Observations on the del Castillo plot in comparison to the Bob White Plot

1. As I mentioned in a comment, this is the same premise and basic plotline in many ways. However, del Castillo’s plot document is much shorter than Bob White’s so it feels like it has been streamlined or simplified. Unlike the Bob White revisions, this document doesn’t discuss all of the background elements of the story; it tends to go straight from one plot point to another and sometimes feels more as if someone were just throwing out some ideas on paper rather than writing a complete plot document,

2. One of the aspects that does feel heavily simplified is the part focused on tracking Corrigan’s murderer from the arrow that killed him, which seems to go more directly to the point in the del Castillo plot. In all fairness though, it really is hard to tell without a more detailed breakdown of the del Castillo plot as a lot of plot details in the Bob White document could still apply in the del Castillo version.

3. The story about the missing shipments exists in the Bob White Plot, but seems to serve just background information rather than an actual plot point. It does feel as though this was expanded in del Castillo’s version, perhaps to give the player a chance to play as Shamino, but it arguably works and gives the player something to do in Ambrosia, which was cut in the later revisions. As a matter of fact, the development of this section feels very much like the part mentioned in the dungeon design documents, where the Avatar was to go to Ambrosia to meet Vasagralem and Desbet before escaping via Hythoth — except the player goes there as Shamino instead and looks for the missing shipment instead of the Gargoyles.

4. The whole plot point about summoning Corrigan’s ghost in front of his son and daughter had been replaced in the del Castillo plot by a rather more straightforward approach where the Avatar simply need finding to fin dan unsigned peace treaty revealing Blackthor’s role on his body. The ghost still appears at the beginning and the end of the quest but not in front of the armies. This wouldn’t have changed much gameplay-wise, but it doesn’t feel quite as interesting.

5. The Well of Soul where you find Corigan’s body has become a special room inside Deceit instead of being in Skara Brae. The whole ritual aspect of Deceit has been cut, suggesting you probably obtained magic and spellbook in a different way, so this might have a way to give a plot relevance to this dungeon even if it breaks continuity a bit.

6. This revision brings the Codex back into the plot, which I like, as well as the lenses needed to consult it. It’s hard to tell, however, if the Codex was supposed to be back in Britannia, or if you just used the lenses to consult it in the Void. In the Bob White plot the Codex seemed to come and go depending on the revisions, and there was no mentions of the lenses in the final one altough his original summary from 1999 suggest that at some point, they were needed to open the entrance to thee Abyss.

7.There is no mention of Hawkwind after the initial tutorial section. Whether it is because he had no other role beside this point, or simply because the plot outline doesn’t go into the details, is unknown.

8. While the part about playing as other companions in the del Castillo plot was obviously thought as a way to compensate for the lack of an actual party, it does seem to follow some sort of pattern of trying to have the companions have more of a role into the story without having them in the party.

The gruesome execution of Julia in the depth of Despise seems to fit with this intent of giving more of a role to the companions. The part about playing Raven in Wrong seems actually a rather sound idea, considering the original plot already had Raven trying off screen (and failing) to save the Avatar. Having Lord British travelling to the Abyss to face Blackthorn himself in a final showdown is also a great idea because, in truth, the whole quick and gratuitous execution of Blackthorn in the Bob White iteration feels rather anticlimactic.

As there are no other mentions of Companions however, it is hard to tell if this pattern might have fit with others characters or not.

9. It does seem that the del Castillo revision did introduce the aspect about the Avatar not being able to hurt the Guardian without hurting himself.

10. The del Castillo plot also seems to introduce the restoration of the Shrines as a plot point. This rather makes sense with an ending where you actually DO save Britannia. It also seems you have to power the Columns with the Runes late in game in order to set the trap for the Guardian but it is rather unclear and the “Shrine of Corruption” aspect might refer to columns in the actual Guardian throne room where to place the runes to bring the shield emprisoning him and the Avatar there.

11. The ending is obviously the major difference between these two iterations. The aspect about facing the Guardian armies to get to Terfin and preparing your allies for that purpose is still there except that it happens at the climax of the story when you are to face the Guardian (the details of the battle are not spelt out here… but I suspect they would on the missing “Chapter 26” page). The destruction of the Guardian and the Avatar comes when the Avatar tosses’ the Guardian’s amulet into the “Fire of Eternity” (a nod to the Eternal Flames from Ultima IV~VI, perhaps ?), altough it feels somewhat confusing since we don’t really get a sense of what it is.

Observations about the final Mendelsohn/Garriott plot in comparison to previous iterations

1. The final version of the plot obviously cuts the full explanation of the Guardian’s origin by excising the link to the Gem of Immortality and the Shadowlords. We can only theorize about the actual reason for this (altough it gives some credence to the rumors about EA not wanting too mamy ties with previous games), but what is rather interesting about the explanation given in the released game is that the cause of the Guardian’s existence and relationship with the Avatar works almost exactly like it did for the Ultima race and their Avatar of Corruption in the original plot.

2. Following this, the plot of the cancelled Ultima X: Odyssey seemed to follow the Ultimas storyline as well, by basically telling through this final Guardian/Avatar conflict a tale of the same sort of war as the Ultima suffered through. This leaves open the question of whether Ultima X’s designers were aware of this (a few of them DID work on Ultima IX). If so, did they take some inspiration from the Bob White Plot?

3. Considering Hawkind’s story about how merging with his dark half lead him to some of personnal Ascension that allowed him to become the Time Lord, the ending of the the released game — with the Guardian and the Avatar merging to attain Ascension — also feels consistent with the background of the Ultimas.

4. There has been a lot of commentary over the years about how the Avatar summoning Pyros to get into the Abyss was just a cheap way to reuse the FMV with the Titan. I can’t help but notice, however, that the Ed del Castillo variation had basically the exact same thing in the segment where you play Lord British — except he just summons a regular daemon instead of Pyros. So the accusation seems somewhat unfair in retrospect and there is some sense in salvaging the Pyros FMV for this purpose since they had decided to drop the Sending part of the plot.

5. Having Lord British serves as a companion in the Abyss to bring him to Blackthorn (where he would have faced him like it was planned in the del Castillo iteration of the plot) would have been AWESOME! A shame a lack of time made them drop the temporary companions aspect.

Editor’s note: It’s about as awesome having Lord British along for the journey into the Abyss and the battle with the Slasher of Veils in the Bob White Plot!

6. I can’t help to notice that this appears to be the only iteration of Ultima IX where the underwater city of Ambrosia is still alive and kicking instead of being ruined from the start.

7. While the Wyrmguard/fallen companion angle was a tad overdone in the final game, I feel this was a very interesting way to give a role to companions in the story once the party system was removed. I think it could have worked,in the original Bob White Plot to have some companions who did fall victim to the Guardian’s influence like the Rangers did.

8. I find it very interesting that they basically transferred the Slaine story arc to Blackthorn. Like Slaine, he ambushes the Avatar and loses an eye when Raven saves him. Like Slaine, he shows up in Minoc and kill Gypsies so that they can’t help the Avatar. Again, I think this is a rather sound way of reusing ideas when some parts of the plot or characters were dropped. The moment they dropped the Civil War aspect, it was a good move to make Blackthorn a more active villain and reusing this aspect of Slaine’s arc.

<b9. I really can’t stress this enough, but I really must insist that if you analyse closely all the iteration of the Ultima IX, the final Mendelsohn/Garriott feels not so much so much like a revisions of the previous versions and more like a different plotline altogether. The tone chosen for the story is drastically different, but most importantely it puts the Eight Virtues as the forefront and makes them the most important plot point in the game while they appeared to have little of a role to play before. This version also brings a very a new focus on the philosophical thematic of the Avatar getting Britannia ready to lives on without him, and this through a true understanding of the Virtues of their meaning. These are really the most important aspects of this plotline – and they did not appeared in the original story. As a matter of fact, one could also argue that considering how the origins of Guardian had him being the Shadowlords reborn – his plan of corrupting the Virtues and twisting the mind of the Britannian feels even more consistent with his nature, because in truth : what are the Columns in this final iteration if not replicating on a global scale the effects the Shadowlords themselves had on the people? In other words – it feels like the Guardian is continuing what he was already doing back in Ultima V.

So claiming this final iteration of the plot is merely a culmination of butchering and simplifying of the original plot seems rather unfair. While it does have a similar context of a torn Britannia with the Columns and do take elements from the previouses versions – these were really taken to create a new plot altogether. Indeed, I can’t help to point out that while the argument had often been brought that they had merely crafted this plot in order to salvage the original FMVs – the majority of the cutscenes present in the final game were created specifically for this final iteration. Which this by itself should serve as proof that this really was a new storyline to begin with.

And arguably, the fact that Richard Garriott decided to bring this new storyline instead of continuing with the old one is probably one the main reasons of the lack of polish this plot suffered – since it obviously they never had the time to add the necassary polish required.