With the restoration of the Official Underworld 2 Patch released by Origin, all downloads pertaining to Ultima Underworld 2 are now officially functional again.

Anyhow, I’ll be offline all weekend, and though I will get a download restored come Monday, it probably won’t be until later in the day. My employer is sending me to Arkansas on a three-week job, so I’ll be spending a goodly chunk of that day traveling, and more or less the entirety of the weekend hanging out with my family.

If there are any Dragons in Pine Bluff or Little Rock who’d be up for a beer, let me know.

Labyrinth of Worlds was intended to be a “from the ground up” remake of Ultima Underworld 2, complete with 3D character models. It never made it to completion (a fate shared by many projects of similar ambition, sadly), stopping development at version 0.4, but downloads for Windows and Linux were released…as was the complete source code.

All of which is once again available for download at the project entry here.

I’ve restored the download link for the Ultima Underworld 2 Character Editor. It’s a simple little utility, command line-based if memory serves, for modifying character statistics in…well…Ultima Underworld 2.

Also, I’ve just been informed that the final version of the Spanish translation of Serpent Isle (including The Silver Seed, by the way) has been released. I’ll be adding that to the site — or updating Aiera‘s current downloads, rather — over the next few days.

One download per day; I’m committed to this.

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

Dominus (who should be known to anyone who frequents the Exult) brought to my attention, by email, an exciting new project that has emerged which is attempting to create a modern engine for the Underworld series of games.

That’s right! The Abysmal Engine is an attempt to create an Ultima Underworld 1/2 and System Shock engine for modern operating systems. (It will still require the original Ultima Underworld or System Shock data files to run.)

Abysmal is a successor to previous such attempts at creating an engine for the Underworld games, and builds on the work done by The System Shock Hack Project, Underworld Adventures and Underworld 2 Revival projects.

It is still at a very early developmental stage (the author warns that none of the games are actually playable), but seems to be making decent progress. And most excitingly, iPhone 3GS version even appears to be in the works!

And yes, I’ve created a project entry for Abysmal here at Aiera.

Produced by: Julien Langer
Website: Abysmal Engine
Releases:
* Abysmal for Ubuntu (off-site)
* Abysmal for Windows (Installer) (1.2 MiB, 153 hits)
* Abysmal for Windows (ZIP) (1.3 MiB, 117 hits)
* Abysmal for Linux (AMD64) (1.1 MiB, 89 hits)
* Abysmal for Linux (x86) (1.1 MiB, 96 hits)
* Abysmal Source (1.1 MiB, 109 hits)

The Abysmal Engine is an attempt to create an Ultima Underworld 1/2 and System Shock engine for modern operating systems. It will still require the original Ultima Underworld or System Shock data files to run.

Abysmal is a successor to previous such attempts at creating an engine for the Underworld games, and builds on the work done by The System Shock Hack Project, Underworld Adventures and Underworld 2 Revival projects.

It is still at a very early developmental stage (the author warns that none of the games are actually playable), but seems to be making decent progress. An iPhone 3GS version even appears to be in the works!

Actually, it sounds like the Titans are doing pretty good; they’re basically just looking for interior worldbuilders at this point.

The updates tell a similar story to past updates, of course: things are being worked on. Still, there’s a few tidbits buried in them that are worth mention:

• Titan Zini is, evidently, an absolute godsend for the team; what doesn’t he do?
• Dungeons and cities alike are in the process of being populated. The game world is coming alive, it seems.
• Direhaggis is working on endings, and has completed three so far. My question: already at three, and more to come? How many will there be, and how easy/difficult will it be to eventually see them all?
• I wonder what this undisclosed “cold” location could be? The frozen world from Underworld 2, prehaps?

Can’t wait to play this one, good reader? Yeah, me neither.

Which reminds me: general offer to all dev-teams out there at present…if you would like FTP access to the folder where I store your project’s current releases, or if you would like me to set up a folder and FTP access for you so that you can upload project releases whenever those come about, please let me know. I can’t help but think this will help streamline things greatly in the future.

I was going through the Ultima FTP Archive and noticed that there were a few things there which had not been added to Aiera, but which probably should have been added a goodly while ago. They’re mostly minor utilities, some over a decade old, but for posterity’s sake they have been included on the site here.

• a Martian Dreams cheat hack*
• a cheat utility for Ultimas 1 through 5 (but not 2)
• another Ultima 4 map editor
• an Ultima 6 chunk editor
• a Linux-based utility for rendering maps of the Ultima 8 game world
• a character editor for Underworld
• a character editor for Underworld 2

Just a minor update, especially coming on the heels of some fairly major ones (below). But hey — I aim to please!

Also, a frothy mug of ale to Ole Petter Ingebrigsen for bringing it to my attention that the ZIP-archive download for the Ultima 4 character editor (a different one, not the one mentioned above) was apparently corrupted. This error has been corrected.

* this also works, apparently, for Savage Empire (thanks Paulon)

Releases:
* UW2Edit v1.1 (9.4 KiB, 50 hits)

A simple utility for editing character statistics in Ultima Underworld 2.

Produced by: Jonathan Rimmer
Website: UWE Homepage
Releases:
* Ultima Underworld Editor (156.7 KiB, 169 hits)
* UWE Source (2.6 KiB, 101 hits)
* DPMI Memory Manager (40.5 KiB, 99 hits)

A 2D, DOS-based editor for both Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld 2. Also available is the source code. The program may require the DPMI Memory Manager because of the Allegro libraries that were used in its making.

Produced by: Peroxide/Telemachos
Websites: UGCK and Viewer
Releases:
* Underworld Viewer (84.8 KiB, 128 hits)
* Underworld Game Creation Kit (20.2 MiB, 131 hits)

Although Peroxide has ceased to be, some of their old projects are still kicking around on the Internet. The Underworld Viewer is a simple utility that renders all the levels of both Ultima Underworld and Ultima Underworld 2 using whichever acceleration mode you prefer so that you can view them and wander through them. It may also be possible to load the level models into a 3D rendering program, if the images on Peroxide’s site are any indication.

And Telemachos, formerly of Peroxide, never seems to run out of ways to keep busy. Building off of the Underworld Viewer, he produced an actual editing kit with which to edit different aspects of Ultima Underworld, as well as walk through all the levels and (possibly, if the screenshots tell the truth) test-play them.

Produced by: Marc A. Pelletier
Website: LOW @ Sourceforge
Releases:
* LOW 0.4 (Windows) (304.9 KiB, 43 hits)
* LOW 0.4 (Linux) (107.1 KiB, 27 hits)
* LOW Source (512.8 KiB, 31 hits)
* LOW 3D Models (7.5 MiB, 34 hits)
* LOW Music (18.7 MiB, 30 hits)
* LOW Sounds (3.8 MiB, 32 hits)
* LOW Data Files (1,002.5 KiB, 34 hits)
* LOW DLL Files (Windows) (445.1 KiB, 37 hits)
* SDL Libraries (external site)

Labyrinth of Worlds (LOW for short) was a cross-platform re-write of Ultima Underworld 2 “from the ground up”. Development on this project has unfortunately ceased, but its Sourceforge site is still active and there is source available for download, as well as a host of demos for different systems.

The latest version of this remake (dated 2002) features 3D models of the characters.

Produced by: Origin Systems Inc.
Website: Origin Systems (redirects to the Ultima Online site)
Releases:
* Official Patch (618.4 KiB, 48 hits)

This patch corrects several plot-stopping bugs in the disk-based version of Ultima Underworld 2 only. All versions of the game that shipped on CD should have the patch installed already.

Produced by: Moscow Dragon, Sir Cabirus Dragon
Website: Sir Cabirus
Releases:
* NT Patch (44.4 KiB, 91 hits)

Windows NT (and NT-derived systems like Windows 2000) are not always game-friendly platforms. Moscow Dragon came up with a patch that allowed Ultima Underworld 2 to run under the Windows NT/2000 environment, and this was later expanded upon by Sir Cabirus Dragon to support Ultima Underworld 1 as well.