Ultima Collecting -- I am in big trouble!

[Goochman]

The original releases were sealed - I think it was on one of those gold stickers they applied almost every game back then.

[Albert]

Went through a few more boxes of software. Found these!

 

 

Bioforge, sealed.

 

 

13 original EA Flat boxes! All Atari 8-bit releases.

 

..Al

[FastRobPlus]

I don't want to use the cloth maps for these playthroughs, although I certainly did when I first played these games. Having a printed map is nice since I can make notes on them (such as all the town and dungeon locations, and in this game, the moongates).

 

When I was a kid I intended to very carefully draw the towns and moon gates onto the cloth map with a black sharpie marker. The instant the tip hit the cloth, it wicked a huge blob of ink out on to the map surface! It was really ugly! I never did that again. Ive actually seen a few maps on ebay wit the same kind of back blobs.

[Albert]

Went through the remaining boxes I could find labeled "PC Software" or "PC Games" and I could not locate Ultima Ascension Dragon Edition. I know I have it, though, as it's an abnormally large box. I probably stuck it in some other non-software related box when it was packed a move or two ago. I did find the first release of Ultima Online, but the map is missing. I have the maps from all my original purchases collected together (since they were all tacked to a wall at one point), need to find that stash as well.. Also found the original release of System Shock 2, with the shiny cover that was glued onto the front:

 

 

 

That's enough foraging for now. I need to do productive things.

 

..Al

[nukeshed]

 

 

 

That's gorgeous.

[Albert]

When I was a kid I intended to very carefully draw the towns and moon gates onto the cloth map with a black sharpie marker. The instant the tip hit the cloth, it wicked a huge blob of ink out on to the map surface! It was really ugly! I never did that again. Ive actually seen a few maps on ebay wit the same kind of back blobs.

 

LOL, I did see an Ultima III map on eBay recently that had a large ink blog on the bottom. Here it is!!

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 290845628972

 

 

..Al

[Albert]

That's gorgeous.

 

When I finish playing all the Ultima games, I'm going to play System Shock 1 and 2 again. Then I'll probably play all three Bioshock games, since I've never played 1 and 2 (do have them in my Steam account).

 

..Al

[Tempest]

I'm doing all three Bards Tale's right now, then I'm off to to do the AD&D Gold Box series. After that I might look into doing all the Ultimas again.

[Albert]

I found my maps. Here's a photo of every Ultima map, I - IX, Underworld 1 and 2, and the first Ultima Online map. Does not include any console maps or any of the later Ultima Online maps (I assume there are a TON of them by now). These are mostly in order, except for the two Ultima Underworlds. The highest quality map seems to be Ultima II, very soft and plush. The poorest quality cloth map is the Ultima VI map. Just looks and feels terrible. Whoops, forgot about the two Worlds of Ultima maps. They are just paper maps, but I should have included them.

 

Click on the image for a higher resolution version.

 

 

So, while I was putting the maps back in their respective boxes, I found this..

 

 

I had completely forgotten about this! I'm pretty sure I had to take a photo of the screen and mail it in to Origin. The postmark on the envelope is September 4, 1991. That's over 21 years ago! Man, I feel old.

 

A shot of the letter by itself:

 

 

..Al

[Tempest]

I think the only Ultima game I'm missing is VI since it came out during that period where I was still using my Apple IIe but before I got my first PC.

 

(checks)

 

Yep. I have Ultimas I-V boxed for the Apple II (well the Trilogy box for I-III anyway) and VII-IX for the PC. My Ultima VII is The Complete version on CD as is my copy of VIII (which included the speech pack). My copy of IX is the deluxe version with the cards and whatnot (is that the Dragons version?). I also have the complete collection for the PC and I for the IIgs (which is apparently rare now), so it's only VI I'm missing now. I'm also missing that ankh that came with IV, but I have the coin that came with V. I'm sure that ankh is in a trinket box somewhere as it's not something I'd throw out.

[Albert]

My copy of IX is the deluxe version with the cards and whatnot (is that the Dragons version?).

 

The Dragons edition is a much larger box and includes a fair bit more:

 

* Larger box measuring 31 x 38 cm. Its colors were also improved.

* Ultima Collection CD, identical to the original, containing all of the original content.

* Ultima IX Soundtrack CD, although it is a cropped version, with some of the tracks missing.

* Ankh amulet trinket, although not identical to the one from Ultima IV.

* Poster of the Ascension cover, where the ascending Avatar is grabbed by the Guardian's hand.

* Certificate from Richard Garriott, thanking for the purchase and hinting at his future plans.

* The Journal and the Spellbook bound in synthetic leather, with the cover illustrations pressed into the material.

* Mini illustration of the Tapestry of Ages.

 

Stolen from here. If I can find my copy, I'll take some photos of the normal box versus the Dragon Edition box. I know I must have it somewhere, as I remember installing the game, and the only other copy of the game I have (which I bought much later) is sealed. But more than that I remember the ridiculous box and having a hard time putting it on the shelf with other games.

 

..Al

[high voltage]

I got the first Ultima Online, but the little attached box is missing, I got the map but not the Ankh (or whatever, I can't remember) which came with the game

[Albert]

I got the first Ultima Online, but the little attached box is missing, I got the map but not the Ankh (or whatever, I can't remember) which came with the game

 

It's a pin, but it's not in my box so I must have put it elsewhere. Probably won't find that for another 20 years.

 

Picture of it here:

 

http://www.ultimacollectors.info/uo_or_us_1.htm

 

..Al

[Asaki]

I have a fresh pack of graph paper for the dungeons as well.

 

I never bothered to map out the dungeons, I just used the map spell a lot.

[Shannon]

That happened to me a few times in V. The last dungeon is a HUGE bump up in difficulty (not to mention being a freaking maze). You can think you're all good to go since you rule the overworld but get your ass handed to you when you go down into the dungeon. The last time I beat it I ended up simply running away from everything I could. I think I had 2 party members left at the end.

 

Exactly... My characteres were strong enough to get to that point but I had my ass handed to me big time in the final dungeon. The problem is my last save was in the dungeon and I couldn't get out! So I just considered the game finished at that point.

 

I was playing the Amiga version which had horrible load times and was getting tired of it. I somehow managed to get stuck in part of the dungeon where I could not find my way out. After about 3 or 4 battles my whole party would be dead, even when simply retreating. It was a nightmare!

 

Went through a few more boxes of software. Found these!

13 original EA Flat boxes! All Atari 8-bit releases.

 

..Al

Ahh from the days when EA actually didn't suck... Well except for maybe the last couple of Atari 8-bit releases...

[Albert]

I was playing the Amiga version which had horrible load times and was getting tired of it.

 

That is one huge advantage of playing the games on a modern PC. For all intents and purposes, there are NO load times.

 

Ahh from the days when EA actually didn't suck... Well except for maybe the last couple of Atari 8-bit releases...

 

EA became dead to me when they destroyed Origin, which was here in town. I had always envisioned working for them someday, although that dream soured a bit after I worked with a bunch of people who left Origin to escape what EA had done to the company. At least I did get to visit their offices.

 

..Al

[Albert]

Found it!

 

 

Lots of neat stuff in that box. Too bad I won't be playing the game for some time!!

 

..Al

[Albert]

Man, the avatar sure is ripped.

 

..Al

[FastRobPlus]

Sad to think we are now in the last generation of games that will come in any kind of boxes.

[Albert]

Sad to think we are now in the last generation of games that will come in any kind of boxes.

 

I very nearly said something about that when I posted the above image. I also found my box of original Infocom games (including things like the Starcross ship). Those were the days!! It was fun opening the boxes and seeing what was inside. Reading a printed manual on fine paper. I, too, will lament the passing of physical packaging to online-only distribution.

 

..Al

[SoulBlazer]

I've just about given up on Amazon Marketplace. Received two more items yesterday--two games from one seller and a book. The book is fine, I really have no problems with bubble mailers being used for those. But the two games, one of which was a cardboard box, were shipped together in a single, large bubble envelope. On top of that, both games were described as "Like New" and they are more accurately "Good", if that--especially the condition of the boxes, one of which I'd call "Acceptable". I mean, really, LIKE NEW should mean the damn thing looks NEW except that it's been opened to play.

 

I wrote a seller yesterday asking if they'd ship a game in a box. They wrote back,

 

"Hi Albert. Only if you order it Expedited. It's only a $9.00 game and Standard is $3.99 for shipping. Since Amazon keeps 15% of the product sale and a chunk of shipping cost as well, it isn't cost effective for us to use anything other than a large bubble wrap envelope. But if ordered Expedited, we could put it in a small box for you. Let me know if you are going to do that so I can tell our packaging guy when it comes in."

 

That is reasonable, in my opinion (expedited shipping is $6.99 versus $3.99), and the problem here really seems to be that Amazon forces sellers to use a standard shipping rate and that they take chunks of both the item price and the shipping fee. So for the most part, every seller is going to ship items via Media Mail in a bubble or manilla envelope.

 

The bigger problem is item descriptions. I've come to the conclusion that unless you have a personal dialog with a seller, the stated item condition means virtually nothing, except perhaps for "New". Since stock photos are used for everything on Amazon, you really have no idea what you're getting until it's in your hands. And then you don't necessarily know if an item was damaged during shipping (due to use of a bubbleope or worse) or if the seller simply misrepresented the condition. At least on eBay most people take their own photos, often times MULTIPLE photos, and usually describe the item(s) in far more detail than on Amazon. And you have to dig a bit on Amazon to ask a seller a question about an item (but at least then you get an email back, as opposed to having to use eBay's restrictive message system).

 

Okay, that's enough of my "buying Ultima items online" rant for the day.

 

..Al

 

Please don't think that's all sellers, Al. I sell on Amazon all the time and have a 4.8 feedback rating.

[Albert]

Please don't think that's all sellers, Al. I sell on Amazon all the time and have a 4.8 feedback rating.

 

The sellers I'm buying from have a good rating--I've passed over some lower-priced sellers and I still get screwed with crushed boxes or inaccurate conditions. I know not all sellers are like this, of course (and I've posted examples above of good sellers). But if you're looking to buy used games on Amazon and you care about the condition of the box, manual, and other materials, you're going to be disappointed unless you spend a lot of time communicating with sellers.

 

..Al

[SoulBlazer]

That's some awsome stuff you found, Al! I suspect we're about the same age (36 here) so I also have found memories of those days, although I was always more of a console gamer then a PC gamer. I still enjoyed tons of PC games.

 

How about the Thief series? Those were fun games...that was Orgin, right?

 

Regarding games, if it's cardboard, I never ship in a mailer. I always use a box. If it's a book, or just a CD, then yeah, I'll use a bubble mailer. But selling on Amazon I accept ahead of time what the fees are and just accept it and move on. Actually, I hope they select Priorty cause unlike Standard I actually get enough to cover my expenses.

 

You guys are REALLY wanting to make me check out the Ultima series I bought from GOG that's sitting on my HD. I have a three day weekend after tommorow.....hum, that's tempting.....

[Albert]

How about the Thief series? Those were fun games...that was Orgin, right?

 

Those were Looking Glass Technology games, published by Eidos and Square Enix. A Thief 4 is currently in development.

 

Regarding games, if it's cardboard, I never ship in a mailer. I always use a box. If it's a book, or just a CD, then yeah, I'll use a bubble mailer. But selling on Amazon I accept ahead of time what the fees are and just accept it and move on. Actually, I hope they select Priorty cause unlike Standard I actually get enough to cover my expenses.

 

I mostly blame Amazon for this situation, especially for lower-priced items. They should charge a bit more for "crushable" items and require the seller use a box to ship them in. Or perhaps make an option, "Ship this in a box?" and add the appropriate amount to the shipping. I wouldn't mind this at all!

 

You guys are REALLY wanting to make me check out the Ultima series I bought from GOG that's sitting on my HD. I have a three day weekend after tommorow.....hum, that's tempting.....

 

Which ones did you buy from GOG?

 

..Al

[SoulBlazer]

Ah, yes, of course, makers of the System Shock games. No wonder I got confused. I thought Origin had published those.

 

I have from GOG Ultima 1-9, the two spinoffs (Martin Dreams and Savage Empire), as well as the expansions for them.

 

Yeah, Amazon has it's good things and bad things over Ebay. I prefer selling on there cause it's easier, less hassle, less problems with sellers, and the fees are not bad as EBay, plus I like how Amazon 'holds' the money until the seller confirms shipment. But I agree, I wish there was more options for shipping.

 

I've been trying to decide where to start with the Ultima games, and it sounds like based on what you and the others are saying my best bet is probaly U4.