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 Introduction After a troubling vision, the Avatar returns to Britannia only to be framed for kidnapping a baron's daughter. Now he must once again traverse the Stygian Abyss, this time to clear his name and unravel a sinister series of events that have been set in motion. There is no hope of escape until the deed is done. However, the Abyss has changed. A man called Lord Cabirus tried to establish a colony bound to the 8 virtues, but the grand experiment died with him. Some say he died of natural causes. Others whisper of foul deeds and poison. Either way, the remaining denizens of the Abyss are all prisoners now, the various races constantly bickering among one another. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss, developed by Blue Sky (Looking Glass Studios) and released in 1992, was the first fully 3D open world RPG adventure ever created (I think). If you were born after the mid 80's, it's probably safe to think of it as your dad's Skyrim. It's the game that inspired the Wolfenstein 3D engine. It's my understanding that while this game is only loosely tied to the rest of the Ultima series, the game takes place sometime between Ultima 6 and 7. If you want to play the game for yourself, you can pick up UU and UU2 on GOG, both in the same package. About the Playthrough I've played through the vast majority of the game once, and I've seen an LP that someone else did, so I have some familiarity with the game. I definitely don't remember much of the details, so I'll use a guide to keep things moving if necessary. I'm going to read aloud most all the stuff that NPC's blurp at us. Not going to try to do voices, but some voices may happen just due to the way some of these goofy bastards talk. It's not quite Canterbury Tales, but there's a lot of "dost this" and "canst that" going on, among other things. Now that I've absolved myself of all sin with that qualifier  , I must admit that I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to Ultima lore. I've played through a bit of 3 and 4 and read the Memoirs of Cabirus that came with the game, so I know a thing or two about a thing or two, but that's about it. If you have any lore bombs related to Underworld that stem from other games or the Ultima universe, feel free to share. It's something I'd like to know more about. It's my intent to at least create a bonus video after a couple episodes, relaying some of what's in the Memoirs so the story has some additional context.Our version of the avatar will be Wyndal, the Shepherd. Weapon of choice? His mighty fist of virtue!   Thread Journal If you see something in the latest video that you think should go in the thread journal, make a post and let me know. Update Schedule This LP is complete! Thread Rules Just tag your spoilers / hints for this game until we've covered the topic in a video. Episodes Sound Test (Audio gets updated from MS GS Wavetable Synth to Roland CM-32L emulation from Ep 6 on) Series Playlist
It's video games. Every day...ish. rojovision fucked around with this message at 20:50 on Nov 17, 2017 |
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Jul 18, 2017 01:15
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The game still looks OK graphically in my opinion. The controls suck rear end, though.     Runes Each of the spell runes in UU has a meaning.  Combining these runes allows you to cast spells (from the manual): 
rojovision fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Aug 4, 2017 |
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Jul 18, 2017 01:16
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================ Ye Olde Thread Journal of Important Things ================ This is a compilation of knowledge kept by the thread. Information contained under an episode header ("Ep1" "Ep2" etc) represents what we learned during that episode, so you may want to hold off on reading those bits of info until you've watched the episode. Locations
Baron's Daughter (Ariel)
Dreams
Talismans
========== Factions ========== Ghouls
Gray Goblins
Green Goblins
Knights
Lizardmen
Mountainmen
Outcasts
Seers
Spiders
Trolls
========== Etc ========== Named Characters If you see a name above and aren't sure who they are, this partial glossary of named characters may help.
Spells
Mantras
Lizardman Language
Contributors: Tax Refund, Old Grey Guy, Antistar01 rojovision fucked around with this message at 20:34 on Sep 15, 2017 |
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Jul 18, 2017 01:16
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 Episode 1 - Creating the Avatar We create our incarnation of the Avatar, talk briefly about the game, and check out the intro sequence  Episode 2 - Enter the Abyss Trapped in the Stygian Abyss, the quest to save the baron's daughter and clear our name begins. rojovision fucked around with this message at 07:15 on Jul 20, 2017 |
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Jul 18, 2017 01:28
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Man, Ultima Underworld. That takes me back. I didn't play it right when it was new as my family didn't get an "IBM Compatible" until 1995, a few years after the game came out. I was given The Complete Ultima VII for my birthday that year and it was my favourite game of all time until Morrowind eventually came along. I did play Ultima Underworld sometime in the mid-90s, though, spurred on by how much I liked Ultima 7. Pretty amazing that it came out (just) before Wolfenstein 3D but was more advanced than Doom, even. Sloped surfaces, looking up and down, jumping, swimming (of a sort)... Pity about the bizarre controls though, yeah. It took a surprisingly long time for game devs to arrive at the standard first-person mouse(look) and keyboard controls we take for granted now.
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Jul 19, 2017 11:08
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rojogames posted:The controls suck rear end, though.  Seriously though, nice to see this game here, even with the most boring class/weapon imaginable. Pierzak fucked around with this message at 13:04 on Jul 19, 2017 |
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Jul 19, 2017 13:02
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Loved this game, Loved Ultima 7, loved the other games, still haven't forgiven EA for putting resources into Ultima Online instead of Ultima 9.
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Jul 19, 2017 13:04
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A friend of mine had this game when I was a kid, and it fascinated me. Magic runes, mushrooms that (as I recall) could be combined into some sort of potions if you knew the right ingredients to use, a variety of friendly beings to interact with (and not-so-friendly beings to kill)... It's too bad that my friend had (I think) pirated the game, as I never saw any sort of manual so I could never figure out the spells. Made playing the game too difficult for me, and I gave up — so I'm really looking forward to finding out what was in it. That was a pretty effective copy-protection scheme in the pre-Internet days, come to think of it: just include vital information in the manual. Most kids who would pirate video games wouldn't have easy access to a photocopier (and might shy away from asking teachers to copy something like a game manual, as it would be too obvious what they were doing), so by keeping vital information in the manual you ensured that a significant proportion of your potential customers would have to buy the game if they wanted to enjoy it. Speaking of manuals, is there a digital copy of the game's manual floating around the Internet anywhere? This was the era when manuals had some care and attention to detail put into them, so I'd like to see it.
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Jul 19, 2017 16:26
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Oh man, enjoying this so far. I think I even requested this in the request thread. This game seems awesome, but I imagine playing it on a modern system would be hard - at least for computer illiterate folks like me. What are some other games like it? Besides, obviously, it's sequel and Pathways into Darkness. Never played Ultima Underworld - or any of them - as a kid, but did play a fair bit of PID in my teens after I discovered the magic of pre-Halo Bungie. Tax Refund posted:Speaking of manuals, is there a digital copy of the game's manual floating around the Internet anywhere? This was the era when manuals had some care and attention to detail put into them, so I'd like to see it. http://replacementdocs.com/
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Jul 19, 2017 23:51
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Tax Refund posted:That was a pretty effective copy-protection scheme in the pre-Internet days, come to think of it: just include vital information in the manual. Most kids who would pirate video games wouldn't have easy access to a photocopier (and might shy away from asking teachers to copy something like a game manual, as it would be too obvious what they were doing), so by keeping vital information in the manual you ensured that a significant proportion of your potential customers would have to buy the game if they wanted to enjoy it. There were some pretty intricate paper-and-cardboard related copy protection measures back in the day. I remember things like code wheels, and sections of manuals printed on dark purple paper so you couldn't photocopy them. RoboChrist 9000 posted:Oh man, enjoying this so far. I think I even requested this in the request thread. This game seems awesome, but I imagine playing it on a modern system would be hard - at least for computer illiterate folks like me. Arx Fatalis was definitely a spiritual successor. It was made by Arkane, who went on to make Dark Messiah, Dishonoured and Prey, of course. I couldn't really get into Arx Fatalis when I tried it though, and stopped fairly early on in the game. I found it too heavy on the arbitrary adventure-game-ish puzzles. There was an LP of it here sometime recently, but I can't find in in the LP Archive.
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Jul 20, 2017 01:21
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This is definitely the sort of game that expects you to keep a piece of paper handy to write down what you learn, like "Sseth and 'click mean yes and no to the Lizardmen, but we don't know which is which yet."
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Jul 20, 2017 02:21
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if you dont spend 20 minutes trying to punch kite the first lurker you come across you're doing it wrong imo. Ultima Underworld is great (and UU2 to a slightly lesser degree) and i'm glad its getting a LP. Back in the day it was pretty easy to get lost and not quite sure what to do next, especially with some of the backtracking required. Playing the game nowadays should be as simple as DOSbox if you're keen to try it out. What was most impressive to me as a kid was the automap and note functionality. I spent way too long trying to make impossible jumps so i hope to see this replicated.
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Jul 20, 2017 03:12
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 Episode 3 - Mind Thy Manners We make contact with our first settlement in the Abyss, and have a lovely conversation with their leader.
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Jul 20, 2017 07:12
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Pierzak posted:The controls are a proto-form of shifted-WASD with mouselook. You can even circle-strafe. Have you entertained the possibility that it's just you? Yeah I know some people really don't mind the keyboard controls. I know others actually like using the mouse to control movement, but that one never took with me. As for weapon, I hear you. My first playthrough was an axe wielding bard, but I was curious to see if an unarmed playthrough was viable. Shepherd just seemed to fit the theme. RoboChrist 9000 posted:...but I imagine playing it on a modern system would be hard... If you pick it up on GOG (link in the main post) it's actually very simple since they've done all the DOSBox setup for you. It's pretty likely you can just click and go, like any modern game (aside from the gameplay barriers to entry - i.e. you gotta read the manual). Like Antistar01 said, Arx Fatalis is supposed to be a spiritual successor though I've never played much of it. You'd probably want to look into Arx Libertatis to get it running well on modern machines. If you swapped out a fantasy dungeon for a sci-fi space station, I would argue that the recent Prey game has some similar elements when it comes to player freedom. It's weird...I'm actually having a tough time thinking of similar games. rojovision fucked around with this message at 07:46 on Jul 20, 2017 |
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Jul 20, 2017 07:36
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Can you stop reading out loud all the text in the game, it makes it feel like the video is for preschoolers
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Jul 20, 2017 10:00
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fadderman posted:Can you stop reading out loud all the text in the game, it makes it feel like the video is for preschoolers Counterpoint: I'm usually annoyed by people reading text out loud in videos, but I'm enjoying it this time. You're going quickly through it, and it does make the game feel a bit more fleshed-out (those old games had no voice acting for practical technical reasons, like the amount of data you could fit on a single floppy disk). BTW, sorry for accidentally posting a (minor) spoiler for the video in my previous comment. I had seen the video come up on the Youtube playlist, and hadn't realized that you hadn't yet posted it in the thread. Next time I'll hold off on posting about the video until you've posted it to the thread.
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Jul 20, 2017 10:51
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fadderman posted:Can you stop reading out loud all the text in the game, it makes it feel like the video is for preschoolers tl;dr: No, sorry. I know the whole reading aloud thing is not everyone's cup of tea, but there are at least as many people who have watched my stuff in the past that either don't mind or prefer it, according to my analytics. There are reasons I read things out loud beyond a stylistic choice. One reason is it makes it easier to keep myself and you on the same page. I could read most of this stuff to myself pretty quickly, but someone else may not be able to, and having to constantly pause the video if you want to read things is worse than the alternative in my opinion. Another reason is many people may not be closely watching the LP (having it on for background ambience while playing games or cooking or whatever). Not reading out loud creates two issues there - one is those people will always miss huge chunks of story, and the other is it creates a lot of dead air. I don't consider myself to be a shouty over the top LPer, but I also don't usually have long bouts of silence either. Anyway, I hope that helps explain things a bit. Sorry if this series isn't for you because of it.
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Jul 20, 2017 11:05
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Tax Refund posted:BTW, sorry for accidentally posting a (minor) spoiler for the video in my previous comment. I had seen the video come up on the Youtube playlist, and hadn't realized that you hadn't yet posted it in the thread. Next time I'll hold off on posting about the video until you've posted it to the thread. No problem. Normally I'm going to do an update post at the same time as the video release - just got distracted by something else and then totally forgot to do the update this time around.
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Jul 20, 2017 11:07
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Actually, I just thought of a question. It seems like you're doing your commentary live, rather than recording over the video of an already-played session — which means you won't necessarily want to take time to write things down, since that would create dead air that you'd have to edit out later. Would you find it useful if someone in the thread (like me*, but it could be anyone who hasn't played the game) took notes that we thought were relevant during the video, and posted them in the thread later? Something like,pre:Directions to the outcast encampment: from the entrance, go east, then north. Have to jump over a ravine to get there. In Lizardmen language, sseth and 'click mean yes and no. TODO: Find out which is which. * Since I only played the game when I was a kid, and never made much progress in it even back then, there's not much chance I'll be able to post any spoilers.
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Jul 21, 2017 11:14
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Ultima Underworld is definitely the sort of game where you need to make notes while playing. (And were likely expected to; it comes from that era.) I used to use a notepad or scrap paper or something, but I guess you could also make notes in the "margins" of the map screen, if they're not too extensive. I don't know what your recording process is like, but you could probably pause the recording to make notes if you wanted, without it being too jarring. You could maybe mention what you're noting down while you're at it too; it's all part of the experience.
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Jul 21, 2017 13:00
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This is pretty cool. I never played this, and I'm interested to see it, so this is great!Antistar01 posted:Arx Fatalis was definitely a spiritual successor. It was made by Arkane, who went on to make Dark Messiah, Dishonoured and Prey, of course. I couldn't really get into Arx Fatalis when I tried it though, and stopped fairly early on in the game. I found it too heavy on the arbitrary adventure-game-ish puzzles. There was an LP of it here sometime recently, but I can't find in in the LP Archive. That would be PiCroft's rather excellent LP of Arx Fatalis? It comes highly recommended: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3734186
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Jul 21, 2017 13:03
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Nice piece of fish posted:That would be PiCroft's rather excellent LP of Arx Fatalis? It comes highly recommended: As for this game, Ultima Underworld is one of my favourite RPGs of all time: I've always been a fan of the Ultima series, but this game is just fantastic with a great combination of elements that improve the immersiveness.
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Jul 21, 2017 13:08
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Tax Refund posted:Actually, I just thought of a question. It seems like you're doing your commentary live, rather than recording over the video of an already-played session — which means you won't necessarily want to take time to write things down, since that would create dead air that you'd have to edit out later. Would you find it useful if someone in the thread (like me*, but it could be anyone who hasn't played the game) took notes that we thought were relevant during the video, and posted them in the thread later? Something like, Sure if you or anyone else wants to help keep track of stuff we've learned it could at least be a fun side project for the thread. I can try to keep track of things we've learned in the reserved post and just hide them with spoiler tags for new people that may roll in later on. If you all have anything else you think should be added based on what we've seen so far, let me know. Edit: One minor thing - it was WEST and then north
rojovision fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Jul 21, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 15:29
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Tax Refund posted:
I'm really hoping this is going to be like the alien gods riddle where you have to solve something without knowing which is which, but I can't foresee this game having the complexity of dialogue to accomplish that.
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Jul 21, 2017 15:51
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 Episode 4 - Trust Not the Lubberly Foot We attempt to locate the Outcasts and quickly learn that the waters of the Abyss are a dangerous place. How does the Avatar keep his torch lit while swimming, you ask? Sheer virtuous willpower. Probably.
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Jul 21, 2017 21:44
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Oops, thanks for catching that error. Other notes from episode 2: pre:The Mountainmen live below the humans - on level 2, presumably.pre:The green goblin's king mentioned several races/factions:
* The Mountainmen make some nice things, mostly metalwork.
* The Ancient Illuminated Seers of the Moonstone ("The Seers" for short) do scrolls, spells, etc.
(Sounds like dwarves and wizards, respectively.)
* The Lizardmen are allies with the green goblins, but have their own language.
* Sseth and 'click mean "yes" and "no", or maybe "no" and "yes", in the Lizardman language.
* There are also the Knights of the Crux Ansata, who are at war with the Trolls.
The green goblin king, Vernix, hates the gray goblin king, Ketchaval, and hopes to poison him someday.
Or maybe Ketchaval's wife, which would also work since "he's terribly henpecked" according to Vernix.
Sir Cabirus collected eight Talismans, one per Virtue, which were supposed to go to each group's leader.
Vernix says that the green goblins never got one. (Maybe the gray goblins stole it?)Notes from episode 4: pre:Uus Por for large jumps.
The girl we're looking for was seen being carried off "below" by a Troll.
A large, plain ankh in the ground is a shrine of Virtue (a leveling-up point).
There is supposedly a shrine in the SE area of the upper caves.Tax Refund fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Jul 22, 2017 |
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Jul 21, 2017 22:30
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This is the only Ultima game I ever got seriously into, and it's one of my favorite games of the time for sure. Glad to see it getting played!
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Jul 22, 2017 01:53
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Thanks. In the future you don't need to worry about spoiler tags for this stuff if you don't want to. Up to you, though. I'm only doing spoiler tags in the thread journal so people who come in halfway through don't accidentally see things ahead of schedule if they don't want to. Anyway this should all be added now, along with a couple minor notes I came up with from various episodes.
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Jul 22, 2017 20:16
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I really liked the rune system for spells in this game. If you knew what the runes meant, you could logically make just about any spell you had the words for.
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Jul 22, 2017 20:52
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rojogames posted:Thanks. In the future you don't need to worry about spoiler tags for this stuff if you don't want to. Up to you, though. I'm only doing spoiler tags in the thread journal so people who come in halfway through don't accidentally see things ahead of schedule if they don't want to. Anyway this should all be added now, along with a couple minor notes I came up with from various episodes. I used spoiler tags because my post showed up on the same page as the video links. One thing that has always annoyed me when I read video LPs on these forums is how I have to be really careful about how far I scroll on any given page if there have been multiple posts, because if I happen to hit PgDn and scroll past a video-link post, the very next post might contain comments about the video, and I'll get spoiled on something in the video that I just accidentally scrolled past. I don't like that happening to me, so I don't want to do it to someone else. I probably could have skipped using spoiler tags for the notes on episodes 2 and 3 — but I think I'll continue to spoiler-tag any notes I write on an episode that was just posted, unless I'm late in posting and several other people have commented before I post, so that my notes would not yet be visible to anyone scrolling down with PgDn.
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Jul 23, 2017 00:07
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Tax Refund posted:I used spoiler tags because my post showed up on the same page as the video links. One thing that has always annoyed me when I read video LPs on these forums is how I have to be really careful about how far I scroll on any given page if there have been multiple posts, because if I happen to hit PgDn and scroll past a video-link post, the very next post might contain comments about the video, and I'll get spoiled on something in the video that I just accidentally scrolled past. I don't like that happening to me, so I don't want to do it to someone else. Cool, makes sense.
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Jul 23, 2017 01:45
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quote:It's not a standing long jump situation Also, it helps to alight yourself to the squares (holding shift switches you to grid movement and is a good way to cheese swimming sections)
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Jul 24, 2017 02:06
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We're obviously quite a ways off from that, but Rojo; do you have any plans to do Underworld 2? I forget if you mentioned it in the videos.
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Jul 24, 2017 13:46
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radintorov posted:And here's a link to the youtube playlist for those without Archives: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1-f_qxBcyTe2Q9xksgClKz_LMmMIWtET Oh, yes, I'm an idiot  Thank you, obviously not everyone has archives.rojogames posted:Like Antistar01 said, Arx Fatalis is supposed to be a spiritual successor though I've never played much of it. You'd probably want to look into Arx Libertatis to get it running well on modern machines. If you swapped out a fantasy dungeon for a sci-fi space station, I would argue that the recent Prey game has some similar elements when it comes to player freedom. It's weird...I'm actually having a tough time thinking of similar games. As for this, there was a kickstarter to make a sort of modernized version, which is hopefully progressing but is most likely vapourware at this point: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/othersidegames/underworld-ascendant/description https://otherside-e.com/wp/games/underworld-ascendant/
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Jul 24, 2017 14:28
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Nice piece of fish posted:Oh, yes, I'm an idiot No, dude, they send multiple emails per month on their status. Posted this a while back in this huge, sprawling topic, too.
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Jul 24, 2017 20:43
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 Episode 5 - Wherefore Art Thou Spider? Spiders are bastards in this world and Britannia. I'll hear no arguments. Also we do a little leveling up via mantras for the first time.
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Jul 24, 2017 21:52
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Pierzak posted:It definitely was. Standing long jump is not the best only when it might be too long. I tried it after recording the last video and you're right about the jump. Also thanks for bringing up grid movement. I probably won't use it much, but I didn't know it existed, so that's cool. RoboChrist 9000 posted:We're obviously quite a ways off from that, but Rojo; do you have any plans to do Underworld 2? I forget if you mentioned it in the videos. No plans for UU2 at the moment. It's more tied into the main Ultima story, taking place between Ultima 7 part 1 and Ultima 7 part 2 as I understand it. I'd need to decide if I wanted to play 7 on the channel first, for continuity, or even go all the way back and do a heavily edited playthrough of 4 and then 5 and 6 first as well (all of which I haven't played at all except for a little of 4). It's still a cool game, though, and I may decide to just play it sometime, story continuity be damned. CAPT. Rainbowbeard posted:No, dude, they send multiple emails per month on their status. Cool. I had wondered what was going on with Underworld Ascendant. Glad to hear things are progressing.
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Jul 24, 2017 22:01
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I never played this game but i do like this fisty playthrough. Only thing that jarred is your horrible mispronounciation of the word "cudgel"
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Jul 24, 2017 22:26
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TV dog Wishbone of PBS posted:I never played this game but i do like this fisty playthrough. Haha, just goofing off. You'll hear me say it correctly at some point.
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Jul 24, 2017 22:32
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Argh why are you passing that corn for the 3rd time without making popcorn 
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Jul 24, 2017 22:51
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