The busy folks of Team Return have managed to get an Ultima-like character creation system working in Neverwinter Nights 2, and have even posted a video of their system in action:
Goodbye D&D, welcome Ultima!
They have also announced, and posted, a new team roster page.
Sergorn Dragon’s increasingly ambitious Ultima project (which I’m also working on) has posted its latest monthly update, and announces the development or updating of several game system scripts that members of the team have been feverishly working on. Foremost among these is a new Guards and Prison system, which allows shopkeepers to summon the guards if the player gets a bit fast and loose with the goods on display. Their Dragon Age-inspired injury system has also been released, as has an update to their resting system.
As well, Sergorn has announced that Jolyn “Nytefall” Kitzer has rejoined the team as Lead 2D Artist. Fans of Lazarus will recognize her name from that project; she crafted much of the excellent artwork that said Ultima 5 remake featured.
Finally, the team is still looking for 3D artists, so if you have some time and some talent in that area, why not drop them a line?
I know that the project itself has stalled, and in truth I’m considering moving it to the Orphanage. Be that as it may: MokahTGS’ Neverwinter Nights 2-based project, Realms of Ultima, is once again available for download.
I added the project entry, but forgot to mention that Sergorn Dragon’s Ultima project (which I am also working on), Return to the Serpent Isle, just posted its July update, the biggest news in which is that the team has recruited a professional composer to craft its score.
I’ve heard some of his work; it’s incredible.
As well, a new version of the project’s spell system modification for Neverwinter Nights 2 has been uploaded to the Neverwinter Vault. They have also overhauled the NWN2 GUI, developed a custom injury system which is partly inspired by Dragon Age, and published a currency system and a death and resurrection system.
In other words, it has been a busy month for the team; we’ve made excellent progress.
Led by Sergorn Dragon, Return to the Serpent Isle is a “fan-made game based upon the legendary Ultima series and…crafted with the use of the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine.” It intends “to follow in and uphold the tradition of the Ultima series, it will lead the players to revisit the Serpent Isle which first had been introduced in Ultima VII Part Two,” Serpent Isle.
This ambitious effort isn’t a remake, but is in fact a completely new story set in the Ultima universe, and will tell a completely new tale set in a post-holocaust Serpent Isle. Several familiar faces from the second part of Ultima 7 will be making a return in the game, though many new characters will also feature in it.
I’ve just added a project entry for a very promising-looking Ultima 7 remake using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine. As yet, the team has only released screenshots of their work, and in truth they may never release more than that since the remake was part of a game design course offered at a college in Singapore.
Still, in the hope that they’ll push something out the door in the next little while, I’ve added Team Exalted Crown’s offering to Aiera; check thou it out!
(hat tip)
This is (was?) a promising-looking remake of at least the first part of Ultima 7: The Black Gate, produced as part of a game design course offered at Temasek Polytechnic in Singapore.
The challenge of porting a 2D game of Ultima 7′s caliber — including its interactivity and living, breathing world — into a 3D engine (Neverwinter Nights 2, in this case) with a much more static world (at least by default) would make for an excellent primer in game design, and it’s just a pity that as yet the team has not released its work into the wild.
Okay, so there’s no downloads for this indefinitely-paused project. But even so, it’s still a project on the list, and still in need of restoration.
Which, coupled with the new project just added (see the previous news entry) brings me back up to speed. Yay!
Not unlike the Titans of Ether, the team making this continuation of Serpent Isle doesn’t have a lot to report this month. However, they do report that they have developed a working food system, and also a functional resting system…and have also managed to get themselves a working Serpent Gate system (although this has not yet been made public).
And, of course, they still need team members. Especially (I speak now as one of them) someone with 3D modeling skills.
Sergorn Dragon has posted another monthly update to the Return to the Serpent Isle project site, in which he talks about various script-related developments (sleeping, a food system, and the rudiments of a magic system). It all goes toward creating a more immersive world, and is proving remarkably easy both with Neverwinter Nights 2‘s excellent scripting system, and due to the tireless efforts of a truly talented coder.
So that’s cool. However, he also notes that NPC development has slowed somewhat. And speaking as one of the team, I need to get off my ass and finish building the world map. But as I have just this minute zeroed in on a fairly effective way of generating mountain terrain that looks at least semi-decent, that particular shortcoming should go away fairly soon.
Every good thing comes in chunks, like bits of brownie in the DQ Blizzard.
Sergorn Dragon has posted the latest monthly update for his “sequel to Serpent Isle” project, and the biggest thing to take away from it is that unlike previous Ultima titles or fan projects, Return to the Serpent Isle is going to be broken up into chapters:
…we have decided to release the game in an Episodic format. Now this might come as a surprise for an Ultima game – but after careful consideration it appeared to be a good decision when taking into account both the scope and the amateurish nature of this Mod. Return is a big and ambitious project – and crafting the game as a whole will probably take years – so we felt (and the NWN2 Engine offers us this possibility) it would be a good idea to take a more Episodic approach in developing the project, by crafting and releasing one Chapter at a time.
Exciting! The project has also reached an initial milestone of developing NPCs for its first chapter.
In other news: I really need to get back into a rhythm of checking all the project sites on some kind of regular basis. Time to unearth that list of bookmarks!
Sergorn Dragon has just re-launched a project idea he’s had for a few years now: Return to the Serpent Isle.
Using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine, this project is not a remake, but rather a continuation — a brand new Ultima adventure set in a familiar world: the Serpent Isle.
The site just “went live” on the ‘tubes this morning, Dragons. Although, in the interests of full disclosure, I know that because I helped design the thing, and will be involved with the project in a production and world-building role.
Which reminds me: we’re looking for people! Be sure to check out the Recruitment page for details!
Now there’s a sentence one doesn’t usually expect to type.
Mark Mitchell contacted me a couple months ago, and then again just this week, to inform me of his ambitious project to create a realistic heightmap of Britannia using such tools as Photoshop, Terragen, and L3DT.
This in turn would be useful for some Ultima project developers, since I know for a fact that tools exist for some game engines (Neverwinter Nights 2 especially) that allow for the automatic creation of terrain based on imported heightmaps.
But that’s not the reason Mark has undertaken this project for himself. As he creates this work, he also wants to consider: “size and scaling of the continent, political and demographic issues, economy and trade routes, [and] geology and land formation.” In that regard, it’s as much an anthropological study as it is a really cool piece of artwork.
You can check out some of his sample work at the project’s current “webpage,” a forum thread at the Cartographer’s Guild (registration required). I have also created a project entry, at/through which can be viewed an early sample of Mark’s work.
This is an ambitious project to create a realistic heightmap of Britannia using such tools as Photoshop, Terragen, and L3DT.
This in turn would be useful for some Ultima project developers, since I know for a fact that tools exist for some game engines (Neverwinter Nights 2 especially) that allow for the automatic creation of terrain based on imported heightmaps.
But that’s not the reason Mark has undertaken this project for himself. As he creates this work, he also wants to consider: “size and scaling of the continent, political and demographic issues, economy and trade routes, [and] geology and land formation.” In that regard, it’s as much an anthropological study as it is a really cool piece of artwork. You can see just how cool by clicking on the project’s image there on the left; that’s a sample/preview image he sent me a couple months back. It can be viewed in somewhat better detail at Aiera’s Flickr page.
