In Edmonton, the coming weekend is a long weekend, which means I will be offline (or, at least, away from the site) until Tuesday. As such, I will be using that time to test a new template for the site that I’ve slowly been polishing up. Come Friday afternoon, Aiera will look quite a bit different.
Now, let me reiterate that this is only going to be a test. I will be deploying a new template (‘Milano’, by this guy) in place of the current one (‘Aspire’, by these guys); no site content will be changed or removed. And come Tuesday (or possibly late Monday) I’ll put the ‘Aspire’ theme back in place while I review comments that I hope — and I’m stating this now to get your attention — visitors will leave.
Truth be told, I’m not 100% satisfied with the ‘Millano’ theme, though it has a few nice features (such as a jQuery-driven rotating featured content pane, dropdown menus, and other stuff) that are the primary focus of my test. ‘Milano’ likely won’t be the actual new theme I select for Aiera, but I want to see how people react to different interface elements that the new theme, whatever it ends up looking like, will probably feature.
So come back on Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday, and leave your thoughts!
Tags: Aiera, Edmonton, jQuery
Forum user Saxon1974 alerted me to the existence of the two MP3s linked from this forum thread, which feature an interview that Ultima creator Richard Garriott gave during the production of my personal favourite entry in the series, Ultima 6.
It’s not really the sort of thing that would merit a standalone entry here at Aiera, but I’ve uploaded the mp3s to the site and present them here for your listening pleasure, good reader.
Part 1:
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Part 2:
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Tags: Aiera, mp3, Richard Garriott, Ultima, Ultima 6
Or, at least, “Happy Birthday Dino’s Ultima Page!” The signal best site for Ultima-related news and information has seen several changes and moves over the years, but has never ceased to be a valuable trove and resource.
Tags: Dino's Ultima Page, Ultima
The full release-version download of the Ultima 6 Project is over 1 GB in size, which is fairly substantial. Heck, I can remember a time (not too long ago, either) when such a massive release would have bordered on the unthinkable. These days? Not so much…my digital download of Mass Effect 2 topped out at 12.5 GB, for example.
That said, not everyone enjoys the benefits of a) stable and/or b) high-speed Internet connectivity. As such, the Ultima 6 Project team have released a 10-part segmented ZIP version of their finished product for download, which you can now find at the project entry.
Tags: Mass Effect 2, Ultima 6, Ultima 6 Project, ZIP
Framing context: a couple of weeks ago, my wife picked up a new toy for our daughter…a toy cash register. It’s a pretty neat little setup actually: it came with a few groceries and a pressure-sensitive scanner deck that beeps when you it something on it, and the register itself is also a calculator. It also came with a toy bank card, and there’s a little slot on the register that plays a beeping melody when you swipe the bank card through it.
So…this morning, as I’m leaving for work, Grace asks me to leave my debit card with her, just in case she decides to take in — and take our daughter to — some of the festivities happening in downtown Edmonton today.
Just after I do so, my daughter — who is, mind you, 21 months old — runs up and starts pointing at my wallet, saying:
“Yeah? Ella? Yeah?”
That’s her way of asking for things, you see; she wants a card from daddy’s wallet too, because Mommy got one. So I give her one of my points/membership cards from one of the national department store chains. Ella takes the card, grins, and makes a bee-line for her toy cash register. I arrive in the living room a minute later, to find her merrily swiping the card, laughing at the beeps.
I…worry I’m sending the wrong message here.
Tags: Edmonton, Ella, Grace
I was just tipped off to the existence of this remake thanks to an email from Zen. It’s a complete port of Akalabeth to the iPhone.
This is evidently a licensed effort, as the app retails for $1.99 USD. As such, I won’t be hosting the download directly; you will find a link to the Apple App Store in the project entry instead.
Tags: Akalabeth, App Store, Apple, iPhone
As if running the best French-language Ultima site and managing the ambitious Return to the Serpent Isle project wasn’t enough, Sergorn Dragon has taken it upon himself to take a cue from Ophidian Dragon and blog his way from Akalabeth through to Ultima 9…with detours through the Worlds of Ultima series and both Underworld games.
Quoth Sergorn:
I will be following a similar pattern for each game: a first post presenting the game, my relationship with it, and when it applies the version chosen for this playthrough. Afterward I’ll post blog posts and possibly some screenshots of my adventuring for how long it will take (which could take a while, or not so much considering I can end up devoting a crazy amount of time to such things when I put myself to it) with some final impressions once the game is finished.
He might even delve into some of the various ported versions of the Ultima titles, though at this time he has no fixed plans in that regard.
So…do be sure to check back with him from time to time!
Tags: Akalabeth, blogging, Return to the Serpent Isle, Serpent Isle, Ultima, Ultima 9
I’ve just added a project entry for a very promising-looking Ultima 7 remake using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine. As yet, the team has only released screenshots of their work, and in truth they may never release more than that since the remake was part of a game design course offered at a college in Singapore.
Still, in the hope that they’ll push something out the door in the next little while, I’ve added Team Exalted Crown’s offering to Aiera; check thou it out!
(hat tip)
Tags: Aiera, Neverwinter Nights 2, Singapore, Ultima 7