Ultima 9 – How It Might Have Been

Posted by Rampant Coyote on June 26, 2011

Yet more historical Ultima development goodies are now avaialable at Ultima Aiera: The original documents for the “Bob White” plot for Ultima IX: Ascension. This has been rumored and discussed for over a decade. Now you can find the … well, not the original plot for Ultima IX, but a plot that might have been.

You can grab the PDF – and get more background information – here.

This version still has the whole “Guardian is the dark half of the Avatar” thing going on. So that was a planned plot development for a while. Le Sigh. I never did play Ultima IX – the series kinda lost me with Ultima 8: Pagan. Maybe it will be forthcoming from GOG.COM and I’ll get the chance soon.

Filed Under: Design, Retro - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

Viridian said,

I like the Bob White treatment better, but Britannia is destroyed at the end. It’s almost as if, having put the Armageddon spell into earlier Ultimas as a joke, the writers suddenly became obsessed with working it into the plot.

If I had my druthers, we would dispense with the whole “Avatar and Guardian are one” bullcrap (if that’s the case, then going on the Quest of the Avatar was the worst thing we, the players, ever did). I’d have the Avatar sacrifice himself to defeat the Guardian (this being the last game) but Britannia survives.

And holy cats, John Watson is dead? That sucks.
Calibrator said,

I agree.

Saving Britannia several times and all for naught?
This would’ve been totally senseless, IMHO.
Greg Tedder said,

I enjoyed 9, never finished it though. I made it quite a ways and probably put 30-40 hours into it. It was an interesting game, but certainly not legendary.
BrainFromArous said,

When I realized the biggest challenge in the game, apart from remembering to save before the memory leak dumped me back to Windows, was FINDING BAGS… I gave up. I played every Ultima since Akalabeth but U9 was just too much. An absolute disgrace.
skavenhorde said,

So that is how they ended Ultima. I never wanted to know really, but now that I do I can’t help but think what a waste.

I have attempted to play Ultima 9 unsuccesfully two times now. One I ragequit because the game was just released and buggy beyond belief.

Years later (about 3 or so) I tried again and ragequit because it was still buggy beyond belief and would crash almost everytime I cast a fireball.

I’m glad I skipped that ending.
Groboclown said,

We must always remember the Adventures of Barrel-Head.

http://www.it-he.org/ultima9.htm