
The Road to Ultima V - danso
http://www.filfre.net/2016/02/the-road-to-v/
======
StanislavPetrov
As an older person and an avid player of Ultima I - V this article is really
interesting. Its fascinating to, some 30 years later, get a peek behind the
curtain. My personal opinion is that Ultima IV was the pinnacle of computer
gaming. Ultima III was supremely entertaining and Ultima V was more polished
and still a very enjoyable game, but Ultima IV was absolutely groundbreaking
in injecting ethos into an RPG. For any of the younger HN readers who don't
mind archaic graphics, I highly recommend checking out Ultima IV.

~~~
PostOnce
This game is legally free at
[https://www.gog.com/game/ultima_4](https://www.gog.com/game/ultima_4)

it comes in a preconfigured dosbox

Ultima is to this day the single most impactful RPG ever made in terms of its
influence on future games, it seems nothing new has been done since, almost.

Ultima 6's keyword-based dialogue is in my opinion superior to today's
dialogue trees, some of the keywords would be highlighted in the conversation,
but some you would have to come up with on your own from your adventures.

Ultima 7 has a much more detailed world than even the modern Elder Scrolls
games, its breathtaking how full that world is; Elder Scrolls is still playing
catch up almost 30 years later, insane!

Ultima Underworld was also tremendously groundbreaking, it's real, texture-
mapped 3D (in 1992!) and does all the things you'd expect from a modern RPG,
which is why I am excited that "the band is back together", so to speak,
making Underworld Ascendant (no Ultima branding, Underworld was originally not
an Ultima game, but was rebranded and reworked for marketing reasons)

I could ramble for hours about these old games. But I'll stop here, go and
play, people. :)

~~~
douche
As far as the Elder Scrolls go, Daggerfall was a more detailed game than
either Oblivion or Skyrim.

~~~
mratzloff
The complexity split happened when every game started needing full voice
acting to be marketable. Before, text was perfectly sufficient, and a lot more
flexible.

When text-to-speech algorithms approach real voice acting, game world depth
will start to notch back up.

------
twoodfin
So much good stuff on this blog.

Starflight!

[http://www.filfre.net/2014/10/starflight/](http://www.filfre.net/2014/10/starflight/)

Melbourne House's Hobbit! (Though I'd also love to read more about "War in
Middle Earth")

[http://www.filfre.net/2012/11/the-hobbit/](http://www.filfre.net/2012/11/the-
hobbit/)

A six-part series on the early history of Sierra On-Line!

[http://www.filfre.net/2011/10/ken-and-
roberta/](http://www.filfre.net/2011/10/ken-and-roberta/)

If I could recursively Instapaper the whole thing, my next trans-Atlantic
flight would be a breeze...

~~~
jsnell
> If I could recursively Instapaper the whole thing, my next trans-Atlantic
> flight would be a breeze...

Did you notice the ebook section? [http://www.filfre.net/the-digital-
antiquarian-e-book-library...](http://www.filfre.net/the-digital-antiquarian-
e-book-library/)

~~~
twoodfin
No! Donating and downloading now!

~~~
bobbyi_settv
The author has also written a book entitled "Let's Tell a Story Together: A
History of Interactive Fiction", which I'd recommend checking out.

It's not on that "ebooks" page; it's on its own page here which has download
links for .mobi or .pub versions that can be loaded onto Kindle, Google Books,
etc.:

[http://maher.filfre.net/if-book/](http://maher.filfre.net/if-book/)

------
santaclaus
Whatever happened to the 'celebrity' game developer? In the 90s it seemed like
the lead developers were lionized (or vilified). John Carmack, Richard
Garriot, John Romero, Roberta Williams, Derek Smart. The personalities of the
leads really shown through back then. I can't even tell you who the lead dev
on Destiny or Dark Souls 3 or whatever are.

~~~
danso
Maybe the industrialization of video game making has obscured individual
personalities -- it's impossible to imagine there just being one driving
persona behind the GTA or console AAA games, as huge as they are. But that's
been made up for by the access to social media and the rise of indie game
making.

\- Cliff Bleszinski (Unreal, Gears of War)

\- Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness)

\- Toby Fox (Undertale)

\- Chris Roberts (Wing Commander, Star Citizen)

\- Hideo Kojima

~~~
BEEdwards
Don't forget

Notch, Markus Persson (Minecraft)

Toady One, Tarn Adams (Dwarf Fortress)

~~~
wiz21
David Braben (Elite) Peter Molyneux (Fable) Sid Meier (Civilisation)

------
maxwelljoslyn
The Digital Antiquarian (name of the site hosted at filfre.net) is always an
excellent read. I highly recommend starting from the beginning, as our host
takes us through a very well-researched history of computer and adventure
gaming.

You can download the website's content in e-book form, which makes sense given
its essay-like format. The link to do so is here: [http://www.filfre.net/the-
digital-antiquarian-e-book-library...](http://www.filfre.net/the-digital-
antiquarian-e-book-library/)

------
erez
"It was Robert who negotiated the business deals, Robert who represented
Origin’s interests with the Software Publishers Association, Robert who put a
sober, businesslike face ... Robert who found himself trapped between the
practicalities of running a business and the desires of a famous younger
brother"

It was also Robert Garriot's way of running a business that killed Origin
eventually. So don't waste any tears for the guy. He made a lot of money
running a company on the back of his brother's vision and cash-cow games. He
was very happy letting said brother maintain a personal fantasy world, which
meant he was holding the corporate reins alone. And making sure Richard
Garriot was kept out of the actual running of the company he created and the
products of whom he was responsible for.

~~~
SeanDav
Origin was bought out by EA for 10's of millions of dollars - so hardly
destroyed. Both Robert and Richard left several years later to work together
again in a new company they both formed - Destination Games. Richard made
enough money to pay an estimated 30 million dollars to become a private
astronaut.

They were a team and a very successful one. Together they were far more
successful than they probably would have been apart.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
...left because they failed to produce another game? The last of the series
was an embarrassing botch, was released broken, and disappointed millions.

------
ryandrake
Fans of Ultima V need to check out the U5 Lazarus project [1], an entirely
fan-made re-creation of the game using the Dungeon Siege engine. Hard to
believe even that remake is over 10 years old...

1: [http://www.u5lazarus.com/](http://www.u5lazarus.com/)

------
dekhn
One of my great childhood experiences was going to a big Apple conference in
Boston and meeting Garriot, right before ultima 4 came out (he was demoing
it). After introducing myself, and saying I knew all about the game (I had
pirated it) he said "well you seem to know plenty about it and you like it, so
why don't you just demo it for me while go out and do some stuff".

------
danschuller
I didn't know the combat system for Ultima V was paper-prototyped first.
That's an interesting tit-bit! I've never actually seen it done on games I've
worked on but since reading about it in The Art of Game Design: A Book of
Lenses, it's been something I've been looking for an opportunity to try out.

------
mentos
Was Ultima Online not the pinnacle of the Ultima games?

~~~
warfangle
Before, or after EA pillaged it? :)

------
golergka
Previous entry from this blog on HN front page was about Wasteland — which
prompted me to try play Wasteland 2 again, after initial disappointment. Turns
out, when you treat the game as text-based adventure, practice a little bit
more patience (with a little help of self-prescribed herbal medication) and
concentrate on the story and setting, it is indeed a fantastic game.

I never invested enough time into any Ultima titles to truly enjoy it — and I
think after this article I will finally get to it.

------
taude
This headline alone was worth the nostalgic memories since friends and I
logged many hours on Ultima IV on an Apple IIc. Back then it was trivial to
open up game files in a hex editor and give yourself unlimited weapons.

------
drcode
Could someone please port a version of Ultima V to the Oculus Rift? I would
like it to have the same exact game engine, Just with VR-appropriate graphics.
That would the best game ever. OKTHXBYE.

~~~
moron4hire
on it

