For what it's worth, I've restored the Cemetery
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Okay…basically, I’ve adjusted some of the images and cleaned up a few of the entries in the Cemetery, the portion of the site devoted to projects that didn’t quite last long enough to release files or demos of any kind.
Actually, the Cemetery is an interesting little glimpse at the history of project ideas that people dreamed up that were either too ambitious (in most cases) or too narrowly constrained (often times by their own developers — I’m looking at you, Ultima 4: Dawn of Virtue!) to succeed. There were some genuinely cool things that people thought up…it’s just a pity that they couldn’t carry their ambitions through.
Thanks for documenting this WtFD–it’s great that guys like you care enough to archive all of the love for Ultima over the years, even if things didn’t work out in the end. I always thought that it would be especially cool to get ‘new data’ on these forgotten attempts…emailing the developers, and asking them for any of the ‘leftovers’ from the projects–I’m sure that at least half of them have some remnants lying around (screenshots, models, idea docs, etc.) that would make for great articles. Even a quick interview with each one telling why the project failed would be interesting.
With some extra passion and a bit of luck, you may even inspire one or two to re-initiate their projects…interesting.
Actually, I used to make a point of doing just that, though in recent years I haven’t really pursued it as much. I tried — tried really hard — to get any remnants I could from (especially) Ultima 8: Exile and Dawn of Virtue, but…alas, nothing came out of that.
It might be worth seeing if I still have email addresses for some of those developers, though…a lot can change in five years (or more).
True enough. Though often times it’s poor management, code bloating, skills not good enough, real life biting the developpers, lost of interest, or a combination.
It’s surprising though to hear that you didn’t get answers. You would suppose people would want to share their experience.
That’s true too, although a lot of the projects in the Cemetery were using extant engines rather than beginning from scratch. You can still see code bloat there, and I’m sure in a couple of cases the issue of (lack of) skill reared its ugly head (though in most cases, the level of skill of the developer(s) was pretty high).
A lot of these projects were just too darn ambitious (a blanket term which could include poor management and real life getting in the way, I’ll grant), too massive for the small team (or individual) to realize effectively, or at all.
Others were too artificially self-limiting, and Dawn of Virtue is the prime example here. The developer refused to continue the project until and unless he could get explicit legal sanction from EA to continue work on it. Not that EA was beating down his door with cease and desist orders — they weren’t. The developer artificially imposed the requirement of EA’s explicit blessing on his project.
Which was, frankly, an idiotic thing to do. EA’s policy toward the Ultima remake community has always been to have no policy whatsoever. They don’t explicitly acknowledge us, nor do they pursue legal action against us…they don’t do anything. (Compare with: LucasArts’ penchant for going after people who make “unauthorized” Star Wars mods.)
Which actually works well, for us. I mean, it’d be nice to have their blessing and encouragement, for sure…but they can’t give it for a variety of reasons related to copyright and IP. So it was stupid of the Dawn of Virtue developers to hope to get said same. Had they released the game for free, nothing bad would have happened (if they’d charged for it, then yes, but that’s a different case!).
It’s not ideal, but its way better than EA filing suit against every single person who ever produced an Ultima-themed mod for any game, ever. There are companies that do that to “protect” their IP, after all.
Sometimes, stuff like that is done as an excuse not to have to work on something any more, too.
There’s that too, I suppose. A way to bow out and hopefully save a wee bit of face.
Time (money), ambition (desire) and skill (ability). Sounds like an additional/alternate set of principles.
Oh, and there’s a failed spambot posting on the cemetery entry for Ultima 4: Dawn of Virtue.
Good catch; I’ve killed it.