Grace gave birth to a lovely baby girl, our daughter, Ella Rose, at 12:39 AM. It was a difficult labour for her, and she is still recuperating in hospital, but she should be coming home tomorrow…and overall, she’s doing very well. So very well, especially considering that she was awake for somewhere between 80 and 96 hours between the onset of early labour (back on Thursday) and some time this afternoon, when she finally managed to get some much-needed rest.

And as her husband, I have to say this much: I could not be prouder of her. I’m so proud of how she handled the circumstances that were thrust upon her during labour, and how she handled the fact that virtually nothing about the hospital stay went according to our hopes. And I’m so proud — and very much in awe — of the sheer determination, courage, and strength she displayed all through the delivery. It was clear, from her every word and act, that this wasn’t just a case of “I just want the baby to come out,” — she wanted to be a mother, to meet her daughter…not just be free of the pain and contractions.

Which, I think, is how it’s supposed to be.

And me? I wouldn’t have traded my place in all of this for the world. If there’s a way for a father to participate in a delivery more, I can’t think what it might be; I got to coach her through every push, and I was right there, providing counter-pressure to each effort she made. And I cannot find words to describe the feeling of seeing one’s child emerge into the world, that first moment where this little purple person almost leaps into the air and is quickly wrapped in a cloth by the doctors.

Grace is so beautiful, and little baby Ella is so very precious and dear. Though I’ve had many moments in my life when I’ve become aware of God’s plan, woven through the very fabric of creation, I’ve never found myself intersecting with it, or being so profoundly aware of it, in such a way as I am whenever I behold the two of them. A man such as myself does not deserve such good fortune as this.

I’m a dad. My wife is a mother. We have a daughter.

Oh, I cannot begin to describe the thankfulness I feel. And please, good Reader, do keep my wife in your prayers, that her healing may be complete, free from complication, and expedient.

This open-source 3D client for Ultima Online has been updated to version 2520, for both Windows and Linux. Updated installer files can be downloaded from the project website, or via the project entry here.

This interesting project that imports shapes from The Black Gate into Serpent Isle has been updated and patched since last I looked in on it. Specifically, it has been updated to version 6.8.7, which has also been patched to fix an issue with compilation.

Full details can be found at the project’s discussion thread in the Exult forums. Updated downloads are available there, or through the project entry.

Produced by: Malignant Manor
Website: SI BG Merge @ the Exult Forums
Releases:
* SI BG Merge v6.8.7 (1.8 MiB, 64 hits)
* SI BG Merge Patch (449.2 KiB, 56 hits)

This interesting mod for Exult imports the shapes from The Black Gate into Serpent Isle, adding hundreds of new shapes, with a few being repeated for use with The Black Gate‘s usecode.

It is still in development, and still buggy (some in-game functionality may be lost by use of the patch), but for users of Exult Studio this may well be an exciting development indeed, as it vastly expands the versatility of available shapes when modifying or creating maps.

Produced by: Team Exult
Website: Exult at Sourceforge
Releases:
* Windows Binary (2.0 MiB, 152 hits)
* Mac OS X 10.3 (1.4 MiB, 121 hits)
* Sharp Zaurus (1.4 MiB, 88 hits)
* PocketPC (ARM) (246 bytes, 97 hits)
* PSP (2.0 MiB, 103 hits)
* Fedora - Game (1.0 MiB, 95 hits)
* Fedora - Tools (274.0 KiB, 86 hits)
* Fedora - Studio (254.6 KiB, 80 hits)
* Source Code (RPM) (1.6 MiB, 85 hits)
* Source Code (.tar.gz) (1.6 MiB, 79 hits)
* Nokia 770/M800 - Program (0 bytes)

Additional Files
* Black Gate Sound Files (4.6 MiB, 119 hits)
* Black Gate Sound Files (Roland MT-32) (6.2 MiB, 100 hits)
* Black Gate OGG Music Files (1 of 2) (12.0 MiB, 117 hits)
* Black Gate OGG Music Files (2 of 2) (10.9 MiB, 111 hits)
* Serpent Isle Sound Files (5.9 MiB, 126 hits)
* Serpent Isle Sound Files (Roland MT-32) (7.7 MiB, 105 hits)
* Nokia 770/M800 - Data (0 bytes)
* Nokia 770/M800 - Music (mono, low quality) (0 bytes)
* Nokia 770/M800 - Music (stereo, higher quality) (0 bytes)

Exult 1.4 (unstable)
* Exult 1.4 (Windows) (2.2 MiB, 131 hits)
* Exult 1.4 (PocketPC - ARM4) (1.3 MiB, 76 hits)
* Exult 1.4 (PocketPC - ARM5) (1.3 MiB, 91 hits)
* Exult Studio (Windows) (3.5 MiB, 90 hits)
* Exult Tools (Windows) (1.3 MiB, 91 hits)
* Exult 1.4 Source (4.3 MiB, 82 hits)
* Shapes Plugin for Photoshop (87.7 KiB, 88 hits)
* GIMP Plugin (50.4 KiB, 84 hits)
* GIMP Plugin 2.0 (47.0 KiB, 90 hits)
* SDL 1.2 Libraries

An amazing remake, Exult is a cross-platform reworking of the Ultima 7/Serpent Isle engine that allows the game to be run on modern operating systems with expanded memory environments. This is not the same as a Voodoo memory-manager wrapper program, and it works on many systems apart from Windows.

Exult 1.2 is the latest “stable” release – Team Exult is making massive engine changes, and subsequent releases are expected to have instabilities as a result. It has Windows, Mac OS X, Sharp Zaurus, and Fedora builds available. Also avaliable is the source code, so that people running other systems can compile and build Exult.

The bleeding-edge version of Exult — the Ultima 7 engine for more operating systems and platforms than one cares to list — has been updated as of October 9th. Exult Tools and Exult Studio have similarly been updated, and all can be downloaded from the project website.

Or from the project entry here at Aiera.

I missed this update, which is already almost two weeks old, to the Redemption website. Direhaggis posted an advertisment, announcing the project’s need for writers:

Do you like Ultima dungeons? Does the thought of creating NPC’s and plots based around or involving an anti-virtue sound interesting? Do you want to check out all of the behind-the-scenes action?

We’re looking for a new writer or two to help sparsely (or maybe not so sparsely) populate several remaining dungeons in U9R. You have 100% free artistic license over your area and will obviously get credit for your work.

So if you find that you are interested in climbing aboard one of the most exciting projects currently under development in the Ultima community, Direhaggis has provided his email address and the submission guidelines at the Redemption website. Go and check thou it out!

Produced by: Team Iris
Website: Iris2
Releases:
Iris (Discontinued)
* Development Repository

Iris2 (Iris-Ogre)
* Iris2 Installer (Windows)
* Iris2 Binary (Windows)
* Iris2 (SUSE) (RPM)
* Iris2 Latest Source Code

Also required (for Windows)
* Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redist. (x86)
* DirectX9 End-User Runtimes

Ultima: Iris is a 3D game client for Ultima Online, which gives the game a more modern feel in keeping with the evolution of 3D MMORPGs while still retaining the Ultima “feel” of UO (such as it is). Iris is only compatible with a number of different “freeshard” server types. See the project website (actually a wiki) for full details.

Iris requires a legal copy of Ultima Online, preferably one of the later-edition versions of the game, but it serves to note that trial versions of UO can be used for play on freeshards without suffering limitations. Trial versions of the game can be obtained from the links given on the Iris2 forums.

Hawkwind, one of the developers over at Forgotten World, contacted me to let me know that despite the lack of news from the development team of this promising, in-engine remake of Ultima 9, things have been moving.

What is more, they’ve given their site a bit of a facelift, having ported it over to the Joomla content management system! On that basis alone: way to go, fellas! Joomla is a pretty sweet CMS, and one of my two “go-to” pieces of site software whenever I have a site to build.

But an even bigger hurrah should be sounded over the news that accompanies the new site design:

We have – again – done a lot of work without results that are presentable.

Due to some strange issues with some of the files, it is now certain that there is still an unknown part in what we thought unraveled. We, therefore, had to rewrite some of the file loading routines. Meanwhile, we wrote a model viewer. So far, we have yet to find any really special models. We will keep you appraised!

Our next aim concerning the editor is getting object selection and property display working.

I can’t imagine how complicated it must be to unwrap a game engine and try to make sense of it, and I am constantly impressed by the demonstrated progress this team has made. I’m confident they can overcome this little hiccup.

Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /nfs/c03/h03/mnt/55109/domains/ultimaaiera.com/html/wp-content/plugins/EmbeddedTagThing.php on line 72