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Ultima VII, in Automagical 3D
WWWWolf writes "Ultima VII is quite well emulated using Exult. Exult folks have added quite a few handy additions to the game, but nothing they have done quite matches their newest feature: Exult in 3D. There is talk about support for actual 3D models in future. Being an alpha-quality work at the moment, the source is not available, but there's a load of screenshots and a Linux binary to try."
That's hilarious. It's not Ultima Online, it's Ultima 7. Why are you so concerned with what other people waste their time on? There's no "we" there anyways, because you wouldn't have the talent to have anything to do with this project anyhow.
In actuality, they are making the true plans for Ultima 9. Origin had plans for an isometric 3d game for U9 when they thought it would be cool to drop the camera down all the way. The work this guy has done is incredible.
I played this game ages ago and I swear it is starting to look, feel and act more like the Sims every time I hear about it.
It's not Ultima Online, it's Ultima 7.
Not to mention, Ultima Online came before Everquest, so wouldnt that make EQ a UO clone?
Very nice for a quick hack - this version of the Exult engine basically reads out the bounding boxes of each object, creates a 3D object with those bounds, and then maps the original sprite onto the bounding box as a texture. That's very clever. Of course, actually cleaning this up (look at how flat the people are and how twisted the trees look) will take a ton of work, but now that we've got a taste of a real 3D U7 maybe the project will attract more attention and volunteers.
This isn't an online game.
I have found that alot of great classic games were completely ruined by making them 3D. It ruins the playability. Sure it looks cool, but you forget about that after a few minutes and then are annoyed when things are hidden behind walls where your character should be able to see it but you cannot. I'm all for 3D games that make sense (ie FPS), but just making things 3D for the sake of it looking cool is not always so good. I think RTS and RPG's should almost always be top down view with no playability hampering 3D to screw things up.
Christ almighty, are you really that fucking stupid? Here is Ultima VII, and here is Ultima Online. RTFA, check out the links, and then come back and say something. I won't even bother to go into the timeline regarding the release dates of Ultima Online and EverQuest. Fucking 'tard...
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
...It's truly disturbing how many posters haven't actually even thoroughly read the Slashdot acticle.
*personally loved Ultima VII... now, if the later games could be remade as they were supposed to be made originally, instead of being negatively altered by EA's time constraints!*
The article is about one of the best games of all time, namely Ultima 7 and the excellent works the Exult people and an affililated project have put in it. And 90% of the posters think it is about Ultima Online and start to rant.
Sorry to rant here, but I think this one has reached a new low. I mean how hard is it to read either the introduction to the whole thing or to read the posting. The magic word is read before writing something totally unrelated. So mod me down now. As a huge fan of the Ultima 7s I am rather bitter about this here.
The most stupid thing I've heard this year.