Of Origins and Starting Over

[William]

I'm posting this off the cuff, so bear with any inconsistencies or bruskness of my presentation.

I've been reading the theories posted here about the origin of the Guardian and clues about changed or incomplete quests in the data files for various Ultimas. I want to compliment the people contributing to these threads that you are very observant on issues of Ultima continuity and are incredibly creative when it comes to speculating about the empty or contradictory spots in the games put out by Origin.

I was speculating about some of these same concepts and contradictions in the Ultima universe but I concluded that there's no point in trying to tie up the loose ends. Commercially, it's trapped by the fact that EA still owns and can enforce copyrights and trademarks on almost anything Ultima related. And since we're dealing with a creative work (not just code) continuing a story that was created by someone else could be just as problematic as trying to create your own Larry Totter novel that used Ms. Rowland's characters and situations even if you avoided any of her actual prose.

A much better expense of time and effort would be made by starting over with a new premise and building a new world using the Exult engine. Of course, until new artwork and sounds are made it couldn't be distributed, but the first step is coming up with new plots, puzzles, and stories. Initially of course we'd have to continue using the U7 art and sound while fleshing out the game. Kind of like those people who made storyboards for their action movie by photographing their Star Wars action figures, but with the full intention of one day replacing them when they've fleshed out the plot to fully define the personalities to the characters to know how to cast them.

How did I come to this conclusion? Here are two aborted story ideas that tried to use the Origin continuity.

My first idea was to remake of Ultima's I-III using the Exult engine. I have a lot of nostalgia for these games and despite their tiny worlds I speculated that if the plots of all three of the games were worked into one adventure (with three bad guys) using the Exult engine it'd lend some size and complexity to the game while allowing one rewrite some of the incongruities and even make the whole exercise of a little less monotonous in that you'd only have to do it once for all three adventures It became immediately obvious that there would be technical, legal, and continuity problems with combining these three games (Would you be required to have all three Origin games in your data folder? How could you tweak the end games to lead into each other? How could you fit the arcade outer space elements into the Exult framework?).

After thinking for a while, I concluded that it'd be more workable to have a game from the perspective of a noble young apprentice named Mina Xavier. She's a computer programmer summoned from our world by an older, powerful man. It's a world of chaos and magic, but he's worked hard to begin bringing order to it. His methods are ruthless and not terribly compassionate, but it's a noble goal to bring peace to this fuedal, warring world. As you've probably already guessed this would be a new game, heavily influenced by the plots of Ultima I-III, but told from the opposite perspective. Indeed, one of the Lords (also a summoner) would be described as being so ruthless that one dare not speak his name (for copyright reasons The quests include capturing certain creatures to try and engineer new cross-breeds in subterannean development labs. Part of the way through the game, her mentor is killed and she works to implement a communications and control system (using v2.0 of the code to the Genesis project she developed on on earth) that would keep order in his absence. In the process of developing this system, some of his extremes and excesses become apparent. The completion of her final quest brings her back to her castle where the unnamable Lord keeps sending puppet warriors to try and stop her before she can subjugate the land. The game ends when Mina choooses to sacrifice herself to the waves of opponents rather than pulling the switch to fully activate the system and elimate the unnamed Lord. Her last blog entry: "The summoner keeps sending his warriors like waves of cockroaches. They're not hard to kill yet their tenacity and blind obedience overwhelms me. I'm ready to pull the switch but their persistence gives me pause. I saw horrors in this land when we left the chaos unrestrained, but equally I've seen horrors caused by my mentor's lust for order. Who am I to decide the balance? Let the cockroaches come; I've laid a foundation of which I'm proud. Whether they choose to build on it further or tear it down should ultimately be their choice."

I like this kind of plot that takes a well-known, simplistic story and fleshes it out from the opposite perspective (like Gregory Maguire does in books like "Wicked" and "Mirror, Mirror"). It's also refreshing that it ends by choosing to loose the "big battle" rather than decimate everything. (I'm not sure that such a thing could be techncally done in a manner as satisfying as the "kill all things" games). Overall though, it still smacks heavily of a derivative work. Admittedly if no names or copyrighted material was used from the original it might be okay, but it'd be depressing for a bunch of lawyers to be called in to fight out the question: is it derivative?

I've no misconceptions that the biggest goal of Exult is to get Ultima VII working with a non-Origin engine. But in terms of creating new work with Exult and Exult studio the only sensible thing to do is to drop the continuity and names from Ultima and just start afresh. I'm not at all experienced with usecode yet, but it looks comprehensible and usable and having some ideas for plots might give me more impetus to develop small quests that can be woven into a larger story.

Let me say again that starting afresh isn't a bad comment about the worlds that Origin created. I really enjoy playing the exisiting games and get a nostalgic kick out of looking over the maps and books that created that rich playing environment. It's just that legally the continuity that's been built is either extinct or will be developed further only by EA. Letting it go is really the only option.

So enough rambling. What's a good plot idea? Well, this response has already gotten far longer than I anticipated so I'm going to put my thoughts into a followup about a backstory for a new game. If you have other ideas for different backstories I'd encourage you to also post followups or other threads. Maybe bouncing ideas off of each can come up with something nifty and challenging and worth the development effort that's a worthy equal of Ultima VII.

[SB-X]

Ultima VII already works in Exult. The biggest goal is to fix bugs and work on the development tools for . (my facts might be wrong since I'm not one of the devs, they will have to comment here)

[drcode]

At least a few people would like to create their own games. Being completely outside the Ultima universe is definitely a plus, since we'd otherwise risk violating Origin's copyrights. If you make a completely original game with ExultStudio, you could conceivably sell it commercially, as long as you include Exult's source code.

It seems like the hardest part isn't writing Usecode or coming up with a plot, but doing the artwork. One thought is to create some prototype artwork, like basic people and buildings, perhaps distributing it with ExultStudio. Once you get an interesting demo. using the free stuff, maybe it would be possible to get an artist interested in joining the project.

[William]

Here's an idea for a new continuity as a starting point...

A band of three physicists at state university have developed a portal system to visit an alternate universe. The universe is idilic, like something out of a Maxfield Parish painting come to life. It's populated with different races of creatures that aren't quite human.

After discussion amongst themselves the three physicists had a severe falling out over what to do with this discovery. From this point they've sought other inteligencia to help them use the world in the way they perceive it best. While still in disagreement with the proper way to deal with their discovery, the only thing the three can agree is that their technology will remain their knowledge to prevent complication with other perspectives for now.

The three factions are easy to explain.

The first, which I call the profit faction, sees the world as a rich resource from which to import badly needed energy and wealth to our world from. They don't perceive the beings in that world as intelligent and see nothing wrong with their being used to gather, mine, and harvest this wealth. Trying to improve their lives would only shrink the availability of resources to import into our own world.

The second faction, which I refer to as the tech faction, sees the native creatures as intelligent beings in their own right. They see this virgin world as rich in resources, but feel that the only ethical way to deal with things is to develop the world with science and technology and usher in a modern age where we'll be repaid with their wealth when they see what we have given them.

The third faction, which I call the freedom faction, sees both of these groups as horrible manipulators. Their desire is to observe and document these worlds in their natural state and to try and remove any artificial advancements or outside exploitation and let the world develop on its own. They want to experience the richness of their world, but to minimize any influence their group (or the others) may bring to it.

Each faction has a group of mentors who have their plans for this world. You play an apprentice / grad student / volunteer who is trying to help accomplish these goals. Instead of developing one huge game, initially we'd work on developing smaller goals and puzzles.

Integrating the individual puzzles into a larger single game would be a longer term goal, but this would possibly have effects on the gameplay. Sometimes the same framework for a puzzle and quest for one faction can be reworked within a different framework for a different faction. When played by a single player I've envisioned the player having to declare his allegience before it starts. It might be possible to play as a mercenary that works for any faction but this isn't the way I've been thinking of it so far. Of course if the Exult engine were ever expanded to a multi-player engine, the various tasks and puzzles from each faction could be accomplished by a small group of people working cooperatively or the people could play against each other competitively with the different factions.

Example of a framework for a puzzle:
Some of the natives have jewelry and adornments inlaid with what they call an "evil crystal". It is an extrordinarily beautiful type of gem but some people have died after wearing them for prolonged periods.

The freedom faction wants to observe the uses that the gem is put to in its natural state. They are interested in seeking out, photographing, and documenting the monuments, tombstones, crowns, swords, and jewelry the stones have been used in.

The tech faction is fascinated by the toxicity tales of the gems. They want to get samples of the gem in various states so that they can measure the toxicity. Most of these samples will come from the traders, craftsmen, and jewelers of the gem.

The profit faction wants to know where the gems are obtained. Because of their value, the natives aren't very open about saying where they get them. (Mines? Bottoms of the Oceans? Where?)

On the completion of this first set of objectives (from whatever faction) it's obvious that the crystals are an energy source of some sort. A second round can continue this with an additional quest.

The profit faction sees this as having immediate value in our world in its raw and exhausted state and wants to pull as much as possible into our world. Their goal is to force the owners to give up claim to the gem locations by encouraging the evil rumors. They'll also take a more physical path by forcing some of the natives to do the gathering for them.

The tech faction sees an opportunity to develop primitive energy collection devices that might be able to harness this energy for simple uses. But they must also change the attitude of people and convince them that the crystal isn't "evil".

The freedom faction is concerned about the toxic nature of the gem in its raw state. The recent attention has increased the popularity of the gems which is killing and sterilizing the natives. Your goal is to work with religious leaders and tradesmen to develop rituals and procedures to purify or handle the gem in its raw phase.

Beyond the quest framework there are some additional balances to the world...

Animal populations: Profit wants to slaughter these alien animals for their exotic meats. Tech wants to genetically engineer their native fauna into more useful animals while wiping out the more aggressive ones. Freedom wants to harvest DNA from the animals but leave them alive in their natural habitats.

Non-player characters:
The mentors are non-player characters who set the boundaries of the quest. But other non-player characters from other factions will be in the game as well to start second rounds or additional quests. They can be sources of information or conflict but may have different responses based on the faction the player belongs to.

Combat:
Profit members have no problems killing natives or animals for any reason, but have big problems killing humans from our world. Tech members have problems killing humans, but they won't kill natives unless they feel it hinders their purpose and they have no problem killing animals. Freedom members have major problems killing any native or animal, but have no issue killing humans who have subverted the order of things there.

Equipment:
Profit members don't care if they "fit in" so they wear clothing and carry items from our world and don't care what the natives think. Tech members wear clothes and equipment made to look like native tools but are fabrics and technology from our world disguised to look simple. Freedom members wear as much of the clothes and equipment of the natives in case they are rendered unconcious or otherwise forced to reveal their tools; the exception are data gathering tools but these are used only when they wouldn't influence the natives.

Magic:
A big question mark in things so far. Physics and things definitely work differently in their world but how the magic system would work and what it would do is questionable to me. However the balance seems like it would work like this: The profit members don't care about it, it doesn't work for them when the try it so they see no reason to waste their time with it. The tech members can cast limited low level spells that they are able to theorize scientific explanations for. Though they can see others cast larger spells their effect is bothersome and contradictory to their purposes because they are uncomfortable with magic and prefer to minimize its use if they can't explain it. Freedom members who spend time with the natives can develop magic abilities as the most powerful native. They prefer the use of magic to any sort of technology.

Hopefully this gives you some idea of the world in which the quests and puzzles could live. Obviously this is only the roughest of frameworks and there's a lot to be fleshed out. I realize it's nowhere close to the rich details and folklore of the Britannia, but does it sound like an intriguing sort of framework for to build role playing games and puzzles around or is what I am envisioning not the sort of thing that would best be realized using Exult?

[William]

Thanks guys for the replies to my first post. I didn't expect to see anyone respond so quickly.

SB-X:
Oh Yes. I do enjoy playing Ultima VII in Exult myself. But I have to say that having played it originally, it's not quite as fun playing the subsequent times. The idea of helping create new games with such a cool engine is exciting to me. I suspect that other Ultima fans on this board have a similar desire to see new role playing work in that style. Beyond the static data from Origin's Ultima VII, this project would seem to be better off if it weened itself away from the Ultima continuity (I posted precisely because it was VERY hard for me to realize that myself.)

DrCode:
Thanks for pointing out the big problems with artwork. I know this has to be done before any new work can be released, but for me at least the plot and feel of the game so heavilly influence the look that it's personally unimaginable that I'd tackle the art first. Coming up with a game set on Alpha Centauri, I'd want to playtest with unfinished art before (a) putting the effort into making the art and (b) knowing just how dark, quirky, and alien to make the artwork based on plot elements. But that's just the way I'd prefer to work.
One thing I might suggest that would definitely help the artists move away from the influence of Ultima art is to develop simple wireframe shapes, tiles, and sprites that can be used in ExultStudio. These would be very simple outlines showing the camera angle and connecting points on the edges of the tiles and shapes. Rigid lines. Smooth arcs. No color. Very little shading. More exotic things like statues replaced by simple pyramids, squares or cylinders labelled with the word "statue" to give perspective on the boundaries and size. Artists where I used to work demanded templates like this in black and white as their starting point. Their thought was that if you use someone elses work as a starting point, you'll often incorporate more than you really intended from the original. If an artist works with this sort of "wireframe" template someone else has drawn, it's much less likely they'll have their work accused as being derivative. I know it's a lot of work though, but I think most artists would prefer such templates to start from.

Anyway, thanks for the followups. I hope I'm not stirring up trouble or animosity with my posts.

[SB-X]

Alpha Centauri is the first thing I thought of after your new world and factions description, since Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri is one of my favorite games.

[William]

SB-X:
I can't tell if you're joking or not, but any similiarity with Sid Meier's work is completely accidendental. Though I knew an Alpha Centauri addict when I was in college, I've never played the game myself. (It was just the first alien name I pulled out of my head to illustrate a different example, I never associated the 3 factions to the AP name).

The three factions could be used with any backstory setting, but their motivation is group1 = destroy, group2 = build, group3= no change. With these philosophies and nothing clearly being right or wrong, it can be easier to take what was one quest/puzzle and maybe milk it into three. But if what I've written is too suggestive of Mr. Meier's maybe it'd be better to work on a different backstory. :-/

Thanks for your feedback

[SB-X]

Not joking, just pointing it out. What made me think of it (besides using the name Alpha Centauri): the game has 7 factions, all with the same backstory until they split into factions, and each one has its own ideology and motivations. To achieve their goals, each faction gets unique bonuses and penalties. You can decide if that's really simliar or not, but I think the idea is fine either way. It's not the same type of gameplay.

[The Ghost of Skutarth]

A continuation of the Ultima Worlds series would be cool. Maybe we could go forward in time. Another idea is going back in time when the land was not yet known as Brittania. Darn, that's a good idea. I might just do that. But it would draw in more people if we did a futuristic one, since it would need completely original art. That would definitely draw people into a team, but I don't think I want to start something else. I really have a tight schedule while I'm in school. So, the only thing I would ever do is art for a team. If you need proof of my skill, just ask me to draw anything from the ideas above, and I will throw it together: Ultima style.

The reason my name is as above is that I lost my internet connection for quite a while, and my RAM went nuts, so I had to reformat and lose my work.

[William]

Skutarth:
Copyright is a very subtle but powerful issue in creating a new game. If we're making new stories or changing existing Origin stories, that's a derivative work based on the works owned by EA.

For many people who loved these games and put so much time into them, it's like tearing off their mouse hand to say they want to make a role playing game that has zero connection to Ultima. Making a new game that's compelling and fun is a challenge on many levels (art, code, and logic come to mind immediately) but it'd be worse if people worked freely to make a compelling game for Exult but to have EA come in with lawyers and stop its distribution.

From what I've read EA hasn't shown any interest in Exult (for good or bad), but if a buzz started about a new chapter in Ultima that they perceived might detract from their Ultima Online profits they'd have to send in the lawyers to protect what they already own.

[William]

DrCode:
Though it's not really my forte, I've been trying to sketch some artwork (with a pencil) to rough out some art possibilities. What's really bugging me is that even at this early stage it still looks derivative of Ultima rather than just in a medieval style.

One thing that I thought would force me to make a change in style is to change the angle the pseudo 3d world in viewed in, but I'm not sure if the rendering engine could handle this (it might take shortcuts).

It would be easier if I had some scans of my drawings to show or recalled more 3d terminology. Basically though, if you look at the Ultima VII screenshots the scene appears to be as if you're looking at it from an overhead crane. But to represent 3d in the 2d plane, a tall straight object actually leans at some angle (30 degrees?) to the left of vertical. I'm proposing to change the "handedness" of the system such that everything leans 30 degress to the right.

That's a huge change in artwork. It means that everything drawn in perspective would have to be redrawn. And that was the primary reason that I came up with the idea: to ensure that all artwork is new and won't be accused of being derivative.

The secondary reasons are also somewhat positive though from an artistic perspective.

First, it makes things seem just a little off-kilter. Most gui interfaces (buttons and such) have a feel of being left leaning (if they can be said to have any lean at all). Changing so that art is right leaning does have a neat effect of feeling very off-worlderly to players of Ultima VII and somewhat offworlderly to GUI users in general.

Second, I think that outside of habituation that I mentioned above, humans who read left to right languages are more comfortable with right leaning symbols since that's they way may italic or script fonts read... leaning to the right.

But ultimately, the artwork has to work in Exult. Are there any shortcuts taken in the display engine that make right leaning art a technical problem?

[Achenar]

These ideas for new RPGs based on the U7 engine are exciting; I think Exult and the Studio have a lot of potential, and I look forward to a development community popping up over the next couple of years. And while people are spilling their ideas for new games, I was thinking about something the other day that I wasn't going to post because I thought it was too off-topic, but this is a good opportunity .

Did anyone have the pleasure of watching the Japanese series "Monkey Magic" in their younger days? It was shown here in Australia about 10 years ago, and also in the UK I believe... not sure about the US. It's based on an ancient chinese story, English translation "Monkey" (or possibly 'The Monkey King'), and I think there are other TV series from China and possibly a new one from Japan based on the same story. Anyway, the story is basically about a holy priest and three companions (Pisgy, Monkey and Sandy) travelling across China into India on a physical and spiritual journey to retrieve a set of holy scriptures and return them to China.

I suddenly realised the other day that an RPG based on Monkey could work very well in Exult. Obviously with some creative license, the core story could revolve around the trip to India with various side-quests as per the traditional story. The party concept suits the story very well, ... the love-hate relationship between the party members sometimes reminds me of the bickery that goes on between the Ultima characters at some points .

In terms of graphics, the concern about avoiding 'derivative' graphics in this case would be alleviated by the fact that all the art would have an ancient Chinese style. Such a style is so different from the traditional Ultima medieval style that I think you could even get away with using the existing graphics as templates. A whole RPG world with an ancient Chinese feel seems very cool to me for some reason...

Anyway, just had to get this off my chest . I doubt I'll ever have enough time to do anything like this, but on the off chance that anyone else finds the idea attractive .

[drcode]

My suggestion is that if you want to create a game in a world that someone has already invented, choose one that's no longer copyrighted. You could do a game based on "Alice in Wonderland", or in Oz, or in one of Dickens' stories. Probably anything before around 1915 is safe. I guess one problem is there didn't use to be a lot of fantasies appealing to adults before that time, though you could always use legends like King Arthur or Grimms' tales or myths.

[William]

Achenar:
I haven't seen the Monkey Magic shows to which you refer, but I have seen references to a character called the Monkey King in older stories by western authors. I always thought this was some type of in-joke to share the name and character but now that you mention these stories, it makes sense that there was some folklore or tale that inspired these references. If you can find a link to any of these tales in English on the Internet, I'd definitely be interested in reading more about the character and his journeys even if nothing Exult related comes from it.

I am not familiar with the Chinese art forms that you are referring to (that's due to my own artistic ignorances) but when I was brainstorming I had the idea of something in a radically different style and I thought of the Japanese styles of Sumi-e and Shodo. I thought that these would definitely lend a unique flavor to any game to come result, but their distinctiveness would mean fewer people would feel comfortable contributing art and their distinctive use of color would make some people think the game wasn't finished. Would the Chinese art have the same liabilities?

I don't want to sound like I'm putting a wet blanket on your ideas, you sound very enthusiastic about them (and they also sound very neat to me). I'm just trying to be a voice of realism