User:AngusM

About me

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

Gone fishing

I'm going to be going to sleep soon. It'll probably be for about 3 weeks. I'm expecting that when I wake up, I'll be somewhere else. I'd appreciate it if someone could let me know where that will be, in such a way that I can get the message when I wake up again. Thanks.

If everything goes ok, you should wake up at http://codex.ultimaaiera.com .--Sega381 13:26, October 20, 2010 (UTC)

TODO

I guess it's about time I did this too:

• Complete research tools: that's more than just the page
  • U6Text: since U6Edit does not let you search the entire transcript, I'm making a tool that does that
    • Figure out how the decompression works: Sega381's been a big help here
    • Figure out what those non-ASCII bytes in the text are: I'm in the middle of working on the code that does this, but man I hate parsing!
    • Work out the GUI issues
  • Manuals: there are a bunch of PDFs somewhere
  • Text sources
• Select pages randomly and fix them: I'll be done doing this when I'm dead
• Complete the style guide: ditto. This also means getting consensus on the talk page. Issues arise faster than consensus is reached
  • Noun lexicon
• Learn the mechanics of getting booted from the Abyss in U4: Fenyx strove to furnish me w/a savegame, so it'd only be polite

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 say, 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 priorities for the Codex

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

1. 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:

“	Herbert Birdsfoot is a crazy old man, with three fingers, a lion tamer's hat, and sings AC/DC songs all day – from Slartibartfast's Wild Adventures (Ultima VIII)

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. This is also in two parts.

i. Small tweaking

This usually amounts to changing things like "was" to "has been" and "Jerry says always that" to "Jerry always says that".

ii. Fundamental rewriting

This is a lot harder than i. which is probably why I didn't get the best grades in English. Entire paragraphs would need their words sifted and changed around. It requires more abstract thinking and patience. So far I've done a lot of i. but very little of this.

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.

2. Set policies and standards

There's too much inconsistency, and editors playing by their own rules. These don't quite qualify for 1., but still aren't too pretty. Right now the biggie is what words to capitalize that aren't obviously proper nouns. But we are making good headway since I first wrote this section. I'm thinking of the noun lexicon and several editors have deigned to involve themselves in the style guide.

3. More resources 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.

Something else I intend to make a lot of use of, and (at the time of writing) a lot of edits to, would be research tips and resources. I used to be hung up on transcripts, and they certainly are useful, but there are many other kinds of texts and resources that can facilitate research.

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. BTW, according to (my own misuse of) the 80-20 rule, for every byte that appears in an article, there should be 4 bytes on the respective discussion pages, and in forums, etc.

5. 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 (derived from the original schedule):

• 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!

AngusM's 7 Deadly Sins

These are what I believe to be the greatest pitfalls that tend to ensnare editors, vaguely in order of... something or other. There's a lot of overlap between them, and some of them are identical, and are used based on my mood that day. You can learn of them by meditating at the Shrine of AngusM using the mantra 'GNORW GNIHTYNA OD REVEN I THGIR STAHW OD SYAWLA I' which is based on the anti-Virtue of Romper Room.

1. Factlessness: Taketh thine time to ensure it verily transpireth in that fashion. Assumeth not it happened in that fashion, nor shalt thou interpolateth betwixt ye right facts. Shouldst thou doubteth thy perceptions, save thyself, and thy companions, a great sum of work with ye expert-verify template.
2. Embelishment: When one addeth to ye truth. This practise is a practise where ye practitioner attributeth characteristics to characters, items or whatsoever that simply are unknown to ye games. This mighteth be of ye form of "Lithos was a being a great intelligence." Verily, this is, but only by a fair margin of chance. Verily, Forrest Gump shall maketh a weak and feeble Titan. But no man or machine hast made this clear. I wouldst differentiateth this from "Speculation" by so addressing it "speculation about what ruminations ye developers had".
3. Speculation: Shouldst one extrapolateth from ye facts. Verily, Lord British's great power is known to us, and one of ye good guys, and according to our ways and values, good guys chopeth not off ye heads of inconvenient peoples such that they might gain or hold onto power. But we knoweth not that he dideth not, so sayeth not that he dideth not. (Know also that he who sayeth that he dideth, shall incurreth an elevation of ill karma.) Sometimes thou canst getteth away with speculation duly labelleth as speculation, but ye acceptance of unlabelled speculation shall never be.
4. Editorialization: "This was the best Ultima" is a favourite example, but of rather exaggerated obviousness, and, verily, sins that obvious are infrequent. "The Guardian is like Santa Claus" is a good but infrequent example. (Fenyx4, I behold in thy direction) More common writings mighteth be "Iolo would have made a fine Avatar" or "New Magincia is nicer than Skara Brae". I.e. injecting thine own opinions into ye text. Moreover, this Sin doth be nothing save Subjectivity. Rarely, whenst thou makest an opinion, thou can inquire of thyself now, couldeth my companion possibly disagreeeth with this? Taketh, for instance, "Pagan is a very bleak and dismal place." I believest ye world is empty of a set of one-liners that can deriveth that conclusion, but verily any who hast ye playing of this game in his past, he should knoweth that this is ye image that ye developers so desired. Ye wording mighteth be improved, but only one who is mad wouldeth be contrary.
5. Subjectivity: ye act that supplanteth too much of thy POV into ye text. Maybe thee doth taketh ye game in this fashion, but it goeth not that way for everyone. In fact, some of ye greatest text wouldeth chance to be that which thy teacher of English couldeth not attribute to thee. This canst also taketh ye form of adjectives that are unnecessary. "Britain is a very big towne." How big doth be big? Perchance it be bigger than was it in another Ultima, or bigger still than another towne. But it canst not be absolutely big. Verily, ever since our lord Origin didst away w/ye system of two maps, I findeth that Britannia doth be no bigger than a shopping mall whose size is very large. "This weapon is extremely powerful." Canst it be verily called "powerful", fine, but "extremely" approaches unnecessarily emotional. Invectives dost make this even worse, and readers vexed. If thou wanteth to calleth a diminutive villain or contemptible scoundrel "pathetic", thou wouldst in better chance to calleth attention to thine own Subjectivity. Besides, be it best just to explain why he is pathetic and letteth thy readers maketh up their own minds.
6. Overgeneralization: Some features of a towne or spell or item appeared in but one Ultima. And ye number of occurrences that they dost appear in, is one. So talketh not about them like they doth appeareth in every game accompanied by all those attributes.
7. Spelling: Be thou akin to me, in thy browser, on thine OS, thy rich text editor hast not spell-as-thee-typeth (there wast a time, and there may again be a time, but doth not now). Switchest thou to source mode, however, and it shall. Be thou unlike me, dost perform that function every time. Be thou careful, though, of variations on spelling amongst ye different lands of Earth, and those between Britannia and Earth.