The Realms of Ultima project — the Neverwinter Nights 2-based version of Project Britannia, a project which aims to create a pre-fabricated Ultima world for others to use as a basis for their own projects — has been updated twice since last I checked in with it.

For starters, project lead MokahTGS has posted an article in which he discusses a few of his inspirations, as well as some of the new features of an upcoming NWN2 expansion pack that he is looking forward to making use of.

But additionally, he and fellow developer Jaesun have been working on a contribution to Bouncy Rock Entertainment’s “Community Halloween Project.” Their contribution will evidently be the Grumpy Strumpet tavern, which will in due time become the tavern in .

I see that Dino’s Ultima Page has posted some news concerning a couple of new file releases from different projects. Notably, Ranman’s Ultima V for TI Calculators has released a beta version of that port for the TI-92 and V200 calculators. This download has already been added to the project entry here at Aiera.

Also, the full version of a patch translating Ultima 7 to Spanish has been released. Following up on this lead led me to translation patches for Serpent Isle, Ultima 9, and Ultima Underworld about which I had previously been unaware, and these have all been added to Aiera.

• Ultima 7 Spanish translation
• Serpent Isle Spanish translation
• Ultima Underworld Spanish translation
• Ultima 9 Spanish translation

Additionally, the Ultima 6 Project Development Tools Package has been released, which enables the user to edit and compile conversations, edit game objects, edit game logic, and provides a host of other functions as well. It can be downloaded from the Project Britannia website, or from the Ultima 6 Project entry here at Aiera.

Other Ultima-related news I found whilst wandering through the Internet today includes:

Aklabeth

The web home of this remake of Akalabeth seems to be offline. I hope it’s just a temporary thing.

Ultima Underworld for Pocket PC

Conversely, this port of Ultima Underworld to the PocketPC seems to be back online again. Nice to see. That means that I get to move this project out of the cemetery!

Exult

This port of The Black Gate and Serpent Isle to…well…pretty much every operating system one could dare to think of…doesn’t look as though it’s been updated, by its website. But I noticed that the Windows and PocketPC snapshots were updated earlier this month, as was the snapshot for Exult Studio. All of these can be downloaded through the project entry here. The chief modification seems to concern a bug with multiracial Avatars.

Ultima: Iris

This 3D frontend for Ultima Online has been updated recently, to build version 2365. Linux and Windows source, and the Windows installer, can all be downloaded via the project entry here, or at the project website.

Finally, I was contacted by Yannick “Alcibiade” Kirschhoffer regarding a new piece of Ultima-related material he has produced. I’ll let him explain it in his own words:

I’ve been huge fan of the second Ultima trilogy. In 2003, I began work on writing guitar arrangements of most of this era’s music. I did the Ultima 6 score almost entirely, and some of U4 and U5 too. Then I compiled these in a songbook that I illustrated with artwork and quotes from the games.

It is available for download in PDF format at www.alcibiade.org

This is a handy little creation, beautifully arranged and attractively compiled into one volume. I’ve added a project entry for it under the category of “General Utility”, and it can be downloaded from there as well.

Well done, Yannick!

I apologize for the gap in news updating; both my job and my home life have been rather busy these last few weeks, and I’ve had precious little time to stroll through “the Ultimasphere” to see what has transpired in terms of project developments and file updates.

So, without further ado, let’s get to the news!

PT-BR Underworld Translation

This translation of Ultima Underworld to Portuguese is now 100% complete, with all text strings in the game fully translated.

They are seeking testers to look for errors in grammar and spelling. So if you, O Reader, are conversant in both Portuguese and English, and wouldn’t mind playing through Ultima Underworld again, be sure to visit the project website and drop them a line.

The patch can be downloaded from that same website, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Exult

I noticed that the unstable Exult 1.4 build for Windows had been updated on May 3rd. The notable correction in this release deals with a crash that could be caused by a trap’s projectile effect.

As usual, the snapshot can be downloaded from the Exult website or from the project entry here at Aiera.

Pentagram

There hasn’t been any news from the Pentagram team since December of last year, but they are obviously still working on the project itself; the Windows snapshot that is available for download was updated on April 23rd, and can be downloaded either from the project website or via the project entry here at Aiera.

EUO

As of May 5th, the 3D client for EUO has been updated, and can be downloaded either the project website or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Notable changes in this release are the addition of “popups” (I assume this is in reference to either in-game dialogues or message windows?), a help screen, the ability to re-map keys, and a few other odds and ends.

Project Britannia

The britannia_art.dsres and britannia_logic.dsres files have been updated. Changes this go-round include the addition of GUI elements for several throwable weapons, shoes(!!), and a bunch of new textures and meshes. Also, a Yew tree for Ben to chop has been added (methinks this is derived from the Ultima 6 Project?).

The updated files can be downloaded from the Project Britannia wiki or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Though not specifically an update to the actual remake project, the folks at the Ultima 6 Project would like to draw our attention to a charity group that they would like to encourage would-be donors to the project to support instead:

As many of you know, the U6 Project has been going strong for several years now, and it’s cost us a fair amount of cash to keep it going. Every once in a while we’ll get someone asking us if they can donate some money to the project. Well, since it’s an all-volunteer project and not a commercial venture, we can’t accept money. However - we’ve recently realized that there’s no reason in the world we can’t suggest a charity to which you could donate instead. While gaming is certainly a worthy cause, we think that it would be even better to give the gift of life and donate to the Susan G Komen foundation for breast cancer research.

http://www.komen.org/

Please note: The U6 Project is not affiliated with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure organization in any way, shape or form. We’d just like to recommend that you give your money to them instead of offering it to us. Thank you.

So maybe, just maybe, O Reader, go forth and make a bit of a donation in the names of the folks of Team Archon. I’m sure they’d appreciate it!

One last note: someone by the name of Chris (with an email address at grimmstudios.com) contacted me in regard to Ultima 3. Chris, if you’re reading this, I just sent my reply to you again; the last few attempts have resulted in the message bouncing back to me. I apologize for the delay, and would encourage you — if this latest attempt doesn’t get through — to contact me again and provide an alternative email address.

Produced by: Team Lazarus & Team Archon
Website: Project Britannia
Releases:
* [drain file 432 url Milestone 2 Release] ([drain file 432 size])

Updates (may be unstable):
* [drain file 421 url Britannia Art] ([drain file 421 size])
* [drain file 422 url Britannia Logic] ([drain file 422 size])
* [drain file 423 url Britannia Sound] ([drain file 423 size])
* [drain file 417 url Britannia Map] ([drain file 417 size])

Utilities
* [drain file 430 url Project Britannia Development Environment] ([drain file 430 size])
* [drain file 429 url Container Override example] ([drain file 429 size])
* [drain file 428 url Dungeon Siege Font Builder] ([drain file 428 size])
* [drain file 427 url Dungeon Siege Skrit API] ([drain file 427 size])
* [drain file 426 url Skrit/Template Cross-reference] ([drain file 426 size])
* [drain file 412 url Dungeon Siege Toolkit] ([drain file 412 size])
* [drain file 416 url Lazarus Lorebook Editor] ([drain file 416 size])
* [drain file 433 url Rapid Tank Creator] ([drain file 433 size])
* [drain file 415 url Siege Tools for Eclipse (Full)] ([drain file 415 size])
* [drain file 419 url Siege Tools for Eclipse 1.0.29 (Plugin)] ([drain file 419 size])
* [drain file 413 url Siege University Compilation] ([drain file 413 size])
* [drain file 434 url Tank Viewer] ([drain file 434 size])
* [drain file 435 url U6 Project UI Designer] ([drain file 435 size])
* [drain file 425 url Conversation Compiler] ([drain file 425 size])
* [drain file 420 url Conversation Editor Plugin for Siege Tools] ([drain file 420 size])
* [drain file 418 url Book Editor Plugin for Siege Tools] ([drain file 418 size])
* [drain file 424 url NPC/Schedule/Chest Generator] ([drain file 424 size])

Milestone 1 Release:
* [drain file 110 url Project Britannia (1 of 3)] ([drain file 110 size])
* [drain file 111 url Project Britannia (2 of 3)] ([drain file 111 size])
* [drain file 112 url Project Britannia (3 of 3)] ([drain file 112 size])

This ambitious project, a joint venture arising from the copperative developments of Ultima V: Lazarus and the Ultima 6 Project — both Dungeon Siege-based remakes of their respective Ultima titles — aims to create a platform for the easier creation of Ultima remakes (and, one would assume, spinoffs).

It’s “short list” of features is really too long to name here, but includes dynamic weather, ship navigation (a feature lost in many modern RPGs), complete day/night cycle, NPC scheduling, reagent-based spellcasting, moongates, dynamic factions, and a custom-build branching conversation system.

Or, to sum it all up in three words: it looks cool.

Now, the development team for Project Britannia is pretty active, and they are constantly putting out updates. The ones hosted here are current to the best of Aiera’s knowledge, but they may be a few days stale. To that end, the most current versions of the update files can always be found at the Project Britannia Change Log. Please note that these updates are likely unstable at present.

Well, it’s been a little while since I posted an update pertaining to Ultima projects, and I see that Petrell and Dino over at Dino’s Ultima Page have uncovered several juicy morsels of news. To wit:

EUO

This Ultima-like project reached its fifth year just recently, and to celebrate the occasion they threw a number of bonuses and extra stuff into the game — experience bonuses, prizes & giveaways, DM-hosted events, special in-game drinks (eggnog, for example), and even a few new bosses.

Also, a “Newbie Island” tutorial map has been added to the game to help new players ease in.

Ultima 6 Project

A new press release from this promising-looking remake of Ultima 6 has been released at RPGWatch. It has some details about new cities and places in the pending fifth milestone release (Nicodemus’ keep, for example), and also informs us that the team is always in need of world builders, 3D modelers, artists, and musicians.

So, O Reader, if you fall into any of those categories, you might want to swing by the Ultima 6 Project website and drop someone a line.

Additionally, project developer Nicodemus has posted another update to his worldbuilding Dev Diary with some cool new screenshots of his work (Jhelom and Skara Brae).

Ultima: Iris

A new build — build 2010 — of this 3D client for Ultima Online has been released. It can be downloaded from the project’s homepage, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

xu4

A new snapshot of the Mac version of this Ultima 4 remake is available for download either through the project website or via the project entry here at Aiera. A new Windows snapshot is also available.

Ultima V for TI Calculators

Ranman has posted additional news about his project that has ported Ultima 5 to the Texas Instruments calculator. He lets us know, firstly, about some special item capabilities that he as implemented. Secondly, he talks about killing NPCs, lock picking, and guard behaviour — rather a “law and order” sort of post.

The project is still in beta testing.

I also took a bit of a wander around the Ultima community myself, and noticed a few other odds and ends that the Reader might be interested in.

Savage Empire for Exult

Scythifuge is always looking for people to help out with his ambitious goal of porting the Savage Empire storyline into Exult.

Exult

Speaking of Exult, I notice that the Windows snapshot of Exult 1.4 has been updated recently (April 14th), as have the snapshots for Exult Tools and Exult Studio. These can be downloaded from the project website, and I have added them to the project entry here at Aiera.

Project Britannia

I noticed that the britannia_art.dsres and britannia_logic.dsres resource files for this Ultima world framework were updated at the beginning of April. Changes since the previous revision include the addition of a new lockpick texture, a ferry, and two new light textures, as well as changes to melee attack logic, the lockpick’s shape, and a bunch of other things.

The updated files can be downloaded from the Project Britannia site, or via the project entry here at Aiera.

Also, I’ve made a few minor changes to the site here. For starters, I have added a module to the site sidebar to track the ten most downloaded files in the last 30 days. Initially, I wasn’t going to clear the statistics for the download manager with any sort of frequency, but after a bunch of Ultima 9-related downloads surged ahead (in some cases, to over 3,000 downloads!), it seemed reasonable to give some of the other files a chance to make the top spot.

So it’s there, and I won’t be putting a “top five” list onto news posts anymore.

And of course, there’s the gallery and Ultima art repository. I do encourage any interested users to register a user account there and begin uploading any Ultima-related art they can find so that it can be preserved for posterity. This includes scans of art from the manuals, which won’t be around forever.

Oh, and I’ve added another countdown to the sidebar. Only 190 days (roughly — could change in either direction) until Grace and I welcome our little one into the world!