Toggle Background Color
The Adventures of Buckethead in the Mushroom Kingdom - Let's Play Pagan: Ultima VIII!
Pagan: Ultima VIII was released in 1994 by Origin Systems after the game studio had been acquired by Electronic Arts. It is the 13th installment in the Ultima series of games, placing the players in the role of the Avatar once more as he is trapped in an alien world by his nemsis. Ultima VIII picks up moments after Ultima VII Part 2: Serpent Isle ends. If you are unfamilair with the Ultima series I highly recommend Nakar's LPs of 4-7 and the Worlds of Ultimas over at the LP Archive. They're an entertaining way to spend a night or two and to get yourself familiar with a series that has had a monumental impact on the computer gaming industry.
This installment of the Ultima series is not fan favorite (to put it lightly), but it was the highest selling Ultima in terms of sales. Despite the high sales numbers for the series and genre the game didn't get enough sales to satisfy Electronic Arts and the planned and rumored nearly complete add-on, The Lost Vale, was never released.
Many people consider Ultima 7 and 7.5 masterpieces of the series. Unfortunately Ultima 8 isn't regarded as fondly as it's predecessors. There are a number of reasons for this, some valid, others not so much.
Rather than sperging about the flaws and successes of the game I'll just let Richard Garriott talk about it. This is taken from a Gamespy interview.
Richard Garriott posted:
GameSpy: Sorry, but everyone wants to know -- what in the hell happened with Ultima 8 and 9?
Richard Garriott: Hah! I can easily explain. If you look at Ultima 8 -- and that's my least favorite of the series -- the causes are multiple, but understandable. Look at Origin's history with Electronic Arts ... we became part of that company halfway through the development of Ultima 7. That game was the most inventive game in the series, and my favorite, and Ultima 8 wound up being the most generic and derivative.
Ultima 7 was kind of the game's ultimate realization ... every object was useful and touchable, and the story made sense; it was the Ultima of Ultimas for me. One of the first mistakes I made starting with Ultima 8 was to let Electronic Arts convince me that it was better to ship every year on a predictable schedule then to ship a game at an unknown future date when it was actually done and ready to go out the door. It was a belief engendered by the success the company had with its sports franchises. Although these games introduced only slight technological upgrades from year to year, because everyone knew when they were coming out, it was easy for EA to market them and make big money.
EA believed this was true for all games. The counsel -- and sometimes it was more than just counsel -- I would get from EA was that the schedule was the dominant issue. Once we started down the path on Ultima 8, I decided I would be a good corporate citizen and walk the walk and talk the talk. And as Ultima 8 got into scheduling trouble, as every Ultima always did, rather than make a decision as we had in the past to hold the game until it was polished, we began to cut things out to stay on schedule. And we cut and we cut and we cut and the game that was finally released was not only shipped early even for the cut version (and therefore buggy), but also had its guts ripped out as far as being an Ultima.
It's really sad because there are parts of it I think were done very well, in the sense that the tile graphics and the foundation were outstanding. It had by far the most detailed character animation of any game to date. It was way ahead of its time in many years, but just wasn't a complete game.
Ultima 9 had a different set of problems. Consider I'm much happier with it than Ultima 8. However, due to Ultima 8 and my fights with EA over things like Ultima Online, they actually didn't want me to do Ultima 9. They wanted me to only be involved in Ultima Online. And I was of the opinion that I sat down to do nine Ultimas, and set down a storyline in Ultima 7 that carried through Ultima 9, so now I'm going to finish it.
So, Ultima 9, throughout its development, was the bastard child of Electronic Arts and suffered from that lack of support. But we persevered anyway, and I think it came out pretty well. There were some areas I wish we could have taken the time to make better, but considering the rocky road of internal support it had, it actually turned out quite nicely.
I'm of the opinion that Ultima 8 is not a terrible game, just a flawed and incomplete one. I think that if it had been given the time it needed for playtesting and polishing it could have been one of the pinnacles of the series. There is something powerful about the "outsider on a strange island setting" and some of the games that employ it have been very memorable; like Morrowind and Risen. Garriott says it needed 3 more months, I think it needed another year. 1 year later with the same engine gave us Crusader: No Remorse which featured higher video resolution (640x480 vs 320x200) and digital music instead of midi music. I am also slightly cynical and think that the reason Richard Garriott really didn't like Ultima 8 is because it didn't have his self insertion characters, Lord British and Shamino, in it.
I will point out various flaws, cut content and bugs as well as the good things the game has going for it as they come up.
And now, onto the game!
Previously on Ultima: Serpent Isle
There. We are done. Balance is restored. Serpent Isle, Britannia, your Earth, the entire Universe. All are saved.
Hooray.
Worry not about your friend Dupre, he is one with us and content.
Goodbye Avatar. We thank you.
Goodb... Wait, you're just going to leave me here?
Wait! Come back here! I saved your asses and you just ditch me in space?
Fuck you space snakes.
Hours later.
Well, well well Avatar. You have managed to thwart me once again.
By restoring balance where once chaos reigned you have saved your accursed world.
Accursed is a pretty apt way of putting it.
But now here you are, poised at the edge of eternity. Where would you go?
Doesn't look like I'm going anywhere.
Back to Britannia?
To Earth?
Perhaps you would join me in another world altogether!
Do I have a choice?
I guess not!
An Electronics Arts Company 
What a truely horrible place you've brought me to, big G.
You have been a thorn in my side for far too long, Avatar.
Your two worlds will be crushed. Brittania first, and then Earth.
I shall parade you before your conquered people as the fallen idol of a pathetic ideal.
I banish you to the world of Pagan.
No one here knows of the Avatar.
Now we get the first of two choices we get to make in this game! Unlike the previous games you do not get to select a gender. There are no portraits in this game either, but fear not for I have supplied one for us!
Pick a name wisely for it will have far reaching consequences!
Comedy gold, I say! (Nah, seriously I'll let you pick a name)
We awaken on a beach, near a camp fire.
Docks theme (I didn't upload these)
This is the conversation system in Ultima VIII. The portraits, windows and menus from the previous games are gone, now we just get the conversation options floating above people's heads. I've seen many complaints about the lack of portraits as one of Ultima 8's ultimate failures but I can see the design intent here and those people are just being babies. I assume that this is an attempt to make the conversations seem more a part of the virtual world, rather than this 'artificial' construct (conversation window) that pops up for you to interact with. Honestly I think it works just fine. Most of the people in Ultima games are ass-ugly anyways so I certainly don't miss seeing their mugshots.
Hello. Who are you?
I am Devon, my strange friend. And I am glad to see you are feeling better, (YOUR NAME HERE)
Wait. How do you know my name?
I am sorry. I did not mean to pry, but when I found you, I knew not who you were. I am afraid I read through your logbook and discovered your name. Please forgive me.
You read my journal?
Yes...
You know it's kind of... private.
I'll admit the clasp gave me a bit of trouble. I only read a little bit. I enjoyed the dra-
If you ever speak of it again I will find you and kill you!
ulp!
What's with this helmet? It's stuck... Why can't I take it off?
I don't know, I couldn't get it off either.
And what's with this red outift? What happened to all my cool Heirophant gear? And my cape? That cape was awesome!
Did you see a black sword anywhere? A spellbook? A snake staff?
WHERE IS ALL MY COOL STUFF!!!
I am unsure, my friend. All I know is that I found your water-logged body in the depths of the Lurker's domain. What happened before remains a mystery. I pulled in my nets and within I discovered you.
This is my first qualm with the game. The introduction is great, it picks up right where Serpent Isle ended and it dumps you (literally) into the world, but no mention is made of your gear. I understand it would be a bad design decision to let you keep the end-game gear but they should at least acknowledge in-game that it's gone. Simply ignoring it feels cheap and hollow. The Avatar must be jaded and doesn't even care that it's gone. There is no conversation option covering the missing gear. It's not like Ultima would make this mistake twice in a row, though.
The Lurker's domain?
Aye, 'tis what we sometimes call the sea. You were drowning in it, my friend. A fate twice bad to be certain.
Twice as bad?
Aye! Not only would it have meant death for you, but then you would have been doomed to walk the ocean floor, unable to fulfill the pact with Lithos.
If you say so. What is the Lurker?
The Lurker? That is our name for Hydros, Titan of water. She is a crafty and treacherous one, always ready to pull unwilling victims to their deaths at the depths of the sea... much like what nearly happened to you.
I think that was more gravity's doing than Hydros. And Lithos?
We call him the Mountain King. He rules the grass, the stones, the hills -- all that we walk upon. He also rules death.
What do you mean rules death?
Through his Necromancers, Lithos takes the dead to serve him for the remainder of their existence.
Sounds pleasant. What about the necromancers? Who are they?
I am amazed at how little you know, friend.
Considering I literally fell out of the sky and nearly drowned...
The necromancers are the keepers of the cemetery. They have the rather distasteful duty of burying the dead, thus honoring the pact and sending the dead to Lithos.
What pact?
Ages ago, our people forged a covenant with Lithos. If he would still the shaking earth, we would commend to him our dead at the time of their passing.
Commend to him?
Through his Necromancers, Lithos takes the dead to serve him for the remainder of their existence.
Good thing I learned to be tolerant of other being's cultures. That actually sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
One last question... where am I?
Why, on the shore, friend, safe now and thankfully alive.
Shore of what?
Shore of what? Why the shore of Tenebrae, upon the Sea of Rains.
Sea of Rains?
Obviously you do not spend any time away from the city to ask such a question. Why, 'tis nothing more than the name of the sea. The story goest hat the rains are quite heavy the further you go from the shore. It is supposed to have something to do with Mordea's powers. Part of her role as ruling Tempest is to control the rain over the city, but she feels no obligation to extend that in the distant waters. Of course, I have never had an unwanted cloud while out to sea myself, so I suspect the name is more rumor than truth.
Ah, everyone else is wrong and you are right. I know only too well how that feels, my friend.
Don't mock me.
Trust me, I wasn't. Tenebrae?
Aye, Tenebrae, the City of Eternal Twilight. They say you'll never find a more lovely place and I do not disagree, save for one place. But I will say this, the farther I am from the Lady, the better I feel. I can tell by your questions that you are not from this land. Come you from another island? Or perhaps some place that is an even greater distance away?
Yeah, you could say I'm from far away. Very far away.
I suspected as much, my friend, for your questions are most unusual. I must inform you that, a simple fisherman, I am a poor source of information about our local customs and such. I am sure there must be someone else who can tell you more. Why, I know just the person. When you get to town, visit Bentic in the library in east Tenebrae. My good friend knows practically all there is to know about our land and its people. Yes, he can certainly help you.
Bentic. Library. East Tenebrae. Got it.
Here, I have this book he wrote. I never bothered to read it. Don't tell Bentic that, though. I have a feeling it might be of more use to you than me.
"The Chronicle of Pagan. A Treatise on the Glorious History of this Foremost Society by Bentic, Humble Scholar and Student." How about that, he's humble. I'm humble too. Humble as fuck. We'll get along great.
Have this map too. It's pretty much worthless.
This is the cloth map that came with the game. It's pretty. Pretty worthless. Note: We will never be seeing that sunken ship It's not in the game.
I can see that, it doesn't even tell you what direction is North.
No navigation aids either. But it came with the book.
Thanks, I suppose. I'll read it later.
The map and the Chronicle of Pagan come with the game. It was a nice tradition of Ultima games to include cloth maps and journals or guides written from a character's perspective. I will be revealing bits from the Chronicles as the LP progresses. Avatar's a busy person, doesn't have time to sit back and read books.
You mentioned the Lady?
The Lady Mordea, my friend. She is Tempest and ruler of the city. Others call her a tyrant in whispered corners, though I held no opinion myself. Until recently, that is.
Why's that?
Lately the Lady has taken to eliminating dissension by eliminating the dissenters. She has them executed, beheaded on the docks. At first no one was killed but true criminals, but soon any who showed disagreement was put to the block. I fear for the freedom of the people.
What is a Tempest?
Indeed, you ask unusual questions.
You mentioned that already.
However, I know so little about them myself. In town you might find others who can offer so much more assistance.
I get the hint. Goodbye.
Farewell, friend Avatar, and good luck. You are welcome to stay with me for as long as you need. My food and provisions are yours until you wish to head to the city. And be careful in your travels, for I fear you will encounter much violence.
That can only mean trouble.
When haven't I entered a new land only to find trouble nearby, as if it were waiting specifically for me to show up? Anyways it's not like anything can top Christopher and Inamo's brutal murder scene.
A note about that conversation. It serves as a good info dump but it's all too easy to miss out on huge branches of the conversation tree depending on what options you chose. For instance asking about the Lurker before you ask "Where Am I?" removes the entire chunk of conversation about Tenebrae, the sea and his suggestions on where you should go. Missing the text won't break the game but it does contain some useful information about the world and the suggested course of action (seek out Bentic). I had to go through the conversation 3 times to get all of the text. It might be possible to get it all in one or two attempts but I wasn't curious enough to go through and map out the 'ideal' order of questioning.
Let's take a look at the screen. They carried over the design decision from Ultima 7 to have a minimal user interface. No hot bars, no buttons to control your character. Movement and interaction is handled with the mouse. There are a few keyboard shortcuts but unfortunately there is no way to assign a shortcut to a specific item. This means that if you want to use an item in combat you have to open your pack, find the correct item (with spells this can be tricky since many of them look alike), double click on it and select the target.
You don't need this bedroll, do you? Of course not. Mine now.
The bedroll lets you rest wherever you want (provided enemies aren't around to eat you). You can double click on it to roll it up or unroll it. Second most important item in the game!
This is our backpack. It's very similar to that in Ultima 7. There are no grids or organization aids, but you can acquire bags to help you keep things tidy. It's a neat design, if you want to carry around a ton of stuff your pack is going to get messy, that means finding a potion in the middle of combat can be a hairy affair.
Unfortunately the boat is just decoration. There is no sailing or magic carpeting or wagon riding in Pagan This was a big dissappointment in Ultima 8.
This is the character panel. It is opened by double clicking on yourself or pressing z. Our Avatar is ready for a dance party. Pump that fist in the air like you don't care. You can click that blue/red thing at the bottom and it will display the Avatar's current health and mana in the lower right of the screen as you can see in the boat screenshot. You can double click on the backpack on the panel to open it but it's far easier to just press i.
There are only three statistics in this game, Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence. There are no levels in Ultima 8, another departure from the previous games.
Strength and Dexterity are raised by combat (more specifically by swinging your weapon). Strength determines how many hit points you have, how much weight you can carry, how high you can jump and how far you can throw things.
Dexterity determines how often you hit.
Intelligence determines how much mana you have. It is raised by casting spells and reading books.
Note, you merely need to swing your weapon - you don't actually have to hit anything or deal damage. You know what that means.
Pressing C enters combat mode. You can see that we're drawing our weapon, which is... our fists. You can also double right click on yourself but it's far easier to just press c. Double clicking attacks with your weapon (or fist) in the direction. Double right-clicking kicks. Holding down the left mouse button blocks and the right mouse button is used for movement. If you try to run while in combat mode you will sheath your weapon and unsheath it again when you stop running. All these hotkeys were added in the patch, they weren't in the released version of the game.
That dip took a bit out of me. Don't mind me Devon, I'm just going to limber up a bit. Get back into shape.
Sure thing, my friend.
Approx 45 minutes later
If we had a book we could grind up our intelligence in a similar way. I don't know if readable scrolls count. You have to read through the entire book so select a short one. Casting spells also increases your intelligence but we don't know any spells yet and the rate you gain it at is so slow that it's not worth raising it that way.
Normally I wouldn't bother with grinding but the combat in this game can go very bad very quickly so it helps to have every advantage you can get your hands on. Whenever your stat goes up there is an accompanying sound effect. When you are playing it may not be immediately appearant what the sound is, leading to some confusion as you are looking around for some magical effect or ghost or something that could be causing the sound.
That should do it. Back in prime shape. Those extradimensional journeys always take a bit out of me. Check out these muscles. Check out this dexterity. I'm limber as fuck. If someone were to devise a series of virtues based on the principles of Strength, Toughness and Dexterity I would be the first candidate to be the Avatar of Virtues of Physicality.
Right... friend. You're going to check out that crowd on the docks now, right?
Of course... not! I'm going to run off this way! Later!
But... the docks... crowd.
Trust me. I know what I'm doing.
We run off to the East, which is the lower right corner of the screen. The docks, which Devon not so subtly suggest we go check out are to the West, which is the top left corner of the screen.
A quick introduction to movement. You move by pointing the mouse button in the direction you want to go and holding the right mouse button. There are three speeds, determined by the distance the mouse is from the center of the screen. Inching forward, walking and running. The avatar has around 1200 frames of animation and most npcs have about 400 frames so everything is well animated and fluid. Animations (for the most part) can't be interrupted and this leads to plenty of painful and/or stupid deaths due to being stunlocked or bouncing around when trying to find a landing spot.
You can jump by pressing both mouse buttons. There will be more about jumping later. So much more. You can also climb up ledges and obstacles by pressing both mouse buttons.
This spider is usually wandering around here. You can kill it just by stepping on it. It makes a satisfying crunch noise. A quick glance through the Chronicle reveals no information about spiders.
Around the bend is this thing. It's a sort of lizard creature that we'll call a skellot. Like the spider it can be crushed underfoot. I think it does a little more damage than the spider and is more aggressive but is essentially harmless. No information in the Chronicle about skellots either, but one of the guide/hint books says they stink bad and are like scaley rats.
And I thought they smelled bad on the outside.
My treasure sense is tingling.
Up against the wall, behind the brown tree trunk is a small chest. I've moved it out of it's hiding spot here. Inside it are some potions and a key. Players of Ultima 7 will be very familar with the game hiding loot and levers behind scenery and other objects. This game is fond of it as well.
My first treasure on this world. This is a special moment.
Red potions heal you a bunch but will damage you if you are at full health. Yellow potions heal a smaller amount but don't have the "hurt you if you are at full health" effect.
Over by the shore are some skeletons.
Hidden... inside... one of them is some kind of fire gem.
It's changing colors... is it supposed to change colors?
Fire gems are like timed grenades. They're alright, not terribly useful because it's so hard to time them and they don't do that much more damage compared to a weapon hit.
Here's climbing in action. You can usually climb over man-height obstacles unless there's a ceiling in the way or the obstacle is unclimbable (like spikes). You can also make running jumps and cling onto the edge of the platform if you fall short but that's very tricky and risky.
A quick climb up the ledge and jog along the wall brings us to some yummy mushrooms. There are various different colored mushrooms in Pagan that do different things when consumed. They're mostly safe. Eating things occaisionaly restores hitpoints. I think it's every 5 things you eat but I could be wrong. We'll be learning more about mushrooms later.
And this creature. Unlike the other two creatures, this one is actually in the Chronicle.
Chronicles of Pagan posted:
Torax
Large, slow reptiles, toraxen are the staple of the hersman's stock. They are usually brown in color, though some have dark brown or dark gray spots. Their heads are broad and flat, filled with more bone and muscle than brain. Half as tall as a man and usually docile, the torax is particularly strong for it's size, often able toknock down trees in one angry charge. Setting it's head down,the torax charges victims and then snaps with it's bone-crushing jaws. Their tough hide is thickest around the legs and back, making them especially difficult to damage in these areas.
The tremendous strength of a torax makes it an excellent dray beast; able to carry great loads for a long amount of time. In addition, their thick skin makes excellent leather, which is usable as clothing, armor and even temporary shelters. Torax meat is a staple food, whether served fresh as chops or dried as jerky.
Dumb, able to knock down trees, crushes bones with it's jaw. Thick hide that can be turned into armor or houses. What a lovely beast.
There there, gentle beast.
Torax: Purrr.
A little further west is this ruined house with a chest. A locked chest. Of course, the key we found by the shore fits the lock.
Bingo. Now to claim my rewards!
That wasn't very rewarding. You'll notice we lost about 1/3 of our health there. We would have lost even more if we were closer Let's see if there is something we could have done about that exposion.
A quick job back by Devon's camp and towards the docks. He's still wistfully staring at whatever is happening at the docks. But that doesn't concern us at the moment. We've got a bomb to disarm.
This is what we're looking for. Barrels. We won't bother ourselves with the contents just yet.
We laboriously drag the barrel back towards the house.
Now is a good time to point out something that annoys me in U8. The distance where you can interact with objects is very short. You sometimes need to move right up next to an object and have to be careful not to be on top of it in order to use or move something.
Finally. The barrel is in place.
Gently place the trapped chest in the barrel.
We'll construct a blast shield out of nearby debris as well, just to be safe.
Then... we gently... very gently...
Fuuuuuuuuuck!
It was worth a shot. I actually figured out what I did wrong. The trick with placing the chest in the barrel isn't that the barrel consumes the explosion, it's that there's a glitch in that you can open up anything in the barrel's inventory window despite your distance from the barrel, allowing you to set off the explosion from far outside of the explosion's blast radius.
Inside the chest hidden under the skull we find our first piece of armor, a helmet.
Donning it increases our armor by 4. This is actually among the best non-magical helmets you can find, and technically the 3rd best helmet in the game if you include the magic ones so it's worthwhile to grab it. There doesn't appear to be anything else inside the chest except for the skeleton, but checking inside the skeleton...
Double jackpot! Glowing... disc things.
Woah they fly and explode!
These are death discs. They seem like they'd be awesome but they're really not that useful. Like the fire gems they do about 20 damage on hit which isn't much higher than a weapon hit. It does do area of effect damage but there aren't many hordes of critters for that to be necessary, most fights involve 1-3 combatants.
Just to recap. I found a hidden box near a dead body by the shore that contained a key to a chest. Inside the chest was a charred dead body wearing a bucket helmet and these glowing red discs of death. The state of charred-ness may or may not have to do with the fiery explosion from the trap when I opened it.
The only other witness here is... YOU.
Torax: Purr
The only other thing to note about this area is that sometimes a child spawns here. Now a smart fellow like myself might immediately think that this child was the person that murdered the person down by the shore after that person murdered a guard and stuffed him into a chest but apparently this isn't the case. And if you attack her...
So let's not attack her.
Child: Who are you talking to?
The people out there.
Now we can finally head over to the docks to see this important thing that Devon suggested we go check out.
