Ultima 6: Speed Run, Part the Second
Not content with either my previous time or my mistake at the end of my Ultima 6 speed run, I decided to have another go. This time, though, I changed up the order of things a bit, and began with the Shrine of Honesty (reasoning, correctly, that it was best to start that quest while I still had lots of daytime hours left). I managed to trim quite a few minutes off of the total time needed to liberate all eight Shrines of Virtue:
Liberating the countryside...liberating the peasants. Liberating all the people in their thatched roof cottages! Or...wait...
Next, I quickly set about obtaining the balloon plans and constructing the big floaty thing what needs a fan to work properly:
That was a very muddled Marathon reference, by the way.
Pro tip for would-be Ultima 6 speed runners: keeping the party small seems to work better than recruiting lots of cannon fodder.
Anyhow…once I had the balloon, I set about quickly wrapping up everything else I needed to do. I visited all three gargoyle shrines, surrendered to Draxinosum, visited the Temple of Singularity, obtained both lenses and the Vortex Cube (I remembered it this time!). I had even tried to be a bit clever, leaving the moonstones from the Shrines of Virtue just outside the barrier to the Codex Shrine, so that I could quickly load them into the Vortex Cube during the endgame sequence.
Except for one small problem: I forgot one of the moonstones atop its shrine. So, in a panic, I quickly raced through various Shrines of Virtue (using the Orb of the Moons, of course) until I found the moonstone, then returned to passing the game. Truth be told, I probably only lost a minute or so, but I was a bit miffed at having nearly dropped the ball during the endgame again.
Now where did I put...AW CRAP, NOT AGAIN!
The total time for this playthrough was a rather impressive 88 minutes and 55 seconds, much better than my previous time.
Ok in order to get it all done this quickly, Im assuming once you start the game youre immediately using the Orb of the Moons to get around no??
I should give this a try hehehe. Been meaning to replay U6 for like a year now but last time I started I didnt play much past that first gargoyle fight in British’s throne room..
Thanks!
Mono:
Definitely! I use the Orb like crazy, even to cut down on walk times.
There are places in the game that require e.g. a boat to access (Stonegate, Sutek’s…), and I use what I need to for those. But for the most part, it’s Orb, Orb, and more Orb.
That’s impressive WTF. Good job!
I’m somewhat tempted to give this a try. With all my u6o experience, I know the map and item locations like the back of my hand. But the game mechanics are somewhat different. Does high dex increase your run speed?
As far as I know, no. At least, I’ve never observed a speed boost from meditating at the Shrine of Compassion.
Item placements and suchlike you will probably have memorized, unless there is variation between U6O object placement and U6 object placement (I don’t know the former well enough to comment). Memorization is key, though; I’ve got most of the game committed to memory.
If you want to attempt it, by all means do so. We can establish some basic ground rules, and you and all other interested parties can have a go.
Ok, I’m ready, I’m not getting any younger and I have to claim my fame to fastest u6 run evor so.
Hit us with the ground rules. I only have the ultima collection copy of ultima 6. Or I should say I have the cd, the copy on my computer coagulated there by some unknown means. It’s very likely the UC version.
Is there any real difference between versions?
BTW, Galleon was very puritanical about u6o’s item locations and quest events. He wouldn’t even put an extra lamp in Britain’s center for us to stand under at night. The big difference is how stats work with weapons, how it effects that characters, speed of skiffs, etc. Combat was a little more streamlined, you get the orb at the end rather than beginning, need more exp to level, and you HAD TO follow the storyline. Had to get all the damn map pieces, had to talk to valkadesh before drax. Have to talk to nax before the garg lens guy. So doing less will have me a little confused…
I would have never guessed you could just tell the almighty triangle of singularity the mantra without doing the dungeons. Hell, if you didn’t have near perfect karma, the holy triangle tells you you’re beat in u6o. Sorry, can’t beat the game… spent 30 hours leveling? Too bad, can’t get your orb or stats boost, oh and that amulet of submission, hope it’s not too tight ;P.
I’ll put up an article on Monday proposing an initial rule set. We can hash it out in the comments for a couple of days, and on Wednesday the finalized rules will be published.
And then: have at it.
Just remember that MM has been accused of being a troll before. I’m not saying that he is, because I don’t know. Is there some “Galleon” version?
“Galleon” refers to Galleon Dragon, the original creator of Ultima 6 Online. He was a bit of a purist, and tightened some of the game’s rules and requirements with his implementation. Especially as regards karma; Ultima 6 doesn’t really do much with it (except if you cast the Armageddon spell…and even then, it only dings you just enough to make entering the Codex Shrine impossible).
Interesting. Maybe MM has reformed (though I always liked him anyway). 🙂 I will never forget the “ban hammer” threat you gave him. Was the first time I’d heard the term and thought it was awesome.
I may need to check out Ultima 6 Online. Is it rather forgiving with regard to noobs like myself? Hopefully it’s friendlier than the average IRC room, but at least it sounds like you can go solo if you choose.
I can’t speak to U6O’s beginner-friendliness, but I’d at least suggest trying it out. The interface alone is worth seeing, and…I mean…c’mon, it’s the U6 engine, the crown jewel of Ultimas.
According to the Official Book of Ultima, much of the world of U6 was built by Garriott himself. There’s added incentive for ya!
And I wish I could take credit for the “ban hammer” term, but I sadly cannot. And, in fact, I know not who can.
I see there’s an archive with Windows executables and a source download (grabbing both). I hope it lists the dependencies so I may compile it. Do you (or anyone else) know if there’s a pre-compiled Linux version? It doesn’t use the Nuvie engine, does it?
Nuvie? I don’t believe so, no.
And as awesome as Nuvie is, I’d say that the use of it is disallowed for the purposes of this speed run.
Or we need to set up leagues or competition categories.
The source docs are shit and it looks like it may have been written in VC. 🙁 Oh well. I’m trying to get it running in Wine.
As to U6O, I’ve been told it is afflicted with a bad case of spaghetti code. Still runs, though.
Hahaha, spaghetti code. I know all about that unfortunately from personal experience in my youth. I liked to call it “painting myself into a corner”. I remember when my code became so unmanageable that I felt pure dread when considering working on it further…always a bad sign.
I couldn’t get it to run in Wine, so I guess I’m screwed unless I feel like firing it up in my XP Pro VM (which I don’t). Damn.
Nuvie probably should be disallowed, just like the CPU cycle thing in dosbox. It should be a controlled experiment, not a bunch of people trying to cheat using tools or accelerated emulation.
I’d do a speed run but I’d win last place. I just like messing around and exploring in Ultima VI.
http://www.eightvirtues.com/music/Ultima%20VI%20Soundtrack.flac
I set the MT-32 at 50% and my audio input level at around 75%.
Ultima VI had great music.
Also, that’s the proper timing for the trills in Stones as of canonical Ultima VI as witnessed at the 7:30 mark in the song. The Ad-Lib version probably confirms it.
Ultima 6 did have great music, and I do like its version of Stones the best. Even the AdLib versions of the tunes are memorable, though of course they don’t hold a candle to the MT-32 equivalents.