PC Gaming The Long Legacy of the Ultima and 'Open World' RPG's

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Or at least in this case, the how one game developer was influenced by the particular RPG game Ultima VII in his long career in developing subsequent RPG games.


Ultima VII: The Black Gate came out in 1992 and was the seventh game in the Ultima series by the notable early 'celebrity' game developer Richard Garriot ("Lord British") and was revolutionary in how the world environment moved from a very strict tile and grid base (though it still used tiles it didn't limit character or monster movement nearly as much) and moved far away from the 'command' interface of earlier Ultima games, allow greater interaction with the environment using the mouse controls and point and clicking instead of typing in commands.

What Ultima was truly ahead of the time in was its sheer open world and interactivity with the environment which rewarded the open ended gameplay of character interaction, exploration and combat without being artificially limited for thematic or gameplay reasons. It turns out that sort of format was a dead-end however game wise. Compared to later games like Baldurs Gate and Fallout, despite the limitations of the Ultima VII engine, it was less static then subsequent highly celebrated games.

In this article it specifically talks about how Larian Studios, the developers of the Divinity series of games and Baldurs Gate III are trying to emulate. But that open world type of RPG setting is something that is seemingly being pursued by many other RPG's as well ranging from CDPR and Obsidian to Bethesda, though to varying degrees. Though it is worth noting that complete open world interactivity isn't always the ideal for an RPG game, even an 'open world' one. But it is the closest one could get to the creative freedom one might get in a pen and paper style RPG adventure.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
The 25th Anniversary of Ultima Online. Raph Koster posted a nostalgia and nugget filled blog post on his website discussing the impact of Ultima Online on gaming ever since. Raph Koster started working on the game way back in September of 1995 while the game itself was released on September 24th, 1997.

Raph Koster said:
In many ways the influence of UO is so pervasive that it isn’t visible. Whether it’s Runescape, Minecraft, Eve, DayZ or Neopets, those younger folks probably played something that was inspired by UO in some fashion, and don’t realize how big a shift from prior games it represented. These days, when people say they are sick of crafting being in everything — it makes me want to apologize a little bit. Won’t apologize for games that let you sit, decorate a house, or go fishing, though.

The blog post itself is a nice linkage to videos and other older posts that have some interesting information and anecdotes about the games development and design philosophy, reflections and much, much more.

 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
A YouTuber I've never seen before (he's released about 28 videos over two years or so and not all of them are as thick as this one) named Majuular released an hour long retrospective/analysis of the Ultima II: The Revenge of the Enchantress.



I don't have time to watch it all now but halfway through the video, it starts with some nice background on some of the creators/programmers of the game before delving into background regarding Sierra, the famous game developer Richard 'Lord British' Garriot, and assembling a sequel to the OG game of the series, Ultima: The First Age of Darkness. It then goes into an analysis and summary of the game itself... haven't gotten beyond that yet though.

So far the video is pretty well done and scripted with decent production values so solid quality. I'm guessing many of us might not undertake the chance to play this (though IIRC I got the whole series off of GOG.com) so these videos are a nice substitute of sorts, or a dose of nostalgia for the Firsts Ones that lurk among us.

And keeping in mind, the first game came out in 1981 with the second coming out in 1982 so a bit faster release then say the gap you have with Bethesda RPG's nowadays.
 

AnimalNoodles

Well-known member
Ultima III was THE killer app in terms of western CRPGs. Its influence cannot be overstated.

Its just sad that Ultima faded out like that. Ultima IX was too ambitious, and if was made a few years later might have been a success. I'd like to see some serious remakes. Not a remaster, but a complete remake of 5-7 with modern tech and a rewritten ultima IX
 

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