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.

This is a patch from Creative that enables Soundfont support in Ultima 8; it is once again available for download.

And with that, every Ultima 8 download has been restored.

Bit by bit, it’s getting done!

I had previously mislabeled these as language patches, but they are in fact official update patches for Ultima 8 that correct many aspects of the game. It’s just that they’re available in three languages: English, French, and German.

Be that as it may, they are once again available for download.

For all you users of retro sound boards out there (or possibly users of DOSBox, which I believe can emulate AdLib support), the official patch to enable proper AdLib support in Ultima 8 is once again available for download.

Although rendered somewhat obsolete by Pentagram, Gaseous Dragon’s Windows patch for Ultima 8 (which, yes, is now once again available for download) still has a niche to fill while Pentagram remains unfinished.

No, that’s not one combined omni-application for Ultima 8; it’s two separate programs. The Ultima 8 Viewer lets you examine the shapes and graphics that the game uses, and the Ultima 8 Cheat Program is…well…you can probably guess.

And both are once again available for download.

I’m actually cheating a bit, because I was out late and am now pressed for time. And technically this is Friday’s update, and it’s now Saturday. At any rate, the big Ultima 8 remake, Pentagram, isn’t quite restored to download status; the U8 Mapper utility is.

Pentagram will be available tomorrow.

L@Zar0 was asking about this a while ago, and over in the forum thread for that earlier post, Kobra Kai Dragon provided one possible solution:

Pick up the chest, carry it to Daemon’s Crag and throw it onto the molten lava. The chest will sink, but the Tear of the Seas and other stuff will “ethereally” pass through the chest and miraculously float on the lava.

Granted, this doesn’t address L@Zar0′s question about Ultima 8 usecode compilation…but it does solve another problem he was having, which I gather is actually quite a common bug that many encounter.

So now you know. And a big thanks to Kobra Kai!

L@Zar0, the fella who alerted me to the existence of the aforementioned Spanish translations of Serpent Isle and The Silver Seed, also posed a question that I didn’t have an answer to. It concerns whether or not a particular utility exists for Ultima 8, and I don’t think Aiera currently lists anything that satisfies the request. (It’s also possible I’m mistaken and just missed noticing the utility in the relevant category.)

Anyhow, since the community has in the past proven so fruitful in coming up with answers, I’m going to put this one out there

Do you know some tool to decompile/compile usecode for ULTIMA VIII:PAGAN? I know that there is a tool to extract every function (but it does not decompile). I know that there is a tool to dissassemble every function, but I don’t know any tool to assemble again the function (i’m programmer, but no so good ).

I’ve contacted with some of the Pentagram developers but they can not help me (nor answered).

I want (or need) a tool like this to make a translation for Pagan (in Spanish) from the 2.12 English version. 2.12 version was never released in Spanish and there was no patch ever. Also, the Spanish version has a bug in which Devon does not give to the Avatar the key of his chest to get the Tear of Seas… so the game is unfinishable by normal methods. It is possible use a tool named u8menu to activate the “Destroy” cheat, and destroy the chest which contain the Tear, but nothing more.

If you can help me I appreciate your efforts.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Dino links to a pair of articles (1, 2) by Sheri Graner Ray, a former Origin employee and now a senior game designer with Schell Games, who has been in the gaming industry for 20 years.

She even worked on the cancelled Lost Vale expansion for Ultima 8!

The articles are worth a read; as Dino notes, [the] posts contain interesting insights on what it was like to work at Origin, as well as some Ultima 7 trivia, info on the original plot of Serpent Isle, and some new tidbits on The Lost Vale.

Check thou them out, good reader!

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, 31 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.

Produced by: Saduj
Website: Ultima Restoration
Releases:

Utilities
* Ultima Potions (hak pak) (376.6 KiB, 214 hits)
* Ultima Potions (demo module) (37.0 KiB, 149 hits)
* Ultima Potions II (hak pak) (375.8 KiB, 137 hits)
* Ultima Potions II (demo module) (41.3 KiB, 146 hits)
* Venom Dagger (erf import file) (2.4 KiB, 144 hits)
* Venom Dagger (hak pak) (36.3 KiB, 143 hits)
* Venom Dagger (icons) (700 bytes, 152 hits)
* Venom Dagger (source files) (11.9 KiB, 145 hits)
* NPC Schedules (erf import file) (64.7 KiB, 141 hits)
* NPC Schedules (demo module) (455.6 KiB, 139 hits)
* NPC Schedules (readme) (4.2 KiB, 151 hits)
* Moongates (erf import file) (23.7 KiB, 136 hits)
* Moongates for CEP (erf import file) (23.7 KiB, 139 hits)
* Moongates (demo module) (198.5 KiB, 133 hits)
* Moongates for CEP (demo module) (565.3 KiB, 138 hits)
* Savage Empire Female Portraits (3.2 MiB, 212 hits)
* Savage Empire Male Portraits (1.6 MiB, 187 hits)
* Ultima Conversation System (files) (287.7 KiB, 147 hits)
* Ultima Conversation System (demo) (685.6 KiB, 137 hits)
* NWN 1.69 Portraits & Soundsets Unlocker (18.3 KiB, 164 hits)
* NWN 1.69 Portraits & Soundsets Unlocker (readme) (216 bytes, 159 hits)
* NWN 1.69 Portraits (93.4 KiB, 171 hits)
* NWN 1.69 Soundsets (31.6 KiB, 196 hits)

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.

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.

Produced by: Darkheart Dragon, Avatus Kingsman (formerly), and many others
Website: Ultima Legacy
Releases:
* Custom Data Files (516.2 KiB, 24 hits)

Ultima Legacy was a modified version of Ultima Online which could be played for free, set in a post-Ultima 8 Britannia. Its premise includes the assumption that Ultima 9: Ascension did not happen, and out of that it has spawned a complex and involved storyline that included the Atarkan invasion of Britannia. Legacy doesn’t exactly form the backstory for the Titans of Ether project entitled Ultima IX: Redemption, although there is a relation there as both projects were founded, in part, by Avatus Kingsman (although where he has gone to, none now know).

Joining Legacy was a bit of an involved process — the modified data files that were necessary for game play are provided here for download, but there was more to it than just that. For starters, you needed to own a copy of Ultima Online: The Second Age, and it was actually recommended that you have Ultima Online: Renaissance instead. Ultima Online: Lord Blackthorn’s Revenge may also have worked.

The rest of the joining process was explained at the Legacy website. However, as of 2008, Legacy was being revised to tell a Serpent Isle-based tale, and was also switching from the Sphere freeshard system to RunUO. The project website is now little more than a placeholder page.

To anyone reading this site who might be working — or who has, in the past, worked — on Pentagram, the Ultima 8 environment — I have a question on behalf of a reader.

Do you think it will be possible to port Pentagram to the Nintendo DS? There is a 4Mb ram limit. It would be nice to use this engine with the touch screen of the DS.

There is a library for Nintendo DS programming call libnds heres a link…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libnds

Theres another one which uses libnds called PaLib it makes somethings easier. We would need to scale or crop the resolution down to 256 x 192 if we are using just one screen. Theres a top and bottom one but I think it would be cool to use the bottom screen since thats the touchpad.

Libnds comes with DevKitPro which includes an ARM assembler and a C/C++ compiler basically everything you need to program for the NDS.

So…can anyone on the Pentagram team throw an answer my way? Would it be possible to port Pentagram to the Nintendo DS?

Produced by: Arnim Sauerbier
Website: Arnim Sauerbier
Releases:
* Aklabeth for Nokia Smartphones (33.6 KiB, 247 hits)

* xu4 for Nokia Smartphones (1.9 MiB, 238 hits)

* Ultima 7 - Exult - Program (1.0 MiB, 68 hits)
* Ultima 7 - Exult - Data (14.0 MiB, 58 hits)
* Ultima 7 - Music (mono) (12.5 MiB, 55 hits)
* Ultima 7 - Music (stereo) (28.7 MiB, 66 hits)

* Ultima 8 - Pentagram - Program (766.2 KiB, 35 hits)
* Ultima 8 - Pentagram - libSDL (16.2 KiB, 34 hits)
* Ultima 8 - Pentagram - Configuration (998 bytes, 27 hits)

These are actually just ports of other Ultima projects (linked below), but as I’ve never seen so many in one place at one time (and from one person!), they are classified not only as ports but as their own separate entry on Aiera.

The following projects have been ported to the Nokia 770/N800 internet tablets:

• Akalabeth – a port of Paul Robson’s SDL version of the game
• Ultima 4 – a port of xu4
• Ultima 5 – a port of Nazghul/Haxima
• Ultima 6 – a port of Nuvie
• Ultima 7 – a port of Exult
• Ultima 8 – a port of Pentagram

It serves to note that these ports are ongoing works, and it further serves to note that some of the projects that have been ported (Pentagram, for an easy example) are themselves incomplete. However, O Reader, if you use a Nokia 770/N800 internet tablet, and would like to be able to play some classic Ultima titles whilst on the go, this is likely a project for you!

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