Of course, I posted last week’s news about Quest of the Companions, XCAST3D’s promising-looking reworking of Exult to add eight-player multiplayer to Ultima 7: The Black Gate mere hours before Xavier (the man behind the XCAST3D name) dropped word of some updates onto /r/Ultima.

The latest build fixed some targeting system quirks and reworked some of the native controller support (now tested on Xbox Controller, PS4 Dual Shock, 8bitdo SN30 Pro, and Steam V1 controller). Scripted scenes also got a fix so that the host and guests stay in sync with the focus on the Avatar until the scene ends.

I added a changelog to the site as well.

Said changelog has in fact been added to the project website, and the most recent build touts the following additions:

• Co-op: hosts and guests need the same release (the co-op protocol is now 37).
• Taking books and bags: Space reads a book or opens a bag everywhere, including inside a chest or someone’s pack, so you can look before you take. Alt+Space (Option+Space on a Mac) takes it. On a stack, Alt+Space still splits. Shift+Space now only means “take all”, inside a container.
• Item menu (Ctrl+Space): lists Read, Use or Open, Take and Split, as they apply. “Put in…” is gone.
• Target hint: the target’s name and what the keys do stay at the top while you have a target, and go as soon as you clear it. They used to fade after a few seconds.
• Mac keys: hints and the Keys page say Option instead of Alt.
• Take all: the hint leaves it out when a container has only one thing in it, and says “Steal all” when any of it isn’t yours.
• Beds and bedrolls: the Target System offers them. Space sleeps, and Alt+Space takes a bedroll.
• Title screen: a Quest of the Companions title under the Ultima VII logo, with the menu moved down to make room. The version line is gone from the title menu and Exult’s game picker (it was too large or overlapped the menu); --version still shows it.
• Targeting things: E offers things within 18 tiles, and a picked thing is dropped once you’re more than 18 tiles away or it goes off screen. Containers and signs used to be offered anywhere on screen. People keep their longer range.
• Controller aiming: with the pointer showing (right stick), L1 and R1 pick the person or thing nearest the pointer first, then go on from there. Flick the stick toward a crowd and press. Without the pointer they still start nearest you.

There were also a number of bugfixes made; click on through to see the complete list.

You can download the latest build of Quest of the Companions from the official project website; Xavier seems to be pushing these out fairly regularly. I will do what I can to keep the links on the project entry here at the Codex up to date, but don’t expect that these will always be the latest and greatest (though, as of this writing, they are).