Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!crdgw1!ge-dab.ge.com!tarpit!bilver!alj
From: alj@bilver.uucp (Arthur Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.games
Subject: Re: On Boycotting Orgins Ultima V
Message-ID: <1990Dec7.232711.26322@bilver.uucp>
Date: 7 Dec 90 23:27:11 GMT
References: <4626@disk.UUCP> <93511@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Reply-To: alj@bilver.UUCP (Arthur Johnson)
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
Lines: 49


 The address you gave is current as far as I can tell.  If you don't feel
like mailing, call them at 1-800-999-4939.  The people who man the phones
aren't always kept up-to-date, though.  As of two weeks ago, both people
I talked to didn't think the Amiga version was going to be released until
either December or January, although people had been getting them about a
week before that.
 For those who would like to know, Ultima V works fine on an A3000 with
WB2.0.  That's about the only good thing I can say about the implementation.
 Problems?  There's a keyboard problem (maybe part of the A3000/2.0
combination, though) that makes playing the game extremely frustrating and
it's just impossible to play the harpischord when you need to...
 Disk accesses occur every sixteen steps and take between five to ten seconds
to complete.  Kind of really breaks the game up when you've got far to go.
 There's only one tune that I've heard.  It's nice, but gets monotonous as
you may expect.  The alternative (can't have both simultaneously) sound
effects are nothing impressive and somewhat sparse in occurrence.
 It insists on saving your game to the copy-protected (weird disk format)
disk, but I haven't had any problems with that, fortunately.  Ultima III
was bad about killing disks this way.
 One of my biggest beefs is that you cannot convert your Ultima IV character
over.  I spent a lot of time ensuring I'd come into V with a bunch o' stuff
and not have to worry about money, equipment, spell components or mixtures.
This is not to be and is quite frustrating, as I wanted to get to the "meat"
of the game without lots o' gold-grabbing and walkin' around.  Sigh!
 Another complaint (about the game itself this time) is that just about
everything seems to poison you.  AN NOX's (if you can type the word with
the keyboard problem) go like quicksilver.  Very annoying.  Rats, snakes,
spiders, swamps, chests, squids, etc., etc.  At least the orcs aren't
rabid - yet!  As part of the problem, even though you may detect a trap on
a chest, I haven't found a non-spell way to try to remove it.  Spells and
components are expensive, so I have to waste the open spells just to remove
traps.
 I used to hate the realistic night - you can only see in the eight squares
around you.  However, torches are plentiful wherever you go and help expand
your seeing to tolerable limits.  I enjoy cruisin' around at all times o'
the day.
 Hey - don't people generally wake-up when they are damaged?  My guy got
beat to death from 100 HP's and slept peacefully through it all.  That
routine needs a little work...  This was during a regular camp and not due
to a spell, which I'd accept a little more.
 I heard that someone had fixed the keyboard problem.  Please reply by
e-mail or posting if you have, as I'm stuck until I can play a tune.
 By the way, barring the keyboard problem, the game's really not bad.  The
integral plot is what mosly matters and only the interface problems I've
described above hurt play in any way.  You can get it mail-order in the low
$40's and it's OK for that price.  I just wish ORIGIN would release a 
version with some of the problems (constant disk accessing - argh!) fixed,
but that's a pipe dream.