Play Ultima 6, Savage Empire, and Other Origin Systems Classics In Your Browser Now
There’s no save option, though. Speed run, anyone?
I can only assume, by now, that many of you have heard about the Internet Archive’s massive library of MS-DOS games, some 2,400 titles in all that can all be played right there in your browser thanks to a DOSBox port called EM-DOSBox (which uses Emscripten to compile C++ to JavaScript). The game library is itself a wondrous thing to walk through…so many great (and not-so-great) titles of yesterdecade (and earlier!) are archived therein, and many happy memories attend them.
A number of Origin Systems games can be found in the collection, including Ultima 6 (evidently the full version), various Wing Commander titles (some apparently the full version, some evidently just demo versions), Knights of Legend, Windwalker (which I gather some of you are rather fond of), Crusader: No Remorse, and a demo version of Ultima 7.
And at least one Ultima fan project — Untima IX: Descension — has also been included in the library, which fact I find rather amusing. (Kudos to Manuel Masias for spotting that one.) I was even surprised to see NOMAD in the collection (it’s not an Origin game, but I rather enjoyed playing it back in my teenage years).
There may be other Origin games hidden away in the library; I found the ones I could, but there seems to be some inconsistency in terms of how creatorship of games is attributed: some games have “Origin Systems, Inc.” listed as their creator, whereas others have “Origin Systems” listed as their publisher. Very confusing, this.
As well, it should be noted that, because this is a web-based DOSBox instance these games are being played in, some (most? all?) of the games don’t allow the use of their save feature. This is certainly true of Ultima 6, as noted above. So, be mindful of that before diving in; you may not be able to resume your progress after closing the browser tab.
Does this mean they’ll stop making people pay money for Ultima 4, Martian Dreams, and Savage Empire on Origin since they’re free on archive.com and GoG.com? Quite frankly, it’s shameful trying to sell those old games that you can legally obtain for free.
They’re selling Ultima 1 for 5 dollars. Come on, a 35 year old game for 5 bucks, that’s downright shameful.
I’ve no idea what EA will do with the titles listed on Origin. I can’t imagine they’ll change anything, although it’s likely that various Ultima titles will be put up as freebies as part of their ongoing On the House promotion.
Quite frankly, it’s shameful trying to sell those old games that you can legally obtain for free.
Those games were never legally free (as in gratis), abandonware is not a real thing. The idea behind abandonware is that it still is copyright infringement, but as long as the game is not being sold anywhere there is no damage done. It’s just recently that GOG has proven that old games still carry value and many companies have started selling their old games again.
Those games had never been free, there just hadn’t been any way of buying them. That’s what has changed. Should games after a certain amount of time enter public domain automatically? Maybe, but that’s not the case currently.
If you don’t like the price charged by GOG there are still sales. Just recently during the winter sale the entire Ultima series was 80% off. You also get many games in bundles: the first trilogy is one bundle, the second another one, Ultima VII includes both games and so does Ultima Underworld. And all games are prepared to run on modern OSes out of the box, that’s really nice. All the manuals and maps are also included in their original form.
The only games that actually are free are Ultima IV and the Worlds of Ultima games. You can get them for free from GOG.
Don’t forget Akalabeth; that’s also free at GOG.
Actually, Ultima 4 has been free on GOG since the beginning and I think MD and SE were the same, which is why Origin requiring money for these games is so shameful. I also don’t get the impression EA gets any money from GOG for having these games on their for free either.
I don’t think the Internet Archive has the blessing of any of the IP-holders of these titles. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop here but so far have heard nothing.
The problem the games industry is having with pricing and perceived value has a lot to do with market glut and the mobile space. There are too many games, too much competition, and the bar for game creation set by the availability of inexpensive or free engines, libraries and assets hasn’t helped. Digital distribution has become the norm. “App store” approval and curation mechanisms are so ineffective they can’t even separate clones and malware from legitimate games. Publishers are flocking to the “freemium” model hoping to tax gamers on the back end, enticing them with low-dollar entry points up to and including “free”. Google, for example, wouldn’t suffer if every application in their Play store was free as they earn their revenue from ads. Apple makes its revenue from hardware sales. No one cares about the developers, least of all the fans. It’s a nasty mix, and there will be a reckoning. I just hope it’s not like the crash of ’83, although at least an angel called Nintendo rose from those ashes.
I’m not sure if they have the copyright owner’s approval or not. I feel they might actually have their blessing though. Archive.org is quite the prominent website, it’s far from the emulation sites that lure you in by hosting free games and making their dollar on posting spyware type porn ads.
When I first heard about this, I was checking out their Genesis library. I found it kind of odd they only had one Madden title out of the 10 published. By all means it should be a simple task of putting every Madden title created up. They also only have Ultima 6. They don’t have 1-5. Another point worth noting is the lack of Nintendo. Zero Nintendo titles are available; which is not all that surprising, Nintendo is so hardcore antipiracy they’ll sacrifice basic DVD functionality and put a significant cost of their new system into a fancy tablet controller. Conversely Sega’s always been fairly lenient on emulation and roms.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve either gotten the permission from the copyright holders or they’ve specifically left functionality out (eg save mechanics, half normal speed) in order for the holders to never give them any issues.
Crucially I can play Space Harrier without hooking up my Sega Dreamcast now. Hooray!
@mirco I can understand what you are saying, however, over the years I have changed my perspective on “entertainment value” to more of an entertainment-per-hour view.
I think gamers these days have been tricked by the “free” model. They think they are getting a better deal with a “free” or “cheap” game, when in reality they end up paying more for the game via in-app purchases then if they would have bought it for a fixed price up front. Their wallet suffers a death by 1000 cuts.
You find a lot of gamers complaining if they have to pay more then $2 for a game that could easily provides them with 20+ hours of entertainment, yet, you never see them complaining about paying $15 to sit in a theater for only an hour and a half to watch the latest craptainment coming out of Hollywood, or spending $5 on a coffee that they finish in 10 minutes!? Seriously, if a game gives someone enjoyment and has real entertainment value, then paying roughly $1 for each hour of gameplay is a damn good price! And you know what? I’m willing to pay even more if the game is right up my ally. People all over the world pay $1 for a three minute song to entertain them! That’s three minutes, not three hours!
Without cheating, you could probably beat Ultima I in 15 hours or less. At $5 that comes out to roughly 30 cents for each hour of game play. If you enjoy a particular game, then 30 cents per hour is a really good price to pay don’t you think?
I’m sure some of us remember putting a quarter in an arcade machines that maybe would give us only 2 minutes of gameplay, if we were good! And you know what, we would probably do it again if we saw an arcade game we like! How much do you think that works out to per hour?
Try keeping track or estimating the number of hours you put into any game you buy and compute the cost per hour of entertainment. It will change your perspective. If anything, you will want to throw more money at the developers for games they make that really entertain you!
Furthermore, if a game ends up sucking it still probably provided more entertainment value and was cheaper in hours-of-entertainment then that bad movie you just paid for last week! 🙂
I found that when I started viewing my entertainment time this way it made all my entertainment costs a bit easier to swallow. Furthermore, with almost every game these days having a demo or “lite” mode, it makes it really easy to know if you will like the game even before you buy it, so if anything, you should be willing to pay more by the time it’s released! That’s the whole purpose of the developer even releasing a demo in the first place. So you can decide if the game will give you an entertainment-per-hour cost that you are willing to pay for!
This.
Cost tends not to be much of an object for me when it comes to buying games on my phone.
Storage requirements, though…a 1.4 GB game sure does eat up a lot of the available space when you’ve only got 16 GB to play with.
Still, the point is well-made: it is rather pedantic to bitch about a $3 price tag on a game that’ll bring you double-digit hours of enjoyment.
I completely agree, especially with your movie analogy. I’ll never understand paying 5 dollars an hour to go and see a movie. I also go, roughly, by a dollar an hour for entertainment price tag, maximum.
With that said, it’s shameful to sell Ultima 1 for any price. It’s quite old and rudimentary as far as games go. Does that mean it has no entertainment value? Of course not, it’s definitely still a decently fun game to play and it’s one of only four Ultima games I’ve played to completion. I feel it should be in the public domain the same way silent films are in the public domain. It’s a piece of history that should be preserved and celebrated by anyone with the interest that isn’t locked behind a pay wall.
Of course, an argument could also be made for the quality of game it is in comparison to newer games. Time spent isn’t the only factor to consider when it comes to the value of entertainment. You could also argue the potential for time played. As games have evolved through the years it becomes harder and harder for the newer audiences to go back to old and simplistic games and have it hold their attention.
Not only is Ultima 4 and the Worlds series free online(doesn’t WtF also have permission to host a download for Ultima 4). If I’m not mistaken, you can download and play Ultima Online for free and play forever on the freeshards. Quite frankly I feel these titles have a much higher potential to hold players interest for longer and are higher quality games in general. So to allow Ultima 4, Ultima 6, and UO to be played for free. While selling previous titles that were more rudimentary, with lower production quality, and less prestige is quite frankly shameful.
I don’t have permission, no. Two other Dragons do, though.
I agree. I’m sure most of us, including me, wouldn’t want to pay $5 for a digital version of Ultima 1.
I was thinking more about new games and gamers attitudes these days, although, I feel if someone really enjoyed an older game, even Ultima 1, that they shouldn’t feel ripped of for paying $5 for it if they like it. I wouldn’t necessarily do it, but there could be people out there that really like it.
It’s especially hard to buy an older game in digital form for any amount of money that you now know isn’t that great. I’m sure many of use remember feeling burned from a game that we bought that ended up sucking in the age before demos came out first. All we had was the back of the box screenshots or maybe an ad in a mag to sell the game to us.
I think in an age that gamers expect demos, they should be more willing to pay more for the full game since they have played the demo and know they will like it. I really miss the whole shareware model that Doom used. I wish the industry, at least indies, would go back to that. That way you could buy a demo of the game for a cheap price, which could help the developer recoup some costs for hosting and supporting it, and then if you like the game, buy the full thing for a bit more money. It’s a win win for both sides.
I’m a big fan of indie game devs dropping the lame free or cheap model with in-game ads and purchases and band together to hold up a standard $1 per hour entertainment model. It will of course need a max cap depending on the complexity and length of the game, and there should be open and honest dialog on what is an actual “hour” of gameplay. For an RPG for example, things like “grinding” or combat in a game should maybe only count towards a few hours of gameplay, even though you may have to spend 30 hours grinding to solve it. Things like that would have to be decided on, etc..
I believe with a model like this, we would see much better games being created or designed. People don’t realize that designing a game with the intent to get a player to purchase things in it breaks the whole game design really. With that model, a game designer has to approach his design from a point of view of how he can extort money from the players and design the game around that. Instead his should focus on how to make a the game experience fun and challenging at all times. He is basically designing a less fun game by crippling the players experience unless he pays more money. I honestly can’t respect any game designer that approaches design like this. I know a lot of them bought into this because “it’s just the way things are”, but if they would just reject this model and promote a better one things can change,
A game should be like a good book; you buy it once, it’s “complete”, and you can read it anywhere you want (no DRM). It should be self-contained. You shouldn’t have to pay for missing chapters to make it a more enjoyable read or have McDonald’s ads written in the margins!
Most of this is only directed towards single player games obviously, as online games have recurring server costs and support, etc.. In a lot of ways online games (even subscriptions) are great deals because you get unlimited hours of gameplay. They basically never “end” or are “won”.
An Rpg with no save would be like brushing your teeth with a chainsaw. Will it ever have a save?
Doubtful. But U6 isn’t particularly difficult; it can be passed in one go, in 30-90 minutes, without the strict need to save and restore.
U6 solved in 30-90 minutes!? That’s the first I heard of this. 🙂 Maybe you meant if you already know the solution or follow a walk-through?
My experience with U6 back in the days was that it felt like it would take me months to solve it. And that was after I already probably had 10 hours into it. I just remember feeling like I had to pretty much go around and find everyone to talk to in the game, which got a bit too tiresome for me since the world was so huge. I preferred the more ‘condensed’ dialog feel of U4/U5 so U6 seems like it would take way longer. I’m afraid I lost patience after a few weeks and never finished that one. Maybe I need to give it another chance. Time to hack some gargoyle giblets. 🙂
Yeah, it helps to know where to go already. But that’s the point of a speed-run; you don’t attempt those on a game you’ve never played before.
Once you realize that the pirate map quest and Hythloth are optional, it becomes a piece of cake to figure out the quickest path through U6.
Addendum: check out this playlist of mine from a few years back. There are actually two separate U6 speed runs in it, one of which takes ~89 minutes.
The other one takes longer, but I also made a few mistakes in it…including a rather bone-headed (but hilarious) one.
Technically it is saving into the running disk image. It has to because of the chunk based nature of the U6 map. If you change an object on the map then use the orb of moons to teleport to another distant section of the map the game engine makes a tmp file of the object list from your current location. This temp file will remain until you either restore the old game or save the current game. So if you visit all map segments and change something in the environment you will create two complete save filesets. 😉
It would be interesting to see how large the msdos diskimage is when the game is spun up and if it would be possible to overflow the allocated space by visiting all the map segments.
From what I understand of web development, writing files from a program is pretty close to impossible. Downloading files remotely is very awkward
I’m far from an expert, but I think the standard way web sites save client-specific data is through writing cookies. If an emulator were to save client-specific data, it would need to be modified such that disk writes were performed on one or more cookies. The problem is that arbitrary DOS games both read and write data unpredictably. For example, a game could generate temporary files which were both read from and written to.
The only real solution would be to create an abstraction layer between the emulator’s disk I/O attempts and actual disk I/O. A virtual file system would need to be created through cookies (or other methods if Javascript or other web-enabled languages support disk I/O) on the client’s system. Disk reads would first check to see if the appropriate file was present on the client’s system. If not, it would read from the host server’s file. Disk writes would always be performed on the client’s virtual file system. If a write was attempted on a file that didn’t exist on the client’s system but did exist on the host server’s system, it would first copy the host server’s file to the client system’s file system, then perform the write client-side. This would over time build up a subset of the host server’s game files on the client’s system as file I/O occurred. That in itself could constitute an IP violation as it would require that some game files (those requiring write access) be distributed to clients.
Another possible option would be to copy the entire game to the client’s system in an encrypted virtual file system, running everything locally. The problem with this solution is that even if a one-time encryption key was used, it could be intercepted by a packet sniffer and used to decrypt the virtual file system and obtain an unencrypted copy of the game. Things of course get much simpler when you throw DRM and IP considerations out the window (as I suspect the Internet Archive largely has already).