Ultima VIII: Pagan

Ultima VIII: Pagan is a computer role-playing game in the Ultima series of Richard Garriott. It was developed by Origin Systems, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts. It was released in 1994 for DOS PC.

Action

Ultima VIII was developed as a second part of the comprehensive three part story arc Age of Armageddon: After the events in Ultima VII in Britannia banished the arch-enemy of the protagonist, the Guardian, the player character, the avatar on the subjugated world he Pagan. At the same time he threatens him the subjugation of both worlds the avatar, the Earth and Britannia on. The aim of the avatar is therefore to find a way to leave Pagan again.

On the alien world of Avatar for him and his eight virtues are unknown and the unknown magic follows rules, he is so on their own and must find new ways of magic. The island seems to consist of the Pagan, is dominated by four elemental Titans, each is assigned its own form of magic that can learn his followers. The Avatar comes all over Titans to gain the power even in the course of the action. Thus, the avatar can reconstruct a Blackstone portal, which the Guardian had originally used to reach Pagan. The portal enables the Avatar finally to leave the exile on Pagan.

Gameplay

In Ultima VIII of the protagonist to fend for themselves (without a group of other game characters ) and can, Ultima atypical, do not rely on his friends from previous parts. The game is played in an isometric perspective with significantly improved movement and combat animations compared to the previous titles.

Reception

The reception among gamers and the press was more mixed, including commercial, the game was not very successful. The Dragon Magazine awarded 3 of 5 stars. 1996 ordered the magazine Computer Gaming World Pagan as the twentieth - boring game of all time.

Among the frequently mentioned shortcomings, in particular the new game mechanics focus as a platformer game with running, jumping and climbing layers, the Hack-and - Slay -like battle mechanics and the smaller and less interactive world is compared to the previous titles. Under Ultima fans Pagan was therefore also jokingly referred to as Super Avatar Brothers known. Alluding to the wide variety of platform - hopping gameplay elements reminiscent of the gameplay of the Nintendo classic Super Mario Brothers

History of development

Pagan was planned as the second part of a trilogy beginning with Ultima VII. The first part should play in the world of Britannia, the second on Pagan and the third part on the home world of the Guardian. In this installment of the series, Richard Garriott delegated most of the development work to others, also took EA a great influence on the development. Garriott later explained, " [ ... ] I sacrificed everything to please the shareholders, which was a mistake. We 've probably delivered three months unfinished. "

In retrospect the game a Language Pack ( English, French, German ) was donated, which gave the four Titans and the Zaelanen one vote. However, it was only moderate appeal as a CD version not had to wait too long, as that already possessed language files. The CD version has the version 2:13 which, however, is identical in content to the last floppy disk version 2:12.

Patch

The later released Patch 2:12 rectified many Spielbugs and plot holes and resolved most of the problems with the jumping by now the jump distance could be affected. In addition, some moving platforms of the original publication have been brought to a standstill.

After the mostly disappointing feedback from the fans of the series, Garriott decided to realign for the successor to Ultima IX towards classic Ultima parts with a renewed return to Britannia. The decision was announced in a communication accompanying the patch 2:12.

Extension package

For Ultima VIII an extension called The Lost Vale was produced and completely finished, but then never put on the market because of disappointing sales figures of the main game. In October 2005, an original copy of a completed sales box has been ( without content ) sold by The Lost Vale in an auction for 1,923 dollars. According to one of the former designer of extension no copy of the data is preserved because of its lack of time backup policies with Origin probably. However, design documents have survived that document, among others, the action of the add -ons. Low-resolution scans of the box are findable on the web.

Later history

The Ultima VIII engine was later the basis for the Crusader series of games.

As a DOS game, it is difficult to bring Ultima VIII on newer operating systems such as Windows 98 and later to run. It works reliably but with the emulator DOSBox. Unlike Ultima VII, which undocumented "Big real mode " used Intel, which became known as the Voodoo memory with Origin, Ultima VIII used a more conventional DOS extender. Also, there is a fan patch which so adjusts the memory management that Ultima VIII under later Windows operating systems will be used. There also exists an open -source project called Pentagram, which the goal is to get with a new engine Ultima VIII on all modern operating systems natively running.

2003 offered to support the Pentagram project to this the source code of the game, an anonymous developer, but the offer was probably not adopted due to legal concerns.

2012 Pagan was re-released in digital distribution via gog.com.