Does anybody know if the gold box "EA Classics" version of Ultima 8 includes the "speech pack"? I remember seeing this add on for sale a long time ago for around $15. I haven't finished the game yet, but so far, "speech" has been limited to the guardian during the intro ("You have been a thorn in my side for far too long, Avatar..."), and the Avatar occasionally grunting when hit and going "Whoah!" when teetering on the edge of some ledge or cliff.
I saw mention in the IRC logs here that there should be speech for the Titans. So far, I have heard nary a peep from them (I have gotten as far as becoming a sorcerer acolyte, so I have spoken to Lithos, Hydros, Stratos, and witnessed the failed binding of Pyros). Does the speech kick in later in the game??
I can't believe that an add-on that Origin tried to shill for $15-20 would be limited to speech in the intro, finalie, and the Avatar doing his best Keanu Reeves impersonation. I would have expected something more along the lines of Baldur's Gate in terms of speech content. Am I wrong about this?
Finally, I just wanted to give a shout out to Colourless: As a fellow C/C++ programmer, I just wanted to say that that sfx decompressor for Pentagram you wrote is VERY COOL. If I owned a software company, I'd hire you on the spot! Sadly, I don't even have a spare copy of Ultima to give to you, so you'll have to make do with just praise.
Did Origin really leave debugging symbols in U8.exe? Otherwise, I have no clue how you would have found the decompression function entry point. Talk about not following "best practices", sheesh. Even I remember to strip debug symbols from the beta/production release