Greetings
to my Fellow Dragons
A Brief
History as to how I started playing Ultima
Dragon Links
Download
Ultima IV Legally
Greetings Fellow Dragons and fans of Ultima.
I am a member of the Ultima Dragons Internet Chapter (UDIC for short). Some of you might know me from my dragon name, Darkeye Dragon.
My apologies for my lack of originality with the above graphic. I would like to thank Bloodfire Dragon for permission of the use of the above graphic. I am currently looking for something much more worthy and once I do find something that I feel looks good, I will change the above. I am so glad that were able to drop by and check out my tribute to that wonderful club that we all enjoy known as the UDIC. My thanks go to all the members that have helped with the construction of this site. Your thoughts and ideas are very much appreciated.
Now drum roll please...........A brief history of how I got introduced to Ultima.
I was living in New Jersey at the time and was on vacation in Florida visiting a friend of mine. She and I both had Atari 800XL computers at the time and we both loved computer games in particular. I dropped by her house to say hello and her mom told me that she was in her room. I had decided in advance to stop by for about one hour and say hello. I had planned to visit the beach after I had dropped by her house but little did I know what was about to happen when I did drop by to say hello.
When I entered her room, she was very busy playing Ultima III. At the time, I didn't know anything at all about the Ultima line of RPGs. Most of the computer games that I had played up until then were either action or adventure games (i.e. Infocom). She was really so absorbed with this program that it took her a few minutes before she realized that I was even in the room. Not wanting to interrupt her since she appeared to be having so much fun, I decided to keep quiet and let her continue. Once she finally noticed me, I said hello to her and I asked her what she was doing that was absorbing that she couldn't take time away from the screen. She told me that she was playing a game called Ultima III and she told me a little bit about the background of the game and what was going on in the game at the time. I told her to just go ahead and continue playing and I would just watch. Well, instead of staying one hour like I had originally planned, I ended up staying for 4 hours. She even let me play with her characters for about one hour. After that I was hooked! I had to buy this game the minute that I got back home.
Once I got back home from vacation, I went to the local computer store and bought Ultima III and started playing. It took a while to get started especially since I had gotten used to playing with her characters which were fairly well developed. It took me a good two weeks of playing before I felt that my characters were strong enough to let me concentrate on the puzzles and less on survival. Between school, work at night and other things that were going on in my so called life, I managed to play about one or two hours a day except for weekends when I usually played about 3 to 4 hours. It took me a good 6 months but I finally had the satisfaction of defeating Exodus and ending it's reign of terror. After that, I then went out and played Ultima II and solved it and then I bought Ultima I and solved that as well. So this means that I played the first 3 Ultimas in reverse order and I can definitely see how each Ultima that was released improved upon the one that was previously released. Since then I have managed to play parts of Ultima IV and Ultima V and I have completed Ultima VI: the False Prophet which is my favorite of all the current Ultima games that I have played (I am getting a new computer soon to play Ultima IX) . I have also played Ultima Underworld 1 & 2. Those of you who might need some hints with regards to the first 3 Ultimas or VI in particular just email me and include Ultima in the subject line as I have Eudora Pro set as a filter to drop Ultima requests in the proper mailbox.
I have never played VII or VIII but I have heard some really bad things about VIII in particular. Some of my friends even call it "Mario-the Avatar" in reference to the arcade antics in number VIII. I don't know about everyone else who might be reading this but as far as I am concerned, RPGs should never have any arcade elements of any kind in them. I prefer the pure strategy of developing a character and not basing the game on good reflexes. I hope that when Ultima IX comes out, Origin will remember to keep the arcade elements to a minimum. I understand that number VIII was done without Richard Garriott's (a.k.a. Lord British) help. He has received so many comments regarding the faults of Ultima VIII:Pagan that this time he will personally be involved with the creation of Ultima IX. I hope that he can live up to the high standards that he has created in his previous games. Below are some of the Ultima Links that I have found online. Hope to hear from everyone soon.
Please let me email with regards to any thoughts, suggestions, and critiques of this site. My email address is........drum roll please......
ace942@bellsouth.netPlease remember to include Ultima
in the subject line so that Euroda Pro can filter the message and put it
in the proper location. Thanks.
That's right! Thanks to the kindness of Origin Systems, you can now download Ultima IV - Quest of the Avatar legally. They have made it possible to download the first of the Avatar's adventures in Britannia. A brief history is necessary to get an understanding of the significance of Ultima IV.
The first three Ultimas that were released were nothing more than monster bashers. You basically kill the weak monsters in the beginning in order to get gold which was used to get better armor and better weapons which allowed you to kill the stronger monsters to get even more money to get even better armor and better weapons etc. in order to keep playing. Eventually after you had done this often enough, you would be able to purchase the best weapons and the best armor to go and kill the ultimate bad guy. Problem was that since money was the principle object needed in these games to succeed, you would often do anything necessary in order to get your hands on more money.
I remember doing everything from stealing from the vendors to killing the innocent townsfolk just to get my hands on money. I remember that in Ultima III there was a particular town that had 2 guards. I would bribe the guards to go away and then proceed to steal from the vendors and then kill everyone in the town and then I would go out of the town to save the results and do again and again. So often in these games, you were more the bad guy than the bad guy ever was in the game.
With Ultima IV, that all stopped. Every time you did sometime bad or evil, you were penalized. The game incorporated a form of morality where you were rewarded for your good deeds and punished for your bad ones. Those who first started playing Ultima IV struggled at the beginning because the old habits would make it impossible to succeed unless the player truly tried to become the Avatar which is the embodiment of the 8 virtues of the game. The 8 virtues are : Honesty, Compassion, Honor, Valor, Justice, Sacrifice, Spirituality, Humility. You would have to practice the 8 virtues and then go to one of the Shrines of that particular virtue in order to succeed with the game. A lot of people have considered the game to be something along the lines of searching for the Holy Grail.
In a interview done with Prima Publishing, Richard Garriott (aka Lord British) mentions how some of the concepts for the game were created and he was not sure if Ultima IV was going to be well received. He worried that people might have felt that he had gone over the deep end and that he was preaching inside the context of the game but instead, Ultima IV became the very first #1 best selling Ultima. So without further ado, here is the link to download the game:
Download Ultima IV: Quest of The Avatar - Legally
I have Ultima IV on the Encore CD that comes with the first 6 Ultimas so I have not downloaded the Ultima IV version online so I am not sure if it has any documentation for the game. Therefore, if you should need documentation for Ultima IV, you can go to Origin's Ultima IV for information. The link is listed below:
Ultima IV - Quest of the Avatar
I hope that those of you who are getting started with Ultima by playing Ultima IV have a lot of fun and enjoy the adventure!
Ultima, the Avatar, and Lord British are registered trademarks of Origin Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. I do not represent nor work for Origin Systems or Electronic Arts.
