Ultima VIII
Encyclopedia
Ultima VIII: Pagan is a video game, the eighth part of the computer role-playing game series Ultima. It was not as well-received as its predecessors, Ultima VII
and Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle
. Developed in 1994
, it is a DOS
only title and is also the first game in the series to be rated M in North America.
The world of Pagan is in eternal twilight
as the result of an ancient battle between the Elemental Titans and the evil "Destroyer", which resulted in the victory of the Titans. However, the people of Pagan had to pay a high price: the Titans had to henceforth be worshiped as gods
. The Titans bestow powers on their most ardent followers, but they are otherwise cruel and unloving rulers, and their followers terrorize the general population.
Ultima VIII sets off where Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle ended: The Guardian has grasped the Avatar from the Void, and now drops him into the sea
of the world Pagan through a pentagram
-shaped portal. In the introduction, the Guardian reveals his plot:
The Avatar regains consciousness
on the shore after being rescued from the sea by a fisherman (who turns out to be an important character later on in the plot). He soon witnesses the execution by beheading
of a townsman, ordered by the tyrannic ruler of the region, Mordea.
Later, visiting the wizard Mythran, he learns that there are four Titans on Pagan, each one having one of the Elements as his/her domain: Water
(Hydros), Air (Stratos), Fire
(Pyros) and Earth
(Lithos). The more privileged followers of Lithos are identified as necromancers, the followers of Pyros as sorcerers, the followers of Stratos as theurgists and the (albeit highly selective) followers of Hydros as tempests. Apart from those, a fifth type of magic known as Thaumaturgy
exists and is pioneered by Mythran. In order to escape Pagan, the Avatar has to overcome many obstacles and master the ways of all titans, finally becoming the Titan of Ether: the magical field and fifth element.
During his quests, the Avatar collects the four artifacts of the Titans, unleashing violent thunderstorm
s, hurricanes, earthquake
s and meteor shower
s by doing so. These artifacts allow him to enter the Ethereal Plane and defeat the Titans on their own turf. The Avatar then reconstructs the original blackrock gate that originally allowed the Guardian to enter Pagan. By entering the reconstructed gate, the Avatar is teleported back to Britannia, which is now ruled by the Guardian.
Common complaints include:
A patch was released to correct the game's bugs as well as fix some plot holes, and eliminate most of the problems with jumping (the original release contained many moving platforms to be jumped across; the patch stopped their motion). Long-time Ultima fans jokingly referred to Ultima VIII by the nickname 'Super Avatar Brothers', in reference to the abundance of platform-jumping puzzles.
The Ultima VIII engine was later reused in the Crusader
game series.
The Speech Pack did not sell very well as a separate add-on, mostly because the CD-ROM Gold version of Ultima VIII, which was released shortly afterward, also includes the speech files. The speech files are also included in the later budget releases and the Ultima Collection release.
The speech pack was available in English
, French
, and German
.
to Ultima VIII was planned from the outset, and was highly anticipated, but never released; it was canceled when the main game did not sell as well as had been expected, despite being all but finished and ready for duplication. Hints from texts in the main game suggested that the expansion pack would have added a new story regarding resistance to the Pagan gods and followers of the old religion known as Zealans. A single Lost Vale game box surfaced in October 2005, and was confirmed to be genuine soon afterwards. It was auctioned in eBay for US$1923. Some low-resolution scans of the box are located on the web.
title, Ultima VIII has problems running on modern systems such as Windows 98 and later; however, it works reliably under the DOSBox
environment. Unlike Ultima VII which used Intel's undocumented "Big real mode
" which became known as Voodoo Memory at Origin, Ultima VIII used a more conventional DOS extender.
An open-source project called Pentagram aims to create an engine
capable of running Ultima VIII on modern operating systems, most notably Windows
, Mac OS X
and Linux
.
#208 by Sandy Petersen
in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.
Ultima VII
Ultima VII: The Black Gate is the seventh installment of the Ultima series of computer role-playing games. It was released in 1992.The Black Gate was critically and commercially successful, being widely lauded as a high point in the series and as one of the best isometric RPGs ever created...
and Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle
Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle
Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle is a computer role-playing game released in 1993 as part of the core Ultima series. Its story beginning eighteen months after the conclusion of Ultima VII Part One: The Black Gate....
. Developed in 1994
1994 in video gaming
-Events:*Nintendo calls this year "1994: The Year of the Cartridge".*Nintendo Australia Pty. Ltd, the Australian subsidiary of Nintendo Co., Ltd is established and opened by Hiroshi Yamauchi and effectively ends Mattel Australia's distribution of Nintendo's products throughout Australia.*"Project...
, it is a DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
only title and is also the first game in the series to be rated M in North America.
Plot
Following the defeat of the charismatic religious leader Batlin on Serpent Isle, the Guardian banishes the Avatar to a world that he has already conquered: Pagan. Ultima VIII has a much darker tone and a very different premise, in comparison to most of the Ultima games. The world of Pagan is entirely different from that of Britannia: the Virtues were not part of Pagan's culture, and the magic systems and monsters were entirely different.The world of Pagan is in eternal twilight
Twilight
Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise or between sunset and dusk, during which sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The sun itself is not directly visible because it is below...
as the result of an ancient battle between the Elemental Titans and the evil "Destroyer", which resulted in the victory of the Titans. However, the people of Pagan had to pay a high price: the Titans had to henceforth be worshiped as gods
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
. The Titans bestow powers on their most ardent followers, but they are otherwise cruel and unloving rulers, and their followers terrorize the general population.
Ultima VIII sets off where Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle ended: The Guardian has grasped the Avatar from the Void, and now drops him into the sea
Sea
A sea generally refers to a large body of salt water, but the term is used in other contexts as well. Most commonly, it means a large expanse of saline water connected with an ocean, and is commonly used as a synonym for ocean...
of the world Pagan through a pentagram
Pentagram
A pentagram is the shape of a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes...
-shaped portal. In the introduction, the Guardian reveals his plot:
Consciousness
Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...
on the shore after being rescued from the sea by a fisherman (who turns out to be an important character later on in the plot). He soon witnesses the execution by beheading
Decapitation
Decapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
of a townsman, ordered by the tyrannic ruler of the region, Mordea.
Later, visiting the wizard Mythran, he learns that there are four Titans on Pagan, each one having one of the Elements as his/her domain: Water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
(Hydros), Air (Stratos), Fire
Fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material in the chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. Slower oxidative processes like rusting or digestion are not included by this definition....
(Pyros) and Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
(Lithos). The more privileged followers of Lithos are identified as necromancers, the followers of Pyros as sorcerers, the followers of Stratos as theurgists and the (albeit highly selective) followers of Hydros as tempests. Apart from those, a fifth type of magic known as Thaumaturgy
Thaumaturgy
Thaumaturgy is the capability of a saint or magician to work miracles. It is sometimes translated into English as wonderworking...
exists and is pioneered by Mythran. In order to escape Pagan, the Avatar has to overcome many obstacles and master the ways of all titans, finally becoming the Titan of Ether: the magical field and fifth element.
During his quests, the Avatar collects the four artifacts of the Titans, unleashing violent thunderstorm
Thunderstorm
A thunderstorm, also known as an electrical storm, a lightning storm, thundershower or simply a storm is a form of weather characterized by the presence of lightning and its acoustic effect on the Earth's atmosphere known as thunder. The meteorologically assigned cloud type associated with the...
s, hurricanes, earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
s and meteor shower
Meteor shower
A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at extremely high speeds on parallel trajectories. Most meteors are smaller...
s by doing so. These artifacts allow him to enter the Ethereal Plane and defeat the Titans on their own turf. The Avatar then reconstructs the original blackrock gate that originally allowed the Guardian to enter Pagan. By entering the reconstructed gate, the Avatar is teleported back to Britannia, which is now ruled by the Guardian.
Development and reception
In this part of the series, Garriott delegated most of the work to others. Garriott later explained, "... I sacrificed everything to appease stockholders, which was a mistake. We probably shipped it three months unfinished."Common complaints include:
- The world is much smaller than in the preceding parts.
- There are far fewer NPCsNon-player characterA non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
to interact with. - NPCNon-player characterA non-player character , sometimes known as a non-person character or non-playable character, in a game is any fictional character not controlled by a player. In electronic games, this usually means a character controlled by the computer through artificial intelligence...
portraits are no longer included. - The game went back from the "party" concept to the "lone hero" of the first two Ultima games.
- Stepping into any water will instantly kill you by drowning. This includes even a small puddle of water.
- Battle against enemy characters is hack and slashHack and slashHack and slash or hack and slay, abbreviated H&S or HnS, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat. "Hack and slash" was originally used to describe an aspect of pen-and-paper role-playing games , carrying over from there to MUDs, MMORPGs, and video games in general...
mouse clicking. There is some resemblance to the later game Diablo. - Poor game balance. Among other problems, a spell that can be learned early in the game grants total invulnerability, rendering all further combat trivial.
- Platform gamePlatform gameA platform game is a video game characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from suspended platforms or over obstacles . It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps...
style running, climbing and jumping across moving platforms is introduced. - Less interactivity with objects and items.
- Major holes in the plot.
- Frequent bugs/glitches.
A patch was released to correct the game's bugs as well as fix some plot holes, and eliminate most of the problems with jumping (the original release contained many moving platforms to be jumped across; the patch stopped their motion). Long-time Ultima fans jokingly referred to Ultima VIII by the nickname 'Super Avatar Brothers', in reference to the abundance of platform-jumping puzzles.
The Ultima VIII engine was later reused in the Crusader
Crusader (computer game)
- No Remorse :As the game progresses, the Captain uncomplainingly undertakes dangerous missions, often with substandard equipment, and his continued success gradually earns the respect of his fellow Resistance members....
game series.
Speech Pack
The Speech Pack add-on was released concurrently with the game. This pack adds spoken lines for certain key characters, such as the Guardian, the Titans and Khumash-Gor.The Speech Pack did not sell very well as a separate add-on, mostly because the CD-ROM Gold version of Ultima VIII, which was released shortly afterward, also includes the speech files. The speech files are also included in the later budget releases and the Ultima Collection release.
The speech pack was available in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, and German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
.
The Lost Vale
This expansionExpansion pack
An expansion pack, expansion set, or supplement is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game or video game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, and/or an extended storyline to a complete and already released game...
to Ultima VIII was planned from the outset, and was highly anticipated, but never released; it was canceled when the main game did not sell as well as had been expected, despite being all but finished and ready for duplication. Hints from texts in the main game suggested that the expansion pack would have added a new story regarding resistance to the Pagan gods and followers of the old religion known as Zealans. A single Lost Vale game box surfaced in October 2005, and was confirmed to be genuine soon afterwards. It was auctioned in eBay for US$1923. Some low-resolution scans of the box are located on the web.
Compatibility with modern systems
Being a DOSDOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
title, Ultima VIII has problems running on modern systems such as Windows 98 and later; however, it works reliably under the DOSBox
DOSBox
DOSBox is emulator software that emulates an IBM PC compatible computer running MS-DOS. It is intended especially for use with old PC games. DOSBox is free software....
environment. Unlike Ultima VII which used Intel's undocumented "Big real mode
Unreal mode
In x86 computing, unreal mode, also big real mode, huge real mode, or flat real mode, is a variant of real mode , in which one or more data segment registers have been loaded with 32-bit addresses and limits. Contrary to its name, it is not a separate addressing mode that the x86-32 and x86-64...
" which became known as Voodoo Memory at Origin, Ultima VIII used a more conventional DOS extender.
An open-source project called Pentagram aims to create an engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
capable of running Ultima VIII on modern operating systems, most notably Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
and Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
.
Reception
The game was reviewed in 1994 in DragonDragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
#208 by Sandy Petersen
Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen is a game designer.Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology....
in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the game 3 out of 5 stars.