What If Ultima IV Were Written Today?
Just for kicks tonight, I played a little bit of Ultima IV. I don't think that there's a CRPG that is more legendary or revered than this one. It received rave reviews when it was released in 1985, and pretty much defies criticism today. It is a milestone for the genre and for gaming in general. And for many people, it represents a glimpse into what might have been - a step along an evolutionary branch of roleplaying games that was never fully explored.

Seeking a peek back into this crown jewel of computer role-playing games, I sunk some precious time into this game to remember what the fuss was all about. And as I played, I began to wonder what Ultima IV would have been like if it had been developed over twenty years later. We can look at the later sequels for some answers, but remember that they were predicated on the success of their prequel.

So let's play a what-if and pretend that Ultima IV was a brand new game in a new genre. What would a newly-release Ultima IV be like today?

Combat - Then
After wandering around Yew for a bit (which promptly disappeared after I left - actually a pretty cool Brigadoon-esque element), I found myself chased by monsters that were making beelines across the world to attack me. After engaging in a few rounds of fighting, they'd promptly flee, leaving me with no experience points to show for my troubles (but sometimes leaving a chest of gold).

At one point, frantically chasing a fleeing orc who couldn't decide which edge of the screen to run to, I apparently threw my only weapon - a dagger - at my foe. Well, actually, one square next to my foe, because I could only attack along one of the four cardinal directions. Thus unarmed, future fights would result in me chasing a fleeing monster hopelessly. At least they'd leave a chest behind - sometimes trapped - so at I could soon afford to upgrade equipment to ranged weapons that actually had a chance of dropping an opponent before it fled.

Combat - Now
The creatures don't beeline to you until you get close enough to them or attack them. And then they come at you en masse. Then you just mash a button until they die. You'll automatically chase them when they flee. Oh, and instead of leaving trapped chests behind, they leave bodies with gore. Digging through the gore for coins ought to be worse than acid sprays, but you get used to it.

Oh, and to prevent you from throwing away your dagger, your dagger can't be thrown. But you can get throwing daggers designed to be thrown away... you can buy 100 of them (enough to kill about eight monsters) for the price of a complete suit of plate mail and two swords. It's supposed to be for class balance or something like that.

Dialog - Then
Conversations with NPCs (non-player characters) consist of "guess the keyword." Many keywords that you'd think would work actually wouldn't. After all, with only 64k of RAM to work with, ya gotta cut some corners. A half-dozen keywords makes for a very talkative character. Take this one, for example:

You meet a charming jester. She says: I am Gweno.
Your Interest: Job
I dance and sing for the children.
Your Interest: sing
That I cannot help thee with.
Your Interest: dance
Dance is good for the soul. Do you give to the needy?
You say: Yes
Beggars are thankful for small donations
Your Interest: children
That I cannot help thee with.
Your Interest: beggars
To give to a beggar shows compassion.
Your Interest: compassion
That I cannot help thee with.
Your Interest: give
She says: I do not need thy gold. Keep it!
Your Interest: gold
That I cannot help thee with.
Your Interest: quest
That I cannot help thee with.
Your Interest: avatar
That I cannot help thee with.
Your Interest: join
She says: I cannot join thee.
Your Interest: goodbye
That I cannot help thee with.
Your Interest: bye
Bye.

A fairly frustrating conversation, not to mention one that ends with a preposition far too frequently.

Dialog - Now
In a modern game, Gwenno's conversation tree would probably look like this:

Gweno: Hello. I am Gwenno. I sing and dance for children, because I'm a compassionate kind of person. I'll bet you'd like to know all about compassion. I could tell you how to be more compassionate.
1. Please, tell me how to be more compassionate.
2. Get away from me, you crazy wench!
3. Bye

See, isn't that better than keywords? Those are CHOICES. A player might agonize for microseconds before choosing option #1. At which point Gwenno says:

Gwenno: Go bring me the tails of ten rats, and I will tell you this secret, total stranger. You can find an infinite supply of rats down in the cellar.
1. Bye.

We sure have come a long way, haven't we?

Quests - Then
There is one quest in the game - though there are about a dozen sub-quests you must take in order to accomplish the primary task. Since the game has no quest system, they had to do it this way... all the steps act as "keys" to get you to the final quest. Oh, and you better have some pretty decent weapons, armor, and other magical items to have a prayer of surviving the whole thing.

For some reason, nearly everybody in the world knows that you are on the Quest of the Avatar. They all know more about it than you do, and give you advice in cryptic riddles and suggestions to visit people they know halfway around the world. And you have to manually compile all these notes until they begin to make sense. Which you'd better do quickly, because even after reading the manuals you still begin the game with really no clue what it is you are supposed to do. Unless you are already a dice-and-paper D&D player, and then you know... explore and kill things until the plot hooks begin to appear!

Quests - Now
Today, players would be explicitly told where to go and what to do. The starting quest would be Lord British himself telling you to use the look command on your own navel. When you do that, you get a bunch of experience points. Then he tells you to gather some belly-button lint from your navel. Once you do that, you are again congratulated and given experience points. This is how epic adventures must start.

Eventually, you'll go out into the world, and have about four quests to do, all of which involve inane tasks for people who haven't even explored their own back yards, let alone know people in the next town. But they will dole out less-cryptic quests that involve acting as their butt-monkey to deliver goods or recover their stolen sombrero from the goblins living twenty yards away until eventually you've paid your dues enough to be told how to get to the Shrine of Compassion.

Graphics - Then

Graphics - Now


Okay --- I got nothin'.

Resurrection - Then
When you die, you automatically resurrect in Lord British's throne room with some minor words of caution and a short delay. This is WAY cheaper than getting healed, so it's better just to let yourself die if poisoned or whatever.

Resurrection - Now
Lord British's chamber is too far away. You resurrect in the closest city or checkpoint with even more minor words of caution and less delay. And it's still cheaper than the extortion the healers demand.

Virtues - Then
There are eight virtues you must max out through actions in the game in order to become worthy of undertaking the final quest - which is to recover the Codex of Wisdom from the Abyss. In retrospect, that was all a pretty bad idea on Lord British's part, because it caused a genocidal war, created the evil mirror-universe anti-avatar split-personality whatever-the-freak-it-was called The Guardian, and pretty much screwed everything up for several sequels and spinoffs. But I digress.

Anyway, the virtues were Compassion, Sacrifice, Justice, Humility, Honesty, Justice, Spirituality, and Valor. You'd increase these by various actions throughout the game. Even dying gave you a point.

Virtues - Now
All those virtues are too complicated. The new designers decided to keep it simple by simply requiring you to be "good." But because of the need to have multiple endings, the new version includes an "evil" path. You get "good" points for being nice in conversations and not taking the "burn down the orphanage" quest. Being snarky in conversations and engaging in evil laughter - and burning down said orphanage (but without actually burning any orphans... we have to worry about ESRB ratings, mind you) gains you evil points.

Note that randomly walking into people's houses and taking anything not nailed down doesn't constitute an evil act... we need to encourage players to explore an interact with the world, you know!

The World - Then
Ultima IV features a big, expansive world. The game drops you near one of eight different towns anywhere in the world depending upon your starting class, and you have to figure out how to get to Lord British's castle to talk with him and find out what you are supposed to be doing in the first place. Or you just get killed on the way and get resurrected, which is kind of a shortcut.

Regardless, you are going to get lost. Early and often. Until you know the entire world like the back of your hand.

The World - Now
The world is still big and expansive. But forget about dropping you anywhere - that would totally screw up the tutorial and the bunny-slope quests! Nope, you start at Lord British's feet, and you have to earn the right to go out into the courtyard, then the sewer, then the town, and only then the larger world.

Then the game lets you get lost.

The User Interface - Then
Every single letter of the alphabet on the keyboard is mapped to a different command. See, there's "K" to "Klimb" a ladder up. Climbing down is a totally different command... "D" for down. The numbers choose a party member. And "J" for jimmying a lock. "I" to ignite a torch. And so forth. The cursor control keys indicate direction of travel, attack, or other actions.

The RPG player's fingers fly across the keyboard with this game. We could almost make an "Ultima Teaches Typing" spin-off product for this series!

The User Interface - Now
Keyboard? What is that? Get with the now... the newly released Ultima IV is a console game! It will be released for all major consoles immediately, and maybe a PS3 version is under consideration. The PC port will be in stores a week or two after the XBox 360, Wii, and DS release. Oh, and it'll be buggy and require a blood sample every time you play for copy protection.

What Did I Miss?
So there you have it. What I imagine Ultima IV would look like if it were released today. I'm sure I missed some important differences. Care to share your own snark thoughts?


(Vaguely) related snarkage with optional Ztats and Klimbing:
* The 16 Essential RPGs
* Scorpia's New Tale - An Interview With One of Gaming's Most Popular Columnists
* The Most Important CRPGs of All Time
* Innovation in RPGs?
* The Evolution of Computer RPGs
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Labels: retro, Roleplaying Games

- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 6:00 PM (Permalink)