🚀 go-pugleaf

Well, I have been an Ultima freak since I first started playing Ultima III
Exodus.....man that was one game.  But my personal fav among all the
Ultima was Ultima 5 with Ultima 4 coming in a close second.

What would I like to see in Ultima 9

For one.....I would love to get rid of the arcadish jumping ard....I mean
practically abt the only things that were a pain were the jumping ard esp
on route to visit the Mountain King via the three necromancers.  I mean
its okay to have such things like jumping and hopping if the restoring
and saving didn't take so darned long......but I'd rather have something
more sensible to be the pain in my ass.

Combat,....thats a toughie....cos I liked the turn based combat...but
would really prefer not to have it now.....so I guess we should stick to
the U7 combat system with better party AI.  Increase the AI of the party
members...and let me interact with them more...but for heavens sake let me
be able to tell my party members not to waste reagents with uncessary
spells when a monster can be easily killed with my sword or arrows or a
crossbow.  Btw I am a sword addict...gimme a sword over any weapon
anytime.  THats why I liked U5.....I could go in solo and trash away at
the monster with my sword....u can do that too with later Ultimas but its
just that wee bit difficult.  Also I found the yakking during combat a
nice touch but the words on screen sorta clutters up the screen and I hate
screen clutter especially during combat.....so if U9 is a not a full
speech product....at least let the combats have full speech, so that there
will be no screen clutter....that would be awesome...noisy combat...the
way it should be.  Also I liked the idea of glowing weapons representing
magic weapons ala U7....it sorta makes me feel better to actually visually
see my magic weapon hittng away at the enemy rather than the same old
boring looking sword in U8.  Get rid of the Avatar's helmet, makes hime
look like a robot.  Bring back the ultra colourful spell book in U7, I
really hate inventory control esp with reagents....so a spell book that
mixes evrthing for u would be really a great asset esp in crisis
situations like in Combat where u need to cast fireball quick.  Also have
a pop-up menu to be able to command ur party members during combat...something
like Wing Commander....this is handy in case a party member gets too much
hits and doesn't know what to do.....at least can tell him/her to retreat.
YEap more control during combat....Wing Commander style......rather than
the old turn based system which was unrealsitic.  For  example when combat
begins....everybody will wait to see how the avatar reacts and what he
tells them to do b4 they proceed to doing anything....and if the avatar
happens to be sorta like taking a coffee break somewhere....the party
memebrs should be able to react after sometime....like the idiot Maniac. 
Of course the prerogative is the party memebers do not have to obey the
avatar but will only listen to the avater according to his actions in
the game so far which is according to the virtues......we can forget abt
all the un-avatarish things he did in Pagan...cos the avatar was
alone....so hush hush would be the order....so he should set up to redeem
himself by going on another of those U4 quests again....just to satisfy
his own ego...and of course all this would be much more exciting because of
the threat of the Guardian is still present and imminent.  This would
reduce the need for too many busy work and would have something for the
Avatar to do besides trying to kick the behind of the pain in the butt
Guardian.  Heheh also it would pay a short tribute to U4 cos many pple
feel that U4 was certainly the highpoint in the series so far.  Also
during combat mebbe we could control the swinging of the sword rather than
clicking on that sickenly small pixel just to hit the monster.....the
worse was U8 when I had to align myself correctly otherwise I would be
slashing at thin air while the monsters get in those damaging hits.  One
final word....bring back the magic axe.....I really miss that....I may not
want to use it...but I sure would like my party members to use it its the
second best weapon already in my view.

Bring back eating and food....I mean I remember the old days of Ultima 4
and 5 where it reached a point where I could actually taste the blend
ration during an excursion and that superb rump steak tasted exquisite
at the tavern after a hard days work.  Also at the tavern I enjoyed
treating everyone in my party to a proper meal as opposed to the food in
the inventory (I think that was U5)...and at other times I would have a main
food inventory where the party members could help themselves to the food
rather than the pathetic whining in Ultima 7 and where I had to hand feed
each of them like a baby.  I mean the worse thing was having to scroll
through the status tryingto find out who was that idiot that was
whining...that was definitely an oversight by Origin.  U7-2 may have hot
keys but the problem was still there....and U8 got rid of eating
altogether...which was a bit unreal really....thus stick to the early
Ultima system of eating...put the food all in an inventory and let the
party members help themselves when they are hungry...and the Avatar's job
is just to see that that inventory is always fully stocked.  Also...please
dun make them hungry so fast......its irritating to keep on buying food
only to see the food disappearing so fast be real....mebbe let them eat
two square meals a day rather than the standard three.

Get rid of the gumps.....it may have been graphically pleasing...but
really messy.....lets have one or two windows where I could do inventory
control all in one go...including the changing of weapons and armour. 
Don't have so many windows open....it gets cluttery after a while.  Also
have the option like in U7 to pool all the money together and all info
should be shown in that single window.  This would not make it unreal as
in real life all u needed to do if u wanted to give a spare weapon to the
party member is to pass it to him.  Using the gump system, u would first
have to open two inventory gump and drag the weapon to the other
inventory...if u wanted him to use the weapon u would have to open the
status window and put the sword in the gump and take the other sword to
put it in the hands of the user.  Wouldn't it be so simple to just have one
window where u could see everyone  and just drag items ard....no fuss???

Retain the jumping ability....but don't gear the puzzles to make use of
it...its really irritating...my heart ached when I saw my Hard disk go
into overdrive just to save or restore a file....although with the disk
cache on the restoring was so much of a pain.  Mind u I have a VLB dx2-66
with 8 megs of RAM and a 420 MEg hardisk and a 32 bit accelerator card. 
Never in my whole life of plaing Ultima from 1-7 have I saved and restored
as much as I have in U8.  So retain the jumping and climbing ability, I
thought the climbing of the mountains in the Underworld in U5 to get the
shard of cowardice was simply awesome...Also let the Avatar be able to
swim in shallow waters.....and roll out them ships.....whoa shooting
cannons at sea dragons in U4 was simply awesome.  Fighting pirates across
ships was also sensational...sure miss it.  Er talking abt tributes...how
abt having a special cameo appearance by the ORCs...or rather those that
are still alive.....wouldn't want bridge trolls now though..cos the trolls
have grown so enormous in size wouldn't want to get into another conflict
with them anymore over a few gold coins...nosireee (wonder how they got
under the bridges in the first place).  

Graphics wise.....U8 beats them all.......sound wise U8 was
superb.....although I didn't get any in my GUS 8(, but I have heard the SB
sounds and its great keep it up.  Also...no real actors in U9 please I am
not ready for someoneto act as the avatar instead of me.  We lost the
ability to be able to name bluehair in Wing COmmander III don't one to
lose that privelege in my fav computer game series of all time.  THe
reason I wanted the Avartar to take off that silly helmet was that I
wanted the Avartar to be able to scratch his head should he be standing
ard ildy for a long period of time not doing anything...I am surprised
that none of those 1200 frames that went to the avatar allowed the avatar
to scratch himself...I mean most of the time he would be standing
motionless like a robot if I don't make it do anything.  Er I used the it
on purpose.  NOw that we are back in Britannia in U9....bring back the
night and day and rain and snow and fog......instead of the perpetual
twilight experienced in Pagan, which the game had adequately explained. 
Music wise....all Ultima musics were great.....I could still remember
stones in U5 on the pc speaker being played in full glory in U6 on my
Soundblaster 1.0 card.....score 10 for all music in Ultima...my fav is
stones closely followed by the haunting tune in the fellowship halls in
U7.  Could we also have text on screen with some other fonts...they were
so difficult to read in the fonts on U8.  Nothing fancy...just plain
readable fonts will do...no need the fancy stuff like in U7.

Ultima 9 has all the potential to be a legendary game in the Ultima
series....or it could sound the death knell to the series...therefore it
is of paramount importance that Origin gets it right...and I have no doubt
that they will......but till U9 comes out all guns firing......I think I have
only one thing to say to Origin...."Thou has lost an eigth", "Thou has
lost an eigth" <-----thats two eigths.


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=========================oooo Joseph Chew ooo ===========================
email: tyj_...@kurtz.eee.utas.edu.au                  voice: (002)233546
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"My mama always said that life was like a box of cho-co-lates, you'll
never know what you're going to get"   Forrest Gump