get through it as quick as possible).

---

* https://exodus.voyd.net/projects/ultima3/

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Reply 2959 of 5847, by clueless1

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Congrats, newtmonkey! Yeah, the ending blew my 14 year old, circa-1984-mind away! I'm not sure I could ever enjoy a game from that era today the way I did back then, which is one of the reasons I've limited my retro gaming to 1990 and later.

On your to-play-next list, have you tried each of them before, or are any of them brand new to you? Seems like I remember you playing MM2 fairly recently.

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.
OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
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DOS PCI Graphics Card Benchmarks