Ultima IX: Ascension

Ultima IX: Ascension
Studio	Origin Systems
Publisher	Electronic Arts
Erstveröffent- lichung	1999
platform	Windows
genre	Computer role playing game
Game mode	Single player
control	Mouse , keyboard
system advantages preconditions	CPU : Pentium II 300 MHz RAM : 128 MB 2 GB hard disk space 3D accelerator with 16 MB 8x CD-ROM drive
medium	CD-ROM
language	German English
Current version	1.18 (2000) 1.19h (2012, fan patch )
Age rating	USK

Ultima IX: Ascension is an RPG by Richard Garriott's developer company Origin Systems , a subsidiary of Electronic Arts , for Windows . It was published in 1999 and despite criticism of the many bugs in the first published version and the high hardware requirements, it received good to very good ratings. Ultima IX is the last part of the Ultima series for solo players.

action

Ultima IX is part of the Ultima series, the third part of the Age of Armageddon story arc . The player slips into the role of the avatar who travels to Britannia for the eighth and final time. He must save Britannia by cleansing the corrupted shrines of the eight virtues and defeating his adversary, the Guardian .

Development history

The development of Ultima IX was marked by several redesigns and engine changes . Ascension was planned as the third part of a trilogy beginning with Ultima VII called Age of Armageddon : the first part should take place on the world of Britannia, the second on Pagan and the third part on the homeworld of the Guardian. After the mostly disappointed feedback from fans of the series on Ultima VIII: Pagan , Garriott decided to realign Ascension in the direction of classic Ultima parts with another return to Britannia. The decision was announced in a text accompanying Patch 2.12 by Pagan.

The original plan was to develop the game based on the Ultima 8 engine. However, under the impression of the success of Tomb Raider , the decision was made to follow the trend and the new technical possibilities of 3D graphics and to develop the game from scratch as a real 3D game instead of isometric . At this point, however, the development of the isometric version was relatively far advanced, and the first screenshots were already circulating. All of this led to a long development time and in the end to the forced release of a heavily buggy game under pressure from EA.

Fan support

Most critical bugs were fixed with the last patch version 1.18f, but the problem of poor performance via the Direct3D interface instead of Glide remained. Patch v1.19f, which may have been made by former Origin programmers and which improves Direct3D performance, became available later . After the end of the effective support by Origin, due to the departure of Richard Garriott and many developers to NCsoft Austin , the fan base of the game tried to fix the remaining problems themselves through community patches .

Source code archiving

In November 2014, the Ultima Codex Community succeeded in obtaining the Ultima 9 source code from a previous developer in order to prevent permanent loss with offline archiving.

reception

The ratings of the game were ambivalent and fluctuated between high marks and pegs, with the negative votes predominating ( GameRankings : 63.32%). The US computer game magazine Computer Gaming World only awarded 2.5 out of 5 points, with tester Stefan “Desslock” Janicki primarily criticizing the technically incomplete state of the game.

“If Origin had taken the time to properly complete this game prior to release, it may well have been a worthwile finale to the series. But they didn't, and it's not. "

“If Origin had taken the time to carefully finish the game before it was released, it would definitely have been a worthwhile finale for the series. But they don't have that, and so it isn't. "

- Stefan "Desslock" Janicki : Computer Gaming World

Web links

• www.ultima-ascension.com ( Memento from March 22, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) official Origin website for Ultima IX (archived March 22, 2001)
• Ultima IX: Ascension at MobyGames (English)
• Ultima Aiera , active Ultima Community (English, 2011)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Downloads ( Memento from March 22, 2001 in the Internet Archive ) Origin U9 Patches (English)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Ultima IX Patchs and Forgotten World Releases ( English ) www.forgottenworld.de. December 2, 2010. Archived from the original on July 1, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved May 15, 2011. 
3. ↑ Richard Garriott : fans.txt ( English , ZIP ; 560 kB) In: fans.txt in the 2.12 Ultima VII patch . Origin. Retrieved October 22, 2013: “ The design of Ultima IX (which is still in progress) relies heavily on this feedback and has resulted in a dramatic turnaround back toward classic role playing. Even better, it has resulted in a classic Britannian Ultima. "
4. ↑ “We had a lot of fun with the other explosives…” - An Interview with Jason Ely ( English ) ultimacodex.com. March 18, 2014. Retrieved May 16, 2014: “ JE: Originally Ultima 9 and Crusader were using the same code which was a more refined Ultima 8 engine. [...] At some point they took a very different direction and decided to go with a full 3D game and abandoned the bitmapped version. "
5. ↑ Martin Woger: Retrospective: Ultima IX - Ascension . eurogamer.de. August 9, 2011. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
6. ↑ Hacki Dragon: Original Ultima IX ( English ) Hacki's Ultima Page. March 3, 2002. Retrieved May 15, 2011.
7. ↑ ^{a b} Voyager: Ultima The Reconstruction - Fanpatches ( English ) reconstruction.voyd.net. April 8, 2007. Accessed on May 14, 2011: " Ultima 9 Patch 1.19f "
8. ↑ WtF Dragon: Ultima 9: The Source Code . ultima codex. November 26, 2014. Retrieved October 28, 2015: "" As we continue to mark the occasion of Ultima 9's fifteenth anniversary, I'm pleased to announced that the seemingly dormant Ultima Source Code Offline Archival Project (USCOAP) has finally borne some fruit: the Ultima Codex has added the source code for Ultima 9 to its offline archive. ""
9. ↑ GameRankings : Average rating , based on 28 ratings, accessed on March 27, 2013.
10. ^ ^{A b} Stefan "Desslock" Janicki: Premature Ascension . (Article scan) In: Ziff Davis (Ed.): Computer Gaming World . No. 187, February 2000, pp. 86-87.