Firstknight has some sad news:

I’m very sorry to say this, but I have to leave “Team Forgotten World” again, and this time it will be definitly.

Several important “Real Life” Events forces me to do this, I have to accept the fact, that my “real life situation” simply not allows to work on such a fantastic project as “Forgotten World” will be.

But I will slowly continue working on “Beautiful Britannia“, which is only a simple upgrade to UIX, without story changes and other major improvements, as “Forgotten World” will provide.

And when the time comes, where I will get to an playable product, I will simply provide “Beautiful Britannia” for Download on “Ultima: Aiera“, but this will not happen within the next 5 years.

And because of the very limited time I will have for creating “Beautiful Britannia”, there will be no new screens or other information on it for a long, long time.

I only can hope that you can understand my situation.

Please continue to support “Team Forgotten World” in their effort to create the “true” UIX.

All I can say is: well, doesn’t that just suck. But even so, I hope the good reader will join me in wishing Firstknight all the best in whatever continued work he is able to put in on the project, and all good fortunes in his “real life” endeavours.

It’s also important to remember: this announcement only applies to Beautiful Britannia, and not to Forgotten World (the other half of the project). I will presently be splitting the two into separate entries here, to reflect this change.

Tags: Aiera, Beautiful Britannia, Forgotten World, Ultima

The team at Forgotten World have made an arrangement with the Titans of Ether to set up a discussion area for their project at the Titans’ forums.

I’m thinking I may need to make a point of adding forum links to project entries.

Tags: Forgotten World, Titans of Ether, Ultima 9

In a move that warms this shutterbug’s heart, Firstknight has gone back and re-shot about 20 screenshots for Forgotten World/Beautiful Britannia in which “the fog has been lifted.”

That is: he’s taken advantage of his team’s discovery of how to remove the fog from the game world, and has updated some of the older screenshots accordingly.

Head on over to the project website to check them out!

Tags: Beautiful Britannia, Forgotten World, Ultima 9

I’m a bit late in posting this, but from Firstknight comes yet more good news about progress being made with the Ultima 9 engine over at Forgotten World/Beautiful Britannia:

I’ve finally found a working solution to disable the fog for overworld maps.

Details how this can be done, including 3 screenshots showing the result, can be found in the news section on our website.

Click on over, good reader, and check thou it out!

Tags: Beautiful Britannia, Forgotten World, Ultima 9

Firstknight has posted a couple of updates to the Forgotten World website, including an update to the project information for Beautiful Britannia, and some news about the completion of a “general upgrade” to the northeastern part of Yew, near the court.

He also explains that “general upgrade” means, in essence, an upgrade to the flora and fauna of the region. Treasure and encounter placements remain unchanged.

Three screenshots have been added to give an idea of just what a retouched area in Beautiful Britannia can and will look like.

Tags: Beautiful Britannia, Forgotten World, Ultima 9

The pace of development at Forgotten World seems to have picked up significantly; not a week has gone by since the last update from the team, and already Firstknight has more to report:

I think everyone will agree that the worst geographical inaccuracy in
Ultima 9 is the position of Empath Abbey, which is placed north-east of Stonegate. So we tried to find some way to correct this for quite some
time.

I have to say, the the placement of bigger objects is very tricky, because
we are only able to place such objects using the hex-editor and by changing
existing objects. Further these objects must be placed within a range of a
certain area, otherwise the engine is not able to render them correctly.

But in the end it looks like found some working solution for this. The position of Empath Abbey in Beautiful Britannia will be west of Yew, right on the coastline.

Also we tried to make it a litter bigger than in UIX…

There is even a shiny new screenshot up at the project website, good reader. Check thou it out!

Tags: Beautiful Britannia, Empath Abbey, Forgotten World, Stonegate, Ultima 9, Yew

Firstknight and the rest of the team at Forgotten World have been busy these last few weeks. They have added a new projects section to their website, which gives additional details on Beautiful Britannia, Forgotten World, and a new, interim project called Beautiful Britannia Unlimited.

Best to go and read up on them for yourself, good reader. This project, which began as a simple modification for Ultima 9 to improve the gameplay experience, has grown by leaps and bounds, and the possibilities it presents for a re-play of the final Ultima game are quite exciting.

The team has also posted three new screenshots demonstrating early work done toward Beautiful Britannia. I like this one the best, personally; river banks should be that lush.

Tags: Beautiful Britannia, Beautiful Britannia Unlimited, Forgotten World, Ultima 9