Why Ultima sucked (was Re: Tabula Rasa back from the dead)

[Yegolev]

Today.  Ultima is crap today.  It was great at the time and was why I wanted to play UO so badly.  Today... I have Exult installed on my PC but I still can't get around to finishing up U7.  Since U7, we have had U8 and U9, which I would think people are not going to use as a positive example of anything and so I will just talk about U7.  I played U7 a whole lot back when gas cost less than a dollar.  I happen to like U7 very much, but in relative terms.

So, how is U7 crap?  Looks like crap.  Controls like crap.  Also looks like crap, even in Exult.  It is a good game in the same way that FFIV is, which means that I just can't force myself to play it again.  FFIV is my favorite of the series but I just can't do it.  I am, however, able to replay Super Mario World today and I think that says something about both games even though they cannot be directly compared otherwise.

My meter is 2007.  A RPG with better real-time-combat than U7 would be FFXII or Daggerfall or Morrowind or Ultima Underworld or System Shock or Deus Ex or System Shock 2 or Thief1/2/3 or Magic & Mayhem or Arx Fatalis or Super Paper Mario.  I won't bother listing off RPGs with better character control, but I think I would prefer Gothic 1 to U7.  Better story is pretty subjective, plus I can't really remember what the hell was going on in U7.  Gargoyle discrimination and religious assholes.

Why the "Ultima is crap" line sounds so much just like a flamebait?

Because it instigates posts that give me a great excuse to spout off.

[schild]

I just finished playing through FFIV again. Just saying (GBA re-release).

[Yegolev]

Not to sound like a negative against you, but you have a lot more time for that stuff than me.  You mentioned something about having too many games for people to waste time on shitty titles in some other thread, and that's my problem.  Am I going to replay FFIV, which is my favorite one and which has nice nostalgic feelings associated with it, or something I have not played before or that is more engaging for Reason X... maybe Odin Sphere or Etrian Odyssey or F.E.A.R. (need to pick that up again).  If today was May 31, 1992 then I would consider Ultima VII a viable contender for my game time, but advancements in GAME TECHNOLOGY mean that I am more likely to play Final Fantasy Tactics tonight.

But let's talk about pewpewnicorns.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, WUA AND 99.9% of North America.

Every JRPG an average American kid like me ever got his hands on was the same Ultima III + cutscenes shit that they would keep spewing out until I finally eventually forsook the genre.  The stuff FF7 was doing in the late 90's wasn't just "not innovative", it was downright retarded game design in the most literal sense, in many ways unchanged in over a decade.

How anyone can trash Ultima and then praise something like the original Dragon Warrior, essentially a clone of Ultima gameplay circa a couple years prior, is beyond me.  Final Fantasy IV?  Don't get me wrong, I loved it in it's day and it broke new ground in terms of story presentation (the only area JRPG ever seemed to advance in) but the actual game design was pretty stone-age even when it was new.

The JRPG genre got it's start in ripping off Ultima.  And if you want an innovative western RPG, I'll throw my pet contention into the thread:  GTA: SA.  As I've said before, when I find my little brother playing and he's grinding his Uzi skill so he can dual-wield, a line has been crossed.

[schild]

You're not here because you're an average american kid WUA.

You're a goddamn freak just like the rest of us.

That's why I said it's a shame that I can't bring about 50 other eastern RPGs into the mix.

[Hoax]

WUA I dont even know why god taught you to type other then to punish the internets, shut the fuck up and stop acting like you can have some kind of solid opinion on anything other then the taste of dick.

Fuck even when talking about some other stupid Ultima game you fag the boards up...



Is what I would say if I even sort of cared about this stupid cripple fight.  Fallout was good, a few of the FF's were good.  Most were not.  I dont see how putting your entire party on the screen is an innovation.  I never touched the fucking Ultima games pre-UO.  Lets talk more about Diablo1, that was a cool rpg...

These super nostalgia discussions are such a waste of space.  I know that there hasn't been an interesting new title in forfuckingever but do we have to necro the same old ponies over and over to pass the time?

I wouldn't play any of the old shit I dearly loved as a kid now adays.  I've already played it, I dont care any more.  I know how it ends.  I have seen the cutscenes.   Besides that, the interface and gfx usually make me cringe.  I really always have a hard time believing so many of you go back and play decade old video games.  I think its just an internet lie so you can fight it out in stupid ass threads about ye olden days from positions of authority.

There are exceptions, almost none of them are RPGs.  Mario World, Metroid, Zelda (NES and SNES), Mario Kart etc.  But really I'm not going to beat them or anything.  I'm going to fuck around laugh about the good times and go back to playing the latest shiney.

[Falconeer]

I never touched the fucking Ultima games pre-UO.  Lets talk more about Diablo1, that was a cool rpg...

You are just a son of your times. How could you play any of the Ultimas except the goofy ones if you were 8 when Ultima VII came out?
Too many kiddos here think it's cool to piss on the past. If they weren't around, it doesn't count/matter/exist.
What's so cool in not having played any of the classics? Face it, you are not Schild: you are not interested in videogames, you can see just as far as the length of your nose. You are just a player.
As such, and not having played any of the Ultimas, why are you contributing in this thread at all?

Oh yeah, the cynical l33t act. I forgot.

[Hoax]

You are just a son of your times. How could you play any of the Ultimas except the goofy ones if you were 8 when Ultima VII came out?
Too many kiddos here think it's cool to piss on the past. If they weren't around, it doesn't count/matter/exist.

L2R dipshit, the paragraph you quoted was followed by saying that waxing nostalgic about thess old games you all clearly see through rose colored glasses is a waste of fucking time.  Also I'm not pissing on the past, merely the frenzied discussions about what old video games pwned other ones.  Are you going to try to convince me that is a kickass past time now?

What's so cool in not having played any of the classics? Face it, you are not Schild: you are not interested in videogames, you can see just as far as the length of your nose. You are just a player.

As such, and not having played any of the Ultimas, why are you contributing in this thread at all?

Ohhhh just a player, you cut me deep sir.  God are you for real?  As for why I'm posting in this thread, well letsee its not a thread titled "Boring stupid slap-fight about old as fuck games!" it was about TR at one point.  So I keep checking to see if anyone knows anything about TR's gameplay.

But whatever, I'm just a player.

Lollerskates~!

[schild]

We can argue back and forth that I'm talking through rose colored glasses. But I've played and thrashed every Final Fantasy re-release.

Except 3.

3 Sucked.

[Hoax]

But you are a freak when it comes to video games.  I seriously dont believe anyone else around here that claims to fucking blow the dust of 10 year old games on the regular because they are so enthralled by ancient superior gameplay conventions.

Also play old games all you want, fighting about which one is better is fucking retarded.  Feel free to stop doing that at any time.  Alternatively lets have a fight about what flavor of ice cream is best next because WE'RE THAT FUCKING BORED.


I blame the game industry...

[Cheddar]

Not to sound like an asshat, but I saw something about FFIV in this thread.  Did they remake it?  I thought I saw plans to... please PM me if it has been remade (and possibly added to!!!!).


My groin is erect and throbbing for this; I was just thinking the other day about how cool it would be if they remade it!

[schild]

FFIV is being remade on the Nintendo DS.

[WindupAtheist]

Oh look, Hoax is here to flame WUA, spew bullshit, and compose a few terabytes worth of posts on how everyone else is wasting their time.

That's new.

Thanks for enlightening us, oh guru of the intarweb.  We didn't mean to force you to read our crappy posts.  You're free to piss off and stop doing so whenever you like.

[Hoax]

And you are free to post on topic outside of fucking retarded threads you start and not refer to yourself in the third person any time you like.

Did you have a point?

[WindupAtheist]

Hey Schild, no more talk about JRPG design.  Hoax is tired of the off-topic posts.  I think he's a moderator or something.  Maybe the king of moderators.  He might ban us.

[schild]

I'm not siding with either of you. You're both freaking me out.

1. Hoax, there's nothing to say On Topic about Tabula Rasa. The team is quietly freaking out and not releasing any info. I've put a call in to hear from their QA tester. Hopefully he'll get back to me shortly.

2. WUA. Your lack of knowledge about modern JRPG design made me want to stop talking about it anyway.

[Oban]

I'm not siding with either of you. You're both freaking me out.

1. Hoax, there's nothing to say On Topic about Tabula Rasa. The team is quietly freaking out and not releasing any info. I've put a call in to hear from their QA tester. Hopefully he'll get back to me shortly.

...

Deja vu.  I seem to remember a thread or two about a recently launched massively multiplayer online game that had a single QA tester as well.

How did that work out for them?

[schild]

I'm not siding with either of you. You're both freaking me out.

1. Hoax, there's nothing to say On Topic about Tabula Rasa. The team is quietly freaking out and not releasing any info. I've put a call in to hear from their QA tester. Hopefully he'll get back to me shortly.

...

Deja vu.  I seem to remember a thread or two about a recently launched massively multiplayer online game that had a single QA tester as well.

How did that work out for them?

Sarchasm.

[Sky]

Diablo was not an rpg. It was a hack-n-slash action game.

It's hard to post about a game under  , Hoax.

[HaemishM]

Diablo was not an rpg. It was a hack-n-slash action game.

Thank you. The Diablo was boring, shittastic clickity click pellet fests. It was snake brain manipulation. It was an MMORPG with a better loot system, more clickity click and less (or no) other people involved.

[Slayerik]

But you are a freak when it comes to video games.  I seriously dont believe anyone else around here that claims to fucking blow the dust of 10 year old games on the regular because they are so enthralled by ancient superior gameplay conventions.

Also play old games all you want, fighting about which one is better is fucking retarded.  Feel free to stop doing that at any time.  Alternatively lets have a fight about what flavor of ice cream is best next because WE'RE THAT FUCKING BORED.


I blame the game industry...

Me and a bunch of my friends still play Star Control 2 melee. Good gameplay will bring you back to good games. I for one appreciate older games that did not have the crutch of super uber graphics, cause those back then had to rely on gameplay. Not saying I play many old games, but some of us do 'blow the dust off 10 year old games' and enjoy them.

[Murgos]

It was snake brain manipulation.

Honestly?  Snake brain manipulation is 85% if what I'm looking for in a game.  If the other 15% can tickle a few of the higher functions to keep the snake brain distracted about the repetition that's just bonus.

[Falconeer]

I play M.U.L.E. with my friends on a C64 regularly since 1988, and NHL Hockey on the Megadrive since 1993. When they come at my home they don't ask me for the PS3 (which sits mostly unplayed in a corner), they ask me for the classics.

I re-played Bard's Tale 3 on the same C64 last year.
I never uninstalled Wasteland since I finally put my hands on it and I bought the Phantasy Star collection for the DS last year and yes I played them all again.
On my desktop there's this old Commodore 64 ready to fire up all my collection of original floppy disks and an Amiga 500 all set for the same purpose. I have an Intellivision, an Atari VCS 2600, a Sega Megadrive, a Dreamcast and a Nintendo 64 all ready to be played in about 2 minutes (time needed to untie and plug in cables).
I am (loosely) playing right now the Ur-Quan Masters port and (not really an old game but that's the style) 5 days a stranger.
I have all the Mame arcade classics installed on my PC since the invention of arcade emulation and you can bet I play them everytime someone else feels the urge to play some shitty flash game over the internet.

This is not a showoff, after all it is well known that I play and pay for all the shittiest mmorpgs that come out every year.
It's just that, believe it or not, sometimes software, and videogames, improved old formulas over time. Sometimes, they didn't.

It's not like you stop watching the original Hitchcock's Psycho because it was black and white while the Gus Van Sant's one has better (?) cinematography and blood FX.

[Hoax]

You must be more then just a player then.  Congrats!@!!

*golfclap*


/edited in

Seriously, I'm not anti old games, nor playing old games.  But acting like that somehow makes you someone who appreciates the "art" of video games is fucking ridiculous.  Also fighting on the internet about which old games were more influential or moar better is fucking six kinds of stupid.

Seriously everyone but Schild sounds like they are trying to be the video game equivalent of some art fag who only watches foreign films.  Schild only gets away with it because he literally does talk about games I've never ever heard of.  Also he tends to have relevent opinions about current games that make sense.

WUA hasn't had an valid opinion about anything but UO and SWG for as long as I've been here which makes him fucking useless.

Falconeer, I swear your the one who spent like 20 pages w/ geldon talking about Vanguard, but I could be wrong.  Somehow your name is associated with VG in my mind, which sucks for you.   

/one more thing edit

I've literally been party to playing 6 copies of EA's NHL 2002 until they broke.  Because it is by far the best Hockey game they made for the ps2.  Go me?  Everyone has old stuff they will always hold dear, human nature and whatnot.  But I keep checking this thread because when we finally do find something out about TR I want to know.  If you started this classic-game shit off in the PC / Video game forum I would be blissfully unaware and totally uninvolved with this shit.  But instead I kept checking to see if anyone had any clue to what kind of game TR will be.

[Sky]

And you are our resident angsty douchebag. Well played.

[Slayerik]

Please, tell me how much I suck because I like Starcon 2 and Diablo 2 and a few others.

Gameplay > Graphics    is all im saying, I'm not trying to sound leet oldschool gamer. Basically, it's a matter of opinion. Mine, of course, is superior ;)

[schild]

Man, playing SC2 and D2 doesn't make you old school or leet. The industry hasn't given us anything better for those particular niches.

[Slayerik]

Man, playing SC2 and D2 doesn't make you old school or leet. The industry hasn't given us anything better for those particular niches.

Ok, agreed. My first posts about this concerned Ultimas and whatnot. Don't make me flex my Tandy 1000 gaming on ya! ;) THAT SHIT HAD 16 colors yo! And if you wanna talk about consoles, holler at my Intellivision BIATCH!

[SnakeCharmer]

I play pong on my laptop at work.

[Lantyssa]

I never uninstalled Wasteland since I finally put my hands on it and I bought the Phantasy Star collection for the DS last year and yes I played them all again.

I love Wasteland.  It and the Fallouts are among the few games I go back to over and over.

[Venkman]

You guys are insane. Now is what matters to the industry. Then is merely what got us here. It's important to understand the past, but this level of argument and e-peening about one's temporal l33tness only matters if you're in a fucking position to prevent history from repeating itself. Otherwise, you're just bashing each other from the bleachers.

[Hoax]

I could swear I've said that like five times in the last page...

[SnakeCharmer]

You guys are insane. Now is what matters to the industry. Then is merely what got us here. It's important to understand the past, but this level of argument and e-peening about one's temporal l33tness only matters if you're in a fucking position to prevent history from repeating itself. Otherwise, you're just bashing each other from the bleachers.

Everyone arguing about old games: What the hell am I looking at?... When does this happen in the gaming?
Darniaq: Now, You're looking at now...Everything that happens now is happening now.
Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Darniaq: We passed it.
Everyone arguing about old games: When?
Darniaq: Just now... We're at now now.
Everyone arguing about old games: Go back to then?
Darniaq: When?
Everyone arguing about old games: Now.
Darniaq: Now?
Everyone arguing about old games: Now.
Darniaq: I can't
Everyone arguing about old games: Why?
Darniaq: We missed it.
Everyone arguing about old games: When?
Darniaq: Just now.
Everyone arguing about old games: When will then be now?
Darniaq: Soon!

[Murgos]

Dark Helmet: What happened to then?
Darniaq: We passed it.

You missed one.

[SnakeCharmer]

Crap.