Ultima Forever is now taking beta sign-ups

[VisElEchNon]

Go here NAO!!!

[What now?]

The artwork is too WoW-ish for me, but I registered anyway. And what am I supposed do now? Wait for a email? After registering, all what I see is a link that takes me to the Bioware home page. I tried going back to the Ultima Forever home page, but I don't appear as logged on, and there's no login function in there that I can see.

[Dominus]

Wait for the beta phase to begin. My educated guees is that right now it is still in alpha stage.

For further questions, please contact EA, Bioware, whoever. We are not here for troubleshooting Ultima Forever

[VisElEchNon]

Yeah it's still in alpha. I'm not sure how long until the actual beta begins but I'd guess not too much longer.

[TDI]

Doesn't look like Ultima to me

[monotremata]

Alpha was 'over' as of midnight today.. Seemed pretty short, only lasted for 3 days or so..

[VisElEchNon]

Yup three days. Apparently that was long enough to give us a taste and to get a bunch of feedback. Let's see what they do with it.

[Dominus]

Let me remind you of your nda (if you signed it) which only allows you to say that there is/was an alpha test and that you take/took part in it. Pleasehonor that here

[VisElEchNon]

Well, I don't think they're gonna care that I confirmed it lasted three days, but you're right. Thanks for the smack to the head.

[Dominus]

Yes, I don't think so either, just wanted to remind you before more slips out

[monotremata]

Good call Dominus! That window was too short for me and I didnt even actually get to participate. I signed up again for the betas just in case I got dropped for not giving any feedback..

Got the Mac Pro bootcamped yesterday with Win 7 so hopefully my system specs are up to par.. Luckily I cant play Diablo III with this crappy Geforce 7300 or I wouldnt be getting anything done haha..

[Mortegro]

I saw WoWish and was turned off instantly

[VisElEchNon]

Give it a shot. All the games these days are going to WoW styled graphics, it doesn't mean they're bad games... though some still are bad of course...

[Scythifuge]

No. Wow graphics=not an Ultima.

I have said it before & I will say it again. It is up to the ULTIMA COMMUNITY to keep Ultima alive. I simply cannot rely on a company to do its homework & deliver us a worthy successor.

Canon Ultima (save for Runes of Virtue which was meant for little kids) games were ALWAYS serious within their era based capabilities.

Ultima VII & unarguably VIII set the standard. The Underworld games were quite serious in both tone & visual display. Ultima V for the period perfectly captured a medieval fantasy world under a totalitarian dictatorship. Ultima VI looked bright due to the new VGA graphics & the happy ideal of Britannia under the threat of an alien invasion.

Ultima IV, while ancient by today's graphic standards, creates an almost perfect atmosphere WITH STICK FIGURES. The music was perfect. The gameplay & the feelings felt while playing are to this day, absolutely magickal. Britannia truly felt like a changed world after the cataclysm of Ultima III. The game is unique in scope & execution.

Remaking Ultima IV with WoW graphics is both an insult & a mistake.

[Dominus]

Please, no holy wars here about whether a true ultima or not. Especially not if you just make it dependent on the graphics.
Also U4e is not a u4 remake as far as I understood.

[VisElEchNon]

Yeah that's kinda hard to define based on the interviews given. I think U4E is a remake "in spirit" because it sends you on the Quest of the Avatar (or "for" the Avatar.) In reality I think it's more of a sequel/reboot/alternate-universe type thing. They wanted to use the Quest but couldn't just do an outright remake so this was the compromise, I believe.

And none of that violates my NDA because it's all available in the interviews. XD

[Scythifuge]

You are right Dominus, My apologies. I have a lot of passion when it comes to the Ultima series & when I learned of the WoW graphics I became slightly agitated.

From everything that I have read, the game is a remake/sequel hybrid.

[Pioneer Dragon]

Looks like they are taking sign-ups for Beta again.

[Cobalt]

They'll shoot down Gariott but allow crap like this to run a muck smfh.

[Dominus]

Blub blub blub