Forgotten World: New Commentary on Stonegate and Magic
Iceblade has posted another news update to the Forgotten World website, in which he announces that the third part of his commentary on Ultima 9 has been published. This segment of the ongoing feature focuses on the Stonegate sequence of the game at first, and then goes into great depth picking apart the magic system in the game and the utility (and functionality!) of its various spells. As usual, his attention to detail is great, and he very thoroughly dissects magic in Ultima 9 in a way that’s actually quite enjoyable to read.
And as if that weren’t enough, he also found…something:
In other news, I have been diving into our editor, and the first thing I did was create a fairly complete list of “bookmarks,” which are starting coordinates and orientations for the editor’s camera. I decided to keep it to just the town locations and maps used during the game. This is really an excellent time-saving feature since it can still take a minute or two to get a location of interest starting from the corner of the main map. Anyway, when I was examining the Covetous level 4 map for a good starting location for the camera, I found an area I hadn’t noticed before. This area includes several rooms with beds, a dinner table, and a lot of chests and gold. Unfortunately, this unfinished area can only accessed with the fly cheat during the game. For those interested, after transitioning from the lift map to the fourth level map, turn 180 degrees and activate the fly cheat. Fly straight and you will encounter this area. I have posted an from our editor in our editor gallery (second gallery on this page). For some reason, the lava textures aren’t loading or the map actually used the default texture for areas the player shouldn’t see anyway. Oh well.
You can see a glimpse of the newfound secret room above; click through the link in the quote to find the full-resolution image. Here’s hoping that Iceblade and there rest of the Forgotten World team figure out a way to give us access to the area in an upcoming patch!
Well, I had not thought about expanding dungeons for the vanilla game patching…. might make a good poll question for next month.
This actually isn’t the only inaccessible area. On one of the floors is some extra cavern space that is blocked by cave-ins. It is totally empty, unlike above.
PS I already know how to fix it up and add a means to get to it; though I’d rather wait for new object functionality in our editor.
Interesting reading. Just a few notes:
Levitate used to work on 1.18f an 1.19. I used it several times on all my playthroughs. Sometimes it stopped mid air, but moving the camera for some reason made it work again. It was weird. Maybe it broke lately because of the bug that makes gravity not work right (the one that makes the runes not going down when you cleanse the shrine). I suppose you already know about it, but it’s related to the speed of the computer. Something inferior to a 1500 mhz should be able to run the game more or less right without that bug. Using programs to slow the computer also work. I tried with Moslow and Turbo a long time ago.
Create Reagent does not work right, but I’m sure that on 1.18 and 1.19 I have used it on some places and got different reagents. I think near the main gate of the Castle was one of the few places I use to do that, but I may be worng because I think I only did it in 1 or 2 of my playthroughs.
I may be worng, but I remember Ultima VII circles of magic being related to your level in game. If you are not level 8 you can’t cast 8 circle magic. I think that has happen for all Ultimas since Ultima V.
Levitate works for you? Well I have not once been able to use that spell no matter what I do even with the version 1.18f when I played in 2002. I’m pretty sure if is not related to the rune falling bug that the issue with that is related to viewing distance parameters. I might give create reagents some more examination, but it always seems to give me black pearls in 1.19f. Could you double check with 1.19f that you do indeed get other reagents.
It is possible that this is due to Exult or the keyring mod, but I’m pretty sure I was able to cast resurrect before my character reached level 8.
You are right about Levitate, it doesn’t seem to work anymore… I still think it has to do with the speed of the computer, because when I played on my old Pentium III or on my amd 2000 It worked. I even think it worked right in my old laptop (in which even the runes worked right).
About the reagents, I have managed to create Sulphur ash and Nightshade in the entrance to LB castle, If you want I can show a screenshot or make a short video of it
The exact spot is going outside the castle, near the Arch, to the right of the brick path. There are several textures of grass that look less grassy. I managed to create sulphur ass there, and nightshade moving a bit around. Black Pearl is the default reagent, I think there are some conditions to create reagents, like maybe which reagent you got the most, or something like that. I tried this using the spell cheats, and getting first a nightshade from the mage’s room in the castle.
Again, if you prefer a video of it I can record one.
Oh well, I recorded the video anyway:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMdiRvhAz0s
I’m running the plain 1.19 patch.
For some reason I don’t know the camera does not work right when I cast the spell. It worked right the first time I tried this, but after loading the savegame it gets too close when circling the Avatar. Also, I noticed that my spellbook is way too big at this resolution and I can’t bind spells to my toolbox.
It seems u9 gets weirder bugs as time goes by.
I said corrected. The spell does provide other reagents… however it doesn’t provide the correct ones given the terrain. Swamp textures give sulfurous ash, flowered grass out front of LB’s castle give blood moss, spider’s silk, and ginseng; however, I get only black pearls on all other dirt and grass patches. There is definitely something broken in this spell. Surprising it did not crash, but then again my new video card is probably the reason for this and the game running as smooth as glass.
Levitate, however, doesn’t even get casted. I’m getting exactly nothing… not even animations. I might need to make a few corrections, but my opinion of these two spells is bugged out useless. Sadly.
*”I stand corrected” I mean… dang it where is the edit button when you need it.
I do get the levitate spell effect sometimes (without levitation…).
Most of the time I get no effect at all as you said. Try casting several times until the effect appears.