Forgotten World: Activity Editor and New Songs
Keeping up the heady pace of news that they’ve been maintaining over the last month or so, the Forgotten World team have posted another impressive update to their website, announcing the release of an activity editor and a pair of new songs for the Ultima 9 soundtrack!
This week, I present to you not just one…
or two…
or even five…
but seven awesome screenshots. All of them of the now functionally complete Activity Editor.Though it will be some time before it is released, it is no less complete. All that remains now are a few minor features, some clarifications on a few parameter descriptors, and some polish to clean up minor bugs. As of right now, the editor can edit any activity sequence, add new sequences, and essentially establish full schedules for any unique NPC with limited game map alteration.
In addition, I would like to officially welcome two new composers to the Forgotten World team: Michal Ratkowski and Arthur Varkvasov. Both of whom are professional composers and their websites can be found on our team page. With the addition of these members to the team, we have added a new content page that will house the music that we plan to add to the World of Ultima IX. Right now there are two songs available:
Ruins of the Hold by Michal Ratkowski
Stones Town Theme by Arthur VarkvasovWhile the location for the first song is obvious, we have not yet determined a fitting place for the second, so we are posing a new poll question to answer just that.
You can check out all the new screenshots at the Forgotten World media page; here’s a sample screenshot of the Activity Editor looking at how Lord British is to meet his untimely demise:
Freshly baked, my liege!
There’s also a new poll at the project website inquiring about a proper location at which to use the Stones theme listed above. Because Iceblade is a masterful tease, the first entry in the poll is…Cove?!?!?
That’s right, Dragons and Dragonettes; the Forgotten World team have designs on implementing Cove in Ultima 9. Because they can’t help being awesome like that.
Also, I’ve added the two songs as downloads to the Forgotten World project entry. Just so you know.
Yeah, we’ve long had plans to create a Cove near the Shrine of Compassion. A number of NPCs could be used for the town:
Iolo and Gwenno
Nico (Nicodemus)
Altomar
Sarah
Hans
Orson
Probably Jaana as well
and of course a few of the unused/wasted generic NPCs that have dialog
Then when new NPCs are possible, we get crazy. 😉
I dig both songs, though Ruins of the Hold needs to have the cymbal crescendos taken down a notch, as they’re a bit loud compared to the rest of the song. Other than a full orchestra hit, cymbal crashes and crescendos are the loudest things an orchestra can produce (and very high frequency). I remember being at a symphony once and flinching in my seat every time they’d do a cymbal crash…ugh. If they’re accompanied by horn sections, timpani and all that they’re fine when they’re loud, but Hold is a very delicate song.
Also, the first two phrases of several the canonical versions of Stones have a progressively slower trill in the melody near the end. I think the tempo of the song slows down at the end of each phrase and picks back up immediately at the first beat of the next phrase.
Hold doesn’t suffer this problem as it really reworks the original melody and rhythm into something new, but Stones Town Theme breaks somewhat jarringly with this convention. The tambourines are a -bit- too loud/crisp, but otherwise it’s a great song. Love the high french horns supporting the melody in the fifth phrase – very dramatic and pretty.
Keep up the good work!
I just keep becoming more and more impressed by this project.
Okay, is it just me or are both the FW and Titans of Ether sites down?
No idea, Iceblade. It’s not impossible…and let’s face it: most of us don’t self-host, nor do we pay the big bucks for the “five 9s” hosting.
Periodic outages are only natural; it’s when they become permanent outages that it’s bad.
Made an improvement to the editor to split up NPCs by category:
Main Characters, Britain NPCs, Animals, Monsters, etc.
Really sad state looking at it all. Only 197 unique NPCs (excluding duplications for companions for the same character like Raven or a Companion) in the whole game including named hostiles like the bandits in Moonglow and the Liche in Covetous as well as named Ghosts like those at the Britain Docks.
Rather interesting as well is that there are 35 unused (ie dialog less and never used on any of the maps) NPCs in the game. Most of these I would wager are from the E3 Demo and/or game testing. Curiously, some have incorrect models. I did actually find three NPCs that have dialog (generic one-liners), but weren’t placed on the map (two generic Yew citizens and one generic Moonglow citizen).
Looks like 44 monsters types as well as 17 animal types.