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2012-02-04 Forgotten World news at last |
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It is simply amazing what FirstKnight is able to accomplish using mostly a hex editor. Images of his changes to the Cove area for Beautiful Britannia will be up soon, but you can already check them out at Aiera.
In other news, I have been very preoccupied IRL since about September, but I'm finally back at it. Currently I'm working to get the activity editor completed with full dialogs and menus, so that there is nothing left obscure from slider bars for action speed to drop-down menus for various gestures. Trigger and object property analysis is close to half way completed with almost all triggers and properties identified. Much of the remaining work is clarifying what each parameter does and then updating the trigger editor for more intuitive editing.
From our last poll, the Stones theme was voted to be most fitting for the Forgotten World version of Cove located just East of Britain. Currently, progress on our editor is slowed due to a bug in the nonfixed object file saving routine, which creates an all new nonfixed file rather than simply editing an existing. Whenever we save the primary map for U9 and load it up in the game, there are crashes at least one if not several select locations. Currently, we are somewhat baffled as to the exact cause the problem, but we are hopeful that the offending issue will be found. In any case, we can save other maps without any problems, which brings me to our next poll question.
Eventually, our worldbuilding will get to the stage where we will release milestones similar to Archon's U6P; however, if we were to release a demo map of our designs, what path would you like to see in such a demo? Included in the demo would be the related towns, the dungeon, surrounding areas/islands, and cave systems. I decided against Spirituality as an option because it technically involves so many locations.
Also, I am beginning a new section to the site: Ultima IX commentary where I will go through the vanilla game and give my thoughts, impressions, and a little of background to the various areas. It will be a little slow going at first, but progress on the commentary will pick up in time. |
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2012-01-23 Beautiful Britannia 2011 R3 - Gallery update |
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I've updated the BB Gallery with a complete set of screens for BB 2011 R3.
And for every BB screen i've added a comparison screen, which shows the look when playing original U9.
Firstknight |
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2011-12-16 Beautiful Britannia 2011 R3 - Release! |
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The Download is already available on my project site on Aiera.
Comparison screenshots, which illustrates some of the changes that have been made, will be available here within the next week.
Features:
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* More than 150 new designed Textures (Terrain, Foliage, LB Castle, Walls), most of them in higher resolutions than the original ones.
* More than 15.000 objects added (Flowers, Grass and other plants, Butterflies, most of them around yew) to the original release from 1999.
* Contains the latest version of U9BB.EXE (supports more than one fogless overworlds, those overworlds will be implemented in future releases)
NOTES:
From now on U9BB.exe can be created by using U9PatcherEXE.exe (separate installer), please look into U9BB-readme.txt for details.
Terrain textures are not completely finished yet, please excuse the disburbing effects because of missing transistions.
Quick Install instructions:
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* Unzip the Release into your Ultima IX install directory (where u9.exe is located, otherwise the Installer will not work)
* Now you have a new directory within your Ultima IX install directory, named BB, with a Subdir named BB2011R3, further the Installer called BB2011R3.cmd
* To the next please run BB2011R3.cmd
* At the first start the Installer creates a Backup of the original files in the BACKUP Subdir of the BB2011R3 directory.
* Enter 1 for installing the BB2011R3 (Enter 2 for restoring the previous installation)
* Now please start a new the game using U9BB.EXE (fogless overworld) or standard U9.EXE (overworld with distance fogging).
* BB2011R3 will further work every early savegames from the earth map or stonegate.
Firstknight
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2011-11-19 BB Mini Mods - First Release |
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While doing some trigger-related research I had to find out, that there was quite some content within the earth map hidden by the developers.
So I've created a copy of the earth map, where all this content is visible and useable now, and integrated the map into the main game after that.
Now this special map can be acccessed by entering "Castle Prison" after speaking with Lord British at the Beginning of the game.
The Back Teleporter now leads to this Earth Map, from there you can return to the front of LB Castle or try out one of the following:
o Teleporters to positions all over Britannia (Best to use with my "Freedom Mod" preinstalled, so that you can walk back to Britain then)
o Teleporters, which changes the complete armor set you wear
o Collect all the Armor and Weapons, which had become visible now
o Bake your own Bread within Avatar's House
The download is available on my project site on Aiera.
Quick Install instructions:
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Just as for "Beautiful Britannia" I use a simple batch file as Installer, so it will be working on any system,
starting from Windows 98 up to Windows 7, and on x32 and x64 systems.
* Unzip the Release into your Ultima IX install directory (where u9.exe is located, otherwise the Installer will not work)
* Now you have a new directory within your Ultima IX install directory, named BB, with a Subdir named BBMini01, further the Installer called BBMini01.cmd
* To the next please run BBMini01.cmd
* At the first start the Installer creates a Backup of the original files in the BACKUP Subdir of the BBMini01 directory.
* Enter 1 for installing the BBMini01 (Enter 2 for restoring the previous installation)
* The Mod works not only with new games but also with every existing savegame!
Firstknight |
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2011-11-14 Beautiful Britannia 2012 R1 - First Screens |
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Finally I can present the first impressions of the new "Britain House" Textures reworked by Viriathus.
Here are two screens, which shows clear improvements in comparison to existing textures, especially when looking at them from close to.
The new textures will be included in the upcoming "Beautiful Britannia 2012 R1", which is scheduled for Q2/2012. Means, that two Releases are planned for 2012, which will still have a strong focus on retexturing.
Larger content upgrades (cove for example) will take some time are therefore not to be expected before 2013. However, my work on this cove upgrade has already started, and fresh screens of early development builds can be awaited even with in this year.
Firstknight
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