New Gallery: Ultima 8: The Lost Vale (Plot Documents)
No, it’s not the actual installable, playable expansion. As far as anyone knows, that still doesn’t exist…not anymore.
But, it’s the next best thing! Courtesy of former Origin programmer Bill Randolph, and thanks to the tireless efforts of Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum, Ultima Aiera is pleased to present three separate revisions of the plot document to Ultima 8: The Lost Vale, plus several more supporting documents, which have been broken out into over 30 images.
Have a read, Dragons and Dragonettes, and behold what would have been!
As usual, there is a lot of great content to be found, and more than a few fascinating historical tidbits that can be teased out of things. The pitch document, for example, contains a short line confirming the high sales of Ultima 8, and argues that this is good evidence that the expansion would do well. Of course, we all know that line of reasoning ultimately didn’t pan out…but it’s neat to see some semi-official confirmation that Ultima 8 did indeed sell very well.
The plot synopsis documents — and the walkthrough document which is also included in the set — detail the plot of the expansion, as one might as expect. Many of the speculations made by Ultima fans over the years are confirmed, and a certain cheekiness and humour permeates much of the plot as it is described.
For example: To convince the people that he isn’t a Pagan, the Avatar would have had to undergo the “Test of Rutabaga”, obtaining a delectable fruit from a particularly hazardous plant. He evidently would have failed this test resulting in his being poisoned with a slow-acting toxin that only the Zealan gods could cure. Of course, the Zealan gods are no longer speaking with the local priestess, and the Avatar must (of course) attempt to find them.
To do this, he must find both halfs of the Shield of the Ancients (referred to as the Magic Frisbee in some documents), scale the Cliffs of Insanity (yes!), find the abandoned Cloud World (where the gods dwelt), and discover that the gods are imprisoned in the Shrine of Wheaties (yes…). The Shield of the Ancients is repaired at the Sacred Smallish Unusual-Colored Rock (yes…), which the Avatar can use to break the structures in which the Zealan gods are contained.
Anyhow: as usual, Dragons and Dragonettes, enjoy! Have a look at the documents; download and pore over them. Ferret out every little detail, and take a good, long look into the design process of the Ultima 8 expansion that never was. Ultima Aiera is deeply indebted to Joe Garrity, Bill Randolph, and everyone who worked at Origin Systems for this glimpse into history.
but it’s neat to see some semi-official confirmation that Ultima 8 did indeed sell very well.
And also confirmation that Lord British has no idea what he’s talking about in interviews?
And…I hope they would have changed those names in the actual game.
BTW, don’t forget to post about this on the UDFC.
It’s posts like these that blow me away. Thank you (and to everyone involved) for making these available!
I wish someone would release some sort of official sales figures. From what I gather from here
http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/Ultima_VIII:_Pagan
It sold better than the any other Ultima’s but didn’t sell as much as projected.
It’s no wonder Ultima 8 sold better than all the other Ultima’s. From 1990-1995 pc sales had more than doubled. On top of that with the advent of windows 3 IBM pc’s were steadily gaining speed in market share through the early 90’s.
Anyway, it’d be interesting to really KNOW how many physical copies of these games had been sold and printed. Surely that information has to be somewhere.
And another great article WTF! Very interesting stuff!
Micro, that’s the old wiki. The new one is at codex.ultimaaiera.com
Bag of endless reagents! That would have been helpful…
Fantastic work everyone involved in getting these documents to the light of day. This post deserves an article on the Codex for sure too. And that’s http://codex.ultimaaiera.com
Man, I hate Wikia!
Can’t that Wikia wiki be taken down?? It’s costing the new wiki lots of hits from Google…
I know, but there is nothing that can be done. Wikia refuses to take it down. Any attempts to delete pages get reverted by Wikia staff. Any attempt to create links to the new wiki get taken down by Wikia staff. Sometimes even messages where I tell new contributors to come to our new site mysteriously disappear. To summarize… Wikia are jerks.
I remember a key point of Ultima was the lack of a mention of God or gods. Shows how far the series went away from the original intent apparently.
It is a bit of a shift, although also something of a one-off.
Granted, Garriott was further-removed from Ultima 8 than from other entries in the series, and that could have had something to do with it. On the other hand, he didn’t squash the idea, and he certainly would have had power to do so. We can at least infer that he didn’t disagree with the vision, assuming that the idea didn’t come from him in some way.
And in a certain bizarre way, it almost fits; Pagan is supposed to be as alien a world as can be, just as the idea of deities is otherwise alien to Ultima lore.
It does make sense in a way I suppose. By Ultima VII the series was going a bit pear shaped (environmental destruction, drug use, religious cults, etc.). Being different for change’s sake, being bored with the evolution of the series so far, searching for a message to tell, who knows what drove it?
I remember Garriott always talking about the idea behind the story in the games after Ultima III. There was always some grand if vague idea behind the general thrust of the plot. In brainstorming sequels it’s common to want to shake things up.
Ultima IV: There is no Hitler; find fulfillment though self-improvement.
Ultima V: Oppose the state when it enforces ethics/morality.
Ultima VI: Seek mutual satisfaction through the sharing of resources when two peoples’ misunderstanding of each other results in violence (Israeli-Palestinian conflict?)
Ultima VII: Fringe/cult religions threaten the common-sense and political will of the people, wrapped in a murder mystery.
Ultima VIII: Some crazy shit.
Ultima IX: More crazy shit.
I know, it’s just my opinion. It’s deeper than that. I think the canon should be cut off like the spine of a silver snake, and the series should start anew but with the same spirit as the middle of the series. Fork it, as they say in the open source community. Ultima to me is like bread or water. There’re no politics associated with it; it’s a basic necessity. Making the stories too crazy just pollutes the idea. Keep it simple. The gameplay should speak for itself.
Regarding Gods in Ultima, I would argue that the Great Serpents in Serpent Isle pretty much fit the definition of Gods as well, so I wouldn’t say Ultima VIII started the trend.
Ultima VII Part II it was, then. Gods or Monsters…
Another point of note: Ultima VIII and IX also did have a general (and IMO sensible) idea/them behind their respective plot.
Ultima VIII was basically: “Can you do anything in the name of good ?”. The concept being that for the greater good of saving Britannia, the Avatar does “evil” acts on Pagan. The original U9 seemed to follow that line of thought with a “Can you turn into a godlike entity without becoming and evil Guardian too?” or some such.
The final Ultima IX was basically: “Learn to live and act by yourself rather than waiting for a big magical hero to come save you every time.”
The issue really, is that neither Ultima VIII nor Ultima IX really pressed or developped their “grand theme” the way they should have, but it was still there.
In any case I read the Lost Vale docs – it was rather interesting though I wish there were moe gameplay details. Some thoughts:
I find that interesting that it had Lord British setting the Avatar on a quest. An interesting tie for a game which had so little to the main series all things considered.
Another proof about the sales yay! One thing about TLC cancellation : I can’t help wondering if the poor reception amongst fans wasn’t a part of it in addition to the whole “addons not selling enough” aspect Joe mentionned a while back. I mean add-ons for game is basically the stuff that mostly big fans will actually buy – so perhaps EA felt that considering how much fans disliked U8 in addition to the fact taht addons weren’t selling that well to begin with, Lost Vale would not sale. (In all fairness, I’m not sure a lot of fans would actually HAVE bought TLC… back then I remember people being basically “Meh, who cares?” by the propsect of more U8)
I like the idea of the previous guy who wanted to be titan of Ether though it seemed to have been dropped in later draft.
I like the note about adding a small Moriens ruins, I wonder if the patch just recycled it ?
There is something very “rough” in the way the docs are written really (“The Avatar must solve some damn puzzle”) which is really funny. I guess that didn’t come only with the Del Castillo U9 doc 😛
Odd thing: the first doc seems to have less silly names.
The Zealan shaman speaks like Yoada bwahaha. That would have been insane.
Still hoping the full addons comes out someday, some way, somehow…
Another excellent find, and I have my fingers crossed for more U8 design documents in the near future. I’d love it if we could finally set the record straight about what exactly was cut from the game.
Actual U8 design docs would be awesome. It’d be great to know for sure all the things that were cut/changed from the plot.
Likewise I’m still hoping the SI dev doc will come to light, we’ve already had the Moonshade ones, but it’s be awesome to see how the other areas were supposed to react to the Banes.
This is a great day. Many thanks to Joe Garrity, Bill Randolph and Withstand the Fury.
I’ve read the Ultima VIII manual more than 10 times. I’m sure I’m going to find some time to read these documents as well.
Any thoughts for a new remake? Let’s create worlds again?
I’d like SI design documents
oh and that is not meant to belittle these!!! 🙂
Placed to present? Or pleased?
Heh…DYAC!
Thanks for spotting that.
I keep praying Joe Garrity of the Origin Museum finds the Gold Master of this, and possibly set’s in forward motion, this being actually available on GOG. I’d certainly pay to play this, even with bugs.
That would be awesome, though even if the full TLV comes to light, I somehow doubt GOG will move forward with it since they want to have the “latest version” and it’s likely TLV would not work with vanilla U8.
Not to mention the whole mess with the Wing Commander addons still not available on GOG. I sure hope this won’t be an issue when/if they release Ultima VII.
Not to mention the whole mess with the Wing Commander addons still not available on GOG. I sure hope this won’t be an issue when/if they release Ultima VII.
Hah! If that happened, GoG would become one of the few places in the world where you can purchase Ultima 7 without FoV.
I was actually a bit disappointed by these. It’s great to see them, but in the end it felt a bit meh.
I think the revealed documents for the other games were a lot more interesting. UVII:BG showed how plot elements could be merged. SI are worth it for the alternate plot points, the UVI related material are a good example of how a project is taken to a sucessful conclusion, and UIX documenst show how much was cut during the development of the game, and yet the basic plot could remain the same.
These ones don’t seem to particularly add anything, and TLV seems to come behing FOV and SS as far as add-ons go.
Maybe it was the last quiet pop before the final gallery of fireworks.
I’m just glad I can play the DOS Ultimas with MT-32 sans corporate interference.
What would be a new triad of principles based on “Just do it”? Action, Preparedness, and Investment?
Well TLV was a short addon, put together in a very short time as well as far as we can tell, so there obviously can’t be that much of informations compared to full games dev docs