The Exult Remake of Ultima VI is nearly finished:

The end is near!

The end is near!  I've been working on this project off an on for longer than I'd like to admit but finally it's pretty much ready to get out the door.  Over the past few years I've worked from home so when things have been slow I've been able to do a lot of work on it.  It will never be "truly complete" but at least getting it out there in workable form there is always room to pick it back up and make changes here and there.  Pretty much everything is done.  All npcs have new portraits that I did by hand after writing a java program to help convert the original U6 portraits to an SI style format.  Most npc conversations are in a uniform format that I have made to resemble SI style conversations, albeit a few npcs I have missed.  The plot works, the game can be played through to the end and I have wrapped up a few sidequests.  There will probably be updates to it eventually as I had other plans for sidequests but as is the game works.  So with that said, we are shooting for an end of February beta release!

Obviously some things will need polishing, but I'm ready to reveal a new project we've been working on - Ultima II for Exult! It had been retconned in U6 to take place on Sosaria, so we have been coming up with something to fit within the lore and it should be pretty awesome.  Knowing what I know now, and all the tricks I've learned along the way, and an (almost) minor in game design..  shouldn't take me this long! In fact, I already have the bare bones of the map ready (at least one of the maps that is!).  But more on that later...      

I have uploaded the beginning of a playthrough of the Ultima 6 mod on my youtube channel to hype up the release and to provide a walkthrough of sorts.  I will also do a video on the sidequests and other secrets out there (The ones I can remember!).  Once the mod is released, I am going to probably either release videos of the progress on the Ultima 2 mod, or possibly stream it live as I am working on it since people like that kind of thing!  

You can view the first video here on my youtube channel: 

Until next time!

 - AOG

GeorgGreat looks back at Ultima VI:

Ultima VI (1990): RPG that Re-Defined a Genre | Retrospective Critique

The Ultima VI Exult Remake project has made some good progress. As a reminder this project is seeking to create Ultima VI in Ultima VIIs engine using Exult. There are some images of the new work done at the link provided.

2017 Project Update - We're still alive ...

Posted by Zygon Dragon on 4th April 2017 in Updates

Hello everyone, back with a big update! Updates might be few and far between but work is still being done on the mod. I've been going back and forth between the usecode stuff and map work. I have finished a few more plot-essential dungeons: Shame (Despise?), Destard, Covetous/Wrong. I've fixed/added more of the main npcs conversations such as the hungry pirate you find in Shame and Bonn, the crazy hermit, and Sutek.

Work has started on a brilliant side plot schemed up by Pegbyter, regarding everyone's favorite jester, Chuckles. It will solve a dangling plot thread from U5, and will have different ways to solve it, like a good Avatar or a very unvirtueous one. Some secret areas have been added that go along with it. Purists can go about the game and not even bother with the side plot or need to visit the areas, but you'll definitely want to.

In between map work and coding the npcs, I've been working on getting the U6 balloon off the ground, so to speak. At the moment it lacks new shapes, but progress has been made. The next dungeon to be worked on will be Sutek's catacombs, where his crazy experiments splicing things together weren't limited to animals and monsters...

I have realized recently that while this is has been a huge project for all of us, it actually seems like while we have a lot to do, we're VERY far along and it doesn't seem as overwhelming anymore. Plotwise, the first half of the game is almost complete (everything on the Britannian overworld). Most plot critical npcs, dungeons, and map areas are just about finished. The remaining plot essential dungeons to the first half of the game that still need to be created are Captain Hawkins' grave, Sutek's catacombs, and Hythloth. That would leave the gargoyle world, gargoyle dungeons/shrines and all gargoyle npcs. Once the main plot can be played, filling in the rest won't be hard at all. Knowing that the mod isn't too far off now, things are coming along much easier. Until next time!

-AgentOrangeGuy

The Digital Antiquarian explores Ultima VI and the influences and events behind its creation.

...
Following what had always been Richard Garriott's standard approach to making an Ultima, the Ultima VI team concentrated on building their technology and then building a world around it before adding a plot or otherwise trying to turn it all into a real game with a distinct goal. Garriott and others at Origin would always name Times of Lore, a Commodore 64 action/CRPG hybrid written by Chris Roberts and published by Origin in 1988, as the main influence on the new Ultima VI interface, the most radically overhauled version of same ever to appear in an Ultima title. That said, it should be noted that Times of Lore itself lifted many or most of its own innovations from The Faery Tale Adventure, David Joiner's deeply flawed but beautiful and oddly compelling Commodore Amiga action/CRPG of 1987. By way of completing the chain, much of Times of Lore‘s interface was imported wholesale into Ultima VI; even many of the onscreen icons looked exactly the same. The entire game could now be controlled, if the player liked, with a mouse, with all of the keyed commands duplicated as onscreen buttons; this forced Origin to reduce the "alphabet soup" that had been previous Ultima interfaces, which by Ultima V had used every letter in the alphabet plus some additional key combinations, to ten buttons, with the generic "use" as the workhorse taking the place of a multitude of specifics.

Another influence, one which Origin was for obvious reasons less eager to publicly acknowledge than that of Times of Lore, was FTL's landmark 1987 CRPG Dungeon Master, a game whose influence on its industry can hardly be overstated. John Miles remembers lots of people at Origin scrambling for time on the company's single Atari ST in order to play it soon after its release. Garriott himself has acknowledged being "ecstatic" for his first few hours playing it at all the "neat new things I could do." Origin co-opted Dungeon Master‘s graphical approach to inventory management, including the soon-to-be ubiquitous "paper doll" method of showing what characters were wearing and carrying.
[...]

After a long time between updates there has been an update submitted for the Ultima 6 Remake project which is remaking Ultima 6 using Ultima 7 graphics and the Exult engine.

Project info

The goal of this project is to update U6 using U7 graphics and Exult engine, for those of us who aren't into the 3D feel of the Ultimas. It has been something I always wished I could do, long before Exult came into being, but now it is possible. This conversion will stay true to the original game but update the storyline a bit to reflect the warlike atmosphere, new npcs to help tie in loose ends or create new sidequests, and elaborate on things in game that wasn't possible with the Ultima 6 engine.

[...]

Update on the project!!
Posted by Zygon Dragon on 4th October 2016 in Updates
It's been a while since we've updated things here! Rest assured, work on the mod has picked up quite a bit as of late. I've been working on getting an idea of where we're at in the mod via spreadsheet and what needs to be done, fixed, added, and so on. It's been a huge help in figuring out what to do next. For the past few days I've been doing map work, finishing both the Britain sewers and Buccaneer's Cave areas since they both connect. The overworld seems to be near complete, just needing some fine tuning and cleaning up here and there. NPCs in the overworld are mostly done, with a handful still needing to be done and many needing some fine tuning. Crowley is still working hard on the backlog of new sprites and things needed for the mod, and Pegbyter has been working on a sidequest that isn't crucial to the game, but will shed new light on some things from U5. A hint of what's to come: Have you ever wanted to get revenge on Chuckles that didn't involve shooting him with a cannon? Perhaps he's been hiding something all of these years... something that Lord British wouldn't find very virtuous...

Sorry for the long time in between updates, but we've been working sporadically and are determined to see this to the finish line! We're still looking for pixel artists who can finish the portraits and make them look nice, so let us know if you're willing and able!

-AOG

The Ultima Codex posted their article for Felipe Pepe's  CRPG Player’s Handbook.

I was debating whether to keep this under wraps until the cRPG Player’s Handbook was published (which, granted, is not going to happen for a while yet), but Felipe Pepe (the book’s editor) evidently liked the review of Ultima 6 I wrote for it enough that he decided to publicize the piece himself.

So there it is, above; a summary of as much of what makes Ultima 6 great as I could squeeze into 3700ish characters.

The CRPG Addict has a new retrospective for Ultima VI: The False Prophet.

Origin System's motto was "we create worlds." It was a fitting motto for a company so dedicated to detailed back story and lore. Britannia is the most obvious example, but even the company's minor titles, like Times of Lore or Knights of Legend, have rich game manuals and complex histories. For years, I've thought of Origin as the paramount example of what became the first category in my GIMLET index: "game world."

Richard Garriott created the Ultima series in a time when hardly any games were paying attention to good stories--and even if they did, the technology of the times wasn't sufficient to justify much of the prose. In this era, Ultima IV comes along like a revelation, with a manual outlining Britannia's history, detailed descriptions of every town, monster, and item, a fully constructed virtue system--and, most importantly, a game that made full use of all the manual's lore. It's one of the few games of the era in which the manual and game seem like partners in the gameplay experience. It is, in fact, one of the few games of the era in which the manual and game feel like they were written by the same people.

But perhaps as notable as the effort and detail put into Britannia's history is how poorly Origin maintained it. The Ultima series is rightfully famous for re-inventing the game engine and magic system between numbered titles, but it also re-invented its stories, too. Hardly any aspect of the world holds up to scrutiny between any two games. IV and V are the closest, but in general, the game manuals engage in a rampage of retconning between titles.

FaultyPixel has a retrospective for Ultima VI: The False Prophet. Give it a look and share your opinions.

While the next game in the series, Ultima VII: The Black Gate, is probably the most well-known and well regarded of the main Ultima series, Ultima VI: The False Prophet deserves to be remembered as a significant and monumental entry in not just the series, but RPGs and gaming as a whole. It started the trend toward grander scale worlds, ushered the genre towards the now-popular isometric third-person perspective and told a nuanced and engaging story to boot. Today, Bioshock: Infinite draws widespread plaudits for its story, not least from me, but Ultima VI’s narrative is every bit as good.

The False Prophet may not be the most fondly remembered of the Ultima games and may be criticised for its design choices, but the simple fact is that this much-maligned title is a damn sight better than most other titles out there. While the design may not be polished or the finished article, it set the basis from which The Black Gate, the most technically refined of the series, could build.

The true merit of Ultima VI: The False Prophet is in its transformation of standard, clichéd oppression storyline into an odyssey of self-discovery, introspection and evolution. It doesn’t overtly preach and it certainly doesn’t patronise; what it does is deliver a revelatory narrative in the most engaging way possible and for that I can describe it as nothing less than one of the best games I have ever had the fortune to experience.

If you like digging through design material for classic games, Ultima Aiera has a bunch of original desgn and technical docs from Ultima 6, provided by Origin programmer Bill Randolph.

I must admit to being totally ignorant about this but Mark writes in to say Ultima VI Online is, well, back online.  As I understand it, this is an MMORPG built using assets from Ultima VI (feel free to fill in details in the comments).  Details can be found at Ultima: Aiera, an excellent Ultima projects news site.