Ultima 7 & 8

[Jaymann]

Today on U7 I raided The Mint in Britain. You have to kill the lady to get her key, then rez her so you can sell her gold bars back to her. I thought I was out $450 for the rez, but there is a healer companion a little further down the road. So I went back to an earlier save and got the healer to join, and she does the job for free. Hey, you need geld to play a good character. Good times.

[baelthazar]

Today on U7 I raided The Mint in Britain. You have to kill the lady to get her key, then rez her so you can sell her gold bars back to her. I thought I was out $450 for the rez, but there is a healer companion a little further down the road. So I went back to an earlier save and got the healer to join, and she does the job for free. Hey, you need geld to play a good character. Good times.

BAD AVATAR! That kind of thing got you in trouble in Ultima IV.

Did you make sure to get the Hoe of Destruction early on? If you don't know what I am talking about... you best find out!

[Daehawk]

My first time playing Serpent Isle I was way into it when back in the first town i spotted a bunch of chest behind a locked door. I used a halberd to reach them through the door to see what was in them...nothing . So back way into the game again and many overwritten saves later I find the game is broken beyond fixing. Seems those chest were doing something. Either holding invisible items or were used to temp hold stuff ...dont know. But I had whacked my game too bad to fix. I never did finish U7 pt2.

[Jaymann]

Today on U7 I raided The Mint in Britain. You have to kill the lady to get her key, then rez her so you can sell her gold bars back to her. I thought I was out $450 for the rez, but there is a healer companion a little further down the road. So I went back to an earlier save and got the healer to join, and she does the job for free. Hey, you need geld to play a good character. Good times.

BAD AVATAR! That kind of thing got you in trouble in Ultima IV.

Did you make sure to get the Hoe of Destruction early on? If you don't know what I am talking about... you best find out!

In fact I did. I was researching something else and came across how to get the Ho!

[Daehawk]

Same place where the farmer is growing ships....spaaaaace ships...sorta. Cats in SPAAaaaaace.

[Jaymann]

My first time playing Serpent Isle I was way into it when back in the first town i spotted a bunch of chest behind a locked door. I used a halberd to reach them through the door to see what was in them...nothing . So back way into the game again and many overwritten saves later I find the game is broken beyond fixing. Seems those chest were doing something. Either holding invisible items or were used to temp hold stuff ...dont know. But I had whacked my game too bad to fix. I never did finish U7 pt2.

That's tragic. I hate when a game punishes you for being creative. Idiot programmers should have put those in a room with no windows or doors.

[Suitably Ironic Moniker]

My first time playing Serpent Isle I was way into it when back in the first town i spotted a bunch of chest behind a locked door. I used a halberd to reach them through the door to see what was in them...nothing . So back way into the game again and many overwritten saves later I find the game is broken beyond fixing. Seems those chest were doing something. Either holding invisible items or were used to temp hold stuff ...dont know. But I had whacked my game too bad to fix. I never did finish U7 pt2.

Yeah, Serpent Isle was difficult in terms of story progression. A walkthrough was a must for me, and it took me a few goes to finally beat the game, but it was worth it. I feel like it was the last gasp of the old Origin.

[Carpet_pissr]

The advent of sound cards (and then GREAT sound cards) was definitely part of the Golden Age milieux.

For me personally it was definitely at least as impressive as the introduction of 3D cards and graphics.

I remember well spending (hours?) playing the demo disk that came with my first Soundblaster card. They had a few graphics rolling around on the screen, but were there to showcase the new 16 bit sound. ‘Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy’ IIRC. And sometimes I forget how old I am. :p

I also specifically remember being amazed by the difference in how the intro for Day of the Tentacle sounded. Not sure if that was the switch from onboard sound bleeps to a dedicated card, or to General MIDI and the Roland GS card, but it blew my mind and ears.

[Daehawk]

Ya I started U7 pt2 Serpent Isle without the voice pack. Then when I got it and installed i bout jumped from my seat when that first bolt of lightning and thunder hits and Lord British and someone start talking. The The Guardian pipes up. So cool. I used to always try to get the speech packs. But they weren't as cheap as i thought they should be.

[YellowKing]

My first sound card experience was Eye of the Beholder. I could hear actual RAIN at the beginning. Completely blew me away.

[JCC]

I love Serpent Isle which is a total classic. But I can't imagine how anyone could get through that game without a walkthrough or taking a ridiculous amount of notes. The Ultima VII games made inventory management a nightmare, but with all the specific items for all the quests in SI it was even worse. But, the gut wrenching ending (trying not to spoil anything but this game is old as hell) was so amazing. And then EA happened. I still can get myself enraged when I think about how bad Ultimas 8 and 9 were.

[baelthazar]

For me personally it was definitely at least as impressive as the introduction of 3D cards and graphics.

Another fun "Golden Age of PC" story.

My first "real" graphics card was a Creative Labs 3d Annihilator Pro (I believe it was a Geforce 256 based card). It was extremely expensive for that time (around 1999/2000), I believe $200-300 (this seems laughable now). I needed money to get one quick, because there was a game coming that required it (not sure which one).

Three years prior, I had been a big player of Magic: The Gathering. It had declined as my high school buddies and I went to college, so I cracked open my collection and decided to sell my prized card - a black bordered Beta Chaos Orb. I got what I thought was an amazing amount of money for it - right at $250 - enough to turn my cardboard card into a graphics card. What a great memory.

A less great memory - that same card is now worth about $4500. But I like to think I easily got that much enjoyment out of my graphics card.

[Jaymann]

I love Serpent Isle which is a total classic. But I can't imagine how anyone could get through that game without a walkthrough or taking a ridiculous amount of notes. The Ultima VII games made inventory management a nightmare, but with all the specific items for all the quests in SI it was even worse. But, the gut wrenching ending (trying not to spoil anything but this game is old as hell) was so amazing. And then EA happened. I still can get myself enraged when I think about how bad Ultimas 8 and 9 were.

I actually prefer U8 to U7 on many aspects: Better graphics, better combat and I can't stand the Olde English dialogue lettering in U7. What killed U8 for me was over 5 minutes trying to climb chest high ledges that I know are possible. What in the hell were they thinking?

But now I have the magic carpet in U7 and things are looking up. Still haven't done any training, and the casting of spells eludes me.

[JCC]

I actually prefer U8 to U7 on many aspects: Better graphics, better combat and I can't stand the Olde English dialogue lettering in U7. What killed U8 for me was over 5 minutes trying to climb chest high ledges that I know are possible. What in the hell were they thinking?

But now I have the magic carpet in U7 and things are looking up. Still haven't done any training, and the casting of spells eludes me.

Wow. Maybe the first time I have ever heard someone say they prefer U8 to U7. I agree with you on U7's hard to read font and yes the magic carpet is awesome. But, I vehemently disagree with everything else! (Different strokes)

[Daehawk]

I hated that font too. And theres a ton of reading.

But I found U8's graphics to not be enjoyable either.

[JCC]

Oh and Ultima 8 had a strange, hard to read font too!