The Ultima Series by Spoony

[Jick Magger]

Why didn't he do a video for Ultima 7 Serpent Isle first?

Because Serpent Isle is PART TWO?

I'm talking about doing the underworld games before Serpent Isle. Maybe I should be more clear.

Maybe he just wanted to do them first, seeing that they're just spinoffs. Get them out of the way first.

 

[jancobblepot]

Just because UUW2 takes place between U7 and SI...

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Just because UUW2 takes place between U7 and SI...

that he just posted:

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/03/26/ ... of-worlds/

Well, in UUW1, he didn't mention that the bad actor doing the voice of the baron is richard garriott/LB himlself...

 

[Jick Magger]

Just because UUW2 takes place between U7 and SI...

that he just posted:

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/03/26/ ... of-worlds/

Well, in UUW1, he didn't mention that the bad actor doing the voice of the baron is richard garriott/LB himlself...

You must admit, he did sound terrible.
Should stick to developing games, or facebook apps since Hellgate London bombed.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

You must admit, he did sound terrible.
Should stick to developing games, or facebook apps since Hellgate London bombed.

Well, back them, it was amazing when the characters had a voice at all. And it never annoyed me...

 

[Topher]

I just watched the Underworld 1/2 reviews and the voice work sounded fine to me. Sure it's not great but I wouldn't have made a big deal out of it.

 

[Jick Magger]

I just watched the Underworld 1/2 reviews and the voice work sounded fine to me. Sure it's not great but I wouldn't have made a big deal out of it.

I dunno, man. It's not Jill Sandwich bad, but it certainly isn't good.
To me, bad voice acting is when you know it's acting. When I hear it, I automatically know that the guy speaking is reading his lines off a script in some booth at a recording studio.
Kind of like with the fight choreography in the Star Wars prequels. It all looks and feels rehearsed.

 

[jancobblepot]

Yeah, but i'ts just the introduction... Is there any voice acting ingame?

 

[Quetzacoatl]

Just because UUW2 takes place between U7 and SI...

Then why not cover the first underworld game after the false prophet retrospective?

 

[m_s0]

Either he didn't think of it at the time or just didn't have the time to actually play the game, which is what he eventually did long after finishing the Black Gate video. Well, partially played. From what I gathered he initially didn't plan on including any of the spin-offs in the retrospective.

 

[MMXI]

Bump.

 

[Jaesun]

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/05/27/ ... pent-isle/

Serpent Isle

 

[Infinitron]

http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/01/31/ultima-8-pagan/

 

[RK47]

Hahaha start of decline. I can't wait to watch it when i get back off work. Thanks for link. Love passive entertainment on weekdays.

 

[Infinitron]

He should have spent less time showing exploding treasure chests and more time explaining how the story and writing were suddenly and inexplicably derp compared to the game's immediate predecessors.

Buy hey, Spoony's gonna spoon.

 

[potatojohn]

I don't care what anyone says. U8 was my first rpg and I loved it.

 

[Jasede]

One of my first, too.

It did a lot of things well, despite all the things it did wrong. Music, mood, magic. Tenebrae was a terrible place to be. Also, the books were great. (I thought so when I was ten, I haven't played the game since then, okay?)

Do you remember how long the loading and saving times were?

Edit: Oh my god, his first save game was named "The Beginning..." - that's exactly what I named my first save game in this game in German when I first played it. :nostalgia:

Edit 2: For bragging rights, I finished the unpatched diskette version. The one with the fixed length jumps and moving platforms. Combine this with having to wait like one minute each time you load a game. Buckets of fun.

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

I must congratulate you both for being such persevering souls. If Ultima 8 had been my first RPG, I would have washed my hands of the genre post haste.

 

[Phelot]

It's funny, but I never looked at U8 as being an RPG, but I guess it is. Jasede is right, it was more the atmosphere and the stark change from happy old Brittania with all your buddies, to this bleak, awful place. If they had more time with it and were able to add more characters, I think it would have been great.

Exploration in the game was pretty darn fun at the time. It's frustrating hearing what was cut and what might have been with the expansion.

But yes, the game was horribly flawed and incredibly tedious at times. Well, ok, maybe most of the time.

I guess it is just nostalgia that makes someone like it.

 

[Infinitron]

Ultima VIII is a failure on two fronts:

1) Horrible attempt at implementing action gameplay with a user interface and engine that couldn't support it
2) Stripped down, seemingly unfinished writing that couldn't support the themes that the game may have been trying to evoke

If one of these problems had been addressed, the game would have been mediocre but still good for what it is. Both would need to be addressed for it to be a great Ultima.

 

[Jaesun]

“In the case of Ultima 8, that was the first game I did as part of Electronic Arts,” Garriott said, “and Electronic Arts, their whole success formula is based upon yearly releases of sports franchises just before the beginning of the sports season. Since their whole success and sales and marketing comes from accurately timed seasonal launches, the pressure was very heavy to accurately time a seasonal launch for Ultima 8.
“We shipped Ultima 8 more or less on time, but the only way we got there was by really cutting out huge swathes of the game all the way to the point where the cloth map was completely unrelated to the map of the real game because we threw out so many bits and pieces of it. So Ultima 8 was, frankly, unfinished — I mean dramatically unfinished. And in hindsight I look at it and go, if we’d really just finished it properly — even the movement, the jumping that was in the game — had we done it less hacked and more accurately, we would have had a Diablo-style success a year or so before Diablo.
“Too bad, spilt milk,” he rued, “I get the blame – I get the appropriate blame, I’m the top of the food chain. It was my decisions. But that’s my excuse or rationalisation.”

http://www.ultimaaiera.com/blog/richard-garriott-what-went-wrong-with-ultima-8/

 

[RK47]

Privateer 2, Ultima 9 , And this is probably my biggest disappointment with Origin. Even as a kid I cannot see the appeal of button mashing the goddamn combat.

 

[Infinitron]

“In the case of Ultima 8, that was the first game I did as part of Electronic Arts,” Garriott said, “and Electronic Arts, their whole success formula is based upon yearly releases of sports franchises just before the beginning of the sports season. Since their whole success and sales and marketing comes from accurately timed seasonal launches, the pressure was very heavy to accurately time a seasonal launch for Ultima 8.
“We shipped Ultima 8 more or less on time, but the only way we got there was by really cutting out huge swathes of the game all the way to the point where the cloth map was completely unrelated to the map of the real game because we threw out so many bits and pieces of it. So Ultima 8 was, frankly, unfinished — I mean dramatically unfinished. And in hindsight I look at it and go, if we’d really just finished it properly — even the movement, the jumping that was in the game — had we done it less hacked and more accurately, we would have had a Diablo-style success a year or so before Diablo.
“Too bad, spilt milk,” he rued, “I get the blame – I get the appropriate blame, I’m the top of the food chain. It was my decisions. But that’s my excuse or rationalisation.”

http://www.ultimaaiera.com/blog/richard-garriott-what-went-wrong-with-ultima-8/

Like Sergorn says in his comment to that blog post, a "finished" Ultima VIII probably would have still pissed off the Ultima fans of the day (although it could have been a good game).

The fans wanted MOAR BRITANNIA. Garriott tried to make a game for a mass audience before the consolization of the early 2000's brought that mass audience into existence. Incredibly enough, he then did that again in 1999.

I've read that he was jealous of the greater sales of his own company's Wing Commander franchise. It's hard to believe space sims used to be the biggest cash cows.

 

[Jaesun]

Meh. I was getting bored of Britannia (the 8 virtue towns and dungeons and areas around them) personally. Which is why Serpent Isle is my single favorite Ultima. And it's also the reason I still love Ultima VIII.

 

[Jasede]

I think most of us has have a special place in their heart for Ultima 7-2. Possibly the greatest game ever conceived for its bitter, cynical mood, completely without any of the forced modern grimdark that plagues today's cynical settings.