Produced by: Saduj
Website: Ultima Restoration
Releases:

Utilities
* Ultima Potions (hak pak) (376.62 KB)
* Ultima Potions (demo module) (37.02 KB)
* Ultima Potions v2 (hak pak) (375.84 KB)
* Ultima Potions v2 (demo module) (41.29 KB)
* Venom Dagger (erf import file) (2.44 KB)
* Venom Dagger (hak pak) (36.27 KB)
* Venom Dagger icons (700 bytes)
* Venom Dagger source (11.91 KB)
* NPC Schedules (erf import file) (64.71 KB)
* NPC Schedules (demo module) (455.61 KB)
* NPC Schedules (readme) (4.1 KB)
* Moongates (erf import file) (23.66 KB)
* Moongates (demo module) (198.47 KB)
* Savage Empire Female Portrait Pack (3.23 MB)
* Savage Empire Male Portrait Pack (1.57 MB)
* Conversation System Demo (65.83 KB)
* Conversation System Files (29.87 KB)

This is actually a comprehensive collection of utilities and in-progress remakes of Ultima titles, all done in the Neverwinter Nights engine. The list of utilities is pretty comprehensive, including functional moongates (with Orb of the Moons!), NPC scheduling, animated potions, a conversation system to replace the default NWN system, and a very good reproduction of the venomous dagger of Ultima 7 fame.

But even more promising is the list of remakes that are being put together by this team and others. Currently in progress are remakes of Ultima 1, Ultima 7 (which provides the screenshot here), Ultima 8, Savage Empire, and Martian Dreams. Most of these seem still to be in the early stages of development, but the Ultima 7 remake — which deals, it seems, only with the events of The Black Gate at present — looks to have progressed somewhat further.

Here is hoping, then, that this collective set of efforts bears much fruit in the future! As the projects progress, I’ll probably break off each remake into its own standalone entry. For now, this one omnibus entry will suffice.

Produced by: Withstand the Fury Dragon
Website: Worlds of Ultima: Lost Sosaria
Downloads:
* Lost Sosaria (module) (582.85 KB)
* Castle Expanded v4 (hak pak) (19.04 MB)
* CEP2 No Tilesets (hak pak) (319.5 MB)
* No Cobble CRF (hak pak) (14.62 MB)
* Rocky Mountains v11.1 (hak pak) (20.48 MB)
* Seasonal Forest v9 (hak pak) (34.76 MB)
* Ultima Music (hak pak, music) (68.11 MB)
* ERF files (erf) (375.56 KB)
* CEP2 TLK file (tlk) (80.34 KB)

Worlds of Ultima: Lost Sosaria is a Neverwinter Nights module that tells the story of those companions of the Avatar who were missing without explanation after Ultima 7, as well as several other key characters from The Black Gate.

Pursuing Fellowship agents deep into the bowels of Britannia and the ruins of the Great Stygian Abyss, the companion Sentri leads his party of former friends and companions of the Avatar into an unknown part of the world: Lost Sosaria, one of the continents of Old Sosaria left missing after the death of the Wizard Mondain.

This project suspended development for a goodly while between 2005 and the present, and in fact Withstand the Fury Dragon has had to restart the module from scratch. However, he has revised his development plan, and feels confident that he can still deliver a good game with a large game world, this time using much more elegant tilesets.

It has been another busy week for Ultima-related news, O Reader, and on the site as well. Full implementation of the download manager is progressing apace, and I think I’m going to add a new feature to the news postings — the top five most downloaded files. But we’ll get to that in a bit. In the meantime…here’s what’s news. And a couple of shout-outs go to Petrell at Dino’s Ultima Page for spotting some things that I missed in assembling the list below.

Project Britannia

I see that the folks over at Project Britannia have switched servers due to speed problems with their old hosting company. The site has been configured at the new host, so there shouldn’t be any interruptions in accessing it.

EUO

I see that EUO 3D has been updated to version 0.14, fixing a bug with window minimization. Updated versions of the download are available through the project entry here at Aiera.

Realms of Ultima

Development proceeds apace on this promising Ultima-themed prefab for Neverwinter Nights 2, although news posting to the project website has been a little bit light of late owing to the fact that team leader MokahTGS is presently moving to California to take on a new job.

Savage Empire for Exult

Scythifuge has started a new discussion thread at the Exult forums to keep us all up to date on the latest developments he is making in his adaptation of Savage Empire using Exult and the Ultima 7 engine. At present, he seems to be working very heavily on graphics and tiles for in-game use. He has even posted a few screenshots for us to feast our eyes on.

Seven Towers Exult Mods

Marzo Junior has put his Seven Towers website back online at a new host, and has released updates of all three of his Exult mods — Black Gate Keyring, SI Fixes, and the Avatar Pak. All of the latest versions can be downloaded from the respective project entries here at Aiera.

Ultima VII: The Feudal Lands

Wizardry Dragon has put his project’s website back online at a new host.

Ultima for the Civilization Series

Frilly Wumpus alerted me to these. General Maximus has produced an Ultima-derived scenario (in two forms) for Civilization III. Both are set in Britannia after the events of Ultima 9. The forms of the scenario are as follows (one appearing to be a more difficult version of the scenario than the other):

Ultima X Conquest:

In the kingdom of Britannia, Lord British lost hold of his kingdom with breakway of the other seven city states now ruled by deviant warlords. Play as British under civilization group Bards. Forces and castles still loyal to you are now isolated in hostile teritory and may not hold for long. With news of the arrival of the hero of Britannia, the Avatar; the rebelion states begin marching towards Britain, the capital of Britannia for an pre-emptive strike. With the help of the mighty Avatar and his heroic companions, reclaim your entire kingdom!

Ultima X: Medieval Deity Challenge

In the kingdom of Britannia, Lord British(LB) lost hold of his kingdom with breakway of the other seven city states now ruled by independent warlords who were once friends of Lord British(LB) himself. Play as LB under civilisation group Bards. Forces or cities still loyal to you are now isolated in hostile teritory and may not hold for long. With news of the arrival of the hero of Britannia, the Avatar, the rebelions states has begin marching towards Britain, the capital of Britannia for an pre-emptive strike. With the help of the mighty Avatar and his companion Iolo, reclaim your entire kingdom!

The second form of the scenario seems to be more combat-oriented, and provides fewer allies/companions for the player. Either way, this seems like a neat idea, and I have created a project entry complete with downloads here at Aiera for it.

General Maximus also has an Ultima-inspired scenario for Civilization IV in the works, although as yet he has not released any downloads for it.

Ultima V for TI Calculators

Ranman informs us that his project — porting Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator — is nearing completion. He pegs the current project status at 98%, and his latest revisions to it include:

• “Acknowledgments” menu option is now working
• “Introduction” menu option is now working
• “Create New Character” menu option is partially working

He’s getting close, O Reader! Very close!

Ultima IX: Redemption

Sage has added a couple of new entries to his development diary. As usual, the would-be reader must be registered at the Titans of Ether forums.

Most Downloaded Files

1. Ultima 9 Official Patch 1.18 (6.17 MB)
2. Ultima 9 Unofficial Patch 1.19 (1.86 MB)
3. Ultima 9 Combined Patch (495.54 KB)
4. Ultima V: Lazarus v1.2 (Windows) (520.95 MB)
5. Alter U9 (RPG-Maker 2000 version) (5.93 MB)

Let’s see if any of the above changes in the coming weeks!

Produced by: Wizardry Dragon, Marzo Sette Torres Jr., Crysta the Elf,
Website: Ultima 7: The Feudal Lands
Releases:
* Oct. 29 2006 Snapshot (2.74 MB)

This is a mod for Exult (with the release of Exult Studio, expect these to become more and more common) that seeks to merge The Black Gate and Serpent Isle into one seamless narrative. Additionally, it will feature a third continent — the Lands of the Feudal Lords — and a series of quests that the Avatar and his/her party must complete there.

This is an ambitious remake (and also a spin-off, within the technical definition of the term), to be sure! In addition to the expanded narrative, the developers plan to re-introduce the Virtues to the lands of Ultima (i.e. the Avatar will once again be able to interact with the Shrines). As well, they plan to overhaul the spellcasting system and to enable party members to wield spellbooks.

Produced by: Marzo Sette Torres Jr.
Website: Seven Towers
* Avatar Pack (278.52 KB)

Another Seven Towers mod, joining the ranks of Black Gate Keyring and Serpent Isle Fixes, this package completely re-does the portraits for the Avatars in both The Black Gate and Serpent Isle. It not only provides new portrait graphics, but updated gump and paperdoll graphics for each Avatar as well.

Now you can even play a redheaded Avatar!