08-01-2003, 03:19 AM
Basically, Ultima is\was one of the oldest RPGs (back before all that Square crap that gets passed off as "Role Playing"). Richard Garriot and maybe one or two other people essentially started Origin Systems to sell Lord British's games... Ultima! Dating back to 1981... the first few are rather dated (CGA) and pitted the lone hero against various monsters. They were more "adventure and eventually beat the game if you really know what to do." About the time 4 came out, Richard Garriot decided to put ethics into the game. Your character class was chosen based on your answers to moral questions. There were virtues that you subscribed to and tried to live up to. As far as I know this game series is one of the only ones to ever attempt a moral compass, and Ultima 4 did it quite successfully. 5 and 6 came along and were successful as well. 7 came out and is regarded as one of the best, if not the best game in the series. 8 came out and was... different. It featured an isometric 2D view with a rather radical control scheme. And it had the dreaded jumping puzzles. Many years passed and Origin was bought by EA as Richard Garriot was working on an online version of the OSI flagship series. It became Ultima Online and is the only reason Origin is even around with EA anymore. EA eventually released the 9th and final Ultima game... Ultima IX: Ascension (Descension by the loving fans). It was the worst and buggiest piece of junk ever made. I couldn't get it to run for more than 5-10 minutes without crashes and memory leaking like a hole in the Titanic. Thus ended one of the older series of computer games... with a fizzle.
That's just off the top of my head. There are lots more in depth sites out there with the OSI\Ultima series history.
Selby
That's just off the top of my head. There are lots more in depth sites out there with the OSI\Ultima series history.
Selby