2022-09-10 Focusing on Tighter Goals
Hello everyone,
As some of you may have noticed, I have found myself back into writing my commentaries on Ultima IX. These commentaries have become much more long form treatises than my initial posts. I do find it quite refreshing to write on more creative and subjective topics compared to my traditional science-oriented writings in my work life. As WTF Dragon has noted, this work is rapidly turning into a small book. Each of my articles has on average clocked in at 4.5 single-spaced, 12 pt font pages without images, and I’ve got about 39 of these planned in total.
So far, I have reached New Magincia and will have that article posted in the coming days. Yes, the next article is only covering New Magincia and is still reaching over 4 pages worth of text.
In other news, I am working on getting the first and most significant of the patches completed. My focus from here on out is not to fight the buggy scripting to get what I want and instead develop more stable work-arounds. In particular, the lift at the end of Deceit in the column chamber will be handled in as simple of a manner as I possibly can. Consistent, non-buggy, works without fighting for days to the scripting right.
Lastly, I do want to report that Forgotten World as a U9 mod won’t be implemented. I doubt I have the time or enthusiasm to create anything very large or significant without the help of 2-3 dedicated designers/world builders. As a result, my focus is just to complete patch 1.20. Then, I will decide if I can do patch 1.21. Then finally patch 1.22. Only then will I consider development of small scale mods for Ultima IX such as monster mods, enhanced towns, or altered dialogue.
Speaking of the patch, I have updated the status page and included more details regarding the state of certain items. I will tell you about some of the more notable items on the incomplete side of the list.
Not Begun are the following:
- Forcing Elena in Minoc to be in her tent; no more wondering off and getting stuck.
- Forcing Dermot in Britain to follow his schedule (the schedule system is a bit buggy if you aren’t following the npcs)
- Replace Ugh the Troll with a Guard at a particular point in the U9 plot (probably when you return to Britain after Moonglow)
- Fixing whatever is bugging out the scripts for the Jordan/Flann/War Bow of Blood quest.
- Fixing the scripts for the Covetous Liche Shortcut; going in the back way doesn’t complete scripts correctly
The following are more significant bugs or issues where I have already started work:
- Fixing Leeland in his Moonglow quest and dialogue scripts for cleaner progression
- Altering the Tydus camera and cave blockage sequence to reduce the chances of crashes
- Fixing the Deceit Exit Lift – need to add a work-around so you can leave Deceit everytime you enter the column area
- Minoc Music is very buggy with the shrine cleansing and when using the Moongate… another area for a potential work-around; just cut the music entirely at the shrine and at the Moongate circle.
- Moonglow Catacombs elevator can still bug out, so it needs some minor fixes here
As you can see from the patch page, there are a total of 64 issues that will be dealt with by this patch (45 basically fixed). These issues include ones that we have released small patches for such the Floating Rune problem, Jaana and Mariah being used after cleansing, and the music fixes. The patch itself is intended to be used with the 1.19f version of the game and won’t require any of our patches. My internal and detailed change log is already 22 pages long, so this patch will be quite extensive.
PS The featured image for this article is an image (from our editor) of a vulture’s nest, which I have never found before near Yew. This is quite incredible given how much I have flown across Britannia either in game or in the editor. Ah, hand-crafted worlds always have little things to find no matter how many times you play them.
It’s unbelievable, you are still here? Or better say back again. When did I find your mod the first time? 15 Years ago? Every 2-3 years I ask myself “is there maybe progress with forgotten world?”. And now I see that you posted that news some days ago. Unbelievable. I wonder that there aren’t more projects for my beloved game and one of my all time favourite or a remake or so. In my opinion back then when it was released that game was revolutionary in so may cases. Still in 2022 I have to say that not many games have that kind of immersion or atmosphere like UIX or U8: Pagan.
Keep on working, I love your work.
Thank you!
RE Mods: The issue with U9 is that the engine is barely complete, still has bugs aspects and unclean script completion, and is generally hard to edit without major investment in reverse engineering and editor development.
Also too much of the game is hardcoded. I imagine in part due to how slow and optimized the game; hardcoding parts of the game reduces this lag. Dialogue trees are the worst offender here, since without changing that, you are basically stuck with U9 as released in terms of quests and narrative.
Great work with the patches! Out of curiosity, will the dialogue patch / monster & economy rebalance mods still work with it?
I have been trying to maintain compatibility with those older mods. Unfortunately, the monster mod will no longer be compatible. The Dialogue, Book, and Economy patches; however, will still work.
I plan on releasing my own monster difficulty mod, anyway. Something does more than just give NPCs more HP. Mages in this game were so handicapped. >:)
Oh cool! If you don’t mind me asking, what kind of changes will be implemented? I was under the assumption a lot of the code related to monsters were hardcoded? Or has the editor gotten a lot more robust?
Of course things like NPC AI patterns and pathfinding are hardcoded, and even features like resistances and loot drops are also hardcoded. But you can change a variety of features such as Combat AI types, HP/MP pools, armor, and even spell books. I think you can also given Human enemies different weapons. The NPC mod mostly just added some extra HP – they didn’t know what most of the NPC file does. Actually most the NPC.flx is just tracking information for npc’s going about their pathfinding, scripts, and schedules.
NPC schedules are possible in U9, just poorly optimized and I think the scripts may not activate when you are too far away.
Fortunately, the Prima U9 guide included some details about how offense and defense work in the game; which has made some of this information more understandable.
Well, i’ll definitely will give Ultima 9 another run when that mod comes out. I didn’t realise the NPC’s scheduling code was still intact, thought it got scrapped due to the rush.