Newsgroup: it.comp.giochi.rpg
Titolo: U9 ... leggete e decidete se piangere o ridere [LUNGO]

Mentre leggevo il newsgroup americano mi sono imbattuto in questo post. Dato
che non l'ho mai visto qui, ho pensato fosse il caso di renderlo pubblico
anche qui.
E' una recensione dell'ottobre 96.
Commentate ... se ne avete la forza ;-)
***
I was going through my old PCGamer magazines, and found the following
preview of Ultima 9.  I thought it was rather amusing and depressing
at the same time, and decided I would post it here for any who might
be interested.  Its from  the October, 1996 edition (Its great to save
old magazines and look through them.  You can see all the games that
never made it, and the game that were supposed to be out for Christmas
2 years ago and are still coming out 'soon', and so on.)
--------------------
Ultima IX
After two years of silence, the Ultima team at Origin has begun work
on the final chapter of the Avatar Chronicles.  Ultima IX signals the
end of an era, while at the same time, ushering in a new one.  Michael
Wolf saw a legend in the making...
Anyone unfamiliar with the Ultima series of roleplaying games has
either been in a cave for the past couple of decades, or still thinks
a computer is just a really large paperweight.  Probably the most
popular of all computer roleplaying (CRPG) games, Ultima set a
precedent for all other CRPGs to live up to.  Seven more titles
followed the first, moving away from the Commodore 64 and onto the PC.
The series created several spin-offs - Ultima Underworld I and II, and
Worlds of Ultima I and II.  There's no question that the series would
be called the Lord of the Rings of CRPGs, but, unlike Tolkien, the
creator of Ultima is still working his magic, and we're soon to see
the next journey into his wondrous world of Britannia.
In many ways, Ultima IX returns to the roots of deep character
interaction and a superior level of detail in game world (unlike the
more action oriented Ultima VIII, a big disappointment to many
players).  Like some of the older Ultima games, the top-down skewed
angle view allows the player to see more of the world on the screen.
This will also be enhanced by a zoom feature for up-close and personal
shots, as well as the squinty-eyed far-ranging view.  But here's the
kicker - the entire world is fully three dimensional, polygon-based,
real-time and huge.  Bigger by far than any of the previous Ultima
titles, UIX opens up the entire planet for exploration by the player,
including several dungeons to conquer.  By rotating the view, you'll
be able to see behind buildings, under bridges, and around trees.
Of course, all of this will be rendered in real-time, and will present
itself in 16-bit color and SVGA resolutions.  The drawback to it is
that the minimum requirements are probably going to be a Pentium 60,
if not a 90.  Although they're hoping to hit the 8MB minimum for RAM,
it's possible you'll need at least 16MB to play.  And it's going to be
Windows 95 native.  In other words, if you haven't upgraded your
machine, you may just have found a reason.
The story, you ask?  Well, here's the deal - they're not saying much,
but so far Origin has granted that's it's the last of the Guardian
Saga (beginning with Ultima VII), where once again the Avatar (you)
has to save the world from the evil that wants to destroy it.  How the
Guardian is proceeding to so this, they're not saying.  But this is an
Ultima -  you can rest assured it's going to be deep, no matter what
the plot.  In the words of Lord British (Richard Garriott) himself,
"This is the epic game to end the contemporary series of Ultimas.  And
as such we've really designed it much bigger in the sense of number of
characters, how developed the characters are, and on how richly
detailed the world is."  Also, for players who have made their way
through all the previous titles, they can expect to see a completion
of the history surrounding the Avatar.  Although you certainly won't
need to have played through all the Ultimas, those who have will
recognize elements from them all in Ultima IX.
The world itself is about four times bigger than any of the other
Ultima games.  You'll have forms of transportation to get around -
horses, ships, magic, and even flying dragons.  And since Ultima IX is
fully rendered in 3D, there are no pesky, repetitive textures - each
item in the world is custom made.  That means everything you see will
be different, with its own character, feel,   and properties.  "One of
the things the Ultimas were always big on was how interactive all the
objects are.  With the tiles, when you set off an explosion near a
bunch of barrels, all the barrels kind of move and stay vertical
because that's the way they were rendered," says Garriott.  "In Ultima
IX's case, you can really knock them over and roll them down the
road."  And that level of detail will work its way down to the
smallest item.   According to Joys McBurnett, the associate producer
of the game, "Every single item, down to each little piece of fruit,
candles, and even eggs, are an actual 3d object.  Every item is
usable, completely 100 percent.  If there's a fork, you can spear
things with it."  The same is true for bigger objects, such as the
style of a town.  "We're trying to make each town of village have its
own unique architecture.  For example, Moonglow (the town of
sorcerers) is mostly just stone and hexagonal buildings.  Cove (the
Druid's home) will be the tree-buildings; and Asylum (previously
Buccaneer's town - home to the pirates) will be built out of old ship
parts, and so on."
Combat and magic will be similar to older Ultimas, but improved.
Combat itself is a mixture between strategy and real-time action.  You
give your party orders, and the fight proceeds in real-time.  If,
however, a party member is near death, time will freeze and you can
rethink your strategy.  Also, you can jump in at any time if you feel
things aren't going well enough.  Magic is also very similar to the
older Ultima games, based on either "circles" of magic (basically
magic levels) and reagent ingredients, which players much either find
of purchase to use in their spells.  However, there will be some of
the pagan-esque rituals, such as ones used in Ultima VIII, that
players will need to perform to get past certain points in the game.
Unlike the typical TSR-style character growth, there are no "stats"
that determine the abilities of your characters, i.e. additions to the
"strength" statistic won't make all the weapons you use do more
damage.  You need to have experience with that weapon (use an axe all
the time, and you can kill monsters in seconds as you grow.  Switch
over to a sword suddenly, and you're likely to slice yourself).  Using
this technique, players can choose specifically how they want their
characters to develop.
Origin hopes Ultima IX will hit the market in spring of next year,
although they weren't willing to firmly commit to it.  As of this
writing, they're working on finalizing the actual world engine.  Once
they start populating the world and programming in the magic and
combat systems, we'll hopefully get a glimpse at what this game will
be like to play.  Until then, we can only hope and dream that it will
live up to our expectations.  If it does, it could very well be the
best thing to happen to CRPGs since the very origin of Ultima I.
--------------------------
Then there's a sidebar:
The Future of Ultima
It's been a few years since the release of Ultima VIII, and now
players will get to experience the thrill of the last of the Guardian
Saga in Ultima IX.  But is that he end of the entire Ultima series?
Richard Garriorr explains that nothing could be further from the
truth.  "There will be an Ultima X," he says.  "Ultima IX is
definitely the end of this era, in the sense that fictionally we're
tying up all the loose ends of all the history that's gone before.
That does not mean none of those elements will carry forward, either.
What it does mean is it's freeing us up to start Ultima X from a
completely fresh perspective of what I'll call pseudo-science."
"Pseudo-science," as he puts it, will be drawn from the early era of
Victorian science (such as Leonarndo da Vinci's experiments).
Although what exactly that will mean for the Ultima world, he's not
too sure yet.  However, he is sure that the player will no longer
control the Acatar in their journeys.  "But the Avatar will likely
show up as a character."
Ultima X isn't the only thing he's thinking about.  The most
critically acclaimed spin-offs of the series, Ultima Underworld I and
II, will also have a sequel coming their way.  "That's very high on
out to-so list, as a matter of fact," says, Garriott.  But its not as
simple as an Ultima Underworld III.  "There's three projects that will
probably become two.  Imagine Underworld II, imagine Ultima X as you
might think of it, and imagine Ultima Online II.  All three of those
products will be done, but in two final products.  Ultima X might be
online, and therefore its really the same thing as Ultima Online II.
Ultima X might be first-person point of view, so Ultima X could really
be Underworld III.  Two out of those three titles will be done, but
we'll probably do all three of those things in the next two titles."
The combination of three products into two might be a bit
mind-boggling right now, but don't expect to see any of it anytime
soon.  Richard Garriott has his own plans after the completion of
Ultima IX, and the rest of the Ultimas might be further away that many
players would like to think.  However, Ultima IX will surely pacify
many of them.  At least for a little while.
--
Bye
***************************************
Salvatore Ragusa - Virgo
UIN 51093884
EMail 
vi...@libero.it
EMail 
srv...@tiscalinet.it
***************************************

Virgo wrote:
[snip]
Non arrivo a piangere, pero' il sentimento prevalente e' di un'enorme 
tristezza, se penso a cosa avrebbe dovuto essere Ultima IX :((
Peccato, penso che RG ci credesse veramente a queste cose, ma il 
risultato e' stato *leggermente* diverso.
Ciao
-- 
Marco Ridolfo aka SuperCiuk
SuperCiuk on Europa UO Shard
ICQ UIN: 3861084
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Horizon/6103/index.html

 risultato e' stato *leggermente* diverso.
Io penso che ci credesse, ma non fino alla fine nel senso che quando si
accorto che alcune cose non riuscivano a implementarle, anche per via del
tempo (vedi le schedules) si sia rassegnato ed abbia preso il gioco cosi'
com'era dicendo che era il masterpiece: e non c'e' niente di peggio.
In piu' l'altra sera ho installato u8 e gli ho applicato la patch: che ce ne
frega?
Beh ... insieme alla patch c'era un fan.txt in cui RG, a poca distanza
dall'uscita di Pagan, parlava gia' di u9 e di come lo avrebbero fatto bello
... che tristezza :-((((((
Se ti interessa lo posto
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 Se ti interessa lo posto
Si grazie, almeno i dolori arrivano tutti insieme e magari fanno un po' 
meno male ;)
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