First, let me just remark that all the Online Remakes are once again available for download, and in fact have been so available since last Friday. The reason for the delay was the fact that I had mis-categorized Dransik as a remake, which it is not (though it is an online game).

From here, there are three main categories to restore: Spin Offs, General Utilities, and Joke Remakes. There’s also the Orphanage and Cemetery…but I’m (understandably, I hope) not in as much of a rush to get those categories up and running again.

Broadly, my plan is that the General Utilities section will be pared back, somewhat, because some of the downloads in there (DOSBox, for example) are hopelessly out of date and not particularly Ultima-specific anyhow. I’ll replace the actual downloads with links to the project’s downloads page, where appropriate. The Joke Remakes section will remain much the same as it is, though I believe there is one addition I need to make to it. And come to think of it, neither the Orphanage or the Cemetery will change all that much, if at all.

However, the Spin Offs section will be completely overhauled.

For example, I think the Inspired Works section needs to be expanded and given a little more of its own visibility. I also need to start tracking those projects better.

Moreover, I want to start looking for other projects that, if they aren’t directly inspired by Ultima, are at least inheritors of Ultima traditions in some way. These won’t be categorized as Inspired Works, but will fall under a new and somewhat related category. I’ve already begun looking at a handful of iPhone games, some of which will probably be featured. Sergorn Dragon has put me on to a couple of mainline PC titles that will probably also qualify. The Exult Total Conversions category will probably disappear, since two of its three entrants are remakes, and the third is basically an Inspired Work.

And to be fair, the Spin Offs category will not disappear entirely; there are a few projects which fit that label and will keep it as a result.

The area of the site that will see a lot of change, however, is the Engines section. For starters, it will be expanded to include discussion about 2D and 3D engines which are not tied to any specific game (e.g. Unity, Torque) and are available for free. It will also expand to include discussions of the advantages and disadvantages of using each platform, the pros and cons of each.

More than that, however, I want to expand Aiera into something akin to a “developer connection”, which exists as a place where past project developers can share created media content — 2D art, 3D models, music, and suchlike — with the Ultima community, so that other developers can make use of these things in their projects. Because really, it’s daunting at the best of times to take on the task of creating an Ultima-like game, and the sheer volume of stuff that a development team needs to create for its project can be overwhelming…and thus the death of an otherwise promising effort.

I’d like to position Aiera in such a way as to help aspiring devs get past those pitfalls.

Fundamentally, I think there’s more stories that could be told by the fan community. In part, that’s why I signed on to work on Return to the Serpent Isle…because it isn’t a remake, but is in fact a new story set in the Ultima universe, and which will strive to remain faithful to the universe that Origin built for our minds to play in. And I think there’s an argument to be made that indie devs can turn out amazing work given time and enthusiastic support from an engaged community.

And I don’t believe that Ultima is dead. My site traffic logs would seem to support that belief, as would the overwhelming response to the release of the Ultima 6 Project just recently, and to Lazarus before it.

So in the weeks to come, expect to see this all getting built. And hopefully, once it’s built, we can get a little Field of Dreams action going on here.

May I also offer an extra-special huge-frigging-big “thank you” to Aletys from the Ultima 6 Project for her supportive [donate]donation[/donate] to the site. I will be adding a Sponsorship page to Aiera once I finalize the new design; expect that she will be right at the top of it.

Aletys, you might have made my wife cry, just a little bit. It was that stunning, and I am duly humbled by it.