Well, it’s been a little while since I posted an update pertaining to Ultima projects, and I see that Petrell and Dino over at Dino’s Ultima Page have uncovered several juicy morsels of news. To wit:

EUO

This Ultima-like project reached its fifth year just recently, and to celebrate the occasion they threw a number of bonuses and extra stuff into the game — experience bonuses, prizes & giveaways, DM-hosted events, special in-game drinks (eggnog, for example), and even a few new bosses.

Also, a “Newbie Island” tutorial map has been added to the game to help new players ease in.

Ultima 6 Project

A new press release from this promising-looking remake of Ultima 6 has been released at RPGWatch. It has some details about new cities and places in the pending fifth milestone release (Nicodemus’ keep, for example), and also informs us that the team is always in need of world builders, 3D modelers, artists, and musicians.

So, O Reader, if you fall into any of those categories, you might want to swing by the Ultima 6 Project website and drop someone a line.

Additionally, project developer Nicodemus has posted another update to his worldbuilding Dev Diary with some cool new screenshots of his work (Jhelom and Skara Brae).

Ultima: Iris

A new build — build 2010 — of this 3D client for Ultima Online has been released. It can be downloaded from the project’s homepage, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

xu4

A new snapshot of the Mac version of this Ultima 4 remake is available for download either through the project website or via the project entry here at Aiera. A new Windows snapshot is also available.

Ultima V for TI Calculators

Ranman has posted additional news about his project that has ported Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator. He lets us know, firstly, about some special item capabilities that he as implemented. Secondly, he talks about killing NPCs, lock picking, and guard behaviour — rather a “law and order” sort of post.

The project is still in beta testing.

I also took a bit of a wander around the Ultima community myself, and noticed a few other odds and ends that the Reader might be interested in.

Savage Empire for Exult

Scythifuge is always looking for people to help out with his ambitious goal of porting the Savage Empire storyline into Exult.

Exult

Speaking of Exult, I notice that the Windows snapshot of Exult 1.4 has been updated recently (April 14th), as have the snapshots for Exult Tools and Exult Studio. These can be downloaded from the project website, and I have added them to the project entry here at Aiera.

Project Britannia

I noticed that the britannia_art.dsres and britannia_logic.dsres resource files for this Ultima world framework were updated at the beginning of April. Changes since the previous revision include the addition of a new lockpick texture, a ferry, and two new light textures, as well as changes to melee attack logic, the lockpick’s shape, and a bunch of other things.

The updated files can be downloaded from the Project Britannia site, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Also, I’ve made a few minor changes to the site here. For starters, I have added a module to the site sidebar to track the ten most downloaded files in the last 30 days. Initially, I wasn’t going to clear the statistics for the download manager with any sort of frequency, but after a bunch of Ultima 9-related downloads surged ahead (in some cases, to over 3,000 downloads!), it seemed reasonable to give some of the other files a chance to make the top spot.

So it’s there, and I won’t be putting a “top five” list onto news posts anymore.

And of course, there’s the gallery and Ultima art repository. I do encourage any interested users to register a user account there and begin uploading any Ultima-related art they can find so that it can be preserved for posterity. This includes scans of art from the manuals, which won’t be around forever.

Oh, and I’ve added another countdown to the sidebar. Only 190 days (roughly — could change in either direction) until Grace and I welcome our little one into the world!

Produced by: Wizardry Dragon, Marzo Sette Torres Jr., Crysta the Elf,
Website: Ultima 7: The Feudal Lands
Releases:
* Oct. 29 2006 Snapshot (2.74 MB)

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: Olivier Marcoux
Website: U7-Wizard
Releases:
* Ultima 7 Wizard v1.9 (with source code) (213.52 KB)
* Technical Documentation (41.46 KB)

Before there was Exult Studio, there was the Ultima 7 Wizard. This program allows for the editing of maps, scenery, and objects of Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle. As well, it allows you to browse the characters and portraits, and listen to the sounds and music in the game (including dialogues).

Produced by: Malignant Manor
Website: SI BG Merge @ the Exult Forums
Releases:
* SI BG Merge v6.7 (1.72 MB)

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.

There have been a few updates made in the Ultima remake community over the Easter weekend, including a few snapshot releases and some news announcements.

Ultima IX: Infinity Eternal

Thepal dropped a bit of news just to keep his project’s site fresh, and assures us that things are moving along. He has been working on dialogue for the demo — which will apparently feature 90 to 100 NPCs(!!) — and has been continuing with world-building. More music is also being created by other team members.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

The Avatar Pack was updated over the weekend with a minor revision that split the optional resources of the pack into The Black Gate- and Serpent Isle-specific versions; installation instructions have been updated accordingly. I have updated the copy of this mod that is hosted at Aiera.

Exult

New snapshots of Exult 1.4 and Exult Studio were released in the last few days. I have uploaded these to the site, and they can be downloaded from the Exult entry.

Project Britannia

The Project Britannia development team have released new snapshot versions of some of the game’s core files — britannia_logic.dsres and the Lazarus compatibility mod, to be specific. I have updated the Project Britannia and Lazarus downloads accordingly.

Ultima: Iris

Iris’ snapshot version has been updated to build 933, and I will add this to Iris’ entry on the site by this evening (remember: GMT -7 timezone).

Additionally, there is an AVI-format trailer available from the Iris site demonstrating the new engine in action. It can also be viewed on YouTube.

Worlds of Ultima: Lost Sosaria

One of the tilesets that is used on the project has been updated, and will be tested in short order.

WtFD