Dino’s Ultima Page beat me to the scoop on these developments, but the news is big enough to be worth repeating. Ultima 6 was always my favourite Ultima title, and that particular remake is a project that I’ve been watching with anxious anticipation.

And as if that wasn’t good enough, there is yet more news from other projects as well; that’s what I call a good week, Dragons and Dragonesses.

Ultima 6 Project

Frilly Wumpus dropped me a line to let me know that Ultima 6 Project Milestone #4 has been released. This latest update to the Dungeon Siege-based remake of Ultima 6 features:

• New areas to explore ( Buccaneer’s Cave, Wrong, Empath Abbey and Minoc )
• New game intro which draws from the original classic game
• Enhancements to existing areas
• New plot details and other subtle refinements
• Numerous enhancements to the core gameplay such as:
  • A prototype of a customizable journal system so you can take notes on
    your journey
  • The “;” key now gives you extra information, such as reagent counts,
    projectile counts, etc.
  • New “Gameplay Settings” from the Options menu
  • Many more tunings and tweaks to the core Project Britannia systems

Exciting? Definitely. The latest milestone can be downloaded from the Ultima 6 Project Website, or from the project entry here at Aiera.

Forgotten World

Hawkwind wrote me to let me know that this ambitious, in-engine remake of Ultima 9 has released a sample of soundtrack music written and recorded by composer “Sounddreamer”.

“Time Travel”, the new music, can be listened to at the Forgotten Worlds website, or via the music player below:

A few more project updates come to us by way of Petrell at Dino’s:

Ultima IX: Infinity Eternal

Thepal has posted the first news update in about nine months to his project’s website to let us know that things are still alive and kicking (and just to keep us salivating, he’s thrown in a new screenshot).

The reason for the relative silence of the project, incidentally, stems from a couple of major developments in the real lives of the people working on it. Thepal himself got married (as a recent husband myself, Thepal, I offer my heartfelt congratulations!), and team member MartinLoki became a father (congratulations there, as well!).

It’s good to see that this promising-looking project is still being worked on!

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman is continuing his breakneck pace of work on his port of Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator — in his latest update, he puts development at over 95% completeness.

Latest improvements include:

• A “new look” for Ultima 5
• Leveling up & down now works.
• Magic points are reduced when casting a spell and are slowly restored over time. Fighters have no magic capabilities.
• Enemies can now cast spells too.
• Frigate sails are now working.
• The final quest of the Shrine of the Codex has been implemented.
• Pit traps are now working. If you step upon a hidden pit trap, you are dead — plain and simple — so be careful.

Apparently, Ranman has been told by his wife that the project will be done in February.

Nazghul

According to this schedule, Gordon McNutt plans to release version 1.0 of his Ultima-like game engine, Nazghul, on the fifth anniversary of its registration at Sourceforge — May 26th.

Also, in wandering through other project websites, I noticed the following updates:

Realms of Ultima

With Jason White joining the team, the RoU project has begun implementing an Ultima-style gameplay system for Neverwinter Nights 2. They are changing the character classes to the 8 core classes commonly seen in Ultima, and associating each class with a city and virtue. They have also begun work on custom critters for the game, and have even implemented a wine press.

Project Britannia

With the release of Ultima 6 Project Milestone #4, numerous updates have also been made to the britannia_art.dsres, britannia_logic.dsres, and pb_laz_comp_layer.dsres project core files. These can be downloaded either from the Project Britannia Wiki or through the project entry here at Aiera.

Produced by: Hawkwing, Iceblade, and Nimdraug
Website: Forgotten World
Releases:
* Freedom Mod 1.0

Forgotten World 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 and a team joined FIrstkniGHT, who eventually left the project as he could no longer work on it. The project got its own website and grew more ambitious, decoding Ascension game files to provide players with a better experience. Currently, they are in the process of implementing a world-editor, a first step on the road to turning Ultima 9 — using its original, promising engine (albeit assisted, now, with a little help from the OGRE 3D engine as well) — into a canonical, consistent-with-its-predecessors Ultima game.

First off, Happy New Year to everyone. I hope that you were able to ring in 2008 in a way that was both safe and enjoyable for you and your friends or family; I spent it with my wife and her two sisters at the big New Year’s bash in Edmonton’s downtown core.

Here, I’ll share a photo:

Anyhow, I said I wouldn’t be posting again until the new year, and this has happened. In the interim, a few things worth reporting on have taken place in the Ultima community. Dino’s Ultima Page has tracked a number of these, so let’s get down to those updates first:

Forgotten World

The Forgotten World team report that their world editor is progressing ‘fairly’ — rendering is essentially done, and they are almost ready to begin work on UI design. That’s a promising development for this in-engine remake of Ultima 9

To that end, they need someone to join the project to help out with that aspect of development. So, O reader, if you happen to be:

• an experienced user of world building software
• willing to help us design the user interface of our world editor
• interested in the Ultima series and in creating maps for the game
• patient, communicative and team-oriented
• experienced with programming (perhaps even with wxWidgets) as a plus

…then perhaps, just perhaps, you should drop the Forgotten World team a note and let them know you’d be interested.

Forgotten World was also evidently featured in a German game magazine, “PC Action“, recently.

Lost Sosaria

I have added a dozen new screenshots to the Lost Sosaria website, showcasing the mountain areas I’ve been working on recently. Hopefully, these will be the last screenshots released using the current version of the mountain tileset for the project; a new version is slated to be released shortly after the next update to Neverwinter Nights.

Ultima IX: Redemption

Spyder has posted a number of screenshots of Moonglow in the relevant developer’s diary (you have to be a registered user of the Titans of Ether forums to see them), including one of an Observatory and one of what might be a blacksmith’s shop.

Also, Direhaggis left a comment on the Redemption entry here at the site, imparting the following information:

The progress has been quite good. I think our 3D artist and the new writers helped to re-stimulate us all, as well as the main plot coming to a close in the next 3-6 months.

Management decided that a demo would slow down production. Originally, we thought of isolating New Magincia and allowing the Avatar to solve the quest there. As it is, we want to try to get the game out by the end of 2008.

Good to know!

Ultima V: Lazarus

The German version of Ultima V: Lazarus has been released. I have updated the project entry here at Aiera with the new files.

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman puts his development progress at 94% now, and notes that several new features have been implemented since last we checked in with him:

• the Lord Blackthorn cut scene
• Stargazing with the telescope
• Quit and Save, with game resumption
• the Shrine of Spirituality
• food consumption and food obtaining, starvation
• Skiff and Frigate navigation, sea combat

Ultima: Iris

Build 1648 of the 3D client for has been released. A copy is available for download from the project entry here at Aiera.

Additionally, I noticed that the following updates had also taken place on other remake project sites.

Pentagram

There’s no news from this Ultima 8 remake, but I did notice that a new version of the Windows snapshot had been uploaded on January 1st. This can now be downloaded from the project entry here at Aiera.

Project Britannia

Three core files for this project — britannia_art.dsres, britannia_logic.dsres, and pb_laz_comp_layer.dsres — have all been updated. Changes are as follows.

britannia_art.dsres

• 2 new lutes have been added
• More journal labels have been added — untested
• Two chest icons were brightened a bit
• A new trail ration texture was added

britannia_logic.dsres

• bookshelf animation reverted to a previous version
• minor bug-fixes to the sleeping system
• updated lute screen names
• updates to the journal UI
• a function was modified to allow NPCs to ignore locked doors
• …and at least 40 other changes

pb_laz_comp_layer.dsres

• minor change, just synching the compatibility layer with the latest updates in other areas of Project Britannia

The latest versions of these files are available for download through the project entry here at Aiera.

Ultima VII Mod

Matt Johnston informs us that he has done a bit more work on his Exult total conversion:

the outdoor areas of the main map are mostly done; I’ve done a bit with usecode, including one NPC who sells some mostly useless things; sewers and theives guild areas under the south-western city demonstrate use of newly implemented support of Z coords in intermap teleports.

While not complete yet by any means, Matt assures us that he continues his work on this project. As he periodically uploads new content to the site (without announcement of this fact, however), I have updated the copy of the project available for download through the project entry here at Aiera.

Serpent Isle for NWN2

Jaesun gives notice that the project is ON HOLD — it appears that the state Jaesun lives in suffered some catastrophic flooding recently. While he lost nothing project-wise, he did lose his vehicle, and was physically unable to enter the building for a few days as well.

In the meantime, he will be assisting with the Realms of Ultima project, a project he feels is “very important” for the Ultima community.

Which brings me to…

Realms of Ultima

What Project Britannia is doing for Ultima using the Dungeon Siege engine, Realms of Ultima is doing for Ultima using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine. This is an exciting looking project indeed; NWN2 has a gorgeous engine, and Jaesun’s efforts above would seem to demonstrate that it’s possible to build very quickly with the engine.

A screenshot gallery has been posted online, with several amazing visuals. I have also added a project entry here at Aiera. There are even a few downloads for the project (although these primarily appear to be components of the whole, rather than early snapshots of the entire project).

Update: Ultima 7 Wizard

A user reported difficulties getting the Ultima 7 Wizard to run on their system, so I have updated the entry here at Aiera with the latest version (1.9) of the program, as well as a technical document. Source code (Borland Pascal) is included with this version.

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.

Hey, didn’t I use that title once before already?

Having already mentioned the domain name change, I can just jump in today and start reporting the news. Many thanks to all the people who continue to pass along well-wishing over the wedding; it is much appreciated and received warmly.

Ultima IX: Redemption

Developer Kultan has a new development diary entry up at the Titans of Ether website, in which he remarks on his progress in developing characters and dialogues:

Paws is mostly done. Several characters are complete and the rest that are planned have at least their basic dialogue written if not more. It’s just a matter of polishing them off before the core dialogue is finished for the village. Anything after that will just be additional material added if we need to use an NPC for something else on down the line, or if I just feel like tweaking. Paws has two major local side quests that are closely connected, and will have a few minor ones as well. I’ll look into posting more info about it on the board.

Minoc is coming along as well. As the industrial center of Britannia (per the timeline), I’m looking to give it a distinct feel. I have an outline of industries and businesses located there as well as an overview for the major local quest: a murder mystery in a gloomy, industrial revolution type town. A little of the dialogue has been written, but I’ve got a lot of work to do fleshing the characters out.

Be sure, O Reader, to read the whole thing. As always, the dev-diary section of the Titans of Ether forums is only open to registered users.

Ultima V for TI Calculators

Ranman informs us that his project has advanced again, and the most recent update I have from him pegs the completeness of the project at 92% now. As usual, he provides some new screenshots to illustrate this.

Pentagram

The Pentagram team have released a new Windows snapshot of their project this month. I’ve made it available for download through the project entry here at Aiera.

Forgotten World

Hawkwind dropped me a line to let me know that this in-engine remake of Ultima 9 has adapted their world-editing software to make use of the OGRE graphics engine, moving away from the OpenGL-based version they had been using previously. This allows them to more easily incorporate modern graphics tricks and techniques (like shader-driven water, which they demonstrate with a new screenshot).

Nazghul

Gordon has released a Windows setup file for the latest release (version 0.6.0) of his Ultima-inspired engine and game. There is a copy available for download through the project entry here at Aiera.

Project Britannia

Several updates have been made to the core files of the project. britannia_art.dsres has seen the addition of textures and inventory icons for the clothing and equipment of Chuckles the Jester, while britannia_logic.dsres has been revised to give the conversation system the ability to launch conversations that are not attached to an NPC. Combat calculation has also been tweaked a bit, although this may have introduced new bugs.

These updated files have been copied to Aiera and can be downloaded at the project entry on the site.

NWN2 Ultima VII Part 2

The fast-paced development of this project continues with the news that the Mountains of Freedom have been completed (maps, NPCs, and dialogues all), as has the trial in Moonshade.

Lost Sosaria

My own Ultima project, in addition to having been moved to a subdomain of Aiera, has another new team member in the form of Helgraf Dragon, who will be taking on the role of dialogue writer/editor and lore advisor. No new screenshots yet, though.

Ultima 7 Babylon

A member of the team putting together the Italian translation of Ultima 7 informs me that the project (see its entry at Aiera here) has been completed. It can be downloaded from the developer’s home page.