Ultima III!

[Saxon1974]

I went back to playing my first ever real RPG "Ultima III - Exodus" recently.

The cool looking Demon on the cover of the box just sucked me in when I saw it at a store in Metro Center mall in phoenix back in 1983. I talked my Dad into getting it for me (After much begging since it wasn't cheap I dont think) and took it home and fired up his C64. (god I loved that machine)

I still remember the first time I played it and was introduced to the world of the CRPG back in 1983. I was completely hooked on the world of Sosaria, the Orcs, the Giants, Lord British etc..... I remember my Dad getting up the next morning and coming in to the den and saying "You been up all night?" I recall thinking "Yep guess so", and went back to playing. I hadn't noticed that the sun had come up again.

I still love playing it even now as old as it is. I don't know if its nostalgia or what but it has a feel and charm few games have ever been able to recreate. If you play it without cheating and using online walkthroughs the puzzles and exploration are quite fun and challenging.

In this game, you have to figure things out yourself, there are no quest arrows or automaps and if your characters die they are dead and saved to disc that way. You either have to pay alot of money to raise them or turn the game off before they die Its enough challenge that you feel like you really accomplished something when you make progress.

Was also the first game that had a full musical score for each area.

First time I played, I must have been about 10 years old and I created my characters and walked around a bit and found a dungeon so I entered it....I kept going down in levels and got attacked by a group or Dragons and my whole party got wiped out quickly. Well, I reloaded the game and guess what? My characters were still dead?!!! I thought "Wow, this game is serious!"

I think alot of people might have thought this kind of save death was bad, but man I took it as a challenge and started playing the game relentlessly after that.

Sorry for my rant.....

Anyone else have some thoughts of this great game?

[tiresius]

First Ultima that I played was Ultima V - which was a little different than U3. But I had similar nostalgia moments whenever I play the old games. And yes the game was probably expensive. I still have the original catalog/pamphlet from my C64 version of Ultima V and it showed prices of $59.99 for certain games. It's interesting that the price of games has remained somewhat static in that a new game still cost $40-$50 at the stores. Maybe that's true for most digital media like CD's and later DVD's too. Anyway back to topic...

I played Ultima V a lot and had no clue (or clue book) and just spent a majority of my time trying to get bridge trolls to attack me (since they had good loot) and asking everybody I could find to JOIN my party. I also spent an eternity trying to find a stupid talking horse and a magic carpet (never did, though). I didn't go into dungeons because I died a lot in there early on, but in hindsight I probably wasted a lot of time travelling the world and not seeing many enemies... when I could have gone in the 7 dungeons of sin and gotten a lot more combat "bang for the buck" and probably way more loot.

[CrazyBernie]

My first experience with the Ultima series was IV on the NES. I do remember putting a lot of hours into that game... well, as much as my parents would allow me to put in anyway. Never beat the game, though... Between that, Final Fantasy 1, and Dragon Warrior IV, it's no wonder my parents kept throwing me out of the house to go play in the woods.

From Ultima IV I briefly toyed with VII over a friends house, then I purchased Ultima VIII: Pagan. So many people rag on Pagan because of the jumping that was in the game, but I hardly noticed... perhaps my years of the Super Mario Brothers enabled me to look past the jump puzzles and enjoy the the dark atmosphere. Ultima XI was good but far too slow and buggy at the time for me to get very far into it.

Ultima Online was a blast when I got into the beta... I played that game for about 3-4 years and never really got very far because I kept making new characters and spent waaaay too much time chopping wood. I was soooooo pissed off when UO2 was cancelled... it was shaping up to be a killer MMO. I still visit UO's web page from time to time... almost clicking on that download link.

*sigh*

[Saxon1974]

First Ultima that I played was Ultima V - which was a little different than U3. But I had similar nostalgia moments whenever I play the old games. And yes the game was probably expensive. I still have the original catalog/pamphlet from my C64 version of Ultima V and it showed prices of $59.99 for certain games. It's interesting that the price of games has remained somewhat static in that a new game still cost $40-$50 at the stores. Maybe that's true for most digital media like CD's and later DVD's too. Anyway back to topic...

I played Ultima V a lot and had no clue (or clue book) and just spent a majority of my time trying to get bridge trolls to attack me (since they had good loot) and asking everybody I could find to JOIN my party. I also spent an eternity trying to find a stupid talking horse and a magic carpet (never did, though). I didn't go into dungeons because I died a lot in there early on, but in hindsight I probably wasted a lot of time travelling the world and not seeing many enemies... when I could have gone in the 7 dungeons of sin and gotten a lot more combat "bang for the buck" and probably way more loot.

Yea the cost of games has remained pretty static I think due to sheer volume of sales now plus the cheaper packaging, you don't see companies having the nice boxes and extra's the Ultima's did back in the day. I would gladly pay 80$ for games now if they included all those goodies.

I have my original complete boxed version of Ultima III - V and I bought VI and VII off of Ebay. I am missing my cloth map from Ultima III though....

Ultima V was really great too, If I had to say what is the best Ultima to get started with now if you haven't played them and want the feel of the early Ultima's that is probably the one to go with...more npc and world interaction.

I never did finish Ultima III to this day, so that is my current quest, but with my limited time now as an adult I fear Sosaria might fall once again.

[IJBall]

Bwa ha ha! I have you all beat!

My experiences with the Ultimas goes back to the mid-80's (probably c. '86, though I'm not entirely sure).

One of my friends in high school was way more into computers and gaming than me, but he also had an Atari (I had the 1200X, I think he had an 800 that might have been "souped up"). Anyway, he had no qualms about pirating (lucky me!), and he quickly turned me on to the Ultimas (among other games! ah, Montezuma's Revenge & Wizard of Wor!!). I don't remember which one he gave me first (it might have been IV, but it may actually have been I or II).

Anyway, I played them all at the time - I, II, III & IV. I beat I & II, no (major) problems. I don't remember if I finished III at that time or not (I'm pretty sure I did). And, with my friend's help (and another friend who got into Ultima IV around the same time) I got through and finished IV.

I played Ultima IV for hours, and hours at the time. Man, I was addicted! It's amazing I got any schoolwork done at the time (I think I played it straight, for like a month, until I finished it).

Those games had a big influence on me, and I missed them not too many years later. Starting with the internet era, I started searching for them, and I came across Lairware's version of Ultima III for the Mac in the late 90's. Soon as I got it, I played that sucker all over again! (And, when they updated it for Mac OS X, I played it all over again, because upgrading eliminated my previous Mac OS 9 players!! )

But I could never find !, II or IV. And I was "shut out" of all the later Ultimas because of EA's insane (and short-sided!) hatred of all things Mac, so I've never played Ultimas V-XI nor UO.

That was, until now! There's now people who are working on a port of Ultima IV for the Mac OS (among other OSs)!!

I played that Ultima IV port for a while a few months back, but it kept crashing in one of the dungeons, so I abandoned that effort.

There are also modern ports of the later Ultimas (e.g. V, VII & VIII), but they need the original game files, and I'm not going to track those down on EBay, and get a PC, just to play those. Oh well - c'est la vie!

Anyway, I love the first four Ultimas.

I wish someone would port over the originals - Ultimas I & II - I'd play those much simpler games in a heartbeat!

[Dragonlady]

I started on U4 and finished it long ago using our Amiga. Can't recall what number it was. Got U5 and finished it and was waiting for 6. Can't recall if we got it or not, my son says we did. Then other stuff got in the way. Wished I could have played 1-3 as I had a book with hints and maps for it and other games. Now I have them on my Mac and am in the middle of playing 4 again while my son is trying to get U5 to work on my computer. Trolls and dragons had the best treasure so I go after them.

But, I'm also replayi ng Escalon too, doing a straight mage this time, no weapon skill except for throwing things. Have to be able to throw those bottles of flaming oil don't I when mana is gone?

[Randomizer]

I think I started with Ultima II on my roommate's Apple II+. Spending hours exploring each continent and dungeon and becoming a space ace to be able to rescue the princess from the dungeon. I really hated that jester saying I have the key, but liked figuring out the exact timing and movements to get out with her.

I started Ultima I on a Windows computer and we found we needed DOS 1.0 to play it. I never had the time to get through it. I guess that roommate still has the map I drew of the outdoors.

[Saxon1974]

I actually made myself some coffee at 10pm last night and had a marathon session. I think I finally hit the bed around 4am. Big fun! I haven't done that in a while since Im an adult now with responsibility

The game is still addictive as ever, I didn't even notice the time going by.

I seem to be having trouble gathering enough gold as I keep using all of it to buy food which is rather expensive at the beginning. Was exploring the dungeon "Dardin's Pit", and I keep running into those Gremlins who steal all of one of your characters food, that gets costly!

I also dont like fighting pirates or thieves as they keep stealing my weapons, also expensive!

Im struggling a bit with how to map the towns, for the dungeons its on a square 15 x15 grid so pretty easy, but towns vary. Most are pretty small and easy to memorize where things are but in Yew it all deep forrest so you cant see very far and the game doesn't appear to have any kind of location spell or anything. I guess I need to buy a peering gem and draw the map out from that. I hesitate to use those though because they give you the entire area so it feels like cheating:)

Got my characters up to about level 5 so far.

[macdude22]

I haven't played Ultima III much (it was a squeek before my time) but you've encouraged me to go get the Lairware version and try it out. Bought and paid for. Now to finish my PM homework so I can play it, a motivational tool of sorts.

I thrive on classic RPGs, I'm a huge fan of the GBA and the Nintendo DS because they are having new RPGs created in the vein of more classic ones. The big flashyness of modern console/PC RPGs don't do much for me anymore, somehow they tend to have lost that something special (Though Lost Oddessy was pretty good).

[IJBall]

I guess I need to buy a peering gem and draw the map out from that. I hesitate to use those though because they give you the entire area so it feels like cheating

Hey, it's not cheating in my book! Gems are to be bought and used for a reason. (And definitely try to buy more than one!) They're in the game, so it's not cheating if you sketch some things out!

Hint: You may want to Peer at Gems in dungeons too - it may help you avoid your "gremlin" problem...

[Saxon1974]

I haven't played Ultima III much (it was a squeek before my time) but you've encouraged me to go get the Lairware version and try it out. Bought and paid for. Now to finish my PM homework so I can play it, a motivational tool of sorts.

I thrive on classic RPGs, I'm a huge fan of the GBA and the Nintendo DS because they are having new RPGs created in the vein of more classic ones. The big flashyness of modern console/PC RPGs don't do much for me anymore, somehow they tend to have lost that something special (Though Lost Oddessy was pretty good).

I saw that Mac port, man it looks nice really wish I had a Mac to play it on.

Make sure you try to only use hints\walkthroughs sparingly because the challenge of discovering new locations and figuring out puzzles on your own is probablyl the funnest part of the game. Im even mapping the dungeons myself, its not too hard.

If you can get past the old school graphics and interface I still think its incredibly fun and challenging.

Not sure if this is true on the mac version but be careful not to let your characters die or they die permanently! Unless you wanna spend 500 gold getting them raised which is tough early in the game due to lack of gold.

Stealing from towns is quite fun to, if you fail the guards will kick your butt or chase you out of town. Make sure you have a thief in your party!

If you want, post your impressions\thoughts on the game here I would love to read them.

Have fun!

[Saxon1974]

I guess I need to buy a peering gem and draw the map out from that. I hesitate to use those though because they give you the entire area so it feels like cheating

Hey, it's not cheating in my book! Gems are to be bought and used for a reason. (And definitely try to buy more than one!) They're in the game, so it's not cheating if you sketch some things out!

Hint: You may want to Peer at Gems in dungeons too - it may help you avoid your "gremlin" problem...

Yea Yea I hear ya. But something about having the gem show you the entire dungeon level kind of kills the exploration for me. If you know whats there ahead of time thats not quite as fun to me. I will probably break down and buy some gems when I get some more gold.

[Saxon1974]

Here are some screenies

The load screen with a lovely little view



and Castle and the Town of Britain.



and the lovely Dungeon

[tiresius]

Awesome! What I found interesting about Ultima IV-VI is that they spawned a whole new set of books concerning just them. People wrote fiction/spoilers about the games, not just cheat books. (Remember the cheat book for Bard's Tale III and how it told a story? Similar to that...) I found a couple of them at some book sales and they are neat to read and to see just how large in scope the games are. Garriott really went in a different direction with those games and his focus on virtues. Good stuff.


Hey show us a screen shot of combat in the dungeons. Are all the enemies white in U3? I remember some colored ones in U4.

[Saxon1974]

Yes in the C64 version all the enemies and characters are white. In the DOS and Amiga versions there are other colors I believe.

Here are some combat screenies....

Here I am fighting Golems



and then some Skeletons



Entering the city of Grey



If you play the C64 version makes sure you use the gold version it has some good improvements to it.

What are the names of those books your talking about? I have a couple books about Ultima. One is called Master Ultima and the other is called Ultima the Avatar Adventures. The later is probably what your refering to. While I love the stories they appear to give away plot details so Im holding off reading until playing the game.