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

Tags: Aiera, Akalabeth Mobile, Arx Fatalis, Britannia, Dark Core, Dransik, Eriadain, EUO, Exult, Haxima, IRE, Labyrinth of Worlds, Lost Sosaria, Mac, Nazghul, Pentagram, PocketPC, Project Britannia, Serpent Isle, SI French, Ultima 4 Multiplayer, Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima 6 Online, Ultima 6 Project, Ultima 7, Ultima Online, Ultima Underworld, Ultima Underworld 2, Ultima V: Lazarus, UW2 Revival

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.

Tags: Dungeon Siege, Mac, PC, Project Britannia, Ultima 6 Project

The Ultima 6 Project is looking for playtesters, writers and portrait artists to assist with their big push toward the Milestone 7 release:

The Ultima 6 Project is looking for play testers to help us find bugs so we can get rid of them prior to the M7 release, which is scheduled for September 30th. We also need help with writing and with finishing the portraits. There is a huge world with lots of dungeons to explore and monsters to stomp. There is the complete Gargoyle world as well, some of which no one outside the team has seen before.

The picture below is in one of the Gargoyle shrines, and it certainly looks as if our Avatar is in very big trouble.

If you are interested, and would like to get a head start on playing the game, or work on the writing and portrait tasks, please contact any of the team members on the forums at the Project Britannia website (http://www.projectbritannia.com/, – follow link to the forums).

Here’s the screenshot, by the way. I’m sorry if this doesn’t quite work out perfectly; I’m posting this via iPod Touch from the Salt Lake City airport.

(I’ll fix it when I get back.)

Tags: iPod Touch, Project Britannia, Salt Lake City, Ultima 6, Ultima 6 Project

The Realms of Ultima project — the Neverwinter Nights 2-based version of Project Britannia, a project which aims to create a pre-fabricated Ultima world for others to use as a basis for their own projects — has been updated twice since last I checked in with it.

For starters, project lead MokahTGS has posted an article in which he discusses a few of his inspirations, as well as some of the new features of an upcoming NWN2 expansion pack that he is looking forward to making use of.

But additionally, he and fellow developer Jaesun have been working on a contribution to Bouncy Rock Entertainment’s “Community Halloween Project.” Their contribution will evidently be the Grumpy Strumpet tavern, which will in due time become the tavern in .

Tags: Bouncy Rock Entertainment, Buccaneer's Den, Neverwinter Nights 2, Project Britannia, Ultima

I see that Dino’s Ultima Page has posted some news concerning a couple of new file releases from different projects. Notably, Ranman’s Ultima V for TI Calculators has released a beta version of that port for the TI-92 and V200 calculators. This download has already been added to the project entry here at Aiera.

Also, the full version of a patch translating Ultima 7 to Spanish has been released. Following up on this lead led me to translation patches for Serpent Isle, Ultima 9, and Ultima Underworld about which I had previously been unaware, and these have all been added to Aiera.

• Ultima 7 Spanish translation
• Serpent Isle Spanish translation
• Ultima Underworld Spanish translation
• Ultima 9 Spanish translation

Additionally, the Ultima 6 Project Development Tools Package has been released, which enables the user to edit and compile conversations, edit game objects, edit game logic, and provides a host of other functions as well. It can be downloaded from the Project Britannia website, or from the Ultima 6 Project entry here at Aiera.

Other Ultima-related news I found whilst wandering through the Internet today includes:

Aklabeth

The web home of this remake of Akalabeth seems to be offline. I hope it’s just a temporary thing.

Ultima Underworld for Pocket PC

Conversely, this port of Ultima Underworld to the PocketPC seems to be back online again. Nice to see. That means that I get to move this project out of the cemetery!

Exult

This port of The Black Gate and Serpent Isle to…well…pretty much every operating system one could dare to think of…doesn’t look as though it’s been updated, by its website. But I noticed that the Windows and PocketPC snapshots were updated earlier this month, as was the snapshot for Exult Studio. All of these can be downloaded through the project entry here. The chief modification seems to concern a bug with multiracial Avatars.

Ultima: Iris

This 3D frontend for Ultima Online has been updated recently, to build version 2365. Linux and Windows source, and the Windows installer, can all be downloaded via the project entry here, or at the project website.

Finally, I was contacted by Yannick “Alcibiade” Kirschhoffer regarding a new piece of Ultima-related material he has produced. I’ll let him explain it in his own words:

I’ve been huge fan of the second Ultima trilogy. In 2003, I began work on writing guitar arrangements of most of this era’s music. I did the Ultima 6 score almost entirely, and some of U4 and U5 too. Then I compiled these in a songbook that I illustrated with artwork and quotes from the games.

It is available for download in PDF format at www.alcibiade.org

This is a handy little creation, beautifully arranged and attractively compiled into one volume. I’ve added a project entry for it under the category of “General Utility”, and it can be downloaded from there as well.

Well done, Yannick!

Tags: Aiera, Akalabeth, Aklabeth, Dino's Ultima Page, Dungeon Siege, Exult, Exult Studio, Linux, Pocket PC, PocketPC, Project Britannia, Serpent Isle, Texas Instruments, The Black Gate, translation, Ultima 4, Ultima 5, Ultima 6, Ultima 6 Project, Ultima 7, Ultima 9, Ultima Online, Ultima Underworld, Ultima: Iris, Windows

I apologize for the gap in news updating; both my job and my home life have been rather busy these last few weeks, and I’ve had precious little time to stroll through “the Ultimasphere” to see what has transpired in terms of project developments and file updates.

So, without further ado, let’s get to the news!

PT-BR Underworld Translation

This translation of Ultima Underworld to Portuguese is now 100% complete, with all text strings in the game fully translated.

They are seeking testers to look for errors in grammar and spelling. So if you, O Reader, are conversant in both Portuguese and English, and wouldn’t mind playing through Ultima Underworld again, be sure to visit the project website and drop them a line.

The patch can be downloaded from that same website, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Exult

I noticed that the unstable Exult 1.4 build for Windows had been updated on May 3rd. The notable correction in this release deals with a crash that could be caused by a trap’s projectile effect.

As usual, the snapshot can be downloaded from the Exult website or from the project entry here at Aiera.

Pentagram

There hasn’t been any news from the Pentagram team since December of last year, but they are obviously still working on the project itself; the Windows snapshot that is available for download was updated on April 23rd, and can be downloaded either from the project website or via the project entry here at Aiera.

EUO

As of May 5th, the 3D client for EUO has been updated, and can be downloaded either the project website or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Notable changes in this release are the addition of “popups” (I assume this is in reference to either in-game dialogues or message windows?), a help screen, the ability to re-map keys, and a few other odds and ends.

Project Britannia

The britannia_art.dsres and britannia_logic.dsres files have been updated. Changes this go-round include the addition of GUI elements for several throwable weapons, shoes(!!), and a bunch of new textures and meshes. Also, a Yew tree for Ben to chop has been added (methinks this is derived from the Ultima 6 Project?).

The updated files can be downloaded from the Project Britannia wiki or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Though not specifically an update to the actual remake project, the folks at the Ultima 6 Project would like to draw our attention to a charity group that they would like to encourage would-be donors to the project to support instead:

As many of you know, the U6 Project has been going strong for several years now, and it’s cost us a fair amount of cash to keep it going. Every once in a while we’ll get someone asking us if they can donate some money to the project. Well, since it’s an all-volunteer project and not a commercial venture, we can’t accept money. However – we’ve recently realized that there’s no reason in the world we can’t suggest a charity to which you could donate instead. While gaming is certainly a worthy cause, we think that it would be even better to give the gift of life and donate to the Susan G Komen foundation for breast cancer research.

http://www.komen.org/

Please note: The U6 Project is not affiliated with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization in any way, shape or form. We’d just like to recommend that you give your money to them instead of offering it to us. Thank you.

So maybe, just maybe, O Reader, go forth and make a bit of a donation in the names of the folks of Team Archon. I’m sure they’d appreciate it!

One last note: someone by the name of Chris (with an email address at grimmstudios.com) contacted me in regard to Ultima 3. Chris, if you’re reading this, I just sent my reply to you again; the last few attempts have resulted in the message bouncing back to me. I apologize for the delay, and would encourage you — if this latest attempt doesn’t get through — to contact me again and provide an alternative email address.

Tags: 3D, Dungeon Siege, EUO, Exult, Pentagram, Portuguese, Project Britannia, Ultima 3, Ultima 6 Project, Ultima 7, Ultima 8, Ultima Underworld, Windows

Produced by: Team Lazarus & Team Archon
Website: Project Britannia
Releases:
* [drain file 432 url Milestone 2 Release] ([drain file 432 size])

Updates (may be unstable):
* [drain file 421 url Britannia Art] ([drain file 421 size])
* [drain file 422 url Britannia Logic] ([drain file 422 size])
* [drain file 423 url Britannia Sound] ([drain file 423 size])
* [drain file 417 url Britannia Map] ([drain file 417 size])

Utilities
* [drain file 430 url Project Britannia Development Environment] ([drain file 430 size])
* [drain file 429 url Container Override example] ([drain file 429 size])
* [drain file 428 url Dungeon Siege Font Builder] ([drain file 428 size])
* [drain file 427 url Dungeon Siege Skrit API] ([drain file 427 size])
* [drain file 426 url Skrit/Template Cross-reference] ([drain file 426 size])
* [drain file 412 url Dungeon Siege Toolkit] ([drain file 412 size])
* [drain file 416 url Lazarus Lorebook Editor] ([drain file 416 size])
* [drain file 433 url Rapid Tank Creator] ([drain file 433 size])
* [drain file 415 url Siege Tools for Eclipse (Full)] ([drain file 415 size])
* [drain file 419 url Siege Tools for Eclipse 1.0.29 (Plugin)] ([drain file 419 size])
* [drain file 413 url Siege University Compilation] ([drain file 413 size])
* [drain file 434 url Tank Viewer] ([drain file 434 size])
* [drain file 435 url U6 Project UI Designer] ([drain file 435 size])
* [drain file 425 url Conversation Compiler] ([drain file 425 size])
* [drain file 420 url Conversation Editor Plugin for Siege Tools] ([drain file 420 size])
* [drain file 418 url Book Editor Plugin for Siege Tools] ([drain file 418 size])
* [drain file 424 url NPC/Schedule/Chest Generator] ([drain file 424 size])

Milestone 1 Release:
* [drain file 110 url Project Britannia (1 of 3)] ([drain file 110 size])
* [drain file 111 url Project Britannia (2 of 3)] ([drain file 111 size])
* [drain file 112 url Project Britannia (3 of 3)] ([drain file 112 size])

This ambitious project, a joint venture arising from the copperative developments of Ultima V: Lazarus and the Ultima 6 Project — both Dungeon Siege-based remakes of their respective Ultima titles — aims to create a platform for the easier creation of Ultima remakes (and, one would assume, spinoffs).

It’s “short list” of features is really too long to name here, but includes dynamic weather, ship navigation (a feature lost in many modern RPGs), complete day/night cycle, NPC scheduling, reagent-based spellcasting, moongates, dynamic factions, and a custom-build branching conversation system.

Or, to sum it all up in three words: it looks cool.

Now, the development team for Project Britannia is pretty active, and they are constantly putting out updates. The ones hosted here are current to the best of Aiera’s knowledge, but they may be a few days stale. To that end, the most current versions of the update files can always be found at the Project Britannia Change Log. Please note that these updates are likely unstable at present.

Tags: Dungeon Siege, Project Britannia, Ultima, Ultima 6 Project, Ultima V: Lazarus