Ultima Ultima IV Remastered now available for the C64

[pippin]

^ I had the same impression. The replica market for NES/SNES and GameBoy games is big enough to be profitable (or so it seems), so I don't know what's the problem with this. Ultima 4 (iirc) is abandonware at this point.

 

[Gragt]

I eagerly anticipate the day somebody ups the ante and makes/ports a game for a computer which never existed.

Infocom started doing that in the ’80s.

 

[Daemongar]

ITT People on a computer gaming forum criticizing how a programmer decides to spend his time.

Reading the article, looks like he has been working on it off and on for some time. He just dusted it off after last having worked on it in 2006. He's part of a group of C64 enthusiasts who still enjoy the platform, and I can't say I don't blame him. Past 1990 or so, there probably was never a practical reason to do this, but I'm glad he did it.

My biggest problem with the update is that... he doesn't really have a list of what was fixed, so it's hard to tell what has really been improved/if it is worth playing again. However, since he started on this in 2006, I guess I can cut him some slack.

But my goodness, after seeing folks reactions here, I wouldn't be shocked if Cleve never finished his game.

 

[mondblut]

I eagerly anticipate the day somebody ups the ante and makes/ports a game for a computer which never existed.

Infocom started doing that in the ’80s.

They had interpreters to run their virtual machine on computers people actually use, which defeats the whole point.

 

[neilsouth]

:D Nice ( Remake at the top )

 

[crufty]

people are just sad that EA will never allow another ultima to be made. For about 1/1000th of the cost of a A+++ game, EA could produce a new C64 ultima every year.

 

[Gragt]

I eagerly anticipate the day somebody ups the ante and makes/ports a game for a computer which never existed.

Infocom started doing that in the ’80s.

They had interpreters to run their virtual machine on computers people actually use, which defeats the whole point.

The whole point is that they made games for the Z-Machine, a computer which never existed. That they used interpreters to emulate the Z-Machine on other computers is another thing.

 

[Daemongar]

:D Nice ( Remake at the top )

It is nice! And an improvement. Even if they made that change a year after U4 came out, they really couldn't. The image on the top would take about 3 years to load on a stock C64.

 

[pippin]

people are just sad that EA will never allow another ultima to be made. For about 1/1000th of the cost of a A+++ game, EA could produce a new C64 ultima every year.

The problem is that EA isn't Nintendo. Nitendo realized handhelds were a thing and allowed the release of interesting games for those platforms. EA, on the other hand, released "their" version of Dungeon Keeper and Ultima 4.
You know how that went.

 

[Ladonna]

:D Nice ( Remake at the top )

It is nice! And an improvement. Even if they made that change a year after U4 came out, they really couldn't. The image on the top would take about 3 years to load on a stock C64.

That depends on the fastloader. Near the end of the C64s life, the fastloading software and hardware was becoming incredibly efficient, along with ever improving compression techniques. There were games that had comparable graphics that didn't have horrendous load times.

When you look at what good C64 coders and artists could do with a C64, you realise just how poor a lot of todays coders really are. Emails can take up more memory than a few C64s linked together.

 

[Lord Azlan]

Oh how I love thee Ultima IVy - even went so far to buy a bunch of Dungeon Siege games on Steam so I could play the IV mod -

Till my last dying breath I will curse Steam for not working properly with that.

This guy is a god damn hero and I love him already.

When no one is looking and my kids asleep I still pop into ivy and just ponder how far I have come since my teens when this bloody beautiful game meant the world to me.

God bless this chap.

 

[mondblut]

The whole point is that they made games for the Z-Machine, a computer which never existed. That they used interpreters to emulate the Z-Machine on other computers is another thing.

You miss the forest for the trees. The point is to make a game no one could possibly ever play.

(and before "but teh emulators!" - PC already has an Ultima 4 version with the bloody VGA graphics. This one has been redundant since ninety fucking five)

 

[Daemongar]

The whole point is that they made games for the Z-Machine, a computer which never existed. That they used interpreters to emulate the Z-Machine on other computers is another thing.

You miss the forest for the trees. The point is to make a game no one could possibly ever play.

(and before "but teh emulators!" - PC already has an Ultima 4 version with the bloody VGA graphics. This one has been redundant since ninety fucking five)

Now, I'll ask you to compare these two versions. First, the DOS intro (this is the only video I can find of the original DOS version, most vids have xU4 mods.)



Now the C64 intro



There is a HUGE difference between the versions. The PC version doesn't have music, and the C64 versions have a very nice soundtrack. The original IBM version of U4 didn't have VGA graphics - it had 16 color graphics. Also, it had sound effects that appear to be designed for the internal pc-speaker. All garbage that was later patched in to make it comparable to Amiga/C64 versions.

So it's not a big deal to find U4 and patch it with uX4 so it is comparable with the C64 version, but patching the C64 version so its better is a big fucking deal, and a waste of time? Who exactly was wasting their time here?

 

[mondblut]

PC already has an Ultima 4 version with the bloody VGA graphics. This one has been redundant since ninety fucking five)

Now, I'll ask you to compare these two versions. First, the DOS intro (this is the only video I can find of the original DOS version, most vids have xU4 mods.)

Can you into reading? Who needs the original DOS version after the vga version went on?

(my bad, it appears to be twenty fucking zero, not ninety fucking five. still, the point stands)

That xU4 thingy is news to me, but that makes working on an Armstrad version because it supports 1.5 more colors than the 086 IBM did back in 1985 even more redundant, duh.

All garbage that was later patched in to make it comparable to Amiga/C64 versions.

"comparable" indeed.

Who exactly was wasting their time here?

The author who could have done something the community actually needs. And the 5 creepy neckbeards who would actually fire up a C64 emulator (or, god forbid, loan a C64 from an antique machinery museum) to run it instead of playing a vastly superior updated PC version that has been around for almost 2 decades.

 

[taxalot]

There is objective graphics and there is just personal feeling. Of course, xU4 displays more colors... But I somehow like the simple appearance and delayed timing of the C64 version better. There comes a point when the version you prefer has nothing to do with rationality. Same with people sometimes enjoying bad games.

 

[Joined on the 4th of July]

I'd try this and some other newer C64 games if there was some convenient way for me to transfer disk images to floppies.

 

[Daemongar]

That depends on the fastloader. Near the end of the C64s life, the fastloading software and hardware was becoming incredibly efficient, along with ever improving compression techniques. There were games that had comparable graphics that didn't have horrendous load times.

When you look at what good C64 coders and artists could do with a C64, you realise just how poor a lot of todays coders really are. Emails can take up more memory than a few C64s linked together.

Now I'm going to go out on a limb, but I don't think the original U4 for the C64 was compatible with Epyx Fastload, nor did it include a Fastload routine (I don't remember, but this site says it didn't. I do remember that the game took a long time to get to the intro screen.)

I agree with you wholeheartedly on the programmers, though. It is pretty damn amazing what they could do with 4x 170k disks.

 

[Daemongar]

I'd try this and some other newer C64 games if there was some convenient way for me to transfer disk images to floppies.

I've looked into this before. Here is a link to Lemon 64 that goes into some detail. It's definitely doable, but may not convenient, as you mentioned.

 

[:Flash:]

PC already has an Ultima 4 version with the bloody VGA graphics. This one has been redundant since ninety fucking five)

Now, I'll ask you to compare these two versions. First, the DOS intro (this is the only video I can find of the original DOS version, most vids have xU4 mods.)

Can you into reading? Who needs the original DOS version after the vga version went on?

I never was a fan of Ultima IV's VGA patch. It does not give you the option to play with the original graphics, but still have the music. Additionally, it had a huge issue in the dungeons, where you could watch the bitmaps being drawn on the screen line by line, taking an eternity. (I don't know if this problem persists, and assume it doesn't exist in XU4).
The quality of the tileset is debatable, but other stuff, like the rendered shrine mediation screens, are just awful and do not fit the mood of the game.
In fact I dislike this patch so much that at one time I asked the author of the Ultima II, III and V patches to also make an Ultima IV patch, because his patches are far superior, because everything is deactivatable. Here is a comparison of the graphics modes for Ultima III. The Ultima IV patch just forces its VGA graphics down your throat.

 

[mondblut]

I never was a fan of Ultima IV's VGA patch. It does not give you the option to play with the original graphics, but still have the music.

Wasn't it a merge of 2 separate projects, one dealing with music, another with gfx?

In fact I dislike this patch so much that at one time I asked the author of the Ultima II, III and V patches to also make an Ultima IV patch, because his patches are far superior, because everything is deactivatable. Here is a comparison of the graphics modes for Ultima III.

Whoa, there is an Ultima 3 that doesn't look like the depths of an ass?

Someday...someday...

I would presume the dungeons issue was eventually fixed, otherwise what's the point of it all?

The Ultima IV patch just forces its VGA graphics down your throat.

And I couldn't wish it otherwise

 

[:Flash:]

I never was a fan of Ultima IV's VGA patch. It does not give you the option to play with the original graphics, but still have the music.

Wasn't it a merge of 2 separate projects, one dealing with music, another with gfx?

That's correct, but I never managed to track down the single patches.
Also I don't know which (if any) of these included the speed fix, which I needed back then. It's not a problem with Dosbox nowadays, but back then my computer was too fast for Ultima IV but too slow for Dosbox.

 

[Daemongar]

Really liking this version so far, and probably won't complete this, but still having fun. The part that jumped out the most so far is this

RG wrote this in 1984 or thereabout. He spoke of "the soil and stain of high tech living", when 300 baud BBS's were in their infancy, and most computers were C64s and every PC was running very early versions of DOS. Everything was still 6-8 weeks for delivery, and almost all printers were either daisy wheel or dot-matrix, and both were serial. It's shocking how far things have gone in the 30 years since he wrote that statement about high-tech living.

 

[Ladonna]

I'd try this and some other newer C64 games if there was some convenient way for me to transfer disk images to floppies.

If you have an older pc with a parallel port (printer port usually), then the following video will help you. This is how I usually do it with an older PC I have for this/Amiga floppy creation/playing older dos games. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oN5Efr7_ens

If you have a newer PC without a parallel port, then you need one of these http://www.go4retro.com/products/zoomfloppy/

The rest should be fairly self evident.

All of these are available in various online stores, even evilbay.

 

[Luzur]

:D Nice ( Remake at the top )

It is nice! And an improvement. Even if they made that change a year after U4 came out, they really couldn't. The image on the top would take about 3 years to load on a stock C64.

That depends on the fastloader. Near the end of the C64s life, the fastloading software and hardware was becoming incredibly efficient, along with ever improving compression techniques. There were games that had comparable graphics that didn't have horrendous load times.

When you look at what good C64 coders and artists could do with a C64, you realise just how poor a lot of todays coders really are. Emails can take up more memory than a few C64s linked together.

There never was any "end" of the C64's life, since its still being played on and even games are being made FFS

GEEZ

 

[TheGreatOne]

There never was any "end" of the C64's life, since its still being played on and even games are being made FFS

GEEZ

No shit, there's a homebrew and coding community for just about every old computer and console in existance. http://www.warpstock.org/ even this is a thing. That doesn't change the fact that all of those old (or obsolete) platforms are dead since there aren't any new commercial releases (software or other) for them and the hardware itself hasn't been manufactured for 2 or 3 decades. Most of the companies themselves are now long defunct. There are also VHS collectors but that doesn't make the format any less obsolete/dead.