What is it?

Ultima VII, an RPG from the early 1990's, still has a huge following. But, being a DOS game with a very non-standard memory manager, it is difficult to run it on the latest computers. Exult is a project to create an Ultima VII game engine that runs on modern operating systems, capable of using the data and graphics files that come with the game.

News

Code Stolen!

Someone has hacked into the servers of the Exult team and has stolen the sources of Exult. When asked for a reaction, the Exult development team said they were shocked that someone would take advantage of their years of hard work like this. Several of the programmers are reported to have quit working on Exult because of this. As a consequence, the upcoming release of Exult version 1.2 has been delayed at least six months. Willem Jan Palenstijn, Exult developer, commented: "I never would have expected somebody to do anything like this. I always thought the community around Exult was a great one; this experience really taught me something about human nature. It still feels like a really bad joke to me."

The Exult team has contacted the authorities and is working with them to trace the perpetrator. The prime suspect of this theft is James Brown, who is known online using the hacker alias "Ender". He is rumoured to have accessed the source on a regular basis over the last several years, only to make his move earlier today. It has come to our attention that "Ender" may have close ties to a rogue development team of which we have no details other than that it is called "Cabal". Most likely this individual did not work alone and certain Exult programmers may be facing expulsion from the team as a result of this.

Exult users should be warned that because of the intrusion, the latest version of Exult (1.1.10rc2) may have been compromised and could contain trojans. The Exult team is in the process of verifying the integrity of the latest release.

If you have any evidence that may help us resolve this incident, please contact the Exult team at exult-general@lists.sourceforge.net.