Development History of Ultima IX

The development history of Ultima IX is long and often tumultuous. The controversial final product is the result of many events that altered the course of the game's creation, of which the various stages of development are as follows:

The First Draft
The original plans for Ultima IX remain mostly unknown. Richard Garriott had said that he planned to ship Ascension in a sky blue box, progressing the trend established by Ultima VII's box being black and that of Ultima VIII predominantly awash with orange flames. The game's design apparently called for a greater presence of its predecessor's arcade-style jump puzzles and a story that took place on the Guardian's homeworld. This setting was initially hinted at in the Ultima VIII Clue Book. Ascension was originally meant to feature an enhanced Super VGA version of the Crusader engine, which in turn was a modified build of Ultima VIII's.

Little is known about the plot content of this first version of the game, although some early interviews with Richard Garriott prior to Ultima VIII's release suggested that it would focus on the ascension of the Avatar, having to gain enough power to fight the Guardian on his own ground without becoming a second such being. This premise is also consistent with the overview Garriott gave at the time he began this third trilogy, which was supposed to be about the Avatar "returning to the dark side."

However, public feedback following Ultima VIII was poor, prompting Origin to make a sharp turn in development. Included in the last patch for Ultima VIII was the FANS.TXT file, in which Richard Garriott wrote, "The design of Ultima IX (which is still in progress) relies heavily on this feedback and has resulted in a dramatic turnaround back toward classic role playing. Even better, it has resulted in a classic Britannian Ultima." Also mentioned was a plan to return to the dual-scale map system of earlier entries in the series.

Garriott himself was reportedly very unhappy with this first iteration of Ultima IX and in light of these developments, the game was started from scratch. 

The Isometric Game
What followed was the version frequently referred to as the "original" Ultima IX.

In the wake of Ultima VIII's negative feedback, numerous changes were made to the plans for Ultima IX. The game was relocated to Britannia, a land now mostly conquered by the Guardian during the Avatar's absence, and a completely new plot was conceived during development: the oft-cited Bob White Plot, collaboratively written by White, Richard Garriott, John Watson, Brian Martin, and Chuck Zoch.

The revised game was planned to feature a party system and pre-rendered cutscenes. Screenshots began to surface in early 1996, showcasing the software-rendered 3D engine that now powered Ultima IX. The camera appeared locked into an overhead view that approximated the isometric perspective of Ultima VIII, but could be rotated about its vertical axis and zoomed in or out.

It was considered for a while to port the game to the Sony Playstation console, with several Sony-related magazines even carrying previews.

Ultima IX appeared to be progressing well, until Ultima Online became a surprise hit in its pre-alpha and beta tests.

Electronic Arts ordered Origin to concentrate all its efforts on Ultima Online in order to get it shipped as soon as possible. While this shift was supposed to last only a few months, development of the online game took longer than expected and effectively put the Ultima IX project on hold for an entire year. By late 1997, the graphics engine was starting to look outdated, with many members of the development team reportedly losing their motivation. According to Ultima VIII project director Mike McShaffry, it was actually the appearance of the new 3D accelerator cards that rejuvenated interest in the project and thus led Origin to scrap the whole game and begin anew with a hardware accelerated engine. 

3D Version 1
The engine was altered yet again to what would come to be its final form. In 1997, 3dfx Interactive, with its Voodoo series, was the only major manufacturer of 3D chipsets. As such, the now simply-titled Ultima Ascension (so-called for concern about alienating a potential wider audience) was optimized to run on that particular hardware. Previews slowly appeared and were met by fans with skepticism, especially once some of the more drastic changes began making news and appeared to show a strong emphasis on action-oriented gameplay. Much of the public's trepidation arising from this period can perhaps be attributed to the design philosophies of new project leader Ed del Castillo, exemplified by the infamous "heavy metal" teaser made available by Origin for a short time in early 1998. Promotional material released during this time also showcased the game's entirely new logo.

As more alterations became public, it was revealed the game was no longer to have a party of companions for the Avatar, instead returning once again to a single-character experience. To compensate for the lack of a party, there existed plans to give the player the opportunity to inhabit other characters such as Shamino, Raven, and even Lord British. This concept was ultimately scrapped, however, cited by Origin as weakening the emotional link between the player and the Avatar.

In the now hardware accelerated 3D engine it was decided that a third-person, over-the-shoulder perspective made for a more immersive gaming experience—something that provoked mixed reactions. The amount of art and voice recording work required also meant that there would not be a female Avatar option.

The story of the game was revised by Ed Del Castillo but remained mostly unchanged from the previous version, although with some obvious changes to accomodate the lack of a party and the possibility to inhabit other characters. The biggest tweak came to the ending who dropped the armageddon angle and instead offered something closer to the final iteration of the plot, with the Avatar sacrificing himself to destroy the Guardian. This version of the plot also introduced some elements that would carry in the final version such as the Raven romance and the Avatar's tie to the Guardian.

Again, numerous screenshots from the game engine itself and from the pre-rendered cutscenes appeared throughout 1998, showing steady progress. However, the game suffered on this occasion under an enormous personnel fluctuation. Dan Rubenfield and Marshall Andrews, two of the designers for Ascension, left Origin in May 1998. Their departure was not a peaceful one, with the two ex-employees blaming the company for sacrificing gameplay values for the sake of an easy profit. Only one month later, lead designer Bob White followed the two to Ion Storm, although this time the split was amicable. Attracting blame for many of the controversial changes in gameplay, Ed del Castillo also resigned in July of the same year amidst a feud with Richard Garriott, with whom he cited philosophical differences.

Garriott then decided to take charge over development personally, marking his first return to a director's role since Ultima VII. He felt the game was going in the wrong direction and wished to reduce the focus on action, later admitting this first fully 3D iteration was a mistake and that he let himself be influenced by the wrong people. As such, he decided to return to the roots of the Britannian series by writing a fresh story with new lead designer Seth Mendelson, the focus of which was primarily to be the Virtues and less about the war against the Guardian. Of symbolical note, the numerical IX suffix was also returned to the game's official title. 

3D Version 2
Following the development team upheaval, work resumed on the one final revision of Ultima IX that would find its way to retail.

Shortly after the beginning of 1999, Electronic Arts gave Origin a mandate that the game had to be shipped in time for Christmas business. However, the title was still markedly bug-ridden and it was found to be impossible to implement the ambitious scale of the world and story in the given timeframe. In an effort to salvage what material they could, the team drastically shrunk Britannia, rewrote the plot into a more simplistic form and used every means to make it cohere with the work they had already completed, requiring certain gameplay areas and cutscenes to be used in contexts for which they were not originally intended. Due to a lack of time to properly fix them, several major features were also eventually removed, such as traditional NPC schedules (which, as well as taking a toll on overall engine performance, reportedly sometimes caused NPCs to fall through the ground) and the concept of having some NPCs follow the Avatar for specific quests (designed to compensate in part for the lack of an actual party).

By 1999, the environment for 3D accelerator cards had changed considerably from its infancy: 3Dfx had lost its absolute supremacy and the Nvidia Riva TNT chip, with its Direct3D support, had gained substantial market share. Ultima IX was not prepared for this situation; the game ran perfectly well on a Voodoo board under the Glide API, but suffered from major performance issues under Direct3D. Development time to rectify this problem had expired, however, and the game was shipped to retailers.

The end result proved to be notoriously controversial, being almost unplayable under Direct3D and still ridden with bugs. Many players were also disappointed with the size of the game world and lack of interactivity, but perhaps most infamous of all were grievances with the plot, with long-time Ultima fans citing multitudes of inconsistencies within the game itself and with its predecessors. While Origin did later address the technical Direct3D issues and the worst bugs by releasing a series of patches, the fundamental design of Ultima IX itself remained unchanged.

Due to the hasty re-tailoring of the game, old plot remnants can be found in numerous places. 