Ultima Series major plot flaws Ultima 7 to 9

[EmpressOfFire]

So i decided to try my hand at Ultima 9 again ... hehe ye right with all the gazillion bugs in that game. Youll be lucky if you can even get past the first alter cleansing. which is exactly what i couldn`t but thats not the point of this post.

Playing ultima 7 serpent isle once again, think this is my 3rd time, this time with exults version. but i cannot help notice the major inconsitences with the later games... like where is the Avatar`s wolf tatoo, and what happend to gender selection. also after serpent isle the guadian drops you off on pagen (this is how its spelled right?) only for some odd reason you lose your Serpent gear and now have this dorky looking armor and helmet. and like i mentioned for some reason, your automatically male. Despit the fact that the previous 3 games or so before had the avatar as male or female. for ultima 9 i can understand the choice for male only since the voice over dialog but ultima 8 ... meh

it was most likely a good thing they cancelled ultima 10, specially with the sorry state that ultima 9 was in. no mannor of patching could possibliy save that game.

I`m somewhat sad that the ultima series never really got into the next generation, with the loss of lord british in ultima online his castle just feels empty.

[Haside]

You mean another plaque fell on his head, or the fact that during the beta stage of Ultima Online someone managed to KILL Lord British?

[Earthquake Damage]

I think he's referring to the fact that LB is no longer active. He doesn't effectively exist anymore, alive or dead.

[Wizardry Dragon]

Richard Garriot isn't active in Ultima Online anymore, nor has he been for some time, rather, he's been working on other projects.

It'd be nice to see him do another Ultima, of course, and he would have a huge market But, truth is, I think Ultima as an official franchise is probably over.

What has some potential (that may or may not be capitalised on where EA holds the rights now) is the alternative worlds sort of thing that we saw in Savage Empire, Martian Dreams, and the Underworld series (kinda). Those would be a lot more viable, canon-wise and probably finance wise, but even if Richard were interested (he's commented to that effect from time to time, even), EA holds the rights, and they have them in a death-grip

We can always dream, though.

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon

[rprice]

A lot of people like this think Ultima 9 never existed. I think it's best you did the same.

[Wizardry Dragon]

Love it or hate it, Ascension was an Ultima. I know which side of that fence I'm on though

Cheers,
Wizardry Dragon


ps. Sooo not worrying about whether TFL 'works' with Pagan or Ascension >.>

[Anon]

I half wonder if The Guardian was meant as a secret jab at EA, to act as both his storyline self as well as a metaphor for EA destroying the Ultima games.
EA has been coming out with a few better games lately, but their habit of buying companies for their rights and letting them die out is absolute bullshit. As a business company it makes sense and is very smart so I can't blame them. On the other hand, I'm a gamer and they've fucked me out of a lot of games that never were as a result of their buy outs.

Not that it makes a difference, but I made up for it by making sure I always download, never buy their games.

[EnigmaticPantalones]

Half Wonder?

I don't think there is a "half wonder" about it:

- Elizabeth & Abraham = E.A.
- Cube, Sphere and Tetrahedron generators. Shapes which made up the original EA logo. (http://dfwmifv.tripod.com/ea_logo_bk.gif)
- The Guardian was the "Destroyer of Worlds" wherein Origin Systems tag line was "We Create Worlds."
- Finally, the Guardian's first monologue seems to have been some kind of real world ominous fortune telling if he was, in fact, and allegory for EA:

"Avatar! Know that Britannia has entered into a new age of enlightenment! Know that the time has finally come for the one true Lord of Britannia to take His place at the head of His people! Under my guidance, Britannia will flourish. And all the people shall rejoice and pay homage to their new... Guardian! Know that you, too, shall kneel before me, Avatar. You, too, shall soon acknowledge my authority - for I shall be your companion... your provider... and your master!"

Regardless of the game industry politics at the time, of which I am woefully unaware, it does seem to me that all signs point to, Yes... yes the Guardian was a secret jab at EA.

[bobisimo]

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/01 ... is-ultima/

Garriot says, "I think that if, by hook or by crook, I had access to that property, either in solo-player or multiplayer, I would absolutely love to continue to play in the Ultima universe."

[Kensu]

Also remember, one of the words that was supposed to trigger the "How didst thou ever becomst an Avatar with that sort of language?" was "electronic arts", though for some reason it doesn't work in-game (it only shows up in the data file with the rest of the swear words)

For those who've never seen the list, it's in Data.ovl around line 925C.

[T. J. Brumfield]

The Ultima series is full of inconsistencies and ret-cons. Most gamers today have probably never played an early Ultima, if they played an Ultima at all.

RG should talk to EA about rebooting the Ultima franchise. Don’t attempt to shoe-horn in an odd sequel post-U9 (such as the second UO2 project).

When RG was very first talking Tabula Rasa, one of his goals was to allow a small group of players to interact with each other, and have their own stories. His discussions led to other MMOs developing “instances” in their games.

MMOs are a very difficult field to develop a strong story where individuals take the center stage. Since EA bought Bioware, I think RG should talk to EA about utilizing the Dragon Age toolset and engine. EA doesn’t have to pay to license it, since they own Bioware.

Imagine gameplay akin to BG and BG2 where you can play online with your friends in a party, but gameplay would be very much like a traditional single player game. And with the toolset, you can make your own modules and tell your own stories.

If he hires a team to remake Ultima I with the Dragon Age engine and toolset, then he will be able to reuse most of his work in Ultima II and Ultima III.

The big problem is that RG is a perfectionist who wants to create insanely large worlds, and EA likes to keep under budget and meet ship dates. If he can reuse resources and knock out a trilogy, then EA might be more liberal in allowing him to take his time on the first game.

In fact, RG should look to do this under the Bioware banner. Bioware opened a studio in Austin, hiring many former Origin devs. It really would be the perfect place for him.

[Oblivious]

^^There could possibly be some hope of that considering that the evil CEO Larry Probst is gone and replaced with someone who actually seems to be nice, though a tad incompetent. It was in '91 that Trip Hawkins (original EA CEO) stepped back from his company and took only a minor role, and in '94 he left the company to Larry Probst. That is when EA started trying to buy out their competition, and it continued until around '06 when he left. EA has since ceased (for the most part) in attempts to purchase big-name development studios. 91 was also IIRC when EA really started becoming a rotten company.

I've also heard that The Fellowship was also a jab at the Church of Scientology without actually violating their copyrights, and that certainly shows as well with the Triad of Inner Strength vs. the ARC triangle and such. BTW, whenever I think of Xenu, the image of the Guardian appears in my mind.

There were some jabs at Trip Hawkins in U5 and 6 as well. In U6 of course he was a pirate so evil that his crew conspired to murder him. In U5 he was a crooked shipwright who ran a sweatshop consisting of child slave labor.

[T. J. Brumfield]

BTW, my random theory on why all the "races" disppeared from Sosaria (HUGE plot hole in the Ultima series) is that when the flow of Ether is strongly disrupted, it affects the world in major ways. We see continents disappear, islands rise and fall. I've always assumed that between inter world travel, major events in Ether, time travel and the like, that there was enough paradox to alter Sosaria in ways that people living in Sosaria can't detect. Starting with Ultima I, you see a time period when people are starting to fear and outlaw magic, and perhaps for good reason in a world where there are Armageddon spells. As magic faded in popularity, was banned and feared, and became unstable at times to the point where it threatened to destroy the world (damned Chaos Serpents and imbalance storms) magical races ceased to exist, or left via moongates to areas where they'd be safer. The only ones with enough awareness to remember the races existed in the first place would be the Wisps.

I always wanted to see the Wisps make mention of how different Sosaria once was, and how no one in Britannia seems to notice how majorly the world has changed.

[Oblivious]

Actually, the change in landscape via violent earthquakes is mentioned in the guide books from Ultimas 4-6. Particularly the U4 guide book it mentions a violent upheaval of the land that changed Sosaria to Brittania. The earthquakes are only mentioned in-game in Ultima 6 since it pertains to the main plot.

[Oblivious]

As for plot flaws/inconsistencies, there used to be a site dedicated to just that (it started with just U9 inconsistencies) I have some of it printed out somewhere; maybe the Internet Wayback Machine can be used to find it.
Anyway, one of the inconsistencies involves how some Brittanians can live for such a long time. At first one might think that only the Brittanians that originate from earth possess such longevity until you consider that Shamino is a native Sosarian.

[Andrea B Previtera]

I've always thought this way: longevity applies both to people coming from other worlds, and some mages.

Shamino comes from the Serpent Isle and I still have to understand whether it's a separate world or not. Given that in U7 when you sail through a border of the map, your position in the world wraps to the other edge, Britannia should occupy the whole planet and so the Serpent Isle should be elswhere.

[nissar]

I always believed that the four lands are still on the same planet, but different "realities" or "dimentions" (not sure how to call it) which could explain why Shamino doesn't age that much.

[Scythifuge]

I blame -ALL- of the Ultima weirdness on the disruptions in the ether/space-time-continuum caused by Mondain and Minax, and later the Guardian, the latter which causes Britannia to continue to suffer...

In reality though, it was failure to review each previous game while making a new one and a lack of keeping or reviewing Ultima notes. Technical limitations can also be blamed, for example the limited size of Ultima VII's map.

[nissar]

That's the answer, every plot flaw is Exodus's fault

[T. J. Brumfield]

Sosaria was once 4 major continents. Britannia is only one of those four. The Serpent Isle is just another one of those four continents. After Ultima III - Exodus, however, the other three continents were basically lost. Except for the fact that apparently they knew they could reach the Serpent Isle by passing through magical pillars.

[-]

More like they were lost after U1 (more specifically, when the Gem of Immortality was destroyed). The U3 Sosaria is just post-U1 Lands of Lord British.

[Natreg]

About the races disappearing, most of them did not really just die.

Let's see, the dwarfs were few, but stayed alive as seen in Ultima Underworld.

As the plot of Ultima X says, the elves just left Sosaria (and yeah even though it did not come out, I consider UX story mostly because it tried to explain plotholes of Ultima IX in some interesting ways)

that leaves Bobbits and Fuzzys (was that the name?). The Bobbits are not explained, and the fuzzys very well could be the Emps.

A race not appearing in a game does not make them extinct or a plothole. The Emps were introduced later, but sure they were around for a long time.

[Scythifuge]

I always viewed the Emps to be a remnant population of Fuzzies. One must assume that the Underworld Colony collapsed as it is gone after that game, so maybe the dwarves perished or left the realm through a moongate/pillars/undiscovered by humans method of travel...

[nissar]

The goblins were alive not only in Underworld but in Serpent Isle.

[alagner]

While playing SI recently I had the following dilemma:

In SI near Gorlab there are ruins called Swamp Temple or Swamp Cathedral [you know, the one with red entrance to the place looking like Furnace with aggressive gargoyles inside]. I can understand that the strange tower [the one with wooden bridge leading to a fountain inside the swamp] can be a remnant of the old Town of Gorlab [though I'm not really convinced, to be honest], but what about that strange building?

I can understand Naga Temple as well as ancient Ophidian ruins, the same way is the house with dead family attacked by boars acceptable, but whatta heck is this Swamp Temple for?
I know, probably for freedom of exploring, but the whole idea is at least weird - neither I can think of any logical reason for erecting it, nor about the ones who could have built it.

Any ideas?

[Oblivious]

About the Avatar's tattoo, Geoffrey stated that the Avatar's body returns to the way it originally was when he/she travels between worlds, so that could explain the loss of the tattoo despite that it was an obvious inconsistency. The loss of equipment, not so much since we see in both Ultima 5 and Serpent Isle that equipment does indeed transfer between worlds (though why the Avatar brought run of the mill armor back home with him/her rather than the mystic arms I have no idea. Or maybe they're modern weapons and armor from a ren-faire)

[Incriptus]

As for being un-equiped in pagan I always assumed that everything (except for your log book) was lost when you fell into the ocean

[Oblivious]

You can find a whole list of inconsistencies on Hacki's site.

[Scythifuge]

I would think that the Guardian would strip the Avatar of all equipment before dropping him/her off on a world he has already conquered.