Ultima U5: Lazarus and Mass Effect: Andromeda lead designer Ian Frazier asking about remaking Ultima

[Crooked Bee]

EA's open-world Ultima reboot is going to be a Ubisoft/DA:I-style game. Not holding my breath for a not-dumbed-down remake either.

Still, why not. Should be entertaining to follow the reactions here and elsewhere, at least.

 

[Jimmious]

Lord AMERICAN

:kwafuckyeah:

Hahaha that was awesome AND my very first Brofist. All hail the glory of felipepepe!

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Man it's just gonna be the Ultima Free to Play with upgraded graphics.

 

[GrainWetski]

Fuck off with the remakes. If they're going to take a dump on Ultima with a bunch of BioWare nonsense, at least make a new one.

 

[cvv]

much more realistic take on it, less "cartoony." Villains wouldn't cackle and call themselves evil...

More believable characters and motivations, less of the super goofy elements

Um, Dragon Age started as an attempt at an RPG geared for people over the emotional age of 9 and ended up turning into a mix between a comic book about Skeletor and something from a diary of a 13 year old nascent SJW tranny.

Non-goofy, non-cartoony RPGs is a rare species that's especially unlkely to emerge from the Kwan continent, a place where even this

Spoiler

doesn't raise many eyebrows anymore.

 

[Theldaran]

As I said, you've gotta give people what they demand, else they'll be angry at you and your future sales will sink. Ultima was big... 20 years ago? How does it fit in the modern scene?

 

[Kem0sabe]

We never asked for a modern Ultima IX, but that's what we will get...

 

[felipepepe]

You people underestimate the marketing machine these companies have...

• A few months before reveal, dozens of articles & retrospectives on Ultima start to pop up, usually with a "BEST GAEM EVER - but it's so old and unplayable" tone...
  
  
• Then ULTIMA™ is announced - just a tease, a fancy logo or something. Media goes wild with speculation articles every week.
  
  
• Suddenly, Richard Garriott gets a Life Time Achievements award at Geoff Keighley's Game Award Program (he hates EA, but hey - free award!)
  
  
• First trailer arrives, with fancy AAA graphics and Liam Neeson as Lord AMERICAN. Press goes wild. Readers hate feeling left out, so they get really curious and jump the hype train. Many cringe-worthy comments follow.
  
  
• Some bullshit marketing gimmick is invented, like "WHAT ARE YOUR VIRTUES?", a stylized ULTIMA™ Ankh or something. (also, drama about Cultural Appropriation)
  
  
• By the time the game releases, ULTIMA™ is "a reboot of the most important RPG series in history, finally accessible to millions of eager fans".

It's always the same song & dance. Of course, the game has to be at least decent and fitting with the audience expectations... otherwise you get Nu-King's Quest.

BTW, not sure why Ian is asking the Ultima Dragons about this... people who played the original back then have never been the target of any franchise reboot / late sequel in this industry. In fact, they are usually called old farts blinded by nostalgia - "of course Ultima needs to be an FPS, top down/isometric games were a technological limitation!" -, or the Glittering Gems of Hatred...

They'll either go full RPG Watch, or see themselves becoming the Ultima Fossils.

 

[Doktor Best]

The process of creating a shrunken head begins with removing the skull from the head. An incision is made on the back of the neck and all the skin and flesh is removed from the cranium. Red seeds are placed underneath the eyelids and the eyelids are sewn shut. The mouth is held together with three palm pins. Fat from the flesh of the head is removed. It is here that a wooden ball is placed in order to keep the form. The flesh is then boiled in water that has been saturated with a number of herbs containing tannins. The head is then dried with hot rocks and sand, while molding it to retain its human features. The skin is then rubbed down with charcoal ash. Decorative beads may be added to the head.[3]

When Westerners created an economic demand for shrunken heads there was a sharp increase in the rate of killings in an effort to supply tourists and collectors of ethnographic items.[5][6] The terms headhunting and headhunting parties come from this practice.

Guns were usually what the Shuar acquired in exchange for their shrunken heads, the rate being one gun per head. But weapons were not the only items exchanged. Around 1910, shrunken heads were being sold by a curio shop in Lima for onePeruvian gold pound, equal in value to a British gold sovereign.[7] In 1919, the price in Panama's curio shop for shrunken heads had risen to £5.[7] By the 1930s, when heads were freely exchanged, a person could buy a shrunken head for about twenty-five U.S. dollars. A stop was put to this when the Peruvian and Ecuadorian governments worked together to outlaw the traffic in heads.

 

[Infinitron]

BTW, not sure why Ian is asking the Ultima Dragons about this... people who played the original back then have never been the target of any franchise reboot / late sequel in this industry. In fact, they are usually called old farts blinded by nostalgia - "of course Ultima needs to be an FPS, top down/isometric games were a technological limitation!" -, or the Glittering Gems of Hatred...

They'll either go full RPG Watch, or see themselves becoming the Ultima Fossils.

Well, Ultima Dragons aren't exactly Codexers and they're not unanimous. As you can see from those Facebook comments, they seem divided between those who would have been happy to see Ultima evolve in the direction of being a standard Bioware/Black Isle-style epic story-driven RPG(tm), and those who are big fans of the simulation/"living world" stuff.

In the latter group, there are those who like games like Gothic and the Elder Scrolls, and others who don't because they're action-RPGs. That's the least happy group today - the folks who want the Ultima VII-style world design, but top-down/isometric, party-based and non-action. Nobody has made another game like that.

 

[Neanderthal]

"Same basic setup as the originals and maintaining the concept of the Virtues, but a much more realistic take on it, less "cartoony." Villains wouldn't cackle and call themselves evil, and the history and culture of each region would be developed in a richer and more historically-inspired fashion than "This is Moonglow, we're a town of mages, we revere Honesty, and that's that. Please pay the blind reagent vendor."

This sounds like horseshit, Batlin weren't no cacklin baddie an moral apologism o Fellowship were masterfully rendered, it's Bioware who do obvious binary morality shit and could use a lesson from Ultima if owt. As for Moonglow an culture, thats a fuckin simplification if ever I heard one, an towns bein formed around virtues which feeds out o history o Sosaria (a history Avatar is involved in) an into gameplay is a masterstroke o world buildin an gameplay integration. Fact that some cunt handle virtues o "Beast British" an left to other climes is also worth noting, sounds to me like they just want excuses to make changes an hamfistedly insert shit.

An I bet thee baddies wunt be Elizabeth an Abraham anymore, an Scientology references'll be scrubbed clean.

 

[MicoSelva]

If this remake makes even 1% of its players try old Ultimas, and of those 1% will like old Ultimas, I say go for it.

 

[Krivol]

Ultima Underworld remake has been released years ago...

I mean Skyrim



But to be honest I don't see a reason of remaking Ultima. Just create something by yourself, filthy bastards! (yeah, like EA is able to do anything by themself's... even FIFA serie has rules based on soccer or sth...)

 

[taxalot]

REMAKE ULTIMA IX FOR FUCK SAKE

 

[taxalot]

And hire me to do it !

 

[felipepepe]

But to be honest I don't see a reason of remaking Ultima. Just create something by yourself, filthy bastards!

From Ian's viewpoint, I guess remaking Ultima is a powerful "excuse" to work on an Ultima-like game, as opposed to BioWarian crap.

You can't just pitch a game like "I'll do a open-world party-based game with a simulationist approach, based on the player traveling to a new world and becoming the savior of it by unveiling the Virtues". No, that's too long, EA suits will say Dragon Age already does that and that focus groups show that religion in gaming is controversial. "ULTIMA REMAKE" is a lot simpler and easier to sell.

 

[Krivol]

But to be honest I don't see a reason of remaking Ultima. Just create something by yourself, filthy bastards!

From Ian's viewpoint, I guess remaking Ultima is a powerful "excuse" to work on an Ultima-like game, as opposed to BioWarian crap.

You can't just pitch a game like "I'll do a open-world party-based game with a simulationist approach, based on the player traveling to a new world and becoming the savior of it by unveiling the Virtues". No, that's too long, EA suits will say Dragon Age already does that and that focus groups show that religion in gaming is controversial. "ULTIMA REMAKE" is a lot simpler and easier to sell.

To be honest - what do you mean by Ultima-like game? Creativity of Ultima IV and V could not be duplicated IMO, we will just get some generic RtwP, open world game with party (if we are lucky, if not, it will be >>risen'ish 3,<< TPP smash-the-button shit) with Lord Canadian and Chuckles.

They will rape it, man, I tell you.

 

[tibermoon]

Important Note: As far as I'm aware (admittedly I don't have full visibility across EA), there are no plans of any kind to do anything with Ultima right now.

I ask my questions as an Ultima fan who happens to work for BioWare/EA, to get a sense for what might interest fans if an opportunity should ever arise down the road, that's all. Idle musings of a game dev. Mostly I wanted to see how the UDIC in general would react to the different types of Ultima remakes/reboots that -I- would be interested in.

 

[kain611]

I would like to see Ultima VIII remade the way it should have been originally. NO FUCKING PLATFORMING!!!! A story that makes sense with the canon already pre-established. Make Ultima IX obsolete so it too would have to be remade as well....

 

[Krivol]

I would like to see Ultima VIII remade the way it should have been originally

Tomb Rider : Pagan ?

 

[animlboogy]

BTW, not sure why Ian is asking the Ultima Dragons about this... people who played the original back then have never been the target of any franchise reboot / late sequel in this industry. In fact, they are usually called old farts blinded by nostalgia - "of course Ultima needs to be an FPS, top down/isometric games were a technological limitation!" -, or the Glittering Gems of Hatred...

Nah, I think publishers have caught on that if you want to get the early hype rolling to maximize the exhumation of an IP, you need to have the smallest, loudest section of the fanbase talking up your product like it's the second coming to make it stick out. Otherwise you just get another Syndicate or The Bureau, games that very well might have sold better without all the acrimony over skullfucking people's fond memories of old games.

Once the mainstream layer of the marketing machine gets rolling, nobody at EA will give the slightest of shits about rotting old Ultima fans, of course.

 

[taxalot]

Considering all the nostalgia cashing in that has been going on lately a new pseudo old-school Ultima is inevitable.

 

[Zetor]

Maybe they'll remake the Age of Darkness trilogy complete with RT blobbing cribbed from Dungeon Master Legend of Grimrock. Ult1ma could also feature space combat as a ~cinematic QTE experience~!

Seriously though, I can sorta get behind a reboot of the Guardian trilogy if they make the combat and character systems somewhat more interesting (how 'bout some decent tactical combat for a change?). They'd need to start with 7 because of continuity, etc. even though the fans would probably prefer remakes of just U8/U9...

 

[Junmarko]

Just out of curiosity, did U5 Lazarus retain NPC schedules?

 

[taxalot]

Maybe they'll remake the Age of Darkness trilogy complete with RT blobbing cribbed from Dungeon Master Legend of Grimrock. Ult1ma could also feature space combat as a ~cinematic QTE experience~!

Seriously though, I can sorta get behind a reboot of the Guardian trilogy if they make the combat and character systems somewhat more interesting (how 'bout some decent tactical combat for a change?). They'd need to start with 7 because of continuity, etc. even though the fans would probably prefer remakes of just U8/U9...

Considering Ultima is so strongly associated with the Virtues and the Avatar , that would be missing the point of a revival entirely.
We'll be getting a dumbed down U4, U6 or U7, and that will be announced in the next couple of years. It will be a vague reboot surfing on the wave of all the old school RPGs of today. I am like 90% certain of this. It would be a stupid business move NOT to enjoy the opportunity. Frazier is the right person at the right place right now, it would also be stupid of him not to try to get the ball rolling, although I do wonder if it would be profitable for him to move from AAA games to this.