Strange advertising in Black Gate (endshape.flx)

[DK]

Greetings,
I've found some strange advertising in the file Endshape.flx of U7-BlackGate.
It say:
"The Quest Begins - Christmas 1991"

Someone know what "quest" is referring to? Or is an old graphic, maybe left there from a demo version?

bye,
Andrea

[Chris Schumacher]

Christmas 1991 was Ultima 7's original shipdate. It missed it by something
like three months.

[Andrea B Previtera]

It's probably referring to the Quest For Heaps Of Money Falling into Richard Garriot's pockets.

[Gradilla Dragon]

EA loved the idea of shipping Ultima on Christmas. That's what messed up all of the later Ultimas.

[Andrea B Previtera]

The idea of shipping a game named "PAGAN" for Christmas is a gem of Marketing, I may add.

[Dominus]

EA bought Origin AFTER the release of BG, I think even after the first release of SI. Not sure though about that.
Christmas shipping date is not really an EA love only, but aimed at by all game publishers.

[Gradilla Dragon]

I have a floppy version of SI, with printed manual, cloth map and without SS. It is version 2.02 final, I think (the disks are long damaged and I can no longer install it from them). The back cover of the manual reads:

ORIGIN (R)
We create worlds. (R)
An Electronic Arts (R) Company

Checking the last printed page on the manual, it reads:
(C) Copyright 1993 etc etc etc. Electronic Arts is a registered trademark of Electronic Arts.

[Dominus]

ok, then SI was already under the EA flag.

[nadir]

In fact the Serpent Isle packaging was of inferior quality (imho) to the Black Gate box (at least the box I got): paper map instead of cloth, crap box.

[Gradilla Dragon]

Well, mine had a large hard box and cloth map, just like the one I got Ultima VI in. Yours may be a later re-release.

[MV]

Mine was also on par with the black gate release. Cloth map, etc. Pity no underworld 2 demo, like there was an underworld 1 demo with TBG.

[Chris Schumacher]

Yeah, the Serpent Isle cloth map is pretty famous because it's scotchguarded (or some other strange process).
There was no token in the box, which I found kind of strange. I suspect that they wanted to put serpent teeth in there, but they'd either have to make
them dull-edged, or worry about getting sued when players cut themselves.
Then there's the PETA freaks who would naturally assume they were taken
from real snakes...

[Natreg]

There wasn´t somekind of serpent pillar statuete with serpent isle?

[Chris Schumacher]

Nope, Serpent Isle didn't have anything special in it. It seems that tokens
were the very first thing that EA cut off. Underworld II didn't have anything
either.
Were there tokens for all of OSI's games? Because I remember someone
showing me a "radiation detection card" that came with Ogre.

[Gradilla Dragon]

Windwalker had an I Ching. I don't remember any token in any Wing Commander game...

[kaszeta]

Yeah, the Origin Systems freebies were cool. I still have my O.G.R.E. radiation badge, a few Ultima IV ankhs, and my Autoduel mini-toolkit.

Someplace I also have a throw-pillow made from two of the cloth Ultima IV maps.