From: glaz@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Alexander Glazamitsky)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games
Subject: finished UW2, comments/hints
Date: 26 Jan 93 01:48:18 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

Just finished UW2 - thanks to all the people who posted online hints; here
are some of my own:
 
*** Spoiler alert ***

 
1) The number of skill points is stored in byte 84 (byte 83 if you start 
   counting from 0) in file PLAYER.DAT.  In my game the value in this byte was
   55 and when I changed it to 0 I got 55 skill points.  The procedure can be
   repeated multiple times, so that you get 30 in all skills (BTW, I couldn't 
   find anybody in the game who taught acrobat skill - is there such a person?) 
 
2) My favorite weapon in the game is Sword of Stone Strike which I am 90% sure
   was found on level 3 of Praecor Loth tomb in his armory (southern part of 
   the level past the pits).  
 
3) (This hint was given in another post but I am reposting it for those who 
   missed the original).  There is a cheat way for getting into Shrine of
   Spirituality.  Here is the procedure: 1) Eat a plant with 4 green flowers
   found around graves in Praecor Loth and many other places.  2) pick a 
   moonstone and release mouse button over the vitality or mana flask so that
   your cursor becomes moonstone.  3) Hit F10.  You should find yourself in the
   shrine.  If you don't then restore game and repeat the procedure.  4) Drop
   moonstone on floor and wait till you wake up.  5) Drop your second moonstone
   on the floor and cast VAS REL POR on it.  You should be at Shrine.  6) Pick
   moonstone, blackrock gem and use the staff.  7) Cast VAS REL POR on 
   moonstone in your inventory to travel back.

4) If you cannot pass mage test 7, go to pits, get Vas rune past the dire 
   reaper, get Hur rune on the lich (see note below about lich), get to 
   experience level 15 by killing everyone there and paying Jaspur (sp?) for
   fights.  Once you done that, get back to test and fly over to exit.
 
Now some complaints about the game:  
 
(Flame on)
 
Some items are either random or semi-random.  E.g.  A lich on level 3 of pits 
had Flam and Hur runes and a wand when I killed it.  When I restored the game
and went through the fight again all I got was a wand.  I know there are other
places where I can get these runes, but things like that still shouldn't happen.
Either lich has the runes or it doesn't.  Also, Mani rune on castle first level 
would not appear until I rolled a character with mana 11.  Apparently, game 
decided that if I don't have 11 mana I am not enough of a mage to deserve Mani. 
 
Will Origin put references to Wing Commander into every Ultima product?  There
was spaceship in U7 and here we have intelligent felines which used to fly the 
stars firing at humans and if you rearrange the letters in the name of these
cats you can almost spell Kilrathi. 
 
Just like U7, the individual side-quests are well developed and interesting
but the main story sucks.  Most James Bond villains exhibit more realistic 
behavior than Guardian (starting with the fact that any being who can use 
magic to create a castle-sized structure out of material which inhibits magical
energy can most certainly just crush the castle).  UW2 is a hokey story wrapped
in the best RPG game engine there is.
 
The game has a fair number of bugs most of which I encountered in the Void.
When a section of the games violates as many rules of the engine as Void 
probably does you have to pay the penalty.  The game would often freeze, it
would corrupt the display, it changed the palette a few times to the blue only
(not just in blue world), etc...  Bugs, taking damage for no good reason, not
being able to map or even to figure out general outlay of the place earns Void
my vote as the worst level of the game (right after mage test 7).
 
(flame off)
 
But all in all, a great game.
 
BTW, if you want to flame back, don't email me - just respond online.

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Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.games