Ultima Forever Now Features Ultima's History
I was informed today that Electronic Arts’ official website for the Ultima series these days, UltimaForever.com, has seen an update in the form of a new page devoted to the history of the series:
Ultima History, with Ultima 6 brought out in front.
The setup of the page is quite elegant. A rotator-style listing of all the main series Ultima titles, from Ultima 1 through to Ultima 9 (and including the two Underworld games), serves as the main navigation element, and clicking on each game box brings up a short description of the selected game’s plot, along with the year of its release. The header rotates with the selected game as well, featuring each game’s map as part of the artwork.
Click on over and give it a look for yourselves, Dragons and Dragonettes! It’s a nice little feature, and a welcome nod to the history of the series!
Update: Dungy, in the comments, notes that the Ultima 4 download which had previously been hosted on the main page of the site has now been replaced with a link to the free download available at Good Old Games.
Looks snazzy. Also of note, Ultima IV is no longer a direct download, but is available still for free via GOG. I also like how the original maps feature prominently in each section’s design.
Also, *sniff* no Martian Dreams and Savage Empire. Those games deserve some love, or at the very least I’d love to hear some kind of confirmation that GOG.com is going to host the World of Ultima games. I LOVE Martian Dreams.
Yeah still no love for Worlds of Ultima, that is rather dissapointing 🙁
Are we supposed to assume Mythic don’t like these spin-offs?
Someone I feel they’re not gonna appear on GOG either…
I just looked through it and noticed something VERY interesting.
When looking closely at the box and map art I saw that they had lifted all of it from the Codex! I did recognise all the digital work I had to do in order to touch up the sometimes poor picture quality and the small details. (some boxes are older versions found in the history of the original codex)
I don’t get it. Shouldn’t EA have access to the originals? That they see us as the best picture source is somewhat revealing.
You’d HOPE that EA had access to the original art, and it’s not impossible that tucked away on some long-forgotten optical media somewhere, that artwork still exists.
BUT…the state of Origin’s backup data is not, and never really has been, good. They may have high-res art somewhere in the Mythic offices, but they probably don’t know where it is in a box full of only-occasionally-labeled backup discs.
They were quite open with us, back in May, as to how important a resource the wiki was to them. That’s something to be proud of, I think!
@Tribun Dragon
Hello, CJ here (WTF Dragon will vouch for me)I work with everyone at BioWare Mythic as the lead artist in the community department and did the lion’s share of the design work for the new pages.
WTF Dragon hits the nail on the head, as is often the case. All of the old Origin materials are here but not fully inventoried, so it’s possible that we have digital copies of the classic maps and just haven’t found them, but just as likely is that for most of the maps there IS NO digital version.
Remember just how long ago these games were made, after all. The early maps were done “the old fashioned way,” as hand-drawn separations on drafting board and acetate. I’ve held a few of these original mechanicals in my own grubby little hands – and let me tell you, it’s a very cool feeling to actually physically touch something that has such a storied place in gaming history. The point is that these mechanicals would have been directly photographed and composited by the printer, and were likely never scanned in the way that we’re used to nowadays.
EA has physical copies of all the game boxes in their archives, of course, but the process of getting someone to pull them and take high-quality scans of the original maps would have been pretty expensive in terms of man-hours. It felt especially unnecessary since The Codex of Editable Wisdom had done all of that work already 🙂
So a big THANK YOU Tribun and anyone else that had a hand in scanning the maps, fixing them up, and making them available! They look great and really helped the pages come together.
Ok, that’s pretty cool. The layout is nice (I like the Tapestry of Ages image, even if I still get >.< at the canonical white/blond/male Avatar *sigh*) and it's spiffy they're referencing the wiki. Just so long as they take everything there, as on all wikis, with a grain of salt. XD Remember when someone at EA thought an Ultima: Legacy timeline was true to the game and used a world name from it for a UO expansion? Heh heh…good times. 🙂
@CJ – WTF Dragon said you would be open to nitpicks of the synopses of the games on that site of yours. Would it be appropriate to post them here?
I certainly won’t be offended or anything, but WTF Dragon should be the one to decide if here is the right place, obviously.
Good call, you’re quite right. I’ll wait on his word. 🙂
Oh, you need not wait on my permission. If CJ is willing to hear comments in this space, then everyone should feel free to chime in with any observations they might want to make.
Be nice about it, obviously, but…you know…go ahead.
And yes, I can vouch for CJ. Welcome to the site, by the way!
Hi, CJ!
Good work so far. There’s a slight problem with the description of Ultima VI – the gargoyles aren’t from the Underworld, they’re from the other side of the world. As written in our wiki:
“There is a common and widespread misconception that the Realm of the Gargoyles and the Underworld are one and the same, likely originating from the line in the Ultima VI Compendium which states that the gargoyles had only been seen in the Underworld prior to their appearance in Britannia. However, the Compendium is written from the perspective of Lord British at a time when no human was aware of the existence of the Realm of the Gargoyles. Every subsequent manual contains the true origin of the gargoyles.”
The “Realm of the Gargoyles” is just what we call it, as its real name was never given, but it is not the Underworld, it is literally the other side of the (then flat) planet.
Oh, uh, apparently we took the Realm of the Gargoyles from the U6 Cluebook, so that IS what it is called.
Well to be fair, Ultima IX did state as a fact (definitly in the Journal but perhaps in the game as well I’m not sure) that Gargoyles comes from the Underworld >:O
Personally I’m for the Other Side of the World bit as well and I think it’d be better if UF.com referenced it as such (I always like imagining Britannia as a Hollow Sphere like Burroughs’s Pellucidar with the Gargoyle Worlds being the other side and the center of the world being their suns), however I still believe there is no clear call from the games themselves and it’s the kind of thing that has been in flux as far as Origin as concerned.
As far as nitpicks goes, my only nitpick is the lack of any sections, box, map, mentions, summary of the Worlds of Ultima games 😛
WoUs deserve more love! Wouldn’t they look great between Ultima VI and Ultima Underworld ? Of course they would! They should be put there !
More WoU please!
Oh and geez, isn’t the Realm of the Gargoyles in UO Stygian Abyss work as a trully separate worlds and not the Underworld ? Any hint that these this be the other side of the world!
Well, some things in U6 are irrefutable – like you can clearly see Trammel and Felucca in the night sky in the introduction, which takes place in the Gargoyle city.
And yeah, even UO has Termur as a seperate realm.
Hey CJ! Welcome to the discussion boards here. Glad the Codex of Ultima Wisdom continues to be of help to you guys. It’s a true labor of love on our part. Would you benefit from scans of the sidepanels of the box art? I’m sure some people here could help out with that.
Ok, minor spelling nitpicks first:
U4 – “peace spread across the land.” should be “spreads”
U5 – “who joins them and journey into the Underworld” I think you want a comma after “them”, or else it should be “journeys”.
U5 – “he disappears entirely” (last sentence) needs a full stop.
UW2 – “other worlds that have previous been conquered by the Guardian” should be “previously”.
U7FOV – “the Avatar claims and then banishes the Dark Core of Exodus to the Void.” I think you mean “claims it”, meaning the Black Sword from earlier in the sentence.
U7SI – “search for the fugitive Batlin” Full stop.
Lore Nitpicks
–U5–
1. “newly crowned King Blackthorn”. Blackthorn, while he seized Lord British’s Crown, never made himself king. It’d be better to say “newly appointed Regent Blackthorn”, because that’s what LB made him when he left to explore the Underworld.
2. “they face the Shadowlords and destroy them.” Say rather “banish them”. It’s a point of lore that the essence of the Shadowlords can never truly be destroyed, highlighted especially in Worlds of Ultima: Martian Dreams where they are encountered again in the Dream World.
3. “Then, having collected Lord British’s crown, scepter and amulet, they survive the Dungeon Doom and set Lord British free.” Technically correct so it’s not *wrong*, but they need one final item (the Sandalwood Box) to set LB free. 😉 Otherwise they’re trapped in the dungeon forever.
4. “Blackthorn is deposed and exiled from Britannia. Soon after, he disappears entirely” Again technically correct…although he vanishes from Britannia *immediately* after he chooses exile, since LB opens a red moongate for him. You probably don’t need the last sentence at all.
–U6–
1. “a race that had long resided in the Underworld” With the dispute over the use of the word Underworld (the Gargoyles believe that *Humans* are the ones who live in the Underworld if you read their texts), maybe it’s better to say “a race that had long been believed to reside in the Underworld”.
2. “He recognizes similarities between gargoyle philosophy and the Britannian Virtues.” Not exactly. They’re quite different philosophies, they’re just not in opposition. Say rather that he recognised the gargoyles were seeking justice for a great wrong that was literally tearing their world apart.
–UW1–
1. “the Avatar is able to defeat the daemon,” Not exactly. The Avatar never even fights the Slasher of Veils. At the most, he traps it and prevents it from being unleashed on Britannia.
–U7–
1. “On the Isle of the Avatar, he confronts and defeats the Fellowship’s followers.” Ok, this one is not wrong, but I *would* like to see “followers” changed to “leaders”. The synopsis for this game makes it sound like all members of the Fellowship are in on the plan to summon the Guardian, but they’re not. Many of them are just wanting to belong, some do good works, and most are not evil.
–UW2–
1.”Lord British has declared a time of celebration to mark the reconstruction following the moongate plot.” Moongate plot is a little confusing. 🙂 The celebration is just supposed to herald the anniversary of the destruction of the Black Gate, and by extension the dismantling of the Fellowship.
2. “other worlds that have previous been conquered by the Guardian” I’m unsure about this one. It’s probably fine as it is, but IIRC not all the worlds you go to have been conquered by the Guardian. They are all *influenced* by him or touched by him, but not neccessarily under his big red thumb, any more than Britannia is (remember that Britannia is also a world connected by the jewel). The similarity between all these worlds is stated to be that the Guardian is drawing power from them — and that includes Britannia.
–U7:SI–
1. “The forces of Chaos – having upset the balance of the cosmos – must be subdued by the Avatar.” This is a tricky one. Neither the forces of Chaos nor the Banes of Chaos are actually responsible for upsetting the balance of the cosmos. Imbalance happened ages ago when the Great Earth Serpent was ‘kidnapped’ in the days of Exodus, leading to war between Order and Chaos. Order won, Chaos was ripped from the void, separated into the Banes and imprisoned at the Temples of Order. It’s true that the Banes must be subdued by the Avatar, but you’re better off saying “The Banes of Chaos, having made the imbalance of the land even worse, must be subdued by the Avatar.”
2. “One of the possessed Companions – the brave Dupre – sacrifices himself” Dupre does sacrifice himself, but not while he’s possessed. The Avatar cleanses him of the Bane’s influence well before that happens. Is it possible to *not* have this spoiler displayed though? It’s a rather high point of the game…
–U8–
1. “The Titans are minions of the Guardian” They’re creations of the Guardian, but I wouldn’t call them minions. If they serve the Guardian at all, it’s unwittingly.
2. “and rule Pagan with oppressive force.” Not *really*. Hydros is trapped, Lithos doesn’t seem that bad, Pyros is kept in check by the sorcerors, and Stratos is actually quite nice! 😉 The Titans only start rending Pagan apart when the Avatar starts setting the dangerous ones (namely Hydros and Pyros) free. Pagan is an oppressive place, no doubt about it, but that’s more a result of the humans in charge than the Titans.
3. “the Avatar must master the four forms of Elemental Magic and use them against the Titans.” The first part is good, but the second half of this is technically incorrect. The Avatar has to master the four forms of elemental magic to master the Titans themselves, combine their powers and become the Titan of Ether.
Ok, I’m done. 🙂 If I’ve said anything wrong I’m sure other Dragons can debate them 🙂
Ugh, first post got deleted as my cat jumped on the keyboard… lets see if I can sum this up quickly. This is just my point of view. Let me know if I’m mistaken.
What is the definition of the underworld precisely?
1. The Codex is originally found in the Abyss which is a part of the underworld or is the underworld.
2. The avatar needed to kill a lot of “daemons” on his way to get the Codex in u4. In u6 we find out gargs are commonly mistaken for daemons.
3. There are many areas in gargland where you can see stars, which signify a found, which signify this could be the abyss or underworld.
4. It’s stated that Naxitalor is the caretaker of the Codex. And the codex is found in the shrine of singularity. The shrine of singularity was very much so in gargland.
5. Why would they hide the book somewhere where they don’t live? It would seem like not only a huge pain but rather silly to take the book of infinite knowledge and wisdom and put it someplace far away and not readily available.
6. Gargland is one of the most dangerous places in u6. And as we can tell from previous games, the abyss is the most dangerous place in the world.
7. How do you know that is Trammel and Feluca in the intro to u6? It could be any moon.
8. If gargland is the other side of a flat planet, why isn’t there a different time zone down there? Night should be day and day should be night on the other side of the planet.
And finally, as we all know, Ultima doesn’t have perfect cannon. When these games were made the developers had to not only deal with cannon, they had to deal with technical limitations. But if the goal is to create a perfect timeline. I see no problem with saying gargland=underworld.
IMO saying gargland or Britannia is the underworld is simply a misnomer. Each party calls the other land the underworld because they have to go under their *own* world (via the dungeons) to get there.
As Micro said, there were also technical limitations and the games jumped from story to story without a lot of foresight for future games. Need we argue about what shape Britannia is again? Flat? Round? Toroid? 😉
I don’t think the Shadowlords in Martian Dreams are meant to be the real actual Shadowlords, more a part of the Avatar’s subcouncious because basically, it’s just a dream there.
(I could bring the whole “the Guardian is the Shadowlords” bit too, but since it’s only in the clue book, the canonicity is obviously in question).
Well one could argue that banishing the deamons to the void, is defeating him. I mean defeat does not necessarilly equals the death of the opponent 😛
Gotta disagree sorta about this. You can probably argue the Titans are not necesarilly serving the Guardian anymore at this point in time, but I would argue they definitly were his minions when they helped him destroy Pagan when he entered. I’d say more likely he left them the remains of Pagan to rule as a “reward”, even if most of them ended up subverted by humans in some ways.
@Micro Magic – There’s just a lot of things that doesn’t make sense.
For the Codex for instance, the way the Temple of Singularity appears, you’re basically supposed to consider this is where the Avatar ended up at the end of Ultima IV and took the Codex (since by U6+’s canon he did), since you can see the empty altar where the Codex rested. But yeah it doesn’t makse sense – why would the chamber of the Abyss lead into the Temple? And of course it’s contradictory to UW1 which is supposed to be after U6 where the Slasher of Veils is in the chamber of the Codex. One could argue the Codex had been stolen and placed into the Abyss, but that would remove the whole point of Ultima VI in the first place, since the Gargoyles would have no reason to be pissed at the Avatar in this case.
Regarding the Underworld issue:
Personally the way I see it is that when Garriott and the developpers of U6 decided to go with the crazy idea of a flat world with the Gargoyles on the other side, they basically decided that this other side was the Underworld.
I know there are fans who consider this is a misconception and that the separation of the Underworld adn the Real of Gargoyles is an undeniable fact… but I disagree, and the fact there are still disagreements about this shows things are not as clear cut. I always felt actually that the fact the Gargoyle considered that the surface of Britannia is the “Underworld” is very revealing in this, it always striked me that the basic idea in U6 is that well the world is flat, and since the other side is accessible from going underground (indeed you access the Gargoyle Land just like you accessed the Underworld), everybody thinks the other side is the “Underworld”. You can argue that it’s just the characters ingame that are mistaken, but I think that’s just an easy and reasurring way of trying to make everything work in a single canon.
As I said above even Ultima IX goes to the point of considering the Gargoyles came from the Underworld, and while U9 definitly has its lore issues, it shouldn’t be completly discarded as well.
What I mean basically is that there is no clear cut factual certainty to make the call one way or another, not matter as much as we want one theory to be true – and we’ll never know for sure unless we actually get Richard Garriott or some of Ultima VI’s other developpers view on this thing.
Now there are multiple ways to make this work in a single canon: this can be the actual “other side” of Britannai in a hollow sphere kind of approach, this can be the Underworld which collapsed and thus destroyed the Gargoyles, this can be a separate world magically accessible somehow… but the truth is that the series never really did make a call (indeed going from round world to flat to round again makes things hard to begin with), because the developpers at this time never really cared about having a single perfect canon and just focused on moving forward.
@Serg – I won’t dispute the rest because I know I’m basically arguing semantics on those but as to this part:
“Gotta disagree sorta about this. You can probably argue the Titans are not necesarilly serving the Guardian anymore at this point in time, but I would argue they definitly were his minions when they helped him destroy Pagan when he entered. I’d say more likely he left them the remains of Pagan to rule as a “reward”, even if most of them ended up subverted by humans in some ways.”
I’ll have to disagree right back. XD Yes, they helped to destroy Pagan, but that whole event was engineered by the Guardian. He urged the people to worship the elements to bring the Titans into being, masqueraded as the Destroyer, and the people pleaded with the Titans to fight him. I don’t think the Titans know the Destroyer was the Guardian any more than the Pagans did, and more importantly the Titans never show any opinion at all for the Guardian ingame, which means whether or not they are his servants is irrelevant.
I still don’t understand why the Realm of the Gargoyles-Underworld issue is even debatable when we have this quote from The Book of Prophecies in U6:
“One day the false prophet will come and desecrate our most holy shrine. And the false prophet will steal our most holy artifact, the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom. This shall be the first sign of the end. Then, it is written, the false prophet shall descend deep into the bowels of the earth. And the false prophet will cause the underworld to collapse. This will cause great earthquakes to tear our world asunder, and there will be a time of plague and famine.”
The above passage clearly describes the Underworld and the Realm of the Gargoyles as two distinct locations.
But do you really think the Titans fought with the Destroyer? I mean come on, that doesn’t make sense. Yes that’s what the history books of Pagan claims, but the history of Pagan if an exemple of manipulation. I mean it makes *no* sense for the Guardian to have the Pagan “create” Titans that would fight *him*, that’d be a silly risk to take. IMO the Titans merely pretended to fight the “Destructor” while they helped him all along and then pretended to have destroyed it – which we (and they) know they didn’t.
(I’ve actually always wondered if the Titans could possibly have bean even more of a manipulation, like for instance being humans servnats of the Guardian to begin with, like an inner circle of followers on Pagan who manipulated things and were rewarded as being Titans, just like the Avatar was a human and became Titan of Ether).
It’s a shame the game doesn’t went farther into explaining the Titans and their relationship with the Guardian but I feel describing them as “minions” isn’t that far off.
Sergorn:
Unless the fight itself was a sham, a bit of a show put on by the Guardian to be the means by which the Guardian at once subjugates Pagan and cements his hold on it by irrevocably installing the Titans as the de facto lords of that world.
Yeah that’s basically my point. I’ve always seen the big final battle between the Desctrutor and the Titans as a an obvious sham – the Titans never thought the Destructor/Guardian, they helped him destroy the world and then pretented they destroyed him to assure the obedience of the pagan survivros
Personally I think the Guardian threw the fight and let the Titans win once enough of the world was demolished (I don’t think the Titans could have ever beaten him, that was simply a ploy to push the Pagans to worship the elements instead of the Zealan gods because their lives ostensibly depended upon it).
Suggesting the Titans were in on the sham battle sounds…way too subtle, at least for the Titans. The Guardian didn’t need to bring them to secret meetings, he just needed to provoke them to being destructive for as long as he needed.
But this is all conjecture on my part (or all our parts).
Indeed all we can dois speculate, the game leaves too much about the history of Pagan and the exact nature of the Titans in doubt to have a definite answere about anythin.
Oh well…
Ha, while we’re speculating, I still want to know whether Pagan is really the Lands of the Dark Unknown…. Every time I see U1/U8’s map, I see it… 😉
Back on topic, then:
-U4-
1. ‘The Era of Darkness comes to an end’ – ‘Age of Darkness’ is more appropriate, I think. ‘Age’ refers to the U1, U2 & U3 as a trilogy, whereas ‘Era’ just means one game in the series, unless that’s the intent.
… someone correct me if they think this is wrong 🙂
2. Might be worth mentioning the three principles, considering the direct importance they play up on the plot of U5 (not to mention U4). This is key because…
-U5-
1. The summary ‘the antithesis of goodness and virtue’ isn’t accurate. Antithesis of ‘principle and virtue’ is closer, due to the nature of the Shadowlords.
-U6-
1. Not to detract from the philosophical angle, but there *could* be more emphasis on the Human/Gargoyle war – e.g. it’s vicious/bloody, portrayed as a losing battle for control of the Shrines, the Avatar is the realm’s last hope etc.
-UW1-
1. Cabirus’ failed utopia – could be mentioned directly, as it forms the bedrock of the story.
… Struggling to find more stuff worth noting without getting ridiculously subjective.
Well, in fairness, he only promised he wouldn’t be offended.
Ah well. 🙂