And if not: have you been living under a rock, and/or what colour is the sky on your planet, and also…welcome to Earth.

Okay, somewhat more seriously, Portalarium is “an online ecosystem of shared relationships, connecting endless gaming experiences, via seamless portals,” a social-networking gaming platform and development company co-founded by several people whose names should be familiar to Ultima fans, including none other than Richard Garriott.

You can read their founding press release…here.

There’s really not a lot more that can be said about this initiative for the moment, apart from the fact that it certainly represents a very new gaming frontier for Garriott. Social networking games — think FarmVille — are inherently browser-based games, dependent as they are on social networking frameworks like Facebook or Twitter.

At the same time, there’s a fair bit of potential for some truly interesting games to emerge from this. One notes that the company’s first title is using a web-based version of the Torque 2D engine; their information page about the “Portalarium Player” also mentions Unity 3D and a couple of other frameworks. Those are pretty powerful development toolsets; one could craft a web-playable RPG of Garriott’s caliber using Unity, for example.

Is that the direction that the company is going to go? Who knows at this early stage. With that many former Origin guys at the helm, though, there might just be a glimmer of hope.

(hat tip)

Tags: Facebook, FarmVille, Portalarium, Portalarium Player, Richard Garriott, RPG, social networking, Torque 2D, Twitter, Ultima, Unity 3D

First, it was Ultima 7. Then, it was Lazarus.

Now, the “Let’s Play Ultima” craze, which has slowly been making its way across YouTube and across the series, has reached my personal favourite amongst the Ultima titles. That’s right, Dragons…a young lady who goes by the handle enirya is playing — and broadcasting — her way through Ultima 6.

And what’s more, she’s playing the FM Towns version.

She’s only three episodes in at this point in time, but expect that number to grow.

Tags: FM Towns, Ultima, Ultima 6, Ultima 7, Ultima V: Lazarus, YouTube

Sergorn Dragon has just re-launched a project idea he’s had for a few years now: Return to the Serpent Isle.

Using the Neverwinter Nights 2 engine, this project is not a remake, but rather a continuation — a brand new Ultima adventure set in a familiar world: the Serpent Isle.

The site just “went live” on the ‘tubes this morning, Dragons. Although, in the interests of full disclosure, I know that because I helped design the thing, and will be involved with the project in a production and world-building role.

Which reminds me: we’re looking for people! Be sure to check out the Recruitment page for details!

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2, Serpent Isle, Ultima

Toltec Dragon alerted me to this new game from EA, which appears to be an online strategy game set in the Ultima universe. It’s being developed by EA Phenomic, who made Battleforge…so there’s some fairly serious development firepower behind this thing.

At the moment, there’s not much that I can really tell you Dragons about the game. I’ve signed up for the beta, but can’t seem to log in — the servers are always “full” (or they may not be on yet and that’s just the generic error message being thrown out). Nor can I access the game’s wiki or forums.

And I’m not sure what to think about this whole thing, either. This is apparently supposed to be a broswer-based strategy game, and those generally are far less than awesome (let’s be honest: the best ones are good for a few minutes of distraction, nothing more). At the same time, Phenomic is no second-tier developer…so I’m not sure at all what EA is getting at by enlisting them for this effort.

Would Ultima even render well as a strategy game?

Methinks it’s too early to tell with this one.

Also, Fenyx Dragon noted that Gamasutra had an article up about the game; give it a look.

And finally, from Sergorn Dragon, a possible Lord of Ultima screenshot:

Tags: Battleforge, EA, EA Phenomic, Lord of Ultima, Ultima

Firstknight has some sad news:

I’m very sorry to say this, but I have to leave “Team Forgotten World” again, and this time it will be definitly.

Several important “Real Life” Events forces me to do this, I have to accept the fact, that my “real life situation” simply not allows to work on such a fantastic project as “Forgotten World” will be.

But I will slowly continue working on “Beautiful Britannia“, which is only a simple upgrade to UIX, without story changes and other major improvements, as “Forgotten World” will provide.

And when the time comes, where I will get to an playable product, I will simply provide “Beautiful Britannia” for Download on “Ultima: Aiera“, but this will not happen within the next 5 years.

And because of the very limited time I will have for creating “Beautiful Britannia”, there will be no new screens or other information on it for a long, long time.

I only can hope that you can understand my situation.

Please continue to support “Team Forgotten World” in their effort to create the “true” UIX.

All I can say is: well, doesn’t that just suck. But even so, I hope the good reader will join me in wishing Firstknight all the best in whatever continued work he is able to put in on the project, and all good fortunes in his “real life” endeavours.

It’s also important to remember: this announcement only applies to Beautiful Britannia, and not to Forgotten World (the other half of the project). I will presently be splitting the two into separate entries here, to reflect this change.

Tags: Aiera, Beautiful Britannia, Forgotten World, Ultima

I sometimes forget to check the Exult forums for a few weeks at a time, which I really shouldn’t do. Forget, that is…shouldn’t forget. Like as not, those forums are the hub of much of the activity in the Ultima community; much more is discussed there than just Exult.

Case(s) in point:

• Eric Fry posted a note in a discussion there concerning Nuvie, his apparently dormant attempt to create a multi-platform engine for Ultima 6. Apparently, he’s doing some behind the scenes work with the game logic at the moment; hopefully this turns into something more tangible in the none-too-distant future.
• Then there’s this little announcement, concerning what appears to be a total conversion for Serpent Isle…into Serpent Isle, circa the end of the Ophidian era. That’s right: someone wants to make a mod to tell the story of the War of Imbalance. And to be fair, it looks kinda promising, at its outset. Here’s hoping it’s able to keep its momentum!
• Finally, someone is attempting to add Beh Lem as a recruitable companion in Ultima 7, and appears to be making a lot of progress. My only gripe is that he’s given Beh Lem wings; I may be a touch out of date on my Ultima lore, but I’m pretty sure this should not be.

See what I mean? Hub of activity!

I suppose I should create a project entry for the middle one.

Tags: Exult, Nuvie, Serpent Isle, Ultima, Ultima 6, Ultima 7

Now there’s a sentence one doesn’t usually expect to type.

Mark Mitchell contacted me a couple months ago, and then again just this week, to inform me of his ambitious project to create a realistic heightmap of Britannia using such tools as Photoshop, Terragen, and L3DT.

This in turn would be useful for some Ultima project developers, since I know for a fact that tools exist for some game engines (Neverwinter Nights 2 especially) that allow for the automatic creation of terrain based on imported heightmaps.

But that’s not the reason Mark has undertaken this project for himself. As he creates this work, he also wants to consider: “size and scaling of the continent, political and demographic issues, economy and trade routes, [and] geology and land formation.” In that regard, it’s as much an anthropological study as it is a really cool piece of artwork.

You can check out some of his sample work at the project’s current “webpage,” a forum thread at the Cartographer’s Guild (registration required). I have also created a project entry, at/through which can be viewed an early sample of Mark’s work.

Tags: Neverwinter Nights 2, Photoshop, Ultima