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Ultima Collecting -- I am in big trouble!


Albert

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Ultima III is of course as my avatar shows one of my favorites along with IV, V and VII (I really need to play VI)

 

I played all dwarf Paladins in Ultima III and beat it. (About a year ago) with some stat boosting. I beat it legit back in the mid 80's on a C64.

Great music.

 

About to enter the Castle of Fire and "Kill" Exodus:

 

Exodus%20cimerians%20party.jpg

 

 

Its entirely beatable with all dwarf Paladins without stat boosting.. :)

Edited by cimerians
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I have a rant about buying games from the Amazon Marketplace. I purchased a few used Ultima-related items from Amazon last week. It's really a huge gamble as to whether you're going to get a game in the condition it was described.

 

This just happened to me on a PS1 game I just got. Luckily the seller sent me a message ahead of time and warned me the description was a mistake.

 

I have had plenty of letdowns from sellers who just don't care. I have had water damage on many things simply because they are not packaged correctly. Creases\folds as well.

Sometimes they will say LIKE NEW but the box is completely ripped up. The disc and manual are like new but not the box.

 

Now I always email the seller and ask specific questions and if they give me vague responses I don't buy.

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Alright, I spent a few hours playing Ultima II tonight and it sucks.

 

Ha ha, so it's not just me then? Trying to get through II really felt like a chore to me, and I was glad when it was all over.

 

I just need to figure out a way to consistently build up cash, which may involve restarting as a thief so I can steal from townspeople and escape before the guards can get me.

 

I never had much trouble getting enough cash, I was a fighter and just killed tons of monsters. I know as soon as I got a ship, I would just sail around and shoot at shoreline monsters, that might be where I got most of my gold from.

 

Can't really speak to V, VIII, and IX, though.

 

In VIII you can max out your attack stat by just clicking the mouse for a while (even if you're not fighting anything). It is kind of lame, but I don't remember it giving you that huge of an upgrade. I think there was a jumping stat too, but I can't remember, it's been a long time.

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Alright, I spent a few hours playing Ultima II tonight and it sucks. The maps are too small and using the "time gates" to get around is a bit of a pain. There are very few towns/villages and only one castle (well, one castle in two different times). The food business is just ridiculous. When starting out you have to spend most of your time breaking even just on keeping yourself alive with food, and I still haven't broken out of that rut.

 

I did explore and map out all the towns, dungeons and towers in the different time periods, and spoke with all the NPCs that give out useful information. Not including the ones you need to shell out tons of cash to get hints (such as the Oracle). You can't get to some land masses without a frigate or plane, though. The towns are setup internally better than in Ultima I, certainly. I can see this game is going to be much less about exploration and more about grinding. Which was fairly easy to do in Ultima I, but that doesn't seem to be the case in II.

 

This game is entirely based on money. If you have money, you can easily buy everything you need to finish the game (hit points, best armor, best weapon, max your character's skill points, transport, and of course, food.) And whatever you can't buy, you'll be strong enough to get the keys you need to unlock everything else. I just need to figure out a way to consistently build up cash, which may involve restarting as a thief so I can steal from townspeople and escape before the guards can get me.

 

I did venture into one dungeon, saw that I needed a torch (well, actually, I couldn't see anything), and promptly exited. I don't even know that dungeons/towers provide any useful purpose in U2 except grinding. In Ultima I you had to venture into the dungeons to kill certain monsters. This game seems to have a fairly simple plot that's solely based on your accruing enough cash to get the tools you need in order to get to the locations you need in order to kill Minax. Very little exploration, very simple plot, nothing really in terms of side quests you need to do.

 

I look forward to Ultima III.

 

..Al

 

U2 is a grind - more so than U3 gold wise.

 

One thing to remember in U2 is you are not bound by the Virtues. Stealing is a must for food - McDonnells take out window is a good place for this. Best strategy in U2 is to walk outside finding Thieves to fight so you can acquire the neccesary item for a ship. Ships have a delay appearance so you need to keep killing off monsters in a particular time period until you get a frigate - then the real exploring can begin.

 

Unfort Towers and Caves have no purpose in U2 - seems LB ran out of time to make use of them.

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U2 is a grind - more so than U3 gold wise.

 

That's good to hear, relative to U3.

 

One thing to remember in U2 is you are not bound by the Virtues. Stealing is a must for food - McDonnells take out window is a good place for this. Best strategy in U2 is to walk outside finding Thieves to fight so you can acquire the neccesary item for a ship. Ships have a delay appearance so you need to keep killing off monsters in a particular time period until you get a frigate - then the real exploring can begin.

 

Unfort Towers and Caves have no purpose in U2 - seems LB ran out of time to make use of them.

 

I haven't actually tried stealing anything in the game yet, but agree that will certainly make things easier. Thanks for the tips. :)

 

..Al

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The more I think about it. Thank god for GOG.

 

Yes! Even though I own all these games in physical form, and some of them several times over, it's still nice to have them bundled in digital form with DOSBox. It's worth the $6 per game (or really in the case of I - VI only $2 per game) to download an executable I can just double-click to run. With Pix's Ultima Patcher for the GOG games, things are even better! :D

 

..Al

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Yeah its really convenient in digital form. Especially games that were on CD. No more mounting CD's!

 

How about games that were floppy-disk based! :D

 

Very nice ULTIMA 8 article posted yesterday, its worth a read:

 

http://ultimacodex.com/2013/01/ultima-8-and-diablo/

 

It's wonderful how active the Ultima Codex is. Are you associated with the site at all?

 

..Al

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How about games that were floppy-disk based! :D

 

 

 

It's wonderful how active the Ultima Codex is. Are you associated with the site at all?

 

..Al

 

lol. Disks and CD's no more.

 

No I'm not part of the site (other than registering on the forums) but I have been a part of the Ultima Dragons since the 90's and have been following Ultima related stuff since then whether its other Dragon members sites or just new ones that pop up. (I had a site of my own as well....back in the notepad HTML days of the 90's).

 

I agree its nice to see it active. I check it once in a while.

 

Everytime there's an Ultima topic on Atari Age, I'm there!

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No I'm not part of the site (other than registering on the forums) but I have been a part of the Ultima Dragons since the 90's and have been following Ultima related stuff since then whether its other Dragon members sites or just new ones that pop up. (I had a site of my own as well....back in the notepad HTML days of the 90's).

 

I'm also a registered dragon (check the roster) and have been for a very long time. :D

 

I agree its nice to see it active. I check it once in a while.

 

I followed their Twitter feed when you posted it a few days ago (thanks), will definitely keep tabs on the site!

 

..Al

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Al - one last thing on U2 theft (and U3 for that matter) - if you make a theft attempt and its not successful a few times in a row then the guards are on to you and you need to exit the town.

 

Amour and Weapons theft is the hardest since those are usually in a place thats hard to escape from. The McDonnells I mentioned with its take out window is handy :)

 

If you havent played U3 there is a place with mucho gold that can be acquired - Ill leave that up to exploring for you :)

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But do you have the rarest Ultima release? The Apple IIGS 16-bit Ultima game? Excellent music in that one. :)

It's not rare at all. In fact, it's still for sale from the website (I'll have to look it up in a sec). I bought mine there a few years ago.

 

EDIT: Hmm... Maybe it's not available anymore. I think the site I got it from was Shareware Solutions II and it appears the owner has recently died (2010).

 

More info: https://groups.googl...o4/4GI8O9EuENEJ

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How often do those come up?

 

..Al

 

Its pretty uncommon and maybe even rare as I can tell. I saw Ultima IV FM Towns last summer or spring on Ebay and I posted it here at Atari age. Since then this is only the second time I've seen one but I'm not 100% sure how many US owners have copies of these games. In the old days of Ebay I never saw these. They are more common on Japanese auction sites. Ultima 6 and also Ultima 2 were also released for FM Towns. Origin employees (including Garriott) did the voice acting for some of these games so I'm hoping someday I get the cash to get a few. (woudnt be able to play them so I'd look for an emu)

 

As far as I can tell they go for 150 to 250 bucks.

 

Ultima II FM Towns:

 

http://www.ultimaaie...s-introduction/

 

(Ultima Aiera was also a good site...but the Codex is the primary site now)

Edited by cimerians
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Its pretty uncommon and maybe even rare as I can tell. I saw Ultima IV FM Towns last summer or spring on Ebay and I posted it here at Atari age. Since then this is only the second time I've seen one but I'm not 100% sure how many US owners have copies of these games. In the old days of Ebay I never saw these. They are more common on Japanese auction sites. Ultima 6 and also Ultima 2 were also released for FM Towns. Origin employees (including Garriott) did the voice acting for some of these games so I'm hoping someday I get the cash to get a few. (woudnt be able to play them so I'd look for an emu)

 

As far as I can tell they go for 150 to 250 bucks.

 

Ultima II FM Towns:

 

http://www.ultimaaie...s-introduction/

 

(Ultima Aiera was also a good site...but the Codex is the primary site now)

 

Yeah, these would all be neat to own since they are so unique compared to most Ultima releases. I do already have the Ultima Underworld FM Towns, but that one seems to be more common. Thanks for your additional insight!

 

..Al

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The reason I don't seriously collect Ultima is Akalabeth. It's just too expensive and rare and I don't like the idea of incomplete collections. That said, I do actually own a nice boxed Ultima I for the Atari 800, but I justify it by saying its part of my all-up A8 RPG collection.

 

I did have the Apple II version of Ultima by California Pacific Software, but sold it since I don't collect Ultima or Apple. Fun fact - the label was loose (dried out glue) and the disk had been reused from the 'factory'. You could lift up the label and peer at one underneath. Aparently, it had started life as a much rarer Apple game by Sirius (Phantom's Five.)

 

I'm guessing that Ultima was such a smash hit for them they elected to reuse poorer selling game disks to help fill orders.

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From what I remember in the 'history' book, Ultima I on the Apple II was a school project that Pacific Software picked up and sold in a plastic bag with the disk and manual - I dont think they ran out of anything, it was a low cost production from the start.

Edited by Goochman
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