I was always a big fan of Syndicate when I was a kid; I spent countless hours in front of my friend Tiago’s Mac LCIII laying into mercenaries (and sometimes civilians…who am I kidding?) with the Gauss Gun.

So you can imagine that this news caught my eye:

A modern update of isometric cyborg sim Syndicate is presumed to be the surviving half of a planned two-game collaboration between EA and Starbreeze Studios. As noted by Superannuation, EA filed three new “Syndicate” trademark registrations in August concerning “video game software,” “electronic computer games” and, in one case, “collectable toy figures.”

Rumors of a new Syndicate sprang up over a year ago, and a document from the U.S. Copyright Office recently linked the Syndicate name to both EA and Chronicles of Riddick developer Starbreeze Studios. While the publisher has never made an official announcement, original Syndicate designer Sean Cooper stated in June 2009 that several “misguided” attempts to revisit the sci-fi franchise had been made since it debuted in the early 90s.

Syndicate isn’t particularly related to Ultima in any meaningful sense, though it did boast an isometric game engine that would be instantly familiar to any fan of Ultima 7 or Ultima 8. The linear, mission-based storyline was far from an Ultima-like RPG experience (indeed, I don’t think you could classify Syndicate as an RPG, at least not one in the same category as Ultima), although the squad controls were somewhat tighter than even those offered by Ultima 6.

That’s right…it’s been nearly a decade in the making, and it comes out today!

On this, the 20th anniversary year of the release of Origin Systems Ultima 6, it is with much pleasure that we announce the 1.0 release of Team Archon‘s Ultima 6 Project, for Dungeon Siege 1 (PC and Mac). Players will find a huge and exciting world waiting to be discovered:

• Travel throughout the lands of Britannia, exploring dark forests with bandits lying in wait, deserts and swamps teeming with monsters, and peaceful towns and villages filled with shops, old friends, and interesting people just waiting to give the player numerous and exciting quests to solve.
• Explore deep and dangerous caves and caverns full of treasure and hidden surprises. Bring your breadcrumbs to mark your trail, or be prepared to be thoroughly and completely lost, with your remains left to be found by future explorers.
• Sail the savage seas to explore remote islands, but be vigilant for there are sea monsters lying in wait for the careless traveler.
• Discover a hidden new world, far from Britannia.
• Encounter strange and exotic races, including the mysterious Gargoyles.
• Fight fearsome monsters, find pirate loot, solve a murder, and discover the truth behind the numerous attacks on Britannia’s towns.
• Learn the commerce of the land for fun and profit.
• Learn magical spells, search for magic reagents, and join guilds to gain special benefits.
• Those players with proclivities to the dark side can follow an “evil path”.
• And, last, but not least, ferret out the hidden Easter eggs.

Click on through to continue reading the press release. If you just can’t wait and have to start downloading the project package, click here for the project entry at Aiera, or visit the project website for additional download links.

(more…)

Well, today is an exciting Monday, isn’t it? That’s right…the newest Beta release of the Ultima 6 Project is available for download:

It is with much pleasure that we announce the release of the Beta 3 Release of Team Archon’s Ultima 6 Project, for Dungeon Siege 1 (PC and Mac). Some things to look forward to in this release:

• Many bug fixes have been implemented since the Beta 2 release.
• All NPC’s are in place, and all the quests have been implemented.
• Those players with proclivities to the dark side can now follow an “evil path”.
• Additional enhancements have been made to the map and journal systems, and the Compendium is now complete.
• Performance improvements have been implemented

It should be noted that anyone using a previous version will have to uninstall it prior to installing the Beta 3 Release, and start a new game,

While this is not the final release of the game, we feel that it is reasonably polished, enough for public consumption (read: scrutiny). We still expect that there will be some bugs, and are soliciting your help in finding them.

If you find problems with the release, want to exchange play hints with other players, want to give us kudos, or (heaven forbid) want to tell us what you really think, join us at our forums.We have set up a special forum for the Beta 3 Release on the Project Britannia forums.

To download the Beta 3 Release, go to the Ultima 6 Project web site.

You’re still here, good reader? Get thee to the project website and download that Beta! Or, if you like, you can get it from the project entry here; Aiera is pleased to serve as a download mirror for the U6P team.

Not that I mourn its passing, exactly. It was a pretty darn ancient system, my old AMD Athlon XP 1800+ that I bought in 2003. Clocking in at about 1.18 GHz and backed up by 1.25 GB of RAM, it wasn’t exactly the powerhouse of the house. It did have a pretty decent video card, though. But anyhow, the system would appear to have well and truly “snuffed it”, as they say. The power supply is fine and everything is connected, but neither the processor nor the hard drives show any sign of life when the system is powered on.

So I’m thinking it might just be time to upgrade. As such, let’s haul out the old format for a bit and contemplate options. I’m thinking it’d be sweet to hook her up with one of these new “mini” computers that are becoming quite common these days. She doesn’t exactly need the computing horsepower, since she doesn’t use the computer for much more than a bit of music playback, checking her email, and checking various newsfeeds. Once in a while, she’ll watch an episode of House online.

Option #1: Asus Eee Box 1012

Specs:

• nVidia ION graphics chipset
• Intel Atom N330 Dual Core 1.6GHz processor
• 2 GB DDR2 RAM
• 160 GB 5400RPM SATA II hard drive

Price: $429 (Memory Express)

Pros: Asus Eee computers are pretty well-known as far as miniature PCs and netbooks go. Asus itself makes pretty reliable hardware, in my experience, and the Eee Box itself can be fitted almost anywhere, so as to be unobtrusive.

Cons: Price, primarily. Though not the most expensive unit on this list, the Eee Box does cost $80 more than the Acer Aspire Revo, despite having essentially identical specs thereto. We can argue over brands, but since I’ve personally no objection to either Acer or Asus, I don’t exactly see why — if I am to choose between just the two — I should opt for the Asus.

Also, as Petrell pointed out in the comments, there’s no optical drive. I don’t see this as being the biggest obstacle, and I don’t imagine Grace would either…but you never know. It’s worth consideration.

Option #2: Acer Aspire Revo 3610

Specs:

• nVidia ION graphics chipset
• Intel Atom N330 Dual Core 1.6GHz processor
• 2 GB DDR2 RAM
• 160 GB 5400RPM SATA II hard drive

Price: $349 (Memory Express)

Pros: Price, for one; the Revo 3610 is identical to the Eee Box (above) in terms of specifications, yet comes in at a lower price. That’s an important consideration for me these days! Personally, I’ve only ever had good experiences with Acer computers. And the size of the thing…sheesh, it’s tiny! I could hide it almost anywhere near Grace’s monitor, and clean up the cable mess I made when I set up her tower, and she’d have a better computer at the end of it.

I don’t imagine she’d complain.

Also, the Revo boasts one additional USB port. That sounds trivial, and I would generally agree that it is…but at the same time, I think we’ve all been in that situation where we have one more device to connect than we have ports available. Am I right? Nevermind.

Cons: The lack of an optical drive, again, as Petrell pointed out.

Option #3: Dell Inspiron Zino HD

Specs:

• ATI Radeon HD 3200 graphics chipset
• AMD Athlon 2650e 1.6GHz processor
• 3 GB DDR2 RAM
• 250 GB 7200RPM SATA II hard drive

Price: $399 (Dell.ca)

Pros: This system offers more memory than either the Revo or the Eee Box, and a larger/faster hard drive as well. The hard drive capacity is a worthwhile consideration, since Grace is always happy to have more space to work with; the extra RAM would certainly improve system performance a little bit.

Cons: For one, the HD 3200 graphics chipset…isn’t really that good. In fact, as a general rule, it’s worse than the ION chipset. For $99 more, I could jump that to the HD 4330 chipset, which is markedly better (heck, Grace could probably run Mass Effect, which I’ve been encouraging her to play lately).

But that would of course boost the price of the unit from something that falls happily between the Revo and the Eee Box to something that far exceeds both units. And considering the fact that this unit boasts what appears to be a single core processor, rather than a dual core, it doesn’t seem to be that great of a deal overall.

Option #4: Mac Mini

Specs:

• nVidia GeForce 9400M graphics chipset
• Intel Core 2 Duo 2.26 GHz processor
• 2 GB DDR3 RAM
• 160 GB 5400RPM hard drive

Price: $649 (Apple.ca)

Pros: Well, it’s a Mac, for starters, which means the beautiful, easy-to-use thing that is OS X. Overall, this is a much higher-performance system than any of the other entries on this list, and yet is quite compact (smaller than the Dell, I think). The processor is a Core 2, rather than a netbook Atom-type chip, and the 9400M graphics are…decent.

Cons: The hard drive is nothing special. And then there’s the price. The Mac Mini is easily the most expensive computer on the list here (not that I’m surprised), and probably the hardest overall to cost-justify. Yes, it’s a beefier system overall, but does Grace need the power? Given her current usage profile, I’m doubtful.

In Closing

My gut feeling is to go with the Revo, both because it’s the cheapest system on the list and because it offers what will probably be the best system overall for Grace’s needs. Still, I’m open to some debate on the matter, so if anyone wants to chime in with a suggestion, please do so.

There’s been a fair bit of talk and buzz about Exult lately, and a lot of it has to do with the fact that Exult development has really picked up lately.  Some of the different platforms have really gotten some well-needed attention lately which has also been something of a shot in the arm to both the engine development and the community as a whole.

Let me segue from the article of discussion for just a moment.  As WTF Dragon has posted previously, he has a few more editors (one of which being myself) whom are going to be posting articles here to keep the content coming, and a few more ears to the ground for movement, as it were.  For those of you not familiar with my name, I’m Peter M Dodge, also known by Wizardry Dragon.  I am the Lead Designer of the Feudal Lands and have worked with Exult for years and years now.  I hope to post news on both Exult and TFL, and some general Ultima news as well.  I have been playing with the idea of a feature serial of some sort but I’ll toss that at WTF Dragon first and see if it sticks before making any promises here.

With that out the way let’s regress to the topic on hand: Exult.

One of the platforms that has gotten this attention is the MacOS distribution, which has finally gotten properly packaged.  This meant a lot of compilation work and a lot of bug fixes as well as accomodations for the nuances of the Mac platform, a lot of which has finally gotten stamped out and done finally.  It had mostly been put off – but now it has been taken care of!

The windows distribution in the meantime got a lot of updating.  Many bugs related to OpenGL were fixed, and that niggling Windows Vista/7 file paths bug got fixed so that you don’t need to be an administrator to play!  A much needed change to be certain.

So, dear reader, you are most certainly wondering what this means in the perspective of Exult’s future development.  On that topic I can speculate with an informed opinion, though until it does indeed occur it is just that, speculation.  Ah, in any event – there is one major encompassing idea that seems to have taken to the Exult team, or Marzo at least: taking the knowledge that has been gained through the many, many years Exult has been undergoing development, and take the insights they have gained in its development to better rebuild the engine.  The graphics engine has been of particular interest, as Marzo has noted that many of his OpenGL fixes have opened his eyes to the fact that really the whole thing just needs rewritten to actually fix some of the issues, and talk has been floated of using the Pentagram graphics engine.

We shall see, I suppose, but good things lie in wait for Exult, methinks!

That’s right: hot on the heels of their Milestone 8 (Beta 1) release, the U6 Project team have released their second beta, which features:

It is with much pleasure that we announce the release of the Beta 2 Release of Team Archon’s Ultima 6 Project, for Dungeon Siege 1 (PC and Mac). Some things to look forward to in this release:

• Many bug fixes have been implemented since the Milestone 8 (Beta 1) release.
• Weapon and armor restrictions have now been applied, by class.
• The entire world is complete, and ready for players to explore.
• All NPC’s are in place, and all the quests have been implemented.
• Those players with proclivities to the dark side can now follow an “evil path”.
• Hydras are now in game, and should pose a nasty surprise to unwary travelers.
• Additional enhancements have been made to the map and journal systems, and the Compendium is now nearly complete.
• Minor performance improvements have been implemented
• It should be noted that anyone using a previous version will have to uninstall it prior to installing the Beta 2 Release, and start a new game.

While this is not the final release of the game, we feel that it is reasonably polished, enough for public consumption (read: scrutiny). We still expect that there will be some bugs, and are soliciting your help in finding them.

If you find problems with the release, want to exchange play hints with other players, want to give us kudos, or (heaven forbid) want to tell us what you really think, join us at our forums. We have set up a special forum for the Beta 2 Release on the Project Britannia forums (http://www.projectbritannia.com/index.php).

To download the Beta 2 Release, go to the Ultima 6 Project web site at: http://www.u6project.com/ where you can also check out profiles of the Project team members.

If you like what you see, and would like to contribute to this great game (and help us get it out faster), the team is looking for additional 2D artists to help with completing the portraits. And, of course, we’re always looking for play-testers to help us find and eliminate any remaining bugs. Contact any of the team members on the forums if you’d like to join the team.

You’re still here, good reader? Get thee to the Ultima 6 Project website and grab that download.

Or, you can grab it from the project entry here at Aiera.

Bumped again for my own purposes: there’s a few things left undone here.

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

From the U6P team:

It is with much pleasure that we announce the release of Team Archon’s next milestone of the Ultima 6 Project, Milestone 8 (M8) for Dungeon Siege 1 (PC and Mac). This is the beta release for the project, which will be followed shortly by the 1.0 release. Some things to look forward to in this release:

• The entire world is now complete, and ready for players to explore.
• All NPC’s are in place, and all the quests have been implemented.
• New weapons are available for the player to discover.
• Tangle Vines are now in game, and should pose a nasty surprise to unwary travelers.
• Enhancements have been made to the map and journal systems, and the Compendium is now available as part of the Journal.

This is not the final release of the game, but we feel that they are reasonably polished enough for public consumption (read: scrutiny). If you find problems with the release, want to exchange play hints with other players, want to give us kudos, or (heaven forbid) want to tell us what you really think, join us at our forums. We have set up a special forum for the Milestone 8 Release on the Project Britannia forums.

To download the M8 release, go to the Ultima 6 Project web site at: http://www.u6project.com/ where you can also check out profiles of the Project team members.

If you like what you see, and would like to contribute to this great game (and help us get it out faster), the team is looking for additional 2D artists to help with completing the portraits. And, of course, we’re always looking for play-testers to help us find and eliminate any bugs. Contact any of the team members on the forums if you’d like to join the team.

About The U6 Project

The Ultima 6 Project was formed in 2001 by Sliding Dragon to develop a remake of Origin’s Ultima VI: The False Prophet with newer graphics and a more immersive engine. Soon assembled under the banner Archon, the team members, who hail from all over the globe, have set about recreating the world of Britannia, adding an enhanced storyline to bolster intraseries continuity and building on the Ultima legacy in a way that will please fans new and old.

I haven’t added the download to the project entry yet (that will happen tonight), but Team Archon were gracious enough to release the Milestone 8 download to me a bit early.

Sadly, something seems to have gone wrong with my upload of the project file. I’m working on getting a new download in place right now!

Apologies!

Update: Okay, I think the file DOWNLOADED successfully this time, which is good. But as I am currently in a hotel in Rock Springs, Wyoming, sharing an internet connection with God knows how many other people, the process of getting it UPLOADED has crossed from being a mere annoyance to a full-on pain in the ass. By which I mean: 5:35:22 remaining on the counter, with 1:55:29 elapsed already.

Painfully slow!

Anyhow, with nothing better to do on the site at the moment, I think I might take a stab at cleaning up the timeline. Which, I remind myself, still needs to have all the various remake projects included in it. Or at least the ones that make it to final release!

From Aletys:

It is with much pleasure that we announce the release of Team Archon’s next milestone of the Ultima 6 Project, Milestone 7 (M7) for Dungeon Siege 1 (PC and Mac). This is the alpha release for the project, which will be followed shortly by the beta and 1.0 releases. Some things to look forward to in this release:

• The entire world is now available for players to explore, and players will be able to complete the game, though some elements will be further enhanced in the beta and 1.0 releases.
• New NPCs have been added, including a certain Cyclops family and a two-headed llama.
• Additional enhancements have been made to existing areas.
• More quests have been implemented, including the entire main quest.
• The Journal system has been greatly enhanced, and players will be able to track their progress with it.

This is not a final release of these sections of the game, but we feel that they are reasonably polished enough for public consumption (read: scrutiny). If you find problems with the release, want to exchange play hints with other players, want to give us kudos, or (heaven forbid) want to tell us what you really think, join us at our forums. We have set up a special forum for the Milestone 7 Release on the Project Britannia forums.

To download the M7 release, go to the Ultima 6 Project web site, where you can also check out profiles of the Project team members.

You’re still here, good reader? Get thee to the project website!

Update: A download is now available via the project entry here.

Produced by: Team Exult
Website: Exult at Sourceforge
Releases:
* Windows Binary (2.0 MiB, 152 hits)
* Mac OS X 10.3 (1.4 MiB, 121 hits)
* Sharp Zaurus (1.4 MiB, 88 hits)
* PocketPC (ARM) (246 bytes, 97 hits)
* PSP (2.0 MiB, 103 hits)
* Fedora - Game (1.0 MiB, 95 hits)
* Fedora - Tools (274.0 KiB, 86 hits)
* Fedora - Studio (254.6 KiB, 80 hits)
* Source Code (RPM) (1.6 MiB, 85 hits)
* Source Code (.tar.gz) (1.6 MiB, 79 hits)
* Nokia 770/M800 - Program (0 bytes)

Additional Files
* Black Gate Sound Files (4.6 MiB, 119 hits)
* Black Gate Sound Files (Roland MT-32) (6.2 MiB, 100 hits)
* Black Gate OGG Music Files (1 of 2) (12.0 MiB, 117 hits)
* Black Gate OGG Music Files (2 of 2) (10.9 MiB, 111 hits)
* Serpent Isle Sound Files (5.9 MiB, 126 hits)
* Serpent Isle Sound Files (Roland MT-32) (7.7 MiB, 105 hits)
* Nokia 770/M800 - Data (0 bytes)
* Nokia 770/M800 - Music (mono, low quality) (0 bytes)
* Nokia 770/M800 - Music (stereo, higher quality) (0 bytes)

Exult 1.4 (unstable)
* Exult 1.4 (Windows) (2.2 MiB, 131 hits)
* Exult 1.4 (PocketPC - ARM4) (1.3 MiB, 76 hits)
* Exult 1.4 (PocketPC - ARM5) (1.3 MiB, 91 hits)
* Exult Studio (Windows) (3.5 MiB, 90 hits)
* Exult Tools (Windows) (1.3 MiB, 91 hits)
* Exult 1.4 Source (4.3 MiB, 82 hits)
* Shapes Plugin for Photoshop (87.7 KiB, 88 hits)
* GIMP Plugin (50.4 KiB, 84 hits)
* GIMP Plugin 2.0 (47.0 KiB, 90 hits)
* SDL 1.2 Libraries

An amazing remake, Exult is a cross-platform reworking of the Ultima 7/Serpent Isle engine that allows the game to be run on modern operating systems with expanded memory environments. This is not the same as a Voodoo memory-manager wrapper program, and it works on many systems apart from Windows.

Exult 1.2 is the latest “stable” release – Team Exult is making massive engine changes, and subsequent releases are expected to have instabilities as a result. It has Windows, Mac OS X, Sharp Zaurus, and Fedora builds available. Also avaliable is the source code, so that people running other systems can compile and build Exult.

Pentagram, the remake that does for Ultima 8 what Exult did for Ultima 7, has posted news of their development progress for the first time since last December. The team, it seems, has been busy indeed!

In the last few months, interest in Pentagram seems to have picked up again. A number of bugs were fixed since the last update, including camera fixes, key handling, containers (backpack, barrels, etc.), and a fix for a problem in the German versions of the U8. The default key binding for stasis moved from ‘S’ to ‘F10′. The build should now properly support versions of autoconf greater than 2.60.

Mac OS X builds also received a lot of attention. They build system switched from XCode to a makefile-based system that builds Pentagram and dependencies using their traditional configure script and make methods. This allows us a greater amount of control over the builds and should help prevent changes to Pentagram for unix systems that break OS X builds and vice versa.

Just prior to this news update, I noticed that the Pentagram team had released updated snapshots of both their Windows and Mac builds of the game, and both of these updates have been added to the project entry. I’ve also updated the local copy of the Pentagram source code.

Produced by: Pentagram Team
Website: Pentagram
Releases:
* Pentagram (Windows) (1.6 MiB, 77 hits)
* Pentagram (OS X) (3.4 MiB, 42 hits)
* Mac LibPNG Libraries (253.1 KiB, 30 hits)
* Pentagram Source (5.6 MiB, 29 hits)

Pentagram Map Viewer
* Pentagram Viewer (Windows) (2.0 MiB, 40 hits)
* Pentagram Viewer Source (401.6 KiB, 27 hits)

What initially began as a map viewer for Ultima 8 has evolved into a full-on cross-platform engine remake in the spirit of Exult. Although no official demo has yet been released, there are up-to-date releases of source code available, as well as Windows and Mac OS X Universal binaries.

The best aspect of this is that Pentagram runs very smoothly and without an intense CPU load, unlike when Ultima 8 is run under DOSBox.

I just got this notice in my email inbox, and it’s a hute announcement indeed: Milestone 5 of the Ultima 6 Project has been released!

It is with much pleasure that we announce the release of Team Archon’s next milestone of the Ultima 6 Project, Milestone 5 for Dungeon Siege 1 (PC and Mac). Some things to look forward to in this release:

• New areas to explore (Trinsic, Jhelom, Moonglow, New Magincia, Serpent’s Hold, Skara Brae, Sutek’s Castle, Trinsic)
• Enhancements to existing areas
• New plot details and quests and other subtle refinements
• Numerous enhancements to the core gameplay such as:
  • The Journal system now records may quest details automatically, but still allows the player to make their own notes
  • A new “Event Console”, which can be toggled on and off, and which will help you keep track of what’s happening during play
  • Many more tunings and tweaks to the core Project Britannia systems ( for the nitty gritty details, check the change log )

You can find the download links on the Official Website:

www.u6project.com

I will be sure to add a download for this to Aiera just as soon as I am able. In the meantime, O Reader…check thou it out!

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!

It’s been another good week for news — things are busy. It seems to be a busy time in general, actually…even I’m embroiled in a project — redesigning the website of the company that I work for (I cannot stress enough the utter need for such a redesign), which has certainly been eating up a goodly chunk of my time.

But let’s see what’s going on in the community. First, some submissions by email.

Ultima 1 Reverse Engineering

Tim Carlsen pointed out (just before Christmas) — sorry, again, for the delay, Tim! — to me that Dino the Dark Dragon has had the files from his reverse-engineering of the Ultima 1 engine online for a while now. While he hasn’t worked on it (or, at least, hasn’t updated it) all that much in the last few months, I’ve decided to give Dino’s project its own entry here at Aiera

Adventure Creation Kit

Joshua Lawrence got in touch with me regarding the release of ACK 3.0, the latest version of one of the original “build your own Ultima-like game” utilities. It features a host of improvements, including:

• experience levels
• bitmap skinning of main play screen and dialogs
• improved day/night cycle with event triggering
• a new Launcher allows for the use of ACK “right out of the box” in Windows and Mac OS X
• a new ‘Ultima Kit’ with tiles, objects, and moongates from Ultima 5

I have updated the project entry with the latest downloads, and have also removed the commands reference (it’s outdated as of this version of the Kit) and the registration code (which is unnecessary). It can also be downloaded from the project website.

Ultima V for TI Calculators

Ranman dropped a comment on this news post to inform us that he has completed implementation of the special abilities associated with each of the Crown Jewels in his remake of Ultima 5. Very cool!

I also noticed a few updates while cruising around the various Ultima-related websites that I check on a regular basis.

Lost Sosaria

A downloads page has been put up at the Lost Sosaria website. I have also added download links to the project entry here at Aiera.

Savage Empire Total Conversion

We haven’t heard from this project in a while, but Scythifuge has recently posted some updates to a discussion thread in the Exult forums detailing his progress on the module. Currently, he’s working on bits and pieces of art to insert into the game, to increase its immersiveness and improve the feel.

He has also started a “sample art” discussion thread.

Ultima 7 (Exult) for Nokia Phones

Arnim Sauerbier released, at some point this month, updated mp3 versions of the Ultima 7 music files for his port of Exult to the Nokia 770, correcting a volume-control issue that had cropped up in the previous version of the files.

I have updated the download at the project entry here at Aiera.

And finally, some additional news courtesy of Dino’s Ultima Page.

Ultima IX: Redemption

Corv has posted a huge update to the website of his remake of Ultima 9. Among other things, the team has released twenty-seven new screenshots (showing off some amazing scenery and architecture) and five new music tracks. Additionally, the project status bars have been updated, and a few changes have been made to the team roster.

EUO

An updated version (0.13) of the beta-stage 3D for EUO, the Ultima-like online RPG, has been released. 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.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

In the latest posting at Dino’s Ultima Page, Petrell makes a note that updated versions of the various Exult Mods that can be found at Seven Towers have been released. However, I notice this morning that the project website has been replaced by a subdomain placeholder page — most troubling. Let’s hope this is only temporary.

Produced by: Chris Hopkins
Website: 80s Gaming
Releases:
* ACK v3.2 (Windows) (20.5 MiB, 110 hits)
* ACK v3.2 (Mac) (23.1 MiB, 81 hits)
* ACK v3.2 (other systems) (18.4 MiB, 87 hits)

This is a comprehensive top-down 2D game development tool that allows for the creation of tiled RPG-type games, similar to Ultima 1 through to Ultima 5. It is now fully operable under both Windows and Mac OS X without need for emulation of any kind.

The Kit was completed in 1995, and was intended as Mr. Hopkins’ update to the classic Adventure Construction Kit of the 1980s. In about 2000, the Kit was released as freeware, and Joshua Lawrence has taken it upon himself to maintain a web presence for the Kit. The ‘v3′ update was released in early 2008.

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.

Okay, so at least a few people contacted me while I was away with news of Ultima-related news, either via the contact form, direct email, or the comments for this post. Once again, it’s good — no, great — to see the community pitching in to help the site move along. Thanks go out to everyone who submitted information.

So…what’s news?

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

Ranman dropped us a line about the status of his port of this classic Ultima title to the TI calculator. He pegs the development status as being 90.5% complete, and offers a new screenshot of Orcs in the game.

SI BG Merge

This was an interesting little tidbit that I tripped over in the Exult forums. It’s a patch that imports the shapes from The Black Gate into Serpent Isle, fabricated by Malignant Manor.

I’ve created an entry here at Aiera for the project, and uploaded the latest version of the patch (6.7) for download. It looks like this is a pretty active project at the moment, so I’ll be sure to keep an eye on it.

Project Britannia

Frilly Wumpus posted news at the Project Britannia website concerning an update to Siege Tools. This is definitely a developer-oriented update, and he notes that the improvements include things such as:

• DS1, DS2, LOA, and BW code completion
• Built-in API explorer and the ability to add additional documentation to core GPG classes
• Basic Syntax checking
• Code completion for Gas templates

The latest version of Siege Tools (1.0.29) is available for download either from the PB website, or through the project entry here at Aiera.

A forum for posting information and comments about Siege Tools has also been set up, which developers using this engine will hopefully find useful.

Ashes

The project website for this Ultima-like game has been changed a bit, and now features an updated note from project lead Andrea concerning what the game is and what its inspirations are. No new news is present, however.

Nazghul/Haxima

Gordon has released version 0.6.0 (only the source at present, though) of his Ultima-like engine Nazghul, and the associated game he is making with it, Haxima. You can download the updated version from the project’s SourceForge page, or from the project entry here at Aiera.

Hopefully there will be Windows and Mac OS X binaries available soon.

Notable improvements in this version of Nazghul include:

• Detailed speed handling
• Better support for diagonal movement
• Partial opacity support has been added to the terrains
• Improvements to the map editor
• New spells
• Improved dungeon randomization code
• …and a whole lot more

Serpent Isle for NWN2

Continuing with his tendency to move with alarming speed, Jaesun has made several updates to his remake of Serpent Isle. Notably, he has finished the Arrival Area, dialogue for Moonshade, the Northern Isle quest, the Mad Mage Isle, and Monk Isle. And all this in the last couple of weeks.

There are a few nice screenshots to see at the project site, so be sure to give them a look!

Also, there seems to be a bit of an interesting debate going on in the Exult forums over the practical and technical implications of making an “online” version of Ultima 7. We’ll see if that turns into any sort of project in the future. It wouldn’t be the only one to come along, of course.

Personally, I count myself as being in the camp of people who would like to see Ultima 7 go online, as has been done with Ultima 6, although I admit that I lack the necessary technical skill to put any sort of meaningful work into the code necessary to realize that dream.