How canon do you think Ultima Forever will be?

Well, based on the website, I’m not sure what you are seeing. The only women you can see is the alpha art for the druid, which hopefully changes because it is kinda pointless, and concept art for the gypsy. I don’t see Hawkwind anywhere. You may be mistaking the gypsy for him; it is not. With the crystal ball in the way, there is no way of telling how clothed she is anyway. So… I’m not sure where you get the impression that women aren’t wearing clothes.

Yes, there are changes. Lady British, airships, stylized artwork, etc. I expect that this will take place in a separate “universe”, so it will be as canon as Ultima Online is, for the most part. That being said, I think I will enjoy how U4E handles Virtues better than any game since U4 itself. If you’ve played SW:TOR, I’m sure you can guess how Virtue choices are handled, but due to the way it tracks those choices, there is a LOT of work to do.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by  Browncoat Jayson.

Browncoat Jayson wrote:

airships

I saw somebody mention this on another website, that airships weren’t canon, but there were airships in Ultima IX I believe, as well as Ultima Online 2, although I think they weren’t going to be in the launch of UO2 and were being saved. Both of those had the involvement of Richard Garriott and the argument could be made that it makes them canon.

It’s a hazy area. Ultima Online follows some canon, but it also went off in some bizarre directions that were more a reaction to the market than the lore.

• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by  Deckard.

I think one thing we really need to make perfectly clear is that the game is its own separate canon.

This is NOT meant to be part of the old Ultima series’ core canon anymore than Christopher Nolan’s Batman was meant to be part of the same canon as Tim Burton’s Batman.

This is a reboot. There’s a reason the developpers keep comparing the game to the likes of Batman Begins and The Amazing Spider-Man.

So people should really stop right now about trying to fit Ultima Forever because what we know in Ultima, because it will only lead to dissapointment when/if familiar elements appears in different ways or locations and so on.

There’s little doubt there’ll be a lot of throwbacks to the old series, but the safe thing to do is consider Ultima Forever as its own separate thing. If they  wanted it to be part of the old series… they would have set it after Ultima IX.

Regarding airships, based on Paul Barnett’s comments about hot-air balloon I’m thinking they are the same things.

There never was any airship in any Ultima game (unless you count Ultima I’s aircar I guess). Ultima IX was supposed to have one at some point in early revision of the Bob White (thought it seems it was to some sort of balloon), and Ultima Online 2′s steampunk take would have had too. But that’s about it.

-Sergorn

Heh speaking of this I’ve always disliked this retcon from Ultima VI. Ultima VI retconned a lot of stuff (though I’m always amused fans tend to disregard this) but I thought making the Stranger and the Avatar one and the same completly diminished the whole point of Ultima IV and was completly unecessarry.

The only interesting bit they tried to do in tying the Stranger and the Avatar, was for Ultima IX with the Guardian’s origin supposed to be tied to the Gem of Immortality, but since this aspect was cut from the final game…

-Sergorn

I think this could have worked in a post-U9 era. Ultima X certainly seemed to show that even if it used a different world.

But really it’s been so long since a new Ultima was released, even a post UIX would likely have required some form of “soft reboot” (ie. set it hundreds of year in the future with the original series as un legand, do a new quest of the avatar or such), so might have well do a proper reboot starting this Ultima IV.

-Sergorn

I think fan expectations would be the biggest hurdle for a post Ultima IX game. I clearly remember some fans rejecting UXO solely on account of it taking place after UIX. Though I think such fans represents a minority.

As I said though as a form of soft reboot, it might work – kinda like (in a different way) how Obsidian handled Dungeon Siege III

And I wouldn’t say the Bob White Plot got rid of “all majors characters”. If anything my understand is that all the recurring companions and character would have been alive and well in “New Britannia” and even the Avatar and Lord British’s fate seems uncertains considering the decripencies between the plot doc, the ’99 summary and the leaked ending video.

-Sergorn

I know UO players who would rather UO retain its low resolution 2D artwork from the 1990s and face closure in a few years rather than push for the high resolution artwork that could give UO a chance to make it to the 20th.  There are just some people who refuse to accept change.

Yeah I noticed that about UO with the whole Kingdom Reborn debacle. I tried UOKR when it was in open. I didn’t liked because really, the game had changed to much since I last played and I realy disliked the new point’n click interface. But the game looked *gorgeous* and it felt definily like what UO needed.

And yet by the time UOSA came out, they had basically pasted the old art into the new engine because of how much fans hated the new. That felt like a gigantic waste .

Which is why I’m not hopeful about a proper hi res graphical update of UO really. I’ve heard rumors of something among these lines being in the worse, but if it’s poorly received by fans to the point they’d have to pull it of anyway…

Of course this kind of attitude is nothing new from Ultima fans. It would feel silly now, but back in 98 one of the biggest point of debate amonsgt Ultima fans was Ultima IX’s camera view. Because lots of people felt a true Ultima could only use isometric graphics, and that a 3d person view was something from action games and not RPGs (which is rather ironic now since 3rd person view in RPG is almost a norm). And there were similar arguments made with Ultima VII and Ultima VI. Really!

The difference really is that back then Origin and Garriott didn’t give a damn and keep working on the game how they wanted and fans be damned if they didn’t like it. Now companies are much more (and probably too much) fan councious.

I think this is a unique opportunity.  Let’s say Ultima Forever does well enough that EA wants to continue with later Ultimas.  That means they can build a canon based on elements from Ultima IV and onward, but they can keep it much more coherent from game-to-game.  Chances are they won’t have an Ultima IX situation that muddies things and won’t be shooting anybody to Mars using a huge cannon.

Agreed. By rebooting the whole thing they have the opportunity to make a new Ultima lore that is much more detailed and consistent. I’m hoping/suspecting the plan is to redo the whole series following Ultima Forever if all goes well, but admitedly it’s also possible it will branch into its own thing….

-Sergorn

• This reply was modified 10 months, 1 week ago by  Sergorn.