Talk:Iolo's hut

What was this letting "hinting" at Serpent Isle?

The article speaks of a letter in U7 that hints of U7.5. Can I see it? It'd make a good reference. AngusM 02:19, September 12, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, there's a letter from Gwenno in the hut. I can't remember specifically where it's found, but it reads as follows:

Dearest Iolo,

In Buccaneer's Den I came across an old pirate who told me he had sailed across the waters of Britannia more times than I was summers old. On a gamble, I asked if he had ever heard of the legendary Serpent Isle. He had! And he even had a map that would tell how to locate the island. I bought the map and have already begun my search. However, I made a copy so that thou mayest follow me after thy current adventures have ended. I have left the copy with Lord British, but he promised he wouldst not give it to thee until thou hast completed thy explorations with _____.

'Til I see thee again, my love!

Gwenno

--Terilem 04:37, September 12, 2010 (UTC)

Where it was found is not important. Clearly it hints at what the text says it hints at. But now that I've take a 2nd look at the text, what's this talk about a contradiction? I don't see the contradiction. Also, I'd like to know what that "originally" part is about. How does one know what the original intention of the note was?

And where does one find the text to this note? It's not at Notable Ultima. AngusM 05:09, September 12, 2010 (UTC)

I got the text from the U7 Usecode. This is why I'm hesitant to rely on transcripts. ;)

Re: "original intent" -- I'm not sure about that part of the article. The letter still works as a foreshadowing of later events whether both parts of U7 were one game or not. On that note, I don't think I've ever seen the source of the information that U7 and SI were originally one game. I'll try and research that.

I was also wondering about this so-called contradiction. I think what the article is talking about is that in the SI intro, there is no mention of the map copy Gwenno already gave to Lord British. I don't see how that makes it a contradiction, though. There's nothing suggesting that Batlin's map was the first to be seen by LB, otherwise that surely would have been a discrepancy.

Of course, one wonders at the logic behind why it took a whole 18 months after U7 for all this to come out in the open, but a contradiction? I dunno about that. --Terilem 05:52, September 12, 2010 (UTC)

Regarding Gwenno's letter it's found quite simply on Iolo's desk at his Hut, so it's difficult to miss unless you never go there. I don't think there is a contradiction per se with the SI intro, altough the 18 month between U7 and SI have always sounded a bit far-fetched to me - I've always thought personally that they chose this time-frame in order to shoehorn Underworld II and potentially other games between the two Ultima VII Parts (since at that time they were considering the ideas of other Ultima games with the Avatar experiting on his Orb while stuck in Britannia as a starting point)

Regarding the original intent of UVII and SI starting as one game, I've honestly never seen any official source stating this and I've always wondered if it wasn't just some fan speculation due to the fact that SI is called "Ultima VII Part II". The only thing I clearly remember is one interview with Garriott between UVII and SI where he said Serpent Isle was not called Ultima VIII because it used the Ultima VII engine and that traditionnaly any new core Ultima used a brand new engine and code

Also over the years I've basically seen mentioned two "origins" about Serpent Isle as a game, the first being the "one game cut in two part" aspect. The other being that it started as an independant kind of World of Ultima game that was latter decided to be made as a sequel to Ultima VII and that the original plan was for the Guardian to seize the Avatar through th Black Gate at the end of Ultima VII to send him to Pagan.

Now there are argument about the two versions that make sense (notably in case of the WoU theory, why the whole Guardian aspect seems so tengencial to the main story), but again I've never been able to find any official source proving either of these theories - which is why I'm uncomfortable at having either cited as fact on the wiki, but considering how potentially capital both these infos are, not having them mentionned anywhere would also feel silly --Sergorn 09:27, September 12, 2010 (UTC)

I was about to say that we are now revelling in speculation about how the text can be justified, and that if someone doesn't step up with some hard information on which to base that text, we should dock it. But I want to hear more about what Segorn is saying about these theories. Are you saying that the theories on why SI was a part 2, and not a U8 are so compelling that they need to be discussed (in articles)? Are you further saying that it was in SI that the Guardian's presence was tangential? It's been a while since I've played SI, so I don't remember the Guardian being so irrelevant.

Now my theory about SI is much simpler. As I understand it, U7 was the most lucrative Ultima. It was decided to harvest even more from the market, while keeping expenses down, by reusing the same game engine. Fans might feel cheated if they see the same engine released w/a new major number, therefore "part II".

In any case, I don't quite see these theories as an elephant in the room, so I don't have a problem w/not addressing them (in articles). AngusM 00:55, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more I think the "one game" theory has its origins in a fan's mind. The distinct impression I get from Warren Spector's SI interview and Sheri Graner Ray's blog is that the two games were always parallel projects. Besides which, I can't imagine a design spec with such a monumental scope would have ever made it into full production without the team realising they'd have to make some big cuts to have it be a viable project.

And yeah, the Guardian's role in SI was admittedly rather irrelevant. He pretty much just shows up for Batlin's death and then again at the end to whisk away the Avatar. The rest of the plot essentially has nothing to do with him. --Terilem 03:46, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

I mean if we find real facts pointing to them we should mention it, since it's always interesting to have informations about how the games were being developped (and except for Ultima IX we admitedly don't have that many). I'd actually argue that we should remove all references in the wiki about Ultima VII and SI being one game cut in half and keep solely the verifable fact: meaning that it was called Ultima VII Part II because each new Ultima game traditionnaly used a new engine.

You're right about the game being done to cut expanses by reusing the UVII. I mean that was the basic idea between the Worlds of Ultima games and the Ultima VI engine too, and even later with the Ultima VIII engine (that was reused for Crusade and the first iterration of Ultima IX). Note that this is also why the "World of Ultima" thoery sounds plausible because it does feel the project has been started for the sames reasons as the WoU games. Also if you take into account Arthurian Legends, which also used the Ultima VII engine and was originally imagined as a World of Ultima spin-off before evolving into its own independant RPG, it does not sound far-fetched to think that SI might have started as a WoU game that became part of its core series. As pointed by Terilem the Guardian aspect of the plot really is secondary: I mean SI is mostly about saving the world from Imbalance and exploring the Ophidian Virtues, to the point really that it almost felt like the whole Batlin/Guardian aspect was added as an afterthought. But of course that's just speculation (perhaps someone should page Sheri Graner Ray or Bill Arminthrout? :P)

I got the impression as well that UVII and SI were parrallal projects from the start or almost from the start in any case, probably because OSI felt immediately they should reuse the UVII engine and assets. In any case it seems pretty likely that development was started before Ultima VII was out, and it's also established that development ran concurently with Ultima VIII (with basically the Spector/Armintrout team running things on SI, while the Garriott team ran things on Ultima VIII). --Sergorn 07:35, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

It's a real shame the Origin Museum is no longer online. They had uploaded a whole pile of internal Origin newsletters that might have shed some more light on this issue. I wish I'd had the foresight to save them all. --Terilem 08:21, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

Defintily aye, and it seems it's not avaiable either through the Web Archive :(. Also I have to say when I see all the stuff about Wing Commander the guys at the CIC managed to get over the years, from simple information to full-fledged design docs about existing or cancelled projects there is something very frustrating about the fact nothing of the stuff about Ultima ever leaked online. I mean I'd certainly love to have a look at the design docs from previouses iterations of Ultima IX --Sergorn 08:44, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad the Origin Museum exists. Someday I hope to make it to D.C. to visit it. But it does make me sad that the information it holds is not made more readily available online. On the bright side I saved all the Points of Origin before the Museum's website disappeared. Enjoy! -- Fenyx4 13:47, September 19, 2010 (UTC)

Oh wow! Thanks Fenyx! :D --Terilem 13:49, September 19, 2010 (UTC)

Wow, those are awesome! Never seen them before. Is there somewhere better these could be hosted? Wonder what the copyright rules are on something like this, and whether or not they could be put on the wiki. Dungy 19:09, September 19, 2010 (UTC)

Well now, I stumbled across this while I was looking for box art. It seems to be a full backup of the Origin Museum website, with all materials available. Get it while you can! --Terilem 04:37, September 29, 2010 (UTC)

Cool, I grabbed the whole lot of it. I'll have to see if there's anything that would like nice on the wiki. Dungy 12:10, September 29, 2010 (UTC)

I readjusted the info I originally wrote, it was based on theory I saw first about U7&SI being one big game. Having seen the stuff in Origin Museum, I concur with the facts. Rodimus 12:53, October 16, 2010 (UTC)

Article name

At this wiki, I think we have the bad habit of capitalizing every word in an article's name. In particular, this makes no sense for this article. It has just been decided that Iolo's hut is going to be treated a a common noun or term. That is, it's going to be called "Iolo's hut", not "Iolo's Hut". However, the article itself, for no real reason except the bad habit mentioned before, is called "Iolo's Hut". This is not very consistent. I think that we should 1) rename this article to "Iolo's hut", and 2) start doing the same with other articles where this applies.--Sega381 14:51, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

My view has always been that it is the title of the article. And being a title should be treated like a title. I'd find it pretty jarring to change. However I see that Wikipedia agrees with you as well as other wikis. So, as much as it pains me, I agree with you as I imagine they know better than I. -- Fenyx4 16:58, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, what you are talking about is a policy change. What the style guide has now holds (thanks to yours truly) that for titles, nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and the first word are to have capital initials. So if we are to change to "Iolo's hut", it would require a policy change. AngusM 20:11, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

I think the policy of this wiki so far has been to capitalize all titles, like they are actual titles, similar to what Fenyx said. Personally, I prefer doing it that way. If we were to convert to the way Wikipedia does it, I think we'd have to change nearly every title on the wiki. Dungy 20:27, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

I think for the titles themselves, it is acceptable to keep the current form. After all, many titles of media are written in this style. Also, it would be absolutely insane to change it now, since it would mean to doctor on easily half of the articles.--Tribun 22:14, September 13, 2010 (UTC)

If we decide to do this, it doesn't have to happen overnight, it can be gradually. But it is a real pain when we have to add a link to Iolo's Hut, for example, and put it this way: "Iolo's Hut|Iolo's hut". It makes no sense to me. I understand the titles policy, it's just that I have always seen the article's name as the name of the thing itself, not so much as a "title", such as an encyclopedia, which doesn't capitalize multi-word things when talking about them. I think the problem is that, seeing the name of the article as a Title rather than as the thing's name. But I guess we should vote on this an go with the majority. I have no problem if most people wan't to keep it this way. It just seems... wrong to me. But I can live with it.--Sega381 01:12, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

Oh right, that link problem. What's up w/that? Sometimes if a link has the wrong case, Wikia properly links it anyway, and other times it doesn't. Let's see how this one goes: "Iolo's hut". Ok, the preview here reddens the link, but what about: gargoyles? That one is properly linked, but the article name has a capital initial. I think maybe the last time I saw a broken link due to case sensitive, it also had a space in its name. AngusM 02:13, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

The rule is pretty simple, though confusing at first. A link has to be exactly equal to an article's name, caps and all, EXCEPT on the first letter. The first letter may be capital or not, and the link will go ok. For example, Gargoyles and gargoyles work, but "GarGOYles" doesn't. Thus, iolo's Hut and Iolo's Hut work, but "Iolo's hut" or "Iolo's HUT" don't.--Sega381 02:18, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

I'm not too concerned about whether article titles should be capitalized, so I don't mind sticking with current policy. I take more issue with the number of article titles that begin with "The." It makes it frustrating both for linking and for searching. --Terilem 02:22, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

Wow! That's a big problem, w/the case sensitive linking. Is there something we can do about that? Is it ingrained in Wikia, or is it a Codex thing? If we can't make linking case insensitive, then I guess all there is left is to:

1. Live with it, and correct problems as they come
2. Use redirects when policy on case changes. When one creates a new article, will Wikia allow us to make a new article name that's just a case-based variation on another? I'll try making "GarGOYles". Yep, GarGOYles, now exists, so that's one option.

Having done my experiment w/GarGOYles, I guess if Wikia changed this feature, it'd break a million other wikis.

AngusM 02:37, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

About the "The" articles, yes, that is a subtle problem, too. Using "the" at the beginning of an article's name is justified in the cases where it is part of the article's name (such as The Book of Play, as the of the book IS "The Book of Play", not just "Book of Play"). But in cases such as The Eight Virtues, I'm not sure if there is any justification for the "The"...--Sega381 18:50, September 14, 2010 (UTC)

Oh definitely, there are some cases where it's called for, like you said. Your latter example of The Eight Virtues is exactly the kind of usage I'm concerned with. --Terilem 04:31, September 15, 2010 (UTC)

I'd recommend we start chopping them, then. Maybe we can start with a list of potential articles where "The" has to be removed?--Sega381 00:19, September 20, 2010 (UTC)

Some to start off with: The Eight Virtues, The Avatar, The Stranger, The Guardian, The Shrine of X, The Rune of X, The Companions of the Avatar, The Abyss. These are some common ones that irk me. Dungy 00:25, September 20, 2010 (UTC)

I say, off with them. Let's move them to the correct names, and maybe keep the original as redirects. Some of them (The Avatar and The Abyss) have already been fixed. Let's start with the rest.--Sega381 16:41, September 20, 2010 (UTC)

A complete list of potential candidates can be found Here: [1]

I took the liberty of changing a number of files I thought were more obvious that they should be changed. The rest are up for interpretation still. Dungy 17:57, September 21, 2010 (UTC)

Good job! The ones that I see that are still missing, that I don't see really why we shouldn't change them (though I would have to check), are:

• The Black Sword
• The Lost Lands
• The Abyss (Ultima IV) (there might be a reason for this, but for consistency with Great Stygian Abyss, the "the" should be removed...)
• The Gypsy (I'm not sure if "Gypsy" is a name good enough... but I'm not sure why the "The" should remain)

Some that MAY be open to interpretation:

• The Ankh (it says that the name is "The Aknh"...)
• The Cap'n (his name is always given with "The", soo..)
• The Three ("Three" doesn't make much sense...)

--Sega381 19:35, September 21, 2010 (UTC)

I agree for the most part. I'll change The Black Sword, The Lost Lands, and The Abyss. Actually, I'll leave The Abyss for now because I don't want to screw up what Fenyx is doing. As for The Gypsy, well, I just don't know what to do with that one. I'm leaning towards leaving it as is. The Three, and The Cap'n should stay as is. The Ankh, how about just changing it to Ankh (NPC)? Dungy 20:37, September 21, 2010 (UTC)

"Ankh (NPC)" sounds ok. We can leave the others as they are for now.--Sega381 00:20, September 22, 2010 (UTC)

And a smaller one here.--Sega381 19:46, September 20, 2010 (UTC)

I changed The Abyss (Ultima IV). I shoulda done it when I changed The Abyss. Sorry. -- Fenyx4 21:00, September 21, 2010 (UTC)