r/Ultima

I missed out on the Ultima series growing up and I have become fascinated by it recently. After doing some research I have noticed that some of the games are better than others so i am curating a list of the 4 essential games to play through. Let me know what you think of this list. How would you Change it?

-Ultima I

-Ultima IV

-Ultima VI

-Ultima VII/ Serpent Isle (Exult Mod)

I am playing on PC

Not a lot of exciting things today, just some opening menu and other UI work. Forgot to capture Fujitsu/FM Towns UI updates for ztats/ready/store menus.

I hope you enjoy!

I just need to finish shoring up the End battle UI and implement the ending scene then I'll be ready to let people actually playtest it. I'm shooting for that to be available in Mid July.

Hello,

Ya so after having followed the installation directions from the The Exodus Project voyd.net I can not for the life of me get this to work. I did search and read through all the post and have given it many tries but still nothing.

After extracting the v3.3 and clicking the u3upw.exe I get the Ultima3.com and I do change the cycles to 10000.
The only change I see is that the game ( cycles ) is moving really fast but nothing about the colors have changed. I did make sure it was vga but ya am don't think it's working at least for GoG pc windows

Hello to the 3 people who still remember Ultima Underworld The Stygian Abyss. I am, admittedly, obsessed with this 34 year old game. I periodically come back to it just to invent and complete different challenge runs.

In the past I've thought of and subsequently completed a "pacifist run" (no killing anything). I also recently completed a Missile Weapons only run~ frequent saving and loading was the only real way to complete that one, but the Crossbow of Unsurpassed Damage was the real MVP. But my hardest challenge run was yet to come...

Recently I asked myself: "Could I beat the game if, at character creation, I rolled the worst stats possible and never used a shrine to improve any of my skills? And could I not only beat the game, but could I kill all hostile (and non-hostile) entities in the game without cheating, using any glitches, or installing any mods?"

And so after a lengthy and quite challenging play-through with many twists, turns, and setbacks I have the answer to those questions:

Mostly, yes.

My starting stats were thus: Class: Tinker - I chose this class because it has high dexterity and isn't forced into as many combat skills at character creation. Str: 18 Dex: 30 Int: 12 Attack: 9 Defense: 6 Unarmed: 7 - I chose this combat skill because I knew that if I chose any other combat skill, that combat skill would help increase my chance to hit enemies, and I thought that would ruin the spirit of the challenge. Repair: 18 - I chose Repair as my starting skill twice, which brought it to 18, simply so that I could repair my equipment and so that if I needed to do any trading, I would have plenty of excellent quality gear for that. However, in retrospect, I didn't even really need the repair skill at all for reasons that will be explained later.

Every other skill, including sword, axe, mace, missile, mana, casting, and lore were all 0 at character creation and stayed at 0 through the entire challenge.

With 12 intelligence, you have 1 mana point so casting spells from your rune bag is not possible. With 18 strength you have laughably little carrying capacity. With 30 dexterity you have... nothing tangibly beneficial (for combat).

Anyone who has played the game knows that the way that leveling works is that each level you attain (through combat, exploration, or completing quests) gives you hidden points that you can use at shrines to improve your combat, magic, or practical skills. I decided never to do that, so that I would be the worst Avatar possible just to see if I could still kill everything in front of me.

With no weapon skills and no mana to cast spells you will quickly come up against a problem: How the heck can you do damage to anything? In the earlier levels, monsters tend to be pretty weak, so even the worst possible Avatar with no combat or magic skills can still get some kills under their belt using the basic equipment found here and there. But at later levels however, enemies become VERY difficult to hit, let alone damage or kill. The way that hit chance and damage are calculated in this game, when your weapon skill is too low and you swing an equipped weapon at an enemy you are likely to not only miss your target, you will damage your weapon as well. Therefore, attacking foes at deeper and deeper depths of the dungeon will almost definitely result in your weapons and armor breaking at faster and faster rates.

I've danced around it long enough: The only way this kind of challenge is even possible is because of the existence of 1 particular NPC, and his name is Shak the blacksmith. This mountain man is located in a remote section of level 2, and he will repair your equipment for a fee. One thing I read about this game in the walkthroughs is that jeweled weapons are indestructible. That, however, is not true. Jeweled weapons are absolutely destructible, and even with 30 in the repair skill (I did some testing in a different playthrough) you cannot repair them. Only Shak can repair jeweled weapons, and ONLY if they are at "worn" quality or above. If any piece of equipment is damaged enough to be at its lowest tier of quality, regardless of how magical or expensive it is, Shak will not repair it. So it is always in your best interest to never let your jeweled equipment go below "worn" quality. The same goes for magical crowns, although their quality tiers are "perfect", "undamaged", and "tarnished". If a crown gets to the "tarnished" quality, Shak will not repair it.

Some of you UU experts might be saying "Well, there are 2 weapons in the game that are indestructible, and thus, Shak wouldn't be needed to repair those." And you'd be almost right. The first of those 2 weapons would be the Sword of Justice that you actually do need Shak to fix, since he mends the hilt and the blade back together. Once he does that, the sword is then usable and indestructible. That sword, however, does not come with any additional enchantments that would make it effective in hitting tougher enemies. The second of the 2 indestructible weapons does actually have a magical enchantment that makes it EXTREMELY useful for this run. That weapon is the Black Sword of Great Accuracy, found in the secret caverns of the hidden graves on level 7.

Since I had no useful weapon skills to improve my chance to hit enemies the only way to improve my odds of hitting anything was to find magical weapons of "Accuracy". Finding an indestructible sword with "Great Accuracy" was a huge help in defeating a lot of the enemies of the abyss. And although you could, in theory, try to speedrun to that sword, it is gated behind a crystal splinter quest that requires you to reach and enter Tyball's prison colony on level 7. Not only that, but you need to reach the NPC who gives you the crystal splinter BEFORE you kill Tyball (if you can even manage that). If you don't reach that prisoner NPC before you kill Tyball, he will disappear completely and you can't get the crystal splinter or enter the hidden graves area. Before that, you need to find a way to procure the medallion that allows you passage through the orc/ogre outposts dotted around level 7 unless you want to fight them all first. If you run fast enough and avoid the murderous Reaper tree monsters in the mines to the east, you can grab the medallion and run back to the starting area of level 7. But you'll need the ring of leap, a potion of fly, the ring of levitation, or the moonstone and a scroll of gate travel to get over the canyon. That is, unless you want to drop into the water below and try to swim past the many, many lurkers that will obstruct you from the landing that leads back up to the level 7 entrance. So, you do have options there, at least.

The only other physical weapon that was useful in hitting tougher enemies was the Jeweled Mace of Unsurpassed Accuracy found on level 8. You can only get that after killing Tyball since that section of level 8 is locked and only Tyball holds the key. Tyball is a real challenge, and without any weapon skill you can't really hit him with any of the melee weapons at your disposal. I chose to use the Scepter of Ally and a gazer from the mines behind Tyball's chamber. I lured the gazer to where Tyball was, used the scepter, and let them duke it out while I acted as a distraction. After some save-scumming, Tyball was dead and the way to the Jeweled Mace was now open.

With 0 mace skill, the Jeweled Mace of Unsurpassed Accuracy required FREQUENT repair by Shak. Even though it was the weapon that improved my chance to hit enemies the most (even more than the Black Sword), it was Jeweled and thus could not be repaired by me, even with 18 repair skill. Let me tell you, the run back to Shak for repairs became VERY monotonous. To that point, I started to save and load frequently when I got few successful hits versus many messages saying "Your Jeweled Mace of Unsurpassed Accuracy was damaged".

Unfortunately, I came to find that my dependence on enchanted gear would only take me so far. Even at character level 16, with an attack stat of 9, and the weapon that added the most to my hit chance, I discovered that there were just some monsters that I simply could never successfully hit. Two monsters in particular: The fire golems (there were a lot of them), and the metal golems (there were only 2 of them). I just could not hit them with the mace, no matter how many times I swung it. I even got so desperate to know if I was wasting my time trying, that I almost gave up and altered my challenge parameters to allow for choosing the Mace skill instead of the Unarmed skill. After testing that, and finding that I COULD hit the fire golems with at least 6 points into Mace from character creation, I decided it was against the spirit and point of the challenge, and deleted that save file.

I was stuck. I just could not hit the fire golems or the metal golems no matter how many times I swung. And if I couldn't hit them then I couldn't kill them and the challenge would be a failure.

I did try various other methods to cause damage to them. I tried using the Crossbow of Unsurpassed Accuracy and to my surprise, I was actually able to hit the fire golems. The problem then became: How do I kill all the fire golems with only about 80 crossbow bolts total (the rough estimation of how many crossbow bolts that the game provides to you). When you fire a missile weapon in this game, it has a chance to bounce off of the target and land on the ground so that you could recover it and shoot it again. Having finished my "Missile weapons only" run, I found that many of the fire golems only ever stand in lava. Items instantly disappear when dropped onto lava or water, including ammunition shot by missile weapons. Therefore, unless 80 bolts could kill all of the fire golems that are standing in lava, the crossbow wouldn't be enough. And forget any other missile weapons like the bows or slings. None of those other missile weapons in the game are enchanted with accuracy, so the slings do absolutely no damage to the fire golems and won't even register a hit. The bows do such little damage that I would guess that maybe 80 arrows would kill one fire golem. You can't effectively lure the all of the fire golems into areas with solid ground in order to recover your crossbow bolts, because some of them are simply too far away from solid ground and when you try to lure them away, they will leash back to where they started. I even got so desperate I tried to carry boulders into the lava pits to block the golems from wandering away from where I needed them to be. The boulders don't disappear in lava, fortunately. Unfortunately, the fire golems can just walk over them if they want to.

All of that crossbow testing turned out to be a waste of time anyway, since the metal golems cannot be hit or hurt by the magical crossbow. I tried to use other methods of killing the metal golems, like using the Scepter of Ally that you find on the grave of Sir Cabirus. If you cast Ally on the golem (or any monster), and you make it friendly, then when a different monster tries to attack you and accidentally hits the golem, the golem will attack it and the monster will fight the golem. I tried using this method with the metal golem and the various fire golems around it, hoping that it would take out a bunch of fire golems before it was taken out too, but it only ever took out 1 fire golem before dying, and even that took way too long to accomplish. Plus, the Scepter of Ally only has like 5 or so charges, and the fire golems don't do any damage to each other. I tried using it on some of the Gazers on level 8, but they were too weak to stand up to the fire golems' ranged attacks.

I was stuck, again. My melee weapons didn't work. My ranged weapons kind of worked on the fire golems but I wouldn't have enough recoverable ammo to kill every fire golem. I couldn't cast spells... unless...

The answer was staring me in the face: wands.

There are several wands throughout the game that can do major damage to enemies, and they don't require any skill to use. Just point and shoot. They do come with limited charges and no way to repair or refill those charges, but I thought that with proper planning and some luck, I might have enough charges to kill all of the fire golems in the game. Unfortunately for me and my wands, there are A LOT of fire golems in the game. I didn't do an exact count, but I would say easily over 20 in total. And they each require several shots from wands of "Electric Bolt" to take down. I tested using other wands like the wands of Magic Missile and the wands of Fireball, but Magic Missile does very little damage to them, and Fireball seems to do even less damage. There is also a wand of Sheet Lightning with I think like 3 or 4 charges, and a wand of Flame Wind with like 3 as well, but they are random and would require a lot of save-scumming to even hit 1 or 2 golems at a time.

So I did some napkin math and decided to try to see if I would even have enough charges of each wand to eventually kill all of the fire golems. I'm not great at math so I decided to just start blasting and see if I would run out of charges. While I was clearing out fire golems on level 8, I noticed that the wand of Electric Bolt that I was currently using was on its last charge. I went to use it, expecting it to ">SNAP<" when the red reticle appeared... but it didn't.

I had completely forgotten that the developers for this game had programmed a feature that when a magic wand runs out of charges, it has a random chance to either break, do nothing, or give you a free cast of its spell. The wand not breaking after the final cast was the moment I realized that the challenge was as good as complete. Using this mechanic, I could kill every un-hittable enemy in the game.

And so I did. All of the golems (fire, metal, stone, earth) were defeated. All the orcs and ogres, ghosts and worms, lurkers and bats, shadow beasts and headless were all dispatched. Even the friendly NPC's are killable (with a few exceptions).

I was not able to kill these entities because I believe they are programmed to be unkillable: The golem that gives you the Shield of Valor The wizard who turned himself into a door The 2 will-o-wisps in the game The Slasher of Veils

I made several backups of my saves at various points in my journey to test theories or try unconventional tactics. I'm really glad I did that, because once I finished killing literally every single killable entity possible, I tried to drop the talismans in the lava and escape The Slasher of Veils, but the talismans just sat on top of the lava and the portal never opened. It turns out, when Garamon's ghost appeared after I buried his bones, I killed it quite unceremoniously and that in turn caused the game to soft-lock. Apparently it's Garamon's ghost who is enabling the talismans to be consumed by the fire. Strange, but I guess it makes sense in a weird way.

I also found out something out about the very end of the game. Never in any of my previous playthroughs had I ever run up any other path but the green path. So this time I did, and I found that the blue path leads to a hallway in the void filled with water and the red path leads to a hallway in the void filled with lava and explosions which The Slasher of Veils can follow you into. Also I realized that your health drains while you're in the void but doesn't seem to drop below zero. I think they programmed it to almost kill you just to create a sense of urgency so that you'd run for the exit faster.

I also found that with the gold Ring of Invisibility equipped as well as the Plate Leggings of Stealth you can run a short distance away after hitting an enemy and it will lose aggro on you very easily. Useful in some situations.

I absolutely adore this game, and every time I play it I discover something new. Like in one of last runs, I found out that with 30 points into charisma, you don't really get any better deals when you trade. You do, however, get lower prices from Dominus when you ask him to identify objects. And I think Shak will give you better prices on your repairs as well. Oh, and I also think that a high Charisma allows you to intimidate people more easily when you initiate a trade and then threaten them and demand their items. However, I think even with 30 points into Charisma, ogres will always attack you when you try to intimidate them.

I'm also super interested in the places on certain floors that will spawn or respawn enemies after a certain time. There is one place on level 3 that I know will do this for a fact. After you kill all the bandits in their hideout, or maybe you have to kill the bandits that are in the tunnels to the north of the map, one new bandit will spawn in the area with the poison needles trap and the door with the 3 buttons puzzle. That bandit only spawns after a certain period of time I think. Or maybe it's after you've slept a certain amount of time. I'm not exactly sure, but I'm curious what other places in the game have monster spawns like this.

I know this post is super long and I know most people don't really care about this game that much anymore, but I just felt like sharing my experience with it.

Here are the save files I used just before finishing the game. If you look around, all hostile monsters should be dead. I don't think I missed any, but if you want to check my game world to find any, please let me know.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1NEPzXytM-sQWP2OaoaTYT1LhZkVFC_Gh?usp=sharing

TL;DR - With the "worst" base stats and no mantras to improve your combat skills, it is still possible to kill everything in the game that is programmed to be killable without using cheats or glitches.

https://preview.redd.it/wag02bmfhmah1.png?width=959&format=png&auto=webp&s=24ebacb56fe48b025261124b898a9b20bf02e9d4

Another weekly update for my Unity Ultima I fan remake. Got a lot of stuff done with Fujitsu FM Town assets and UI this time around.

Enjoy!

Hey everyone, wanted to be straight with you, especially those who said they'd jump in once Ultima Mobile for you Tablet hit iOS.

Quick background for anyone new: I've been building a free, offline-first mobile recreation of classic Ultima Online, every land connected into one seamless world, no subscriptions, no ads, runs entirely on your mobile device. It's live and free right now on Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux.

The one place it won't be is the iOS App Store — and I want to own that, not point fingers.

Apple rejected it under their "Copycats" guideline: the app resembles Ultima Online without authorization. And honestly? They're right. I tried hard to meet them halfway, renamed it from "Ultima Mobile Classic" to just "UM Classic," scrubbed every Ultima and Britannia reference from the listing, even pulled the intro video. But at the end of the day the game looks like UO… because it's a love letter to UO, built in that world. No rename fixes that, and I don't hold the rights, it's a non-commercial passion project, and the risk has always been mine. I went in knowing that.

So no hard feelings toward Apple. They're doing exactly what they're supposed to. I'm just genuinely gutted, because I know so many of you are on iPads and were looking forward to it.

The plan: I'm trying to get it out through TestFlight (Apple's beta channel) a separate, lighter review. It's pending right now. If it's allowed through, I'll drop a public link and up to 10,000 people can install it on iPad. Everything's crossed that it comes through, and I'll post the link the second it's live.

Until then it's all there and free on Android + desktop:

runawayideas.net/uoclassic

Thanks for all the love on this project. To everyone waiting on iOS, I'm still fighting for you. 🤞

https://preview.redd.it/gzu1a2dyhb9h1.png?width=2752&format=png&auto=webp&s=6b6b34f59174f79be1af8724e1c6f97b2b38377e