Ultima 9: Ed Del Castillo Plot Summary
Courtesy of former Origin programmer Bill Randolph, and thanks to the tireless efforts of Joe Garrity of the Origin Muesum, Ultima Aiera is pleased to present this document — which has been broken out into twenty six (26) images — which gives a summary of Ed del Castillo’s revisions to the plot of Ultima 9.
For those not entirely familiar with the development history of Ultima 9, Ed del Castillo was hired by Origin Systems — he had previously worked on the Command & Conquer series — as the Ascension’s producer after development on it was restarted in late 1997 (after development on Ultima Online had begun to wrap up). His revision of the plot departed from the “Bob White Plot” in many key respects, and actually is a bit closer to the version that ultiamtely shipped.
At least according to the Wikipedia entry on Ultima 9, it was del Castillo that wanted to fully exploit the possibilities of the new 3D engine that Origin were working with; the third-person perspective of the game can evidently be traced back to him.
And you can see this in the plot summary. Take, for example, the sequence in which the player would have controlled Raven as she rescued the Avatar from the dungeon Wrong. Raven — who, really, was an archetypical rogue-class character — would have used missile weapons and gymnastic feats to traverse Wrong, collect the Glyph from the Column, and rescue the Avatar. And yes, the Raven/Avatar romance was a plot point, although in this document it is much more subtle than in the final game.
There’s lots more to be found inside the document than just a single dungeon sequence, though…so, enjoy! Pull up the images, download the PDF, and pore over them. Search out every little detail, and enjoy a fascinating glimpse into the nuts and bolts of how the plot of the final single-player Ultima title evolved. Ultima Aiera is indebted to Joe Garrity for providing these documents, to Bill Randolph for releasing them and making them available for us to see, to Ben “Bandit LOAF” Lesnick for his invaluable insights, and to Ed del Castillo and everyone who worked at Origin Systems.
Very very nice. Thanks for this guys.
That is just a wonderful and fantastic find!
We’ve know for over a decade how the final plot went and the basic layout of the Bob White plot… but the Ed Del Castillo version had always remained a mystery and I dreamed of finally having more details about this version 😀
I think what is very interesting about this… is that in the end this is still very much Bob White’s plot. This is the same basic plotline, the same premise, the same events for the most parts… except for the fact that the plot was revised to take into account the lack and party (and the addition of sequences with other playable character in its stead) and offer a more positive ending, much closer to what we got in the final game.
But it’s still the same dark gritty story with Britannia on the brink of civil war that was the core of Bob White’s plot.
But this plot is even more interesting in the context of the final plot as we know it because clearly: the Richard Garriott/Seth Mendelsohn revamp done in mid-1998 was a much major rewrite than anything changed during Ed Del Castillo’s iteration of the story.
The Garriott/Seth revamp complently changed the tone and the focus of the game, mostly removed the war aspect to completly center the plot on the Virtues and made a story which was not so much about open war against Britannia as it was a war against Britannia’s soul and the Guardian corrupting its people.
In light of this, there is clearly no doubt in my mind that the final plot of Ultima IX for all its flaws (and most likely cut content) is indeed the story Richard Garriott wanted to tell as the conclusion of the series. Considering this is basically the few aspects kept in the final plot, I’m also inclined to believe that the bits added in Del Castillo’s plot (the Raven romance which seem to work much the same, the Avatar/Guardian twinness, the ending) where from Garriott as well.
But this is also very interesting in term of gameplay. It does feel like it was aiming to be more of an action/adventure kind of game although the be fair the acrobatics part does mention it will not be “twitchy”.
I think it makes sense though… the U9 engine is great on the whole, but it always had this feel that… it was meant to feel more arcadish that it ended up. The way it handles jumping or even the very slow paced combat feels like they weren’t really meant like this. Indeed I have this feeling that Garriott was just very wary about fans taking the game as arcadish and this explain why they cut back a bit on the action aspect.
This doc does showcase some interesting gameplay things as well: having both ships and skip with different sort of sailable water sounded pretty neat, as did the concept of ships sailing in realtime unless you slept.
One point of note to WtF: it is stated that Ambrosia is the ruined underwater city of the Gargoyles, so likely they were there before the Guardian took control of them.
That being said… I definitely would have enjoyed playing this version methinks. It’d have been controversial and probably more arcadish… but it sounds like they had a really good game in there. I’ve always liked the idea of playing other companions too! While I do love the final game as it is, the question needs to be asked aloud though: wouldn’t having this version completed and polished might have been a better trade off that the terrible state the final game was released in ? Something to ponder…
On a side note: I agree with you and don’t think the higher up had anything to do in forcing the full 3D engine or the 3Dfx bit. It totally contradicts the story I know.
The way the story goes, is that after a full year on hiatus with the team working on UO, the UIX up came up rather demotivated, notably on account that in a year their brand new 3D engine was started to feel date. Development slowly resumed and programmer Mike McShaffry tried porting the engine to the new Glide API. The result was mindblowing: the game looked better than ever and much smoother than it ever was with the old software renderer. Things might have gone on like this, but the next day McShaffry tried bringing the camera closer to the Avatar and coded in a new view point behind the Avatar. Everybody at OSI was blown away and became excited by the new possibilities a true 3D world might actually offer: this is why they decided to basically start from scratch and rebuild the engine. This was in no way related to some higher up decision, or to Tomb Raider, or even Ed Del Castillo (I think that along with Bill Randolph also from C&C fame, he came after the engine revamp had already been decided).
And this is of course consistent with the way Garriott and OSI worked – always trying to break new grounds (which U9’s engine actually did in a LOT of ways). Indeed this is probably why they went for an isometric 3D engine originally rather that continuing with the Crusader engine or trying a new 2D engine like UO… because 3D was the next big thing.
In any case this post is long enough… but great find guys!
Now let’s hope for the rest of Bob White’s dev doc, the full plot doc of the Mendelsohn design, the original non Britannia concept and the Lost Vale!
Del Castillo was a much maligned figure on RGCUD back in the day. His association with C&C did not make him popular.
It looks like he didn’t entirely deserve it.
In light of this, there is clearly no doubt in my mind that the final plot of Ultima IX for all its flaws (and most likely cut content) is indeed the story Richard Garriott wanted to tell as the conclusion of the series.
I’m assuming the Garriott rewrite is a case of the engine’s limitations dictating the game’s plot, and not an artistic choice.
I’ve always got a stinking feeling, that Del Castillo might have just been a conveniant scapegoat in the whole affair. Fans hated him and he took the fall for it.
I never understood why being associated with C&C made him unpopular really, C&C were damn good games even if they weren’t RPGs 😛
This is probably true to some degree, but on the whole ? I don’t think so.
Technically speaking there was nothing preventing the existing engine to use the core of Bob White or Del Castillo’s plot – arguably there might have been issues in term of crafting enough content fast enough but the change of direction also meant they basically had to discard anything that might have been written as far as NPC goes, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was more areas cut than what was discovered in the game files.
And even technical limitations does not explain the drastic change in tone and thematics. I would suspect that with more time, they might have kept the war angle to some degree… but I see no reasons to doubt Garriott’s claim that he wanted to go back to the roots of the series and tell a story about the Virtues, like Ultima IV.
This is also consistent with Seth Mendelsohn’s view of things: he was a big fan of the Age of Enlightenment trilogy (much more so than he was of Ultima VII), and also wanted a come back to the root closer to the previous trilogy (and IMHO on that point they succeeded).
It feels to be that after the troublesome development and controversies, Richard Garriott just wanted to do a clean break when he got back into the Director’s chair to speak.
Personally I’d say the best UIX plot, would be a mix of both.
I totally agree with your assessments Sergorn. Looking at this doc also gives credence (in my mind) to some of Garriott’s comments about EA wanting it out the door, and not having enough time to flesh out the plot. After seeing this (and knowing the finished product), it is even more obvious that entire sections of the plot were quite physically ‘removed’ to save time.
It would be interesting to take this document, and use it to compare some of the ‘hidden’ levels in the game–could this give any corollaries to the existence of some of the those levels?
In all fairness though, if they had stuck to this plot instead of completly revamping it from scratch in mid-98 they might not have had to cut so much stuff of the final game.
From the little we can grasp of specific cities/dungeons bits of the Bob White/Del Castillo design, they kept very little of it and went to totally different things in many case, so no wonder they lacked time to implement their last iteration of the plot.
3dfx was mandated by corporate–EA had a cross-promotion contract with 3dfx to push it with all their Origin games.
Even so, the read I get from the document was that the team were excited by the possibilities that 3D offered.
Fair enough but I just don’t feel this changed anything as far as U9 goes.
One thing to keep in mind is that Ultima IX was already a 3D game and had been since 1996 or even perhaps 1995. (and weren’t most if not all games from OSI at that point minus UO and Crusader were 3D as well?). Going with 3Dfx in late 97 while you were doing a 3D game was just the sensible thing to do.
@WTF – Agreed. Honestly I never sensed anything but excitement from the U9 dev team about the 3D aspect of the game. Even amongst the team member who left like Bob White, I got the feeling they were excited about the 3D world but just didn’t like the direction the game was taking.
Eck 1997 was already deep into the Playstation era, 3D was becoming the norm and 3Dfx just help pushed things even further.
Uh, if memory serves me correctly, Del Castillo was the one who said ‘Ultima is not about baking bread, it’s about rescuing a princess and slaying a dragon’ so yeah, he brought some of the flak upon himself.
I’ll serve as a devil advocate and say that in a way: he’s right.
His words were obviously not very well thought out and I think Ed Del Castillo was terrible at communication. But it always was pretty clear to me that what he meant by that is that Ultima was first and foremost about adventuring.
I wouldn’t argue against that, because it’s true. I would argue true for most fans.
If anything Ultima Online proved that for many fans, Ultima is NOT about baking bread – because clearly having the best virtual world in the series does not compensate for most the fact of not having a story to follow, NPC to talk to and and adventure to live through.
On the other side of the spectrum we have a game like Lazarus – which has very minimal interactivity. And yet fans loved it because of its plot and writing. Because it offered a great adventure to live.
So yeah, Ultima is not about baking bread.
Baking bread, always the baking bread.
One Ultima game out of eleven (in the main series, including Akalabeth) had that feature. One.
Ultima is not about baking bread.
Two.
You can bake bread in U9 too. 😛
I’m currently trying to imagine what a game would be like if it actually was about baking bread. And nothing else.
Maybe now the Guitar Hero bubble has burst it could be time for the rise of Bread Hero. Obviously this would only be for the casual gamers. Real hardcore gamers would play the more serious BreadWorks Simulator.
Yeast – yeast – water – sugar – flour – flour – salt – salt – yeast – sugar – water & yeast & sugar together at once! OMG!
Hey, it could work.
Oh I just noticed I made an amazing pun unintentionally.
Of course you realize the “baking bread” thing is a metaphor for the larger concept of a living, realistic world.
There never was any question about trying to make Ultima IX a living world even back in the Del Castillo day.
The game was still highly interactive then and as a matter of fact back in the Del Castillo day – it also had working NPC schedules they just ended being cut back more and more for techinal reasons.
The baking bread metaphor is used to describe what Garriott was pushing for since Ultima V. He wanted full simulation & interactivity. Just look at The Savage Empire. When you have an Ultima where you can actually bake bread, the followups should have it as well. This is where Garriott & company really screwed up with Ultima VIII.
I truly hope for the sake of both Mythic & Portalarium that they remember this and not give us games with generic rpg play mechanics. One of the myriad of reasons why I love Ultima, especialy WoU, VI, & VII, is because I can sit in chairs & interact with the world.
Mmmm… it was about baking bread for those of us that loved Ultima for, as Infinitron said, it’s living and realistic world. This is why, to many of us “old” Ultima freaks, Ultima 8 and 9 were maybe not bad games, but bad Ultimas. Ultima 8 sort of had schedules and some interaction, it was just scaled back. Ultima 9 was poopy.
I just wrote a very long comment about this, but since I wasn’t logged in it ate it.
I’m not typing it again, so (short-version):
Ultima is about interactivity, not crafting.
I’ll check the spam filter presently.
Thepal nailed it.
One point of note though:
Ultima IX had far more interactivy that Ultima VIII ever had. All you could do in U8 basically was moving stuff around. U9 had all that… but you could also sit and lie, craft potion, bake bread (:P) and quite a few other stuff. Granted it did not have the level of interactivity Ultima VII had (but then U7 had nowhere the amount of interactivity Savage Empire had and you don’t see people complaining)… but it went much farther than U8 did, much farther than any 3D games went before, and much farther than a lot of modern games and RPGs.
Claiming U9 was not interactive as some bashers do is just hypocrisy.
Regarding schedules: true – U8 had some sort of schedule with NPC teleporting according to the time of day while U9 had nothing except a few people moving around (though I would argue again… this was better than the competition). But to be fair, we all know NPCs schedules *were* implemented in the game and had to be removed because the team never had the time to properly debug them due to the tight schedule. So I’m not putting the blame on them for that.
I think it’s obvious Ultima games mean something to different people. Insofar, -that- is the charm of Ultima.
It was a world you could buy into.
The plot, the writing, the interactivity, and the different character routes you could take.
From the way RG talks, fishing seemed to be a somewhat popular trade in UO.
I never played savage empire, so I’m curious, how was there more interactivity in that game than ultima 7?
Personally, I never bought into Ultima 9’s world. Probably a conglomeration of reasons, interactivity, bad dialogues, the world design and game design being so far removed from the u7, just the silly little things. Like, how many people were living in Paws? Like 5, with maybe 3-4 houses. Why didn’t they just move to Britain? Maybe because the virtues were corrupted. But still, who’s going to sit around in a destroyed town when everything is buried in swamp? At least clear out some brush, build some huts, and live 10-20 yards away.
You forgot about item stacking! Or empty potion bottle stacking as I liked to think of it. Stacking items was by far my favourite part of u9! It was almost worth buying because of that one feature. But other than the things you mentioned, and item stacking, there wasn’t a whole lot more interactivity. Definitely more than jrpgs and most console rpgs. I honestly can’t think of anything else you could interact with.
To give a simple exemple of SE’s interactity you could pull off a branch of any tree and craft a torch out of it. There was a ton off stuff like this you could do – almost everything was harvestable and you could craft a lot things. This went much farther than any other Ultima (even Martian Dreams had much reduced interactivity)
Regarding U9 : one thing I need tonmake clear I’m not arguing it was a good as UVII – it was not. But it was better than UVII or most other CRPGs. Even the simple thing I listed goes much farther than most games too. And a UIX a quite a lot simple stuff like that : like clicking on a sign would make it swing. It does not have a use but its that sort of details that always helped make Ultima alive.
You know the simple drag and drop we take for granted in U7~9 is rarely anywhere to be found now. Even highly interactive games like Gothic don’t allow that (On the top of my head only Arx Fatalis, Oblivion and Fallout 3/NV allowed it lately) but again this stuff makes the world alive.
Where is the interactity in Baldurs Gate or Fallout or KOTOR or NWN2 or Mass Effect? Nowhere quite simply. Id killnto have modern RPGs with as much interactivity as UIX offered.
Another point about UIX is that its interactivity all existed within the game world: it didnt made you go through menus of things like that. This agains bring more life and immersivenesss
I’d argue personnaly that as far as world simulation goes, the only thing lacking in UIX was NPC schedules and I think most fans would have been pleased if it just had this in addition to the rest.
NPC schedules would definitely made UIX better as well as, in my opinion, a more mature & coherent plot in the vein of Ultima VII & VIII. I agree that VIII & IX were great games but bad Ultimas. Especially VIII; the story and darkness were amazing & coupled with the gameplay it preceded &, in my opinion, surpassed Diablo. I know that with IX t they were trying to get back to U7 as far as interactivity, & NPC schedules were dropped because the issues were taking too long to fix due to the shipping mandate.
To note, while Savage Empire had more interactivity, chats with Exult coders indicate that Exult is capable of reproducing them.
Just to confirm, the game definitely has a fully functional scheduling system. However, we aren’t quite sure if the causes for the movement bugs (which plague Britain and Minoc in the vanilla game) are the result of an inadequate system for pathfinding or just a lack of finely tuned and well-built schedules and paths.
@MicroMagic – I forgot to adress another point. I honestly never had any issue with the number of NPCs in Ultima IX’s city. Granted, more NPCs would have been nice… but Ultima never was amount offering a realistic amount of NPCs but more about cities representing a sample of the world with imagination filling the rest. Good enough for me.
On a side note, if you look at the list of NPC city per city on the Ultima Codex you’ll notice that as far as quantity goes, there isn’t that much difference in term of NPCs numbers on a city per city basis.
Writing quality is another debate though.
@Scythifuge – I agree about Ultima VIII feeling like a predecessor to Dialbo and hack’n slash RPGs. Diablo always felt to me like some mix between Ultima VIII and Rogue. Regarding Ultima IX I disagree about it being a bad Ultima – it’s arguably a poor sequel to U7/8 but I thought it still was agreat ULtima in itself.
@Iceblade – isn’t the bigger issue with schedule was NPCs falling underground ? Following the Mayor and other NPCs it does feel like the pathfinding in itself was working well.
@Scythifuge
Yup. I enjoyed Ultima VIII quite a bit once I got over what a departure it was from the rest of the series, but it had a great atmosphere and generally more sinister tone than the other Ultimas (the NPCs were a pretty unsympathetic lot). I played through half of Ultima IX and felt like I was slogging through it. The world didn’t feel interactive to me; NPCs lifeless, complete lack of continuity, all the horses were dead so we don’t have to explain why you can’t ride them, lol! Have you ever seen the “original” isometric Ultima IX pics? I would have much rather had that game (may still have had continuity issues!). I’ll try to dig them up from the interwebs.
@Segorn
“Regarding U9 : one thing I need tonmake clear I’m not arguing it was a good as UVII – it was not. But it was better than UVII or most other CRPGs.”
Huh? Just out of curiosity, you think U7 was better or worse than U9? I guess it’s a good point to make (as other posters have) that while there’s a lot in common, people like the Ultimas for different reasons…
@Miraupp – a typo on my part. I meant “But it was better than UVIII or most other CRPGs”. And I was of course refering to interactivity.
That being said : I do enjoy Ultima IX more than Ultima VII.
Admitedly Ultima VII has a more consistent writing, but I was never fond of the Britannia portrayed in that game or the general direction taken by the series by going in a semi renaissance aspect, pretty much dropping the Virtues altogether and spending way too much time on boring social mumbo jumbo which in my sense don’t really belong in Ultima. In other words, it didn’t felt anymore like the Ultima/Britannia I had grown to love in the previous trilogy of game. I also feel the game sacrified too much on the altar of “crafting a virtual world” actually : combats are amongst the worst I’ve ever seen in a CRPGs, dungeons are very small and boring for the most, and the plot feel almost inexistant at times as if it was secondary to the rest of the game.
(This is very much why I love Serpent Isle so much more than Ultima VII – it took the opposite direction in term of design).
I still like Ultima VII much on the whole mind you, but there are too many little things irking me on the whole for it to me amongst my favorite Ultima games.
Ultima IX on the other hand well… it suffered from obvious continuity issues/retcons (though I would argue no more than Ultima VI in its time) but it really DID felt like a come back to the root of the series. A lot of the game really did brought back a nostalgic feeling of the Ultima of yore, and I felt like I was back in the same Britannia I came to love in Ultima IV~VI. I tought it was a pretty awesome game in term of gameplay as well – *much* better than Ultima VII – and notalbly has by far the best dungeons the series has to offer.
So it has its flaws, but great game.
And of course I know the original overhead 3D engine. I certainly would have loved to play this version, but just because we ended with something different doesn’t mean this was a bad game or a bad Ultima.
That reminds me of this tribute to another lost isometric sequel.
What could have been!
“Admitedly Ultima VII has a more consistent writing, but I was never fond of the Britannia portrayed in that game or the general direction taken by the series by going in a semi renaissance aspect, pretty much dropping the Virtues altogether and spending way too much time on boring social mumbo jumbo which in my sense don’t really belong in Ultima.”
The thing is, the lack of virtues was a huge part of the story. They were meant to be getting replaced by the Fellowship’s principles. I think Britannia needed the social mumbo jumbo from U7, as it was the main game that fleshed out the world (continuing what U6 had started to do). Suddenly the companions were actual people (Shamino was still some one-with-the-wild monk that had very little personality in U6). U7 fleshed out all of the companions. It fleshed out the world.
People were just trying to live their lives. They weren’t blindly following a set of virtues, and were instead getting swayed by the Fellowship. They were not just accepting the government but questioning it. Of all the games, it showed a world that was most like the real one. Which made the philosophical parts of Ultima more meaningful.
When I decided to post in this thread, I was actually going to agree with you (it did feel nice to get back to the virtues in U9). But thinking about it further, it was kind of a step backwards. Instead of the people of Britannia making their own choices, they are simply swayed by a handful of people who either make them be virtuous or corrupt. The people in the world make no decisions for themselves. What is the point of showing a world that follows a system of values when it is simply “You are within this circle of virtue, and therefore will act like we make you”?
But still, I did miss the virtues in U7. They were what every other Ultima in Britannia was about (from U4 onwards). And I agree that Serpent Isle went in the other direction. Despite being a completely new set of virtues, Serpent Isle’s forces of Balance were probably done better than the virtues were in any of the other games. But they also kept the people as people, who made their own decisions and weren’t blindly following a virtue (there were ties to Truth, Love and Courage, but people chose how they would follow those things or if they would). Plus, the Avatar got to return to being an example to the people… something U7 didn’t really do (all he did was find out the Fellowship was corrupt).
Hmm… so, in conclusion, I both agree and don’t agree. And Serpent Isle rocked.
Infinitron, don’t remind me about Van Buren, it’s heart breaking. But if you’re not aware, try out Last Days of Gaia! I have yet to play it, but it looks amazing! Made by Germans, and you know the Germans know how to make a good rpg. I believe there’s an english fan made patch for it.
That makes me want to play Scythifuge Dragon’s remake of of SE SO much more! Perhaps I’ll have to give him a hand… but I won’t make that decision until I know I’m serious about it.
This time, it wasn’t the number of npc’s in each town in U9 that bothered me. It was their apparent lack of a purpose and lack of common sense. I agree that u7 had more of a realistic world. Rather than jrpg’s townsfolk npcs with an apparent lack of job, purpose, or any reason to exist. Each person in U7 had a job, had a purpose, and most people were very worth talking to. They would interact with each other, they would tell you how they would interact with each other. They had a meaningful relationship within the town rather than just pure gossip about what this guy does for work, or yatta yatta about this guy. “someone stole my silver serpent venom!” “I’m helping this boy read in gargish” They would seem to actually have a relationship with one another.
Admittedly, I only ever got to Minoc in u9 before I had, had enough. But there were just some seriously weird holes in that game. Like why and how did the gargs build ambrosia dome? Why or how did ambrosia go underwater? And how the hell did that sailor get shipwrecked inside of a dome? How is that possible? Why are the people of Paws living in dilapidated houses that are within a swamp? Why don’t the simply build huts 20-30 meters away(it might be more sanitary/smell better)?
U9’s npcs just didn’t feel like they had a purpose. Sure, in u6 there were only maybe 5-7 people in paws/trinsic. Other towns had about the same. But each had a job to fulfill. Each had a purpose. U9 never gave each purpose a reason to be there
Without a doubt, U9’s dungeons were the most complex. I didn’t have much fun with them, but they were the “best” in terms of complexity.
I dunno about interactivity, I mean, even Grandia 2 you could walk around and knock things over and move things. Does crafting count as interactivity to you? As it looks like, it looks like Duke Nukem forever has quite a bit of interactivity ;P. Perhaps moreso than u9.
“Like why and how did the gargs build ambrosia dome?”
They were filled with Pride (due to the corrupt virtue of Humility) and decided to remove themselves from human civilisation and prove just how amazing they were (by building the dome) — At least I’m pretty sure that was in the game… I sometimes forget what was in U9 and what I wrote myself
“Why or how did ambrosia go underwater?”
That’s where they built it for the above reasons.
“And how the hell did that sailor get shipwrecked inside of a dome? How is that possible?”
I forget… was there a note? I seem to remember not being able to explain that myself. If the dome was built before he was shipwrecked, then it shouldn’t have been able to go through the dome. And I seem to remember there was a note or something… maybe… I haven’t played U9 in ages
“Why are the people of Paws living in dilapidated houses that are within a swamp? Why don’t the simply build huts 20-30 meters away(it might be more sanitary/smell better)?”
I think the swamp expanded into where their houses already were. But, yes, they could have relocated you’d think.
@Thepal. It’s funny how everytime I mention my lack of enthusiam for U7’s context someone has to go and say “Yeah my that was the point!”. Duh. Yes I know this was a plot point and I can understand the rationale behind it. I just don’t like it, and I just don’t feel the execution of it was that interesting, and in truth it didn’t have much in term of subtelty (granted neither did U9, but at least in U9 you can put the blame on the Columns). The way you describe it, I do feel you kind of miss the point of U9 though.
As for U7 having a world closest to our own. Perhaps. But I don’t enjoy fantasy to have a world like our own you know. U7 just made Britannia boring to me.
@MicroMagic. I don’t think the NPCs in U9 are *that* different from what we find in previouses games actually. You can obviously make the argument about them not being as well written… but for the most part they all had a personality and a role/job in their cities just as much as they did un U7 or U6.
On a side not Ambrosia is not the same Ambrosia as U7 – it was just named after it.
Regarding Paws you still need ressources to even rebuild houses farther from the swamp – they had nothing of that.
I think that U7 having a world closet to our own fit with the plot. Our world is corrupt and the magic of the past has been taken away. U7’s Britannia reflected that. Corruption and evil took away the very things that made Britannia special, and brought them closer to home. Had things progressed differently sequel-wise, who knows what may have transpired in Britannia.
I think that the Bob White plot would have brought much better closure in this regard.
Well the BOb White plot would have destroyed Britannia so clearly that would have closed Britannia.
I don’t get the feeling that U9 – whatever its iteration – aimed at the Renaissance kind of world U7 was. If anything ever the pre-final plot hinted a something closer to the old Ultima with stuff like Paladin and Rangers, Valorian Knights, Mages being a major part of Moonglow’s society and probably other stuff like that. It felt to be going closer to its medieval roots.
-Sergorn
But that in itself was kinda going backwards. A lot of U7 seemed to be showing that Britannia was evolving. Gunpowder was starting to be made. The world was kinda moving into a Renaissance.
U9 should have continued Britannia’s evolution, not ignored it. The only place in U9 that I think was really well done was Buccaneer’s Den. The rest showed very little in common with the world of U6 and U7. Yew was suddenly in the trees. Moonglow/The Lycaeum was a little too mystical instead of being a place of learning. Britain was a very small town. Almost all the cities showed no continuity with the rest of the series. Which was slightly annoying (after fighting through Pagan to return to Britannia). I realise it was for reasons (the places had a lot more uniqueness and were more themed), and if it had come after U4 then it would have felt like Britannia. But it came after U7. Ignoring what came before, even if it did have some benefits, was not a good idea.
I get what you mean, but this has never shocked me considering the time frame between U7 and U9. Ultima IX takes places two hundred years after the Black Gate (I know some fans can’t seem to graps the concept but it’s a fact) and it makes sense for Britannia to change drastically in this time frame (as it did really between U6 & U7). Even is the original iteration had “only” 80 years, this also makes some sense.
And that’s not even taking into account the Cataclysm that ruined the world and destroyed most of the cities.
Meaning truly that most of the cities of U9 were fairly new having been rebuilt a mere 20 years ago – so you can’t expect them to feel the same as they did in U7 in any case. And while I would have liked to have more lore about this ingame, the Journal did a great job in detailing the rebuilding of those places.
That being said I actually think the evolution of the world between U7 and U9 is logical. After the whole Fellowship and Guardian business it makes perfect that Britannia’s reconstruction to go through a come back to its roots and the people getting back on the path of the Virtues, thus also leading to a resurgence of traditionnal Ultima jobs like Paladins or Rangers.
There is even some sense about the less scientific aspect as the more scientific world in U7 felt like a direct consequence of the dissapereance of magic. With magic back in full force, I can see science taking a step back and Moonglow becoming once again a city filled with magic.
But debate about continuity aside, I feel the approach taken by U9 just make the world more interesting. All cities in U7 felt the same, and looked the same (even the freaking Gargoyle city, I mean come on!). Wherever you were, it didn’t felt like a special place… there was no uniqueness of anything, it’s almost as if Britannia was just one big single city (Vesper being a rare expetion) and it contributed to make the land rather boring. Did that make the thing more realistic ? Perhaps in a sense… but realism is rarely the most interesting approach. I would actually argue that bringing uniqueness and making sure each location had its own identity was most definitly a step forward and not backward.
Regarding Paws you still need ressources to even rebuild houses farther from the swamp – they had nothing of that.
They live next to a forest. Forest=resources for building houses And I said, they can’t thatch together huts or something? You need to watch a survivalist TV show sometime. They make shelters for themselves in hours. Besides, the houses in paws were made of wood and thatched roofs.
On a side note, did each town in ultima 1-ultima 7 seem exactly the same from game to game? They reused game graphics, yes. No question. But paws, was the city of farms and butchers. Same as in u6. Moonglow the city of magic and books. Same as every ultima I’ve ever played. And if you regard the observatory as an advancement in technology because magic is not relevant at that point. What about the observatory in u6 when nothing was wrong with magic?
You’re right, though, ultima 9 in a sense came back to -some- of it’s roots. But in that same way, roots are also a step back.
About my u9 questions. Thepal, that was never explained in game, although it would have been nice! It never made sense to have a shipwrecked sailor inside of a dome. Unless the dome is something like the Gothic magic barrier, you can enter but can never leave type of deal. But again, that was never explained. As for the naming of Ambrosia, it was never explained why it was named what it was, or if Ambrosia was an island that sunk or they renamed their home that. Kind of a strange name for the gargoyle dome since ambrosia wasn’t an island on the map.
I agree. As I said, U9 had uniqueness to different places which was something U7 needed more of. But it still ignored too much.
Don’t get me wrong, though. I’m one of the minority of Ultima fans who actually likes Ultima 9. That was a part of the reason why my remake wasn’t changing many things from U9. It was mainly about making it more of a continuation of the series. Britannia was going to be more like what you’d expect after being gone for a couple of decades (mine was only 20 years after BG). A lot of the U9 stuff was still going to be in there (such as Ambrosia… though I might have given it a different name since U7 had a different Ambrosia). I just wish it had seemed like I was returning to Britannia after escaping Pagan. But apart from LB and some companions, the world I left was not there. Even Iolo turned from a large man into a gnome.
After waiting all that time for U9 to finally get released, and pre-ordering my Dragon Edition game, it was a huge letdown in some ways (since I was in Australia, even my Dragon Edition was a letdown. It came in months late, and had a cardboard map and a steel ankh… that still pisses me off).
Meh. Now I’m depressed. Stupid cardboard map.
Britannia would have lived on in a new realm, since in the Bob White plot a piece of her with survivors gets flung into the reaches of outer space. Perhaps New Britannia will reflect this.
U9 ailed to explain anything with regards to what happened after the generators were destroyed in U7 (magic and moongates), nor how anything got back to “normal” after Serpent Isle (I think even the Bob White plot is guilty of this). That is why I cannot perceive IX as a good Ultima, but rather a decent crpg. If things were properly explained, I would probably feel differently. Even the ending of ending of Pagan is ignored for the most part (Titan of Ether/Ether Armor), and it makes no sense to summon Pyros to enter a dungeon in Britannia.
On the other hand, IX’s Britannia looked great albeit small, and to me was very reminiscent of the Ultima VI gypsy intro.
I see what you mean.
I think one the “issue” with Ultima IX and one of the main cause for the dissapointment – is that a lot of people wanted an Ultima Part III. I think we should blame Underworld II and Serpent Isle for this… but I honestly never expected for one second this would be the case and that Ultima IX would offer us a game in a short timespan after U7 as a way to bring all its characters back.
Because that’s never of Ultima worked.
If anything each Ultima kept reinventing Britannia each game with but a handful of characters as a link between each episodes – so I didn’t expect Ultima IX to be any different in that matter.
I didn’t want to play Ultima IX and return to the Britannia I had left at the end of U7. I wanted to return to a Britannia drastically different from what I left. First because I like the novelty of it, but also basically because this is how the exile of Pagan would have made sense – get the Avatar out of the way long enough for the Guardian to enter Britannia.
On a side note, I tend to disagree with the assesment that only a minority of fans liked Ultima IX. There were a lot of people back in 99 who liked or even loved the game and weren’t afraid to say it… but as usual the most vocals are always the hater.
I’d also argue that the strongest haters of Ultima IX were what I’d call the “hardcore Ultima VII crowd” and that most fans like me who where more partial to the previous trilogy actually enjoyed the game. This is true about casual fans as well – I don’t recall ever seeing many casual Ultima fans disliking the game (and it explains IMO why most of the professional reviews felt it would have been an awesome Ultima without the all the technical issues).
I understand how you feel about the cardboard map… I got ripped of with Serpent Isle the same way 🙁 We did not even get the Dragon Edition in France, I had to buy it directly from the EA store and import it – it cost a small fortune but I don’t regret it.
@Scythifuge – I most definily agree with you about the lack of explanations regarding Ultima IX’s lore and background. And even if the manual did a good chunk of it, not everything was explained and the game’s cardinal sin is that none of this was ingame, where dialogues probably were just too much to the point.
I wouldn’t exclude the fact that more complete explanation (such are how binding magic – which appeared to be there since the Bob White plot – appears, or how the Moongates came to be be working again) were written at some point and appeared in dialogue – but likely this was cut back.
On a side note since you mention the Titan of Ether bit – this was actually supposed to be a part of the game, with the Avatar gaining Etheric powers every time a Column was deactivated (this is clearly established in the leaked Bob White dungeon documents). This actually fits with Bill Randolph’s claims in 1999 that the Columns were draining the Avatar’s ethereal powers and he had to get them back throuhough the game. Alas, it’s another of these major aspects that was cut for not discernable reasons 🙁
The Column/Ether draining makes absolute perfect sense within the grand scheme. I wonder if it can be implemented in the Forgotten World project. A world/script editor would be swell as well.
I notice the Bob White plot document is available as a Word document, could the same be done for this version please?
Not as easy, I’m afraid. I received the Bob White Plot in DOC format, and converted it to PDF. I received the del Castillo plot as a scanned PDF.
I will take a stab at converting it, but no promises.