Ultima 3 for Mac OS X
LairWare, who developed the previous Ultima 3 for Mac remake, are working on version 2 of their port of Exodus, which will run under Mac OS X.
It is currently available for beta testing through their Ultima 3 page. Aiera will not be hosting the files locally, as LairWare have requested that no site external to their own host the files. But I’ll gladly point you in the right direction, O Reader.
[tags]Ultima III for Mac[/tags]
Is anyone going to pay 15 $ just to play that game? One could load a free C64 emulator and play ultima 1 – 5 there – getting the real retro feeling. Where is the advance in buying that remake?
Fifteen bucks isn’t that much, really. I’d pay as much for a shirt, and given how hard I can be on clothes the shirt might be the shorter-lived investment.
It comes down to personal preference. Some people like using emulators, and will. Some people — myself included — do not really enjoy using emulators, and would prefer someone develop a native application. It’s an added bonus, of course, that the developers are also upgrading the graphics along the way. Remember: unlike the fan community (who typically have day jobs not specifically related to Ultima), these developers are doing all the remake work at their day jobs.
That might just be worth supporting, if they do their jobs well.
Will people buy the remake? Well…look at it this way. Enough people must have bought other titles by this company for them to still be around; their previous port of Ultima 3 has been in wide release for a few years now, and must have generated at least a few dollars for them, enough that they felt it was a decent investment to make an OS X port (which is nice, since OS 9 applications need to be run in the Classic emulation environment).
I haven’t been aware of the older release of Ultima III by that company. You are right and I share your thoughts that they should be supported that way – I believe that they did their job right.
Maybe my previous comment was a little misunderstood (blame it on my english – which isnt my first language 😉 ). What I tried to ask was, if people don’t like to play the “real” Ultimas which they could get (as far as I know legally, because they are abandon ware) for the C64 – wich is, in most cases, free to get.
Btw. 15$ is really not that much – compared to new games you could buy today which most likely won’t hook you for 20++ years.
I make it a point to discourage discussions of “abandonware” on this site; that’s a very touchy legal issue, and as a host site for downloads Aiera takes a very strict view towards what is and is not legally something we should provide.
WIthin that strict definition, only Ultima 4 is legally “abandonware”, because Origin themselves released it into the public domain. I won’t host any other Ultima game on the site.
On the rest, though, we do agree…especially on the part about hooking one in for 20+ years. Few if any games today, which cost much more, are so long-lived.
I should point out that this version has now completed beta testing. If you’ve got a Mac, come take it for a spin. If you’re on Windows, you can at least have a gander at the screenshots.
http://www.lairware.com/ultima3/
Hey, thanks for the update! I’ll make sure to note that shortly.
Always nice to get word from the developers.
🙂 WtFD