Upgrades for early Ultima games
Well, it’s been a long time since I’ve updated anything on this site. (Nearly 10 years, wow!) But I felt it necessary to at least post something that I’ve been working on that might be of interest. There’s a bit of a backstory surrouding the circumstances that generated image above. There’s also even more in the works than just this. More to come soon(tm).
I learned something this week. You would think I should have learned this a long time ago, and whether or not that is true, I re-learned it now. Don’t put in overtime. It’s just not healthy and it’s bad for the morale. That, of course, is easier said than done, and it’s too bad I won’t be able to stick to that commitment.
Oh, and this was that excuse I was telling you about earlier this month. As if my energies aren’t spread thin enough, I have another pet project now. Yippee!
Please ignore me, I’m feeling cynical at the moment.
As for Exodus, I have set a goal for myself, but not a deadline. I expect to begin rearchitecting the U3 Upgrade soon. This new design will be a driver-based model whereby all video and audio functions will be removed from the executable and stored in driver objects. The advantage to making this change is ease of code modifications in the future. Eventually, it will be implemented in all upgrade projects.
Yes, it has been quite a while since I made any updates, and for that I apologize. Lack of updates such as these seem to be the first sign of sites that begin their slow recession into obscurity, only to eventually be annexed in the halls of ancient web history. While that may happen some day in the future, as all good things must reach their own inevitable ends, let’s hope it doesn’t happen anytime soon.
Fortunately, I have a legitimate excuse for my absence. Whether you like it or not is entirely up to you, but rest assured it is legitimate. I just can’t tell you what it is… yet.
Anyway, as for the reason I’m making this update — I have a new release of the U3 Upgrade. This version fixes a mess with the AutoSave override. It seems the overworld map would not restore properly when leaving Ambrosia. That is now fixed.
Well, I’ve unfortunately been getting swallowed up by loads of work and unpaid overtime. Not ideal. It has certainly been keeping me busy enough to delay the next release of the U3 Upgrade, but here it is, release 2.3! Mostly maintenance updates in this one, though.
In other news, I have added a U3 Tech Page to the site. It’s kind of bare right now, but I hope to add data file formats and such to this page for your reference sometime in the not-so-distant future. For now anyway, I have posted the source code for two of the utilities I’ve supplied with U3.
Time passed, and the omens became troubled. Comets clashed across the sky and rumbles were heard deep in the ground. Then one day, in a fiery birth of molten lava, an island rose up in the middle of the ocean… An evil power was rising in the West, and all Sosaria groaned to its flexing. When tales emerged that the Great Earth Serpent had risen from its long slumber at the bottom of the ocean, prophets began to cry that the End of the World was at hand…
What was once known as the “Ultima III Upgrade Project” is no longer. It has evolved beyond its original being. Another soul has joined the chorus of its predecessors and crossed over into another plane of existence. It has taken its first step towards completing its Exodus.
Translation: It is my pleasure to announce that the first pre-release of the U2 EGA Upgrade is now available. Please see the U2 project page for details. Since this game cannot be included under the former “U3 Upgrade” title of the web site, it only made sense that I should refit the site to accommodate more than one upgrade project.