I love it when projects come back to life after a bit of a hiatus (or a really long hiatus, as the case may be). So it’s with an extra little swell of joy that I lead off the list of project updates with some information from the U3Project. And that’s not the only update

U3 Project

Render Dragon has posted a couple of major updates concerning his re-creation of Ultima 3. It has been almost three years since his previous update (dated June 30th, 2004, marking the cancellation by EA of Ultima X: Odyssey), and as the sole developer on the project he has found that it is subject to the slings and arrows of real life.

(Render, man, I hear you!)

But he has picked up the project and plans ‘to tinker with it’; some of his proposed changes include:

• Converting the project to Visual C++ 2005
• Using SDL instead of his improvised DirectX wrapper
• Finishing up the combat mechanics
• Reworking command handlers
• Bugfixes and more thereof

Render also brings notice that he will no longer be maintaining the project’s SourceForge CVS repository, preferring instead to make use of the SVN capabilities of that site.

He further notes that in the absence of DirectX (see above), the project is giving him a few compilation problems, but that so far he has been able to at least port the audio over to SDL. That means that SDL and SDL_Mixer will be required to download and build the project from source.

Exult

The Exult team have posted the first news update in over a year (the last one is dated April 10th, 2006). They bring news of several improvements and changes:

• A new-ish team member, Philip George, has successfully ported Exult to the PocketPC
• Many bug fixes, including implementation of missing weather effects in Serpent Isle
• Support for the Hq2x and Hq3x scalers

The latest snapshot (1.4) version of Exult has been updated, and Lanica Dragon (Mr. George) has released a downloadable binary of Exult for PocketPC (ARM) that I have also added to the Exult entry at the site here.

Arx Fatalis

JoWooD Productions seems to have pulled Arx Fatalis from their site. I’m investigating.

Ultima: Iris

Iris, the 3D client for , has been updated again, and build version 1130 is available for download. As well, build version 1131 is available as source.

Both versions are available for download from the project entry at the site here.

Project Britannia

I missed a couple of May updates to the Project Britannia data files and utilities, as both the Conversation Compiler and the NPC/Schedule/Chest Generator were updated in mid-May.

Additionally, earlier this month the britannia_logic.dsres file was updated as well, with improvements made to some of the monsters, the banter system, and the reagent tree system (among other things).

All these updates can now be obtained through the project entry here at the site.

Lost Sosaria

I’ve finished sorting things out after the big move, and while my computer is getting insanely buggy and impossible to use, I have managed to get the project caught back up to where it was at before I had to switch mountain tilesets, and have resumed development on new areas of the map.

Update: Thanks to Petrell over at Dino’s Ultima Page (a frothy mug of ale unto Petrell!), there are a few more updates to report!

The Dark Key

This project, so new and so young, seems to have folded. The project site has been taken down, replaced with a brief notice.

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

David Randall has resumed development on his port of Ultima 5 to the TI calculator.

Savage Empire Total Conversion for Exult

Scythifuge has posted some new screenshots of his project.

Matthew Johnston’s Ultima VII Mod

This is a relatively new project, and I will have to add an entry to Aiera for it. It is another total conversion for Exult, set in the fictional land of Norstadt — a land under siege by Goblins and other monsterforms, in which humans have been pushed to the brink, as many refugees flee to the south.

Update, part the second: I’ve added a new sub-category to the site to encompass Exult Total Conversions, which there seems to be a growing number of lately.

Additionally, I have added to Aiera a project entry for Matthew Johnston’s Exult Total Conversion (see above), and an early release of the project is available for download there.

Update, part…whatever: Arx Fatalis apparently only had its splash page taken down — the main English site is still active, as is the American media site (which does not allow downloads of the demos).

Bumped for news-purposes: readers should note which updates have been made.

This is mostly for my benefit, O Reader, as my memory is not what it once was (not that it was ever amounted to much to begin with) and a list of bases to cover will be highly beneficial at this stage of Aiera’s re-development. A lot of the projects have advanced in their development arcs since the last update to the site, and I need to update the site files to reflect that.

So, at a glance, here’s what needs to get done:

• Finish restoring old file categories and content - DONE!
• Update the files for Akalabeth Mobile - DONE!
• Update files for Lazarus to v1.2. See if it’s possible to upload the mod in one chunk instead of 7 RAR segments - DONE!
• Get local copies of Milestone 1 and Milestone 2 of Archon online - DONE!
• Nodling Dragon’s website seems to have a number of useful downloads and utilities; get these onto Aiera if they are not already - DONE!
• ZIO Interactive’s UW1 for PocketPC seems to have a downloadable demo now; get this - FALSE ALARM!
• Make sure the latest version of Exult is available for download - DONE!
• Check to make sure that I have the latest downloadable files for UW2 Revival on the site - DONE!
• Get the Eriadain files back online - DONE!
• Make sure I have the latest files for LOW - DONE!
• Make sure I have the latest files for SI French - DONE!
• Get the latest downloads for Pentagram, especially now that they have a Mac OS X Universal binary - DONE!
• Get the latest Project Britannia files - DONE!
• Make sure I have the latest version of EUO - DONE!
• Arx Fatalis seems to have a fair bit of downloadable media; see about getting hold of this - DONE!
• Get the latest version of U6O - DONE!
• Make sure I have the latest version of U4 Multiplayer - DONE!

That ought to keep my busy until the end of the week.

As I said, this is mostly for my benefit. However, O Reader, you are certainly welcome to look over the above list and take notice of anything in it which strikes you as being “news”; perhaps you, like myself, haven’t got the latest version of something yet. You can still make use of the old version of the site to find links to projects if they haven’t yet been ported to this new version of the site…go and do a little exploring!

Update: I thought of more to do:

• Investigate the various Ultima Online mods and remakes (Legacy, Iris, etc.) - DONE!
• Check out the UO for NWN module
• Investigate the Lands of Ultima hak paks on the NWVault - NOT WORTH THE EFFORT!
• Investigate the UO Britannia map module on the NWVault

These are somewhat longer-term goals, and the immediate goals of getting Aiera back up to the level of its previous iteration remains the priority. But I think it would be neat to expand the site a bit, and these seem good avenues to approach to do that with.

Upper-date:

• Download Dark Core “offline” versions. - DONE!
• Update IRE files (Sourceforge seems to be having issues at the moment) to version 0.93 - DONE!
• Get Nazghul 0.5.5 and Haxima’s latest files - DONE!
• BGKeyring for Exult - DONE!
• Enhanced Graphics Mod for Lazarus - DONE!
• Looking Up camera Mod for Lazarus - DONE!
• Grail Quest’s Mods for Lazarus - DONE!
• Bugfix & Mod collection for Lazarus - DONE!
• Get newest Dransik installers
• Check all links!
• Check for updates to the utilities!
• Identify dead projects - DONE!
• Add Lost Sosaria again