I missed this update, which is already almost two weeks old, to the Redemption website. Direhaggis posted an advertisment, announcing the project’s need for writers:

Do you like Ultima dungeons? Does the thought of creating NPC’s and plots based around or involving an anti-virtue sound interesting? Do you want to check out all of the behind-the-scenes action?

We’re looking for a new writer or two to help sparsely (or maybe not so sparsely) populate several remaining dungeons in U9R. You have 100% free artistic license over your area and will obviously get credit for your work.

So if you find that you are interested in climbing aboard one of the most exciting projects currently under development in the Ultima community, Direhaggis has provided his email address and the submission guidelines at the Redemption website. Go and check thou it out!

Tags: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls, Ultima, Ultima 9, Ultima IX: Redemption

Hawkwind, one of the developers over at Forgotten World, contacted me to let me know that despite the lack of news from the development team of this promising, in-engine remake of Ultima 9, things have been moving.

What is more, they’ve given their site a bit of a facelift, having ported it over to the Joomla content management system! On that basis alone: way to go, fellas! Joomla is a pretty sweet CMS, and one of my two “go-to” pieces of site software whenever I have a site to build.

But an even bigger hurrah should be sounded over the news that accompanies the new site design:

We have – again – done a lot of work without results that are presentable.

Due to some strange issues with some of the files, it is now certain that there is still an unknown part in what we thought unraveled. We, therefore, had to rewrite some of the file loading routines. Meanwhile, we wrote a model viewer. So far, we have yet to find any really special models. We will keep you appraised!

Our next aim concerning the editor is getting object selection and property display working.

I can’t imagine how complicated it must be to unwrap a game engine and try to make sense of it, and I am constantly impressed by the demonstrated progress this team has made. I’m confident they can overcome this little hiccup.

Tags: Forgotten World, Joomla, Ultima 9

Produced by: Titans of Ether
Website: Titans of Ether

Ultima IX: Redemption is being developed with the Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls engine, featuring a totally original plot, and original gameplay. This remake of Ultima 9 is planned to live up to the Ultima greatness that the original game failed to achieve. It will feature total freedom of doing good or evil (which the original didn’t grant) as well as multiple endings.

NOTE: As of Sept. 18, 2004, this project and The New King have become one unified effort under the direction of Corv. The New King will be the direct sequel to Redemption.

Tags: Morrowind, The Elder Scrolls, The New King, Ultima, Ultima 9, Ultima IX: Redemption

It’s been half a year since last we heard from the Titans of Ether, but in his most recent news posting, Corv assures us that things are alive and well with his team’s remake of Ultima 9.

Just want to asure you that we are still working on this baby. Right now work is mostly about quest writing, scripting the whole thing … you can imagine. Everyone who visits the forum regularly knows that anyway.

Of course we also still have to build parts of the world itself, but I hope you understand that we don’t want to spoil it all for you by showing everythig on screenshots. It’s difficult not to brag with our Moonglow for example, but you should have some surprises while actually playing the game.

I am also happy to tell you that we have a new “master” up and running (= new game version).

The longer we need for this project the more I actually think about a demo… to show you what you can expect. But for now it’s just a thought.

As usual, we continue to wait with anticipation for the release of this promising remake/re-invention of the finalé to the Ultima series.

Tags: Morrowing, The Elder Scrolls, Titans of Ether, Ultima, Ultima 9, Ultima IX: Redemption

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

Produced by: Dorian Hawkmoon
Website: Ultima Ascension Traducción
Releases:
* Ultima Ascension Traducción (0 bytes)

This is a full translation of Ultima 9 into Spanish.

Tags: translation, Ultima 9

Ergonpandilus Dragon has made us a short video that neatly summarizes, using the tapestry from Ultima 9, the plot of the Ultima series and the path of the Avatar.

Very good work, Ergon! Thank you kindly.

Tags: Avatar, Ultima, Ultima 9