@@stuGkresreB eh.. he's not Peter Molyneux level but I did pledge to the Shroud of the Avatar kickstarter and never really played it. There were some mechanics I really didn't enjoy. It was a throwback to a different time for sure. He's disassociated himself with that project a while ago and doesn't do the day to day stuff. He pitched worst stuff between working for tabula rasa and released shroud.
It’s just so frustrating to me that U7-8 was building up to some big conclusion but then all the corporate shenanigans just destroyed all that and we ended up with a new team who wanted to make their own story and didn’t really know nor care about the various story details of that trilogy. It also makes U8 worse as the point of it was about what it was leading to. I kinda wish Garriot wasn’t so burned out on the mainline Ultimas and was more protective over the story. But it is what it is.
Considering what kind of person Garriott became (or ever was?), I don't really know anymore if he ever was such a positive influence on the series post Ultima 6. He certainly brought some ideas to the genre and showed what computer games could do earlier on but at some point I think he lost touch with what players wanted and the rapid technical development.
@@yaldabaoth2 It's kinda hard to say with the cult of personality Garriott surrounded himself with just how much involvement he had with the stories of U4/5/6 - but at least until U6 and arguably U7, he still had a reasonable amount of involvement with the gist of the stories. It seems like he just burned out as the games required larger teams and handed off the plots to the teams working on the games; but at least he seemed to at least be steering them so they make sense as a whole. There's a whole load of ret cons throughout Ultima, but generally there weren't massive plot holes and trashing the canon until U9. I agree he lost touch with the player base after UO and I'd argue he never really got to grips with managing the larger teams that modern games demanded.
@@deanolium I remember him being very involved in the game development. He both came up with ideas and oversaw the discrete parts of the game, artwork, design choices, animation, etc.
It's hard figuring out wot rlly happened 'cuz of the cult of personality around ole Brit Boy, but he definitely went from genre-setting by almost entirely coding the early games by himself, to becoming increasingly distant over time. I think the big issue was he was still the guy in charge but didn't know how to manage the increasingly larger dev teams.
@@LotusGramarye It wasn't his job to manage the teams. We had managers and leads. He was a creative, off to the side, doing what he always did. I don't know why people keep thinking he had to manage anything. That wasn't the case. He was more like a film director. He wasn't behind the camera, he wasn't hiring, he wasn't writing, he didn't set schedules.
I am 49 years old, and I am French. I have played a lot of Ultima 5, 6, 7, and 8. Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle are my favorite RPGs of all time. I can replay them today with the same enthusiasm as when I first played them. EA Games turns everything they touch into crap. Ultima 9 should have been a great game; you could feel that the game engine was gearing up for something much bigger than what was delivered to us. Just look at what EA Games did to Ultima Online. They probably had in their hands the most advanced multiplayer game ever created up to this day. We still have a few players managing to play with those 4 pixel scraps where the original universe has been completely distorted.
I remember pre-ordering the big Dragon Edition box for this and waiting excitedly for it to arrive. I was on some Ultima forum reading posts from people to see when they received their copy. I've still got the full game in that giant Dragon Edition box tucked away somewhere in storage. Good times!
@@VoidbrandGallery That packaging and the lovely grabbies just make the heart ache more. I wish one of the re-development efforts a'la Lazarus or U6 for 9 could've finished.
Garriot selling EA on the idea that you can sell an unfinished beta product explains so much about the company’s future business practices. It’s like a massive butterfly effect.
I've never played any of these games, and have no nostalgia for them, but I sure do enjoy watching you talk about them. It has been a blast going through this series through your eyes.
This was a strange time in videogaming history where, while the 3d graphics were impressive in one respect, they were massively less detailed and showed less things on screen than U7, for instance.
Ultima Underworld is the real 3D evolution for Ultima series as a whole, although the Underworld duology are a spinoffs. U9 didn't impressed us enough as Underworld did with so many error happened. So, Underworld is still the better 3D Ultima and I rather want another Underworld & another World of Ultima game 😢
Ohh Ultima 9. I was fresh to living in Japan at the time and bought a brand new computer right before this came out with the sole purpose of playing this game. I loved the first part of it, like you I ignored the earth part assuming it was a necessary intro for new players. The further I managed to get into the game the more it kinda grinded on me, and when it finally bugged out so bad I was essentially softlocked, I just put it down and never finished it.
Don't feel bad. I also bought a Voodoo 2 SLI setup just to run this. Mind you, the Voodoo 3 was out and you could get Voodoo 2's cheap. I think I paid $80 in 1999 money. I already had a GeForce, but that was not good for U9. I was really, really, really into Ultima. Ultima 9 made me realize that Richard Garriott was no longer his old self. I don't lay the blame entirely on EA. Garriott was at the point in his life where he'd rather go into space than make great games. He got high on his own supply. He wanted to be a rockstar gaming influencer at that point. He never made a good game after Ultima 7.
This was a really fun video! I will say, as a kid who started on Ultima V, I wasn't put off by the gold not being it's own item in the bag. "Back in my day, the gold was just a number! Not some item you had to move around your backpack!" lolol I didn't get a computer upgrade until well after Ultima VII had released. My next Ultima was VIII, and by god I loved that game. I know most people crap all over it, but I immersed myself in the world. I made dozens of necro... thingies. I preped so many sorcerer spells. I had a save game at the end where I was virtually a god and I would just cause mayhem with my magic powers. I took over a house in the main city. I had chests of gems, magic weapons, bombs. I collected every bomb I found in the game. I put them in a single chest. If I triggered one bomb in the chest, it would explode and ignite the other bombs. Then my 486 would lock up for about 5 minutes. Then all the bombs would slowly start to all go off. It took me like 4 minutes to save a game. It... was awesome.
I dream of a universe, where EA gives up the rights to Ultima and some industry veterans get together and start a crowdfunding project to remake (!) the entire Ultima storyline into a series of games, weed out any inconsistencies, integrate the story lines of both Worlds of Ultima and Underworld games (may be even the entire games) and give this series a new glorious purpose :) Also acceptable would be a remake of 7, 8 and 9. And a lucky find in some storage, with the code and assets for "Lost Vale". Yes, i am still dreaming ...
InXile managed to get a trademark of Wasteland IP from EA's publishing rights, it took a decade though. So, I wonder if EA could do it for Ultima IP as well... I can only dream about it.
Ironic how much Origin had hated EA from beginning that they even put a lot of EA reference (Elizabeth & Abraham are based on EA reference) in U7, only to ended up been acquired by EA later on
I wish I'd had the presence of mind to keep a copy when I saw it back in the '90s, but I got to see one of the original story bibles for U9. It was supposed to close off all the old plot threads. The rendered cutscenes were made with that original plot in mind. One thing I remember reading was the origins of the Guardian -- that he was his own world's equivalent to an Avatar, except that he used the Armageddon spell after getting it from the wisps. The spell rendered him immortal, and he spent centuries alone on his world until he figured out how to create a black gate, and his next move was to take over Pagan.
Great video... this was actually my first ever Ultima game, managed to buy it and played it with the first unofficial patch (think an ex developer did it). I picked it up with an official Prima guide which had amazing developer interviews, maps and all sorts of notes about the series. Still worth picking up today as it was a fantastic add on for the game and series. People hate on this game a lot but I really enjoyed it when I was younger, completed it several times over and eventually went off to play through the rest of the series so was worth it for that alone.
While the slog of going to each town and cleansing each shrine was banal, I’m surprised there was no mention of Valoria, since it was a bit of a departure, where you had to convince three other knights to regain their courage to attack the Triumvirate demon, which was an inspiring scene to me
It was technically my first Ultima. I got this, then went to experience the others. I don't hate it, and I have a soft spot for it. Still hope 8-9 are remade properly one day, nearly impossible as it feels today.
The exchange between LB and the Slasher of Veils is a reference to Bruce Campbell's exchange with a deadite at the end of the film Army of Darkness. Just FYI.
13:02 I love the glaring polygon clip on the left here just before you open your bag. That is the perfect symbolism of this game for me: it's just one big screw up.
Instead of saying the Avatar was replaced by a Changeling, i am more to the fans theory of "the Avatar had his bang(s) so hard in Pagan, until he had lost his memory of his previous adventures"
I also remember U9 as a fun and visually impressive game. I really enjoyed the 3D environment and how the mood changed with the day & night cycle and the rain. I thought the dynamic lighting looked really nice with candles and lanterns. I encountered a few bugs especially when I accidentally bypassed a huge section of the game by finding a way to cross the mountains near Britain and went directly to Yew before even going to Ambrosia. I was very confused by the gargoyle's dialog there. Normally, Lord British is supposed to remove a magical wall in a cave near Britain for Avatar to pass but in my first playthrough I completely skipped that part by parkouring :) I never finished the game as I lost interest in the game loop towards the later dungeons which got way too weird but as I said I really enjoyed the visuals and the world and I was happy that we got to play another Ultima game. By the way, nice review as always. Hope you will post more stuff!
Will say, for the museum, it depends on the premise that the museum is a reliable narrator. It'd make complete sense for a random tapestry weaver/painter to retcon the Avatars appearance in the first 3 game to match the one they're familiar with. And the artefacts could just be replicas. The Pagan references make no sense though, unless you really do a bunch of odd backend justifications that somehow his actions on Pagan were magically observed and noted.
My biggest problem with the game at release aside from the bugs and Crash to Desktop was the sense of scale. The world was WAY too small due to limitations in hardware at the time, and that took me out of it too much. I'd rather work in zones like Everquest than jog across the continent in about 2 minutes.
Thanks for video. I played Ultima IX only until approx Gargoyle City, after that my interest faded, because the crashes and some problems with my Voodoo2 card was nagging me.
I hate the contrived nonsense that The Guardian was in some way related to the Avatar or his deeds. It makes the game series feel small and predestined. I remember reading an in-game book in the Lycaeum in Ultima VI (??) where some wizard speculated about how moongates are completely unguarded wide open two-way doorways, that while benevolent Britannians frequently use them to travel between worlds, so too can other, possibly malevolent entities use them to find Britannia, and that we must use them cautiously at all times. It essentially was a warning that something like the Guardian might be coming, though in the context of the game the reader may have misinterpreted it to refer to the Gargoyles (as the game opens with them kidnapping the Avatar through a moongate). I like that impression of the Guardian better. He is simply a malevolent extra-dimensional entity, the Destroyer of Worlds, with no connection to the Avatar. He simply sees Britannia as the next random world to conquer (or destroy, whichever's easier), he needs no rosey rationale for his conquests. He is absolute and unrelenting, like a force of nature, and the goal of each game was not to defeat him but to simply weather his onslaughts. The only game that offers a peek into the Guardian's biography and history is Ultima Underworld II, in which the Avatar actually gets a firsthand look at other worlds the Guardian has conquered, and sees how they fare (for better or worse.... usually worse) after he is done with them. The Guardian being an instance of the Avatar's cleansed anti-virtues invalidates all of this. He is no longer the Destroyer of Worlds, now he's just a scorned aspect of the Avatar's split personality, which is less interesting. And if that's the case, why did he wait 200 years to come back if that was his intention all along?
I like that interpretation of the Guardian better. That bit about Ultima Underworld II is why I like that game so much, despite only having played it about a year ago for the first time.
Richard Garriot and Chris Roberts both got in over their head, as the complexity of the games increased, origin was no longer able to manage such large projects.
I disagree. I would counter argue they got in over their heads trying to make large games the EA way. With 20+ years of hindsight and a large trail of dead gaming companies under EA it seems to be a common problem.
Well... that answers my earlier question on your other video. And to think, all I had to do was visit your channel page and look around. Just the way games should be: exploratory.
Id be interested in an Ascendant video. I was a 'decent' contributor to both Kickstarters. While I didn't enjoy SotA in the end, I always felt like they delivered a game, which is still running today and have no animosity there. (Honestly I think there's a decent single player game in there if Catnip would ever strip all the online stuff out of it and release it as simply a single player) Ascendant on the other hand I have much, much hatred towards. 😅@@VoidbrandGallery
I feel like the plot outlined in the PDF is a bit more satisfying than the one that we got, but it does feel a bit uninspired and wrote. Maybe it's my bias, but I thought that the most interesting way to interpret The Guardian was as another player character: essentially being the version of the Avatar that did all the reprehensible things that the player is permitted to do, such as setting off the armageddon spell for the sake of it. Personally, I thought it could be interesting to see what another person from earth with the ability to cross dimensions would do if they were to treat the world like a toy and used their position to corrupt and undermine the integrity of the universes they passed through. If every person's game is a distinct instance of the world, then it's logical that someone would be just like The Guardian - crossing between dimensions and deliberately destroying them for the sake of their own amusement. Ultima is already chock full of third wall breaks and establishes the player character as a dimensional traveller and I feel like there's a really interesting way to play into that idea. How are you going to be able to do anything about The Guardian if it turns out that he's just some guy? Are you going to turn up on his doorstep? How would you explain it to the authorities that you had to kill him in order to stop him from committing genocide in a video game? I feel like there's so much you can do with that concept: in the game you're both near omnipotent, but outside of Ultima you're bound by a system of law that doesn't recognise what is going on as a legitimate issue.
If you’re willing to explore around, there’s plenty of interesting places to find in U9 that have nothing to do with anything and are completely optional. Things like the giant village and the magic mushroom.
Are you going to cover anything about Shroud of the Avatar? The last I heard about it was sometime after watching the Spoony Ultima IX review and that it had a successful crowd sourcing campaign.
Skipping Ultima VIII seems to be a good solution to a lot of the plot issues! :-) I've played every other game in the series, but gave up on VIII after a short while because I just wasn't having fun, partially because of the jumping. There certainly are still plot issues in IX that are noticeable without the context of Ultima VIII. I think my experience got off on more of a right foot because I didn't notice the lack of continuity with the ending of VIII which I think made the other issues seem less significant to me.
@@VoidbrandGallery The official.shards are nothing like it use to be in the late 90s early 2ks. I remember having a hour lunch from work.didnt even eat had to hop on UO.
Sorry, I just hate UO... Freaking MMO like UO and the devs who shifted forward to it, is what killed the single cRPG market for Ultima. I just hated how the devs & the publisher attempted outsourced everything towards UO and Ultima 8&9 were left in shambles and we never get another decent Ultima game, let alone another spinoffs like World of Ultima & Underworld, since 😔
Ascension was my first Ultima, I haven't even heard of the series before. It didn't run on the first computer we had, just after some upgrades later. Somehow, I got used to the crashes and the occassional extreme lag very fast. Later, with more expectations towards games, trying to make the game truly playable via all the patches was an adventure by itself. To this day, this is among the games I have played the most. Also, breaking it is very fun! Of course, other adventure was realizing how "not Ultima" it is. I knew right from the start that questions like "What is a Gargoyle" would flip long time fans of the game out, I just didn't suspect that the case was this serious.
@@VoidbrandGallery I know that long time fans can hate me for this and Spoony would get a rage attack for reading this, but I still like Ultima IX, even if I hate EA and the new UIX developers, too. The story and gameplay that promises more than what it shows really moved my fantasy when I play this in middle school for first time and the malleable technical execution makes for extremely fun glitch hunting even today. I should pick it up again next year.
Is it bad that I still want to play this game despite the story being lack luster? For some reason I think I'd find alot of humor in playing it, but I feel like I'd also still get frustrated from time to time. Either way great video thanks for covering these games its great to hear the lore of them.
Its understandable because it has a certain charme thanks to the old but actually alright graphics and simple gameplay . But it should be a totally different game if you ask me .
Nice work man. I remember being excited to get this thing home. It barely worked at the time. I think I only ever spent an hour with it. Awful disappointment. Interesting that it was actually playable with the patch and seeing how it played and how the story progressed, makes me think the game did me a favor by not working out of the box all those years ago. What could have been.
Love your videos! Keep up the awesome work! Your channel is such a vibe! I’ve always been so curious about the Ultima games. I actually have quite a few of them on GOG but never got around to playing them yet. Are there any good recommendations to start my Ultima journey? Or should I start from the beginning? (I don’t mind how dated the gameplay on first few are)
Thanks, Snake. Appreciate the comment. 💀 If you don't mind 'archaic' keyboard controls, the series really started with Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. The first 3 games you can honestly safely skip, but they're worth a try at least if you happen to get through IV and beyond, and you're enjoying yourself. I mention you can skip them because you don't get anything out of them story-wise. They're interesting to see how early Ultima developed. Like Ultima I & II were solo adventurers, in III you can create your own party, etc. It's also worth mentioning that there's a console version of Ultima IV on the Sega Master System. It plays very well with a controller. If I ever replayed it it would be with that version. VII is when Ultima gets more 'user-friendly'. Full mouse control vs keyboard controls of the previous games. There's a really good program called Exult that still gets updates to this day so it can run on modern computers instead of using DOSBox. Ultima VI has Nuvie which lets you use the mouse like VII, but there's a Ultima VI mod for Exult now. Not sure if it's finished yet, but I've been meaning to check it out. Didn't mean to make this long, but if you're not enjoying IV at all, give V, VI, then VII a try.
Ah, the joys of corporate overreach… As a side note: anyone who hasnt tried UO: Outlands should check it out! Its how UO *should* have developed, imho. Perfect addition if that classic pre-tram feel with brand new systems if progression and power gain
I made it to the dungeon after the gargoyle city and then it got stuck in a loop of crashing and I couldn't continue. I think the game did me a favour lol. My favourite part was the hooker, "want to party?" "Sure!"
Props for getting the game to boot at all. The GOG version crashes constantly on my main PC, and trying to install the game from the original ISO images on my period-correct machine freezes at the installer on every attempt. It's as if the game is trying to save me from it.
I find that its the same in novels, when they add extra dialog to fill in readers that may not have read the previous books, extra info to help then catch up. The same can be said for the Avatar being ignorant. Maybe the point is, if you know the answer in U9, If you know what a paladin is, for example, dont ask the question. I'm guessing nothing important was locked behind these ignorant questions.
I remember being immersed in this game (and only had Bug in Britain so tried to stay away from there as much as I can). But after finishing the entire MoonGlow Arc and chatting with Mariah, I was pretty much tired of it. Constant weak quests/dialogue got boring fast, plus, how many more times shall we clean a shrine ? A bit of variety would've been nice. I soldiered thru, of course, but what a letdown the ending was. I preferred Ultima8 over it, no questions asked. But you're right, IMHO this game was "scrapped" to make room for UO. And it's a real shame. Not a fan of the original ending from Bob White either tho but IMHO it's better. I feel destroying/loosing Britannia after fighting so hard to keep it safe for so long is very sour. The only reason I'd ever agree with it would be if Ultima games continued well after that for quite a few titles and we help rebuild the New Britannia world. Like this time, we're the exiles, the refugies, and even tho we have a titan of ether and a few power characters (LB being one), we're on a strange land and have to survive... Feels very much like an early settler's feel in a fantasy/magic setting, now that would rock. Seeing how bad gaming turned after the early 2000's tho, we pretty much dodged a bullet. At least IMHO. Thanks for the retrospective, now I have quite a few more to watch from your channel. Also subscribed as I hope you will replay thru U9 with dialogue and other patches as I don't want to miss that ( I never ever played U9 again after this one time.) -- Enlightenment Dragon.
Thanks for the comment. I never thought I'd play this ever again tbh. Was "interesting" to experience it again. Back then I played it once and I guess that was enough, because I never automatically thought about it again.
46:54 Every other game combined has 343 entries, Ultima IX has 506 entries. I've not checked why U7 has 101 entries, but wow, U9 really ran up the numbers here.
i kinda understand why they made it that the Avatar asked that stuff, so that new players would understand the backstory. The way they did it was just so poorly made
I mostly just like this game for it's gameplay, because it reminds me of how an elder scrolls game plays. But for it's story, yeah its more like a fanfic of ultima than it would be an actual installment. Someone should take the original story and make it into a skyrim mod.
Yeah. I know. It's mentioned in VII (even talked about it in that video). You've misunderstood what I said if I know what you're referring to. I explained it pretty clearly with my Nystul explanation, with the Avatar coming into his own as he grows himself into the Titan of Ether with my spell examples. Of course there's going to be progression.
am I the only one that loved this game? but then again I havent played it since release and my only experience with Ultima before this was 8 and Underworld... And my english wasnt the best back then so I didnt really follow the story...
There were screenshots of an earlier version of Ultima IX which was apparently scrapped before being rebuilt completely to be 3D and have the new perspective. I thought that earlier version looked awesome; more like your classic Ultima. What we got instead was just hot garbage.
Honestly? If the explanation for The Guardian had been "He was an evil brought into the world to balance the good that was created when you became the Avatar." rather than "He was the evil you cast off" or whatever, that part of the plot would be fine. Everything else about the plot of the game was just... not good.
You had a miracle pc if ultima 9 did not crash constantly for you, it was literally unplayable on my pc at release I could barely get out of the tutorial.
"your knowledge of the land shall be great"
"What's a Paladin?"
"I'm...not entirely sure"
BETRAYAAAAALLLLL!!!!
@@bsybilly THIS GAME SUUUUUXXX!
The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom?
"Your knowledge of the land will be great."
"What a paladin. "
I'm not entirely sure...
the moral of Ultima is: don't ever sell out to EA
Wish Bioware knew also!
Richard Garriott is even worse than EA now.
@@dani3po What do you mean?
@@CYON4D look into shroud of the avatar.. unfortunately hes a bit of a grifter and sell out these days.
@@stuGkresreB eh.. he's not Peter Molyneux level but I did pledge to the Shroud of the Avatar kickstarter and never really played it. There were some mechanics I really didn't enjoy. It was a throwback to a different time for sure. He's disassociated himself with that project a while ago and doesn't do the day to day stuff. He pitched worst stuff between working for tabula rasa and released shroud.
It’s just so frustrating to me that U7-8 was building up to some big conclusion but then all the corporate shenanigans just destroyed all that and we ended up with a new team who wanted to make their own story and didn’t really know nor care about the various story details of that trilogy. It also makes U8 worse as the point of it was about what it was leading to. I kinda wish Garriot wasn’t so burned out on the mainline Ultimas and was more protective over the story. But it is what it is.
Considering what kind of person Garriott became (or ever was?), I don't really know anymore if he ever was such a positive influence on the series post Ultima 6. He certainly brought some ideas to the genre and showed what computer games could do earlier on but at some point I think he lost touch with what players wanted and the rapid technical development.
@@yaldabaoth2 It's kinda hard to say with the cult of personality Garriott surrounded himself with just how much involvement he had with the stories of U4/5/6 - but at least until U6 and arguably U7, he still had a reasonable amount of involvement with the gist of the stories. It seems like he just burned out as the games required larger teams and handed off the plots to the teams working on the games; but at least he seemed to at least be steering them so they make sense as a whole. There's a whole load of ret cons throughout Ultima, but generally there weren't massive plot holes and trashing the canon until U9.
I agree he lost touch with the player base after UO and I'd argue he never really got to grips with managing the larger teams that modern games demanded.
@@deanolium I remember him being very involved in the game development. He both came up with ideas and oversaw the discrete parts of the game, artwork, design choices, animation, etc.
It's hard figuring out wot rlly happened 'cuz of the cult of personality around ole Brit Boy, but he definitely went from genre-setting by almost entirely coding the early games by himself, to becoming increasingly distant over time. I think the big issue was he was still the guy in charge but didn't know how to manage the increasingly larger dev teams.
@@LotusGramarye It wasn't his job to manage the teams. We had managers and leads. He was a creative, off to the side, doing what he always did. I don't know why people keep thinking he had to manage anything. That wasn't the case. He was more like a film director. He wasn't behind the camera, he wasn't hiring, he wasn't writing, he didn't set schedules.
I am 49 years old, and I am French. I have played a lot of Ultima 5, 6, 7, and 8. Ultima 7 and Serpent Isle are my favorite RPGs of all time. I can replay them today with the same enthusiasm as when I first played them. EA Games turns everything they touch into crap. Ultima 9 should have been a great game; you could feel that the game engine was gearing up for something much bigger than what was delivered to us. Just look at what EA Games did to Ultima Online. They probably had in their hands the most advanced multiplayer game ever created up to this day. We still have a few players managing to play with those 4 pixel scraps where the original universe has been completely distorted.
I remember pre-ordering the big Dragon Edition box for this and waiting excitedly for it to arrive. I was on some Ultima forum reading posts from people to see when they received their copy. I've still got the full game in that giant Dragon Edition box tucked away somewhere in storage. Good times!
Lost my Dragon Edition box unfortunately... All I have from it are the virtue cards and I think the manual. It had some great stuff in it.
@@VoidbrandGallery That packaging and the lovely grabbies just make the heart ache more. I wish one of the re-development efforts a'la Lazarus or U6 for 9 could've finished.
Garriot selling EA on the idea that you can sell an unfinished beta product explains so much about the company’s future business practices. It’s like a massive butterfly effect.
What's a paladin?
betrayal! Betray me! This game suuuuuuuxxxx!
@@SpecShadow Good old Spoony
Im not entirely sure !
@@Snyperwolf91 🤣
That's like Aragorn asking Legolas what an elf is.
I've never played any of these games, and have no nostalgia for them, but I sure do enjoy watching you talk about them. It has been a blast going through this series through your eyes.
It was fun playing them again. Thanks for tuning in. 💀
This was a strange time in videogaming history where, while the 3d graphics were impressive in one respect, they were massively less detailed and showed less things on screen than U7, for instance.
Ultima Underworld is the real 3D evolution for Ultima series as a whole, although the Underworld duology are a spinoffs. U9 didn't impressed us enough as Underworld did with so many error happened. So, Underworld is still the better 3D Ultima and I rather want another Underworld & another World of Ultima game 😢
I love how you put the proper music at the end like that. Perfect way to end this particular video.
Great work, highly detailed, enthusiatic and without hype.
Ohh Ultima 9. I was fresh to living in Japan at the time and bought a brand new computer right before this came out with the sole purpose of playing this game. I loved the first part of it, like you I ignored the earth part assuming it was a necessary intro for new players. The further I managed to get into the game the more it kinda grinded on me, and when it finally bugged out so bad I was essentially softlocked, I just put it down and never finished it.
Don't feel bad. I also bought a Voodoo 2 SLI setup just to run this. Mind you, the Voodoo 3 was out and you could get Voodoo 2's cheap. I think I paid $80 in 1999 money. I already had a GeForce, but that was not good for U9. I was really, really, really into Ultima.
Ultima 9 made me realize that Richard Garriott was no longer his old self. I don't lay the blame entirely on EA. Garriott was at the point in his life where he'd rather go into space than make great games. He got high on his own supply. He wanted to be a rockstar gaming influencer at that point. He never made a good game after Ultima 7.
I played UO when it came out and have yet to have as much fun in an mmo as i did that game.
This was a really fun video! I will say, as a kid who started on Ultima V, I wasn't put off by the gold not being it's own item in the bag. "Back in my day, the gold was just a number! Not some item you had to move around your backpack!" lolol I didn't get a computer upgrade until well after Ultima VII had released. My next Ultima was VIII, and by god I loved that game. I know most people crap all over it, but I immersed myself in the world. I made dozens of necro... thingies. I preped so many sorcerer spells. I had a save game at the end where I was virtually a god and I would just cause mayhem with my magic powers. I took over a house in the main city. I had chests of gems, magic weapons, bombs. I collected every bomb I found in the game. I put them in a single chest. If I triggered one bomb in the chest, it would explode and ignite the other bombs. Then my 486 would lock up for about 5 minutes. Then all the bombs would slowly start to all go off. It took me like 4 minutes to save a game. It... was awesome.
I dream of a universe, where EA gives up the rights to Ultima and some industry veterans get together and start a crowdfunding project to remake (!) the entire Ultima storyline into a series of games, weed out any inconsistencies, integrate the story lines of both Worlds of Ultima and Underworld games (may be even the entire games) and give this series a new glorious purpose :)
Also acceptable would be a remake of 7, 8 and 9.
And a lucky find in some storage, with the code and assets for "Lost Vale".
Yes, i am still dreaming ...
InXile managed to get a trademark of Wasteland IP from EA's publishing rights, it took a decade though. So, I wonder if EA could do it for Ultima IP as well... I can only dream about it.
Your knowledge of the land shall be great!
Ironic how much Origin had hated EA from beginning that they even put a lot of EA reference (Elizabeth & Abraham are based on EA reference) in U7, only to ended up been acquired by EA later on
I didn't really notice it back then but the references in The Black Gate were definitely on the nose.
The Triangle, Square and Sphere you have to destroy in U7 are based on the EA logo as well.
I wish I'd had the presence of mind to keep a copy when I saw it back in the '90s, but I got to see one of the original story bibles for U9. It was supposed to close off all the old plot threads. The rendered cutscenes were made with that original plot in mind. One thing I remember reading was the origins of the Guardian -- that he was his own world's equivalent to an Avatar, except that he used the Armageddon spell after getting it from the wisps. The spell rendered him immortal, and he spent centuries alone on his world until he figured out how to create a black gate, and his next move was to take over Pagan.
I love these longer videos you put out man. So excited to watch everything you put out!
Thanks bruh. Appreciate the long tune-in so far. 💀
Great video... this was actually my first ever Ultima game, managed to buy it and played it with the first unofficial patch (think an ex developer did it). I picked it up with an official Prima guide which had amazing developer interviews, maps and all sorts of notes about the series. Still worth picking up today as it was a fantastic add on for the game and series. People hate on this game a lot but I really enjoyed it when I was younger, completed it several times over and eventually went off to play through the rest of the series so was worth it for that alone.
Thanks a bunch. Your experiences with IX is like mine with VIII. Ended up playing the rest of the mainline Ultima games much later on.
It's late, I'll finish this video later but it's nice and comfy
Glad to make you comfy, thanks for the comment. 💀
Voidbrand great video I'm glad you got it out and it's so complete and descriptive... And I'm sorry for all the times I distracted you! Hahahaha.
Hey Vesuvius thanks a lot. 💀 I didn't feel distracted at all so no need for sorries. Happy Thanksgiving. 👍
"AND THEN ELECTRONIC ARTS HAPPENED!"
- Spoony
While the slog of going to each town and cleansing each shrine was banal, I’m surprised there was no mention of Valoria, since it was a bit of a departure, where you had to convince three other knights to regain their courage to attack the Triumvirate demon, which was an inspiring scene to me
It was technically my first Ultima. I got this, then went to experience the others. I don't hate it, and I have a soft spot for it. Still hope 8-9 are remade properly one day, nearly impossible as it feels today.
Oops just realized i was only subbed to your vod channel. fixed :)
Really enjoy the videos you've made, thanks and keep up the great work!
Appreciate it, thanks for hopping on over. 💀
I'm new to your channel, but I'm hooked, keep up the good job!
Appreciate it. 💀 Welcome aboard!
The exchange between LB and the Slasher of Veils is a reference to Bruce Campbell's exchange with a deadite at the end of the film Army of Darkness. Just FYI.
13:02 I love the glaring polygon clip on the left here just before you open your bag. That is the perfect symbolism of this game for me: it's just one big screw up.
Moral of the story, Ultima 7, 8, and 9 were all fever dreams the Avatar had as they died, because the Guardian, EA, killed Ultima.
This was a great vid! I never got to play the later Ultima games but am still curious and I may just do it now. Thanks and INSTASUBBED!!!
Appreciate the comment. Welcome. 💀
Instead of saying the Avatar was replaced by a Changeling, i am more to the fans theory of "the Avatar had his bang(s) so hard in Pagan, until he had lost his memory of his previous adventures"
I also remember U9 as a fun and visually impressive game. I really enjoyed the 3D environment and how the mood changed with the day & night cycle and the rain. I thought the dynamic lighting looked really nice with candles and lanterns. I encountered a few bugs especially when I accidentally bypassed a huge section of the game by finding a way to cross the mountains near Britain and went directly to Yew before even going to Ambrosia. I was very confused by the gargoyle's dialog there. Normally, Lord British is supposed to remove a magical wall in a cave near Britain for Avatar to pass but in my first playthrough I completely skipped that part by parkouring :) I never finished the game as I lost interest in the game loop towards the later dungeons which got way too weird but as I said I really enjoyed the visuals and the world and I was happy that we got to play another Ultima game.
By the way, nice review as always. Hope you will post more stuff!
I've always headcanoned wolves and other beasts in RPGs carrying weapons, armor, gold, etc, as them having eaten an adventurer or the likr
Hungry wolves and beasts in this game. 💀
Will say, for the museum, it depends on the premise that the museum is a reliable narrator. It'd make complete sense for a random tapestry weaver/painter to retcon the Avatars appearance in the first 3 game to match the one they're familiar with. And the artefacts could just be replicas.
The Pagan references make no sense though, unless you really do a bunch of odd backend justifications that somehow his actions on Pagan were magically observed and noted.
Good fun watching you play through this on Twitch.
Aside from most of the dungeons and story it was fun playing it. 💀
@@VoidbrandGallery Only thing I was hoping you'd mention about the walk speed was the strafing, especially when in Ambrosia.
The graphics and general look reminds me of Gothic.
Gothic was on my mind while playing this. I remember people back around then saying it was Ultima IX if it was done right.
Surely the guys at Piranha Bytes were big Ultima fans and inspired by it.@@VoidbrandGallery
Man i love your channel and i never played Ultima games
Favourite part of this game was a lore book came with the game discs. 10yrs old me read it over and over so many times.
I still got the two books and the fabric map that came with it.
"The Codex of Ultimate Wisdom?"
If you said that in U9 that animals carrying gold is weird, in Fallout 4 I found a roach carrying a Fatman launcher.
My biggest problem with the game at release aside from the bugs and Crash to Desktop was the sense of scale. The world was WAY too small due to limitations in hardware at the time, and that took me out of it too much. I'd rather work in zones like Everquest than jog across the continent in about 2 minutes.
Thanks for video.
I played Ultima IX only until approx Gargoyle City, after that my interest faded, because the crashes and some problems with my Voodoo2 card was nagging me.
You're welcome. 💀 I think up to that point that's the "best" the game can offer.
I hate the contrived nonsense that The Guardian was in some way related to the Avatar or his deeds. It makes the game series feel small and predestined.
I remember reading an in-game book in the Lycaeum in Ultima VI (??) where some wizard speculated about how moongates are completely unguarded wide open two-way doorways, that while benevolent Britannians frequently use them to travel between worlds, so too can other, possibly malevolent entities use them to find Britannia, and that we must use them cautiously at all times.
It essentially was a warning that something like the Guardian might be coming, though in the context of the game the reader may have misinterpreted it to refer to the Gargoyles (as the game opens with them kidnapping the Avatar through a moongate).
I like that impression of the Guardian better. He is simply a malevolent extra-dimensional entity, the Destroyer of Worlds, with no connection to the Avatar. He simply sees Britannia as the next random world to conquer (or destroy, whichever's easier), he needs no rosey rationale for his conquests. He is absolute and unrelenting, like a force of nature, and the goal of each game was not to defeat him but to simply weather his onslaughts.
The only game that offers a peek into the Guardian's biography and history is Ultima Underworld II, in which the Avatar actually gets a firsthand look at other worlds the Guardian has conquered, and sees how they fare (for better or worse.... usually worse) after he is done with them.
The Guardian being an instance of the Avatar's cleansed anti-virtues invalidates all of this. He is no longer the Destroyer of Worlds, now he's just a scorned aspect of the Avatar's split personality, which is less interesting. And if that's the case, why did he wait 200 years to come back if that was his intention all along?
I like that interpretation of the Guardian better. That bit about Ultima Underworld II is why I like that game so much, despite only having played it about a year ago for the first time.
'What's a Paladin?'
The world may never know
Richard Garriot and Chris Roberts both got in over their head, as the complexity of the games increased, origin was no longer able to manage such large projects.
I disagree. I would counter argue they got in over their heads trying to make large games the EA way. With 20+ years of hindsight and a large trail of dead gaming companies under EA it seems to be a common problem.
Nah, Garriott just got his bag from EA and stopped caring.
Well... that answers my earlier question on your other video. And to think, all I had to do was visit your channel page and look around. Just the way games should be: exploratory.
Still love Ultima VII after all these years because of it. 💀 But yeah, the best parts in this game is the overworld exploration, honestly.
As a hardcore fan since Ultima VII, I felt mostly the same playing the game.
Great job, as always! Do you plan to cover Underworld Ascendant? Or Shroud of the Avatar?
Thanks. 💀 Ascendant I might, but probably not SotA.
Id be interested in an Ascendant video. I was a 'decent' contributor to both Kickstarters. While I didn't enjoy SotA in the end, I always felt like they delivered a game, which is still running today and have no animosity there. (Honestly I think there's a decent single player game in there if Catnip would ever strip all the online stuff out of it and release it as simply a single player)
Ascendant on the other hand I have much, much hatred towards. 😅@@VoidbrandGallery
I heard almost nothing good about Ascendant! It's a shame it turned out that way, but I may play it eventually. Just not sure when. 💀@@CaptainXJ
I feel like the plot outlined in the PDF is a bit more satisfying than the one that we got, but it does feel a bit uninspired and wrote.
Maybe it's my bias, but I thought that the most interesting way to interpret The Guardian was as another player character: essentially being the version of the Avatar that did all the reprehensible things that the player is permitted to do, such as setting off the armageddon spell for the sake of it.
Personally, I thought it could be interesting to see what another person from earth with the ability to cross dimensions would do if they were to treat the world like a toy and used their position to corrupt and undermine the integrity of the universes they passed through.
If every person's game is a distinct instance of the world, then it's logical that someone would be just like The Guardian - crossing between dimensions and deliberately destroying them for the sake of their own amusement.
Ultima is already chock full of third wall breaks and establishes the player character as a dimensional traveller and I feel like there's a really interesting way to play into that idea. How are you going to be able to do anything about The Guardian if it turns out that he's just some guy? Are you going to turn up on his doorstep? How would you explain it to the authorities that you had to kill him in order to stop him from committing genocide in a video game?
I feel like there's so much you can do with that concept: in the game you're both near omnipotent, but outside of Ultima you're bound by a system of law that doesn't recognise what is going on as a legitimate issue.
That's a good way to interpret the Guardian. At least the Bob White plot from what I read was better than what we got.
If you’re willing to explore around, there’s plenty of interesting places to find in U9 that have nothing to do with anything and are completely optional. Things like the giant village and the magic mushroom.
I remember seeing those in a YT vid a long time ago. Lots of stuff like that in this game I definitely missed out on. 💀
I feel like I was too busy with UO to ever give this one a chance.
Are you going to cover anything about Shroud of the Avatar? The last I heard about it was sometime after watching the Spoony Ultima IX review and that it had a successful crowd sourcing campaign.
Probably not, not into MMOs much anymore. Josh Strife Hayes and Kira did good videos on them though.
Skipping Ultima VIII seems to be a good solution to a lot of the plot issues! :-)
I've played every other game in the series, but gave up on VIII after a short while because I just wasn't having fun, partially because of the jumping.
There certainly are still plot issues in IX that are noticeable without the context of Ultima VIII. I think my experience got off on more of a right foot because I didn't notice the lack of continuity with the ending of VIII which I think made the other issues seem less significant to me.
Ultima online has been my MMORPG first lovr and still is.Public Shards are still going strong.
Definitely a unique MMO. Glad to see public shards still reliving that experience back then.
@@VoidbrandGallery The official.shards are nothing like it use to be in the late 90s early 2ks. I remember having a hour lunch from work.didnt even eat had to hop on UO.
Sorry, I just hate UO... Freaking MMO like UO and the devs who shifted forward to it, is what killed the single cRPG market for Ultima. I just hated how the devs & the publisher attempted outsourced everything towards UO and Ultima 8&9 were left in shambles and we never get another decent Ultima game, let alone another spinoffs like World of Ultima & Underworld, since 😔
Ascension was my first Ultima, I haven't even heard of the series before.
It didn't run on the first computer we had, just after some upgrades later. Somehow, I got used to the crashes and the occassional extreme lag very fast. Later, with more expectations towards games, trying to make the game truly playable via all the patches was an adventure by itself.
To this day, this is among the games I have played the most. Also, breaking it is very fun!
Of course, other adventure was realizing how "not Ultima" it is. I knew right from the start that questions like "What is a Gargoyle" would flip long time fans of the game out, I just didn't suspect that the case was this serious.
Yours and others experience with Ascension was like mine with King's Quest VIII: Mask of Eternity. I found the gameplay fine in this one even today.
@@VoidbrandGallery I know that long time fans can hate me for this and Spoony would get a rage attack for reading this, but I still like Ultima IX, even if I hate EA and the new UIX developers, too.
The story and gameplay that promises more than what it shows really moved my fantasy when I play this in middle school for first time and the malleable technical execution makes for extremely fun glitch hunting even today. I should pick it up again next year.
@@CastChaos Go play Ultima 7 and you'll understand why 9 is hot garbage.
I love this game.
I quit the game after the museum. It was really weird that the Avatar had no idea what was happening.
They super killed it .. Uo outlands is the best right now period. Imo
Is it bad that I still want to play this game despite the story being lack luster? For some reason I think I'd find alot of humor in playing it, but I feel like I'd also still get frustrated from time to time. Either way great video thanks for covering these games its great to hear the lore of them.
Its understandable because it has a certain charme thanks to the old but actually alright graphics and simple gameplay . But it should be a totally different game if you ask me .
@@Snyperwolf91 yeah I agree this is really not an "ultima" game feels more like its own thing
You're welcome, thanks. 💀 I don't think it's bad thing, I tried playing it with a similar mindset.
@@zagobous9300this also what happened when project got outsourced and the potential resources for new Ultima were pulled towards Ultima Online.
Titan of Ether appears in the museum as seen at 24:10 (your point still stands tho)
Strangely it still one of my favorite game.
Nice work man. I remember being excited to get this thing home. It barely worked at the time. I think I only ever spent an hour with it. Awful disappointment. Interesting that it was actually playable with the patch and seeing how it played and how the story progressed, makes me think the game did me a favor by not working out of the box all those years ago.
What could have been.
Thanks. 💀 I managed to finish it back then, but don't remember it crashing on me so much.
“Codex of ultimate wisdom???”
Cool video.
The thing about this game, I kind of like the gfx and the style. This could have been so good! 😢
It honestly really has a good style to it. Mind blowing graphics at the time.
Love your videos! Keep up the awesome work! Your channel is such a vibe!
I’ve always been so curious about the Ultima games. I actually have quite a few of them on GOG but never got around to playing them yet. Are there any good recommendations to start my Ultima journey? Or should I start from the beginning? (I don’t mind how dated the gameplay on first few are)
Thanks, Snake. Appreciate the comment. 💀
If you don't mind 'archaic' keyboard controls, the series really started with Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar. The first 3 games you can honestly safely skip, but they're worth a try at least if you happen to get through IV and beyond, and you're enjoying yourself. I mention you can skip them because you don't get anything out of them story-wise. They're interesting to see how early Ultima developed. Like Ultima I & II were solo adventurers, in III you can create your own party, etc.
It's also worth mentioning that there's a console version of Ultima IV on the Sega Master System. It plays very well with a controller. If I ever replayed it it would be with that version.
VII is when Ultima gets more 'user-friendly'. Full mouse control vs keyboard controls of the previous games. There's a really good program called Exult that still gets updates to this day so it can run on modern computers instead of using DOSBox.
Ultima VI has Nuvie which lets you use the mouse like VII, but there's a Ultima VI mod for Exult now. Not sure if it's finished yet, but I've been meaning to check it out.
Didn't mean to make this long, but if you're not enjoying IV at all, give V, VI, then VII a try.
Ah, the joys of corporate overreach…
As a side note: anyone who hasnt tried UO: Outlands should check it out! Its how UO *should* have developed, imho. Perfect addition if that classic pre-tram feel with brand new systems if progression and power gain
Ultima Online, is still, the greatest game I’ve ever played.
I made it to the dungeon after the gargoyle city and then it got stuck in a loop of crashing and I couldn't continue. I think the game did me a favour lol. My favourite part was the hooker, "want to party?" "Sure!"
The Avatar's voice actor (whose name is literally J.C. Shakespeare) really makes that scene.
Props for getting the game to boot at all. The GOG version crashes constantly on my main PC, and trying to install the game from the original ISO images on my period-correct machine freezes at the installer on every attempt. It's as if the game is trying to save me from it.
There were some stretches where I had no crashes, and others where it crashed at odd times. It's like it UIX wants to run when it feels like it.
I find that its the same in novels, when they add extra dialog to fill in readers that may not have read the previous books, extra info to help then catch up. The same can be said for the Avatar being ignorant. Maybe the point is, if you know the answer in U9, If you know what a paladin is, for example, dont ask the question. I'm guessing nothing important was locked behind these ignorant questions.
Wait a second, i want to see more of Richard Garriott addressing "what's a paladin".
Where did you find that?!
They're from PirateCanvas' interview with RG, I put the links in the description with timestamps.
I remember being immersed in this game (and only had Bug in Britain so tried to stay away from there as much as I can).
But after finishing the entire MoonGlow Arc and chatting with Mariah, I was pretty much tired of it. Constant weak quests/dialogue got boring fast, plus, how many more times shall we clean a shrine ? A bit of variety would've been nice. I soldiered thru, of course, but what a letdown the ending was. I preferred Ultima8 over it, no questions asked.
But you're right, IMHO this game was "scrapped" to make room for UO. And it's a real shame. Not a fan of the original ending from Bob White either tho but IMHO it's better.
I feel destroying/loosing Britannia after fighting so hard to keep it safe for so long is very sour. The only reason I'd ever agree with it would be if Ultima games continued well after that for quite a few titles and we help rebuild the New Britannia world. Like this time, we're the exiles, the refugies, and even tho we have a titan of ether and a few power characters (LB being one), we're on a strange land and have to survive... Feels very much like an early settler's feel in a fantasy/magic setting, now that would rock.
Seeing how bad gaming turned after the early 2000's tho, we pretty much dodged a bullet. At least IMHO.
Thanks for the retrospective, now I have quite a few more to watch from your channel.
Also subscribed as I hope you will replay thru U9 with dialogue and other patches as I don't want to miss that ( I never ever played U9 again after this one time.)
-- Enlightenment Dragon.
Thanks for the comment. I never thought I'd play this ever again tbh. Was "interesting" to experience it again. Back then I played it once and I guess that was enough, because I never automatically thought about it again.
The other plot seemed 8/10 there, some refinement and I would've been a decent send off to the series.
Definitely a step or 2 above what we got at least.
46:54 Every other game combined has 343 entries, Ultima IX has 506 entries. I've not checked why U7 has 101 entries, but wow, U9 really ran up the numbers here.
They did, it's pretty impressive.
That was a great video, I wish the series ended the way it deserved unlike this
Me too.
Haven’t played the game but could those museum exhibits just be replicas?
Ever considered doing some of the old jrpgs from the Super Nintendo era like lufia or Breath of Fire
Love Breath of Fire. If the CRPG roster got tapped dry I'd like to, just don't know when.
This is the game that took my childhood and shit all over it and then walked away.
And why can you not smash the display case holding the Skull of Mondain, and then use it to end all life in Britania?
That would actually be a cool way to end the Guardian too.
🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
i kinda understand why they made it that the Avatar asked that stuff, so that new players would understand the backstory. The way they did it was just so poorly made
It really makes the Avatar look like a dunce. The Bob White plot had a better way of going about it I think.
Perhaps one day, someone will create the game that should have happened.
I mostly just like this game for it's gameplay, because it reminds me of how an elder scrolls game plays. But for it's story, yeah its more like a fanfic of ultima than it would be an actual installment. Someone should take the original story and make it into a skyrim mod.
I also gotta wonder why the avatar has a pirate roaming around in his backyard on earth. And a giant spider and giant rat. The wolves I'll accept.
And then he dropped the same outro xD
In each Ultima game, you start as a zero, otherwise there would be no progression.
Yeah. I know. It's mentioned in VII (even talked about it in that video). You've misunderstood what I said if I know what you're referring to. I explained it pretty clearly with my Nystul explanation, with the Avatar coming into his own as he grows himself into the Titan of Ether with my spell examples. Of course there's going to be progression.
am I the only one that loved this game? but then again I havent played it since release and my only experience with Ultima before this was 8 and Underworld...
And my english wasnt the best back then so I didnt really follow the story...
Not at all. There's players out there who love this game, especially if it was their first Ultima.
There were screenshots of an earlier version of Ultima IX which was apparently scrapped before being rebuilt completely to be 3D and have the new perspective. I thought that earlier version looked awesome; more like your classic Ultima. What we got instead was just hot garbage.
Anybody else remembrers the crazy pc specs req for this game back in the days ? =)
I'm surprised I was able to run it at all back then.
I almost had a stroke when I read 256 of RAM ahah@@VoidbrandGallery
Honestly? If the explanation for The Guardian had been "He was an evil brought into the world to balance the good that was created when you became the Avatar." rather than "He was the evil you cast off" or whatever, that part of the plot would be fine.
Everything else about the plot of the game was just... not good.
I would like to have a path trscing mod for this game, like for Quake 2.
5:50 What's a paladin?
One of the worst bugs, is the mine in minoc.
You had a miracle pc if ultima 9 did not crash constantly for you, it was literally unplayable on my pc at release I could barely get out of the tutorial.
Do you plan to review Ultima V Lazarus and Ultima VII Project by any chance? :)
I've heard of Lazarus. Interested in playing it, but no plans yet. Never heard of Project.
@@VoidbrandGallery There is also Ultima VI on Exult! You should check it out :)
@@VoidbrandGallery U6 project also utilises the Dungeon Siege platform. Recommended to check them out when you got some spare time
You need to play Moonring, by the way. If you can afford it.
Been looking into checking that out actually. Free is a good price. 💀
Whats a paladin?
I'm not entirely sure.
i tried to do some mods for this