First off, Happy New Year to everyone. I hope that you were able to ring in 2008 in a way that was both safe and enjoyable for you and your friends or family; I spent it with my wife and her two sisters at the big New Year’s bash in Edmonton’s downtown core.

Here, I’ll share a photo:

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Anyhow, I said I wouldn’t be posting again until the new year, and this has happened. In the interim, a few things worth reporting on have taken place in the Ultima community. Dino’s Ultima Page has tracked a number of these, so let’s get down to those updates first:

Forgotten World

The Forgotten World team report that their world editor is progressing ‘fairly’ — rendering is essentially done, and they are almost ready to begin work on UI design. That’s a promising development for this in-engine remake of Ultima 9

To that end, they need someone to join the project to help out with that aspect of development. So, O reader, if you happen to be:

• an experienced user of world building software
• willing to help us design the user interface of our world editor
• interested in the Ultima series and in creating maps for the game
• patient, communicative and team-oriented
• experienced with programming (perhaps even with wxWidgets) as a plus

…then perhaps, just perhaps, you should drop the Forgotten World team a note and let them know you’d be interested.

Forgotten World was also evidently featured in a German game magazine, “PC Action“, recently.

Lost Sosaria

I have added a dozen new screenshots to the Lost Sosaria website, showcasing the mountain areas I’ve been working on recently. Hopefully, these will be the last screenshots released using the current version of the mountain tileset for the project; a new version is slated to be released shortly after the next update to Neverwinter Nights.

Ultima IX: Redemption

Spyder has posted a number of screenshots of Moonglow in the relevant developer’s diary (you have to be a registered user of the Titans of Ether forums to see them), including one of an Observatory and one of what might be a blacksmith’s shop.

Also, Direhaggis left a comment on the Redemption entry here at the site, imparting the following information:

The progress has been quite good. I think our 3D artist and the new writers helped to re-stimulate us all, as well as the main plot coming to a close in the next 3-6 months.

Management decided that a demo would slow down production. Originally, we thought of isolating New Magincia and allowing the Avatar to solve the quest there. As it is, we want to try to get the game out by the end of 2008.

Good to know!

Ultima V: Lazarus

The German version of Ultima V: Lazarus has been released. I have updated the project entry here at Aiera with the new files.

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman puts his development progress at 94% now, and notes that several new features have been implemented since last we checked in with him:

• the Lord Blackthorn cut scene
• Stargazing with the telescope
• Quit and Save, with game resumption
• the Shrine of Spirituality
• food consumption and food obtaining, starvation
• Skiff and Frigate navigation, sea combat

Ultima: Iris

Build 1648 of the 3D client for Ultima: Online has been released. A copy is available for download from the project entry here at Aiera.

Additionally, I noticed that the following updates had also taken place on other remake project sites.

Pentagram

There’s no news from this Ultima 8 remake, but I did notice that a new version of the Windows snapshot had been uploaded on January 1st. This can now be downloaded from the project entry here at Aiera.

Project Britannia

Three core files for this project — britannia_art.dsres, britannia_logic.dsres, and pb_laz_comp_layer.dsres — have all been updated. Changes are as follows.

britannia_art.dsres

• 2 new lutes have been added
• More journal labels have been added — untested
• Two chest icons were brightened a bit
• A new trail ration texture was added

britannia_logic.dsres

• bookshelf animation reverted to a previous version
• minor bug-fixes to the sleeping system
• updated lute screen names
• updates to the journal UI
• a function was modified to allow NPCs to ignore locked doors
• …and at least 40 other changes

pb_laz_comp_layer.dsres

• minor change, just synching the compatibility layer with the latest updates in other areas of Project Britannia

The latest versions of these files are available for download through the project entry here at Aiera.

Ultima VII Mod

Matt Johnston informs us that he has done a bit more work on his Exult total conversion:

the outdoor areas of the main map are mostly done; I’ve done a bit with usecode, including one NPC who sells some mostly useless things; sewers and theives guild areas under the south-western city demonstrate use of newly implemented support of Z coords in intermap teleports.

While not complete yet by any means, Matt assures us that he continues his work on this project. As he periodically uploads new content to the site (without announcement of this fact, however), I have updated the copy of the project available for download through the project entry here at Aiera.

Serpent Isle for NWN2

Jaesun gives notice that the project is ON HOLD — it appears that the state Jaesun lives in suffered some catastrophic flooding recently. While he lost nothing project-wise, he did lose his vehicle, and was physically unable to enter the building for a few days as well.

In the meantime, he will be assisting with the Realms of Ultima project, a project he feels is “very important” for the Ultima community.

Which brings me to…

Realms of Ultima

What Project Britannia is doing for Ultima using the Dungeon Siege engine, Realms of Ultima is doing for Ultima using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine. This is an exciting looking project indeed; NWN2 has a gorgeous engine, and Jaesun’s efforts above would seem to demonstrate that it’s possible to build very quickly with the engine.

A screenshot gallery has been posted online, with several amazing visuals. I have also added a project entry here at Aiera. There are even a few downloads for the project (although these primarily appear to be components of the whole, rather than early snapshots of the entire project).

Update: Ultima 7 Wizard

A user reported difficulties getting the Ultima 7 Wizard to run on their system, so I have updated the entry here at Aiera with the latest version (1.9) of the program, as well as a technical document. Source code (Borland Pascal) is included with this version.

[tags]Dino’s Ultima Page, PC Action, Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls, Ultima V: Lazarus, Ultima 5, Ultima: Iris, Pentagram, Ultima 8, Serpent Isle, Ultima 7, Realms of Ultima, Ultima 7 Wizard[/tags]