User:AngusM

About me
I'm known as The Ultra-Mind Dragon at UDIC, whatever that means anymore.

My Baptism in Ultima
Way back when I was, maybe, 13-years-old, my friend and fellow Apple ][+ owner showed me Ultima III: "Ambrosia, ever heard of it?" At the time I was bogged down in Wizardry, which is a game that puts you in a very different frame of mind, wrt CRPGs. So I didn't bite. That's good, because you can only play Ultima III for the first time once, so when you do, you should make it count.

Ultima IV
The first Ultima I played was probably Ultima IV. Unfortunately, it was broken, and whenever I entered a shrine, the disk would spin like bald tires in quicksand.

I think I completed Ultima I and Ultima III. Alas, I don't think I'd even heard of the Mockingboard, so the experience was very mundane in comparison to what it could have been.

The 1990s
In 1990 I got my first PC. To make a long story about the horribly inadequate hardware it had at the time short, I'll just say that my screen was monochrome. I tried Ultima VI for a while, but why bother?

So up until then, my only proper experiences were with Ultima IV and two before it. The next one I was to try was Ultima VIII! I knew nothing of the Guardian, nor the Ultimas from which he came, and after the goodie two-shoesness of Britannia, the darkness and cynicism of Pagan and the absence of all the familiar Britannian icons were a rude awakening indeed! Needless to day, like all Ultima fans, I hated it.

Eventually the Encore CD-Rom (Ultimas I through VI for the PC) came around, and I got caught up, and learned what was so bogus about Ultima II. Alas, the only music I was to hear was for Ultima VI. If I'd held out until I could run Ultima III to V on an emulator, I would have augmented my experience with an auditory richness–or I would have gone stark raving mad at the tedious FM music.

The Future of Ultima
It doesn't have one. At least not in Origin Systems's eyes–make that "eye" due to EA's cutbacks. Ultima has not been lucrative for a very long time, and frankly, I think it's too cerebral a concept for the dumbed down owners of the money who would pay for it. But, as long as humanity has not been extinguished, there is always hope that it will be back in vogue again. Personally, I won't be holding my breath. Even if I live that long, there's a fair chance I wouldn't like what is to be produced. All my favourite Ultimas preceded the 1990s anyway. Ultima has gone the way of real estate: they aren't making any more of it. Until they do, all there is left is to study its archeology.

The Archeology of Ultima
The ancient Egyptians were a magnificent people and empire that lasted 3 millennia (millennia!). So why is it that a scholar can spend all his life studying all the Egyptological material out there, then all the works on Egyptology and still have time for lawn bowling before he dies? Because no one was interested in her until almost 2000 years after they died out. The sands of time, and of the dessert, eroded much of that away. Entire reigns by pharaohs are unknown. Much of what is known is by accident. One such accident was Manetho, the ancient historian. Unfortunately, he wasn't very good at it, so much of his work is considered unreliable. The Codex, I think, to be the best hope of preserving Ultima archeology. Like Manetho, there is much that can be preserved while the preserving's good. Unlike Manetho, it's important that the quality of these recordings be high. One of my countrymen once said...

The Medium is the Message
No one seems to know exactly what this means, but one analysis is that the concrete content of what is being delivered is not as effective as the medium through which it is delivered. What this means for the Codex is that Ultima will only appear as good as the Codex is. Should someone browse the Codex and find it rank with spelling mistakes, poor grammar, inconsistent style, rash language and erroneous information, this will be the only impression that anyone will be able to get about the game. On the other hand, if readers should find a Codex rich with information, and of the best order and quality, who knows? Maybe it'll lead to enough interest to revive the franchise!

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