Re: TIL: Ultima 6 NuVIe

On Wed, 18 Sep 2024 12:45:59 -0400, Mike S. <Mike_S@nowhere.com>
wrote:

On Wed, 18 Sep 2024 11:20:06 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:
>

Since many of its features are controlled by directly editing its
CONFIG file, here are some tips for newbies.

>
Thank you for the information. I took a screenshot of your post and
filed it away with my Ultima files. If or when I get around to playing
this one, I will definitely be trying out Nuvie and referring to your
info. But I am also going to remember what Ross said.
>
I already played Ultima 1-5 so I am actually up to this now. I did
play Ultima 7 and 7.5 but it was so long ago I barely remember them
and I am not sure if I ever finished them or not. They were my
favorites though so I wouldn't mind playing those two again.

I replayed Ultima 7 a few years back. I was disappointed to learn that
the experience wasn't as great as I remembered. Without argument,
"Ultima 7" was a groundbreaking game, taking many of the ideas of
"Ultima 6" and giving them some necessary polish.

The idea of those games was to first simulate a world and then put an
epic story for you to play through into that world. It was very
impressive how pretty much every object had its own properties, and
could be manipulated. That simulation didn't really affect the
gameplay much, but it was an impressive level of detail.

But the actual quests --both of "Ultima 7" and "Ultima 7.5"-- were
fairly humdrum. The overall arc was quite exciting, but the
minute-to-minute adventures were often tedious. The combat lacked any
subtlety, and the inventory system was a (literal) mess. "Serpent
Isle" benefitted a bit by giving us some new territory to explore, but
it was too heavily scripted. "Black Gate" had the advantage of feeling
more open.

I had fun playing the games -exploring the worlds again reminded me of
wandering through Skyrim and encountering little mini-adventures- but
the mechanics haven't aged well at all. I suspect "Ultima 6" will have
similar issues; its quests, as I remember, were extremely repetitive
(find the 8 runes/stones, then find the 9 pieces of the pirate map,
then do even more busy work for the gargoyles), and that tedium wasn't
helped by the clunky interface. Hopefully, the improvements introduced
in NuVIe will make everything more bearable, though.