UltimaForever.Com Launches (For Real, This Time!)
Well…the website leaked a couple days early, and astute observers even brought it to my attention. The Wing Commander CIC reported on it, and even took some heat from fans over the speculation it fueled.
And, of course, the corresponding Twitter account went live two days ago.
Now, though…now it can be told. Ultima is back on the Interwebs, officially:
Welcome Back, Avatar!
From the site itself:
Stretching across dozens of games and three decadesí time, millions of people from all over the world have set out on great adventures in the world of Ultima. They have braved perilous dungeons, faced off against fearsome enemies, conquered lands and saved worlds.Over the coming months, ultimaforever.com will be expanding, looking back at over 30 years of Ultima heritage! Check back soon!
But more than just an Ultima retrospective, the site provides something else: an official, free download of Ultima 4.
Having defeated the evil Mondain and his progeny in his previous 3 trips, the Stranger returns to Britannia and endeavors to master each of the Virtues. In the process of meditating at shrines and questing through perilous dungeons, he seeks aid from seven great Companions. Together with these Companions, the Stranger braves the great Stygian Abyss, uncovers the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom and becomes the Avatar.
Released in 1985, Ultima IV was the first in the ìAge of Enlightenmentî period of Ultima games. It truly was a step forward in gaming, as it focused not on defeating some generic evil force with traditional ìhack & slashî gameplay, but offered a story-driven quest based on ethical dilemmas presented to the player in an attempt to acheive enlightenment.
Ultimaforever.com is pleased to officially offer the full, original PC version of Ultima IV for download. Please be aware that you will need to install a verion of DOSbox in order to play. What are you waiting for? The virtues await!
Of course, you have to fill out the usual information that EA is legally obligated to ask for (email address, country, date of birth) when offering downloads. Don’t worry; there are “don’t spam me”-type checkboxes as well.
But the download itself is well worth grabbing; it clocks in at just under 27 MB, and includes a large image of the world map, plus high-resolution scans of the original documentation and cluebook.
And for those of you who want to check out Ultima Online, BioWare Mythic is offering a fourteen-day free trial of that game as well.
Important point: This site will become, in essence, the new main point of contact at Electronic Arts for Ultima-related information, plus an official free Ultima 4 download, which I suspect (but haven’t yet confirmed) to be the same as the CGW CD version that Origin released to certain Ultima Dragons so many years ago now.
As nods to the fandom go, that’s pretty huge. Keep checking back!
Update: The Wing Commander CIC is now carrying the story as well!
This is all pretty neat and cool but I can’t help to notice: no love the Worlds of Ultima games as always >:(
They deserve a place just as much as the Underworld games.
The way it goes they’ll end up dissapearing for from the collective counciousness.
Wish they would have been a bit more creative with the release of Ultima IV — like adding the ability to pick and choose between assets from the various ports. Can’t get too excited about the PC release when you grew up playing the wonderful Commodore 64 version.
Very nicely done by Bioware. Congrats!
@Sergorn: isn’t there some licensing problem with the Worlds of Ultima? I can’t find anything on it but I thought there was something. Perhaps distribution license gone to some other company at some point of time…
Never heard of any licensing issues regarding Worlds of Ultima games. I’m not sure why there would be in any case.
I really can’t pin point it, I have something in the back of my mind but it could be anything else. I really can’t find anything online to support my hunch… 🙂
I’ve always felt it was simply that since the WoU games basically sold poorly, are relatively unknown (unlike say the Underworls which have a strong brand recognition) and are basically unrelated spin off…
Well nobody cares anymore 🙁
Maybe it’s regarded as Origins Star Wars Holiday Special 😉
Is it possible that they actually don’t have any copies of WoU to put on display? I remember a while ago some fans from here actually had to send EA boxed copies of their games.
Matthew — one of my goals in xU4 is to give the user the ability to swap in the c64 graphics and music sets. I’ve also grown up with that version, so I know exactly where you’re coming from. (Though I really do like the fan-made VGA tilesets SLIGHTLY better than the c64).
Have you given xU4 a try? Let me know if my interpretation of the music files into ImpulseTracker modules fits the bill — I’m not a real musician, so I had to use a MIDI converter.
It certainly is the 1997 release version of Ultima 4. Complete with the “Lindsay the Fighter” save game files. Note the dates on the files, and the additional files. I have to say, I’m not too crazy about the pdfs. They’re too bloaty.
For documentation, I would have preferred something like: http://www.paradroid.net/u4/docs.html
The above link is brilliant html-based ultima 4 book content for the “ultima 4 gold” fan release on the commodore 64. They’ve rearranged all of the redundant data to make it fit on one disk image. You can play it on the VICE commodore 64 emulator — a note for Matthew above if he wants the PURE c64 experience — with some tweaks.
I gotta tell you though, I extracted the new Official Ultima IV zip, extracted the ultima4.exe to a 32-bit computer, and fired it up. With the exception of wildly changing moons, it runs pretty well. The EGA tileset isn’t that bad (at least not on a crt tv)!
If I have my way, WoU will never be forgotten. It is why I started the Savage Empire Remake project. Even if it is never completed, I talk about Savage Empire an awful lot!
I have boxed versions of both WoU games. If EA needs to borrow them, scan them, or whatever, I am sure that something could be worked out.
Anyone actually getting this site to come up? I’m getting redirected to some advertising page.
The screenshot in the article is a fresh capture of the site from today, as evidenced by the presence of the UO advert that was not there in the leaked version.
In other words: yeah, I’ve been able to get to the site, and have in fact provided visual evidence of this fact.
It could be a DNS propagation issue, or it could be something else. What browser are you using, and where are you located? Perhaps one of these two things is causing the trouble.
IE8, Arizona
I’ve just tested it with IE8; the download form doesn’t load quite right, but the site loads.
I’m not in Arizona, though, so I can’t test whether that’s the issue.
It’s a trite suggestion, but have you cleared your cache? If you caught the placeholder/reseller site on your first attempt, it’s possible that it’s become cached on your system. Other than that, I’ve no idea.
The first time I loaded it (before I saw Aieras post, the site was mentioned in Dosbox’ IRC channel), I got the reseller site as well. So probably some DNS problem, that your ISPs DNS was still wrong and maybe now your own DNS cache is wrong).
*takes a quick look* Thank god. No mention of Lord of Ultima.
The website is awesome! I knew they were going to do a fantastic job of it. Most importantly of all (to me) is that the Ultima IV download includes those super-spiffy ReplacementDocs scans of the manual, spellback, cloth map, and most importantly of all, the super awesome and rare cluebook. Sure, they’re distributing cheats with the game, but man those old Origin cluebooks were awesome. Bang up job from the folks who did this.
I’m in Seattle and it’s not loading on IE 9 or Chrome for me. Tried it earlier when it was first posted and again just now, still getting the redirect screen.
Well whatever the issue was it must have fixed itself because I can get to the site now.
Just look at who UltimaForever was following on Twitter. 7 people… Mostly corporate ones you’d expect… Bioware, Mass Effect, SWTOR, etc.
And also on the list… Ultima Aiera. Congrats. Makes me optimistic about their view of Ultima.
http://www.ultimaforever.com is dropping into some sort of domain parking page here … at 10:26PM PST
So I can’t help thinking why they are doing this….I think we are all hoping they are going to bring out some new Ultima titles?
I’m in Arizona – works fine for me in IE 8 and Vista
Im in AZ too, works ok but it appears the download for Ultima IV is missing.
It’s probably a DNS issue or they’ve been taking their site up and down with a redirect in place. Whoever’s in charge of the site will probably have it all working soon unless they really don’t know what they’re doing.
I ran a basic nmap on them and nothing’s open but 80. Didn’t do a more intrusive scan out of basic respect.
Decent site, but I’m sure it will improve over time (especially once the effort’s directly commercially viable).
Scythifuge Dragon- All I can say is, please finish it ;). I’d help, but I don’t have the time or artistic talent. Maybe I could put dialogues in, and set a few game flags in dialogues. I don’t see that being a huge deal though.
WHERE’S RUNES OF VIRTUE? Or even Mt drash. Man runes of virtue rocked house ;p.
Mt. Drash? Does anyone know who actually even owns the rights to that game? Sierra? EA? Richard Garriot? Whoever the heck produced Drash? Also, who is going to pay real money for it? 😛
Runes of Virtue? I remember Nintendo had some pretty strict rules on licensing for any of their old platforms. I bet that’d be a legal mess.
Site comes up today, but the download area is blank. :/
Okay, anyone reporting errors: include details about your browser, please. I had issues with the download area using IE, for example.
The site has been going up and down for me. I don’t think it’s anything to do with what browser you are on.
I finally got the download to work this morning. I see they included my clue book scans in the extras. I’d have done a better job with them if I thought they would ever be used like this. Talking of scans, they ought to ask someone for scans of the side panels from all those boxes. Sticking parts of the covers on just looks wrong.
It’s interesting to see pdf’s from replacementdocs being included actually as the site is basically abandonware for game related books. This is almost a seal of approval from EA.
I feel that Richard Garriott should be named in “A brief history.”
I’ve tried multiple times on multiple systems (Mac, Win) with multiple browsers (FF, Safari, IE9) and on all of them the download form doesn’t work. Is there something I’m missing?
Jason, I’ve just downloaded it on Firefox 4.0.1 and Safari 5.0.5, both under Mac, and it had no problems. Might still be some kind of DNS problems or something still being cached.
If it’s a new site (IP-address-wise, including any IPs its pages may address) then that’s probably a good guess. The Internet’s still a pretty wild and sloppy place as far as that’s concerned.
Of course you could always hit up the good ol’… Oh, my bad. Self-censorship is a bitch. :/
Turns out it didn’t like my email address, but there wasn’t any error saying that was the problem. Used a different address and it worked fine. Of course I only downloaded it to see what the extras were, since I still have my “Ultima Collection”.
You know what? I’m a little slow sometimes… I just NOW realized the wordplay with Ultima 4 and UltimaForever… 😉
Well, I can say that English isn’t my first language…