Exult Forum

Hi Pentagram-Team,

just read that 'Anonymous', who claims to be a developer of U8, still has
the full source of it.

http://www.exodusmachine.net/viewtopic. ... &forum=2&8

Maybe owning this could help a bit building a working engine. Also I guess it's quite more effective owning the code than reverse engineering it.

Just in case someone is interested.

The problem is that when we get the source from someone (unless we get the source from EA with an appropriate license), it would pretty much make it legally impossible to continue working on pentagram. (I'm no lawyer, though)

...and I don't really have any hopes of EA giving away source :/
(let alone for use in an open-source project)


That said, I would sure like to get it

technically reverse engineering it is no different, by decompiling the original code you in effect DO have the source code, just in assembler. Anyways the best use I can see of the source code is to see how certain things work and then write your own code based on how it works, as far as I can tell that is legal... not to mention you don't have to tell anyone you have the source code while your creating it

I didn't say, ask EA. This guy obviously was or is still working for them and does not want anyone to know who he is. He is just trying to help the Ultima community cause he loves his work and the work people are still willing to put in it, so others can enjoy it. He offered it to the Exile team, though I guess you could make much more use of it than they; they are 'just' rebuilding the game, while you try to reengineer it(or whatever you want to call it.)
It's not like you get the code and the next minute some EA-special agents jump off your roof..
I just thought this might help you in your pentagram progress, I hate the random crashes in XP and it doesn't work in Linux, so I run out of options. Also I don't like playing in Linux.

R.Garriot helps the Lazarus team, this guy helps the Exile team(perhaps its RG? who knows), you are now working on 3 multiplatform engines, you should also get some help.
(And hurry up with NUVIE, I want to play it finally!! J/K)

Reverse engineering is legal though to create interoperatable software. However, the U8 source code would be technically stolen ip. If we even look at it, work on Pentagram, and EA finds out, we could be in big trouble.

So, of course, if you did have it, and were using it to improve Pentagram, you certainly wouldn't tell us. (nudge, nudge / wink, wink)

This guy doesn't work for EA any more, and he is NOT Richard Garriott.

I don't think it is safe for the Pentagram team to discuss the Ultima 8 source code openly here... and I DO want to see an Ultima 8 engine, not legal trouble here.

That said, at what point is development of the Pentagram Ultima 8 engine?

We're currently in planning and initial coding. We've decoded a lot of the fileformats and have a pretty good idea of what we want things to look like (internally).

I've been kind of busy with studying the last month, so progress is a bit slow. Should speed up again soon, though.

I see. Any idea when we'll be able to taste the Pentagram engine the first time?

You can already to a certain extent, the cvs has a semi-functioning engine
at the moment, provided all you want to see is effectively a graphical
console with what looks like a screen shot from u8 in the background.
*grin*

There's also maps/shapes viewers and other tools for download
from the downloads page too, which are what we built to build
pentagram on... or something like that. *grin*

Well, this is what Pentagram currently looks like:

Good afternoon. I just came across this thread, and would LOVE to get my hands on the original Pagan source code from the anonymous developer. I am in no way associated with Pentagram or EA/Origin, and my interest is purely for greedy nostalgia purposes because Pagan remains to this day one of my favorite games of all time.

Congratulations fir necro posting in a 12 years old thread!
Not to mention that the guy with the source code never posted here. Good luck! Thread closed.