EUO turns five; Iris releases a new build; numerous project snapshot updates
Well, it’s been a little while since I posted an update pertaining to Ultima projects, and I see that Petrell and Dino over at Dino’s Ultima Page have uncovered several juicy morsels of news. To wit:
EUO
This Ultima-like project reached its fifth year just recently, and to celebrate the occasion they threw a number of bonuses and extra stuff into the game — experience bonuses, prizes & giveaways, DM-hosted events, special in-game drinks (eggnog, for example), and even a few new bosses.
Also, a “Newbie Island” tutorial map has been added to the game to help new players ease in.
Ultima 6 Project
A new press release from this promising-looking remake of Ultima 6 has been released at RPGWatch. It has some details about new cities and places in the pending fifth milestone release (Nicodemus’ keep, for example), and also informs us that the team is always in need of world builders, 3D modelers, artists, and musicians.
So, O Reader, if you fall into any of those categories, you might want to swing by the Ultima 6 Project website and drop someone a line.
Additionally, project developer Nicodemus has posted another update to his worldbuilding Dev Diary with some cool new screenshots of his work (Jhelom and Skara Brae).
Ultima: Iris
A new build — build 2010 — of this 3D client for Ultima Online has been released. It can be downloaded from the project’s homepage, or via the project entry here at Aiera.
xu4
A new snapshot of the Mac version of this Ultima 4 remake is available for download either through the project website or via the project entry here at Aiera. A new Windows snapshot is also available.
Ultima V for TI Calculators
Ranman has posted additional news about his project that has ported Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator. He lets us know, firstly, about some special item capabilities that he as implemented. Secondly, he talks about killing NPCs, lock picking, and guard behaviour — rather a “law and order” sort of post.
The project is still in beta testing.
I also took a bit of a wander around the Ultima community myself, and noticed a few other odds and ends that the Reader might be interested in.
Savage Empire for Exult
Scythifuge is always looking for people to help out with his ambitious goal of porting the Savage Empire storyline into Exult.
Exult
Speaking of Exult, I notice that the Windows snapshot of Exult 1.4 has been updated recently (April 14th), as have the snapshots for Exult Tools and Exult Studio. These can be downloaded from the project website, and I have added them to the project entry here at Aiera.
Project Britannia
I noticed that the britannia_art.dsres and britannia_logic.dsres resource files for this Ultima world framework were updated at the beginning of April. Changes since the previous revision include the addition of a new lockpick texture, a ferry, and two new light textures, as well as changes to melee attack logic, the lockpick’s shape, and a bunch of other things.
The updated files can be downloaded from the Project Britannia site, or via the project entry here at Aiera.
Also, I’ve made a few minor changes to the site here. For starters, I have added a module to the site sidebar to track the ten most downloaded files in the last 30 days. Initially, I wasn’t going to clear the statistics for the download manager with any sort of frequency, but after a bunch of Ultima 9-related downloads surged ahead (in some cases, to over 3,000 downloads!), it seemed reasonable to give some of the other files a chance to make the top spot.
So it’s there, and I won’t be putting a “top five” list onto news posts anymore.
And of course, there’s the gallery and Ultima art repository. I do encourage any interested users to register a user account there and begin uploading any Ultima-related art they can find so that it can be preserved for posterity. This includes scans of art from the manuals, which won’t be around forever.
Oh, and I’ve added another countdown to the sidebar. Only 190 days (roughly — could change in either direction) until the Dragoness and I welcome our little one into the world!
[tags]Dino’s Ultima Page, EUO, Ultima 6, Ultima: Iris, xu4, Ultima 4, Ultima 7, Dungeon Siege[/tags]
Hey WtF,
Just so as you know, the latest pictures are of Jhelom, not Trinsic as reported by yourself and Petrell on Dino’s site. I’ve already written Dino to let him know as well.
Seems people really want to see Trinsic…maybe the next Dev Diary will have some pics of it…we’ll see.
Oops — I’ll correct that. Thanks for the head’s up!
Ultima V for TI calcs beta testing is progressing quite nicely — lots of bugs have been reported, found, and corrected as well as suggestions.
I still have a few special combat capabilities to add… and it progressing nicely!
I am anticipating the official first release to happen during the month of May. It’s hard to believe that it is almost done!
I am really suprised nobody has uploaded anything yet.
Ranman: Good to hear! Excellent work!
Hexxer: Give it time. 🙂
Ultima V for TI calcs Update
– Slimes can now divide when hit
– Wisps can now disappear and reappear
– Some creatures take double damage when hit with fire
– When a player or creature is “protected”, damage is reduced by a factor of 2
– Players now have random movements after they drink too much
– The Negate Time spell now stops time for everything but your party
– Magical fields now affect all combat players
– Virtue points are now reduced if you kill a fleeing non-evil opponent
It is getting VERY close to completion!
Ultima V for TI calcs Update
– Ring of Regeneration is now working
– Amulet of Turning is now working
– Regenerative items are now regenerated on a daily basis
Major differences between Ultima V for TI calcs and the PC version:
– Treasure chests will not be locked. The PC version had chests that were randomly locked and required a key to open.
– Opening a chest will automatically add all contents to the party’s inventory. The PC version required the player to pick up all items individually.
– Sails are automatically unfurled upon boarding a frigate and will require a directional input to move. The PC version required you to yell “unfurl” and “furl”; whe the sails were unfurled frigate movement was automated based on the direction of wind. Although, wind still effects the movements of frigates on the calc version.
– Frigates will not be allowed to move over shallow water. This was possible in the PC version but the frigate would be damaged.
– You will not be able to “holeup” and camp on a frigate to make repairs.
– The armoury shops will only buy items that they offer for sale. The armoury shops on the PC version would buy any armoury item.
– All dungeon room puzzles are solved by using the “push” command.
– I’m sure there are other subtle differences… but these are the biggies.
So… Overall I would say the Ultima V for TI calcs is about 97% identical to the PC version. Not too shabby.
Just wondering if there is a size limit on the photo section uploading. I have a few scans I would like to put up there over the coming weeks.
Let me double-check.
Max size of uploaded files: 32768 KB
Max dimension of image (width or height): 3000 px
If you need this changed, let me know; I’ve got plenty of free space to work with.