It’s good to be back, even if it does mean there’s a bit of work ahead of me.

But I’ve covered the whole “yes, I am in fact back now” bit in the previous post — there’s serious news business to get to here, so let’s get to it! I see that in the month-and-change in which nothing has been posted to the site, quite a few things have happened in the remake community.

First off, new and resurrected projects!

Ultima 3 Online

This project still resides in the Cemetery, as there are no available project files for it. However, former developer Carl “Darkshard” Hamilton informs us that the maps for the project were completed, and can be purchased from his website.

Blackrock Undead

This is Razimus’ proposed continuation of the Blackrock Engine, an early attempt at making Ultima 7 playable online.

As of this moment, I’m not going to pull the Blackrock Engine out of the Orphanage…but I encourage anyone who has experience coding online applications and a passionate love of Ultima 7 (and a bit of free time) to visit Razimus’ website and offer to assist.

And now, updates to existing projects.

UCR

This project, which I moved to the Orphanage some time ago, seems to well and truly have kicked the bucket now. Its website has been decommissioned and replaced by the hosting company with a generic advertising front page.

Redemption

Direhaggis brings news of this remake of Ultima 9, in which he highlights a few developments currently underway:

*Spyder has been working for weeks on the Scintillus Academy. It is sweet. The new textures alone are quite good looking. There are features you will not believe until you see them.

* Worldbuilding continues to go well. The Serpent Spine Mountains are being worked on, as well as outlying areas of the globe (or the square smack in the middle of star-specked nothingess if you take U6 literally). Skara Brae has been re-done, for example. This is one of my cities, so at first I felt odd about it. But the new look is quite nice, with rich green glows all around at night.

*I’ve been working on the main plot: equal parts dialogue and multiple quest completion options. There’s something like 14 more chapters or so that need to be written. I confess that certain parts have gotten larger and more elaborate than I expect. There’s one new area in particular where you’ll see this.

Sounds interesting…and long. This has all the makings of a spectacular world and story.

U3 Project

There have been numerous news updates to the U3 Project website that I failed to notice in June, mostly concerning technical details (the latest one talks at length about the scalers being used). Not much in the way of news of project progress, but the coders out there might find it an interesting discussion.

Nuvie

The developers have posted their yearly update, discussing the long, long list of changes made to this “Exultification” (do you like the new word?) of Ultima 6. Notably, the project is now powered by a Lua scripting engine, which apparently speeds implementation of magic spells specifically, and perhaps most of what would otherwise have been done with Usecode.

Other updates include:

• New magic spells
• Working torches and powder kegs
• The game can now look “inside” containers
• Random blood is added to an actor’s position upon death
• Tweaks to Avatar respawning
• Desks can be searched now
• Lots of work on in-engine object management
• Dithered EGA and CGA graphics mode simulations are now available

There are also a number of other things still being worked on:

• Blue Moongates
• Timing the moongates to the moon cycles
• Fine-tuning moongate Usecode
• Tangle vines
• Sleep fields now make the actor fall asleep
• Minor interface upgrades
• Musical instruments can be played with the keyboard
• Numerous code bugs are being corrected
• Support has been added for Savage Empire and Martian Dreams dialogue and portraits

A new Windows snapshot has been uploaded to the Nuvie site, and this has been posted to Nuvie’s entry at Aiera.

Underworld for Pocket PC

It appears that this port of Ultima Underworld to the PocketPC is no longer available online. Pity.

As this was a payware project, I’ve decided to bump it into the Cemetery, since obviously I have no playable demos or game downloads available for it.

Eriadain

Continuing with the theme of dying websites, Eriadain’s old website no longer exists.

EUO

This project’s website has been completely redone, and looks much swankier. Also, the program itself has been updated to version 1.2, which has been uploaded to the project entry here at Aiera.

Black Gate Keyring

This is an older update, from back in July, but I missed then so it’s getting posted now. Marzo has updated his Keyring mod for Ultima 7, in which he corrects a bug that caused some actors to develop a purple outline.

The project entry here at Aiera has the updated version available for download.

Iris

The 3D client for Ultima Online has been updated to build version 1286 (Windows installer) and 1305 (Windows source). The project entry here at Aiera has been updated accordingly.

Project Britannia

Several project files have been updated. To britannia_art.dsres, a new blue robe texture has been added. As well, a “Britannian Fashion Collection” has been added, including robes for older persons, some other clothing types, and a colour pattern based on Inquisitor’s robes.

To britannia_logic.dsres, the gypsy faction has been added, and some usecode tweaks have also been done. Numerous other updates have been made, including some tweaks to the lorebook and some clothing updates.

Meanwhile, to the Lazarus/PB compatibility layer, an issue with picking up and resurrecting dead party members has been corrected. All of these updated diles are available at the project’s entry at Aiera.

Exult

There is now a port of Exult for the PSP. A download has been added to the Exult entry at Aiera.

And in closing, let me just add a belated “Happy Fifth Birthday!” wish sent out to Dino’s Ultima Page, and also a belated “Happy Twentieth Birthday” to Daniel D’Agostino, a.k.a. Dino. A frothy mug of ale I do now hoist in the direction of Dino the Dark Dragon!

And one more frothy mug of ale for Corv of the Redemption project (linked above), and congratulations as he embarks on the journey of fatherhood!

I love it when projects come back to life after a bit of a hiatus (or a really long hiatus, as the case may be). So it’s with an extra little swell of joy that I lead off the list of project updates with some information from the U3Project. And that’s not the only update

U3 Project

Render Dragon has posted a couple of major updates concerning his re-creation of Ultima 3. It has been almost three years since his previous update (dated June 30th, 2004, marking the cancellation by EA of Ultima X: Odyssey), and as the sole developer on the project he has found that it is subject to the slings and arrows of real life.

(Render, man, I hear you!)

But he has picked up the project and plans ‘to tinker with it’; some of his proposed changes include:

• Converting the project to Visual C++ 2005
• Using SDL instead of his improvised DirectX wrapper
• Finishing up the combat mechanics
• Reworking command handlers
• Bugfixes and more thereof

Render also brings notice that he will no longer be maintaining the project’s SourceForge CVS repository, preferring instead to make use of the SVN capabilities of that site.

He further notes that in the absence of DirectX (see above), the project is giving him a few compilation problems, but that so far he has been able to at least port the audio over to SDL. That means that SDL and SDL_Mixer will be required to download and build the project from source.

Exult

The Exult team have posted the first news update in over a year (the last one is dated April 10th, 2006). They bring news of several improvements and changes:

• A new-ish team member, Philip George, has successfully ported Exult to the PocketPC
• Many bug fixes, including implementation of missing weather effects in Serpent Isle
• Support for the Hq2x and Hq3x scalers

The latest snapshot (1.4) version of Exult has been updated, and Lanica Dragon (Mr. George) has released a downloadable binary of Exult for PocketPC (ARM) that I have also added to the Exult entry at the site here.

Arx Fatalis

JoWooD Productions seems to have pulled Arx Fatalis from their site. I’m investigating.

Ultima: Iris

Iris, the 3D client for , has been updated again, and build version 1130 is available for download. As well, build version 1131 is available as source.

Both versions are available for download from the project entry at the site here.

Project Britannia

I missed a couple of May updates to the Project Britannia data files and utilities, as both the Conversation Compiler and the NPC/Schedule/Chest Generator were updated in mid-May.

Additionally, earlier this month the britannia_logic.dsres file was updated as well, with improvements made to some of the monsters, the banter system, and the reagent tree system (among other things).

All these updates can now be obtained through the project entry here at the site.

Lost Sosaria

I’ve finished sorting things out after the big move, and while my computer is getting insanely buggy and impossible to use, I have managed to get the project caught back up to where it was at before I had to switch mountain tilesets, and have resumed development on new areas of the map.

Update: Thanks to Petrell over at Dino’s Ultima Page (a frothy mug of ale unto Petrell!), there are a few more updates to report!

The Dark Key

This project, so new and so young, seems to have folded. The project site has been taken down, replaced with a brief notice.

Ultima 5 for TI Calculators

David Randall has resumed development on his port of Ultima 5 to the TI calculator.

Savage Empire Total Conversion for Exult

Scythifuge has posted some new screenshots of his project.

Matthew Johnston’s Ultima VII Mod

This is a relatively new project, and I will have to add an entry to Aiera for it. It is another total conversion for Exult, set in the fictional land of Norstadt — a land under siege by Goblins and other monsterforms, in which humans have been pushed to the brink, as many refugees flee to the south.

Update, part the second: I’ve added a new sub-category to the site to encompass Exult Total Conversions, which there seems to be a growing number of lately.

Additionally, I have added to Aiera a project entry for Matthew Johnston’s Exult Total Conversion (see above), and an early release of the project is available for download there.

Update, part…whatever: Arx Fatalis apparently only had its splash page taken down — the main English site is still active, as is the American media site (which does not allow downloads of the demos).

Bumped for news-purposes: readers should note which updates have been made.

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