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)

Bumped for news-purposes: readers should note which updates have been made.

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

Produced by: Jonathan Rimmer
Website: UWE Homepage
Releases:
* Ultima Underworld Editor (156.15 KB)
* UWE Source (2.6 KB)
* DPMI Memory Manager (40.53 KB)

A 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
Website: UGCK website and Viewer website
Releases:
* Underworld Game Creation Kit Demo (20.21 MB)
* Underworld Viewer (84.41 KB)

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 games 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 it.

Produced by: Moscow Dragon, Sir Cabirus Dragon
Website: Sir Cabirus
Releases:
* NT Patch (44.43 KB)

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 NT/2000 environment, and this was later expanded upon by Sir Cabirus Dragon to support Ultima Underworld 1 as well.