Talk:Ultima: Return

Time flow

Hey Sergorn, according to your latest changes, at the beginning of Return, 200 years have passed in SI, but only 20 years have passed in Britannia. Are you assuming time passes 10 times faster in SI? I believed that you assumed that time flow was basically the same between both lands. Or is there something I'm not understanding here?--Sega381 01:01, October 13, 2010 (UTC)

Huh guess I need to rephrase that. Yes I go with the assumption time flow between Britannia and Serpent Isle is the same. I just assume than two hundred passed between Ultima VII and Ultima IX since as you'll recall from earlier debates, is the most logical of the two possible U9 time frame for me. And in any case by setting the game after Ultima IX we had to make a call and decide an exact timeframe (which is why I mentioned some minor alterations).

So it's over two hundred years since Serpent Isle, but a mere twenty years after U9 (note that it was originally 5 years after Ultima IX, but I've decided to move it a bit further in time a while back).

Also having two centuries since Serpent Isle is very convenient, since we obviously need time to have the Serpent Isle population and society to regrow since the Bane holocaust, and there is a quite lot of things than happens in the time frame between Serpent Isle and Return (enough that we could probably make multiple games just from the background really!) --Sergorn 05:58, October 13, 2010 (UTC)

Clarification

What does, "creative freedom had to be taken in order to accommodate the dual-scale nature of the world map." mean? I have no familiarity with the engine or your project other than of course your delightful monthly updates, so try to keep in mind the fact that most people know even less than me. Dungy 02:07, October 13, 2010 (UTC)

Well, the engine uses a dual scale map - think of it as something very much like Ultima I~V, except for the fact that technical limitations forces use to cut up the map in multiples zones. But obviously with a dual scale map, you can't just recreate worldbuilding as it was with a single scale map so you need to rethink it a bit.

For instance, Moonshade in Serpent Isle spread from the center lake of the Isle of Beyond, up the eastern coast. Which works with the seamless approach of Serpent Isle but would feel a bit silly on a dual scale map and the scale we have given it, hence why we set on having Moonshade built solely around the Lake area. Monitor also has a similar issue, but the others settlements should not however.

But basically think of Cove in Ultima VII: in U7 the village has become a subburn of Britain. This is a tad silly, but it works within Ultima VII's engine. Now imagine having Cove spreading all the way to Britain in a dual scale map a la Ultima V, and you'll get why going back to a dual scale map needs to take some creative freedom with Serpent Isle's map :) --Sergorn 06:05, October 13, 2010 (UTC)