🚀 go-pugleaf

John Sabean (doc...@eng.umd.edu) wrote:

: In article <bmartin.2...@origin.ea.com>, bma...@origin.ea.com (Brian Martin) writes:
: >Hello There,
: >
: >My name is Brian, and I am one of the many Ultima 9 team members. Right now, 
: >U9 is in the early developemental stage, and we want to know what you, the RPG 
: >fan, would like to see in the next Ultima. 
: >
Thanks very much for listening (reading) our comments.
So you've learnt from Ultima 8. Please don't forget about the good points of
Ultima 8. The good points being that it was a very good Rpg type of game,
where the player had to do things, and really interact with the world. I
absoultely loved the magic system in U8. Things like actually creating that
wand of fireball, instead of stumbling across one every once in while.
Actually mixing the regeants like we had to back in U5, the combat system,
you really are on the right track, if you could improve it. It was once
again interactive, where we tell the avatar what to do.

Ways to improve the combat system are to use keys, that way the avatr can
have more control over what he does. I don't know how many times I want to
swing, but double clicked to fast, and ended up blocking instead, which by
the way was utterly useless. So make blocking actually effective. 

The world in U8 was kind of good in places as well. Please keep climbing,
running, jumping, I can do that in the real world, so their fore, since the
Avatar is from earth, so can he. But I can do more than that, I can also
swim, climb back down, I've never tried to ride a horse, but people can. So
the activiities that can be done by the average person, should also be able
to be done by the avatar. Please re-introduce ship travel as well.

Tell your world builders to play the Ultima 7 games and to take note of some
things, such as the royal mint be swapped by a lighthouse (speaking of
lighthouses, re-introduce them, I was completely blown away when I saw the
light house effects in U5, it took me quite a while to pick my jaw up off
the ground, and I played U5 whilst waiting for U8...)
Also more textures for some of theose areas as well, sometimes whilst
playing U8, I found it had to tell the difference between in door and
outdoor areas. Bring back night and day, every since U5, night and day has
been a part of Brittania (I wonder what the people thought when they first
saw the sun go down hmmm...)  Sorry, couldn't resist :)

One problem I had with U8, was getting a good conversation out of someone.
When we did get one, it was good, and long and realistic, but those
instances were few and far between. In U7, everyone had a story to tell, and
it made me feel as if I was in Brittania. Some conversations were long, some
short, but it seems as if the world was full of people. In U8, maybe it was
the intention to make the world seem dead, and without hope, because no one
was real interested in speaking to the Avatar. Also have conversation trees,
where conversation can go down several paths. It gets kind of pointless to
be given a list of options, like in the Serpent Isle, where you're
everntually going to klick on all options anyway. Keep the option where the
Avatar can leave a conversation at any time though.

Automapping is essential. allow us to acquire a land map, and whilst in
dungeons, keep an automap of the dungeons. Also a diary to keep our notes
in. When I first purchased U8 CD, and installed the game, I was flipping
through tthe manual and noticed the word diary, and got very excited, until
I found it was another name for "save/load game". Although the longer
descriptions were quite a good idea though.

I trust you'll do a good job with story, but please make it easy to tell the
legends from fact, in U8,m it wasn't easy, maybe the now defunct add on was
going to add some of those things in. But since the game takes place on
Brittania, unless it is far in advance, we should know what's true, and
what's not true.

Keep the U8 camera angle, but either allow us to get a top down view of the
world, or allow us to rotate the camera angle.

PS: one thing I want to add to the avatar actions, is an  underwater mode
I can swim underwater as well, for a short time, and could add something new
if we could dive underwater looking for something, maybe the avatar could
make a snorkel, and face mask, and look for something underwater.

Also, non critical quests would be nice. U8 had some but every town in U7
had something going on that wasn't critical, and every time I play through
U&, I discover something new, 4 times I think the count is, and when I go
back, their are some more things I've heard of as well, that goes with U7.5
as well.
That's all I can think of at the moment (I don't ask much do I :)) and I'm
sure someone will write and say the exactg oppoiste to what I've just said,
but just remember I'm right, he's wrong. (just kidding)
Also remember that your target audience is an RPG audience, not super mario
nintendo rubbish.
-- 
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|Internet: pfle...@scu.edu.au                                             |
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