Ultima 9 vs. Oblivion

leSLIe

leSLIe

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Oct 18, 2004
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when i got U9 i was very dissapointed by all the wrong things that made into this game, a lot of bugs, d3d problems, among others. but now Oblivion, is just the other way around, good graphics, good story, gameplay, and i think that´s just the way U9 should´ve been!!! Obbly seems to me like an Ultima Underworld with U9 remake-mix, which is gut. I think its the best rpg of the year so far.
 
did you just call oblivion obbly? Or did your keyboard's 'i', 'o', and 'n' keys stop working?
 
I'm also hoping oblivion will be more enjoyable than ultima 9. U9 was fun for me, but it didn't last long enough and the world felt a bit small. And yea, I loved ultima underworld; it's my favoite game of all time.
 
Hmmmm, maybe someone should make an Ultma TC for Oblivion....
Ultima 4 thru 7 are good canidates.
 
The main thing that annoyed me about u9 was the fog. You could stand right in front of a huge building and not see it, take one step forward and it poped out of thin air. In oblivion, I can see for miles :D
 
Ultima Ascension was an awesome game, but there were way too many frickin bugs. Oblivion also has a lot of bugs, but there are only a few that I consider critical.

I would really like to see another Ultima game in the future, although there really isn't much story left for them to exploit. Ultima 7 was my favorite, and I only didn't like Ultima 8 because I didn't like it's story.
 
I loved U9, except for the bugs, the plot holes, some of the pointless characters (like Raven,) and some of the voice acting. That seems like a pretty big list, but the game was still fun for me. Some of the locations were breathtaking, like the canyons to the north. You could go exploring in places that had no relevance to the plot, there were really convinincing ruins and destroyed towns/areas. You'd end up somewhere and wonder "What the f--k happened here?" There were actually some VERY cool items in places that the plot didn't take you. Books and notes from the people that lived in the dead areas. (also the little shrine under the water was pretty cool) I like U7 and U8 better, but 9 was still pretty nice despite its problems.

Oblivion feels a lot like it to me, only like the OP stated, without the problems. I feel like a few things are missing though. There aren't enough areas with a real sense of forboding. Sure, the Oblivion gate areas, and some ruins here and there give you that ominous feeling, but I would like more of the actual landscape to be torn like that. Dead cities with scraps of history and what happened laying around to discover. Also, I haven't yet come across an item that I thought was truly worth discovering outside the plot. Nothing like the Staff of the Dead from U9. Overall though, it feels very similar, and is one of the few RPGs that I've been as happy with as I was playing the Ultima games, some of the SSI games, and System Shock series.

It would be cool if people made some mods that were side quests for truly powerful, unique, and history-rich items.
 
I think the worst part of U9 was the Avatar's godawful voice which sounded the furthest from anything I could have imagined. Sounded more like a reality tv surfer dude or soap opera character with IQ of 80. Oh well.

I actually got it around its release but didn't start playing it til a year and a half after....By that time the patches were made, and there was hardware out that could finally play it with max settings and eye candy. Still a fun game to go back to, and at 1600 x 1200 it looks remarkably good next to today's games, considering it's 7 years old. In fact, when I saw the first shots of Oblivion, the first thing I thought of was how much they reminded me of the scenes inside the castle in U9.
 
junehhan said:
Ultima Ascension was an awesome game, but there were way too many frickin bugs. Oblivion also has a lot of bugs, but there are only a few that I consider critical.

I would really like to see another Ultima game in the future, although there really isn't much story left for them to exploit. Ultima 7 was my favorite, and I only didn't like Ultima 8 because I didn't like it's story.
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UA was a travesty. If I had the time and knowledge, I'd rewrite U9 completely as a mod for Oblivion. I've already got 80% of the story and features, and was planning on doing an NWN mod (or perhaps now a NWN2 mod). But again, time issues... :sigh:

The sad thing is that they don't have to "exploit story," they could make something new. And they must have felt this pressure to retread a path that had previously been profitable, because it's hard for the player not to come off with that impression (especially if they played the prequels).
 
Synful Serenity said:
I think the worst part of U9 was the Avatar's godawful voice which sounded the furthest from anything I could have imagined. Sounded more like a reality tv surfer dude or soap opera character with IQ of 80. Oh well.

I actually got it around its release but didn't start playing it til a year and a half after....By that time the patches were made, and there was hardware out that could finally play it with max settings and eye candy. Still a fun game to go back to, and at 1600 x 1200 it looks remarkably good next to today's games, considering it's 7 years old. In fact, when I saw the first shots of Oblivion, the first thing I thought of was how much they reminded me of the scenes inside the castle in U9.
Click to expand...

It's fun to jack up the resolution, go to the top of the highest point you can find, and start working the clipping planes out to insane levels. The highest spot might actually be the top of the Castle's spire. If you work it out enough you can literally see everywhere. Your framerate might drop to 3fps though :)
 
Synful Serenity said:
I think the worst part of U9 was the Avatar's godawful voice which sounded the furthest from anything I could have imagined. Sounded more like a reality tv surfer dude or soap opera character with IQ of 80. Oh well.

I actually got it around its release but didn't start playing it til a year and a half after....By that time the patches were made, and there was hardware out that could finally play it with max settings and eye candy. Still a fun game to go back to, and at 1600 x 1200 it looks remarkably good next to today's games, considering it's 7 years old. In fact, when I saw the first shots of Oblivion, the first thing I thought of was how much they reminded me of the scenes inside the castle in U9.
Click to expand...

There's hardware out that can play it at max settings? Amazing...

Fun game to begin with but I got a little tired of falling through the floor...
 
Postal Blowfish said:
UA was a travesty. If I had the time and knowledge, I'd rewrite U9 completely as a mod for Oblivion. I've already got 80% of the story and features, and was planning on doing an NWN mod (or perhaps now a NWN2 mod). But again, time issues... :sigh:

The sad thing is that they don't have to "exploit story," they could make something new. And they must have felt this pressure to retread a path that had previously been profitable, because it's hard for the player not to come off with that impression (especially if they played the prequels).
Click to expand...

I honestly think that somewhere in the next couple of years, someone out there is going to come out with the Ultima Ascension mod for Oblivion. Heck, look at the conversions done on Ultima 7 using the Ultima Ascension engine.
 
junehhan said:
I honestly think that somewhere in the next couple of years, someone out there is going to come out with the Ultima Ascension mod for Oblivion. Heck, look at the conversions done on Ultima 7 using the Ultima Ascension engine.
Click to expand...

Where? I haven't seen any, and I loved ultima 7.
 
I can't remember where I saw them anymore, but it was on an Ultima fansite somewhere. Try doing a google search and see what you can come up with. It was a very long time ago that I saw this online.
 
I've been hooked on the Ultima series since I first played starting with U4: Quest of The Avatar on my Commodore 128 back in '85. I eventually played them all right up to U8: Pagan (released in '94). A very short time after that is when I first got wind of Garriott working on the next Ultima game and that got me salivating like mad. Then in October '96 (iirc) I was walking through the periodicals aisle at Meijer's and saw a magazine with a headline that read "Origin's Cutting Edge" and had a picture of Richard holding a sword blade so that it blocked out half of his face on the magazine cover. That was the first issue of PC Gamer I ever bought (I miss how they used to be) and must've read that article over a dozen times the following week. Just wetted my appetite for U9 even more. Then it happened: The official announcement that U9 would be released in Oct of 99. Finally! As soon as that sucker was released, I was the proud owner of the limited Dragon Edition.

Playing that game was a nightmare! If I could get 30 minutes of uninterrupted play before it crashed to the desktop I was thrilled. I think my average was about 10-20 minutes before it went haywire. Then the Jan 2000 install CD was shipped and, even though it solved some of the problems, it certainly didn't solve enough of them. Patch after patch was installed, but to no avail. What a let down. Fortunately, a patch came out some time after that was unsupported by Origin/EA and it actually solved all of my crashing problems. I'm happy to report that I've been through the entire game about a dozen times now and currently working on another campaign of doing so.

As for Elder Scrolls, I never did like ES III. It was too slow and boring for my tastes. Maybe I'll give Oblivion a try one of these days if I get the hankerin' to buy it.
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
"Obbly"?! This abbreviation is worth of death most painful!
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It's about as bad as people calling laptops "lappys". Very painful. Every time I see that all I can picture is some snot nosed fan-boy going to his momma's fridge to get another Mountain Dew.
 
DejaWiz said:
I've been hooked on the Ultima series since I first played starting with U4: Quest of The Avatar on my Commodore 128 back in '85. I eventually played them all right up to U8: Pagan (released in '94). A very short time after that is when I first got wind of Garriott working on the next Ultima game and that got me salivating like mad. Then it happened: The official announcement that U9 would be released in Oct of 99. Finally! As soon as that sucker was released, I was the proud owner of the limited Dragon Edition.

Playing that game was a nightmare! If I could get 30 minutes of uninterrupted play before it crashed to the desktop I was thrilled. I think my average was about 10-20 minutes before it went haywire. Then the Jan 2000 install CD was shipped and, even though it solved some of the problems, it certainly didn't solve enough of them. Patch after patch was installed, but to no avail. What a let down. Fortunately, a patch came out some time after that was unsupported by Origin/EA and it actually solved all of my crashing problems. I'm happy to report that I've been through the entire game about a dozen times now and currently working on another campaign of doing so.

As for Elder Scrolls, I never did like ES III. It was too slow and boring for my tastes. Maybe I'll give Oblivion a try one of these days if I get the hankerin' to buy it.
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I played U4 on my C64! What a great game... brings back some memories of late night gaming sessions. I've still got my C64 stored away somewhere with that game and about a zillion others on floppies that are probably corrupt/unreadable by now. Hell I still have my Atari 2600 stored away, lol.

I too remember the disaster that was U9. I never got it to work right and sadly I had to put my Dragon Edition aside. Just a few weeks ago I ran across the U9 and Feb 2000 install discs. I thought "What a shame, I'd love to actually play this game" but I just can't deal with the crashes. All these years later I had given up hope of ever playing it. After reading your post I can say that I had no idea that there was an unofficial 1.19 patch and you even provided a link! I'm actually psyched about this game again! Of course I'd have to pull myself away from Oblivion for a while... and once I see the graphics of U9 I might change my mind but it's worth a shot.

I wasn't crazy about Morrowind either. It's a great game built on a great engine, but it's just too slow and difficult at the beginning. Even with some awesome mods installed the game just seemed like it was almost there, but not quite. Fortunately I can say that Oblivion is one of the greatest games that I have ever played, and I've played a few. You would be doing yourself a disservice by not giving it a shot.

Speaking of remakes, I think my favorite Ultima remake of all time was Arx Fatalis. Arx had it's share of minor flaws, but I absolutely loved Ultima Underworld and it was good to see it being paid some respect all these years later. It's worth checking out if you haven't already.
 
DJ Gecko said:
Fortunately I can say that Oblivion is one of the greatest games that I have ever played, and I've played a few. You would be doing yourself a disservice by not giving it a shot.
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Thanks for the kind vote of confidence. Best Buy has it on sale for $40 this week, so I might just go and pick it up. Hope you enjoy U9. That lightning sword rules! ;)
 
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