From: stevey@cs.washington.edu (Stephen Yegge)
Newsgroups: rec.games.misc
Subject: Re: UW finished/review/observations
Date: 7 Apr 92 16:42:39 GMT
Organization: Computer Science & Engineering Dept., Univ. of Washington, Seattle

jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu (John H. Kim) writes:
: dondaing@beam.Princeton.EDU (Donald D. Aingworth) writes:
: 
: >Well, i hust finished the game last night, 
: 
: Me too.
: 
: >Sure, the graphics are cute, but the game itself is actually
: >rather small ... There are only 8 levels, not the 13 that somebody
: >said before.  For somebody who has already played the demo, that's
: >not really a whole not more.
: 
: I agree.  The game just doesn't have enough depth.  If the game were
: sized somewhere near Ultima 3 or so, it would be great.  I wouldn't
: even mind it being 20 MB.  Running inside corridors made me claustro-
: phobic after a while too (maybe that's a testament to the interface). 
: I really wanted to be able to run outside along some hills and trees
                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
: or something.  Lots of different equipment wouldn't hurt either.

  THAT would be GREAT.  Let's all call Origin :)  This game is like 
EOB II; you got tired of being stuck down in the dungeon for hours
and hours and hours and hours....
: 
: >  I'm sure that I'll get flamed for
: >saying this, but sometime during the second night of play, I got so sick
: >of playing that I would have stopped playing if I hadn't been so close.
: 
: I wouldn't go so far as to say I got bored of it.  It began to
: become tedious, especially at the lower levels where the details
: slow down the refresh rate and it becomes difficult to move
: (on a 386/33).  I still thought the game was fun, just not fun
: enough to live up to the potential of the interface.
  
  Well, be more specific.  I think it's great fun.  I'm on level 7.
What would you like to see to make it more "fun?"
: 
: >Also, there are only 16 character 'levels' to be gained (as it
: >says in the manual).  Considering that I gained 16th level by the time I
: >finished the 6th level, and thus stopped gaining xp, I got really sick
: >of combat.
: 
: I was rather shocked at this too.  All these mantras I'd collected,
: all these stats I had planned on increasing at ankhs, and my xp
: froze at 9680.
: 

  I'm only 14th now, but you guys have ruined my anticipation.  That
sounds like about the worst thing Origin and Blue Sky could have 
done.  I'm going to write to them and bitch until I'm blue in the
face.  Experience freezing, what a f*cking joke.

: >  It seemed SO pointless to be killing these monsters.
: >Indeed, on the whole I am fairly nonplussed on the combat system on the
: >whole.  It is neither strategic nor tactical, 

  HMMM, I'm not so sure I agree with this.  I think it's GREAT fun
to watch the monsters you're fighting--especially the humans.  They
are particularly hard to kill *because* they use strategy--dodging
right and left, backing up to avoid your blows, circling around behind
you, moving foward when they see you have a magic missile ready...

  You also have to make the decision whether to overhand, slash, or
thrust with any weapon you use.  Sure, one of these is 'best' for 
each weapon class, but sometimes you can't go by the book.  I found
slashing with the mace best for headlesses, and chopping with my
sword effective for goblins.  

  You have to look up to kill flying creatures, down for bugs & small
monsters.  Monsters that fire things at you are best killed by rushing
up to them before they have a chance to blast you and forcing them
into a corner. (e.g. beholder thing on levels 2 & 3).

  How can you say this isn't strategic fighting?  
: 
: Making you aim in both horizontal as well as vertical would
: improve things considerably.  Yes, this does make combat somewhat
: dependent on the person's dexterity, but this could be countered
: by varying the size of the "kill zone" to be aimed at dependent
: on the character's dexterity.

  Maybe you're just getting lucky.  I have to aim both in vertical
and horizontal or I miss.

: 
: >and by the time you are 16th level you are virtually invulnerable
: >(just get that Sanct Flam up for the elementals).
: 
: This is where a multi-character game has quite an advantage.  You
: can keep monsters difficult enough so a character can always get
: killed.  Then the remaining characters tote off the body for a
: resurrection.

  I definitely think that if it was absolutely necessary to put a 
ceiling on your level advancing, then they should have made it
*much* more difficult to hit 16th level.  Say, 20000 or 30000 exp.
: 
: >The magic system is also perripheral.  I was a druid (supposedly a
: >spellcaster), and I really only cast a couple of spells (heal, gate
: >travel, walk on water, resist flame)
: 
: The spellcasting interface is too slow.  You're looking over your
: stats, monster jumps out of corner, click to flip panel, wait ...
: wait ... wait, click on runebag, wait ... wait ... wait, click on
: runesto... oops, just died.
: 

  Oh, come on.  Do you think the monsters are supposed to wait 
around for you to get your runes out?  "Excuse me, Mr. Great Troll,
could I have a second to get out my Fireball runes--really, it'll 
only take just a minute or so."

: >Finally, the real time aspect can be a real problem -- when
: >somebody says come back in 1/2 hour, they really mean it.

  Jeez, doesn't reality suck.  Go play Nintendo if you don't like it.

: 
: Actually, I just hit F10 whenever I was told to come back later.
: 
: > [The interface] is neat for a while, but when you really have to
: >move up three levels, and don't have a moonstone to do it, this stupid
: >interface is really annoying -- always getting caught on walls, and
: >falling off  ledges.

  Don't move so fast.  I use the mouse for everything, and when I need
to keep myself from falling off a ledge I go slowly, keeping the mouse
in the center of the window.  If you don't think this is realistic,
go to the nearest skyscraper construction site you can find and run as
fast as you can all around the 78th floor girders.  Faster, c'mon, you 
can do it.  Don't trip.
: 
: What this game really needs is a keystroke which will set you facing
: parallel to the nearest wall, and far enough away so you don't catch
: on it when you move.  It should also have the mouse-screen areas for
: rotating and side-stepping increased so you can make turns and reposition
: yourself much more quickly.  They should also get rid of those small
: oddly-angled corridors which you always get stuck on.  Sure, it's
: realistic, but in real life, you can see enough of yourself to avoid
: catching on oddly-angled corners.  And keystrokes to turn you 90 and
: 180 degrees would be nice too.

  Yep.
: 
: <stuff deleted>
: 
: -- 
: John H. Kim                 | (This space to be filled when I
: jokim@jarthur.claremont.edu | think of something very clever 
: uunet!jarthur!jokim         | to use as a disclaimer)

I think you guys are missing the point.  This game is the first of
its kind, and IMHO they did a DAMN good job of it.  Compare Ultima
I to Ultima IV and sure, they got better.  Does that mean you should
complain endlessly?  Not at all.  Ultima I was a groundbreaker and
set the stage for some damn good games later.  I seriously doubt
that if Origin had taken another year to make a 100-meg outdoor 
adventure that they would have got as many people interested.  At
least not until everyone had decided it was worth $300 to buy 
another hard disk just for their Ultima.

Steve Yegge
stevey@cs.washington.edu