Produced by: Andrew Brozyna
Website: Ferrous Lands

Andrew’s intriguing project involves taking various 28mm metal figurines and repainting them (with physical modifications if necessary) in order to reimagine Ultima as a tabletop wargame.

Thus far, he’s added a number of monsterforms to his collection — ettins, orcs, goblins, and headlesses to name but a few — and has fashioned a model of the female Avatar and a few of the companions as well (Dupre is pictured here). He has even begun work on a to-scale tavern model, inspired by The Modest Damsel (New Magincia’s tavern in Ultima 7.)

Produced by: Marzo Sette Torres Jr.
Website: Seven Towers
Releases:
* Keyring Patch (906.7 KiB, 71 hits)

This is actually a collection of small upgrades to Ultima 7 (and the Forge of Virtue — this is required!). Chiefly, it adds a keyring to the game to assist the Avatar in managing the massive number of keys one tends to accumulate as one progresses through the game.

It also features a number of modifications to the game’s event scripting and a fair bit of custom usecode, plus some other “not so subtle” changes according to the developer, so it almost qualifies more as a remake than a patch…but not quite.

This patch requires Exult.

Ergonpandilus Dragon has made us a short video that neatly summarizes, using the tapestry from Ultima 9, the plot of the Ultima series and the path of the Avatar.

Very good work, Ergon! Thank you kindly.

It has been another busy week for Ultima-related news, O Reader, and on the site as well. Full implementation of the download manager is progressing apace, and I think I’m going to add a new feature to the news postings — the top five most downloaded files. But we’ll get to that in a bit. In the meantime…here’s what’s news. And a couple of shout-outs go to Petrell at Dino’s Ultima Page for spotting some things that I missed in assembling the list below.

Project Britannia

I see that the folks over at Project Britannia have switched servers due to speed problems with their old hosting company. The site has been configured at the new host, so there shouldn’t be any interruptions in accessing it.

EUO

I see that EUO 3D has been updated to version 0.14, fixing a bug with window minimization. Updated versions of the download are available through the project entry here at Aiera.

Realms of Ultima

Development proceeds apace on this promising Ultima-themed prefab for Neverwinter Nights 2, although news posting to the project website has been a little bit light of late owing to the fact that team leader MokahTGS is presently moving to California to take on a new job.

Savage Empire for Exult

Scythifuge has started a new discussion thread at the Exult forums to keep us all up to date on the latest developments he is making in his adaptation of Savage Empire using Exult and the Ultima 7 engine. At present, he seems to be working very heavily on graphics and tiles for in-game use. He has even posted a few screenshots for us to feast our eyes on.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

Marzo Junior has put his Seven Towers website back online at a new host, and has released updates of all three of his Exult mods — Black Gate Keyring, SI Fixes, and the Avatar Pak. All of the latest versions can be downloaded from the respective project entries here at Aiera.

Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

Wizardry Dragon has put his project’s website back online at a new host.

Ultima for the Civilization Series

Frilly Wumpus alerted me to these. General Maximus has produced an Ultima-derived scenario (in two forms) for Civilization III. Both are set in Britannia after the events of Ultima 9. The forms of the scenario are as follows (one appearing to be a more difficult version of the scenario than the other):

Ultima X Conquest:

In the kingdom of Britannia, Lord British lost hold of his kingdom with breakway of the other seven city states now ruled by deviant warlords. Play as British under civilization group Bards. Forces and castles still loyal to you are now isolated in hostile teritory and may not hold for long. With news of the arrival of the hero of Britannia, the Avatar; the rebelion states begin marching towards Britain, the capital of Britannia for an pre-emptive strike. With the help of the mighty Avatar and his heroic companions, reclaim your entire kingdom!

Ultima X: Medieval Deity Challenge

In the kingdom of Britannia, Lord British(LB) lost hold of his kingdom with breakway of the other seven city states now ruled by independent warlords who were once friends of Lord British(LB) himself. Play as LB under civilisation group Bards. Forces or cities still loyal to you are now isolated in hostile teritory and may not hold for long. With news of the arrival of the hero of Britannia, the Avatar, the rebelions states has begin marching towards Britain, the capital of Britannia for an pre-emptive strike. With the help of the mighty Avatar and his companion Iolo, reclaim your entire kingdom!

The second form of the scenario seems to be more combat-oriented, and provides fewer allies/companions for the player. Either way, this seems like a neat idea, and I have created a project entry complete with downloads here at Aiera for it.

General Maximus also has an Ultima-inspired scenario for Civilization IV in the works, although as yet he has not released any downloads for it.

Ultima V for TI Calculators

Ranman informs us that his project — porting Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator — is nearing completion. He pegs the current project status at 98%, and his latest revisions to it include:

• “Acknowledgments” menu option is now working
• “Introduction” menu option is now working
• “Create New Character” menu option is partially working

He’s getting close, O Reader! Very close!

Ultima IX: Redemption

Sage has added a couple of new entries to his development diary. As usual, the would-be reader must be registered at the Titans of Ether forums.

Most Downloaded Files

1. Ultima 9 Official Patch 1.18 (0 bytes)
2. Ultima 9 Unofficial Patch 1.19 (0 bytes)
3. Ultima 9 Combined Patch (0 bytes)
4. Ultima V: Lazarus v1.2 (Windows) (0 bytes)
5. Alter U9 (RPG-Maker 2000 version) (0 bytes)

Let’s see if any of the above changes in the coming weeks!

Produced by: Wizardry Dragon, Marzo Sette Torres Jr., Crysta the Elf,
Website: Ultima 7: The Feudal Lands
Releases:
* Oct. 29 2006 Snapshot (2.7 MiB, 76 hits)

This is a mod for Exult (with the release of Exult Studio, expect these to become more and more common) that seeks to merge The Black Gate and Serpent Isle into one seamless narrative. Additionally, it will feature a third continent — the Lands of the Feudal Lords — and a series of quests that the Avatar and his/her party must complete there.

This is an ambitious remake (and also a spin-off, within the technical definition of the term), to be sure! In addition to the expanded narrative, the developers plan to re-introduce the Virtues to the lands of Ultima (i.e. the Avatar will once again be able to interact with the Shrines). As well, they plan to overhaul the spellcasting system and to enable party members to wield spellbooks.

Produced by: Marzo Sette Torres Jr.
Website: Seven Towers
* Avatar Pack (278.5 KiB, 67 hits)

Another Seven Towers mod, joining the likes of Black Gate Keyring and Serpent Isle Fixes, this package completely re-does the portraits for the Avatars in both The Black Gate and Serpent Isle. It not only provides new portrait graphics, but updated gump and paperdoll graphics for each Avatar as well.

Now you can even play a redheaded Avatar!

Okay, it’s been a while since the last update, and I trust that those Readers who are likewise recently married, or who were once recently married, can understand the heady intensity of the first few months post-wedding. Especially when there are “thank you” cards and Christmas cards to send out all at once!

Especially because some of my family members are getting a bit impatient over the arrival date of their “thank you”. We’ll leave the discussion about the lack of humility inherent in such a stance for another time, and possibly another place.

At any rate, it’s time for what will likely be Aiera‘s last posting prior to Christmas, so enough is enough — let’s get to the news.

Ultima V: Lazarus

Toltec Dragon dropped me a line to let me know that a German translation of this Dungeon Siege-based remake of Ultima 5 is expected to be released very soon. So all you German Ultima fans out there keep watch; this exceptional remake of one of the best Ultima titles is about to arrive in your native language.

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ultima 5 seems to be generating all the good buzz lately. Ranman let us know in a comments thread that development on his port of Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator platform is at 93.7% (probably closer to 94% now) completion.

And he’s managed to shrink the size of the game engine a bit as well, thanks to some compiler optimizations.

Lost Sosaria

My own Ultima project, Lost Sosaria now has a discussion forum. Come on by and drop us a line!

(and yes, O Reader, I’m looking at forum solutions for Aiera as well)

Exult 3D

Sam Matthews has been quiet on the status of his project for a while. However, Gunnar brings news in the Exult forums that this project to create a 3D engine out of the original Ultima 7 engine has progressed somewhat since the last time we saw it here on Aiera.

He includes links to a “slightly more official” patch than is currently available on Aiera. I have updated the project entry here with the new material. Please note that the new releases appear to require Exult 1.4 to run.

Pentagram

The Pentagram team bring news that work is progressing despite the lack of site updates. Specifically, they have implemented correct combat music, improved the Avatar’s attack speed, fixed some issues with rendering, falling and throwing, and improved the main menu to include support for direct loading of savegames.

Quite the busy few months it’s been!

They have also released new Windows and Mac snapshots, both of which can be downloaded through the project entry here at Aiera.

Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

I spoke with Marzo and Wizardry Dragon, and they both confirmed to me that while development is definitely low-key, work is continuing on The Feudal Lands, a sidequel to Ultima 7 set in the old Sosarian continent called the Lands of the Feudal Lords.

Project Britannia

The britannia_logic.dsres and britannia_art.dsres core files for this Ultima spinoff/remake engine system have been updated. Changes are as follows:

britannia_art.dsres – the Lazarus ‘Mario mesh’ has been added, as well as more graphics for the Journal system. A new Spartan helmet has also been added, as have some textures and icons for various equipment associated with Chuckles the Jester.

britannia_logic.dsres – party banters have been updated to allow for a lone Avatar, and an issue with non-breaking breakable objects has been corrected. Rain moods have been tuned, and some UI changes have also been made, among many other things.

Serpent Isle for NWN2

Although development on this promising-looking project seems to have slowed ever so slightly, developer Jaesun has nevertheless managed to finish the Moonshade Catacombs, and has uploaded some sample music (note: ALPHA version, very rough) for your enjoyment, O Reader.

Adventure Creation Kit

Chris Hopkins dropped me a note to let me know that his top-down 2D game creation tool has just been updated to version 2.3. This neat little utility is an MS-DOS program that can be run both under DOSBox or in Windows proper (although DOSBox is required for sound), and allows for the creation of RPG-type games in the graphical spirit of Ultima 4 or Uitlma 5.

The updated version can be downloaded through the project entry here at Aiera.

Forgotten World

Hawkwind dropped me a note to let me know that the Forgotten World team have released another screenshot of their re-working of the Ultima 9 engine. About a month ago, they switched to using the OGRE engine for graphics, and true to their claim that it would speed development along they are now able to present us with a screenshot of Britain from the air.

Click on over and have a look, O Reader — it is impressive, to say the least. So impressive, in fact, that I decided to use it as the project image for its entry here at Aiera.

Also, the reader may note that I have added Amazon content to the sidebar. This is intended to be a mostly passive way that any users who a) feel they would like to support the effort made here at Aiera, and b) do some of their shopping through Amazon.com, can ‘donate’ to Aiera. Any purchases made through the links here will garner a small revenue percentage for your humble administrator.

Finally, I have overhauled the tagging system on Aiera, so it should be a lot more stable. Instead of creating links directly to Technorati topics, though, they link to a list of all other similarly-tagged articles on the site here. This is mostly a convenience feature for users looking to quickly browse a particular topic.

A ‘tag cloud’ can be found most of the way down the sidebar, with text colour and size of each tag listed there determined by the number of times is has appeared.

Over at Lost Sosaria, there is news of a new team member — Reclaimer Dragon — joining the project to assist with map development and plotting. I’m pretty jubilant about this fact, and would like to remind any interested Ultima fans out there that we can always use more help.

Also, while Googling around for something completely unrelated, I stumbled over an old Ultima “expanded universe” project: The Official Ultima7: Part 3 – Lands of the Dark Unknown. It would appear that the developers were attempting to use the Ultima 7 engine, and the early Ultima 7 editing tools, to tell the tale of what happened to the Avatar between being snatched by the Guardian at the end of Serpent Isle and being dropped into the world of Pagan.

I’ve added this project to the cemetery, as they would appear to have folded some time back in 2001, and did not leave any project files behind.

There were quite a few updates that I noticed in my last not-quite-daily stroll through the remake community.

Ultima IX: Redemption

There’s not exactly a new update at the Redemption website, but Direhaggis did post a small addendum to his previous update there:

Update on the update: the status bars have not been changed in some time. Some of you have pointed this out. As Corv mentioned, we don’t really take stock with such things because the process of deciding a percentile is so subjective. Based on my guestimate, story implementation, for instance, should be about 40% and total world dialogue at 60%; roughly 100,000 words or so. There’s obviously been progress in the other areas as well, but those aren’t my developmental niches and I can’t speak to them. My very last final ever in grad school is fast approaching. After that, progress will begin anew on the main quest. We now return you to the regularly scheduled update.

Just in case you were wondering, O Reader!

Pentagram

Pentagram has released new snapshots for both Windows and Mac OS X, and I have uploaded these to the Pentagram entry here on the site. Changes with this latest snapshot include some changes to the pathfinder code to provide for fancier visual animation, and a few other tweaks to the program’s back end.

Ultima 4 Multiplayer

I’ve been in conversation with Johnny Wood, the developer of Ultima 4 Multiplayer, for a while now, and he had expressed the desire to switch web hosts owing to a few different issues. Because the primary domain here has an immense amount of space and transfer, I set him up a subdomain, a Drupal installation, and he got to work putting the site together.

There’s still some setup left to do, but his site is functional and his first announcement is pretty big. In a sense, Ultima 4 Multiplayer has stopped development, but only in the sense that the developer has broadened the scope of the project to a more open framework that “will allow users to create and publish classic Ultima-style online games.”

The first release from the site will be the online version of Ultima 4, but one gets the feeling that others may be forthcoming as well in the none-too-distant future. It will be interesting, at any rate, to see how this project evolves from here. I’ve updated the project entry at the site to reflect this change.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

Marzo Sette Torres Jr. updated two of his Exult mods just before the end of April, Black Gate Keyring and the Avatar Pack.

To the Avatar Pack mod, a new sprite for the “bucket-headed” Avatar was added, and the paperdoll for said same Avatar was changed to look a little less “silly” (in MST’s own words). An issue that caused a conflict in Serpent Isle was also corrected. These changes were reflected over into the Keyring mod (except, obviously, the Serpent Isle-related one).

I have updated Aiera’s copies of both mods.

Project Britannia

At the Project Britannia Wiki, three of the development files were updated at the start of May. The britannia_art.dsres file has been updated (changes unknown), as has the britannia_logic.dsres file; changes here include a correction of a long-standing encumbrance issue, some changes to some scripting elements within the API, the addition of a wisp-specific faction within the engine, and some aesthetic corrections as well. Oh, and you can talk to NPCs through locked doors now.

Additionally, the Lazarus compatibility module has been updated, correction an issue with character portraits after a “banter” event takes place, as well as some updates to the conversation engine. The Lazarus entry here on the site has a link to the updated download.

The Dark Key

Razimus (Dr. Pepper Dragon) has added a forum to his UO to U7 conversion project’s website. It appears, just from a glance at topics in the forum, that he is working on map development — he has posted a few samples of his Serpent Isle map in one discussion thread.

Lost Sosaria

I ran into a weird little error while I was going back over a mountainous area of the game Something in the update to the Seasonal Forest tileset overwrote or conflicted with a couple of graphic elements in the JXP Mountains tileset that I was also using, resulting in the mountain area north of Black Dragon Castle suffering from several graphics glitches and misfires.

In my search for an alternative, though, I chanced upon another tileset called Rocky Mountains 10.1, an alpha-version tileset that is quite new to the NWN community. It looks awesome, and there are several new screenshots at the Lost Sosaria website demonstrating the new look of the mountains.

Overall, this is a minor setback; only four areas need to be redone.

Additionally, the project has been added to the Neverwinter Vault, although at present it is “pending approval” there.

WtFD

There have been a number of updates concerning Ultima projects in these first couple days of April.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

The three Seven Towers mods for Exult — Black Gate Keyring, Serpent Isle Fixes, and the Avatar Pack — have all been updated.

• The Avatar Pack features two new avatars (including, apparently, a “bucket-headed avatar”) and a few retouches to the portraits and graphics already in the mod.
• The Keyring mod features a new title screen and a few modifications to its implementation. As well, it features the updates made to the previous version of the Avatar Pack.
• Finally, Serpent Isle Fixes adds a new title screen and a few other minor updates.

I have updated Aiera’s entries for all three mods with the latest files.

Ultima 4: Virtue of Humility

Virtue of Humility has been updated again to version 7.0401. Among other things, this update introduces the following changes:

• Iolo is now a Bard by class
• Flicker has (hopefully) been fixed
• Delay pause on load has been corrected
• Screen resolution set to 1024×768
• Paying the Herb Lady gold equal to or greater than what she is asking for increases Honesty (apparently this was previously only true in the ‘greater than’ case)

As with the Exult mods above, the latest files for Virtue of Humility have been uploaded to the site.

Ultima IX: Redemption

Direhaggis posted an update on progress in the Redemption forums:

After 3 complete overhauls, 2 paradigm shifts, a writer cage match to the death with a partridge in a pear tree, and revisions both major, minor, and punctuation mark related, I can now say:

The main plot is approximately more than half way done.

There are about 30 chapters in total–some rather short, some rather not so much. I’m still vaguely shooting for 60-80 hours of gameplay if one goes straight through the game. Take that estimate with a grain of salt, though.

Chapters 1-6 have been fully implemented by our resident scripting demi-god, Zini, where Chapters 7-12 are being tinkered with and scripted right now.

Somehow I ended up writing the bigger chapters like 15, 19-20, 23 and 26 out of sequence. I guess that’s just how I work sometimes.

It’s good to hear that this remake is making what sounds like excellent progress!

(Frothy mug of ale: Dino)

Ultima IX: Infinity Eternal

Thepal has completely overhauled the appearance of his project’s website, giving it a much lighter feel (although as yet it has not been populated with much in the way of media content). He also gives some details about the project and its conversion to the Oblivion engine:

I decided that the website needed an upgrade, so I threw this one together.

As for the progress, it goes along at a steady pace. The Wiki is taking slightly longer than I anticipated, probably because I’ve just started a new job and therefore am working a lot. Life doesn’t seem to want to let this project progress quickly.

The good news is that two people have contacted me about joining the team. Jeremy LaMantia is a talented composer who has already written eight different themes that I’ve heard.

MartinLoki is a world-builder who is hard at work creating the heightmap for Britannia.

If you’re wondering about the size of this game, picture Britannia in Ultima 7. Then double it. Then double it again. Then multiply it by around 100. Ok… that might be a slight exaggeration. But it is huge. Those of you that have played Oblivion, we’re aiming for around four times the size of Cyrodiil. For some real world figures, we’re talking 8 miles by 8 miles (13km x 13km). Which is 64 square miles (165 square kilometres). And that’s not including the other worlds you can visit as well. This will be Britannia like it has never been seen before.

Here’s a renewed wish of good luck to this project team — that sounds awesome. The technical details of creating a massive world like that can be daunting, and I hope that the UIX:IE team can stay the course.

Also, when you have a moment, swing by the project forum.

* * *

The Ultima 6 Project

Zephyr posted a bit of news to the Project Britannia website yesterday concerning the Ultima 6 Project:

Just a quick update to let everyone know we’re still alive. Sorry that we have not kept the news up to date. The U6 Project has primarily been working on their content, and they are finishing up what they’re calling M3 Part 1 as we speak. No timeframe has been announced, but most of the content is in place and is being tested.

Frilly Wumpus has been busy working with WyrdWeb on revamping the Project Britannia conversation system to use what’s known as Usecode. This is a more complex and extremely flexible way of editing NPC conversations. This will allow a whole host of new quest concepts to be implemented, plus a bunch of new, fun features.

The U6 Project still looking for people conversant with the Siege Editor to help us finish up their content. That is their main blocking item. All the technology is in place; they just need people to help finish building the world. They also still need portrait artists.Stay tuned! We
are very much still alive and kicking.

It’s good to see that this project is still being worked on. Like Lazarus before it, it’s a promising-looking remake indeed. Ultima 6 has always been my personal favourite Ultima, and the opportunity to play it in a gorgeous 3D world is exciting, to say the least.

Relatedly, Frilly Wumpus makes note here of the fact that Gileathane Dragon, who worked on writing and QA for Lazarus, has joined the Ultima 6 Project team.

* * *

Ultima: Iris

Iris is the 3D client for Ultima Online (works with most freeshards and with the Origin servers as well). The team has stopped working on their first version of the game — Aiera should have Iris 0.8.7, the final release, up at
some point later this week — and have devoted all their efforts to a second version built around the Ogre 3D engine. No releases of “Iris-Ogre” have yet been made, but if you’re an Ultima Online player, this might just be the
project to watch!

* * *

Seven Towers Exult Mods

There’s a new mod for Exult over at Seven
Towers which I will have to add to Aiera. The “Avatar Pack” makes a number of modifications to the Avatar portraits for both The Black Gate and Serpent Isle, as well as making any relevant changes to paperdolls and/or gumps. Marzo Jr. has also updated his Black Gate Keyring mod with some of this data.

(Hat tip: Petrell at Dino’s Ultima Page)

WtFD

Produced by: DOUG the Eagle Dragon
Website: IT-HE Software
Releases:
* The Unoffical Ultima VI Developer's Kit v1.0 (128.9 KiB, 141 hits)
* Ultima 6 Items List (24.9 KiB, 122 hits)
* Ultima 6 Savegame Manager (100.0 KiB, 115 hits)
* Book Editor (17.6 KiB, 109 hits)
* Finder (20.6 KiB, 111 hits)
* IT-HE Utilities Source Code (1.4 MiB, 103 hits)
* Ultima 6 Editing Information (132.7 KiB, 119 hits)

The always amusing, always inventive DOUG the Eagle Dragon has produced an incredible wealth of software for editing many different aspects of Ultima 6, so much so that a “brief” description is rather difficult to give.

The Unofficial Developer’s Kit is a comprehensive utilities package that includes four programs that can be used to edit Ultima 6:

• Tweak – a party roster editor (add people to your party, even if in the game they won’t respond to the join command!) with a few other bonus features
• Map – world editor, edit the chunks and map
• RedSetter – affix ‘temporary’ objects to the ground, making static scenery
• Undead – repairs characters who have been rendered “brain-dead” by violent death and subsequent resurrection

DOUG has also released some useful subsidiary programs to this utility:

• Savage Empire Patch (96.0 KiB, 120 hits) – a patch that enables the editor to work with Savage Empire
• Martian Dreams Patch (69.2 KiB, 114 hits) – a patch that enables the editor to work with Martian Dreams
• Party Fix Utility (11.4 KiB, 102 hits) – a small program that corrects an occasional error in Tweak that causes ‘solid’ characters

Conversely, the Items List is more of a cheat than a utility (since you can only use the ‘item creation’ feature of Ultima 6 if you use the ‘spam’ cheat); this is a list of many of the items you can get Iolo to create in the game.

The Savegame Manager is a useful program that allows for more than one save-game in Ultima 6, even when using ‘hacked’ versions of the game.

The Book Editor will allow you to UNBIND all the books and signs in Ultima 6 into a text file, and then REBIND them into the game format after you edit their contents.

The Finder utility has two components, both of which will assist in the use of the RedSetter program that is a part of the Ultima 6 Developer’s Kit:

• Stamp – affixes a ‘homing device’ to the Avatar (the location of the Avatar is critical to proper use of RedSetter)
• Finder – tracks the Avatar using the ‘homing device’

Finally, the Editor source code: written mostly in Borland C, this is the code for all of the utilities from IT-HE software, as well as some information documentation to assist in its usage. Note that the source code has been RARed first, and then ZIPped, to make it smaller.

Produced by: Marzo Sette Torres Jr, Curiousis0Gruck, and Alun Bestor
Releases:
* Redhead Patch (175.7 KiB, 45 hits)
* Rankin Patch (3.8 KiB, 45 hits)
* Quests & Interactions Patch (294.6 KiB, 61 hits)
* Interactions Patch ONLY (63.4 KiB, 56 hits)

There were a series of four small update patches released for Exult by a consortium of folks through the Wired Entertainment website (which is currently down).

The female redhead Avatar patch is pretty self-explanatory: it adds a female, red-headed Avatar to the character creation menu, and provides the necessary graphics in-game as well, in both The Black Gate and Serpent Isle.

The Rankin patch corrects a small bug in The Black Gate in which the conversation with Rankin could sometimes loop infinitely. This patch requires Exult 1.2 or later.

Finally, the Quests and Interactions patches add a massive amount of world interactivity to the game (more than already exists, which is a fair bit) — you can grind wheat, milk cows, churn butter, shear sheep, and weave cloth. It also provides a few bugfixes to the pocketwatch and to how fishing is handled. The quest patch also adds a side-plot wherein you can return the Rune of Honor to Trinsic. These patches require Exult 1.2 or later.

Please note that you can download the interactions patch bundled with the quest patch, or as a standalone.