Ultima VIII

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Ultima VIII: Pagan
Developer(s)	Origin Systems
Publisher(s)	Origin Systems
Designer(s)	Richard Garriott
Engine	Ultima VIII Engine
Version	2.12
Platform(s)	DOS
Release date	March 15, 1994
Genre(s)	RPG
Mode(s)	Single Player
Rating(s)	ESRB: Mature (M)
Media	3½" floppies, CD-ROM
Input methods	Computer keyboard and Mouse

Ultima VIII: Pagan (1994) is the eighth part of the computer role-playing game series Ultima. It was not as well-received as Ultima VII, leading many, including lead designer Richard Garriott, to blame its faults on a hasty development timetable forced on the team by Electronic Arts.

Overview

Following the defeat of the charismatic religious leader Batlin on Serpent Isle, the Guardian banishes the Avatar to a world that he has already conquered, Pagan.

The world of Pagan is in eternal twilight as the result of an ancient battle between the Elemental Titans and the evil "Destroyer", which resulted in the victory of the Titans. However, the people of Pagan had to pay a high price: the Titans had to henceforth be worshipped as gods. The Titans bestow powers on their most ardent followers, but they are otherwise cruel and unloving rulers, and their followers terrorize the general population.

In this part of the series, Garriott delegated most of the work to others. Garriott later explained, "... I sacrificed everything to appease stockholders, which was a mistake. We probably shipped it three months unfinished." (Computer Games Magazine, 1999)

Common complaints were:

• The world was much smaller than in the preceding parts.
• NPC portraits were no longer included.
• Day-and-night cycles were removed (Pagan's twilight was truly perpetual in-game).
• The game went back from the "party" concept to the "lone hero" of the first two Ultima games.
• Battle against enemy characters was pure hack and slash mouse clicking. There was some resemblance to the later game Diablo.
• Poor game balance. Among other problems, a spell learned early in the game granted total invulnerability, rendering all further combat trivial.
• Platform game style running, climbing and jumping across moving platforms was introduced.
• Assaulting a citizen or stealing usually resulted in immediate execution by the town sorcerer.
• Major holes in the plot
• Frequent bugs/glitches

A patch was released to correct the game's bugs as well as fix some plot holes, and eliminate most of the problems with jumping (the original release contained many moving platforms to be jumped across; the patch stopped their motion), but by then the damage to the game's reputation had already been done. However, this fixed version was an immense improvement for some users.

Ultima VIII has a much darker tone and a very different premise, in comparison to most of the Ultima games. The world of Pagan is entirely different from that of Sosaria: the Virtues were not part of Pagan's culture, and the magic systems and monsters were entirely different.

The Ultima VIII engine was later reused in the Crusader game series.

Plot

Ultima VIII sets off where Ultima VII ended: The Guardian has grasped the Avatar from the Void, and now drops him into the sea of the world Pagan through a pentagram-shaped portal. In the introduction, the Guardian reveals his plot:

The Avatar regains consciousness on the shore after being rescued from the sea by a fisherman (who turns out to be an important character later on in the plot). He soon witnesses the execution by beheading of a townsman, ordered by the tyrannic ruler of the region, Mordea.

Later, visiting the wizard Mythran, he learns that there are four Titans on Pagan, each one having one of the Elements as his/her domain: Water (Hydros), Air (Stratos), Fire (Pyros) and Earth (Lithos). The more privileged followers of Lithos are identified as necromancers, the followers of Pyros as sorcerers, the followers of Stratos as theurgists and the (albeit highly selective) followers of Hydros as tempests. Apart from those, a fifth type of magic known as Thaumaturgy exists and is pioneered by Mythran. In order to escape Pagan, the Avatar has to overcome many obstacles and master the ways of all titans, finally becoming the Titan of Ether: the magical field and fifth element.

During his quests, the Avatar collects the four artifacts of the Titans, unleashing violent thunderstorms, hurricanes, earthquakes and meteor showers by doing so. These artifacts allow him to enter the Ethereal Plane and defeat the Titans on their own turf. The Avatar then reconstructs the original blackrock gate that originally allowed the Guardian to enter Pagan. By entering the reconstructed gate, the Avatar is teleported back to Britannia, which is now ruled by the Guardian.

Expansion packs

Speech Pack

The Speech Pack add-on was released concurrently with the game. This pack adds spoken lines for certain key characters, such as the Guardian, the Titans and Khumash-Gor.

The Speech Pack did not sell very well as a separate add-on, mostly because the CD-ROM version of Ultima VIII, which was released shortly afterward, also includes the speech files, and the floppy version was seen as too expensive an addition that did not offer much. The speech files are also included in the later budget releases and the Ultima Collection release.

The speech pack was available in English, French, and German.

The Lost Vale

This expansion to Ultima VIII was planned from the outset, and was much anticipated, but never released; it was cancelled when the main game did not sell as well as had been expected, despite being all but finished and ready for duplication. Hints from texts in the main game suggested that the expansion pack would have added a new story regarding resistance to the Pagan gods and followers of the old religion known as Zealans.

Compatibility with modern systems

Ultima VIII has problems running on modern systems such as Windows 98 and later, however it works reliably under the DOSBox environment. Unlike Ultima VII which used Intel's undocumented "Big real mode" which became known as Voodoo Memory at Origin, Ultima VIII used a more conventional DOS extender, Phar Lap 286, but after loading it modified the x86 registers to convert from a 16-bit address space into 32-bit mode on selected segments.

v • d • e Ultima series Main series I · II · III · IV · V · VI · VII · VIII · IX Worlds of Ultima The Savage Empire · Martian Dreams Ultima Underworld The Stygian Abyss · Labyrinth of Worlds Other games Akalabeth · Escape from Mt. Drash · Ultima Online · Ultima Worlds Online: Origin · Ultima X: Odyssey · Ultima V: Lazarus Developers Chuck Bueche · Dr. Cat · Richard Garriott · Herman Miller · Warren Spector · David R. Watson Characters Avatar · Companions of Avatar · Lord British · Batlin · The Fellowship · Lord Blackthorn · Guardian · Minax · Mondain · Time Lord · Ventryn · General list · List of characters based on developers Locations Britannia · Britannia Manor Other topics Artificial scripts · Exult · Usecode · Virtues