Portalarium held another Hangout of the Avatar session on Google+ last Friday, and this time around the topics of discussion included some subject matter that will be near and dear to every Ultima fan’s heart: inventory UI elements and Runic text.

First, let’s talk about New Britannian Runic, which was formally revealed in this Hangout. Here’s a screenshot of the Runic alphabet that Richard Garriott has put together:

The red and black colour coding means absolutely nothing.

Notably, there are no “double letter” runes in this alphabet; New Britannian Runic will have a one-to-one mapping with English, which will in turn allow for fast and easy translation of written text into its Runic equivalent. Ultima fans will, outside of this fact, notice many similarities between these runes and those that have graced the Ultima games, although some of the symbols are new (owing to the fact that Garriott and his team drew upon a new mix of historical references to compose this alphabet).

Even more exciting, however, is the revelation that UI gumps will be making a grand, triumphal return in Shroud of the Avatar.

I am strongly reminded of Ultima 9. Just saying.

The bag and backpack gumps can be seen above. Portlarium’s intent here is to represent pretty much every “real world” object that is encountered in the game with a suitably realistic depiction in the UI. Bag and backpack inventories will be manageable in one of two ways: using a volume-based freeform layout (akin to Ultima 7), or using a grid-based layout similar to e.g. Diablo, in which larger items take up multiple grid squares. Players will be able to switch back and forth between systems. Backpacks will be able to hold more than bags, by about a factor of two (or a little more).

The backpack gump also has several other sub-elements (a journal, spellbook, and map) which will in due course be given the ability to spawn their own UI elements, giving players access to those systems of the game. Also attached to the backpack gump is a quiver of arrows, which will inform players as to how much ammunition they have remaining.

Unfortunately, the current character UI doesn’t look quite as good as the backpack UI, at least not at present:

Chicken man!

However, in the near future, expect to see this display replaced with a proper paperdoll setup.

It’s great to see another nod to Ultima crop up in Shroud of the Avatar’s development. Let’s hope that next month’s demo at RTX will knock some socks off!