Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar

[Margalis]

This could easily be a parody.

[rk47]

This could easily be a parody.

Lady British is LB's daughter. 

[Lucas]

Some quotes from Paul Barnett during a phone interview he had with the guys over at Massively.com :

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/07/12/eas-paul-barnett-ultima-forever-reboot-is-not-an-mmo/#continued

The game is coming to both PC and iPad platforms courtesy of a thin-client download. The full title is Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar, and gameplay consists primarily of four-person parties and various dungeon crawls set in the world of Britannia.

Barnett compared the game to the hunting areas in older BioWare titles like Baldur's Gate, and he pointed out that the essence of Ultima Forever is focused on improving your virtues through a BioWare storyline and plenty of dungeoneering. "It's very much a classic RPG adventure. It's more in Dragon Age's territory than that of an MMO," he explained.

And how does BioWare think classic Ultima fans will respond to a new, casual-focused take on their favorite universe? "We've kept in close contact with a group of hardcore Ultima fans; they're in the alpha, actually," Barnett said. "We can't replicate the original game, and I don't think they want us to. The original game is lauded as very important, and it is, but if you give it to a modern gamer, it's sort of like trying to read Chaucer. You're told it's worthy, but it's sort of incomprehensible."

More of the same in this interview on Kotaku:
http://kotaku.com/5925250/ultima-iv-gets-the-batman-reboot-with-ultima-forever-quest-for-the-avatar

[Mrbloodworth]

Classes. 

[Tebonas]

Did he just say classic Ultima is incomprehensible?

[Fabricated]

I'd say the most of the oldest Ultima titles would be inscrutable to modern gamers even with updated graphics if the gameplay wasn't changed, but Dwarf Fortress is a fairly recent thing and it's literally "Aspergers: The Game".

[UnSub]

'Modern' gamers had problems with Ultima IV, at least.

[Sky]

The KING IS DEAD THE KING IS DEAD LONG LIVE THE QUEEN! 

Garriot always struck me as a rather fancy lad.

As far as U4 goes...Back in the early 80s I ran a BBS off my C-64 (TWELVE HUNDRED BAUD, BITCHES). It was originally for skateboarders to talk about good spots and tricks/vhs trading/etc. It was fully eclipsed when I added a paywalled U4 hints area and announced it at the two computer groups. Even back then people got stuck a lot. I sucked a ton of data out through my fastload cart and posted the parsed text files. I used to be such a dork before I played guitar.

[HaemishM]

So it's Ultima as imagined through the anus of Diablo.

Interest sufficiently killed. It'll go on the heap with all the other barely interesting at release and then quickly forgotten EA P4F titles. Good enough if I have no money and nothing else to play, imminently forgettable otherwise.

[Arthur_Parker]

So it's Ultima as imagined through the anus of Diablo.

 

[Mrbloodworth]

Ultima: Pocket Legends.

[rk47]

Some dude broke the NDA.  A big time ultima fan.

[HaemishM]

Could this be a hack and slash ?

Yes it is. Do not expect Ultima. Expect F2P Diablo , except more ugly. The game IS a HnS. Click/Click/Click . My enemies are dead.

Got it in one. I didn't even have to see screenshots.

[Malakili]

"Go show those thieves the Compassion this sword is made of !"

 

[Sky]

Oh yeah.

[Lucas]

In quite a perverted and rape-a-ton way, I'm now more curious than ever 

[Lantyssa]

I bet Barnett thinks this is the greatest game ever made.  ARGH.

I don't even like the Ultima series and this is depressing.

[cironian]

Yeah, there's no way I'd even try that.

But I'd read a radicalthon.

[Lucas]

One more summary on mmorpg.com

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/851/feature/6559/Ultima-Forever-Quest-for-the-Avatar-Britannia-Reborn-for-a-New-Era.html

The game will be, just like UIV, all about Virtues as well. They’ll dictate your choices throughout the game, in true BioWare RPG fashion. If you find a large sum of money on the floor of the pub and give it back to the owner? That’s Justice. If instead you give it to some starving beggar children? That’s compassion. The entire game is built around these open-ended choices you’ll have to make which will help determine the kind of Avatar you become.  While Paul wasn’t able to talk much about the game’s career system, he did say that Virtues will play heavily into the thing.  “We extend the Virtue system into multiplayer as well. When a powerful player groups up with a lower player, they might not get a lot of XP for working with them, but they’ll gain a lot of Sacrifice virtue.”

The story itself is quite literally a reboot on Ultima IV. It begins 21 years after that title ended, with Lady British now on the thrown in place of her father Lord British. This makes sense given that the lead designer is no longer Garriott, but Kate Flack who’s been handling UO now for some time. It’ll sport the same isometric view we’ve come to know and love, and have all the cool stuff we remember from Ultima IV like hot air balloons, sea travel, and more. Paul says many on the team liken it to Baldur’s Gate with Friends in a lot of ways, getting back to BioWare’s roots in that way.
There are two announced careers right now on the game’s sparse homepage: the Fighter and the Mage, which are as you expect. Paul told me more will come, and those will be the sorts of things you can pony up a little change for.  As for the combat, it’s going to be a bit Action RPG-esque, as is befitting the isometric view. It’ll be position-based as well, with players being able to take advantage of collision detection, and will rely on player reaction as well. It won’t be typical hot-bar and tab-target type combat, but rather require active participation from the player on either platform. He promised me they’d explain more soon, and that they have to save something to reveal later.

"If you find a large sum of money on the floor of the pub and give it back to the owner? That’s Justice".

No shit.

[rk47]

People, it's still in Alpha. You're all too harsh. 

[Sir Fodder]

I tried to stomp out the Burning Coal of Hate, turned out it was a ring-and-run prank bag full of shit.

[HaemishM]

If you find a large sum of money on the floor of the pub and give it back to the owner? That’s Justice. If instead you give it to some starving beggar children? That’s compassion. The entire game is built around these open-ended choices you’ll have to make which will help determine the kind of Avatar you become.

Those words? They do not mean what the writer thinks they mean.

[Hutch]

People, it's still in Alpha. You're all too harsh. 

[Lucas]

The Guardian must be so happy right now :P

[Lantyssa]

It’ll sport the same isometric view we’ve come to know and love, ...

And if that kept us from taking the game seriously...?

[NiX]

It’ll sport the same isometric view we’ve come to know and love, ...

And if that kept us from taking the game seriously...?

That means you're asking for a third person cover based RPG.

[Lucas]

Ultima Forever Cloth Map plus some Virtue cards (think Ultima IX dragon edition), courtesy of Paul Barnett's twitter:

http://twitter.com/thatbarnettblok/status/223543622350548993/photo/1/large



 

[Venkman]

The story itself is quite literally a reboot on Ultima IV. It begins 21 years after that title ended title ended

Pick a lane hoss.

Otherwise: was excited. Shit, I still have the hand-drawn map I created for Ultima IV the first time.

But please don't give me this crap about the original Ultima series being too hard and this version is for 13 year olds. I was 13 years old and you know what? I read the goddamned manual and learned how to play and everything. Of course the map I drew was because I needed something more functional than that cloth thing. But it was no harder then than Secret World is today. And the market size was probably about the same.

It's not like they're going for huge mass potential here, or they'd have done an actual Ultima PC game, not an iPad one with optional PC syncing.

Ah well.

[Lucas]

The story itself is quite literally a reboot on Ultima IV. It begins 21 years after that title ended title ended

Pick a lane hoss.

Otherwise: was excited. Shit, I still have the hand-drawn map I created for Ultima IV the first time.

But please don't give me this crap about the original Ultima series being too hard and this version is for 13 year olds. I was 13 years old and you know what? I read the goddamned manual and learned how to play and everything. Of course the map I drew was because I needed something more functional than that cloth thing. But it was no harder then than Secret World is today. And the market size was probably about the same.

It's not 1985 anymore, Marty.

We've come a long way in providing good enough in-game tutorials, interfaces and so on, and it's a good thing when it's done right.

On the other hand, in the eighties it was up to us to "fill in the gaps" with our imagination, while reading a manual, or an environment description in Zork or a Sierra adventure game. When I was a kid playing Ultima IV I imagined myself under that tree while reading the Book of History ("no really! read the book of History!" :P); today, 13 years old, at least avid videogamer ones, expect something...well, different when it comes to their playing experience.

[veredus]

I don't know. My 11 year old will gladly read the in game lore manuals and instruction books and imagine himself there. He always immediately looks for that stuff when ever he gets a new game. Kids are kids, whether its 1985 or 2012. Heck when he got the collectors edition Halo Reach he probably spent almost as much time going through the lore stuff that came with it as he did playing the game.

[UnSub]

If you find a large sum of money on the floor of the pub and give it back to the owner? That’s Justice. If instead you give it to some starving beggar children? That’s compassion. The entire game is built around these open-ended choices you’ll have to make which will help determine the kind of Avatar you become.

Those words? They do not mean what the writer thinks they mean.

BioWare doesn't do open-ended choices. They do closed branching choices. And this title doesn't even seem to do that well (how does killing a wounded thief improve Justice?).

Open ended would mean that, on finding a pile of gold on the ground, I take it, see what else I can loot from the person who dropped it and then use my Sword of Compassion (lord, that's dirty) to terrify the beggar children into becoming my minions.

[Kageru]

That review has probably given me more laughs than the game would.

A movie reviewer (Movie Bob on the escapist) explained that big companies love doing "brand" games and movies because they're an easy pitch to sell and you can't really be blamed if it flops because it was based on an established brand. Of course you don't actually have to use or respect the brand once you get the green light. So you get stuff like this.

[rk47]

Deal with it.

[Entropy]

Middke-time lurker, first time poster.

Direct quote from the Facebook post:  "Return to Ultima in BioWare’s new cross platform action RPG. The first great Western RPG has been loving restored and is once again in peril. Accept the challenge from Lady British to save the land of Britannia – restore virtue and become the Avatar!"
 
This HAS to be a hoax methinks.  Not because of the pissing upon of the Ultima series, but because of how the announcements are coming out.  Anyone who loved the original series will hate this adaptation.  The younger crowd will say "WTF is Ultima?"  The bolded sentence in their quote above reads as if the RPG itself is in peril, not Sosaria. 

If it's true I eagerly await the largest failure to make money off of reviving a franchise that the publisher owns the IP to in history. 

[UnSub]

I find it interesting that the Diablo-like is becoming the MMO-lite model of choice.