The Ultima 9 Subdomain Is Live…With The Soundtrack!
To celebrate the release of Ultima 9 on GOG.com, the Ultima Codex has brought its Ultima 9 subdomain online! Click on over to find out all about the various patches, updates, and remakes of the game that Ultima fans have created and (in some cases) are still working on.
Now, here’s a little tidbit of information: I was actually working on an Ultima 9 package for GOG as well, and would have handed it over to them with a large array of bonus material upon release of Forgotten World’s upcoming 1.19H patch for the game. Earmarked for inclusion in that package was an extended soundtrack package, comprising the twenty-one tracks released on the soundtrack CD bundled with the deluxe Dragon Edition of Ultima 9, as well as an additional thirty tracks pulled out of the game itself.
GOG obviously went live with a different Ultima 9 package, which is cool; it’s a great thing that the game is available again. Their package, however, does not include the very excellent soundtrack that George Oldziey composed for the game. As such, I have made it available on its own page at the Ultima 9 subdomain. You can listen to it online there, or download it (in two parts) for later.
Pity they didn’t wait. The extra patches and Beautiful Britannia really do add a lot to the game.
Wow, the MP3 versions sound much richer than the extracted wave versions.
Yeah, I too was rather annoyed by the sudden release of the game with no warning.
Well they are the same versions though. I created the MP3s (like… a decade ago) by simply playing the extracted .wav and have them loop for 2+ minutes to create a concert suite kind of version and then converted it to .MP3.
That sounds good, though not as good as the tracks from the CD obviously, there’s only so much you can do from a 96kps audio track to begin with, but I don’t think we’ll get better unless George Oldziey decides to realease his original tracks at one point.
WtF, would it be ethical to host the economy and dialogue patches? It took awhile to find them, but I don’t know how easy Hacki or Grandor are to get hold of any longer.
If you’re asking me to host them, I already do: http://ultima9.ultimacodex.com/the-monster-economy-and-dialogue-patches/
And if you’re asking me if you can host them some where: have at!
…though it occurs to me now that I don’t host a standalone download of the dialogue patch itself. I should fix that.
Hmmn…I see now that it was only made available attached to the Monster & Economy patches. So…yeah, just hit up the above-linked article.
Sweet, I went looking before you did the update and couldn’t find anything. It’s appropriate to have all that stuff front-center again with the release.
Reminds me of one of the really strong points of U9: The music.
Btw, there was one Ultima Online game (maybe it was Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge? I’m not completely sure) that shipped with MP3 versions of some of the pieces (I’m relatively sure the Walking theme was in there). I don’t remember whether it was exactly the same music or not, but it may be that those were higher-quality versions.
Yeah I think it came with Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge (though Deckard would know more) – the 3D Client from this point on had MP3 music instead of the classic MIDI music. And the MP3 musics were for the most part tracks from Ultima IX. In addition to this they also put some of the music that was composed from Ultima Online 2.
I didn’t like this much to be fair, Ultima IX’s music is great, but it kinda kill the uniqueness of UO’s music which had a lot of new and unique tracks.
I will dig out my LBR CDs and my Third Dawn beta CD and see, but I think that was the one.
Definitely the best music in the series IMO.
You could always try asking. I mean, it worked when I asked Lee MacLeod if he could scan all of the original Ultima cover art paintings.
One thing that has always bothered me is why most of the Stones in-game versions are cut off the last part.