Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar's Ethical Loopholes part 1

[@JamesPotts]

As a programmer, what amazes me is what's pulled off with no state tracking. There's no "flag" that changes how NPCs react (except in a couple instances for avatarhood). Everything is handled via careful construction of numerous independent dialog trees. Really impressive.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

What gets me is how much Garriott started from scratch with each project. He reused a few elements, but not nearly as much as you'd expect.

[@SethGupton]

What changes depending on avatarhood (besides Hawkwind)?

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Off the top of my head - Sir Simon and Lady Tessa won't tell you where the mystic weapons and armor are unless you're an Avatar.

[@ribenasquash]

@@MichaelCoorlim yeah the mystic arms appear which are needed to enter the final dungeon. So not much.

[@slaapliedje]

Yeah, this wasn't like Alternate Reality which did have NPCs react to you based on your reputation / guild association.

[@DevinParker]

Ultima IV had an immense influence on me when I was young. From the Denis Loubet-illustrated manuals and feelies to the opening narrative which gave me a fascination with Renaissance Faires and tarot cards, I spent many years trying to recapture the feeling that Ultima IV gave me in the D&D sessions I ran. I never got very far in the game but I loved the whole theme of trying to emulate Virtues in order to fulfill a Holy Grail-type quest. My best friend, who had a copy of Ultima III, loved to try to be the absolute worst person he could possibly be in Ultima IV just so we could go talk to Hawkwind and listen to him tell us how awful we were. "Thou art lower than a slug!"

[@JSRFFD2]

I wish KZbin had a stronger positive rating than "thumbs up". I am very impressed with your thoughtful and in-depth analysis of the game flow and mechanics. I played this game as a kid, and got completely lost, I think because I loved the world and the exploration, and was just oblivious to what my first task should be (plus, the poison mechanic is so brutal in this game that it was usually a death sentence to unprepared me.) I never finished it. I similarly loved Ultima V and similarly got overwhelmed, lost, and put it down. Fast forward close to 30 years, and I sat down with this game with my daughter, and she and I finished it. I respect it much like others do. Orthopraxy makes so much sense in trying to code vague philosophy into both gameplay and mechanics that an 8-bit Apple II could handle. Taking this game in the context of Ultima III (I too finally went back and finished Ultimas 1-3, and watched your wonderful playthroughs of those) you see both the evolution of the RPG formula, and the paradigm shift that morals takes on your experience. After playing this, going back to older games where you murder and grind indiscriminately has been incredibly hard. I'm off to try to finally finish Ultima V now. Wish me luck.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

I can't tell you how many times I'm running around and suddenly die because I didn't notice I was poisoned.

[@slaapliedje]

Friend and I were playing Ultima V back in the day and I am convinced the only reason we never beat it was because he had a broken pirated copy! Still haven't gotten around to beating it, even though I eventually had it on the Atari ST.

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

I had the honor of sharing a few messages back and forth with Richard Garriott. I even sent him a digital copy of the first book in my series ("Diamond Dragons"). He is an INCREDIBLY intelligent guy, and for anyone who doesn't know, he also LITERALLY traveled to space. I'm proud to say that Ultima IV and V shaped the way I look at storytelling, ethics, virtues, and even how I feel about epic music scores. :) There are MANY shout-outs to Garriott's "Ultima" series in my books, as well as major nods to Jon VanCaneghem of "Might & Magic". Great video! SUCH a pleasure to flash back to better days for humanity.

[@justsomedude5727]

My best memory of this game was someone asking "doest thou fear anything?" And I thought it was a valor check so I said No, then they said "thou art a braggart!" And my humility went down

[@TheRadicalOneNG]

Oh yes, I love the work you put into these Ultima overviews. I think Richard even attempting to work these questions of morality into an RPG at 22 is a pretty huge feat for the time, I never even knew that Ultima IV was like this. Just a really solid video, amazing job.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

I think about what I was up to at 22 and I'm just amazed.

[@mstandish]

Ultima IV was my favorite game when I was around 12. I would head home from school to escape to Britannia on my C64.

[@Barnaclebeard]

Yep! And I still know the layout of nearly all the 2d maps. The dungeons don't seem to have left an impression somehow...

[@stampedetrail2003]

I've wanted to do something like this for a long time but I'm glad I didn't since your job of explaining the world of Ultima IV and the virtue system mechanics is exemplary. Now imagine if you didn't know that giving a single gold coin to a beggar would improve Compassion by 2 points, and you just did so randomly throughout the game, it would seem to be a lot more holistic as your character progressed in avatarhood. Likewise with the triple bonus for 3 virtues when the character pays full price for reagents. If you didn't know that this action would improve specific virtues it would seem more like it was just happening naturally as you used magic and replenished your reagent supply. By the way, for folks who want to play this game from scratch, it's very important to take notes. I think combat magic is useful after your character has reached the point where gold is no longer a problem. My favorite tactic is using energy fields to trap enemies in a corner of a dungeon room and then using Jinx to have them battle each other.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Jinx is one of my favorite spells, whether or not it's effective or efficient. It's fun!

[@stampedetrail2003]

@@MichaelCoorlim It's a lot of fun to use magic tactically in U4.

[@heavymetalelf]

Always a great time listening to your analytical playthroughs. Thank you Michael! I'm looking forward to part 2

[@PK56891]

Wonderful content, I love your style and approach.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Glad to hear it, thanks!

[@glarynth]

Wake up babe, new analytical playthrough just dropped

[@Holder51]

Very, very good video! Looking forward to any other retro game analysis, you are doing great and meaningful work 🙏🙏🙏

[@dntbther9298]

Am a bit more than 30 minutes in and all i can say is that a game analysis by an actual writer is far more enjoyable ,interesting, thoughts provoking and educating than if it was made by a random youtuber. Not only that, it also provide useful tips for any indie game devs to improve the writing of their games and their overall design. Great work ! Again, the little voice acting was really nice.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Hey, glad you appreciate it.

[@dntbther9298]

I really do. I do remember from time to time that during your playthrough of the infocom game you complained about the game telling you what happened instead of using dialogue and it left an impression on me because it's a mistake i more than likely would've done. Am eagerly awaiting the next part! A small nitpick tho, the ending of the video was too abrupt and you didn't mention it being the first part of a serie so newcomers wouldn't know.

[@ChadQuick270W]

Superb! This is a great way to do a “Let’s Play” as i enjoy your perspective on Ultima IV. I’m hoping you also will do the same with Ultima V and VI. Thanks so much for this one. I remember playing this on the Commodore 64 during the winter 1985-1986 as it was a Christmas present.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

I did videos for I, II, and III, and I intend to cover V, VI, and VII eventually. Maybe VIII as well, but that's a way off in the future. Thanks for watching!

[@Lofote]

51:35 Whats a palladin? ...sorry, could not resist... I guess some KZbin viewers know why I asked that question ;)... Thanks for the your walkthrough/review of the Ultima series... great trip down memory lane :)

[@TheHispanicHombre]

This definitely brought back memories. I onw Ultima from the box collection sets and individual games box sets for the PC. I even own Ultima IV for the C64. Completed I,II and III. Only have gone halfway thru IV. Now I would like to restart the game and try to finish it. Never thought of just playing the one character and try to get the clues first before getting the whole party together. This was the best RPG with excellent NPCs and doing the quest to finish the game. Had to by a notebook to keep track of all the NPCs and their replies and what was in each town for restocking supplies.

[@NevTheDeranged]

Man I loved old games but I always forget how unutterably tedious they actually are until I pick them up on Steam or GoG and play for ten minutes before consigning them to the pile of shame.

[@ribenasquash]

This game holds up, on the Master System at least. I was surprised to find myself completely drawn in when I played it again a few years ago. Got the mystic arms for the first time ever then my hard drive died. I can’t go back to it yet - it took so long to get there! But I was killing it in that playthrough! I was using quick spells, electric shield spells, farming for mandrake, gems, keys, magic wands all round, like 20,000 gold. So gutted. It’s the writing that really draws you into this game. The npc’s are so funny and interesting. The map and towns are so varied and it’s all so interactable. There’s a telescope which you can use to view all the town maps. So many interesting ideas in this game like wind, moon cycles and gates, food, vehicles, ripping off the vendors, bribing the vendors, you can save the game and ransack a town for fun and see for mNu guards you can kill. Attack Lord British and get wrecked. By being tiles it allows everything to be searched or talked to and the simple graphics allow the brain to imagine the world yourself, almost like a book. The only problem is how much work it is to get to the end. There’s no order at all you need to do things but the list of things to write down and do is epic.

[@DevinParker]

I feel like I really have to be in the right mood to get into them now, but I don't think I can ever quite recapture the fascination they held for me when I was young and they were new. You can never go home again, as they say.

[@ribenasquash]

@@DevinParker I remember being somewhat compelled to play longer than I probably should have. Levelling up. Going in and out of dungeons to eat orbs and get chests over and over. I completely forgot about the mission. I remember feeling groggy but pushing on and playing it for way longer than I would have liked to.

[@joshuarobinson1689]

The dragon on the title screen is entrancing me

[@hfbdbsijenbd]

I love these and have been looking forward to this one!

[@CaptainRufus]

I'm a fan of the Sega Master System port. Diagonal aiming and lots of changes to use a control pad as opposed to every letter on the keyboard. (I'm messing around with Deathlord in the Relorded port. It does it too.)

[@ericcadwell5193]

Played it on release. Of course, I was but a lad - but it took me into a new direction. It was suddenly not about defeating all comers, but about improving one's self and about seeking to be something more than what you were. The execution was somewhat skewed, but it was a tat of entertainment media that got me very interested in the science of self-improvement. At the end: I'm a better person for having played this game.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

I've heard a lot of stories like this - it's good to get people thinking.

[@k.w.6626]

thank you youtube recommendations. I have massive respect for the ultima series but I can never force myself through them, so this was great.

[@RobertBlair]

I remember having to scour places for food, going in and out multiple times - Iolo's hut?. Unless that was Ultima V? Also on learning that killing fleeing enemies dinged your compassion was annoying, since they would sometimes stop fleeing and start attacking again.

[@slaapliedje]

Iolo's hut was in V. You didn't have NPCs join your party until IV, so that is where they got as famous as the Avatar and managed to get their own huts... except poor Katrina, I think she only makes another appearance briefly in one of the other games after IV. The shepherd always gets screwed.

[@nicklarocco4178]

I played a lot of UO back in the day, but I've never played any of the other Ultima games. The lore of Ultima, especially the sort of faux-eastern spirituality has always been interesting to me. Most western rpg settings, whether tabletop or computer, simply plug in a pantheon of gods that are roughly omnipotent and call it a day.

[@Novastar.SaberCombat]

You should REALLY check out Ultima V: The Lazarus Project. I'm not kidding. It's a worthy game to honor and "upgrade" the original U5 game in ways I can't fully explain. Such a deep, powerfully meaningful story. And the side conversations are simply brilliant. To this day, there is NOTHING like it. Nothing.

[@TheVampirePredator]

Ultima I, IV, and VI were three of my favorite RPGs of all time.

[@Keleva]

Oooh, been waiting eagerly for this one

[@jameshill2450]

I say that we DID save the world in the first 3, but by Quantum Leaping into a different stranger each time.

[@Barnaclebeard]

I have always wanted to do exactly this sort of video. It's satisfying to see it done well, instead of how I would have done it.

[@kemikemi756]

I've been waiting for this !

[@j.d.6915]

@36:00 You can fight those treasure chests, They turn into mimics if you attack them.

[@kartografen4614]

For anyone who likes the Ultima style gameplay, I would recommend Jeff Vogel's Exile series (1995-1997).

[@perkl1234]

The point about orthopraxy was more correct that you probably realized. In such systems the important part is the correct action, not the thought behind it, so loopholes are a central part of all such systems. Thus Avatar is not the only one making several small purchases and paying exactly the correct amount. All good citizens of Britannia are. Those with more money just buy more often. As such, they are more virtuous than poor people. The rich can also afford to give more often to beggars, making them better people. Compare this to real world practices such as indulgence trade, rosaries and similar. Suddenly it doesn't seem so gamelike anymore.

[@lorigulfnoldor2162]

"Bad things happen to give good people opportunity to practice good" - wow, this reminds me of New Testament. " - This man is suffering not for his sins, nor for sins of his ancestors, but for Son of Man to show his glory! - and He healed the sick man". Regarding ethics and morals - funny, I once heard the complete opposite explanation, "ethics is what you do because you find it good to do, but not in pragmatic and selfish ways; morals is what you do because society finds it good to do". With "morals" being related to "mores", like, the tastes of society, and ethics derived ultimately from swe- Proto-Indo-European root - root of "reflexivity", from which also "self" arises, like in "doing what is YOURS", "doing what your own values dictate".

[@ingiford175]

I targeted Humility since at the end game, they were the hardest one to level up so leveling that up first made it easier for me.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Playing as a Shepherd isn't easy, though.

[@ingiford175]

@@MichaelCoorlim I know, but it is one of the few things I remember about this when I played this on my C64 back in the mid 80's

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Oddly I never had U4 for the C64... now Wasteland on the other hand...

[@mileswakefield2298]

I have been looking forward to this 🎉

[@weshope8209]

Same!

[@ribenasquash]

I have so much esoteric knowledge about this game. It does need to be in the conversation when talking about the best games ever. It’s all about the Master System version. I thought Sega did the port but recently learned it was Origin. Which explains why it’s so faithful. I always gave Sega a lot of credit for that conversation and not making it anime style. But they actually didn’t - hey ho. The sms version is best because the music is great on the PSG, the whole game is streamlined, you can mix more than one spell at once. New dialogue options appear on the menu. You might have to scroll down to see new dialogues. Playing this game on the SMs with a control pad and menus feels very natural.

[@moreliberty1]

Woohoo! Been waiting for this one!

[@JavaBum]

Yay! I've been patiently waiting for this. Now, to watch the video.

[@evilbob840]

I love seeing the look back at these old games I haven't seen in decades. There is one nit-pick for this video though: "Reagent" is pronounced with three syllables (re-AYE-gent), it's a tad confusing because there is another word "regent" (RE-gent), which means "acting ruler".

[@MichaelCoorlim]

You are of course correct. There are a lot of words that I have read or even written in a professional capacity but have never heard anyone say or have had cause to say myself.

[@neddymerrill]

It is the prefix re- + agent. "Aye" could be misinterpreted as being pronounced as "aye" (n. meaning "yes").

[@glarynth]

I always pronounced it as "Reagan" plus T. I was in college chemistry before I used it in a context other than Ultima, so that was about a decade of programming to undo.

[@evilbob840]

@@neddymerrill True, "aye" isn't the yes version, but the long A vowel, or The Fonz's catch phrase (if you are old enough to remember Happy Days and The Fonz).

[@provisionalhypothesis]

@@MichaelCoorlim don't worry I said regent back in the day too.

[@slaapliedje]

Ultima IV is how I learned my philosophy of life... well and hacking the game to repair stuff and to cheat... fun fact, on the Atari 8bit version at least, there wasn't even hexadecimal conversion done for the stats. They were kept in 2 bits on the disk, with a max of 800 (100hp per level) but changing those to 99 99 would give you I99 in the game, as it would count down letters from I down to 8 then onto 99. This was updated in V. I also found the bit to mark characters as (P)oisioned, (G)ood, (D)ead, etc. So could resurrect/ cure characters with a hex editor.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

I used to love hex editing games back in high school. Not to cheat, just to figure out how it all worked. Felt like magic when I learned how to adjust money and population in Civilizations.

[@slaapliedje]

@MichaelCoorlim part of the copy protection of Ultima IV wiped out two sectors, one was where Empath Abby was and one was where the Skull of Mondain (I think, it has been 35 or so years...). I figured out how to recreate terrain with the Hex editor to fix it. Like 00 was deep ocean, 01 was light ocean, etc. Graphed it all out so the forest looked right and had to find the value of the castle, then place it in the right spot for [E]nter Towne to work...

[@Kulturkriget]

I like how you give some focus to the creator himself. A thing that is obvious in reviews of books, but I don't think I ever seen in reviews of video games before. Maybe because computer games quickly became much larger enterprises.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Richard Garriott makes it easier because the guy is a brand unto himself. Same with guys like Sid Meyer... but a lot of creators are just simply obscure.

[@hannahbriarly4192]

Ok i just realized you were saying reagents snd not regents and now everything makes so much more sense

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Yeah, it's a word I use in writing but have never had to say in real life and never hear pronounced.

[@JamesPotts]

The one issue with this style playthrough (which i don't blame you for using at all), is it doesn't convey the wonder we had when originally playing it. Though I'm not sure how you could convey that.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

It would be difficult to mesh those two moods together without it coming off as jarring... I think they'd work better as two different type of video. I'd be open to doing separate videos in more of an "awe and wonder" discovery style that did try to capture that spark if there was enough interest, but doing both would turn the channel into a full time job.

[@donwald3436]

Damnit, I'm trying to sleep, why did this have to appear on my feed? lol

[@dandywalken1787]

Oh damn, Lord British voiced by none other than Bane

[@ChadQuick270W]

J for Jinx is a great spell against large groups of monsters of average or lower intelligence. Having them fight each other is cool 😎

[@Screwtapello]

48:16 So apparently horses *can* open doors.

[@jurispurins8065]

Garriot lived long enough to become the Villain

[@sambojinbojin-sam6550]

SMS version still best. (Mostly because that's the version I grew up with) Paladin is still the best class as well. How else are you going to rob the national treasury enough times to honourably buy magic armour? And then honestly pay for reagents to circumvent that problem, and do a heap of magic alongside? Gold ain't cheap ya know!. (Canonically, he just goes "take whatever you want from my castle!" by Ultima 6. So, yeah. You're a heavily armed, immortal, interdimensional everything-thief in the Ultima series. With a nice side)

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Just don't take his fork.

[@Barnaclebeard]

Couldn't you answer "A" to all the questions to get the "Avatar" class?

[@paulknopf6271]

Is there any app that allows me to play this or Ultima 5? The music of this game takes me back to Britannia. Still my favorite game of all time.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Gog.com has all the Ultimas and they play on modern machines via (legal) built in emulation, I believe.

[@Leonson1]

I'd love to see a playthrough of Wizard's Crown.

[@UnbornApple]

[Final Fantasy XVI spoilers] I recently beat FF16. The antagonist is called Ultima. That name has been used in past FF games (usually as a spell I think). I naturally wondered if they got the name from the game, but I'm not aware of any confirmation. Towards the end of FF16 when Ultima starts talking about "returning to The Origin" I started to get pretty suspicious. It would be interesting if they were at all inspired by the games, since FF16 is a game where you basically have no choice but to be a perfect Good Guy.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Yeah - Final Fantasy II, which introduced the Ultima spell, had a simplified keyword system.

[@nathanbrown8680]

Ultima III and Wizardry are often credited as the inspiration for Final Fantasy so unless all the English sources are lying about what was said in a Japanese interview there's a definite awareness of this series on the part of at least the olde FF developers.

[@provisionalhypothesis]

I was suspicious of this too

[@kickwriteteach2313]

still waiting for Ultima 8!

[@MichaelCoorlim]

It's going to be a while!

[@Roob_the_Noob]

Nitpick: when you see the word as a synonym for magical ingredients, it's pronounced ree-AY-gents. Three syllables.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

So many people call me out on this, it's one of my top types of comments. Thanks for looking out for me. :D

[@Roob_the_Noob]

@@MichaelCoorlim yeah, this is an oops from me. I saw you corrected it in the next video.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

@@Roob_the_NoobNo problem, keeps me on my toes!

[@rupertthecat7240]

Are there any more details re: the 16 virtues originally planned for?

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Not that I've found. Richard himself probably doesn't remember anymore.

[@Alkal1nes]

Richard Garriott was obsessed with virtues and now he is an old scammer. How sad.

[@superdoonz1]

Thou hast lost an eighth!!

[@durianthesleepy]

Commenting to boost before I view

[@Finlandcitizen]

Another Ultima game? There can't possible be this many games from the same dude. Next you tell me The Peanuts was drawn and written by just one dude.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Oh there's gotta be at least one more!

[@TheBretlinne]

Spoony did this awhile ago.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Fourteen years ago, I think?

[@x_voxelle_x]

Love your videos, but sometimes it's hard to hear you over the game BGM, especially in the introduction.

[@MichaelCoorlim]

Sorry about that, still working out a good audio mix.

[@Frank_42]

I could be that British can only heal at great cost like Merlin in the movie Excalibur. He will pay the price but only for people he sends on a quest. I can see the Christian sentiment where it is important for people to do things for themselves, but like the arrangement between god and the devil tests must not be more than what a person can handle.

[@StiffAftermath]

Too bad the first person dungeons are not around anymore 😢

[@edonoho]

❤. Re-agent

[@generrosity]

😲 LORE

[@starofjustice1]

Principles are mid.

[@Ale-ft4re]

ive finished this game so here is my review : this games has ton of cool mechanics, it would be a good little retro game to play today; however it has a non working ui wich is the minimal standard for a game to be good. bad game 0/10

[@MichaelCoorlim]

There's a certain amount of adjustment necessary to play a lot of these older games. Ultima as a series is better than a lot of other early 80s titles, and Ultima IV has a better UI than the first three in the series. Still, if you don't have the patience for this kind of thing, it's probably better to just watch a playthrough, save yourself the trouble.

[@Ale-ft4re]

@@MichaelCoorlim this is not acceptable, final fantasy and dragon quest received updates, even bards tale; it's the same as keeping the game abandoned

[@JamesCroplakov]

@@Ale-ft4re That's probably a great argument on video games being unable to be art.

[@Ale-ft4re]

@@MichaelCoorlim also u4 ui is not better it's the same thing, but u4 has much more mechanics that don't get support

[@MichaelCoorlim]

As I understand it EA owns the rights, so that tells you the whole story right there.