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!

My contributions

 * User contributions

My priorities for the Codex
Everyone has their own ideas about what the Codex needs the most and the least. Here are mine:

1. Pick up where Notable Ultima left off
I've already talked about the extracting transcript issue in a forum post. Unfortunately, there's a fair chance that this will never be realized, but it should be, because I think it would be the best tool to deal with 2.

2. Correction
Bad material is far worse than no material at all. Better that 1,000 pages are let go to correct one. There are many aspects of correction also.

a. Refactualization
The most important in my view, but unfortunately, the hardest one to attend. Misinformation is not just things that are dead wrong, but can take the form of conjecture, speculation, and editorial opinion. Misinformation is, in general, very dangerous, and difficult to control. Psychologist agree (or so I'm told) that when someone is presented with information, the first instinct is to accept it. For instance "the sky is thought to be blue but it is really green." There, for a moment your brain was picturing a green sky, and that's what you believed, until slower thought processes progressed to correct it. Often correcting this information is very expensive, too. Take this tidbit of information:

What are you going to do about that? Well, one thing you can do is check with the copyright holders to see if Origin acquired the rights to use "Herbert Birdsfoot", "Slartibartfast" and AC/DC lyrics. But the only way to be sure is to play the entire game, and when you haven't found Herb, you have to assume that you just didn't find that Easter egg. It's because of this problem that I've found myself being more decisive than with what I'm usually comfortable, assuming I've exercised due diligence in searching for data that aren't there.

b. Grammar and spelling
Very easy for someone with a good command of the language and a browser dictionary, and hides a multitude of sins.

c. Smoother wording
Text that has run-on sentences, less than perfect diction, repetitive keywords, and awkward structure losses efficacy, but it doesn't stick out like a sore thumb, as bad grammar and spelling do.

3. Set policies and standards
There's too much inconsistency, and editors playing by their own rules. These don't quite qualify for 2., but still aren't too pretty. Right now the biggie is what words to capitalize that aren't obviously proper nouns.

4. More content
The Codex could certainly use more content, but it far more needs the content it already has fixed. Except for talk pages and forum pages, the only place you'll see an N beside my name in a history list is in a few pages about music. I figured it was the most underreported part of the Codex. I also rarely add paragraphs to articles, and you'll notice that nearly all my contributions reflect a net loss of bytes to articles.

5. More tools and templates
Expert-verify was a very good one, which certainly well suits my priority schedule. I'm sure that more could be done, but I can't really think of what right now, so I give this low priority. If someone comes up with a good idea, I'm sure it could be realized pretty quickly, thereby dropping the priority again.

6. Encourage others to post their priority schedules
I suppose if they see something this long-winded, though, they'd be too daunted by the task, and give up. So for the lazy editor, use this as a template:
 * Complete Notable Ultima: then there'd be nothing we couldn't do!
 * Correction: this stuff needs fixed
 * Refactualization: there's a lot of stuff that's just wrong
 * Grammar and spelling: use your browsers dictionaries!
 * Smoother wording: Just spend a couple of minutes finding better ways to say stuff
 * Set policies and standards: let's make articles harmonious among each other.
 * More content: Once 2. is done, we can deal with more trivial material
 * More tools and templates: We need more templates, but I don't know which ones.
 * Encourage others to post their priority schedules: this!