2013-01-21 New Commentary

Well friends,

I have finished my next entry for our Ultima IX commentary.  This entry takes us through Stonegate and discusses Ultima IX’s magic and attribute in detail with comparisons to systems from prior Ultimas. I know the progression is slow at the moment, there are a lot of mechanics that needed to be covered first.  The next entry will focus on the Compassion segment of the game, and I’m not certain will I will be able to publish it.  Also speaking of U9’s magic, please vote in our poll to the right.  Thank you.

In other news, I have been diving into our editor, and the first thing I did was create a fairly complete list of “bookmarks,” which are starting coordinates and orientations for the editor’s camera. I decided to keep it to just the town locations and maps used during the game.  This is really an excellent time-saving feature since it can still take a minute or two to get a location of interest starting from the corner of the main map.  Anyway, when I was examining the Covetous level 4 map for a good starting location for the camera, I found an area I hadn’t noticed before.  This area includes several rooms with beds, a dinner table, and a lot of chests and gold.  Unfortunately, this unfinished area can only accessed with the fly cheat during the game.  For those interested, after transitioning from the lift map to the fourth level map, turn 180 degrees and activate the fly cheat. Fly straight and you will encounter this area.  I have posted an overhead screenshot from our editor in our editor gallery (second gallery on this page). For some reason, the lava textures aren’t loading or the map actually used the default texture for areas the player shouldn’t see anyway.  Oh well.

For those who did not see the post over at the Ultima Codex.  First Knight has provided some recent screenshots of his work in Cove, which I have added to the Beautiful Britannia Screenshots gallery.

First Knight had this to add:

In the last 3 months I’ve developed a new method, which allows me to insert groups of objects from other maps. In fact, it’s a bit tricky, but works in the end. One of the screens shows a new weapon store in cove, which was reused from an old map. Now that Valclav has a nice store in Cove, the plan is to implement a schedule for him, so that he can walk home to Minoc in the evening and come back the next morning. Other screens show off a pair of caves, which were also reused from another old map.

So, with the added buildings (there is even a working windmill!), combined with some terrain motifications, the city of Cove…well, it looks like a little city now, don’t you think?

After that, I reworked the terrain of the Cove expansion, and created a more interesting landscape. One of the screens shows a river with a mountain in the background. Another screen shows the shrine (from some distance); it’s now located at the eastern edge of the island.

That is all I have to report for now but keep an eye on Ultima Codex since they often post about updates within a day or so.

– Iceblade Dragon