Beautiful Britannia: First Screens From 2012 R1 Release

Firstknight has posted a brief update to the Forgotten World website in which he announces the addition of two new screenshots to the site’s media page:

Finally I can present the first impressions of the new “Britain House” Textures reworked by Viriathus.

Here are two screens, which shows clear improvements in comparison to existing textures, especially when looking at them from close to.

The new textures will be included in the upcoming “Beautiful Britannia 2012 R1”, which is scheduled for Q2/2012. Means, that two Releases are planned for 2012, which will still have a strong focus on retexturing.

Larger content upgrades (cove for example) will take some time are therefore not to be expected before 2013. However, my work on this cove upgrade has already started, and fresh screens of early development builds can be awaited even with in this year.

Here’s the two screenshots in question:

[singlepic id=2242 w=550 h=300 float=center]

New house texture versus old house texture.

[singlepic id=2243 w=550 h=300 float=center]

And in a slightly different tint...

May I just say: it’s looking good! Very good, even!

19 Responses

  1. Dungy says:

    Looks real purdy! Keep up the good work folks!

  2. Scythifuge Dragon says:

    Nice!

  3. um says:

    um. would have been helpful to see two comparison shots of the same scene.

    • WtF Dragon says:

      The comparison is embedded in each scene. The house is covered with a mix of old and new textures.

      Which, I suppose, goes to show two things: the higher resolution of the textures, and how well they match the colour of the originals.

  4. Zygon Dragon says:

    Looking very cool. Hope all these remakes help Garriot and EA play nice and call on him 😀

  5. Odkin says:

    I didn’t get it at first. They probably should have done a split screen

  6. Micro Magic says:

    Very nice! I was also a bit confused on that detail. But geeze I’m always happy and excited to see these projects go foreward.

    So my computer is being repaired and I’m finally giving ultima 4 the time it deserves. But I’m kinda stuck at the moment. I want mariah to join but I’ve been cheating the blind woman so much I have no honesty left. I remember reading a while ago that the virtues will only fall a certain amount. Insofar, if I cheat the blind woman my honest will fall to a certain value and won’t go down any further.

    Does anyone know the min and max value for the virtues? I can’t seem to find it anywhere. And I’m playing the master system iteration.

  7. Dungy says:

    In Ultima IV, karma has a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 100. 100 is considered reaching Avatarhood. You can’t go into negative values.

    For more information, see:
    http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Ultima_IV_Walkthrough
    http://codex.ultimaaiera.com/wiki/Hawkwind's_Dialogue_in_Ultima_IV

  8. Micro Magic says:

    Is it really that much? It didn’t feel that way cuz I stocked up to 99 of each reagent. 9 reags at a time I was at zero honesty. Maybe they join at like 50% virtue. I kinda just planned on gaming the system til I level up and the worry about virtues.

  9. Firstknight says:

    Thanks for the hints related to the screens, we will provide a splitscreen next time, or in other words, when the complete texture set for this type of house is done.

    Also it’s good to hear you all here like the work, that keeps us motivated for sure.

    Buth BB will not only provide new texture sets and many more objects, but also some expansions. And for those some background tasks have to be done (mostly trigger related), that’s something I’m working on atm.

    Now, while doing this, I found out some nice (hidden developer) content, which could be nice to see for some of you here. Further some of my work from the last seven years will not fit into BB directly, but could be interesting anyway. So I got the idea to provide this content within small-sized Releases.

    An example could be an additional small map (contains the content), which will be integrated in a way, so that it’s available not only by starting a new game, but also with using an existing savegame. In this way this map could be used as a smaller game expansion or for cheating (depends on the content of the map).

    I will make an announcement for the first of these releases with the next few days, so stay tuned.

    Comments related to this idea are welcome, of course also wishes related to such Mini-BB-Releases!

  10. Micro Magic says:

    Eh regaining your virtues isn’t so bad. I had no idea how rewarding u4 can be. Who needs to take notes when you’re super addicted to it!

    I’d be interested to see what minoc looks like now in bb. That was where I could take no more of u9. Too bland and in Minoc, too directionless. I still for some reason have fond memories of u9 mostly the empty potion bottle stacking. But would be neat to play again. Albiet I wish I had a save at minoc. I’ve gone through the hell of ambrosia atleast 3 times before.

    • WtF Dragon says:

      Micro: I don’t know if they’ve made significant changes to Minoc, apart from some of the textures (which will update wherever they are used, not just in any one town) and possibly the addition of foliage. They certainly wouldn’t have gone to the level of adding new buildings or rearranging things.

      Also, if anything like that were to happen, it would be the Forgotten World team that did it, most likely.

  11. Dungy says:

    What’s your email Micro? Sent me a message at jeffhoeksma [AT] gmail [DOT] com, and I can hook you up with some saves.

    Don’t leave actual email addresses laying about! The spambots are always watching. – WtFD

  12. Micro Magic says:

    Hey thanks dungy! Ill shoot you an email shortly.

    Yeah I see the premise of each, but minoc especially was completely barren. Just a bunch of large empty spaces.

    • WtF Dragon says:

      Granted, to some extent. There wasn’t a lot there.

      As to whether there are plans to improve upon what’s there, I just don’t know, and unless Iceblade drops by to say “yeah, we’re doing this” or “nah, Minoc gets to stay boring”, we will none of us know any time soon. I suspect they must have some designs on making changes to Minoc (beyond bugfixes, of course), but I haven’t heard anything.

  13. Iceblade says:

    The “plot” for Minoc will remain essentially the same (with some changes for adaptation purposes), but the town and characters will be massively altered, expanded, and fleshed out.

  14. Firstknight says:

    Within BB there are no Plans for making changes to Minoc itself, but at least the whole island will become larger with the 2013 Release, which of course changes the surroundings of Minoc.

    Further Plans include a shorting of the Linear Ambrosia-Hythloth Section by making parts of it optional, so that the whole Thing is a bit more nonlinear then.

  15. micro magic says:

    Wow, that’s awesome! I’m just imagining, if you’re doing this with the lil town of Minoc, how’s the rest of the game going to look! It’s as though you read my mind and put it in the game.