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Ultima IX
Ultima IX: Ascension (1999) is the ninth and final part of the computer role-playing game series Ultima. Following the Avatar's escape from Pagan, he is transported back to Britannia for one final battle with the Guardian, who is increasingly ruining the physical and moral fabric of that land. He must restore the Runes of Virtue, cleanse the shrines of the Guardian's taint and restore the people to the way of the Virtues — knowing that he will now never again be able to return to Earth. Shortly after the release of this game, Richard Garriott left Electronic Arts, while EA kept the rights to the "Ultima" name, thus effectively ending the series.
Dragon EditionThere was a "Dragon Edition" of the game, named for the Ultima Dragons fan club. It included an extra-large box, prints of in-game artwork, tarot cards, an ankh pendant, etc. Though the edition was intended as a collector's item, it reportedly proved difficult for some retailers to sell. ControversyThere was a gap of five years between Ultima VIII and IX. The game caused a lot of debate among the fans of the series quite a long time before the game was even released. News of Ultima IX's development trickled from the developers as the development progressed. In the "fans.txt" file included with last patch of Ultima VIII, Richard Garriott said that Ultima IX would be based heavily on the feedback they had received from customers, and it would be a "classic Britannian Ultima". The frustration among fans grew as more and more of the "classic" features were dropped over time. The original plan for Ultima IX was to create game with isometric graphics, similar to Ultima VIII but technologically more advanced. This version was approximately three quarters finished around the time the entire development team went to focus on Ultima Online. When the team got back to Ultima IX, they threw away the entire isometric version and started over. It was decided to aim for a true 3D game. The release was further severely delayed because the targeted Voodoo 3D graphics cards fell out of public favor and thus the Glide API-based code had to be readjusted another time for Direct3D. The game had its reputation initially spoiled by a very buggy first release, with very heavy hardware requirements for the time; the design team had objected strongly to that release, but the Electronic Arts management enforced it. A few months later, a fixed version was released; a further unofficial fix was leaked on the Internet a bit later by an anonymous member of the team. After this, the game was not bug-free and still had memory leaks, but was much more playable than in the first release. The game world was rendered in a detailed and seamless manner, yet it still was small compared to earlier games. The most criticized thing about Ultima IX, however, was that the story does no justice to earlier parts of the series. It is clearly unfinished and not as polished as the earlier parts were. What makes this particularly notable is that the plot was severely changed during the development. A summary of the original plot (often called "Bob White plot", after the lead designer at the time) was later released on the Internet. The game also does not link to earlier Ultimas very well. Many facts from earlier games are completely disregarded, and quite a few of the facts that made it into the game are completely misrepresented. Fans have found a considerable number of errors in the game. (See external links for a list of nitpicks.) There now exists a fan-made dialogue patch that, while not a solution to all problems, addresses several of the bad issues in the original game's dialogues. Fan-made patchesSome of the most popular fan-made patches are;
Any combination of these patches can be used if desired, though the Dialogue, Economy and Monster patches are distributed as a single package. Fan remakesThere have been several community-based projects aimed at reproducing and/or replacing the original Ultima IX for the many Ultima fans dissatisfied with the original game. The most active project as of 2005 is the Ultima IX: Redemption project, which aims to create a "true" Ultima (an Ultima game that has traditional plot elements and characters included), with a heavy focus on preserving continuity (a sticking point with many long-time Ultima fans) with regards to the previous games. Redemption is being produced using the game engine from the successful computer role-playing game Morrowind. The development of Redemption is managed by Titans of Ether team. The team also has developers from another fan project called The New King, a new Ultima game set chronologically after Ultima IX. The developers of The New King came to help the project when the former Redemption manager left the team and the project was in danger of being cancelled. External links
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