Ultima Ultima 7=Decline?

[IncendiaryDevice]

Haha nope. Look closely at the correct answers.

I did...

Unless you actually say what it is you're on about you're not conversing, you're just being the same kind of pretentious smug twat as the bloke who made the game.

 

[Infinitron]

Haha nope. Look closely at the correct answers.

I did...

Unless you actually say what it is you're on about you're not conversing, you're just being the same kind of pretentious smug twat as the bloke who made the game.

Spoiler

Every single word Chuckles speaks to you in that conversation has only a single syllable. Your replies to him have to fit the same pattern.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Spoiler

Every single word Chuckles speaks to you in that conversation has only a single syllable. Your replies to him have to fit the same pattern.

OH FUCK OFF!

 

[Excommunicator]

why are old games so old?

Wow, this is embarrassing.

Your criticism boils down to "this game had too much content and not enough modern conveniences to help me track it all!"


You spent four paragraphs complaining about how insulted you were that the game DARED to waste your time, FORCING you to click the dialogue of EVERY LAST NPC YOU FOUND. You understand the nature of optional content don't you? Nobody forced you to do this. Your obsessive compulsive MMO urges made you do it and now it's the game's fault. Classic.

Then an entire paragraph complaining you couldn't find a building in town, THE ONLY BUILDING YOU HADN'T BEEN TO and you actually dare to blame the game for this. Modern gaming mentality at its worst.

You're not doing anyone a favour by deigning to play this game. All you are doing is illustrating what many people see as an epidemic, that modern gamers are so spoiled by modern conveniences that they'll switch off when they don't have them, blaming games that are (hopefully) older than they are for not having the features that were invented in the years since.

 

[RK47]

*rubs moonstone*

 

[newtmonkey]

Ultima VII is the first game I got for my PC (stuck with a C64 until then ), so it obviously holds a lot of nostalgic value for me.
I had played plenty of rpgs on the C64, but I definitely spent more time until then playing NES games, so the sheer size of Ultima VII was simpley mindblowing. I couldn't believe that, other than the guards, every character in every town had his or her own name, portrait, personality, job, and even schedule. I liked how you could go around solving little quests for people all over the place for no reward other than just enjoying the game and learning a bit more about its world.
I played the game on a PC well below the minimum specs (386-16) and it played like a slideshow; the screen would update once every 2-3 seconds. It wasn't frames per second, but seconds per frame. But the game was so great that I put up with it.
Having said that, the combat is horrible and I realized that immediately. Even so, it was still awesome running around with a large party, stumbling upon some brigands, turning on combat mode and just seeing what would happen.

 

[Neanderthal]

Sorry IncendiaryDevice Chuckles is meant to be a twat but you don't actually need his clue, perfectly fine if you ignore him entirely. Farmer Brownie tells you where to find his crop when givin you task. Theatre is left and down a bit from Castle British, large building on main road to Paws, your companions might sound off when you go near it. The Orchard caretaker is to be found in orchards directly left/west of Castle British most o time. The detailed map of Britannia that came with the game can be used to navigate Britain, the houses are all present on it, but after a while you should be able to do it by memory. Sounds like its not for you, personally I was enthralled the most early game by the quests an situations in Paws but horses for courses I suppose.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

why are old games so old?

Nope.

Wow, this is embarrassing.

Nope.

Your criticism boils down to "this game had too much content and not enough modern conveniences to help me track it all!"

Nope.

You spent four paragraphs complaining about how insulted you were that the game DARED to waste your time, FORCING you to click the dialogue of EVERY LAST NPC YOU FOUND. You understand the nature of optional content don't you? Nobody forced you to do this. Your obsessive compulsive MMO urges made you do it and now it's the game's fault. Classic.

Because ignoring content is the correct and monocled way to play any game... content you have no idea if its ignorable until you've tried it... mr. spastic logic strikes again.

Then an entire paragraph complaining you couldn't find a building in town, THE ONLY BUILDING YOU HADN'T BEEN TO and you actually dare to blame the game for this. Modern gaming mentality at its worst.

That's called "one example of many to highlight a point", taking one of many aside and only responding to that one point as if it was the entire point is... and let me be really polite here... disingenuous.

You're not doing anyone a favour by deigning to play this game. All you are doing is illustrating what many people see as an epidemic, that modern gamers are so spoiled by modern conveniences that they'll switch off when they don't have them, blaming games that are (hopefully) older than they are for not having the features that were invented in the years since.

Nope.

Trash content is trash content, no matter the age of the game. It's great that you like to invent this concept that old=monocled because its old, but it's a fucking retarded position and helps no-one, especially considering that, even in this thread, people are saying the previous Ultima games had better combat and less meaningless fluff... nice troll bait post though, at least you're... and lets try and be polite here... trying.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Ultima VII is the first game I got for my PC (stuck with a C64 until then ), so it obviously holds a lot of nostalgic value for me.
I had played plenty of rpgs on the C64, but I definitely spent more time until then playing NES games, so the sheer size of Ultima VII was simpley mindblowing. I couldn't believe that, other than the guards, every character in every town had his or her own name, portrait, personality, job, and even schedule. I liked how you could go around solving little quests for people all over the place for no reward other than just enjoying the game and learning a bit more about its world.
I played the game on a PC well below the minimum specs (386-16) and it played like a slideshow; the screen would update once every 2-3 seconds. It wasn't frames per second, but seconds per frame. But the game was so great that I put up with it.
Having said that, the combat is horrible and I realized that immediately. Even so, it was still awesome running around with a large party, stumbling upon some brigands, turning on combat mode and just seeing what would happen.

The positive things you say about Ultima 7:

"the sheer size of Ultima VII was simpley mindblowing." - makes no reference to quality.

"every character in every town had his or her own name, portrait, personality, job, and even schedule." - Just think how much development time was wasted here when it could have been spent making combat interesting. Or making the UI more intuitive. Or having better itemisation. Or better character and class choices. Nope, you're praising the quality of the fluff padding.

"you could go around solving little quests for people all over the place for no reward" - Hahahahaahahahahahahahha.

"Even so, it was still awesome running around with a large party, stumbling upon some brigands, turning on combat mode and just seeing what would happen." Hahahahahahahahahahha.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Sorry IncendiaryDevice Chuckles is meant to be a twat but you don't actually need his clue, perfectly fine if you ignore him entirely. Farmer Brownie tells you where to find his crop when givin you task. Theatre is left and down a bit from Castle British, large building on main road to Paws, your companions might sound off when you go near it. The Orchard caretaker is to be found in orchards directly left/west of Castle British most o time. The detailed map of Britannia that came with the game can be used to navigate Britain, the houses are all present on it, but after a while you should be able to do it by memory. Sounds like its not for you, personally I was enthralled the most early game by the quests an situations in Paws but horses for courses I suppose.

It's ok to put a twat in your game that is a self confessed time waster because he's... drum roll... optional! Yes, the wonderful world of 'optional' in gaming discussions, hilarious. Yes, I know farmer brownie gives you directions, really vague ones that if you don't write down you'll forget anyway by the time you've spoken to the next 63 NPCs, my post has already addressed this point. I know where the theatre is, I googled it, it says so right in my post you read. XYZ NPC is there are they, how awesome of you to address my points by simply providing a walkthrough for me. Yes, as I said in my post, the early game, Trinsic was fine, even walking through Paws and solving the theft was fine, but then give the player a third settlement in a row to repeat NPC trash dialogue for what feels like overkill? Isn't that overkill? Shouldn't the player have had at least one (engaging) combat encounter by hour 15? You know, the whole reason why your character exists in the format he exists?

 

[Jazz_]

It's ok, back in the early 90s there was no widespread internet and people didn't have the attention span of a pigeon.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It's ok, back in the early 90s there was no widespread internet and people didn't have the attention span of a pigeon.

Oh look, another "because its old" point...

 

[Infinitron]

Doing sidequests in U7 actually gives you some experience points, IIRC.

It's true that Britain is pretty huge. You might able to spend 2-3 in-game days just wandering around and talking to everybody there (including the castle). The game's other towns are smaller, though.

By making every last person in the game, from the mayors of each town to the lowliest peasant, a fully characterized individual, Origin made Ultima VII the best "Hero of the People Simulator" ever. It's unclear if this was intentional or an inadvertent result of an obsessive dedication to simulation.

As a kid, I remember enjoying my time in towns talking to people because I was afraid of going into the dungeons and getting killed. You will want to go out into the wilderness occasionally to find gold and stuff so you can buy food, though.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Well yes, that's the whole point of this thread isn't it, the fact that its a sim game rather than an RPG. Not that it's a bad game or that what was made was technically bad, just that it's a different genre to an RPG, and using the features it used to highlight this aspect as a means to say why XYZ actual RPG is crap by comparison is both retarded and indicative of encouraging decline?

 

[Dux]

Decline or not, the game did indulge my deepest, darkest baker fantasies.

 

[Grumpy Grognard]

Relevant: https://blog.slashie.net/category/exult-turn-based-combat/ (guy adding turn-based combat to U7 via Exult)

 

[Infinitron]

Hey Grumpy Grognard, are you the same person who sent us this back in 2013? http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...gon-age-dragon-age-ios-f2p-game-review.87170/

 

[Tom Baker's Arse]

Sounds like you get it. Folks miss context when they talk about Ultima VII. It was groundbreaking. It was worth playing. It did a lot of things. It had speech, it had an impressive world with lots of dungeons, events, and areas that were there just for exploration. It had characters you knew and had a pretty interesting story.

I can see it: in 1992, Wizardry 7, Ultima Underworld, Clouds of Xeen and The Summoning all came out. There was some righteous shit coming out at the time. Even among those contemporaries, Ultima 7 captivated folks the most. It took the most disk space, had the most impressive system requirements and was a pain in the ass to run, but it also allowed for the most engrossing world. It was head and shoulders above those other games in dialog, graphics, and open world exploration. But ya, the combat and character stats were poor - but here the secret: nobody gave a shit.

It's very easy to dump on Ultima 7, because right now it's not a big deal. Any system can run it, every system has big maps with scrolling stuff, interesting combat spells and all that.

But Ultima VII did some things incredibly well:
* The dialog system was amazing at the time. Not many games had such abilities or like it's contemporaries (Darklands, UU) allows click on one of 4 responses.
* The gumps were new and very useful. Like Windows for DOS.
* The map was well done and dangerous. Not shit now when you can get the Black Sword almost immediately because we've all done it and all versions include the expansion.
* The spell system was tops. Find reagents, find spells, populate your book, cast stuff. Pretty choice, diminished only by spell viability in combat.
* The characters were worth playing, finding, adding, and added dimension not seen (much) before. Innocent party banter before it all became about trying to bone your companions.

It didn't start the decline. It created a template for future big world games, something that devolved into what we have today. It's like blaming the printing press for Dan Brown.

You have nailed it, brother. For it's time U7 was truly frigging amazing. Nothing came close to it. The original box still holds a place of honor in my man-cave. 'Nuff said.

 

[coldcrow]

IncendiaryDevice

You would do humanity a favor if you stopped reproducing at all.
Did you really complain about wasting time on two minor "quests"? I am actually hesitant to call them that, cause they weren't.

The one major difference between old and new games is that back then most designers assumed players had a modicum of common sense.

 

[commie]

Ultima 7 was a great game, and one of the best games of 1992. Still, not a true rpg imo. More like the biggest template for the contemporary open world arpg, in the vein of Gothic or The Elder Scrolls.

Well there were a lot of good games in 1992....U7 was a game I always liked the look of but never got into at the time, probably as I was more a traditional Might and Magic/Wizardry/Gold Box man along with the much more robust combat of those games. U7 seemed a bit too 'adventury' to me back then. I still appreciate it for what it is but 1992 for me personally had many better games: Clouds of Xeen, Ultima Underworld, Wizardry 7, Dune II, Indiana Jones Fate of Atlantis, Wolfenstein 3D, Buck Rogers, Dark Queen of Krynn, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, Aces over the Pacific, Strike Commander, Alone in the Dark... That's not a criticism of U7, more an affirmation of its position despite coming out in such an era where every second game was pushing boundaries and shows that back then there was something for everyone. For me it looks 'low' only because my interests were catered for more by other games. In another time it would be high on my list.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Relevant: https://blog.slashie.net/category/exult-turn-based-combat/ (guy adding turn-based combat to U7 via Exult)

IncendiaryDevice

You would do humanity a favor if you stopped reproducing at all.
Did you really complain about wasting time on two minor "quests"? I am actually hesitant to call them that, cause they weren't.

The one major difference between old and new games is that back then most designers assumed players had a modicum of common sense.

:

bro according to rpgcodex ultima 7 is a worse rpg than dragon age so yeah it must be some pretty fucking strong decline

it's true though. u7 has no merit as an rpg, to a point where it's not worth calling it one, but it excels at being a sandboxy adventure game.

A few years ago I would have dismissed this as Codex being edgy and contrarian again, but there is a reason I've been able to admire but not make much progress in this game.

Ultima 7 is useful as an argument as to why so many recent RPGs weren't very impressive or worthy of the amount of adulation they receive for their worlds, and as to how, no, rpgs haven't really progressed all that much. But even then, is it really that important that tavern wenches actually serve food in a video game? It's a nice detail, but that's the least of what is wrong with games today.

Feel free to read the whole thread. Feel free to open a thread called Ultima7=decline and expect your beloved game to contain mostly opinions on why it's decline, feel free to join the conversation rather than just spout insults and apply what you consider the ugliest ratings DU offers you (but interestingly never the "Disagree" rating), because that would be all too much "common sense"...

 

[Max Stats]

It's ok to put a twat in your game that is a self confessed time waster because he's... drum roll... optional! Yes, the wonderful world of 'optional' in gaming discussions, hilarious.

It's okay to put a twat in your game because he's a long time character that shows up in most if not all of the games in the series and he's only there for comic relief. Sorry if that triggers you, but to most players it's either, oh, hey here's Chuckles, wonder what nonsense he's up to now, or, oh hey it's Chuckles, I'll head the other way.

Man, I hope you never encountered Smith the Horse, or you might have a coronary.

Yeah, combat in the game sucks more than a cheap whore, whatever, I still loved it despite that.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It's ok to put a twat in your game that is a self confessed time waster because he's... drum roll... optional! Yes, the wonderful world of 'optional' in gaming discussions, hilarious.

It's okay to put a twat in your game because he's a long time character that shows up in most if not all of the games in the series and he's only there for comic relief. Sorry if that triggers you, but to most players it's either, oh, hey here's Chuckles, wonder what nonsense he's up to now, or, oh hey it's Chuckles, I'll head the other way.

Man, I hope you never encountered Smith the Horse, or you might have a coronary.

Yeah, combat in the game sucks more than a cheap whore, whatever, I still loved it despite that.

I can only repeat what I have already said. I wrote a piece describing many events which occurred while I was playing. I deliberately wrote my post as a continuing narrative that requires all elements to be taken in for the conclusion to make sense. My narrative was formed under the premise that there was nothing wrong with what was being presented, but the problem was in how it was presented, to which the Jester was, obviously, but a straw upon the camels back. But feel free to isolate and decontextualise each salient point in order to try and discredit the whole, its what retarded fanboys usually do. You'll see a lot of it on Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls forums...

And as for who you are and what your contribution to RPG incline is from your historical love of this game:

I don't think I actually finished a single game in 2016. (commence mocking.... NOW!)

I did replay Zelda Link Between Worlds but I think that was late 2015. I got within spitting distance of the final bosses in Bloodborne and DS3, but never went to pull the trigger. I have issues with keeping focused on a single game. Great lists by most of you, wish I was that driven.

Which poses the question: Why the fuck did you choose to call yourself Max Stats?

 

[almondblight]

I had played plenty of rpgs on the C64, but I definitely spent more time until then playing NES games, so the sheer size of Ultima VII was simpley mindblowing. I couldn't believe that, other than the guards, every character in every town had his or her own name, portrait, personality, job, and even schedule. I liked how you could go around solving little quests for people all over the place for no reward other than just enjoying the game and learning a bit more about its world.

It may be a huge living world, but it's a huge living world in one of the worst settings ever. That always kills my motivation to explore it.

 

[Neanderthal]

Doing sidequests in U7 actually gives you some experience points, IIRC.

It's true that Britain is pretty huge. You might able to spend 2-3 in-game days just wandering around and talking to everybody there (including the castle). The game's other towns are smaller, though.

By making every last person in the game, from the mayors of each town to the lowliest peasant, a fully characterized individual, Origin made Ultima VII the best "Hero of the People Simulator" ever. It's unclear if this was intentional or an inadvertent result of an obsessive dedication to simulation.

As a kid, I remember enjoying my time in towns talking to people because I was afraid of going into the dungeons and getting killed. You will want to go out into the wilderness occasionally to find gold and stuff so you can buy food, though.

Yeah demonsrates a forgotten art in RPGs now, makin folk, world an causes your fightin for likeable. Helps that you're not slaughterin thousands on em like in modern combat simulators ARPGs.