Beautiful Britannia started as a ‘Freedom Mod‘ for Ascension, assembled by Michael Menapace in response to the rather absurdly linear feel to the plot of this last Ultima title. The mod didn’t do much to alter the order of events in the game, or to change at all the inconsistencies encountered in Ultima 9‘s plot. What it does do, however, is alter some aspects of the structure of Britannia, eliminating obstacles that previously prevented you from roaming the land of Britannia freely.

Eventually, the project grew into what became known as Forgotten World, and a team joined FIrstkniGHT. FIrstkniGHT himself left the team for a while, though the project moved on; it gained a website and grew more ambitious, evolving into an attempt to decode the Ascension game files with an eye toward building a world and game editor, in order to provide players with a better experience.

Firstknight (slight spelling change) then rejoined the team, and the project split into two separate projects as a result: Beautiful Britannia (a more “lush” version of the original Ultima 9) and its “Unlimited” spinoff (a more lush Ultima 9 with a few additions and revisions), and Forgotten World proper (the in-engine remake, which will feature many corrections and updates). Firstknight subsequently departed the team again, this time apparently for good; in the process, Beautiful Britannia became this standalone project.

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

A “continuation” to Ultima 4, this is Chris Hopkins’ take on an Ultima spoof. As there is some plot to the game, it proposes to answer several key questions that arose in the interim period of Britannian history between Ultima 4 and Ultima 5, such as why the various dungeons were sealed, why Lake Generosity dried up, how Blackthorn was able to take over, why the Shadowlords were drawn to Britannia, and exactly how the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom was raised out of the Stygian Abyss.

Along the way, it pokes fun at a number of Ultima conventions and bits of Ultima history, such as the true fates of Mondain, Minax, and Exodus, the sudden cessation of space travel, the origin of the Guardian, the connection between Lord British‘s Castle and Hythloth, and a bunch of other stuff.

Be thou forewarned: to play this game requires version 3.2 of Hopkins’ Adventure Creation Kit. DOSBox may also be of use.

Their first bit of news is that the project’s founder, Michael “Firstknight” Menapace, has returned to the team; his return has, in turn, stimulated a kind of “return to the roots” for the project, which has now split into two projects: Beautiful Britannia and Forgotten World. Notable distinctions between the projects include:

What is Beautiful Britannia?

FORGOTTEN WORLD in its original form – that means only enriching the landscape with animals and vegetation and adding the Old Cove Map as “Great Wilderness” to the game.

More simply in comparsion to FORGOTTEN WORLD, but with the possiblity to make a faster release.

…

The creation of FORGOTTEN WORLD is based on the self-developed, FANTASTIC world editor (mainly developed by Hawkwind, with support of all the other team members). The editor (when it’s done) will support fully 3D worldbuilding for terrain and all available objects, also story changes and the adding of more NPCs.

BEAUTIFUL BRITANNIA will be created using Firstknights self-developed ingame-creation methodics, combined with hex editor coding and the usage of an self-written tool for automated code changes. This all allows limited changes to the landscape and adding of some of the unused maps.

Personally, I’m still looking forward to Forgotten World more than Beautiful Britannia, although the thought of exploring an even more lush Britannia (for all its faults, Ultima 9 did feature a beautiful world) does have a certain appeal.

Produced by: Withstand the Fury Dragon
Website: Worlds of Ultima: Lost Sosaria
Downloads:
* Lost Sosaria (module) (0 bytes)
* Castle Expanded v4 (hak pak) (0 bytes)
* CEP2 No Tilesets (hak pak) (0 bytes)
* No Cobble CRF (hak pak) (0 bytes)
* Rocky Mountains v11.1 (hak pak) (0 bytes)
* Seasonal Forest v9 (hak pak) (0 bytes)
* Ultima Music (hak pak, music) (0 bytes)
* ERF files (erf) (0 bytes)
* CEP2 TLK file (tlk) (0 bytes)

Worlds of Ultima: Lost Sosaria is a Neverwinter Nights module that tells the story of those companions of the Avatar who were missing without explanation after Ultima 7, as well as several other key characters from The Black Gate.

Pursuing Fellowship agents deep into the bowels of Britannia and the ruins of the Great Stygian Abyss, the companion Sentri leads his party of former friends and companions of the Avatar into an unknown part of the world: Lost Sosaria, one of the continents of Old Sosaria left missing after the death of the Wizard Mondain.

This project suspended development for a goodly while between 2005 and the present, and in fact Withstand the Fury Dragon has had to restart the module from scratch. However, he has revised his development plan, and feels confident that he can still deliver a good game with a large game world, this time using much more elegant tilesets.

Produced by: Darkheart Dragon, Avatus Kingsman (formerly), and many others
Website: Ultima Legacy
Releases:
* Note: There is a file embedded within this post, please visit this post to download the file.

Ultima Legacy was a modified version of Ultima Online which could be played for free, set in a post-Ultima 8 Britannia. Its premise includes the assumption that Ultima 9: Ascension did not happen, and out of that it has spawned a complex and involved storyline that included the Atarkan invasion of Britannia. Legacy doesn’t exactly form the backstory for the Titans of Ether project entitled Ultima IX: Redemption, although there is a relation there as both projects were founded, in part, by Avatus Kingsman (although where he has gone to, none now know).

Joining Legacy was a bit of an involved process — the modified data files that were necessary for game play are provided here for download, but there was more to it than just that. For starters, you needed to own a copy of Ultima Online: The Second Age, and it was actually recommended that you have Ultima Online: Renaissance instead. Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge may also have worked.

The rest of the joining process was explained at the Legacy website. However, as of 2008, Legacy was being revised to tell a Serpent Isle-based tale, and was also switching from the Sphere freeshard system to RunUO. The project website is now little more than a placeholder page.

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: General Maximus
Website: Ultima for Civ IV
Releases:
* Ultima X Conquest for Civ III (0 bytes)
* Ultima X Conquest: Medieval Deity Version for Civ III (0 bytes)

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.

 

]]> http://www.ultimaaiera.com/spin-offs/ultima-for-civilization/feed/ 1 http://www.ultimaaiera.com/spin-offs/realms-of-ultima/ http://www.ultimaaiera.com/spin-offs/realms-of-ultima/#comments Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:59:30 +0000 Withstand the Fury Dragon http://www.ultimaaiera.com/spin-offs/276/

Produced by: MokahTGS
Website: Realms of Ultima Blog
Releases:
* Moongates Prefab
* Moongates Demo
* Starter Module
* Realms of Ultima 2DA Pack v1.11
* Realms of Ultima Icon Pack v1.11
* Realms of Ultima Extras Fixes
* Realms of Ultima Prefab – New Magincia

This project also requires the Neverwinter Nights 2 Community Content Compilation and the Armor in Progress Compilation.

Doing for Neverwinter Nights 2 what Project Britannia did for Dungeon Siege, this project aims to create a complete “prefab” of Britannia — with a fully-implemented world map, all the historical Ultima quest objects, and pre-implemented scripts — for NWN2 builders to use as the base for Ultima-themed modules.

 

]]> http://www.ultimaaiera.com/spin-offs/realms-of-ultima/feed/ 4 http://www.ultimaaiera.com/blog/redemption-looking-for-new-members-euo-goes-3d-realms-of-ultima-releases-new-content/ http://www.ultimaaiera.com/blog/redemption-looking-for-new-members-euo-goes-3d-realms-of-ultima-releases-new-content/#comments Mon, 04 Feb 2008 20:08:34 +0000 Withstand the Fury Dragon http://www.ultimaaiera.com/blog/redemption-looking-for-new-members-euo-goes-3d-realms-of-ultima-releases-new-content/ It hasn’t been a tremendously busy couple of weeks, but several projects have posted significant updates.

Ultima IX: Redemption

There is a lot of news from this promising, Morrowind-based remake of Ultima 9 this week. Firstly, “de facto” project spokesperson Direhaggis writes in to inform us all of the following:

Our team has stayed consistently productive for the last year, especially making gains in exterior cell worldbuilding (which is nearly done) and 3D models. I myself write the main quest and it’s 80% complete, with a word count of approximately 180,000 (where U7:BG had ~175,000). Overall, production is 75% done. With our current team roster, the game itself will definitely be completed–it’s just a question of time.

On that note, we are right now looking for more worldbuilders for interior cells, as well as dialogue writers. There’s also a position for a 2D artist to help create more cutscenes for the game.

Our director, Corv, is going to update the status page fairly soon. He has recently become a new father, though, so I am acting in his stead to spread the news far and wide.

I would dearly appreciate your sharing this news with your readership. Thank you for your time, thought, and especially your dedication to keeping Ultima alive and well.

And to Direhaggis, I can only say: no problem at all, good Ultima fan and true!

It is indeed the case that the Redemption team are looking for worldbuilders to help with interiors, as well as dialogue writers and (possibly) even a 2D artist. If, O Reader, you feel you could fit into one or any of those categories, pop on over to the Ultima IX: Redemption website and drop Direhaggis a private message in the forums there.

PT-BR Translation for Ultima Underworld

I was informed via the contact form that a Portuguese translation of Ultima Underworld is available for download as well:

We have a small group with a project, its about 90%, but we have a lot of work like font editing and replay the game to check any flaw.
There is alreadly a patch avaliable.

I have created a project entry for this translation here at Aiera, and have uploaded the current version of the patch (v0.2) for download. If, O Reader, you would be interested in helping this small team with font editing and playtesting, you can contact then through their website/forum.

Exult 3D

From his comments at the end of this discussion at the Exult forums, it appears that Sam Matthews has stopped work on his 3D re-interpretation of the Ultima 7 engine. If so, that’s a pity.

For the moment, the project entry here at Aiera won’t be changed, as the project had come a fairly long way and could conceivably be used to play through Ultima 7. It won’t look terribly pretty in places, but that’s an aesthetic concern as opposed to a technical one.

EUO

Speaking of 3D, it appears that a beta-stage 3D engine has become available for EUO, the Ultima-like online RPG. The look and playability are still rudimentary, but this is certainly an interesting development for this fun little project.

Downloads and installation instructions are available at the EUO forums, and the downloads are mirrored through the project entry here at Aiera.

Realms of Ultima

This promising, Neverwinter Nights 2-based set of “prefabs” has just released its latest content — New Magincia. It’s not a completed release just yet, and will soon see the addition of caves, house interiors, and the Gargoyles that live there, but it’s enough to wander around in…and it’s spectacular.

(My wife bought me NWN2 a couple of weeks ago, and I’ve had a bit of a look at the town…it’s top-notch work)

The prefab can be downloaded either from its entry at the Neverwinter Vault, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

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